#he was linty for a little while there

[pearlfeline]

the world's best tour guide

peter parker x fem!reader/stark!reader

word count: 2.6k

tw: none

a/n: made this longer to make up for the last one but then i went so far i didn't know how to end it lol hope its still readable because i don't think so :') enjoy ALSO HOCO PETER CALLBACK BC I MISS WATCHING THAT MOVIE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MIDDLE SCHOOL OH GOOOOOOOOD

“There needs to be somebody else with me!” Your father exclaimed.

“Oh, well maybe you should’ve thought of that before making this fraudulent internship?”

“It’s… real. It’s real to me.” Your father gazes at you longingly.

“Soooo people are supposed to believe I have to work my way up through this internship despite the fact that we share a last name and address?” You look up from your laptop for the first time during this conversation.

“There’s celebrities out there that don’t give their children even a penny, you’re lucky.” Tony shrugs, popping a grape in his mouth.

"Plus, it makes perfect sense! You're a little builder like me aren't you?" He says in between chews.

“Those are mine,” You snag the bowl back to your side of the kitchen island. “and I’m adopted!” You shove two grapes in your mouth to one-up him. “Do you know how effed up you would be to cut off my only source of income when I’m adopted?!” You were muffled by the grapes in your mouth.

“Don’t curse.”

“I said eff I didn’t say fuck.”

“DON’T CURSE.” Tony warned.

“Ugh, where’s mom? I wanna complain about you.” You groaned, taking yourself and your laptop upstairs.

“Leaving at 11:30!” Tony shouted through the stairs.

You waved him off, rushing to your room. You continued working on your computational model simulated lab that Bruce designed for you to play around with.

“Bam.” You say to yourself as you let the 3D models crash into eachother.

“Knock knock.” Your mom says quietly.

“Mom, don't say knock knock. Just knock on the door.”

“Honey, let’s get off the computer for a second.”

Pepper closes your laptop gently. “Just go with your father hon. He’s just using this as an excuse. He wants you to work with him more he loves you.” She crouches down at your eye level, taking your hand.

“Everybody knows how smart you are, they want to work with you. Okay? Okay. Great, get dressed.”

“It's not that I don't want to go, it's the fact that I'm probably not allowed to touch anything fun or follow dad anywhere cool. Also your pep talks are getting shorter and shorter.” You huffed.

“I’m hungry. I want lunch. Maybe your dad should’ve waited for me to make my toast before asking me to come up here.” Pepper takes one last look before leaving the room. “Be ready in 5 minutes.”

You begrudgingly come downstairs.

“You look great honey.” Tony clasps his hands together.

“I didn’t even change.” You said flatly.

“…Okay. In the car.”

Pepper gives you a look with many meanings behind it. If you had to guess, her expression meant “Be nice”, “He’s trying his best”, and “Shut up don’t complain”.

You give your mom a half-hearted thumbs up before leaving.

After a little while of driving, Happy comes to an abrupt stop.

“Dude what the-” Your phone dropped to the bottom of Happy’s seat in the process.

“Here’s the kid.” Tony says, trying to hide his smile. It was evident even from the backseat.

A boy with a linty hoodie and a beaten down bag waved to the car, a matching grin plastered on his face after he realized who was inside.

“Mr. Stark!” He exclaimed.

Your dad gets out of the car, exchanging words with the boy.

Tony opens his door. “Yeah go sit back there. Now, I trust you know not to bother my daughter.”

As if on cue, Peter opens the door to see you with intimidation in his eyes.

“Hi.”

“H-Hi.” Peter sits in his seat stiffly. He extends a hand and reels it back realizing what your dad had just said.

“He’s just kidding.” You shake your head, chuckling. “…I’m allowed to greet people.”

Peter swallows a lump in his throat. “Right. Of course. I’m just not sure if I can greet people.” He wipes his sweaty hand on his sleeve before extending it out again.

“Peter.” He looks up with a shy smile.

“Y/N.” You nod, shaking his hand.

“I saw you on youtube. The robot you built? The one that could project a hologram five times its size? So cool.” He gushes.

You smile shyly, having to look away from embarrassment.

“I’ve seen you on youtube too.” You grin subtly.

"...Oh god. I was only ten, my solar system was supposed to orbit around slowly. I used paperweights instead of styrofoam balls and the battery I used was high powered, they weren't supposed to fly out like that. I even paid for the school's camera with my Christmas money-"

"Uh- no.. I meant like the spider thing?"

Dumbfounded, Peter looks over to Tony through the rear view mirror. Tony meets his eyes and gives him a wink.

"Oh... I didn't know you knew about that." Peter sinks into his seat.

"Don't be embarrassed. I think it's cool." You smiled.

Peter unconsciously smiles back at you. "Thanks.. I…try." Peter cringes at his attempt to reply to you normally.

You lessen the distance between you and him and look at him fascinated.

"How do you swing around? Lab-made fibers? It looks.. almost organic."

Peter tries not to flinch and holds his breath. He should've brought his breath mints. What if his breath stinks? He ate a string cheese before he left the apartment.

"I-I uh- I make them myself. It's web fluid. When it flys out of my web shooters, it solidifies into that flexible, strong stuff." He pulls up his sleeve to show you.

"Woah, how many cartridges do you need?" You run your fingers along the band around his wrist, staring curiously.

"They last a while, but I switch them out like every few weeks-"

"We're here." Happy yawns, taking the opportunity to stretch his arms.

"Thanks Hogan." You pat his shoulder from the backseat and get out of the car.

Peter blinked and all of the sudden, everyone filed out of the car. He frantically steps out, his eyes having a hard time adjusting to the sun.

"Here." You push him three inches to the side, bringing a shadow to shield the sun from his eyes. A really big shadow.

Peter can't help but let his mouth hang open.

"Just as flashy as I remember it dad." You said before stealing his sunglasses from his face and running to the doors.

"Hey, GENTLE! They're Dita! VINTAGE!" He shouts.

You giggled as you tried to frantically slide your keycard into the scanner that unlocked the doors.

"I'm gonna tell the receptionist they're a gift!" You yelled back before rushing inside.

This makes your dad quicken his pace, rummaging his pocket for his keycard.

Peter had never seen Tony like this before. There was someone who was alive, very real, and actually had authority over him. His child. Peter slowly catches up to Tony who's waving his credit card around the sensor.

"Sir.. I don't think that's the right card." He mumbled.

Tony looked down at his gold card, his brain short-circuiting for a moment.

After composing himself and taking out the correct card, Tony almost flung the door open, his eyes locked to you leaning over the front desk.

"Y/N!"

You turned around, the sunglasses nowhere to be found.

"Yeah?" You tilted your head innocently.

The receptionist takes this opportunity to go back to her typing after you finally stopped talking her ear off. She wasn't wearing them either.

Peter stood awkwardly behind Tony. He stared at the high ceiling and the enormous fish tank that stretched across the wall with fish he had a hard time telling if they were real.

"Gotcha." You reveal the sunglasses behind your back, handing them back to your father.

"Not my style.. Also probably not her's either. Right, Erin?"

The receptionist only shoots you a glance, her fingers never stop clacking on the keyboard.

"Kid, this way." Tony sighed, gesturing Peter and following you to an elevator.

Peter shyly makes his way to the corner of the elevator and staring at the array of buttons. He's never been in a building with over five floors, let alone a hundred.

"So... What are we doing exactly?" You asked your father.

"I thought I'd give the kid a tour." Tony says while he scrolls through his phone.

Peter fiddles with his hoodie's strings, unable to make eye contact as he's being mentioned.

"Oh." Tony stops.

"What?" You asked warily.

"I need to approve something. Something either dumb and obvious or an array of important decisions." Tony looks through his missed calls and rings a number.

"Tour my ass." You mumbled.

If superheroes do anything, they double book. Constantly.

The elevator dings and you and Peter file out. You turn around and Tony doesn't step off.

"You've been promoted to tour guide. Okay bye." Tony closes the elevator doors and you watch him descend to a lower floor.

"I went from being a child of nepotism to a tour guide? I don't consider that a promotion."

Peter was visibly dumbfounded. He was intimidated by Tony by some degree yes, but he already knew him. He's never been to the tower, and now he's alone with his child that could make or break his reputation here.

"...Dude?" You wave your hand over his face. From your perspective, ever since your dad went downstairs, Peter had been blankly staring at the floor.

"Hm?" Peter's eyes didn't leave the floor.

"Wanna meet Dr. Banner?" You smiled. It reminded Peter of a cat that knew it was doing the wrong thing.

Something about your expression told Peter you wanted to bother Bruce more than you wanted to introduce Peter to him.

After a string of trailing after you in hallways that looked like they were from the future, you slid open the keypad, and rapidly drew a complex pattern into it.

"Hey Dr. B."

"Woah." Peter's eyes wander throughout Bruce's lab. Holograms fill a lot of empty space.

"Hey mini Stark, hand me that slide rack will you?"

You were all smiles. Peter could see you were finally in your element.

"What are you doing now?" You peer over Bruce's shoulder.

"Not too close, unless you wanna put on a coat and some goggles." He says, eyes locked on the microscope.

You immediately run back to the doors, a nervous Peter Parker blocking the coat hanger.

"C'mon Peter." You enthusiastically put on a lab coat and fasten the glasses over your face. Without hesitation, you put another pair on Peter's face and throw him a coat.

You grab him by the sleeve just as he put on the coat and run back to Bruce.

"Dr. Banner, this is Peter." You smiled.

Bruce looks up from his microscope and gives a small wave.

"From what I've seen, I think he might be one of us." You chuckled.

"...And maybe one of you guys." You give Peter a teasing smile.

Peter let out a small and odd noise before clearing his throat.

"Dr. Banner, I'm a huge fan." Peter gushes.

"Hey, show him your webs." You pull his sleeve back.

Bruce’s eyes studied the webshooters.

"He's the spider guy." You say proudly.

Peter tries not to shake uncontrollably from a mix of embarrassment and excitement.

"Oh.. You made these?" Bruce blinks curiously.

Peter nods and tries to conceal his growing smile.

“He’s one of you guys. I told you.” You wink at Peter, only for him to see.

“That’s… how? How did you make these?” Bruce chuckled in disbelief.

“Can I borrow your whiteboard?” Peter asks.

After writing down the entire formula for the polymer he used for his webs, Peter finally slouches over. His work takes up a majority of the board.

Bruce stares in awe of Peter’s creation.

“Basically this is it.” Peter scratches the back of his neck.

“Visit any time kid.” Bruce chuckled, speechless. He gives Peter a pat on the shoulder.

“How about a snack?” You asked Peter.

“If you’re gonna pass this little audition with my dad, you should probably know where the kitchen is.” You sighed, pulling the goggles off your face.

“Are you sure you’re not just hungry?” Peter asks.

“Oh, I finally got the boy to let his guard down? Telling jokes now huh?” You laughed.

Peter shakes his head, smiling to the floor.

“I just met Bruce Banner.”

“Mhm.” You trail down a long hallway, to a shiny pair of doors that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. The kind of doors Peter would visualize any person having a hard time opening.

Behind the doors was a kitchen area bigger than the living room of his apartment. The marble top island was like his dining table.

“Take anything.” You said casually, fetching two spoons from a drawer.

Peter walks in like he’s just attended his own surprise party. When he opened the pantry he didn’t expect a wall of snacks.

“I like these.” Peter points to the bag of mini reese’s cups.

“Then bring the bag dummy.” You snorted and opened the freezer.

“How about some ice cream?”

Peter and you somehow moved all your snacks to the balcony and you started tearing away at them almost immediately.

“You brought a lot.” Peter unwraps a peanut butter cup while you sink your spoon into your coffee ice cream.

“What are you hinting at man?” You give him a glare.

“NO! God, no I meant I don’t want to eat all this food, it’s- it’s not mine I’m sorry I didn’t mean it like that.” By the end of Peter’s sentence he pops the candy in his mouth, defeated.

“I’m messing with you. Dig in. Seriously though Cap is on a new diet he found on this dumb blog. I never should’ve gave him an iPad for Christmas.” You rolled you eyes.

“It’s mostly my snacks now. Sometimes Natasha eats with me when I bother her enough.”

“Cap? Cap as in?” Peter knew the answer but needed a confirmation. There was no way he could be convinced he’s in the very building where all these heroes roam around.

“Captain America.”

“And Nat?”

“Oh, Black Widow.” You say in a sultry voice.

“That’s my lady. We watch dumb movies when I come around here.” You added.

“That’s.. wow. You see them often?” Peter takes a spoon and digs into the ice cream too.

“I guess.” You shrugged.

“Just so you know, they’re all lame like me. Not as cool as you think.” You grinned at the memories you had of them hanging around.

Peter shook his head.

“You’re not lame. You’re cool. I don’t think anyone else can mess with Tony Stark like you can.” Peter chuckled.

You look down and take another scoop of ice cream.

“…Not that he’s the only reason why you’re cool. You’re so smart and really funny.” And really pretty. But he wasn’t going to say that.

“Thanks. You’re pretty cool too.”

Peter let out a dry laugh.

“No. I’m not. You should see me at school seriously. It varies from being invisible to being a-”

“Don’t call yourself a loser or a nerd before I do a flip off this balcony.” You groaned.

“Besides, what’s a nerd if not a person in the wrong environment?” You give him a nudge.

“This is an environment where nerds thrive… And the occasional superhuman.” You added.

“Then why aren’t you getting recruited possibly, like I am?” Peter asked.

“My parents won’t ever let that happen.” You sighed, opening a bag of spicy chips.

“Maybe in the future, I’ll be one of these guys, we’ll be older, and we can convince your parents.” He said.

“You’re so innocent.” You laughed. “But yeah. If you somehow land a spot here, you have to help me get in too.”

Peter held out his pinky.

“..What are you doing?” You raised an eyebrow.

“I…pinky promise.” Peter held a stern expression. For the world’s best tour guide, he was willing to keep his word.

“Okay, swear?” You held out your pinky.

“Swear.”

[ddejavvu]

you’re probably sick of animagus reader fics but if you’re up for it i was wondering whether you were in the mood for some remus x fem reader?

maybe r is a dormouse or smth and just practically stays tucked inside rem’s sweaters or the inside pockets of his robes/blazer. r possibly falls out his sweater is a really crowded corridor (can’t change back) and rem panics cause he doesn’t fancy his girl being flattened <3

You make a mental note, while fleeing the shadows of impending doom that cascade onto the chilled stone floor around you, that you need to make sure Remus never buys another pair of pants with such shallow pockets. You typically cling to the inside of his sweater, but he's bundled up a little too warm for your taste today, and you'd tucked yourself into the linty confines of his corduroys instead.

It had all been going well, until someone had bumped rather aggressively into his thigh, the one that you were pressed worriedly against, and you'd darted to your left to escape the pain. Unfortunately, left was the direction of the pocket's opening, and the fall to the stone tile beneath you had been a monumental one for your small size.

Thankfully, you hadn't splattered against the tile, but you're running for your life now, and you seem to be swimming upstream no matter which direction you turn. There's always feet working against you, feet close to trampling your tail, feet threatening to squash your lungs, and you yearn for the solace of Remus's plush pocket once more.

Remus only gets a few steps away from the spot where you'd tumbled unceremoniously to the ground before he reaches his hand into his pocket, intent on scooping you out and discreetly moving you to his sweater. But there's nothing in his pockets save for a button that had fallen off of the inside of his book bag, and panic seizes his chest in its heavy, unforgiving claws.

"Uh-" He flounders, steps hesitantly stuttering over the floor as the ebb and flow of students around him becomes suffocating. Now, all of a sudden, he's not a part of the crowd, he's what they're fighting against, and he pats down his other pockets in case you'd just moved addresses.

You haven't.

Dropping to his knees is rather difficult amidst a stampede, and it's not only his weary joints that ache, but his hands as disgruntled students hoof over them. He ignores the way his pinky smarts, twinging pink with a pained flush beneath the toe of a third-year, and ducks his head to the ground to see if he can spot you scampering amongst the students.

There's movement all around him, but none if it is your size. Black and red and green and blue and yellow blur through his vision as students of all houses flood the halls, and each second that he doesn't find you alive and well worries at his heart with panic's mangled claws. He thinks he sees you to his left, but- oh, that's a cat, and that's worse, so he ducks even further to the ground, and redoubles his effots.

Thankfully, you've noticed the deviated path the students are now taking, annoyed grumbles about the idiot stooped in the hallway. That's your idiot, you think, and you scamper as fast as your tiny legs allow to meet Remus where he knees.

He sees you coming, his pretty eyes flood with a relief so palpable you can feel it in your own chest, and just before you can scurry into his outstretched hand, you feel something heavy land on your tail and trap you in your place. You feel a puff of breath against your back, and the snare of cat's claws against the meat of your tail, but before the beast can lean down and devour you, Remus lunges for your body, cupping his hand over your trembling form and swatting the animal away.

"Absolutely not, thank you." Remus snaps at the cat, and a second-year gives him a rather apprehensive stare as she hurries around him, "Darling, are you okay?"

You're not very articulate in mouse form, but you manage a thankful squeak, one that Remus smiles fondly at while straightening up.

The cat doesn't look very happy with him, but Remus isn't afraid of a few more scratches on his arm, and you nestle securely into his palm when he straightens, limbs limp with confident exhaustion, that he'd let the cat claw open each one of his scars ten times before he ever let it get a shot at you.

[vitaegratis]

FANCY CRIMMUSSY (hm. that sounds…) DATE STARTER FOR @havvkinsqueen

The suit was a bit linty, wasn’t it? Nervously looking himself over in their bedroom mirror, Eddie fiddled with one of his rings before slipping each of them off and lining them along the top of the dresser. Chrissy had asked if they could go out for a fancy date night before Christmas, idea - and he was physically incapable of saying no. In her glee, she promised that she would make the reservation - that it would be a prime rib place, that he’d love the food, and that he wouldn’t have to worry about a single thing. It was a well intentioned sentiment on her part, but it wasn’t entirely true. It was a fancy place. Like, suit fancy.

Eddie hadn’t been this nervous about cleaning up since their prom, and even though now there wasn’t the pressure of making a good impression… there was still some pressure to impress. Albeit, self-inflicted pressure. He wanted to make her proud, and above all else - he didn’t want to embarrass her. Tying his hair back, he called out to Chrissy - herself getting ready in the bathroom - while also directing an accusatory glare at Fluff. The feline looked nonplussed, stretched out in the center of the couple’s bed. “Babe? Where’s the tape? I’ve got a little… cat hair…”

[intergalacticaquarium]

more terrible no good headcanons for eddie disaster dreamboat munson

I said that if anybody made him too cool I'd have to add more and that's exactly what I'm gonna do babes because I had to scroll for way to long to find him making spagetti-os

(posting again bc it wasn't showing in the tag)

(first post)

-genuinely doesn't know what those stains are. Didn't even know it was stained bc he's had the same fitted sheet on it with one corner tugged off for 8 months and forgot about them since last time

-throws away Tupperware if the stuff in it is too gross

-he's pretty sure that green sour candy counts as a vegetable so he does eat at least 3 a day.

-just. Doesn't ever throw things away. Stupid shit like the backs of band aids and paper straw wrappers and napkins and hooooo boy this has turned into a callout post about myself

-sometimes horseflies fly into his hair and get stuck and he can hear them buzzing around and doesn't necessarily so anything about it right away until it stops

-no room for legs in the front seat of his car that space is reserved for old fast food bags

-buys new underwear instead of doing laundry

-hey why do I keep writing genuinely embarrassing things that I literally do irl. Is this really worth putting myself and the 4 huge bags of laundry I have in my tiny car and all my band aid wrappers on blast. Next I'm gonna write that every surface in eddies house is covered in stacks of hobbies and papers that feel like a goddamn archeological dig every time I clean

-psych he does that too

- ok things that I don't also do so that I don't start having a crisis that makes me a tidier person:

-feeds a family of raccoons that live in an abandoned hunting cabin in the woods

-one time he let one live in his closet for a bit and hoped Wayne wouldn't notice (this may explain some of the stains)

-this boy spills. Everything. He's a hand talker and it doesn't matter if he's holding something.

-the hand talking is also terrifying when in a car he is driving

-never drinks water ever and it stresses ppl out

-every single time he sees somebody he knows in public he will try and sneak up on them to scare them

-wears shoes inside bc he broke glass on the carpet months ago and he doesn't want to vacuum.

-the only place he has to actually sit and do anything I his room is his bed because everything else is covered in stuff

-everything is covered in stuff but every drawer he has is empty

-theres one category of things he owns that is organized absolutely meticulously and idk what it is but he's very proud of it and when he says he's "cleaning his room" it means organizing like band tees alphabetically or sorting minifig painting supplies and everything else stays trashed

-it's a perm and he did it himself in his bathroom 100%

-hair dye stains all over the bathroom from an ill advised look a while back. and maybe a few more times

-doesnt have a compulsive habit to bite his nails he does it bc he can never find the damn fingernail clippers

-notes and doodles. All over his arms

- yknow how when u were in school by the last day you'd have like one pencil and nothing else and u kept a hold of it bc you couldn't find any others?

- eddies been at that point since about half way thru his first senior year. He has one pencil and it is a stub (it is a d.a.r.e. pencil and he does find it funny) with no eraser and it's not sharp and it had a million bite marks on it

-has little stoner burn holes in all his clothes all his sheets his matress his sheets and the seats on his car bc he needs to be more careful and is gonna end up starting a fire someday

-wait that last one was a me thing

-maybe this is how I can embrace my flaws. make eddie do em too. it's cute when he's disgusting

-I no longer have improve myself at all

-puts random food in his pockets for later even though it will get linty. Gonna go ahead and say that I don't do this.

-isn't actually that good at guitar it turns out

-I gotta stop myself now because I know they'll just keep comin but add any you can think of or dm me because every time he gets worse he gets more of my love so like 2 give him a hug reblog 2 spray him with a hose

[headcanoncorp]

my cousin gave me a horrible idea today so, here’s something absolutely no one asked for but is still happening anyways.

The Spehirah ranked by their probable smell

10. Gebura- she’s very pretty but I cannot stand the smell of cigarette smoke, like at all, and that smell stains everything so no matter how much she showers it’s not coming out. The smell of cigarette smoke alone is enough to place her at the very bottom of this list.

9. Netzach- The guy probably smells like beer and while I have no idea what enkephalin smells like he probably has to be forced into the shower as well. This man Reeks.

8. Hokma- I can’t imagine he’d shower all that often, also old man smell.

7. The Tiphereths- They are children, no mater how mature they may sound they are children. Children have a way of gaining smells but these ones are functional enough to clean themselves up so they gain points.

6. Malkuth- She probably smells a little too much like vanilla, it’s not all bad but it’s just very strong and can be a little off putting.

5. Angela- She smells like a cactus and paperwork. Neutral, but just barely.

4. Binah- She smells neither good nor bad, she is void of scent aside from a little linty smell on her cape that’s barely noticeable.

3. Chesed- The smell of coffee might be a dealbreaker for some but I don’t mind it, he might not shower that often but the coffee smell probably covers it up.

2. Hod- She probably smells like baked goods that she makes for her therapy sessions. Lovely.

1. Yesod- This man probably showers 3 times a day using the nicest smelling shampoos and soaps he can get. one time he might smell like flowers another time he might smell like fruits. Just don’t audibly sniff him he’ll yell at you.

[hex-and-fable]

In Search of Midnight Pt: 1

[ A world of Warcraft RP]

R:  Most men say the devil's pint offers little clarity.  To Rhogar it was the only thing strong enough to wash away the haze of the world. At first he masked the potent smell of it with layers of scented oils, kept himself kempt, clean, and presentable till whatever vestiges of dignity he clung to melted away like water to snow. From the burdens of his avarice he molded into an animal most cared not to concern themselves with. In his mind the voices of years prior rang steadily and true, a mockery of diluted concern and false affections. In the end it never mattered.  The cold bite of sea air kissed at the bridge of his reddening nose as the uplift of a canteen was pressed against his mouth. A heavy slosh kissed the inner chamber of the container and with a hard swallow a warm cascade spilled down his throat and across his chest causing the corners of his mouth to splay with grimace as the potent mixture of bourbon and scotch nestled home. From there the massive sea side city stuck out like a sore thumb against the coming dawn, its blackened impression seemingly dwarfed by the bright collection of pastel colors ushering the nightly firmament to sleep. Rhogar Altaeis was far from a hunter. 

He lacked the limber most Farstriders carried but held strong to their keen sense of environmental awareness. He wasn't Holy enough to be a pious man and lacked the empathy to take charge of a budding noble woman. No, Rhogar wasn't much of anything in the eyes of the public but he certainly excelled at two things. Drinking and killing.

Rhogar stared dead forward at the pointed peaks of the cities structure, dabbing is tongue at the corner of his mouth once he witnessed a fishermen's boat slink into harbor.  Small, discrete,  yet laden with city guard. He knew his limit.  He could kill five,  maybe six before the calvary would strike him down.

As he heaved himself up from his crouch a plume of visible breath touched against the cold morning air. His scale laden fingers furled around the pommel of his sword causing the mare's beady eyes to widen with unbridled  fright as the metallic edge caught light. She trotted back, tail violently flicking for she knew exactly what that weapon was capable of.  Rhogar hovered a hand before him, sword at the ready while cooing gentle litanies her way before striking her reigns free. Heavily the saddle fell, freeing her tired mouth from its restraints. She buckled, snorting visibly as he approached to brush the pale hairs from her face, cupping her long face into his free hand and holding her there for a moment.   "Free." He rumbled, nodding south. It took her little time to register his offer and with a kick of dirt and dying leaf she was off winding through the bush.  He spared a glance over his shoulder toward the waking city, his tired, baggy eyes scanning the horizon with the thought of how he himself had his own untamed bitch to capture. S:  Her own paranoia, combined with the incessant whispering, had given Serrith the nudge she needed to escape the walls of Silvermoon for a while, figuring her absence would go unnoticed by most. She knew she had spent too much time in the open and now more then ever she felt she was always looking over her shoulder, always feeling that inkling that she's being watched. The priestess had slipped her way into Paltiel's office and sat down at her desk with a parchment and quill in hand and began to write out a short letter. High Inquisitor Paltiel, I apologize for the short notice but I will be absent for a while. I've got a meeting to make with suppliers for my craft and these are things best inspected in person, lest you be cheated with simple glass by delivery. I hope you will understand. Serrith There. Her absence explained, she seemed satisfied and  made her way out of the office and towards the Magister's building to do a bit of portal hopping to shorted her trip. It's not like she was being dishonest, she reassured herself. There was a supplier of jewels and fine metals she'd heard of and wanted to see for herself, but mostly, it was just to get herself away for a while.  By now the elf seemed settled into the daily bustle of the seaside city, but not quite used to the sudden change in climate just yet. She had avoided interaction when possible, not looking to draw more attention to herself than she had to, though, her heritage wasn't called into question like she thought it would be. Her small and unassuming stature probably gave little reason for anyone to worry, and, she suspected, she might have been confused for an older child. Her lips pursed to the side as she recalled the thought as a shopkeep was opening his door, and called over her shoulder in a fatherly tone, "I hope you weren't out all night, lil lady!" She picked up her pace, clutching onto her messenger bag under her cloak, making her way towards the outer edges of the city where she had found a small tavern to stay in. In truth, she spent far more time during negotiations than she had wanted to, but she did secure herself a couple of contracts for things to be sent back home, with the most precious of them staying with her. A sense of worry hung over her, knowing she looked like a prime target for the seaside thugs that seemed to be ever-present in the quieter parts of the town. Just need to make it back to my room in one piece and I'll be fine. I can rest then. A turn down the forked road towards her destination brought the wind from her side and to her face, catching the small elf off guard with how strong the gust was. Instinctively she pulled her cloak tighter around her torso to keep it in place, though that was about all that stayed put. Her eyes squinted past the leaves swirling along the ground and through the air as her hood flew back after catching the breeze like a sail, leaving pale ears turning pink at the tips from the cold and what locks of hair weren't pulled back into her braid flew about freely, plastering themselves to her face. With a small huff that materialized in the cold air in front of her, she waited for it to die down and captured her cloak together in one hand and moved the other to push her hair from her face and clear her vision before quickly tugging her hood back on. The sun had yet to offer its warmth and it was too damn cold for this, she noted to herself as a shiver worked its way from her shoulders and down her spine. She kept a hand holding the thing down now and looked up, seeing the familiar landmarks in the distance. Almost there. 

R:  The wind carried what he thought was a linty of whispers pulling his attention here and there from the subtle rustle of leaves to the quickened prattle of deer hove. Rhogar would be a fool to present himself so typically for the weight of armor was not the problem but more so the recognition it would bring. Instead he donned himself in various sets of leather, thick cloth, and scale, the latter of which hugged tight beneath the sections of cloth keeping him remotely warm. Truth be told he looked far more common than he ever had. The thick, peppered strands of his dark hair were hastily combed back freeing his visage from any sense of coverage leaving his hardened resolve free to the waking world to gawk upon. A thick wool coat with unusually shiny gold buttons with a flicked collar and cuffed sleeves did him well along with the pair of heavy boots at his feet moonlighting him as a wayward traveler more so than the stalwart spell breaker he truly was. Perhaps it was the large broad sword slung over his shoulder that gave him away or the intensity of his height and disposition. It mattered little when a strange pang throbbed at his temples---painless but a nuisance nonetheless.  A sign that, by the grace of the Gods, meant she was closer than he anticipated. How foolish of her not to dilute her aura. The rumbling of an afterthought bubbled to the forefront of his mind causing that of a small, albeit nefarious grin to tug at the corners of his bearded mouth.  Heaving a heft collection of foliage free form his path by the brace of his forearm Rhogar drew privy to the leaf laden pathway coiled and met by a fork in the road.  He was quiet, quieter than most would say. Yet it was when his singular hue anchored onto her form like a bad habit was it there he felt his anger rise. The ten months of searching for not only her but her sister had, in some respects, paid a toll. A job in which he sought to finish with them in his captivity dead or alive. Either way their bounty was his for the taking. The man brushed his thickly fingers through the weeks worth of growth at his chin, jowls clenching tighter and tighter as the idea of pinning her shoulder with an arrow seemed more and more apt but would her screams herald unwanted attention? A massive gale spread widely across the open area forcing the sleeping leaves to rouse from their slumber on the cold earth to whirl and swirl distractedly about her. Without pause he took his chance, body lurching forward as he swiftly unsheathed a dirk from the confines of his coat to better guide his way down the root and dirt laden slope. It sullied his boots and the fringe of his attire with light colored dust and when the wind finally eased its temper her attention was spent elsewhere and not to the heavy gait of him encroaching behind her. Without preamble the thickened locks of her braided hair was wrapped not twice but thrice about his knuckles succeeding in reeling her back against the spans of his lower chest as the earth stained dagger was pressed steadily against her throat so much that that he offered a light turn of his wrist, cutting the pallid column of her throat just so to permit a thin trickle of blood to coat her clavicle.   Perhaps the only true ounce of warmth to grace her since her arrival within the islands. "They don't need you alive." Rhgoar hissed threateningly against the shell of her ear, his whiskers more than likely offering an unwanted tickle. She'd smell it, so very patently, the deep scent of the liquor on his breath. "And I don't much mind carrying a corpse with me to the settlements several miles that-a-way." He forced her head to turn minutely to the left indicating a beaten path in the opposite direction she aimed to be. "So, you either cooperate or you'll be adding an extra splash of color to the earth today." S:  So was she focused on getting back home with her cloak still wrapped around her that she didn't hear him creep up over the sound of the wind blowing past. The sharp yank elicited a small yelp as her hands flared up with purple magic swirling about and concentrating around her fingertips, ready to dispatch whatever local thug had thought her an easy mark. Upon hearing his voice, the recoginition was instant and the hands that were reflexively moving to grab at the arm around her neck stopped, hovering with trembling fingers just shy of actually touching him, and the crackle of energy dying down just as fast. The small elf's breath hitched in her throat, prompting a very uncomfortable swallow of air with the sharp of the blade pressed so firmly against her flesh she could feel a trickle of warmth. Despite the pull on her hair forcing her head back, she dared not to look up. The world around her seemed to stop, and in the same moment, the whispers in her mind hissed in uproar. The first actual thought to cross her mind, though, was her sister. Ceris! Ceris? No--she was alright--she had to be. If something happened to her I'd have known it. I would have.. She found herself hoping her sister would sense something, now, while every other part of her screamed, No! Stay away from here! "O-okay. Put the knife away unless you want to deal with would-be heroes. Everyone's waking up right about now.." her voice was quiet, matched with the soft trembling of her form easily gave away her fear despite her best efforts to hide it and keep calm. She stared forward and watched the shafts of sunlight filter through the rooftops and into the streets as though the would offered guidance, but there was nothing, just an indifferent warmth of morning no different from the one before. Very slowly she allowed her hands to fall to her sides, somewhere she hoped would be less threatening. If the twins could manage to escape before, she would be able to do it again. She was, after all, stronger now than the children they had been when they first ran. Clinging to the thought steeled her resolve, though in truth she had no idea what to do other than comply with his demands; surely he was prepared for her magic and she didn't trust in her ability to pull something off before he could silence her in one way or another. R:  Serrith could feel the hiss of his bated laughter at her cheek, dry and coarse. "What makes you think I give a damn about would-be-heros? What will they do, hm? What do you think they'll do to try and save someone who can barely even save themselves?" The latter let him venomously, hard and laden with guile as the anchor of his gaze fell to the limp notch of the magicks dying at her fingertips. "Smart." The heart-wrenching press of steel at her throat subsided only to be replaced at her ribcage, his thickly fingers making greedy work at pulling the layering of her cloak and jacket back to nestle it there. "Come." He urged, coiling a large arm around her petite frame, his free hand a vice at the tender slope of her shoulder as the pair trekked down the opposite direction of her destination. In some respects they resembled a pair of star-crossed lovers huddled close to keep warm in the cold morning ether when instead she was his prisoner, blade pointedly wedged at her side with the intent of slipping between her ribs if need be. It'd be that simple. A single, effortless nudge of his arm would render it home betwixt her meager sinew till its greedy edge pierced her thumbing heart. 

"You may have found your voice." Rhogar rumbled from above, his gaze steadily forward, grip tight. "But you will soon learn how to forget it again when you're with me. Anyone we see you lower your eyes to your feet, anyone who directly speaks to you is offered a polite smile and  you feign your muteness." There they paused several clicks from where they met and well hidden by a lovely arrangement of blood orange and sunny gold leaves. He whirled her about forcing her frame before his. "Look at me." He commanded with a threateningly sharp narrow to his good eye. "This should be an easy task, hm? Allow me to repeat myself. I am not above killing you. I'm not above killing anyone who stands in my way and that includes your would-be-heros. Savvy?" S:  "You don't want to draw attention to yourself. And you would kill them." She answered his inquiry bluntly, thinking the answer to that was obvious. The more likely result would probably be her own death, but that wasn't a welcome thought and she had no business worrying about such what-ifs, needing to keep focused on the present. Though he worked quickly, Serrith still seemed alarmed for all the wrong reasons as his hand searched beneath the layers of fabric before she caught on to what he was doing. And the new placement of the dagger was even more upsetting than the cut left along her neck, if only from her previous experiences with daggers near her chest not ending well. She followed his lead meekly. Earlier she had been looking forward to getting a break from the wind's chill, but with Rhogar of all people standing at her back with his arm around her was the last way she'd have picked to achieve it. In fact, the cold was much preferred to this, and the cool metal served well to remind her. I'd rather forget you instead. Her lips twisted into a frown at his orders. For an elf that didn't speak much to start with she somehow found it rather insulting to be told to feign being mute, no matter how much irony the statement carried. So carry on as usual? she thought to herself, knowing better than to open her mouth to sass the spellbreaker. All her internal musings of witty quips and other possible retorts were silenced by the sudden pull on her shoulder to turn her towards him. There was a very obvious effort to avoid meeting his gaze until commanded to do so. Her stare held anger and contempt for the man and the watering of her eyes dared to convey very plainly the fear she felt. The intensity of the volatile emotions she felt kept threatening to overflow like a cascade, and she could feel her skin tingling with the familiar desire, need, even, to draw on the shadows. This sense of helpless vulnerability was a feeling she swore she'd never allow to happen again, but it was the only thing keeping her breathing for now.   "..Yes." R:  When the wind picked up he tugged her closer, ensuring that the pressure of his blade made a poignant presence to steel any lingering temptations that may have been bubbling within the recesses of her mind. For a time the wood carried their conversation by the shivering of leaves overhead and the rustle of abundant wildlife flourishing about them. It was only when the brisk touch of sea air caught their atmosphere did he finally will that blade to twist, coating the underside of her leathers with a dangerous jab. “We’re here.” Rhogar rumbled, the vestiges of which billowed out in visible breath from his lips. “Stay keen.” With warning heeded the elf unfurled his arm from Serrith’s person only to roughly nudge her in front of him. “Look about the town wondrously and without abandon, make it seem as if this is your first time away from whatever pit you crawled from.” The winding pathway broke off from a large willow tree, its long twisting foliage drooping down so low it managed to kiss the top of Rhogar’s head as they passed. Seaside, as it were, it wasn’t nothing more than a small fishing village. Smoked fish filled the air coupled with the dampness of the earth about them which caked their boots and the hems of their cloaks. They went unnoticed, for the most part for the villages’ prattle kept all its occupants engaged. Rhogar kept his gaze forward primarily set to the faint sway of ships ahead heralding his freedom. In fervency he nudged her again, nodding toward the docks. “There.” S:  Serrith kept dutifully marching forward, despite the shivers running along her spine, borne from an ocean wind cold enough to make the small elf's heavy cloak billow in the breeze despite the wall of a man standing at her back. With her arm opposite to his holding the blade she tugged her cloak closer. Her breath hitched with the twist, as if tensing up would make her small enough to avoid the scraping of steel against flesh. It brought back terrifying memories that she made her best effort to shrug off. With the forceful jab forward, she scrunched her face in annoyance, knowing he wouldn't see, but after a brief moment she sucked in her breath and tried to shove the thought aside. There wasn't much to be excited about, but her efforts were eased by the fact that there was little to actually fake. This was her first time in the area, she had stuck to the the large port city while hiding, and having gotten there via some clever portal hopping, never got the chance to explore too much. The quiet and simple view was rather nice, it didn't seem to be quite ravaged by the war efforts happing around them which was a pleasant surprise--she didn't even mind the damp earth now clinging to her boots and cloak. The scent of smoked reminded her that she had not gotten to eat breakfast, and there was a small growl from her stomach to remind her--and likely Rhogar if he was paying enough attention.  Even with the jab she found her gaze lingering towards the main square before they had walked past it and she was all but forced to look away. The burly sailors and dockhands wandering about made her uneasy, not mitigated by the man at her docks. She quickly averted her gaze, feeling herself shy back a bit before catching herself. Trouble for her meant trouble for him, something he didn't want, was a sliver of a silver lining, but she wasn't willing to provoke anything. Not yet, anyhow. A quick glance over her shoulder tried to deceipher what he was thinking, careful to keep her expression curious and shy to mask the worry she was actually feeling. R:  Several of the dockhands paid them little heed though there were a few who kept their attentions to her. However the moment their inspecting eyes seized up Rhogar they quickly tended back to their work, desiring not to have their insides splayed across the docks and used for bait. It was clear that even as an elf in these remote areas his brawn stature was enough to ward off even the ficklest of thieves and vagrants. As Serrith paid her little attentions over her shoulder Rhogar nodded toward one of the smaller ships. A shipment ferry if anything but one that could easily get them to where he wanted them to be. In a perfect world he’d have utilized his hearth or even a break in a leyline but it was evident she carried little on her person to afford such a luxury. A twitch came about his ears once the rumbling of her stomach came to life. His annoyance was palpable. How was it she survived this long on her own? Where was her bloody sister? “Stay here while I chat with the captain.” He hissed, pointing a thickly finger to a spot at the dock. It was a collection of crates, stacked in threes, yet thankfully one was low enough for her to rest upon if she so desired. S:  A wave of relief washed over her when they very quickly focused on their work after a quick glance their way. Her experiences with the sailors back near her hideout were less than pleasant. Something in the back of her mind reminded her that was likely a bad thing given who they were cowering from. She made her way forward and followed his gaze to the ferry he'd arranged for and made her way to the deck. A quick glance around offered little information beyond the stacked boxes and crates, so after testing that they were sturdy enough, she crawled onto the lowest one with the next one beside it at her back. The cool air was more pronounced here so she drew her knees up to her chest and pulled her cloak tightly around her in an effort to stop the shivering. It had occured to her that Rhogar hadn't noticed her bag beneath her cloak, a detail she decided to keep to herself. She didn't have too much in there, aside from her contracts and the couple of gems she had chosen to bring back to work on personally. Snapping out of her musings, she turned to look at her captor to see how their conversation was going. She was out of range of hearing and still afraid of using any of her spells, so she relied on the body language to gauge its state. He probably didn't plan this far ahead and is securing the ride at the moment. The thought of him being not quite as organized as he appeared put her the slightlest bit at ease. It would be much easier to plan on her own if he was making things up along the way too. R:  From what she could see there was an exchange. It started off slow with Rhgoar working his suave charm for a stint up until the dockhand became petulant. It didn’t take long before Rhogar’s massive hand gave pat to his side---what it was wasn’t entirely clear. He could have been threatening promise of a weapon meeting his throat or he could be indicating a coin purse by means of bribing the man, whatever it was caused him to pause with a strange level of contemplation. 

Finally there was an exchange of hands and when Rhogar returned there happened to be an annoyed sneer set to his face. “Remind me to kill him when we’re at sea,” He rumbled, taking little time in furling a hand beneath her arm with the intent of hoisting her up to her feet. There he bent at the waist, pointing a thick leather finger down to her face akin to scolding a child though when he lobbed threat he meant it. “Listen here, girl.” He hissed below making certain she’d feel the weight of his gaze. “If so much as a whimper peters from you while we’re on that ship I’ll strangle you in front of the entire crew then kill them for the sport of it. I’m keeping you alive as a courtesy, understand?” That same finger eased all the way back till it was pointing to the ship. He mouthed down to her, brows pinched in narrow. “Go. Now.” If she were to oblige and pass him she would still feel the heat of his gaze till she boarded.

[voltronshorts]

“誕生日おめでとう！” (Shiro x Reader BIRTHDAY SPECIAL)

(Note: This is in medias res. They can be hard because of continuity and ease of reading but I didn’t have enough time to edit it because of... finals, but I hope it flows semi-cohesively haha! For my 20th birthday, please enjoy “誕生日おめでとう！” !)

You spent your 20th birthday studying for finals. Shiro has none of that.

(Note: mild NSFW themes, angst)

_____________________________________

‘Hell on Earth’ was a good way to describe the Galaxy Garrison during mid-April finals season, so it wasn’t surprising that you had spent the entirety of your 20th birthday cooped up in your dorm and bent over books and highlighters and tear-stained notes.

“Y/N,” your roommate called from somewhere outside your bedroom door. “Someone’s at the door!”

You groaned and slithered out of your chair. You expected to see the familiar face of the pizza delivery guy (it was your birthday, dammit, and you were going to splurge on takeout. You weren’t eating meal hall slop on your special day), so when you were met with the face of Garrison pilot Takashi Shirogane, you were a little stunned, to say the least.

“Shiro?”

He eyed you scrutinizingly, up and down. He took note of your Pokémon pajama pants and linty Garrison hoodie. “Did you not go out at all today?”

“No! I have a final in two days, and I haven’t even made my cue cards ye--! Shiro!”

He grabbed your wrist and stomped down the hallway with you in tow.

“Shiro!” you scolded. “I’m not even dressed!”

“Doesn’t matter,” he quipped back. “It’ll all be on my bedroom floor by the end of the night anyway.” You flushed, sputtering. He craned his neck back to yell out to your roommate. “Don’t wait up!”

“Trust me, I won’t!” she yelled back. “I’ll actually take the opportunity to finally sleep without having to hear you guys!”

_____________________________________

Mr. Takashi “Scholarship” Shirogane wasn’t as broke as your ass was, so he took you to a nice place for dinner. A really nice place. Dinner was nicer than anything you’d had in months. A salad, a soup, a side, a surf-and-turf, and, of course, a cake for dessert.

His face was warm and beautiful, washed in the golden yellow light of the sparklers planted in the cake in front of you. “誕生日おめでとう！” it read. He watched you from across the cake sparklers, laughing at your face, red hot with embarrassment at the waiters forming a hellish ring around your table and singing you a new rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ you had never heard before.

But even through the cacophony, you heard him clearly. His smile was wide and warm, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Tanjoubi omedetou, Y/N. Happy birthday.”

_____________________________________

You peeled yourself off of him with a satisfied sigh and flopped down unceremoniously onto his mattress. You’d gotten your dinner, you’d gotten your fuck; this birthday was shaping up to be more fun than you had initially anticipated.

“Hey,” you turned your head to look at Shiro. He was already looking at you. “Thanks. For dinner. For tonight. I really appreciate it.”

“Yeah. You got it. Cancelled my other booty call just for you, so you know it was--ow!” 

You smacked his arm with a playful smile. “Okay, now I’m a little less thankful!” You shared a hearty laugh that slowly faded into silence.

You’re both quiet for a while, listening to your staccato, post-orgasmic breaths slow to rise and fall in tandem.

His voice shattered the air like glass. “Hey, Y/N. Here’s an idea. If we’re both still single on the night of your 25th birthday, we should just marry each other.”

You laughed, and Shiro watched the delicate tremble of your chest with the action. His gaze was oddly tender. Oddly betraying of some deeper emotion you couldn’t name. You propped yourself up on your elbow and leaned over him. He looked up you reverently, like you were the Sun. Your smile, he thought, was just as radiant. “Okay, say what now? Where’s this coming from?”

Honestly, he didn’t know; but trying to hold on to you felt like water slipping through his fingers before he could drink, no matter how tightly he cupped his hands.

_____________________________________

“We can have the wedding on any day. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as I get to marry you. That’s more than enough for me,” you say with a fond smile.

He shakes his head. “I forbid it. It must be on a special day, one with significance and meaning. But, soon. I cannot bear to wait any longer to marry y--That’s it! Your coming birthday. It’s perfect!”

_____________________________________

Your fingers dance over the flowers in the sample bouquet, coming to rest on the velvety petals of deep purple blooms. “I love these irises. I’ve always wanted irises for my wedding. I don’t know why.”

“Of course, my darling. Anything for you.”

The conversation floats into Shiro’s ear from across the room, like a dandelion seed on the wind. He smiles ruefully, sorrowfully, shaking his head. ‘Do you truly not remember?’

______________________________________

“Shiro, what’s your favourite flower?”

“Mine?” he asked, looking up from his food and pointing to himself.

You lifted a hand to your forehead and squinted, swivelling to look around the meal hall dramatically. “I dunno, any other Shiros in here? Shiro! Shiro, are you in here? Shir--”

“Okay, okay! Don’t have to make fun of me!” he chuckled, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “And it’s irises.” He shook his head, an incredulous smile plastered on his face. “Why do you ask?”

You snorted, waving your spoon at him. “For our wedding, silly! Don’t tell me you forgot. It was your idea, after all!”

_____________________________________

So now we’re here, in a beautiful sunlit chapel on the beautiful spring afternoon of your 25th birthday. You wanted to have your wedding on Earth, even if you couldn’t stay long. Earth was your home, and it was going to be his new home soon, too. You’re standing at the altar in beautiful flowing garments, holding the beautiful irises with a beautiful smile on your face and beautiful dewy tears budding at your eyelashes. Everything was so beautiful, so goddamn beautiful; so why did Shiro feel so ugly?

“Hey, Y/N. Here’s an idea. If we’re both still single on the night of your 25th birthday, we should just marry each other.”

“Do you take Y/N to be your lawfully wedded spouse?”

“Haha, maybe! I dunno, Shiro! We’re only twenty!”

“I do. Of course I do. I have never been more certain of anything in my life.”

“No, no, no ‘maybe’s or ‘dunno’s,” Shiro said with a laugh and extending his hand for you to shake. Oddly formal, considering you were lying naked in his bed. “You gotta promise! If it’s the night of your 25th birthday and we’re still single, we’re getting married. Do you promise?”

“Do you, Y/N, take Emperor Lotor to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“Okay, okay! You know what,” you said, body shaking with a hearty laugh. You slapped your hand into his and shook it firmly. “I do, Mr. Shirogane. I do.”

You smile and gently take Lotor’s hand in yours. “I do.”

[howling--fantods]

“Things You Learn in Boston AA” excerpt from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

(This bit of David Foster Wallace’s masterpiece Infinite Jest occurs around page 200 of 1000. It was the moment I knew I would be able to finish the whole book and still remains one of my favorite parts. I have put some of my favorite lines in bold. Footnotes at the bottom.)

If, by virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts. You will find out that once MA’s Department of Social Services has taken a mother’s children away for any period of time, they can always take them away again, D.S.S., like at will, empowered by nothing more than a certain signature-stamped form. i.e. once deemed Unfit—no matter why or when, or what’s transpired in the meantime—there’s nothing a mother can do.

Or for instance that people addicted to a Substance who abruptly stop ingesting the Substance often suffer wicked papular acne, often for months afterward, as the accumulations of Substance slowly leave the body. The Staff will inform you that this is because the skin is actually the body’s biggest excretory organ. Or that chronic alcoholics’ hearts are—for reasons no M.D. has been able to explain—swollen to nearly twice the size of civilians’ human hearts, and they never again return to normal size. That there’s a certain type of person who carries a picture of their therapist in their wallet. That (both a relief and kind of an odd let-down) black penises tend to be the same general size as white penises, on the whole. That not all U.S. males are circumcised.

That you can cop a sort of thin jittery amphetaminic buzz if you rapidly consume three Millennial Fizzies and a whole package of Oreo cookies on an empty stomach. (Keeping it down is required, however, for the buzz, which senior residents often neglect to tell newer residents.)

That the chilling Hispanic term for whatever interior disorder drives the addict back again and again to the enslaving Substance is tecato gusano, which apparently connotes some kind of interior psychic worm that cannot be sated or killed.

That it is possible, in sleep, for some roommates to secure a cigarette from their bedside pack, light it, smoke it down to the quick, and then extinguish it in their bedside ashtray—without once waking up, and without setting anything on fire. You will be informed that this skill is usually acquired in penal institutions, which will lower your inclination to complain about the practice. Or that even Flent’s industrial-strength expandable-foam earplugs do not solve the problem of a snoring roommate if the roommate in question is so huge and so adenoidal that the snores in question also produce subsonic vibrations that arpeggio up and down your body and make your bunk jiggle like a motel bed you’ve put a quarter in.

That females are capable of being just as vulgar about sexual and eliminatory functions as males. That over 60% of all persons arrested for drug and alcohol-related offenses report being sexually abused as children, with two-thirds of the remaining 40% reporting that they cannot remember their childhoods in sufficient enough detail to report one way or the other on abuse. That you can weave hypnotic Madame Psychosis-like harmonies around the minor-D scream of a cheap vacuum cleaner, humming to yourself as you vacuum, if that’s your Chore. That some people really do look like rodents. That some drug-addicted prostitutes have a harder time giving up prostitution that they have giving up drugs, with their explanation involving the two habits’ very different directions of currency-flow. That there are just as many idioms for the female sex-organ as there are for the male sex-organ.

That the little-mentioned paradox of Substance addiction is: that once you are sufficiently enslaved by a Substance to need to quit the Substance in order to save your life, the enslaving Substance has become so deeply important to you that you will all but lose your mind when it is taken away from you. Or that sometime after your Substance of choice has just been taken away from you in order to save your life, as you hunker down for the required AM and PM prayers, you will find yourself beginning to pray to be allowed to literally lose your mind, to be able to wrap up your mind in an old newspaper or something and leave it in an alley to shift for itself, without you.

That in metro Boston the idiom of choice for the male sex-organ is: Unit, which is why Ennet House residents are wryly amused by E.M.P.H. Hospital’s designations of its campus’s buildings.

That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. Then that most non addicted adult civilians have already absorbed and accepted this fact, often rather early on.

That no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that.

That AA and NA and CA’s ‘God’ does not apparently require that you believe in Him/Her/It before He/She/It will help you.(59) That, pace macho bullshit, public male weeping is not only plenty masculine but can actually feel good (reportedly). That sharing means talking, and taking somebody’s inventory means criticizing that person, plus many additional pieces of Recoveryspeak. That an important part of the halfway-house Human Immuno-Virus prevention is not leaving your razor or toothbrush in communal bathrooms. That apparently a seasoned prostitute can (reportedly) apply a condom to a customer’s Unit so deftly he doesn’t even know it’s on until he’s history, so to speak.

That a double-layered steel portable strongbox w/ tri-tumblered lock for your razor and toothbrush can be had for under $35.00 U.S./$38.50 O.N.A.N. via Home-Net Hardware, and that Pat M. or the House Manager will let you use the back office’s old TP to order one if you put up a sustained enough squawk.

That over 50% of persons with a Substance addiction suffer from some other recognized form of psychiatric disorder, too. That some male prostitutes become so accustomed to enemas that they cannot have valid bowel movements without them. That a majority of Ennet House residents have at least one tattoo. That the significance of this datum is unanalyzable. That the metro Boston street term for not having any money is: sporting lint. That what elsewhere’s known as Informing or Squealing or Narcing or Ratting Out is on the streets of metro Boston known as ‘Eating the Cheese,’ presumably spun off from the associative nexus of rat.

That nose-, tongue-, lip-, and eyelid-rings rarely require actual penetrative piercing. This is because of the wide variety of clip-on rings available. That nipple-rings do require piercing, and that clitoris- and glans-rings are not things anyone thinks you really want to know the facts about. That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused. That female chicanos are not called chicanas. That it costs $225 U.S. to get a MA driver’s license with your picture but not your name. That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That gambling can be an abusable escape, too, and work, shopping, and shoplifting, and sex, and abstention, and masturbation, and food, and exercise, and meditation/prayer, and siting so close to the Ennet House’s old D.E.C. TP cartridge-viewer that the screen fills your whole vision and the screen’s static charge tickles your nose like a linty mitten.(60)

That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That it is possible to get so angry you really do see everything red. What a ‘Texas Catheter’ is. That some people really do steal—will steal things that are yours. That a lot of U.S. adults truly cannot read, not even a ROM hypertext phonics thing with HELP functions for every word. That cliquey alliance and exclusion and gossip can be forms of escape. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That evil people never believe they are evil, but rather that everyone else is evil. That it is possible to learn valuable things from a stupid person. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That you can all of a sudden out of nowhere want to get high with your Substance so bad that you think you will surely die if you don’t, and but can just sit there with your hands writhing in your lap and face wet with craving, can want to get high but instead just sit there, wanting to but not, if that makes sense, and if you can gut it out and not hit the Substance during the craving the craving will eventually pass, it will go away—at least for a while. That it is statistically easier for low-IQ people to kick an addiction than it is for high-IQ people. That the metro Boston street term for panhandling is: stemming, and that it is regarded by some as a craft or art; and that professional stem-artists actually have like little professional colloquia sometimes, little conventions, in parks or public-transport hubs, at night, where they get together and network and exchange feedback on trends and techniques and public relations, etc. That it is possible to abuse OTC cold and allergy remedies in an addictive manner. That Nyquil is over 50 proof. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee.That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep while having an anxiety attack.

That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work.

That addiction is either a disease of a mental illness or a spiritual condition (as in ‘poor of spirit’) or an O.C.D.-like mental disorder or an affective or character disorder, and that over 75% of the veteran Boston AAs who want to convince you that it is a disease will make you sit down and watch them write DISEASE on a piece of paper and then divide and hyphenate the word so that it becomes DIS-EASE, then will stare at you as if expecting you to undergo some kind of blinding epiphanic realization, when really (as G. Day points tirelessly out to his counselors) changing DISEASE to DIS-EASE reduces a definition and explanation down to a simple description of a feeling, and rather a whiny insipid one at that.

That most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking. That the cute Boston AA term for addictive-type thinking is: Analysis-Paralysis. That cats will in fact get violent diarrhea if you feed them milk, contrary to the popular image of cats and milk. That it is simply more pleasant to be happy than to be pissed off. That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. Then that this connects interestingly with the early-sobriety urge to pray for the literal loss of one’s mind. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. That it is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in a microwave oven. That the metro-street term for really quite wonderful is: pisser. That everybody’s sneeze sounds different. That some people’s moms never taught them to cover up and turn away when they sneeze. That no one who has been to prison is ever the same again. That you do not have to have sex with a person to get crabs from them. That a clean room feels better to be in than a dirty room. That the people to be most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That you don’t have to hit somebody even if you really really want to. That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.

That nobody who’s ever gotten sufficiently addictively enslaved by a Substance to need to quit the Substance and has successfully quit for a while and been straight and but then has for whatever reason gone back and picked up the Substance again has ever reported being glad that they did it, used the Substance again and gotten re-enslaved; not ever. That bit is a metro Boston street term for a jail sentence, as in ‘Don G. was up in Billerica on a six-month bit.’ That it’s impossible to kill fleas by hand. That it’s possible to smoke so many cigarettes that you get little white ulcerations on your tongue. That the effects of too many cups of coffee are in no way pleasant or intoxicating.

That pretty much everybody masturbates.

Rather a lot, it turns out.

That the cliche ‘I don’t know who I am’ unfortunately turns out to be more than a cliche. That it costs $330 U.S. to get a passport in a phony name. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid. That you can obtain a major credit card with a phony name for $1500 U.S., but that no one will give you a straight answer about whether this price includes a verifiable credit history and line of credit for when the cashier slides the phony card through the register’s little verification-modem with all sorts of burly security guards standing around. That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish. That the term vig is street argot for the bookmaker’s commission on an illegal bet, usually 10%, that’s either subtracted from your winnings or added to your debt. That certain sincerely devout and spiritually advanced people believe that the God of their understanding helps them find parking places and gives them advice on Mass. Lottery numbers.

That cockroaches can, up to a certain point, be lived with.

That ‘acceptance’ is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.

That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene.

That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it.

That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz.

That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused.

That having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place.

That it is permissible to want.

That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse.

That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.

That God—unless you’re Charlton Heston, or unhinged, or both—speaks and acts entirely through the vehicle of human beings, if there is a God.

That God might regard the issue of whether you believe there’s a God or not as fairly low on his/her/its list of things s/he/it’s interested in re you.

The the smell of Athlete’s Foot is sick-sweet v. the smell of podiatric Dry Rot is sick-sour.

That a person—one with the Disease/-Ease—will do things under the influence of Substances that he simply would not do sober, and that some consequences of these things cannot ever be erased or amended.(61) Felonies are an example of this. As are tattoos.

59. NA= Narcotics Anonymous; CA = Cocaine Anonymous. In some cities there are also Psychadelics Anonymous, Nicotine Anonymous (also, confusingly, called NA), Designer Drugs Anonymous, Steroids Anonymous, even (especially in and around Manhattan) something called Prozac Anonymous. In none of these Anonymous fellowships anywhere is it possible to avoid confronting the God stuff, eventually.

60. Not to mention, according to some hard-line schools of 12-Step thought, yoga, reading, politics, gum-chewing, crossword puzzles, solitaire, romantic intrigue, charity work, political activism, N.R.A. membership, music, art, cleaning, plastic surgery, cartridge-viewing even at normal distances, the loyalty of a fine dog, religious zeal, relentless helpfulness, relentless other-folks’-moral-inventory-taking, the development of hard-line schools of 12-Step thought, ad darn near infinitum, including 12-Step fellowships themselves, such that quiet tales sometimes go around the Boston AA community of certain incredibly advanced and hard-line recovering persons who have pared away potential escape after potential escape until finally, as the stories go, they end up sitting in a bare chair, nude, in an unfinished room, not moving but also not sleeping or meditating or abstracting, too advanced to stomach the thought of the potential emotional escape of doing anything whatsoever, and just end up sitting there completely motion- and escape-less until a long time later all that’s found in the empty chair is a very fine dusting of off-white ashy stuff that you can wipe away completely with like one damp paper towel.

61. The Boston AA slogan w/r/t this phenomenon is ’You Can’t Unring a Bell.’

[libidomechanica]

Untitled (A heart I’ll give)

A heart I’ll give A loving heart, which is why you float

up

up

up

knocking you see

the lamps & I’ll let you grow. Like a little sparrow Beside her, with muskets at their better when my hand on the lovers— who last night at my feet.

And me

Never fear. His pistol butts a-twinkle, under the purple robe he wore, o’erwrought me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Counter-turn, and the same way the streetlight, though the deep Cold that you can only way, my smart, did find that had gone into marriage into seclusion. Shared, could plunge in you What I in her sake; But when Night is Day. They dance with pleasant pain,         Blue, silver-white, and white Like pallid lilies A few, and white Like pallid lilies A few, and white Like those that raw and conquer all men’s love, Which alters when my once more it cannot die than all the window, and wish you could strange it seems That wanton ways: (I measure time by the tinkling piano apparent reason, And if thou wilt, remember, do not know me, they speak strange fragrance. Than alive less bigger than Rome in the atmosphere is written, her face was like a linty, raw-cold dun me: and all day long, all mazed To shield him from the deep, While I have deemed

with your cheeks, like fine needlepoint and when his forehead, a bunch of callous) and nail—sit on the cobbles he clattered the living hotness, something moving across the head.

Their front steps.

We should have listened.

Sing on, as if in pain: And dreaming through that moon too bright forking brain,           The winged censer teeming; No shrine, Have sung this hymn, and Stand; She taught me Turn, and Stand; She was the Grand Canyon, still God is filling me.

To our love in the moonlight, and ‘mid the dancing blades

Of grass his feet did turn himself to please, Nor for itself and their moss.

My touch. The moonlight, thought, like a madman, shrieking a curse to the hedge to mell, or utterly defy. Remembers better than a casement, the tide, A little token, And kept, and breath, Then tell me of our future that touches back.

Of lost door keys, the great snake, whose glories, they deaf that they did not hear?’ In perfect love anyone. Do such a little ones are making me now.

[slavicviking]

Midnight Hunt (HTTYD)

Set in 1920s. Dragons don’t exist, at least that’s what they want you to believe. Loosely inspired by “Fantastic Beasts and where to find them”. Some Hiccup/Snotlout friendship with some Hiccstrid.

Doodle

“Remind me again - why did I agree to this?”

Snotlout clutched his too-long coat closer to his wide chest. He stepped from one foot to the other, trying to warm himself up. The attempts turned out fruitless in the face of the traditional autumn freeze up in the city of Berk. His feet and fingers had long since gone numb, even as he shoved his hands inside his father’s oversized coat. The scratchy material smelled strongly of his usual perfume, filling Snotlout’s nose with Eau de Voyage he knew and hated so much.

The roads were empty at that hour of the night and all the lights in the shabby town houses had long since been turned off. The people of Berk attached much importance to being well-rested and town fell completely silent by a certain hour. Snotlout sighed dramatically, terrible feeling of loss hitting him at the thought of his comfortable, warm bed, waiting for him in the small apartment he and his friend shared. Snotlout valued his sleep, a lot, and he would most definitely be snuggled into his linty comforter, his mind miles away by now– oh, how he wished he could do that – but for his dear cousin who burst into his room at an ungodly hour and pulled him out into the freezing night.

The few street lanterns that stayed on provided little to no help when navigating the abandoned streets of his hometown. Having grown up here, he knew Berk like the back of his hand, yet with the sun long since gone, the town transformed into something new and foreign in a way. The edges of the tall buildings became smudgy, endless street melted with the night sky and the dark void from the alleys on the sides caused something fairly unknown to stir up in his chest. It was not the same Berk anymore, not with the darkness that covered and loomed over the unfamiliar silence.

“Because you’re the best cousin ever?” Hiccup replied from his crouching position, not looking up from the map of Berk he clutched in his hands. He used a torch of his own invention to shed some more light on the piece of old parchment.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Snotlout rolled his eyes and directed his own, much simpler, flashlight towards one of the dark alleys. The unknown that seemed to be hiding in the utter darkness between the local bakery and a clothes’ shop made him slightly uneasy. (Definitely not scared, Snotlout almost snorted out loud at the stupid thought – Jorgensons simply didn’t get scared.)

“Mhm,” Hiccup hummed to himself. In the dim light of his torch Snotlout could see the growing smirk on his cousin’s face.

Thump.

“What was that?” The shorter of two cousins looked around apprehensively, flashing the torch around. Hiccup shielded his eyes with his free hand when the stream of light flitted over his face.

“Probably a rat or something,” He folded up the map and stood up, dusting off his trousers. He tipped Snotlout’s flashlight to the side, wincing at the bright light, and patted the shorter of the two on the back. “Ease up, Snot.”

“Ease up? I don’t- Hey, where are you going?” Snotlout shouted when he saw his cousin already a few feet away. He growled under his breath and trotted to catch up to Hiccup, his frozen muscles screaming in protest. The tall man was casually strolling down the street, flashing his torch to the sides from time to time. Snotlout shoved him in the arm.

“Ow – what was that for?” Hiccup’s hand went to rub his arm as he looked down at his cousin.

“Oh, I don’t know…” He pretended to ponder on that for a moment, rubbing his non-existent beard. (Not like he couldn’t grow one, he most definitely could, he just… chose not to. He was too much of a competition for other guys already, no need to make it any harder for them.) Snotlout shuddered at the cold air, hugging himself and the coat. “Maybe…because you’ve left me there?!”

Hiccup paused and clamped a hand over his cousin’s mouth as he looked around apprehensively.

“Shhhh, pipe down, would you… We don’t exactly want people to know we’re here, do we?” His shoulders relaxed as he kept his hand over Snotlout’s mouth and continued. “Besides, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Knowing he struck the chord with this one, Hiccup chuckled to himself. Snotlout took the chance and licked the inner side of his cousin’s hand. He grinned, satisfied, once the taller of the two jumped and pulled away in disgust.

“Eww, what in Thor’s name?!” Hiccup began to energetically wipe his hand into his coat. Green, unamused eyes shot up to meet Snotlout’s blue ones. “What are you? Five?”

“Who’s being loud now, huh?”

Hiccup growled under his breath, still trying to clean his hand as much as possible. His flashlight dangled from the strip tied around his wrist and the unstable light flickered between the buildings and the pavement. A rat rushed right under their feet and Snotlout yelped, drawing his hands closer to his chest. The animal disappeared in a dark alley on the side with a faint sound of something falling to the ground. Hiccup didn’t seem to have noticed, too busy with adjusting his torch again.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that, right?” Hiccup muttered as he briefly glanced at his cousin, something between a smirk and a grimace crossing his face. Snotlout snorted, his tense muscles easing up as the noises from the alley quietened. The dark clouds revealed the moon for a short moment, enfolding the streets and houses of Berk in cold, pale light. Hiccup turned off his torch, though Snotlout kept his on, gripping it tightly in his hand. He saw his cousin fishing out the map again as he moved further down the street.

“So,” Snotlout inquired, trying to steal a glance at the map. “where to now, Dragon Master?”

”That’s the only place I can think of,” Ignoring the nickname given him, Hiccup pointed to a small building a few blocks away. Quirking an eyebrow, Snotlout read the roughly written caption underneath.

“If you get arrested again – I’m not bailing you out,” Hiccup rolled his eyes and shoved the old piece of parchment into his cousin’s hands.

“First of all, I’m not going to get arrested, Snotlout,” He turned away to tinker with the strap of his old leather bag, his voice slightly muffled. Once he was done, he took the map back with a shrug. “And, second of all, how could I have known that baby Nadder was going to set that building on fire?”

“Common sense?” Snotlout only shrugged when Hiccup shot a glare his way. Enjoying his cousin’s obvious frustration, he let himself relax more. Teasing Hiccup like that was familiar, he liked familiar.  “You know Astrid is going to flip when she hears about that, right?”

“This is precisely why,” He reached to scratch his scruffy chin the way he always did when he was nervous. “Astrid is not going to find out about it.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Thick clouds covered the moon and Berk plunged into chilling darkness once more, leaving Snotlout glancing to the sides and behind him ever so often. A bedraggled rat or two zoomed past them and he had to fight the urge to kick them away. Lone lanterns stood tall by the raddled pavement, one of them flickering and buzzing continuously, as if it couldn’t decide whether to work properly or not. The flashing light fell upon their destination.

Hiccup flipped on his torch and lit up the building before them. Letters from black metal gleamed in the darkness, familiar header of “Gobber’s forge” now visible. Snotlout looked around and felt his heart surge to his throat once he spotted a pair of gleaming eyes staring right at him from one of the alleys. Once he blinked, the terrifying peepers were gone, though the unsettling feeling in his chest remained.  

“Um, H-Hiccup, Smothering Smokebreaths are dragons that tend to travel in pack. There’s a chance he came back while we were away,” Snotlout paused. He saw their building, the Dragon’s Edge as they liked to call it, at the end of the street, one of the windows bright with blinding light compared to the rest of the town house. Probably the twins. He noticed Hiccup looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Snotlout decided to ignore it, finding his chopped nails much more interesting. “ Y’know… I’ll better check it.” Just as he was about walk away, Hiccup took a hold of the collar of Snotlout’s coat and pulled him back roughly.

“Oh, no, you don’t. I need you.” Snotlout huffed and slapped Hiccup’s hand away, eyes worriedly flickering to the dark alley. His cousin placed his hands on his hips and eyed the building before him. “I have a feeling he’s here.”

Hiccup’s hunch, as it turned out, was justified as a crashing sound came from the store. The two cousins glanced at each other quickly before rushing to the heavy glass door with a noticeably-sized hole separating them from the thing they came for. Hiccup, squinting his eyes, pressed his face to the doorframe and saw a lone Smothering Smokebreath sitting on a pile of metal tools, numerous objects strewn on the floor. Gobber’s desk was tipped to the side and loose sheets of paper flew around the room in chaos.

“Oh, boy,” he muttered as he gently pushed the door. It opened with a loud creak, noisily moving over the shattered glass and strewn objects on the floor. The small dragon flapped his wings impatiently once Hiccup got inside, the creature’s long tail circling the pile protectively. Broken glass crunched under Snotlout’s heavy boots. The Smothering Smokebreath hissed, a stream of dark mist coming from the dragon’s grey skin. Hiccup held out a hand behind him. “Close the door, Snotlout.”

He did as he was asked and slowly moved closer to his cousin, feeling the creature’s eyes on him. He noticed the change of Hiccup’s facial expression as his eyebrows lowered and eyes narrowed. His hand fished for something in his bag carefully.

“What now?” Snotlout asked quietly as the dragon used one of his paws to sweep more metal under himself.

“Give me the necklace,” Hiccup murmured. Snotlout quickly rummaged through the big pockets of his coat, finding the object and placing it in his cousin’s outstretched hand.  With the shiny piece of jewellery hanging of his fingers, Hiccup tried to close the distance between him and the dragon. That, however, turned out to be more difficult than either of them anticipated.

While his partner in crime tried persuading the Smothering Smokebreath to leave the nest, dangling and showing off the shiny necklace, whispering sweet nothings, Snotlout furrowed his brow. There was something…something else. A cream-colored object caught his eye among all the shiny metal.

“Hiccup!” Startled, the tall man swung to the sides a little, eyebrows traveling high enough to disappear in the mop of tousled hair.

“Wh- Snotlout, what?”

“There’s something in the nest. Like porcelain, or something.” Snotlout pointed to the nest with his index finger, wincing when the dragon hissed aggressively from his spot a foot or so away.

“Porcelain?” Hiccup inquired, one of his eyebrows travelling high. He narrowed his eyes at the collection of shiny metal,  a look of realization crossing his face after a second. “Snot – it’s-it’s an egg!”

“Mr. Fogfart is Mrs-?“ He shot a quick look at the dragon and tapped his bare chin. “Huh.”

“We can’t move them,” Hiccup stated, pacing around the shop, shaking his head.

“Well, we can’t let them stay here either,” Snotlout gestured to the Smothering Smokebreath. Mrs. Fogfart flapped her wings a little, observing them from the corner of her eye. His cousin halted and knelt on the ground, crunching some of the glass underneath. He went to furiously rummage through his bag, spilling all of its contents on the old panel floor.

“What are you-“

“Aha!” Hiccup pulled out a small plastic pouch and raised it into air triumphantly. Snotlout eyed the weird green-ish item inside.

“Dragon nip?” He quirked one of his eyebrows sceptically. “Isn’t it illegal?”  

“Uh,” Hiccup reached to scratch his chin, his eyes shifting to the side, and shoved the leather bag in his younger cousin’s barrelled chest. “No?”

“Dear Thor,” Snotlout used his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “We’re getting arrested, aren’t we?”

“No, we’re not.” Hiccup quickly stood up, brushing off the dust from his trousers. “We’re just going to cheat a little.”

Despite Snotlout’s hum of disagreement, he positioned himself on one of the sides of the cluttered room while Hiccup carefully moved closer to Mrs.Fogfart. He reached into the little bag with the pulverised dragon nip, smearing a bit of it onto his fingers. The Smothering Smokebreath raised her head curiously, the new scent clearly gaining her attention.  

“On three,” Hiccup whispered. His cousin prepared a leather bag, ready to move quickly and with the required precision. They had only one chance to do it after all. Hiccup reached towards the dragon with his nip-covered fingers, the reptile’s eyes dilating slightly, slits turning into black circles, soft and round.

“One,” Mrs. Fogfart dared to move closer, sniffing the hand with new-found eagerness.

“Two,” Her small head slid over Hiccup’s palm, looking for more, the dragon nip making her sleepier, calmer.

“Three!” Snotlout jerked from his spot on the other side of the room, swiftly throwing the sack over the dragon’s little body, careful not to disturb the egg in the nest. Hiccup strewed a bit more of dragon nip inside and nodded to himself, satisfied, as he checked on the dragon only to find her sound asleep. He then carefully moved the egg into his pouch, making sure it wouldn’t crack. Leaning out of the window, he frowned.

“We should get back,” he noted, once again checking on their precious find.

“But what about the-“ Snotlout gestured to the mess in the small forge, pieces of broken glass crunching under his feet as he moved around.  

“Now? We can’t,” Hiccup chewed on his lip. “I’ll…I’ll let Gobber know.”

Snotlout bit his tongue, swallowing a rude reply. In the end, Hiccup was right – they couldn’t do much now and their time was limited. Still, they cleaned as much as they could, pushing the broken shards of glass away, somewhat organizing the pieces of paper strewn across the whole shop. The effects were silly, but at least they tried.

They stumbled onto the road shortly after, speeding to get to their shabby town house as quickly as they could, Hiccup apprehensively glancing at the egg in his bag and Snotlout notoriously checking on fast-asleep Mrs.Fogfart. Jumping over the stairs, the two of them burst into the basement, hugging their respective bags close to their chests. They quickly put the sleeping dragon in her usual spot among other Smothering Smokebreaths, her small egg by her side. With a tired nod, they closed the heavy doors of their hideout, simultaneous sighs of relief escaping them. Suddenly exhausted, they trudged upstairs and parted their ways with one last tired smile at the success of their secret mission.

Hiccup did his best to open the door of his part of the flat as quiet as possible, wincing when the old, badly-oiled frame creaked along with the smallest of movements. He paused for a moment and, feeling safe, moved inside the room, twinge of pride in his chest.

“So,” the torch in his hand almost fell to the ground when he heard her voice. “did you find the dragon?”

“Astrid! Hi Astrid, hi, hello Astri-“ Hiccup rambled as he turned to face his fiancé. His hand went to prop himself on the shelf by the door only to slip away awkwardly, causing a huge mess, and he cursed under his breath. Coughing into the wide collar of his coat, he started to fix the fallen books. A soft laugh from the side startled him.

“What do you find so funny, hm?” A smile tugged at his lips trying to imagine how it looked for her.

“Did you seriously think I wouldn’t find out?” She questioned with a half-hearted roll of her eyes, walking up to help him up with the things on the shelf he accidentally messed up.

“Well, uhm,” He bit his lip as he took a book from Astrid’s hand and put in between two others. “Am I in trouble?”

“Of course.” She nudged him with a wink. “But... Maybe tomorrow. Come on, you need some sleep – you look half-dead.”

He breathed a laugh at the comment, shaking his head slightly. A yelp escaped him when a fist collided with his arm.

“Why would you do that? I thought you said tomorrow-“

“That was for leaving me out of the fun,” Astrid shot him a quick look.

“I promise I’ll take you with me next time,” He squeezed her hand, happy to see a small smile forming on her face. Daring to be a little bit braver, he leaned down to his fiancé to steal a kiss. She stopped him with a finger on his lips and a smirk on her face. She patted his cheek gently and plopped on the bed with a soft laugh.

“Tomorrow?” He asked with a raised eyebrow. She answered with a quick smirk.

“Tomorrow.”

Name of the dragon suggested by wonderful @tarched :P

The rest of my writing

[bapdirt]

if requests are open, can i get some soft, fluffy jongup? youngjae is sick and grumpy and jongup's protectice, caring side comes out a little bit c:

He rolls out of bed when no one comes knocking on his door, it’s already the afternoon. He checks Himchan’s room, empty.

Jongup finds Youngjae sprawled on the couch, one arm over his eyes and bundled up in a hoodie.

“Hyung?”

Youngjae lifts the arm to peek and give a grunted, “Yeah?”

He sounds stuffy and sore. A sick Youngjae is a miserable one. Jongup isn’t the one who takes care of sick members, he leaves that to Himchan or Daehyun.

“I think the weather and all that drinking did me in. Himchan should be here to make me soup,” he groans, slipping sideways to lay down.

There’s a market not too far from their apartment. Jongup could go and be back in thirty minutes if he walks fast enough.

“I’ll be back.”

He throws on the jeans he wore yesterday and a linty black sweater and heads out the door. Youngjae yells, asking him where’s he going.

//

Chamomile or green tea.

The bland market music plays on loop, annoyingly, as he tries to choose which one is best for a cold. He’s been in here fifteen minutes and it took him just as long to get here.

He tries to text Himchan but he doesn’t answer.

Jongup buys both types of tea, five cans of chicken noodle soup, and dried seaweed. The cashier rings him up and hopes he feels better.

//

Youngjae is in his room watching something on his phone when Jongup barges in, standing in the doorway while the doorknob knocks against the wall, staring at Youngjae like he’s on a mission.

“I got soup and—“ he looks at the steaming cup in his hand, “chamomile tea.”

Jongup watches him flounder, sputtering as he sits up in his bed to accept the bowl first. It shouldn’t be that surprising that he’s gone out of his way, he would make Junhong that spicy ramen when he was sick.

“Ah~ what a good dongsaeng,” Youngjae smacks his lips and scoots over to make room for him.

Their mattresses aren’t yet broken in, still a bit stiff when they sit down, but the space Youngjae was laying in is warm.

“I got green tea, too. The chamomile smelled better when I took it out the box, though.”

Jongup is kind enough to blow on the tea until it’s cooled while Youngjae balances his phone on his knee for both of them to watch a drama he’s been into lately.

“Don’t judge me, Himchan made me watch it. Now I like it by default,” Youngjae defends himself once he’s drank the broth and Jongup is staring at the screen with a scowl.

“Drink this, hyung. The soup is kind of salty.”

They switch, Jongup leaning over to set the bowl on the nightstand and then pulls the sheet over both of them, used to sharing a bed with at least one member sometimes.

“You’re gonna make me fall asleep,” Youngjae whispers, laying his head on his shoulder.

Jongup feels that familiar tingle from head to toe before his heart pounds. Youngjae’s had that effect on him for years, on everybody, it’s second nature to enjoy it.

“I can leave if you want to take a nap?”

“Quiet. Put this over there and let’s finish this episode.”

Jongup does as he’s told. He slings an arm around Youngjae’s shoulder, both of them laying down on their backs, the phone held up above their faces.

“Thank you. For the tea and soup, and this stuff,” Youngjae sounds like he had to build up the courage to say it.

Jongup turns over and brings him closer, he isn’t good with words either, and he butts his forehead against Youngjae’s cheek gently, a silent understanding.

[derek-no]

nancewright​:

Nancy couldn’t say if it was a metaphor or an analogy, perhaps just a popular saying (maybe she should’ve been borrowing books from Leonardo’s Library…), but it had her barking out a quick laugh either way. “You’re just stripping all the magic away from this little thing, huh?” It was a pretty sad looking stand, though, she had to agree there. Brown eyes turning back to the streetside bookshelf, she took a slow and contemplative drag of her cigarette. “You know, that wall does have a lot of potential.” She hummed softly, waving her hand in a clearing gesture. “Get rid of some of that ivy and you’d have a nice spot to graffiti a great, big ‘fuck DiCaprio’ – you any good with a can of spray paint?”

"Sweetheart, I didn't strip the magic away from this thing.  Sorry-"  He was quick to correct himself, wincing belatedly and making sure to swallow whatever was in his mouth so his apology was clear.  "Not supposed to use pet names with strangers and shit, my bad, breaking old habits still.  Guess knowing real names would help, I'm Derek."

He lifts a hand in a half-assed wave in lieu of doing anything else, polishing off the last of his lunch and dusting crumbs from his hands as they wander his pockets in search of his own cigarettes.  She questions him as he's pulling the beat up pack from his shirt pocket, left now with the task of finding his lighter as he laughs around the filter pinched in his teeth.

"Depends- you any good at lookout?"  Derek sneaks a peek over at her, obviously trying to fight the sly grin spreading and even more obviously failing in that attempt.  "I got blue, yellow, black, red...and about twenty minutes to let a rich motherfucker know what's up!"  Barking a laugh, he turns to look over his shoulder at the area around them while having to settle for using the linty book of matches he finds, stepping closer to speak to her conspiratorially; low, their secret.

"You pull that ivy down while I run back to my truck, keep lookout while I tag it up there, and I'll getaway drive us out of here before anyone can say shit.  Make it worth your while to keep it our secret, too.  You game?"

[chrisshome]

Laundry Tricks For Cleaner Clothes

It appears to be so essential, however doing clothing is a convoluted science, and one that not very many of us get it. "Nobody ever shows us how to do clothing legitimately," says Joey Green, writer of the new book Joey Green's Cleaning Magic. "When you're conveyed into the world, you go to a Laundromat and you put the quarters in, pour in the little box of cleanser, and afterward ask why your garments aren't spotless. In any case, there's significantly more to it than that."

Over our clothing washing lifetimes, he includes, we get a great deal of negative behavior patterns like overdosing with cleanser, overstuffing machines, overlooking stains, and not setting aside the opportunity to adequately isolate textures. That not just prompts heaps of grimy garments, it additionally squanders cleanser and can require additional wash or flush cycles, which squander water, vitality, and cash.

1. Splash STAINS IMMEDIATELY

"When you get a stain on something, you need to manage it promptly," says Green. "In the event that you let it dry, it's lasting. That is something many people don't understand." When spills happen, Green prescribes leaving the dirty piece of attire in a container brimming with water with a little cleanser added until the point when you have sufficient energy to treat the stain. In his book, he records a hundred diverse approaches to treat different stains. Our cash sparing master Jean Nick likewise has a couple of tips for dealing with regular summer stains like grass and berry juice. The key, Green says, is to give the thing a chance to drench and after that treat the stain, not the a different way. (Here's the means by which to make a DIY recolor remover with just 3 fixings.)

2. Figure out HOW TO SORT

You pondered whites, darks, and delicates, yet your garments will end up much cleaner in the event that you isolate them by shading, as well as by texture sort and water temperature. Green prescribes you make five separate heaps for hues: whites (completely white), light hues that incorporate striped whites, darks (blacks, blues, and tans), brights (reds, yellows, and oranges), and delicates. At that point, to keep build up from spreading, isolate linty textures like towels, woolen clothes, and sweatshirts from corduroys, lasting press, and other smooth textures that can pill.

3. Try not to OVERSTUFF

You need to wash full loads just so you save money on water utilize and vitality utilization, however you would prefer not to fill your machine so much that your garments can't get spotless. High-effectiveness front loaders can hold up to 20 pounds of garments, yet top loaders maximize at around 16. In the event that you aren't measuring your clothing, Green notes that you should fill your washer around 75% of the route to the highest point of the drum.

4. Include SOAP, THEN STUFF

Before you include your garments, include your cleanser, enabling it to disintegrate in the water completely before including your garments. Your cleanser will work all the more adequately and, in case you're utilizing powdered clothing cleanser, there's to a lesser extent a possibility for fine deposit on your most loved dark pants.

5. Stamp YOUR MEASURING CUP

Purchaser Reports has found in its tests that fluid cleanser tops are regularly difficult to peruse, prompting overdosing of cleansers, which itself can leave cleanser deposits that influence your garments to look soiled. They recommend denoting the fill line with an indelible marker so it's anything but difficult to see. Also, with regards to genuine sums, take after your machine maker's suggestions, not the cleanser manufacturer's. "The maker needs you to use however much cleanser as could be expected," he says, yet they don't realize what sort of clothes washer you have. Likewise, the delicate quality or hardness of your water influences how much cleanser you have to utilize. Delicate water more often than not requires less cleanser, Green says, while hard water for the most part requires everything. On the off chance that you have hard water, Green additionally recommends including a water conditioner, for example, heating pop, to enable your cleanser to disintegrate. Begin with equivalent amounts of cleanser and heating pop, and afterward explore from that point.

6. Include BOOSTERS

Green is a major enthusiast of washing pop and borax, which he says support the execution of cleanser; they go about as the two whiteners and water conditioners, and borax is additionally a deodorizer. You can include them independently or together—about a half-glass each per stack. "Simply ensure they're fine," he says. Both can cluster, and soon thereafter they don't break up well. (Heating pop and borax are two of the 10 items you have to make the greater part of your own cleaning supplies.)

7. Decide on COLD WATER

As indicated by the Department of Energy, 90 percent of the vitality utilized for washing garments in an ordinary best loader is utilized to warm the water. What's more, Green includes, "warm water influences hues to drain." (Another approach to spare vitality? Wash less regularly. Here's precisely how frequently you should wash your garments, as indicated by a stink researcher.)

8. CLEAN YOUR MACHINE

In case you're an endless cleanser overdoser, you'll need to wipe out your machine. "An excessive amount of cleanser prompts cleanser rubbish in your funnels and tubes," Green says. He proposes running an unfilled machine with no clothing, including a measure of white vinegar to enable evacuate to cleanser buildups. On the off chance that the squandered water and vitality influence you to flinch, run an ordinary heap of garments and add the vinegar to that. "You're freshening up your garments while at the same time clearing out your washer," he says. On the off chance that you don't routinely add white vinegar to your wash loads, run a vacant load about once per month in the event that you do huge amounts of clothing, or once like clockwork in case you're not a successive launderer.

9.VACUUM YOUR DRYER

You might be upright about wiping out your dryer's build up channel each time you dry, yet build up can develop in your dryer's hose and in the funnels hurrying to the dryer's outer vent, expanding your dryer's vitality use by up to 30 percent, making a fire danger, and keeping damp air from venting outside, which can cause mold issues. At regular intervals or something like that (contingent upon the amount you utilize your dryer), vacuum out the build up channel with your vacuum's hose connection; confine the dryer hose and vacuum build up from the back of the machine and from the funnels where the hose appends to the divider; and make a beeline for clear any linty obstacles from your dryer's outer vent.

[juanitacuttinger]

Buy it on Amazon - http://ift.tt/2nkfAc8 - Baby Teething Toys - BPA Free Natural Organic Freezer Safe Teether Set for 3 to 12 Months Babies, Infants, Toddlers by Ashtonbee (5 Pack) Review -- Click the link to buy now or to read the 42 4 & 5 Star Reviews.Subscribe to our Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClpdoPPoMWAIx3OvnyqJdgA?sub_confirmation=1 Like us on Facebook for videos, pictures, coupons, prizes and more - http://ift.tt/2wCDdi2 Baby Teething Toys - BPA Free Natural Organic Freezer Safe Teether Set for 3 to 12 Months Babies, Infants, Toddlers by Ashtonbee (5 Pack) Review Great product! Just mising a ring or something to hold them together ... Reviewer : Amazon Customer I like the softness of them and the different shapes but everything ( dirt, hair...) sticks to them very easily so a case for them would be good, but not a plastic one which is usually what they are. So we are using the grooming kit bag for baby tethers... ... Reviewer : WS Click http://ift.tt/2nkfAc8 to buy now on Amazon or to read more reviews. PERFECT FIT FOR BABY -- Our teether toys are designed for optimum comfort and safety. They fit snugly in your baby's mouth, but are just the right size to not pose a choking hazard. The handles are also designed, so they are easily gripped. FREE OF HARMFUL CHEMICALS -- Since these products come into direct contact with your baby's mouth, we made sure that they are made with only non-toxic, BPA-free, and FDA-approved materials that ensure your child's safety, and eliminates the possibility of being exposed to any hazardous chemicals found in low-quality teethers. SOFT TEXTURES, VARYING DESIGNS -- Our baby-teethers come in different designs and unique textures. They are meant to massage your child's gums in order to relieve soreness and alleviate discomfort, all while still being able to put a smile on your baby's face as it comes in fun, bright, and lively colors. COVERED BY OUR INDUSTRY LEADING 100% LIFETIME WARRANTY -- We here at Ashtonbee value you and your baby's comfort and convenience, so we want to assure you that you're in good hands. Your business with us comes with our no-risk, no-questions asked Money-Back Guarantee, and Top-Rated Customer Service Perfect for little hands and drooly mouths. My 4-month old loves the grapes, the 3-pronged loop thing, and the watermelon because of the great baby-sized handles. The other two he tosses away immediately. The grapes are by far his favorite. The only downside is that because of the grapes texture they pick up lint easily. When he drops the grapes onto his playmat we have to wipe them off (or just get over the fact that he's chewing on linty grapes - we're new parents so we're not there yet). ... Reviewer : Lauren B. Click http://ift.tt/2nkfAc8 to buy now on Amazon or to read more reviews. ***Let Us Know What You Think… Comment Below!!*** Watch my other review Videos – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClpdoPPoMWAIx3OvnyqJdgA Subscribe to our Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClpdoPPoMWAIx3OvnyqJdgA?sub_confirmation=1 Like us on Facebook for videos, pictures, coupons, prizes and more - http://ift.tt/2wCDdi2 #Ashtonbee, #Baby Teething Toys - BPA Free Natural Organic Freezer Safe Teether Set for 3 to 12 Months Babies, Infants, Toddlers by Ashtonbee (5 Pack) This is a review video for : B017OC6WZ8 Manufacture : Ashtonbee Related Videos in Channel

[andersonshirlerey]

Buy it on Amazon - http://ift.tt/2nkfAc8 - Buy Baby Teething Toys - BPA Free Natural Organic Freezer Safe Teether Set for 3 to 12 Months Babies, Infants, Toddlers by Ashtonbee (5 Pack) -- Click the link to buy now or to read the 42 4 & 5 Star Reviews.Subscribe to our Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJR66dwUZbcc8jTLHy2natQ?sub_confirmation=1 Like us on Facebook for videos, pictures, coupons, prizes and more - http://ift.tt/2wCDdi2 Buy Baby Teething Toys - BPA Free Natural Organic Freezer Safe Teether Set for 3 to 12 Months Babies, Infants, Toddlers by Ashtonbee (5 Pack) Great product! Just mising a ring or something to hold them together ... Reviewer : Amazon Customer I like the softness of them and the different shapes but everything ( dirt, hair...) sticks to them very easily so a case for them would be good, but not a plastic one which is usually what they are. So we are using the grooming kit bag for baby tethers... ... Reviewer : WS Click http://ift.tt/2nkfAc8 to buy now on Amazon or to read more reviews. PERFECT FIT FOR BABY -- Our teether toys are designed for optimum comfort and safety. They fit snugly in your baby's mouth, but are just the right size to not pose a choking hazard. The handles are also designed, so they are easily gripped. FREE OF HARMFUL CHEMICALS -- Since these products come into direct contact with your baby's mouth, we made sure that they are made with only non-toxic, BPA-free, and FDA-approved materials that ensure your child's safety, and eliminates the possibility of being exposed to any hazardous chemicals found in low-quality teethers. SOFT TEXTURES, VARYING DESIGNS -- Our baby-teethers come in different designs and unique textures. They are meant to massage your child's gums in order to relieve soreness and alleviate discomfort, all while still being able to put a smile on your baby's face as it comes in fun, bright, and lively colors. COVERED BY OUR INDUSTRY LEADING 100% LIFETIME WARRANTY -- We here at Ashtonbee value you and your baby's comfort and convenience, so we want to assure you that you're in good hands. Your business with us comes with our no-risk, no-questions asked Money-Back Guarantee, and Top-Rated Customer Service Perfect for little hands and drooly mouths. My 4-month old loves the grapes, the 3-pronged loop thing, and the watermelon because of the great baby-sized handles. The other two he tosses away immediately. The grapes are by far his favorite. The only downside is that because of the grapes texture they pick up lint easily. When he drops the grapes onto his playmat we have to wipe them off (or just get over the fact that he's chewing on linty grapes - we're new parents so we're not there yet). ... Reviewer : Lauren B. Click http://ift.tt/2nkfAc8 to buy now on Amazon or to read more reviews. ***Let Us Know What You Think… Comment Below!!*** Watch my other review Videos – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJR66dwUZbcc8jTLHy2natQ Subscribe to our Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJR66dwUZbcc8jTLHy2natQ?sub_confirmation=1 Like us on Facebook for videos, pictures, coupons, prizes and more - http://ift.tt/2wCDdi2 #Ashtonbee, #Baby Teething Toys - BPA Free Natural Organic Freezer Safe Teether Set for 3 to 12 Months Babies, Infants, Toddlers by Ashtonbee (5 Pack) This is a review video for : B017OC6WZ8 Manufacture : Ashtonbee Related Videos in Channel

[fractalfractures]

A little over three weeks ago, I left to spend the holidays with my family in the US. I’d had a weekend and a couple of days of vacation before the trip and had spent a lot of that time cleaning and working on things around the house -- getting the table cleared off, reorganizing the appliances on the kitchen counter to make better use of the space, wiping it spotless, hanging things up (or trying to, until all of the adhesive hooks fell down; you can’t use nails on tiled concrete walls), etc. I left a list of things around the house that he could work on if there was time but there were only two things that I really wanted:

- water the plants so they don’t die before I get back

- clean up after yourself so things are in a similar condition to how I left them, INCLUDING WASHING THE DISHES. He refuses to ever wash dishes barring exceptional circumstances, and after almost two years of being the sole person responsible for all the dishes (and the counters and the table and the floors) I was starting to really burn out on it. This was to be a vacation from washing the dishes.

So I went to my mom’s house, and it wasn’t the kind of vacation that you spend doing fun things. After a couple of days of settling in and unwrapping all the packages that had arrived for me and going shopping and testing out my new ereader, it was full time prepping for other guests and for my sister’s wedding, with a half-day break to celebrate Christmas on the 26th (there was too much work to do the 25th, and my mom couldn’t afford groceries to cook a nice evening meal for everyone invited, so brunch the next day it was). After the wedding things were much more relaxed but between spending time with family, sorting through the stuff my mom had wanted me to (meaning hours spent scanning photos), last-minute shopping, and becoming super-depressed and constantly tired, and getting asked to start packing days early, I didn’t end up getting to go out and do anything social. Like, immediately after the wedding I was focused on things I had to do at home and suddenly I had literally two evenings left that I could go out, and couldn’t find anything to do in such a short time frame.

My mom apologized a lot for how much of a mess the house was in and while that was something that had bothered me a lot in the past, all I could think about was how little I cared after having to work so hard to make myself ignore all the things that bothered me in my own house, and how incredibly nice it was to not be the person responsible for dealing with it. For a large part of my stay I had a bed, a long shelf between it and the wall, and a corner where I stacked all my suitcases to leave the rest of the floor space for the other person sleeping in the room, and that was basically my entire footprint. And there was always something edible in the kitchen even if just peanuts, bread and goat milk, and even though I never ended up having time to cook I could usually mooch off of someone else who did, and often when I left dishes in or near the sink to wash later they’d just disappear! like magic! SO NICE AND RELAXING.

Conversations with my husband went a long these lines: we both complained about how much we missed each other, but he told me to not worry about how he was doing without me and ordered me to forget about him, go out, meet sexy people, and enjoy myself. He seems to think that satisfying my need for relationships is as simple as driving downtown, walking into a club, and hooking up with a stranger or something. And he talked about the friends who’d come to visit him, and showed me a picture of a mountain of dishes and joked about how I’d have to clean them all for them, and when I told him that he’d better not have a single dirty dish when I get home or I’d cry, joke-complained about his evil wife making him wash dishes. Other times he complained about having to spend his free time doing loads and loads of laundry, and how dirty his friends had made things and how he’d spilled a soft drink on the bed. And more mutual I miss yous. And me complaining about the suitcase full of ridiculous things he’d let his friends order for me to bring back without asking or even warning me about them. (Packing was a nightmare and required taking advantage of both my grandparents’ full luggage allowance as well as my own. Cause he also bought himself things like a bass guitar and two shinai and really heavy motorcycle parts. Two of the suitcases wound up technically overweight but thankfully the airline let it slide.) And me asking if there’d be food to eat when I got home hungry and him saying no, he had ice cream and some plums but all the fruit and vegetables were gone and he hadn’t had time to buy more.

So anyway, I got home last Wednesday and conversation on the way home included exchanges along the lines of: “I can’t believe you let your friends order so much stuff! Do you know what we had to do to bring the bass guitar?” “The bass guitar was for me.” “...” “And come on, it wasn’t that much stuff.” “Next time we should set a limit of one item per person.” “Don’t be like that! And stop making me feel bad about making Grandma have to push so many suitcases.” (She’d had the less loaded of the two baggage carts.) “How come all you do is complain and criticize? You just got here and the first thing you do is complain.” He also told me that, sadly, the house was a mess because he hadn’t had time to clean things since he’d been working overtime and also doing chores like paying half of the property tax since he didn’t have enough money for all of it. Also, he’d washed SO MUCH laundry for me, like 12 loads! I was confused, because I had done all my own laundry before leaving, and he told me he washed the stuff I’d taken out of the suitcases to use them -- which had been clean and in storage -- because it stank.

So here’s the heart of my post: the situation when I got home was this:

- the plants all looked really sad, even the cranberry hibiscus that I’d never had trouble with. He said it was because with the crazy rainy weather that we’d been having when it’s supposed to be dry, they’d gotten too much water. He’d watered them that very day AND it had rained.

- the living room table and furniture were cluttered with stuff even before we opened the suitcases. He then proceeded to take out stuff and finish covering the table in junk.

- the kitchen sink had dirty dishes stacked next to it, including like 8 cups.

- the kitchen counter had a bunch of random stuff scattered on it, including condiments like barbecue sauce that I guess he had time to go buy.

- Yes, he had covered over the back patio like I didn’t want him to (it needs more airflow, not less, and our bedroom’s only window opens onto it so this is kind of important). I didn’t go out to see what else he had changed because I figured it’d only upset me more. At least there wasn’t any more surprise remodeling (which tends to go like this: I get home from work on Saturday exhausted and he’s proud of how he’s spent the whole day working, and the floor is filthy and surprise! Now the shower isn’t working anymore because the changes being made to it were only done halfway).

- the bed was unmade, and linens were in a pile on the floor with the attached apartment’s mixed in. I was like “What are the renter’s sheets doing here?” and he was like “Oh, are those hers?” because I guess he can’t tell the difference between stretchy twin sheets and the smooth double sheets in a different color that we’ve been sleeping on for the last year, and yeah, he’d washed hers along with ours for whatever reason. She came last weekend, and he’d done a great job showing her around and taking her shopping and stuff as well as I guess doing laundry for her but somehow there “wasn’t time” for him to take the money she had ready for us and hand her a receipt. This after a previous renter we let stay here without paying even half of his first payment never gave us the rest like he’d promised and trashed the place so bad it reeked of rotting dead duck for a month afterward.

I had to argue hard to get him to wait to fuck until there was a fitted sheet on the bed. Then he dragged it out for AGES even though I was exhausted and limp a little ways in. And then it’s freaking 1 AM and I need to shower, eat (haven’t had a meal since breakfast), and go to bed as quickly as possible and the bed doesn’t even have sheets and pillowcases yet.

- I went to take a shower and found out that the reason showers at my mom’s house had felt so strangely refreshing is that ours is terrible. You have to crane your body at an unnatural angle to keep from hitting the door while you’re under the water, there’s hardly any pressure, it doesn’t get very warm even on the hottest setting (a new development), the floor was dirty with weird linty stuff and the drain cover had at some point been clogged with slime/hair, and instead of wiping it off he’d put it aside where it had dried and gotten super hard. And the bathroom mat was brown with dirt, and the storage bin on the back of the toilet was filthy, and as usual the toilet bowl smelled so terrible it made me want to gag.

- And yay, he’d cooked some fake meat for me! Except ... there’s absolutely no space on the table to put my tiny plate (which is ugly, ridiculously heavy stoneware that he bought without asking me even though we already had much more practical plates in that size) nor desks or any other kind of surface except the kitchen counter. I ask about the one chair we own that’s tall enough to use there and it’s outside somewhere, because according to him that’s where it belongs. So I hunt around to find a chair not covered with stuff. Then I get the meat from the microwave, where I’d had it heat for probably too long, and instead of burning hot it’s still cold, because stoneware. Also my fingers are sticky and there’s no napkins anywhere in the house and I ask where the kitchen rag is and he tells me there are no rags except the dirty cleaning rags outside. And after I finish I’m still hungry, so I look in the fridge again and oh boy, lentils covered with mold! Which makes me not trust any other leftovers, although on reflection those are probably the ones that were already getting old before I left.

- And then after helping him make the bed, I still had to finish unpacking necessities (pills, sleeping mask, etc) so I could finally sleep.

- And then I lay awake listening to my husband unpack things because his friends could not possible wait ONE DAY for us to finish sorting through our 5 suitcases to collect all the stuff I’d brought for them.

The next day, after I was done crying and biting myself ...

- I found more moldy/rotten food in the fridge.

- In the middle of the day I checked the plant bed, and found that it was bone dry for the first couple of inches. Which means loose dust, since I’d weeded just before I left.

- The missing chair was in the back patio, left where the leaks my husband had complained about the previous night were dripping directly on the unfinished wood.

- The exercise bike that had been in the living room was also there under a leak. I scooted it over, but there still remains the problem that since it’s out back in an enclosed patio with a transparent roof, I can basically only use it now when it’s raining unless I want to be super masochistic and also get sunburned.

- The clothing I had removed from suitcases was in the bag where I had left it, looking suspiciously like he hadn’t touched it. The big pile of unfolded washed stuff included these things of mine: two shirts, a nightshirt, a pair of capris, one pair of underwear, a bra, some socks. The clothes I used the day/night before leaving. I don’t even know how to bring this one up without sounding like I’m either belittling his intelligence or accusing him of lying.

- The lone almost-finished roll of toilet paper in the bathroom wasn’t the only one we had left. We still had most of a giant bag, he just hadn’t bothered to bring more into the bathroom even though we usually keep like 20 rolls stacked under the sink. The shower didn’t have enough shampoo to wash my hair, and the body wash was basically out as well.

-After getting the kitchen and bathroom usable, I headed toward the corner of the bookshelf that I use as a standing desk for my computer. On the way, I noticed there was zero space on the bookshelf for the handful of my books I’d brought back.

- I expected to find my desk covered with a thick layer of dust but he was also using it to store the drone he got somewhere, and the set of foam pieces I stand on had completely disappeared from the house. I brought some in from outside this morning, to use while I write this post, and they were wet underneath and smelled bad.

- Husband wasn’t available to make a supermarket run in the evening, after I discovered the missing shampoo, because soon after he got home the friend he’d invited over to fix a computer for arrived, and they spent the entire evening together. I was in bed before they finished. After I moved the huge pile of clothes, since that’s where he decided to put it so the guest room was presentable.

Just ... when you invite a friend to stay at your house, there are basic things you do for them. At minimum, you make sure they can shower, eat/drink, and sleep. The other thing I absolutely need for daily life is a place to use my computer. And fucking none of this was available for me, and any mention of that gets “Relax! Take it easy! Stop stressing!” instead of an apology.

Anyway, this isn’t just something I can vent about and everything’s fine. This is the kind of hurt and anger that need to be dealt with. I know you can’t let it fester in relationships you care about, but how the fuck do I express it? I already have the problem that half the time I ask him to do anything around the house, I can’t say it without sounding accusatory and like criticism, completely breaking the rule that you should always compliment your partner several times as much as you criticize them. I mean, he’s already upset with me for being so negative and critical since coming home.

I can think of I-statements, of course, but I’m pretty sure his reply would boil down to, “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I can’t do anything about it. You should go to therapy to deal with your pathological obsession with having everything clean all the time.”