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[fawnsflowerbed]

♡ It's The Most Wonderful Time-out! ♡

A/N: is this late? 100% but it's time for some CHRISTMAS HYBRID TIMEEEEE!!! A HUGE thank you for the patience from my amazing sunshine anon for this commission <3 Personally I think the title is hilarious, do- do you get it- the most wonderful time of the year- plz laugh-

Warnings/content: 2nd person (you/yours), fem pup hybrid reader, puppy's first Christmas! Grumpy ol' man Vendetta Leon, Leon is referred to as daddy! Reader in time-out, visiting the hybrid park, angst and fluff, mentions and descriptions of gore, all gets resolved in the end!

Word count: 7,430 approx.

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December 23rd

Time out. Oof, those words. They were enough to take the swing right out of your tail. 

This definitely wasn’t your fault. On the scale of 1-10 you’re like, a -5 when it comes to being in trouble. Totally. It wasn’t your fault it had rained, or your fault you wanted to jump in the the new layer of snow and got all wet and muddy, the only part that might have potentially, potentially been on you was tracking said mud and sleet through the living room. The living room rug to be exact. The rather expensive, difficult to clean because daddy sometimes ‘truly can’t be fu- bothered’ rug. That was the one rule; he could deal with mess on the floorboards, the tiles, but not the carpet. The stains were just too hard to get out.

Leon could handle dirt and grime absolutely, he’d take it over guts and gore any day of the week, public holidays and Christmas included. But coming home from work after a long day, hands stinking of gunpowder and grease, only to find muddy streaks and pawprints all over the rug was his last straw. The coffee machine in the office had been broken, his magazine clip had taken three different attempts to click into place despite the million times he’d done it before, and the armoury’s practice range had been down for maintenance. This was just the gasoline flavoured icing on his flambe flaming shit excuse for cake. 

Woosh. Fire. 

So, there you were. Plopped back into your pen, favourite squeaky toy just out of reach sat beside Leon’s chair as he scrolled through whatever’s on his phone. Teddy was right there, all worn out fluff and stringy neck ribbon, you were being taunted! This was torture, punishment of 

the worst degree. The only thing that would make it even more awful was going to bed without a kiss goodnight. But even Leon wasn’t that cruel.

Don’t get it twisted, he was feeling guilty about this too. The face you made when he walked through the door told him plenty. Big, round eyes, head bowed and tail anxiously thumping. You knew you’d gotten carried away. But you also knew better. And it’d been so long since he actually disciplined you. This was long overdue, half chewed toys left sopping wet in the bath after tub time, weeks of chased squirrels and rabbits, staying up way past your set bedtime. This was what really sealed the deal though. So, you do the time, you do the crime.

Even now he could feel your eyes boring into the back of his head, like two teary, glossy lasers set to melt his old hardened heart. Every half-hearted thump of your fluffy tail, every scuttle of your nails against the floorboards as you got comfortable, every tiny whimper you seemed hesitant to let out. Not to mention your poor attempts at being ‘completely and totally cool’ with your timeout since he often caught you staring up at him through the bars, eyes following each swipe of his fingers over his phone screen. And when he craned his neck to check on you, you were swiftly looking in the opposite direction, swearing you weren’t just tracking each of his movements. How couldn’t you though? You were obsessed with your owner, Leon was your daddy at the end of the day no matter how many play pens or crates he had to put you in so you’d behave.

 His poor princess. You were killing him, really. He’d survived well over 15 years of bioterrorism just to die at the hands of his pup-hybrid’s big wet pathetic gaze. Could flood a village with the amount of tears you shed a week, but he loves you and that tender heart of yours.

The real question was how much longer could either of you take? Leon knew it was a ‘you do the crime, you do the time’ type of deal, but was this truly teaching you anything other than how to master your pouty bottom lip? You’re his favourite fluffball, fuzzed up and huffy, chuffing and rolling over onto your back like you’re ready to play dead if it gets you out. 

And honestly? He was caving. He was only a man after all.

You’d softened him, even if he didn’t want to admit it. Three years ago he’d have scoffed at the thought of even owning a hybrid, let alone being this attached. But now you were glued to his side. Now he just felt like an old man, worn and tired, your sunshiney attitude and warmth had thawed through him like no heater had. He’d been frostbitten before meeting you, whether he’d known it or not.

He couldn’t bear it. Yeah, time was up.

So his heavy footsteps muffled through socks padded across the floorboards to you, although you tried to act like you didn’t care (and failed miserably). It was pretty obvious how much this mattered to you, because your tail was whipping something fierce, so hard it had your hips wiggling. 

“C’mon, darlin’. Think you’ve learnt your lesson.”

Those big eyes pierced his very being and soul as you gazed up at him from behind your lashes, ears all floppy and face streaked with past tear tracks. God, you’d been crying over this too? Might as well just rip his heart from his chest and stomp on it. 

Even as he turned around and sat back down on the couch, looking over to you expectantly, you seemed to hesitate at first. Glancing at the spot where the rug had once sat in the centre of the living room, right in front of the coffee table, with guilty furrowed brows. Then it was back to looking at Leon, back to melting him with those heartbreaking watery eyes.

“Oh, my sweet puppy.” He couldn’t help but croon as you made guilty little steps over to him, every tap of your feet filled with shame, tail swaying with embarrassment. You were a walking heap of emotions, and he was ready to scoop you up and put you back together. “Here she comes, there we go. Tough day for our girl.”

You’d missed it, oh how you’d missed it. At your heart you truly were just a puppy, in need of the loving praise and sweet words that only he could provide. You weren’t the mushiest pup in the litter, but there was nothing like a good hug from your daddy. That much was clear from the way you melted into Leon’s body as soon as you were sat in his lap, your tail thumping delightfully against his knees while you burrowed into him. Paws kneading his shirt so you nestled into him just right.

“I know it was rough, honey. M’ sorry. But sometimes daddy has to discipline you, y’know?” the thick pad of his thumb encased your chin just enough to tilt your gaze upwards, his hand sliding over the curve of your face so he could wipe your tears away. “And it hurt, didn’t it?” “Yeah..” “So next time you think about stepping on the rug with muddy feet, you’ll remember how much we both hated this, and you won’t do it, isn’t that right?” “,,Yeah.”

“That’s right, baby. My poor girl.” That last statement came out as a small sigh, rubbing the soft fuzz of your floppy ears tenderly between his fingers. Even now as he gave you a talking down your tail never stopped thumping against his leg. 

No matter what, you loved him. That must’ve been why they called it puppy love. And it made his heart ache something fierce. You were too good.

Leon felt like the worst daddy in the world sometimes, he wasn’t gonna even try to lie about that. Sometimes he scratched behind your ears too hard, or you didn’t understand one of his jokes and ended up getting pouty and upset, sometimes he didn’t throw the ball right or pick out the right snacks. But all of that was nothing compared to the biggest issue.

His intoxicated escapades were at the very top of that list. 

Raids of the fridge and mumbling to himself, slumping his jacket off only to pass out on the edge of his bed. Leon knew you didn’t like when he got drunk, it was probably what hurt him the most about all of it. Not the gunshots echoing through his skull when his shot glass hit the table, or the recoil of a pistol wracking his shoulder when he ran into a wall too hard. 

No, it was the look on your face.

How you seemed to curl yourself back into your pen, watching with a lowered head and a hesitant gaze, tail somewhat tucked. The foggy memory of the face you pulled when he was too rough petting you or spoke too loud while sloshed. That’s what ached, what truly stung like a bitch. 

He was supposed to be the one protecting you, caring for you, and because of his own problems now you’d seen a side of him he never wanted you to. He’d made your hands awaken to the crack of eggshells beneath them when you stepped towards him, you were familiar with the shell’s powdering like that of bullet sulfur, and inner yolk gold as the streaks in his hair back then. Knew of the blood that sometimes hung in the middle of it all, and in the worst scenario the curling of bones left over. 

But still at the end of the night, drifting between a muddled haze of asleep and awake, he’d hear you make your way slowly towards his bed, the mattress dipping when you climbed up and curled up at the bottom of the duvet. Because, despite it all, you wanted to be close to him.

 Because, despite it all, he was your person. So he dumped what he could of the remaining bottles, stashed a few shitty cans for safe keeping in case things got too hard, and stopped being a regular at Jerry’s bar. 

He was doing it for you, maybe only for you.

Now he had you sat in his lap, buried in his shoulder and curling in as small as possible. Trying to become one with the skin of his arms and fabric of his shirt. You wanted to crawl up under his jacket and be carried as one with Leon, you’d do it if you could. 

He had to do something.

“What am I gonna do with you, huh?” Oh, that voice. Despite the icy weather outside, despite the cold that hung in his chest from time to time, his tone always tried to be warm with you. Soft. like those mutts learning to gentle their snarls and unclench their teeth, to stop growling. He was so used to the sneering, the sarcasm, snapping when someone got too close or said the wrong thing to him. But you were so fluffy, so fuzzy to the world, so unaware and loving. So he had to wear a muzzle, and he learned how to adjust.

Why? Because he couldn’t be a violent dog if he had his very own puppy. “I dunno..”

A lopsided smile spread across his cheeks at the look on your face, chin tilted and tail squirming as you look to him. There’s still the matter of that guilt still hanging in your face, stray strands like an unruly mop of hair.

“I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna squeeze ya.” While you were still processing Leon’s comforting words and the lull of his voice, he was quick to gather you in his arms and press you tight to his chest. Immediately you were bathed in the scent of his shirt, the natural smell and comfort of his body. A warm blanket of safety had been draped over your blankets in the form of his presence. He squeezed your body nice and close until you squeaked out a yapped laugh, the fluff of your ear squished against his stubbled cheek.

“Oooo, good squeeze. Get all those nasty feelings outta you.”

“Daddyyyy, you’re smooshing me!” These were the moments he really cherished, ones where your tail swung and you squirmed in his arms with that smile of yours.

“Awww, well that’s how you know that it’s a real good squeeze,” His voice waved every time he swayed you slightly from side to side, bringing bubbly giggles from your throat that drifted up into the air and popped right at his heart. “It’s like juicin’ an orange, gotta shake and twist you till you’re all better.” “I don’t wanna be juice!” You howled out playfully, throwing your head back like the dramatic little thing that you were.

“Oh you don’t huh? Then you gotta keep smiling for me baby, it's just that simple.” He pushed his cheek up against your own. God, how he loved that smile, the sound of your tail thumping across the fluff of the sleek couch. There you sat, cute as a button, curled up atop his legs and snuggled in close like the sweetest, softest stuffed animal. “Tell you what, we get you one last snack, and then we’ll tuck you in, and tomorrow we’ll go into town. Catch everything before it all closes up.” 

You were already half asleep in his arms by the time he’d finished talking.

December 24th

Planning the day out was the easy part, executing it was hard. Not only because Christmas was right around the corner which came with its own chaos, but because you were- well, you. Overly loving, over committed, overly loyal and lovely you. Leon swore you must’ve been the cutest looking leech or tick in a past life.

You insisted on putting together an outfit that yes consisted of your favourite bows and daddy’s most comfiest shirt that smelled like him. But even his ‘I’ve worn the same blue shirt for 3 years’ ass could tell when things didn’t coordinate together. So he did the gentlemanly and not-wanting-you-to-look-like-a-disaster-oustide-ly thing and helped you into some cute fleecy stockings, complete with a soft sweater and your favourite skirt. Gloves of some sort were a must, you had a thing for pawing at whatever you could get your hands on no matter how cold it was, and you were in your fuzziest boots. Adorable. Like a Christmasy puffball, a fluffy ornament. All you needed was a pair of angel wings and a halo and you’d be ready for the top of the tree. 

“Look at her, look at that posture and stance. Look at that trot. That’s a well trained leash dog right there.” A smirk tugged at Leon’s lips as he watched you pad in step with him, the lacy trim of your skirt swaying whenever your foot met the sidewalk. This was the very same puppy who sat staring at him from her crate with the most pitiful eyes yesterday, rolling over onto your back like you might die from lack of attention. And now you were practically skipping, a bounce to your tail with every step.

You were lucky enough to live in a small enough part of the city. Not too urban, but definitely not rural. An outskirt area that was a nice walk away from the nearest hybrid park, long enough to get you warmed up for the real fun. And even after Leon had you off the leash you were staying in step with him, glued to his side with the sweetest smile on your face. In fact it took a little coaxing and the presence of some other pups for you to finally run around.

Leon knew you could be sociable when you truly wanted to be, but even for such a smiley little thing sometimes you simply preferred his company to anyone else’s. You could be skittish, a bit shy, and it truly threw him off guard when that part of you poked its head out from behind the warm rays of sunlight that radiated from your very being. It was adorable, really. Watching you curl into his leg with a slightly swishing tail of fluff, giving a small wave only to burrow into him. But today you were doing well, today you chose to shake out your jitters. And yes, he wouldn’t admit it, but he was proud of you.

No matter how many times Leon brought you out here, letting you experience the wonders of a normal domestic life, it never stopped being nothing short of magical to watch you shine. You had this magnetic aura that always seemed to follow you around, people were drawn to you and that sunbeam that clung to the smile on your face. The warmth that you spread to those around you. 

You truly were his sunshine.

“Leon?”

A voice he hadn’t heard in a few weeks thanks to his time off work caught his attention, and sure enough as he looked over his shoulder there stood Ingrid Hunnigan. Bundled up in a long overcoat with a recyclable cup in her hands, steam wafting from the lid in smooth swirls through the crisp cold air. Already her glasses seemed to be fogging up again, despite so clearly being cleaned only recently. Yeah, he didn’t realise how lucky he was to have decent vision despite all the bullshit he’d been through. Glasses on top of the trauma and broken bones might’ve done him in.

“Hunnigan? The hell are you doing out here?” It wasn’t defensive or aggressive, moreso confused. Intrigued, interested. It wasn’t often he actually saw her out and about. A little silly in all honesty for him to think that, Ingrid always had some sort of plans around Christmastime. Her holiday decorations, complete with lights and glowing reindeer atop a tiled roof, were nothing to scoff at.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen the snow in person, I figured I’d go for a walk to get a feel for it.” She shrugged, hands tucked into her pockets. 

He was listening, or at least some part of him was. The other part was blurring through his peripheral vision to make out the blob of colour and wagging tail that was you balling up snow as you ducked behind a tree, playing with one of the other hybrids. If you asked anyone in his line of work, they’d say Leon is a hardass. He’s committed to his work and gets his job done, and he’s passionate about what he does whether that’s good for him or not. 

But with you? With you he was just a man. Just your owner, your person. And that was such a relief.

“How’s she doing?” Ingrid asks out of habit. Every woman in the office can’t help but ask Leon about his perfect princess. And of course he laughs, shaking his head.

“Spoiled as ever. Really enjoying my time off with her.” Much needed confirmation, he knows he’d never hear the end of it if he dared tell Hunnigan about the time out incident. Best to keep it lighthearted now. Even as her face seems to.. Falter. What was that about?

“Listen, about the Phillis report..”

And then that lightheartedness was gone. If it weren’t for the icy chill that surrounded him, Leon would’ve gone a new shade of pale in the cool winter light. 

It never used to bother him. It never phased him on the outside. But now? With you?

The Phillis report. A family with a hybrid that had been a target for a bioterrorism attack. 

A hybrid.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw you smiling, the red tips of his ears pricking at your laughter, the soft crunch of snow beneath people’s feet feeling much louder now as they passed. Everyone’s footsteps were unique, every thud and crush that left a print. Evidence. Clues. Cases. Work.

A hybrid like you. Everything was muddling together into the nastiest shade of grey water freezing over into ice. He hated his job. If he could pull the pin on a grenade, jump on top of it and coat the walls of that godforsaken office in his blood and guts he would. Because that’s what they were asking from him. They were asking him to die for them. Jumping from subject to subject, he was playing jump rope and hopscotch with his morals and intrusive thoughts over one simple statement in the middle of the holidays. How the mighty so quickly fell beneath twinkling lights and atop brightly wrapped presents.

The pulse of his heart had managed to spike, thundering fast and heavy in his chest. Eyes half an inch wider, pupils shrunk.

It could’ve been you. It- “Please, don’t. I’m just- I’m trying to not think about all of that. Not with her here.” It came out a bit too rushed, like his body had forced each syllable from his lips to get a point across. A safety measure, a precaution for his well being.

Leon had already spent countless nights tossing and turning over the paranoia of you being caught in his work. Now it had gotten so bad that even the mention of a hybrid being involved in a case made him sick to his stomach.

Because what if that had been you?

His throat almost closed itself off to the world as he got his words out. Ingrid’s face was creased in worry at the state of him. How had one statement so quickly pulled him through a 180? “It’s our first Christmas together, I can’t ruin that. I can’t.” Swallowing felt like choking down gravel but he managed to nonetheless. 

Hunnigan’s gaze softened, because she knew exactly how much it would ruin a perfectly good day if she were to stretch this out. She knew you were bouncing around somewhere without even looking for you amidst the snow and differently shaped animal ears and noses. You were the centre of Leon’s world, even if he didn’t know it. But those around him, those like her and Claire and Rebecca, could see what a difference you’d made. “I get it. Just.. don’t worry about rushing it, okay? It can wait until next year.”

“Yeah.. Yeah, thanks.” Automated. Robotic. Leon felt like he was backseating his own life as he responded, hearing Hunnigan’s shoes click as she prepared to walk back to her apartment complex. The sympathy ebbing from her expression only made him feel more sick, and yes that would’ve made him feel bad if it weren’t for him being on the brink of what was most likely a panic attack.

“Merry Christmas, Leon. Take it easy.” He couldn’t get the words out, settling for a stiff nod. Work. Work, work, work. It followed him everywhere no matter how fucking hard he tried to escape it. Think of something else, he scolded himself through the deafening heartbeat in his ears. Anything else. Think of you.

Padding your way over the snow, he watched on in an attempt to calm himself down as you bounded around the park like a bunny. Maybe a fox, the type that burrowed deep under the flurries of fresh powder with yipping laughter. All he knew was you were enjoying yourself, and that was all that mattered. That was all he focused on as his breathing steadied. With a short, still somewhat breathless whistle, your ears stood on end. Immediately your head thwipped to him, and you were merely a blur of pink and white that came scampering towards him. Yeah, that got a snort. Good. He needed to laugh more.

“There’s my girl.”

And there you were indeed, practically barrelling into his leg so he let out a hoarse ‘oof’ at the impact. Complete with a whispered “Hi daddy,’ that somehow managed to calm his heart in ways no medication or therapy could. Maybe he could start you out on service hybrid training, get you certified. Nah, you were too cuddly for that. Plus the vest would have to be pink or you just might refuse to wear it. So for now, he figured he may as well treat you.

“How about some hot cocoa, hm? You were a good girl after all, took your punishment like a champ.” Lie. Big, fat lie. If the ladies at the office ever caught word of how Leon had put you in timeout he’d be getting the most gruelling of death glares. His grave would be trampled on as they sprinted their way over to comfort you. He couldn’t really blame them, though, how could you not run someone over to pet someone as precious as you. You, currently sticking your little tongue out to catch the delicate snowflakes floating down from the sky as you approached the cafe. That’s what he had to keep reminding himself of in this moment. He did all of this for you. Trying to drown out the sinking ache in his stomach as if he’d swallowed an anvil, that son of a bitch must’ve been hidden between the bubbles of his saliva, or maybe the frost that dripped from the roof. 

So yeah, he was using you as the most sweet looking distraction right now, watching your wide eyes take in the wood grain and sleek walls of the coffee shop tucked into a corner of the park. On your best behaviour as you both stood in line until you got to the register. The metal tang in the back of his throat definitely had nothing to do with the gut weight still lingering after talking to Ingrid. Nope. Must’ve been the cold.

“Yeah, can we grab one long black and one.. Hm.” For a moment Leon caught himself rethinking his decisions. Was it really the best idea to give you something that had ‘cocoa’ in the name? You guys had yet to test how you’d react to chocolate after all. Taking the time to test and breakdown what food and beverage you could eat or simply didn’t like was a meticulous process, but better safe than sorry. “Wait, that was on our testing list..”

“Daddy?” Sorry puppy, daddy’s too busy having a small crisis over whether or not you can actually drink what he was ordering for you.“Is it- It should be safe for you to have hot cocoa, right?” “Daddy.” This time it was flatter. Unimpressed.

“I mean you haven’t had a bad reaction to anything yet despite being part puppy but, it’s technically chocolate to some degree so-

“Daddy!”

The tugging at his wrist was enough to get his attention back on you, the draw of your big dewy eyes and scrunched nose luring him in like a fish to bait.

“Sorry, sweetheart.” “Turn brain switch off.” 

Sometimes he thought you were pretending to be as curious and innocent as you are, because you so easily sensed when he was anxious or worried. Like an instinct. Sure, he loved you to bits, but you weren’t the brightest bulb in the- light store? Batch? He’d come up with a better analogy later. Either way, the point stood. And yet you always did that little head tilt when something seemed off. That bulb flickering to life.

“Right, puppy. Daddy’s turning the overthinking switch off.” Leon reassured as best as he could. And it seemed to satisfy. “Good daddy.”

He couldn’t help but snort again at that. “Thanks, baby.” Being praised for his minute efforts in managing his thoughts by his very own puppy hybrid. By the time you hit the register he was still smiling despite the storm in his head. “One long black and a hot cocoa, please.” 

But oh, how quickly it faded into thunder clouds. Even as he gave the barista his name for the order and walked over to wait for your drinks, it lurked over him. A sickening thickness in his throat, like tar tobacco and nicotine had clogged his windpipe. He was on auto pilot when he collected the recyclable cups and placed one of them into your eager hands, not recognising his own voice as he warned you about it being hot.

Leon was stuck between reality and dissociation, his feet leading both of you on the path back home that you’d taken enough times to have memorised. And even as you blew on the surface of your cocoa through the spout of the cup’s lid, you could see it in his eyes. That distant look. Deflated, the same as when you chewed on your favourite squeaky toy too hard and it popped.

“Daddy? You’re all droopy.”

Your voice was high and puzzled, all floppy ears and arched brows in confusion. Did he not like the park? You’d had a wonderful time making snow angels and bounding through the white powder like sweet icing sugar atop a winter cake. Maybe daddies just didn’t do parks well, like how you didn’t do the vet too well.

“Sorry, sweetheart. Daddy’s just thinking about things.” It had him staring out so far his eyes hit the end of the sidewalk, through the ice and snow to the cement. One hand held your leash, the other swiping past his lips. Hoping to wipe away the residue of his frown. 

It didn’t work. “But the switch..” Oh, don’t give him that tone. So heartbroken, so worried. It broke him.

“I know, I know the switch honey.” Already he was rubbing over the crease between his brows. This conversation couldn’t happen, not here and not now. “But sometimes- sometimes it’s not that simple, you know? Sometimes the switch doesn’t work.”

You supposed that made sense. Still, you couldn’t help but wonder. And pry, just a smidge. You could be a little pushy and shovey, whether you meant it or not. “Well, whatcha thinking about?”

What wasn’t he thinking about was the real question. It was all blurring together.

He simply shook his head. Made the bangs of his hair sway when he did. “Don’t worry about it, pup. It’s a conversation for another time.”

Well, that didn’t seem right to you. Usually Leon was so open with his feelings towards you, so you couldn’t help but nudge him. This time not with your nose or paw, but with your words. “But..”

And then his voice was lighter, as if he’d dropped the weight he’d been carrying over to one shoulder. Giving the illusion that things were better, that things were normal. But that shoulder still slumped. “Hey, weren’t you telling me something about Jill’s dog Carlos showing up on his own today? What was that about?” 

It still dragged.

At first you were very willing to tell him, the very concept of a hybrid on their own both bewildered, confused and excited you. Carlos was a big shaggy furred fella, he always played fair and shared the good treats Jill handed out.

But you knew this tactic. It was the same as when you’d ask him questions and instead of giving you an answer he’d pick up the nearest squeaky toy and suddenly you were playing fetch instead of talking. This time you were all the wiser.

“You’re trying to distract me! I don’t get it, when people say certain things you go stiff and wonky.” You couldn’t help but frown up at him. It didn’t feel fair, not knowing these things about him. A whole year together and yet sometimes he looked more like a stranger, dodging your questions and petting your ears so you’d move on. But you weren’t expecting him to furrow his eyebrows and sigh low in his chest, the way his forehead creased and nose flared. It was the same look you got before time out, only this one seemed more defensive than the last. 

“Not now, sweetheart. Please.” Leon’s tone was flat, no room for argument no matter how much your wriggled and squeezed your body between the cracks. Your tail’s wag deflated, slowing to nothing more than a slight sway. The snow felt a little colder after that.

December 30th

Christmas had been nothing short of a success in the Kennedy household, with Leon’s living room being covered in scattered wrapping paper and a whole new variety of toys in pastel colours. He was delighted. This may have been one of the few times he actually enjoyed a holiday rather than loathing it. Maybe it was because you were there, so he wasn’t spending it alone like he usually did. The way you’d spun in circles and yapped happily about it being Christmas morning.

It had been your first real Christmas ever. Your first Christmas not spent in a cage, where you got toys and ate warm meals with the man you loved, with Claire and Becca and Chris and Jill coming over for lunch under the fluorescent glow of the Christmas lights you’d insisted Leon put up. You’d sat by the tree unwrapping gifts with the fastest wagging tail Leon had ever seen, ears perked to attention and eyes wide and sparkling. He was glad, honoured really, to witness this moment of pure unbridled joy for you.

The two of you spent most if not all of Boxing Day lazing around the house in your pajamas, cuddling by the fireplace and bundling under blankets for more than a few naps. Lazy days, oh how you both loved them. Soon it was the 26th, then the 27th,so on and so on. 

Now, the christmas paper had been collected, the tree’s decorations were slowly taken down in day by day intervals, and you sat politely by the glass door to the backyard watching the snow. Leon figured if there was ever a time to truly explain to you the truth behind his career, it was likely now. A tough conversation to have, but one that needed to happen. He just couldn’t leave you in the dark like this, not any longer. 

“Hey, sweetheart?” “Hm?”

There it was. That innocent lilt, the curve of your neck as you craned to look at him. You were something too pure to be sitting on the floor of his home. You deserved mattress upon mattress like the princess and the pea, only he wouldn’t be an idiot like the ones in that book. Leon knew better than to leave under the bed unattended in case there were coyotes trying to nip at his sweet girl’s toes and tail.

Softening, that’s what he was doing. Cracking. This wasn’t going to end well and he knew it. “Y’know how daddy doesn’t like to talk about work?”

Uh oh, now you knew it was time for a serious talk. Not like when you dirtied the rug, this time you weren’t in trouble. Still you looked at him so gently, with such trust while that mountain of fluffy fur behind you swished. Because if it was serious, it was important. “Yeah.”

Leon patted the spot on the couch beside him, complete with a pretty pink bone print blanket for you to settle on, to which you trotted yourself over as dainty as could be. Hopping up next to him, a tail curled around your back. Getting yourself cozy under his arm with your head nestled right next to his chest. Listening to the steady thrum of his heart as his pulse picked up. Doing so much, yet so little, and it all comforted him.

 It was starting to sink in. He was telling you. He was opening the casket, dragging the corpse of his past through the dirt to pose for a real, living person. How was he supposed to break this to you? How did you even word his job without saying ‘I might die one day’?

“Well, that’s cause what I do is pretty dangerous, puppy. I don’t want to worry you with all the stuff I have to do.” The violence, the bloodshed, the screaming. Flashes of red that haunted his dreams, the ones you’d nudge at his face over until he’d wake up because you heard him muttering in his sleep.

“Why?” You were so oblivious to his little inner world, the one he made sure to hide from you. The one filled with guilt and shame. He wanted to keep it that way, but what choice did he have? How could he keep you safe if you had no idea what you were being kept safe from? You should be worried about what colour skirt to wear, or if your collar matches your outfit, not this bullshit. 

“Because it’s just better for you to sit and wait for me to get home at the end of the day, baby.” It was better for you to expect him home every day. 

It was better for both of you if you just always thought he was coming home.

 It made his heart break so hard his ribs snapped thinking about you sitting by the big bay window, tail flicking and throat weeping whimpers if he didn’t show up for a few days. Then weeks. Then eventually someone would have to take you in, pack up all your toys. They’d find the list he kept stashed on the top of the fridge just in case; instructing anyone who found you on just how you liked your food and which stories to whisper in your ear at night when the thunder got too loud. 

You’d never go willingly. Someone would have to leash you and tug you out the door to their car. You’d cry. You’d cry so hard your throat would die out hoarse. It would probably be Claire or Chris or Becca picking you up, he’d have to hope. The thought of some stranger from the DSO taking you from his home, your home, the home you shared together, had him swallowing down a lump. He knew you’d never recover from it. It would shatter you, after sitting in a kennel alone for so long and finally crawling out of your shell, just to lose the person you so clearly loved more than anyone else. Fuck, Leon could feel his eyes watering.

But he couldn’t do that to you. He just couldn’t. It would be the cruelest thing in the world for him to abandon you without any choice in the matter. If he were a stronger man he’d have retired by now. But he wasn’t stronger. He had no backbone when it came to his job, the government, the United States as a whole. Some fucking hero. He was more like a lapdog, breaking his neck for a board of people who didn’t give a shit about him. Taking the scraps he was offered.

“Daddy, you’re crying..” Your sad voice pulled him back into reality, where you were now taking those soft hands of yours to wipe away his tears. Wet streaks that lined the creases forming in his scarred over skin. He was getting too old for this. Too old to be bottling up these feelings for days on end. Wearing himself down for the sake of denying what he felt.

“Fuck, sorry sweetheart. It’s just.. It’s my job to keep you safe. But it’s also my job to keep everyone else safe, too. And your daddy’s been through everything, honey. Zombies, parasites, bioterrorism, war, the whole five yards. I’ve had so many people turn their backs on me or- or look to me for help for so long that it drives me crazy to even think of you worrying about me not coming home.”

How long had it been since he’d cried? Really cried? How much more could a man like Leon take? Sure he was strong, he had to be. Built up from broken beginnings on bloodied glass, shitty past relationships and world-ending catastrophes. But he was only human for Christ’s sake.

And maybe he was finally starting to sober up to that realization.

“I always think you’ll come home..”

Of course you did. Of course you, this sweet angel of a puppy girl, looked up at him with those watery eyes filled with confidence in such a statement. As if you loved him so much it almost poured from your lash line in heart shaped droplets. You had such hope despite where he’d adopted you from. Had he done that? It was odd to think about. How someone as shitty as him (in his perspective at least) had gotten you to blossom and bloom into the sweet thing you were today.

“Yeah, why’s that honey?”

“Cause you’re Leon, and Leon is the strongest person I know.”

The weight of your head now resting against his shoulder was like an anchor that stopped Leon from washing out on the beach of his despairs. He wasn’t left to drift off into oblivion, to drown in his sorrows and regrets. He had you. You had him. A hand came out to instinctively pet over the warm fuzz of your floppy ears, and he seeked out the comfort that came with your presence.

It was comforting, the quiet. Not tense or awkward. Like the waves of the ocean sloshing to a slow and serene sway after a tsunami or a tidal wave. To know you saw him as your hero, that you held him in such high regard. It made every grey hair and creased feature feel worth it. Everything he did, he did it for you. And for once it didn’t feel like a pressure, or a burden, it was a responsibility he was glad to shoulder. Like he were your knight in shining armour.

“Why’d you never tell me you went through all that stuff?” Even now as you spoke your voice was low and soft, sweet to his ears like a drizzling of warm honey right to his cochlea. Those homemade remedies for aches and pains.

Even now he found himself chuckling to get through this, an ache in his chest with each exhale. Someone had set a cinderblock on his chest, and you were mustering up all the strength in those little paws to ease it off. “And ruin what we’ve got going on right here? I wasn’t gonna risk that.”

Apparently that was the wrong answer, because now you were perked upright with the slightest of pouts perched atop your lips. Disagreement etched into your features. “S’ not ruined, dummy. It just means I get to say I love you a whole lot more.”

Now it was his turn to snort sincerely. Always so stubborn. Adorable, sweet, but stubborn.“Oh, is that so?”

“Mhm. So when things are yuck it’ll be easier to remember that I love you. Cause I’ll say it as many times as I gotta until you believe it.”

You ruined him, and not in a bad way. You took the world’s smallest pick to the world’s coldest iceberg and chipped back his layers sliver by sliver. Sculpting him back into what he once was before the world dumped cold water onto him and froze over the softness that lay within. 

Leon’s hand stroked aimlessly over the curve of your head, tracing over the edges of your hair gently. Even with the scrapes on his knuckles and bruises on his palms he always made sure to be soft with you. His voice, half cracked and brimming with affection, was quiet as he whispered back. “I love you too, puppy. You’re my best girl.”

Firewood crackled in a low, jagged white noise in the background, smoothing into a quiet simmer that cast a warm orange glow against the walls. Bathing the room in heat, one that you both let wrap around you like a safety blanket. You found haven in each other, because no matter what, you always came back to one another. Leon was your owner, after all. It was his job to ensure you had the best life, with all the comforts you could ask for and then some.

And he planned to do just that. Whether it meant dumping out all the alcohol in his house or not.

“So.. Do I get more presents?” It’s a teeny voice against his shirt that had him tilting his chin down to look at you.

“Well no puppy, the next holiday is New Years Eve. We don’t give presents then, only Christmas.” A pretty straight forward explanation, or at least that’s what it felt like to him.

“Why?” Another chirp.

His brow arched. “Cause Christmas is only once a year, sweetie.”

“Why?” And another. “Okay, we’re not starting this.”

God, just wait until you find out about birthdays. Then he’s done for.

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[mintmatcha]

Inevitable Things : chapter one

aizawa x reader fic

cw: aizawa x reader, cisfem reader, office AU, no quirks. no porn in the first two chapters, sorry gang :)

masterlist | next chapter

Prome Medical Devices hired you as a personal assistant to the CEO, Toshinori Yagi, shortly after he was diagnosed with his second bout of prostate cancer and shortly before they learned it had metastasized to bone. It was a tragic, yet expected turn of events.The man had been sick most of his life, they told you, he's probably slept in hospital beds more times than he's slept in his own. It was, like most things, inevitable.

Over the following weeks, through chemo and taps and rotating hospital doors, he began working from home and handling only the absolute basics, and your silly assistant job evolved into more. You had only planned to stay for a couple months, but then another horrible thing happened.

You became Somehow Important. 

Days went from scrolling on Twitter between writing notes to juggling everything that no one else could handle. Sitting in for meetings, handling calls, scheduling reviews and system checks, running to the pharmacy midday: there's nothing you haven't done. It’s a lot, but in the grand scheme of it all, it's nothing-- especially compared to the things that everyone else gets done here. 

8:35am. The security man gives you a nod without checking for your badge. Engineers skitter around the office like cockroaches. It's always a good sign when no one immediately comes to find you; that means your boss is still alive and doing about the same as he was yesterday. No updates, you’ve found, are good. No one bothers to tell you when good things happen: you’re the fixer, the emergency contact. When you’re being informed of anything, it’s because someone else wants you to clean up the mess.

(The only exception is from the man himself. Toshinori sends you the best kind of updates; mundane things from his life that he needs to share, like pictures of his duck pond or his review of the new coffee shop in town. It’s enough to keep you going, even when the day absolutely blows. You only had a few months working directly with the man, but he was fond of you-- and everyone was fond of him.)

Outdated filaments thrum down the halls. Your heels click against the tile with every step, a slow march to another day of monotony, a kind of dread that not even your phone can distract you from. Because your position is rather undefined for the corporate world, your desk is in an awkward spot, sandwiched in the hall, equidistant from the engineering department, the CEO's office, and the coffee machine. In terms of convenience, it's lovely, but it also means you have nowhere to hide.

Before you can even make it to your desk, a young man pops into the way and heads straight for you, a bit too quickly to be passed off as casual. Your heart sinks, then you realize it's just one of the interns: a college kid who's clearly had too many energy drinks already.

“Hey,” Denki smiles with too much gum, so wide his cheeks almost swallow up his eyes. He’s a scruffy, dirty blonde, a patchy black streak on one side of his head. His button down is obviously unironed, so crumpled it almost looks like a pattern, matching perfectly with his untied tie. It’s a good thing that he’s cute; you doubt he’d have gotten this far in life if he wasn’t. 

“Good morning, how are you? Have a good night? You look so pretty this morning. MILF town over here.” he says, twiddling the toe of his shoe into the carpet. “I made the pot of coffee for you,so you don’t have to worry about that-”

You cut him off. “What did you do?” 

The interns don’t report to you. If anything, they run parallel to you. If there’s anyone they should be ass kissing, it should be the department head, not some personal assistant, but the group considers you an ally. Maybe even a friend.

“I wouldn’t say that it’s something that I did,” the boy explains. He sucks air in through his teeth. “It’s more like what I didn’t do.”

“Denki.”

“It’s just the reports! I have to submit them end of day and it’s just not--” He juts out his bottom lip. “Can you proof my work? Please? The Eraser’s going to have my head if I make another mistake.”

The lead engineer is infamous for deleting whole chunks of code that the interns have made and ruining months of their work. Last month it was Ochako's work, who then spent the rest of the day at your desk, sniffling. The four others  were equally terrified of the man, constantly fretting and bitching about the ‘cruel working conditions.’ If Prome wasn't so prestigious (and internships weren't necessary for graduating) there’d be no interns left. You’re sure Eraser would prefer it that way.

“Please?” Denki clutches his hands together in prayer. “Please, please, please?”

 You don't even pretend to hem and haw.

“Email it over before lunch.” you say and he lights up. 

“Aw, you’re the best!” He turns away and practically skips down the hall. “I’m gonna drop off Izuku’s stuff too, okay?”

There’s no chance to say no before Denki’s gone. You flop into your chair and kick off your heels, trying to convince yourself that you don’t already regret saying yes. You catch your own appearance in the black screen of your computer. Makeup doesn’t do much to cover up the fact you’ve been crying. You can see it in your eyes, in the creases of your skin that you wish weren't there.  Even as the screen lights up, you can still catch your own face, starting back with that sad, sad expression. 

It's been mostly sleepless nights since Touya left, but you push through and ignore whatever you can. You miss your travel mug, the one that matched the coaster on your desk. You miss your forks, the ones that weren’t the awful ones from the thrift store down the road, bought solely out of panic when you returned to an empty apartment.  Most of all, you miss him, how the apartment felt warmer with two bodies instead of one, and how secure you felt with someone who loves you.

Your screen loads and a big, red 24 flashes in the corner-- fuck, the works already piling up. You try to squish any thought of Touya’s disappearing act into the back of your head. Like a dog, Touya always comes back home to you. He just needs to be wild for a bit, play off leash, and then he’ll crawl back like always. 

You check your phone. He’s still saved under “AVOID AT ALL COSTS” and the last five texts you sent are all unread. Your thumb hovers over the delete button for a moment; it’d be easier to cut him off and end this cycle. You can stop pushing the boulder up the hill,  just for it to tumble back down again. You could pursue someone else, maybe someone nice or smart or at least not rude-

 Focus. Compliance is raising concerns about the new platform and manufacturing has CC'ed you into an issue about screw heads, two things that you know nothing about. You flip your phone over and push through. What’s the difference between a hex and a truss and why should you care?

..

11:59. You’re none the wiser about either topic, but the dust seems to be settling and everyone seems to be happy enough. Denki’s reports are an absolute mess, bad to the point you start to wonder if he even tried. The pages aren't even formatted correctly, so it’s going to take most of your lunch to iron out the wrinkles. Luckily, Izuku is a bit more competent and his tasks look great, so-

“Oh, baby girl!”

You stop typing and sit straight up to peer over your computer screen, hiding the remnants of your microwaved lunch. With arms raised high and dressed in his finest ironed button down, Yamada Hizashi enters. Tall, blonde, thin, and leggy: Hizashi would have been a Victoria’s Secret model if he wasn’t a man. His long hair is tied back into a messy bun, a couple of loose tendrils floating  around his face in an effortlessly, annoyingly charming way as he marshes straight for you. 

“Let me see ‘em!” he demands loudly, a smile on his face and his hands on his hips. “Come on, baby. You know what I want.”

If it was anyone else, you’d think the man was a creep, but Hizashi is just so earnest about the way he lights up a room. With a belabored sigh and a grin, you roll your chair back a bit and stick your leg to the side to reveal your pink, fluffy slippers. The man claps his hands together and laughs a deep, hearty chuckle, genuinely bemused. 

The bunny slippers had started as a secret. The original dress code had required women to wear heels to work, which was fine, until the back of your feet became nothing but blisters. To give yourself some respite during the day, you had hidden a pair of slippers under your desk, just a little treat to make it through the day. It seemed like a genius idea-

Until the day the fire alarm went off. In the surprise, you had forgotten to change your shoes back, and proceeded to spend the next half an hour outside with the entire company in your violently pink shoes.

Luckily, everyone thought it was pretty funny.

Especially Hizashi.

“Seeing my work wife is the best part of the week.”

You throw a hand over your heart and gasp, trying to hold back your smile. “Only your work wife?”

“Oh, babygirl, I’d marry you in an instant.” He leans over your desk with another sigh, this one heavier. “I’d make you the trophy wife you were born to be.”

“Cool it, Mic.” Your heart sinks a bit at the voice.  “HR is going to have your head if you aren’t careful.”

Aizawa “The Eraser” Shouta makes his third appearance at the coffee machine this morning. He’s an average sized man, if not slightly short, with dark hair and the beginnings of a salt and pepper beard. The muscles in his jaw flex whenever he looks your way, almost as if he’s chewing away his annoyance. The most notable thing about him is a scar on his high cheek bone, long healed and silver in the light. He sits his coffee cup - a beat to shit Stanley thermos from long before they were cool- under the tap and lets the java pour, that sour expression never leaving his face.

Aizawa has worked here since the beginning. As one of the founding members of Prome and a lead engineer, he’s had his hands in absolutely every machine the company has produced, and yet he carries himself with none of the pomp and circumstance he deserves. Instead of abiding by the strict dress code, he wears a bright yellow sweatshirt that has an obvious coffee stain on the pocket.  It’d be charming if he wasn’t an infamous dick. The two of you rarely interact, despite the fact he visits the coffee station next to your desk multiple times a day, offering you no more than a nod most days. The interns are terrified of him-- and rightly so. You’re also scared of him. You’ve never met anyone else as tightly wound or as obsessed with work as him; there’s a rumor that he even sleeps here some days.

“Don’t listen to him,” Hizashi says. “He’s just jealous.”

“I’m not jealous, I’m protecting the company from potential litigation when bunny slippers over here-” he juts a chin your way- “ decides your flirting isn’t fun anymore.” 

You knew he wasn’t jealous. It’s an open secret that Aizawa doesn’t like you very much. Unlike any other of the department heads, he never allocates you work or stops by to chat. There was even a rumor that he wanted to eliminate your position last year; you wouldn’t care so much if he didn’t have the power and sway to make that happen. 

Hizashi pops a hip to the side. He isn’t afraid of anyone it seems; he even claims to be the man’s friend after hours.“Would you rather me go back to flirting with you?”

Aizawa stares back, only the trickle of coffee echoing in the hall. Finally, when it almost reaches the top, he shuts it off and glares. “You’re not even supposed to be in office today, Mic.” 

Hizashi had always been the most notable salesman in the company, but once the CEO’s health went downhill, he had taken over a lot of the speaking roles as well. Interviews, speeches, and the like: Toshinori Yagi had dubbed him Mr. Microphone and the name had just stuck. From what you can tell, he’s actually pretty close with Aizawa and the other founding members outside of work as well.

“I have a quick meeting with the marketing gals in a couple minutes,” Hizashi explains. He brings his attention back to you, brows waggling. Fuck- you know what he’s about to say.

 “And I wanted to wish my wife an early happy birthday.”

Oh, god. Your face flushes with heat-- you had hoped he had forgotten that. You glance over to Aizawa, who seems more interested than usual.

“It's tomorrow,” you explain. He nods curtly.

“Our office darling is going to be thirty, flirty and feeling fine!” Mic explains further. Ugh. You wish he didn't sound so happy about it. When you think about it for too long, turning thirty feels like the end of the world, an evil you just can't avoid. It's better than the alternative, you guess. 

“Are you and the boyfriend planning on a romantic night?”

A second gut punch of a statement.

“Oh, no, I’m just-- he--” You almost get emotional for a moment. Thirty years old and single: it feels like the end of the world for some reason. Everyone else is getting married or having kids or living some dream life. Fuck-- even two of the goddammit interns are engaged and they're practically babies! At this point, you might as well give up and die alone; no one else is ever going to want you, are they? 

 The glimpse of Aizawa in the corner, watching you with those judgemental eyes, sobers you up quickly. 

“We broke up, so I’m just staying in.”

The two snap their heads towards each other. Mic waggles his eyebrows, not so subtly gesturing to a non receptive Aizawa. You know that look, the excitement and relief. It’s not a secret that no one really liked Touya-- people have been openly voicing their contempt for years. He wasn’t a bad guy, except for the times he was, but people only ever remembered the bad things. 

“Oh, is it…?” Mic bites back his words, debating how harsh he should be.  “Is it for real this time?”

Touya always comes back. Everyone knows the routine by now. 

“Yeah,” you lie. “I’m done with him.”

“Good.” Aizawa says. You grimace at that; even he knows? You didn’t know he paid attention to anything outside of work, let alone your shitty interpersonal drama.

“More than good. Amazing! Spectacular! I’m so, so, so proud of you!” Mic adds on and you pretend it doesn’t bother you. It’s strange; the more others despise him, the more your heart aches. Touya needs you and you need him; who else will have him?

Who else will have you?

“That means we can go out for drinks to celebrate!”

“Oh, it’s okay, you don’t have to do that.”

“Too late, nope. We’re having a two-for-one birthday single bash tomorrow.” He’s on his phone, typing wildly. “I hope you have something pretty to wear because I’m going to show you how you deserve to be treated.”

Fuck. You’d rather be alone, sniveling and waiting for Touya’s return in your apartment, but Hizashi is smiling. His intentions are good; it’d be cruel to deny him. 

“Nemuri knows some awesome spots-” The man is a whirl, typing and talking and walking. “You better get excited, baby girl.”

“Oh, yay,” you offer weakly. Hizashi isn’t listening anymore; he’s caught up in his own plans, briskly walking down the hall. A breath you didn’t know you were holding sneaks out and you slump back down to your seat.

“You really don’t have to let him walk all over you like that,” Aizawa says. He swirls his cup slowly, watching the rim.  

You try to offer the man a smile, but you can tell it looks forced. Sure, Hizashi can be a lot, but he just wants to help, as misguided as that urge is. 

“It’s okay.” When he doesn’t look convinced, you add. “Really.”  

“Are you sure?”  he presses, voice tight. 

“Mhm.” You return to your keyboard and start typing, hoping that he understands the social cue. “Thanks though.”

Thankfully, he lets it go. Turning down the hall, he starts to sip his coffee, but then freezes mid stride.

“You make this?”

“No.”  

“I can tell,” Aizawa says, examining his cup. “It’s fucking dog water.”

That comment is so off kilter that you can’t help but snort. Aizawa watches you for a beat more, maybe bemused, maybe not, then nods. With that, he leaves, an empty coffee pot in his wake.  Another item to add on your growing list. 

-

The rest of the day goes by quicker than you need it to. Denki leaves a little bit after lunch for a doctor’s appointment and the rest of the workforce trickles out after. The head of development, Nezu, has you run through potential presentations before you follow up on compliance’s worries again. The coffee pot was refilled four more times, all by you, and your messages to Touya still sit delivered and unread. Two hours after the work day was supposed to end, you slip your heels back on. Denki’s files are pretty much unrecognizable now, but that’s a good thing.  All of the college students are intelligent and more accomplished than you’ll ever be, but you’re not sure why they can’t figure out basic busy work. There’s nothing hard about it, other than focusing.

With a final press of a key, your personal printer hums to life. A staple and a paperclip and you’re done: now it’s just a quick trip to engineering and you can finally go home. Your work isn't physical, but God, hunching at a desk all day takes a toll on your body. A flare of something eats at your lower back as you stroll the empty building and try to rub the grit from your eyes. You think there’s a frozen pizza at home or maybe some pasta-- though, you can’t remember if that was from this monday or last monday. Maybe it’d be safer to just throw it away.

The department itself  is a long row of cubicles, with miscellaneous machines and computers littering the other side of the room. You recognize old prototypes and parts of Prome's most famous product: a hospital bed. 

Before you had set foot in this building, you never thought a bed could count as a medical device -- or as something highly complicated and thoroughly engineered -- but this bed is different. It’s comfortable, lightweight, and durable, all while able to track a patient’s movement and comfort. It even records a patient's glucose, body temperature, SPO2, and many other medical things that go over your head. When used correctly, bedsores rates have been reduced to nearly zero and hospital related illnesses are caught significantly earlier.

In about three months, the newest model will be released, complete with full integration into electronic record systems. If everything goes according to plan, it’ll be revolutionary. Working here is a headache, but you do take pride that it's a company that does good. 

“Do you need something?” 

You jump at the sound of the voice, flipping around to search the room. Tucked at the end of it all is an open office door. Inside, Aizawa is perched at his desk, head in one hand, reading glasses in the other.  He’s illuminated only by the computer screen, his deep, dark eyes bouncing side to side as he carefully reads.

 Aizawa always looks tired, but now so especially; his heavy lidded eyes are drooped with fatigue and his skin is pallor, black stubble dusting his unshaved cheeks. There’s no bite or annoyance to his voice-- maybe even a little levity. For once, you don’t want to scurry away from him like a mouse, hiding in the shadows and corners to avoid his claws.  You still approach cautiously, heels sharp against the tile. The silence in between each hit makes your skin prick with an unknown nausea. 

“I thought everyone went home.” You say. 

“Everyone did. Just me-- and you, apparently.” He taps out a word or two. His office is devoid of personal items, desk covered in nothing but stacks of papers and illegible post notes, nothing to hint to his personal life. It’s been three years, yet you have no idea what his personal life is like-- if he even has one, that is.

“No slippers tonight?”

That was either a dig or a joke. You aren’t sure either way, but the way your shoes sound when you walk even closer feels like its own answer. When you reach the corner of his desk, he finally looks your way. It hits you that you've never actually been this close to him before. It's always been passes in the hall and distant conversations. His skin is smoother than you'd thought it'd be, with creases between his brow that fill themselves when he-

“Do you… need something?”

“Oh, uh-- Denki left these at my desk by accident,” you lie, sliding the file on to the corner of his desk. “I think they’re for you.”

He regards you again, more thoroughly this time. With a tilt of his head, he inspects your face, eyes flickering between your two. In the dim, they’re nothing but black dots, an inkinesss that you could fall into if you were any closer. 

He’s pretty.  And that’s an unsettling thought. You’ve never allowed yourself to consider that before. Immediately, you walk the thought back. No. Nobody with his personality is attractive-- hands down. Touya is the only dick you need in your life. 

“You should go home. It's late.” he says before turning back to his work. He types a couple things, then hits the backspace and deletes it all again. “Go home.”

Adjusting the bag on your shoulder, you sigh, the workday catching up to you. “You should too.” 

“Hm,” he grunts. He takes a long sip from his thermos, tipping it back to suck the dregs. You’d never noticed the sticker of the bottom before- a faded and torn image of an orange cat.  “Maybe.”

That’s a no. You don’t push the issue. You start towards the door, then pause. 

“Do… do you want me to make another pot of coffee before I go?” You’re not sure why you offer. Everything’s been put away and cleaned for tomorrow. It’d take at least 15 minutes to set up again. 

Aizawa slides his glasses back on, adjusting them by the bridge, only for them to slip right back down the flat bridge of his nose.

“You don't have to do that.” 

With that you leave, no proper goodnight dismissing you. The tap of your heels and the clack of his keyboard mix into some sort of soft, unbalanced rhythm. Despite yourself, you think of Touya, of where he is and where he isn’t. Is it also quiet there? Has he thought of someone else in the same way you just did?

When the doors of the building close and the security guard nods your way, the sound of percolation echoes behind you, the final drops falling into a freshly brewed pot.

[russellsppttemplates]

Omg the dad Oscar blurb was sooo cute can we have one of him being in the house with the kids on his own like his first full day of being in charge and the kids are like maybe we should ask mum when something doesn’t work out

Note: thank you for taking the time to leave a tiny message 🫶

"Can we play outside, daddy?", Lucas asked as he stepped into the living room with a football on his hand. It was the first full day that you had gone back to work after having baby Jack, and because Oscar was home still, he said he wouldn't mind being on his own with the boys.

Currently, he was lulling Jack to sleep, the little boy snuggled on his chest with the help of the sling carefully strapped around their bodies, "I'm putting the baby to sleep, buddy, how about I watch you score some goals on the net from here?", he suggested, knowing that moving around before he fell into deep sleep wasn't ideal and ensuring that he wouldn't wake up.

Lucas nodded as he went to the garden, putting on some shoes and kicking the ball on the grass.

"You could fall asleep too, you know?", Oscar touched his youngest son's cheek softly as big, wide open hazel eyes looked at him, "How is it that you keep me and mummy up all night and then don't sleep during the day either? It's time to sleep, little fella, yes it is", he cooed, tapping his back gently and walking around the decking, nodding and flashing a thumbs up at Lucas whenever he scored a goal.

By lunchtime, Oscar had managed to put Jack down for a nap, and considering the baby had been sleeping for just Iver twenty minutes, he had plenty of time to have some alone time with Lucas, keeping an eye on the baby through the monitor.

"Does pasta sound good?", Oscar asked the young boy, "yes, please!", he smiled, "with tomato sauce and cheese!".

Oscar giggled and got started on cooking, letting the pasta boil and grabbing one of the frozen jars of sauce you had batch cooked a few weeks ago for moments like these. Once it was all underway, he got back to the living room and helped Lucas with his Lego blocks, "I want to make a garage like yours", he smiled as he gathered the orange, black and grey block, starting to build it as they watched Bluey on TV.

"Time's up for the pasta", Oscar said as he got up, "can we eat here, daddy, please?", Lucas pouted as best as he could to convince his to have lunch on the living room coffee table.

"Mummy doesn't like it when we eat here, and we're eating tomato sauce, if it falls on the carpet, it won't be good, Lucas", Oscar reasoned, "but I'll be extra careful, I promise!", he nodded as Oscar finally said yes.

When Oscar brought the plates to the table, the monitor showed a fussing Jack in his cot, "I'm going to get him, be careful with the food, okay?", Oscar warned as Jack sat as close to the table as he could to make sure he didn't let anything fall or drip where it wasn't supposed to.

"You're really going through some sleep regression, aren't you, cheeky boy?", Oscar said as Jack as wide awake when he got to the bedroom. Changing his diaper and stopping by the kitchen to get a bottle for your son, Oscar got back to the living room.

"I didn't spill anything, daddy, see?", Lucas showed him, the carpet white and the table clean as he had eaten half of his plate already, "Good job, buddy!".

He should've seen it coming, but he still trusted his reflexes. Turns out a couple of nights without sleeping properly really puts a dent on your skills as he watched Jack grab the fork on his plate only to let it fall on the cream pillow he had to support his legs, "uh-oh, mummy is not going to like that", Lucas whispered.

"This needs to go on the washing machine, now!", Oscar gasped, laying Jack on carpeted floor surrounded by some blankets and pillows just in case he decided he wanted to learn how to roll over and cause even more trouble than his father was already in.

"Stain remover, then wash liquid", Oscar mumbled as he read an online forum about tomato stain removal, dumping all the products on the washing machine before closing it and starting the cycle, "do you think it will work?", Oscar asked Lucas, "daddy really hopes it will work".

"Shouldn't we call mummy? Maybe she knows what to do", your son suggested, "if we remove the stain on our own, it will be fine. Mummy won't even need to know this happened".

A washing cycle later and another futile attempt at getting Jack to sleep on Oscar's chest, your three boys stood in front of the washing machine, the originally cream pillow now various shades of pink and red depending how far the spot you looked at was from the stain.

"Don't worry, daddy, mummy won't be mad at you", Lucas somewhat tried to comfort his father, rubbing his hand on his back.

The minute you set foot in the house, you called for your boys, "mummy!", Lucas ran to hug you, "how was your day, my love?", you asked, "did you get up to anything nice?", you asked as you made your way to the kitchen, stopping by the laundry room when you saw the light was on.

"Let me just - oh", you said as you looked at the pillow inside the dryer, "it's was not my fault, it was daddy who let it slip!", Lucas raised his arms, taking on the fully innocent role.

"It was Jack believe or not, sweetheart!", you heard your husband say as he approached, your baby boy on his hip.

Making grabby hands at him, you rested him on your hip and kissed his cheeks, "what did you do, little monkey?", you giggled.

(Thank you for sending this in ✨️)

[peachymilkandcream]

Movie! William Afton NSFW Alphabet

(A/N: The NSFW Alphabets are their canon events I cannot stop this I'm sorry T-T Also please read the warnings, I don't care if it's fucked my guy literally stuffed children into suits he's fucked up.)

WARNINGS: noncon, dubcon, manipulation, domestic abuse, yandere themes, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, stockholm syndrome, violence, mind breaking, misogyny, age difference etc.

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex) William is surprisingly considerate, when he has the time to be. Most of his life is wrapped up in the chaos of covering up murders and coming up with new machines that sometimes sex just becomes stress relief and he doesn't have time for more. However when he can be convinced to take time away he really does try and care about his wife and make sure she feels clean and comfortable.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s) Deranged psychos and their hands are a thing I'm telling you. The power in behind them is 100% a secret turn on they won't admit. And when you've made your career the work of your hands, (like child murders and a booming business) you can't help but pick that as the favourite. For her, he's not super partial but he really likes her hair, gripping it, pulling it, is what he daydreams about.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically) Let's just saw how else did they have four kids, cmon now. ;)

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs) While it's not inherently sexual William really loves putting fear into others, and he 100% has a r*pe fantasy that he puts her through often. (Although for her he doesn't tell her that's what happening so it's 'authentic') This includes fake home invasions as well when he gets bored of vanilla sex and wants to "spice things up". Poor girl lives in fear daily.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?) He has some before they met, mostly teenage mistakes when he had the time. After he started his career it was rare he did simply because of time. He knows enough of what he's doing, he knows how to make himself feel good and that's all that matters right?

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying) My guy is a ride or die missionary, reverse cowgirl is the only other he'll consider. Anything else is just uncomfortable in his opinion, and again it's about what feels best for him.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.) William's very erratic so it really depends on the mood he's in, how his day has gone if this kids annoy him. He has been known to be more humorous on occasion but it's not often.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.) Let's be honest William only gets his hair cut because his wife does it, he doesn't have the time to take care of himself like he should, those are precious moments that could go to his work. So no, he is not well groomed.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect) This again depends on the occasion, usually it's just stress relief so it's quick and usually not very romantic, but if it's a special occasion like an anniversary or birthday then he'll be way more romantic.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon) Same as with his hair, he honestly just never has time XD

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks) Big somnophilia fan, probably a slight breeding kink, lingerie (especially stockings), hair pulling, choking, gagging, knife play 100% (he's a serial killer, I had to).

L = Location (favorite places to do the do) Anywhere in the house really, anywhere he can get a moment alone. He used to enjoy when she distracted him in his workshop in the basement but now those old parts bring back haunting memories...

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going) Her being a mother to his children, it warms his little black heart and gets him going. As well as any new sets of lingerie she buys or he buys for her.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs) She wouldn't but if she tried to dominate him, he would nope the fuck out of there. My guy is an S tier misogynist and believes his wife should be beneath him literally and figuratively.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.) He prefers receiving simply because it plays into the whole gagging thing. Her gagging on his dick as he face fucks her is so hot to him.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.) As stated before it depends on the occasion, special moments require more slow and sensual whereas annoyance or hurry is fast and rough.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.) His whole life is about quickies, having just enough time to get himself off is what he usually does.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.) He takes too many risks, if he's not careful he's going to end up hurting her.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?) Obviously when he was younger it was more, but now he's a one or two rounds at most guy.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?) No no never, no matter what it is he's come to not trust machines around his loved ones anymore.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease) If he's in a goofy mood he will, but most of the time he doesn't have time to sit and tease her.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.) He's actually quite loud, groaning and even soft whimpers are his specialty.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character) William has a thing for stockings because that's the first thing he saw her in and he started fantasizing how her thighs would jiggle in them while he was eating her out.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes) I'd say he's above average, not too much but enough, he's slightly thick with a few smaller veins.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?) His drive has really changed from wanting to have sex to wanted her to relieve stress. So because of all the stress he's under, it's pretty high.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards) William is out like a light after, dreaming about his victims or how he disposed of bodies. Solid sleeper while his wife lays awake plagued by waking nightmares of her own.

[haalfpipe]

Well-developed, well-nourished white male in no acute distress.

This is what she writes about me. Look, as your sponsor, I need you to write this down. All of it. Word for word. Don’t try to make sense of anything I say, just write. When you’re confused, keep writing. Tired, keep writing. Cravings, for God’s sake just keep writing. Because if it works for you, it might work for somebody else.

Now go back to that note.

She’s my primary care physician, the woman who's seen me since I outgrew a pediatrician. She sits there with her legs folded together in knobs and branches poking through bright blue doctor fabric, and a suspicious thickness around her belly. She's the same as any other anorexic physician who eats only something with oats she poured from a blender.

Write this down—this is how you should be eating.

If she’s your doctor, you don’t feel better after reading her notes. That's if you remember to find them in her office’s digital patient portal, where after every visit they’re posted on the other side of a forgotten login and a compromised password.

Write this down—read about yourself.

It will be midnight, lying in your bed with your phone glowing at your chest. Picture an otter on its back. Swiping through, passing content from one thumb to another like the screen is a stack of cash, except you're counting fifteen second clips of billionaire porn. Supercars. Island waterfalls. French-press coffee on private jets. Squats and deadlifts and protein powders beaming into your eyes from a girl with perfect pores and skin vacuum-sealed against her clavicle.

Every fifth swipe is an ad.

A reminder.

Refrigerated ship-to-home ingredients—remember to pack lunch.

Swipe up.

High-yield online savings—pay your credit card bill.

Swipe up.

Cable-knit sweaters on some Macedonian model—do laundry.

Swipe up.

Machine-surfaced cast iron—run the dishwasher.

Swipe up.

Anymore, this is why you read the portmanteau digitox. Pause your social media for a week, the usual prescription. Put down your phone and try to work on impulse control just to discover you haven’t eaten anything green, and you’re still in the same clothes with an overdue balance on your credit card.

Your grade school teachers tried to teach you the habit of using a spiral-bound calendar. Now all you need is phone streaming a river of social media as you fall asleep.

Swipe up.

Lying here in the dark and your life support is a lithium battery glued to a glowing rectangle.

Swipe up.

Grounding your bare feet in water without sunscreen on a hot day in the mountains—schedule your booster shot.

Swipe.

Wet coffee grounds into cute countertop compost bins—it’s Monday. The trash should be at the curb.

Swipe.

Robot vacuums for pile carpet—clean your floors. And when you see it, remember that your shitty old vacuum has a filter bag with a lifespan.

Swipe up. Swipe right.

Until you’re unconscious.

Wake up and your phone is down on the carpet, smeared with oily fingerprints in the shape of a cross.

Swipe.

This is content that wakes you up.

Swipe.

Content that keeps you alive.

Swipe.

You’ll watch the same shit again tomorrow.

Swipe.

Another night and your thumbs make streaks right and downward until you watch an ad for a metabolism diet that reminds you of poor appetite reminds you of weight loss reminds you of a balance scale and a stainless sink with a floor pedal. The gaunt doctor’s notes and your decade of symptoms are on the other side of a login somewhere behind all these crucifix-shaped smears.

Swipe.

Reading about yourself and why you aren’t going to die gets you through a few days. But you feel like the way she sits there with all her machines and her complete sentences perfectly typed into a keyboard are missing something. The way you might miss your own addiction. Like I did. I didn't know I was an addict until after my first meeting.

Write this down—find a meeting.

In recovery, you wake up to your phone but the real-life support is downstairs on the fridge: a full calendar, a dry erase board with dented corners you can grab when you're in the kitchen section of a savings store. It comes with battle scars just as much as you’d expect from colliding with errant wheels, the magnetic corners trying to grab onto every shopping cart that comes too close. Underpaid employees tire of wedging it back onto a shelf because for shoppers a blank calendar is too much commitment even at a discount, and it's too big and boring and cheap to steal. Not that anyone would care. It’s five rows, seven columns, a sequence of days that never change tattooed in cute cursive across the top.

In recovery, you see a blank calendar and it just means you haven't yet been told what to do. You put it on your fridge. Let it observe every moment of the day, every time you leave the house, or empty the trash, the dishwasher, like somehow it will learn your entire week, until you're awake the next morning and surprise, it's still blank. At midnight when you open the thick, insulated door and the cold light rips out into the dark kitchen, it's there, caught in the beam. It might as well be found in a searchlight, flattened against the side of some dumpster, hiding from its destiny: thirty-five squares of graffiti in vibrant dry-erase marker, instructions squeezed wherever they fit.

Eventually you’re just some kid who can't color inside the lines, smearing it with bright letters, thick from bent tips of markers always dropping and rolling under the refrigerator. When it’s finally numbered, you’ll need a quote-a-day paper pad showing the date in tall digits leaning off the page at you when you open the refrigerator for milk. This way every morning you have to interact with the calendar. Tear off the old sheet of digits for another and find the square it matches.

It says, twenty-two.

A new day.

A new set of instructions.

A new inspiration to forget.

Today’s italicized quotation will stick because this is Monday.

It says, chance favors the prepared mind. The corner of the date pad says Louis Pasteur. The reason you don’t get sick from the milk.

Before it was clung onto our kitchen monolith, my calendar began on my phone as a progress tracker. If you’re burdened with the twelve step curse of recovery, the meetings and your therapy will refer to this as a habit tracker. It’s how you’re supposed to visualize an accumulation of effort. How you’re supposed to feel normal when you look backward. Everyday is another responsibility you were never taught, but on Sunday at least you washed the bedding. You never see how much goes into a normal life until you’re doing none of it. Somebody has to tell you that you’re living in trash and the blanket over your laundry smells so much like air freshener it stinks.

Somebody has to tell you to get out of bed.

Buy a new toothbrush.

Open the windows.

Go to the interview.

Eat.

Put down your phone.

That today is your mother’s birthday.

Somebody has to save you. And then you owe her your life. You get married.

Swipe to thirteen years later, and recovery doesn’t matter. Try telling someone you just met that you've been clean for thirteen years. Nobody cares. Picture showing up to defend a decade-long dissertation of research to have your advisor say thanks, it no longer counts toward your grade. You can dry-clean your academic attire, like everyone else. She tosses it onto a stack of papers sunk into her carpet with its own footprint, a white pillar, the size of a trash can. Still, you want her to least read it. You want anybody to read it.

If you’re like me, what you want is somebody to start a pot of coffee after dinner and stare at you across the kitchen table while it gets hot. You want somebody to talk with all night until the sun comes back.

If you’re like me, you don’t stop talking. Somebody finally sits down and drops a nickel at your booth and they have to let the song play.

This is the jukebox full of fresh vinyl.

I didn't want to have to tell you any of this. Nobody else needs to know anything here.

This is the note accidentally left unlocked.

This is the essay that ends up shredded in the back of a mobile secure destruction truck.

This is the long form note written in couples' therapy to wrinkle up for a waste basket, never to be read.

This is the confession after the crime found scribbled in a notebook when all the neighbors say they never saw it coming. If they did, then there wouldn't be a vacant house ribboned with yellow tape and an overgrown lawn to explain to all the divorced pickleball women when they come over for cocktails.

What I'm trying to say is none of this matters anymore.

I haven’t done anything wrong. There hasn’t been a crime. I don’t have the time. There’s no space for it on my calendar. After work I’m showering and brushing my clothes with horsehair so the hard water doesn’t fade the blacks to grey on waistbands and seams. Then I’m reaching into the fridge and cooking dinner and the dry erase marker says I’m exchanging table decorations for the new season, spring. Outside in the dark I’ll use a flashlight and leaf blower to clear fallen seed pods out of potted plants. The kitchen drawer will be out of dish towels and it’ll be one in the morning before those will be ironed and folded.

Write this down—never landscape with sycamores.

If you’re like me, you’re too tired to do anything wrong.

It’s because I’ve been on step twelve for so long. That's how they pull you in, with their logos and websites and filtered headshots of mentors and their about-us sections, seining through the candidate swamp of deadbeats as wide as freeways across the city. The dozen secrets to success that can be yours if you act now, no signature required.

A fresh start. Anonymous.

You can learn all the reasons addiction is ruining your life and how much better you’ll be in recovery. By step one you’ll sleep better, they tell you. By step six you’ll be giving presentations at work, they tell you. What they don’t tell you is by step twelve you should be growing the pyramid. Sponsor the kid who bags your groceries. In recovery, his bagging will be a little sloppier. Eggs on the bottom, untrimmed carrot tops flowering like pampas grass from sacks of wrinkled paper. For eight hours of bagging, his eyes follow the backs of his hands. He never looks up. Because in recovery he feels like shit.

What they don’t tell you about recovery is a lot.

What they don't tell you is that after step twelve, there's nothing. It’s just more step twelve. More meetings. More relapses. Until you’re dead. After I turn out to be your sponsor, then after years of me and a therapist telling you what to do, one day you find yourself at the curb outside a meeting like they just signed you out of the hospital and stuck you in a wheelchair on the sidewalk.

Hospitals have to get rid of you.

It's for liability.

You're discharged, but until they get you to the curb, they're on the hook for your life. The administrators don’t care about a junkie until they need his bed for the next admission from a crowded emergency lobby. For a few days your entire world is one hundred square feet between four walls with a sealed window and a mechanical bedframe. You have your own bathroom. There’s a whiteboard showing names of physicians you never see. It’s a different sort of dry erase calendar with notes in three sections: Today. Tomorrow. Future.

In recovery, planning ahead feels like predicting the future.

To fix you, people in scrubs who aren’t nurses bring trays with pills in little cups of wax paper, made for ketchup. Every pill is constipating. That, and the immobility of lying in bed until your back aches. This is why there are wall stud-mounted steel handles around the toilet. You get microwaved meals, and hourly visits from exhausted nurses wearing too much concealer smeared over their bad skin.

You like it inside the sterile room, baseboards to ceiling in taupe, and a floor drain in the bathroom. You wish you could stay. But this is what real care feels like—being discarded, thrown back out onto the street.

Anymore, your friends are all stoned, you say this to the nice nurse that you want coming with you. To bring you little stacks of cups at home. She uses your face to unlock your phone and dials an emergency contact. She props you in a wheelchair still wrinkled in the seat from her last castaway. She starts pushing. What you don't know is that after twelve hours of babysitting a floor of invalids and texting her ex in the supply closet, she'll collapse at her apartment with shitty alcohol, neglect her kid, rub one out and fall asleep with the television. Her own pile of laundry stinks of air freshener. And after a week with that botched fantasy you'll want her pushing you out again, faster, you’ll kick your legs straight out when you see the double doors beneath the exit sign. You’re thinking all this and then the wheelchair's at the street, she sets the brakes, puts a hand on your back and bolts you upright. Right beside the trash bins.

Swipe to this blithering milksop balancing on the curb waiting for my emergency contact to show up with a fast food bag of burgers because that’s exactly how this whole thing happened.

Write this down—fast food is what started this.

I'll get to the beginning. What ended up being the beginning.

There's one thing the alcoholics, junkies, and sex addicts in recovery won't tell you in their propaganda. I hate to ruin the surprise: walk into a meeting, and this is the rest of your boring ass life that nobody will ever care about. It says it right there in the branding. Anonymous. There’s no background check. Nobody asks to see track marks, or a collapsed septum. All you have to do is show up and give a name. Every week it isn’t any different. It’s a United Methodist rec room that hosted a day camp of kids with sticky fingers making crafts before organizers got there at sunset to unfold a card table and plug in a coffee percolator, a big trophy passed between support groups. Except instead of a bright Stanley Cup this is a storm-tossed aluminum bombshell that means your quiet gathering of church sponsorship has made it. Men's groups. Yard sales. Slow-read Bible study. Blood drives. Tonight it's with a room full of enablers. Because at some point they all relapse. That's why they keep coming back. Two dozen strangers who all share the same passion means the best networking opportunity junkies can get.

Swipe to a room full of cravings triggered by one of these caffeine dispensers looking like it was pulled from the basement of some parish.

Write this down—you’ll have meetings on Tuesdays. No matter what. This is what they call them.

No matter what, you make time for it.

No matter what, you attend.

No matter what, someone from last week is missing.

For me, recovery is never more than arms' length away. Even now, on my nightstand, where instead of an orange bottle of pills with a label showing the name of a hospice patient I'll never meet, there's a wallet as thick as an Uno deck and right next to it is a small leather journal with a checklist of everything I have to do not to sink. A calendar of instructions to-go. It's the same journal I've used since step four.

At first, the steps feel good. After your first meeting you might as well be twelve years old, and wide awake the night before a vacation. You’re going somewhere new. For a few days you walk upright with great posture. See yourself in the mirror of a department store where you’re trying on new shirts and you realize you have shoulders. It's a proud moment when you can check step one off your list. The first three go pretty fast and then you get stuck on step four. The moral inventory. All the lies, betrayals, and cheating, all the people you've hurt and jobs you've lost. You have to open a note on your phone and start typing. A rap sheet of all your sins, synced with cloud storage. That way every dumbass moment of your life is right there beneath your passcode.

I'm always writing things down. Journaling. Calendaring. Staying clean means keeping busy, having something to look forward to, always wanting to see tomorrow. It's when tomorrow doesn't matter that you give in. Find your local NA schedule and poke your head through the wrong door at the community center for that room full of liars calling itself a No-Matter-What meeting and tell me if it looks like any of them care about tomorrow.

Before relapse, most of them get lost in responsibility piling up at home. Picture Sisyphus. There's no reward for your work. When you stop feeling perfect for zero effort—that's addiction—daily routines are labor. In recovery, suddenly it all matters. Nobody wants another day of it. So you offload it from your brain, suspend your decision-making ability. Turn yourself into an implement. If you don't have to remember what to do next, then while you're at the sink soaking the sweat stains out of your new shirts, you're free to daydream about eventually sleeping in again. Because there's always more.

There's the alarm clock to wake you.

There's a duvet to fold.

There's clothing to launder.

There are dishes to wash.

Carpets to vacuum.

Now go back to your thirty-five squares and start writing—

Blow the leaves.

Put gas in the car.

Pack a lunch box.

Buy groceries.

Pay the utilities.

Today it's all on the calendar and the dry erase bleeds together in a way your brain can't decipher. No square is big enough. Cram all this in between five, eight-hour minimum wage workdays crutched by black coffee and chewing gum and next time you're washing shirts you'll daydream about not waking up.

After enough of step twelve, addicts in recovery suffer an increased chance of relapse, a brief glimpse at being high and productive. The meetings will call this functional addiction, the sustained twilight before once again losing your footing, being fired, and going broke. Keep going to meetings, and therapy, and tell yourself to keep trying but eventually everyone gives up running to the sunset, the sinking reminder that you can do everything right and still fail. You need structure. Somebody has to tell you what to do. There's a blank calendar to fill.

Swipe to when you bring home the dented thing, still wearing its torn shrink-wrap. At first, you won’t unwrap it. Thinking two weeks out might as well be next year. Nobody can see that far ahead. You put these thirty-five blank squares on the fridge and walk away. You’ll start writing tomorrow. Today, grab a sheet of paper and fold a single crease, forming two pages that will tell you what to do. Make a checklist for right now. After a week, replace this with a notebook so you can flip back to yesterday’s completed list, then another one from seven pages ago, or sixty pages ago.

Like everything else, at first a list makes you feel good. You write down everything you have to do and draw a little empty square next to it where you can scratch a check mark. What the meetings and therapy won’t call this is the Dunning-Kruger effect. We won’t tell you to overestimate your own success as you check off all the to-dos for which nobody else needs reminders.

We won’t tell you, but this is what happens. With every box, give yourself a gold star.

Write this down.

Brush your teeth—check.

Make coffee—check.

Turn off the coffee pot—check.

Remember your wallet—check.

Close the garage door—check.

Finally, you're getting somewhere. Every day, it's the same list, telling you what to do. The same set of successes. Because before, you were barely able to find the door out of the house in the morning.

By the end, every box is inked and you get to see just how much filled your day. Everything in your life becomes an item on a list. A direction. Something to achieve. You get to see the set of instructions for your life.

Everything becomes a step. One step closer to the completed pages of your boring life and knowing that tomorrow you have to start at the top of the same stupid blank page with a new list. Then another the next day. Then next week. And the month after that. Until you're dead.

Like normal people.

It's been a long time since you felt normal.

Everyday you're charging upright into a rough surf of surprises heaving themselves against you. Look back at your little piece of paper. It'll tell you where to go next. Plan out every minute from the moment you make coffee in the morning until you’re home and you step into the garage after a shower to grab the electric leaf blower and surprise, it’s dead.

Write this down—plug in leaf blower.

It needs to be cabled to a heavy charger that gets hot and smells like ozone. The one-hour charge is just enough time for the clocks in your house to be suddenly louder. The carpet is more matted than it was yesterday. In the walls, all the plumbing squeaks with hard water and suddenly it’s caked inside the mesh aerators of every faucet.

Write this down—polish the hardwood.

Electric mop the high-traffic carpets.

Soak the stainless faucets in vinegar.

From the size of my list, our house looks like Xanadu.

Find another achievement. Check another box. Until one day in the middle of it all you're on a ladder in your bedroom replacing a smoke alarm with a ten-year battery and you realize you'll be up on this ladder maybe five more times before you're dead.

One day when you’re off work you get back to the calendar and pair it with the date pad of quotes. It feels smooth, the unused dry-erase surface. To make progress, you have to fill it. Thirty-five blank squares.

For monthly maintenance, pick a square.

For laundry, pick five squares.

Bedding, pick two squares.

Clean the oven.

Then the bathrooms.

Vacuum.

After a few months the neat printing is full of abbreviated instructions, and you can't see any outlines between the white blocks. Each day dissolves into the next. In the morning you see it when you get to the fridge for milk and tear open the next quotation.

Louis Pasteur’s quotation.

What I’m prepared for is running out of ink, and dry erase markers.

What I’m trying to say is—let’s hope this works. Recovery is what got me into this whole mess. Recovery, and McDonald's.

[nagdabbit]

a song that will dig into my bones (14/?)

Chapters: One, Two, (outtake),Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen 

words: 3.5k

jon moxley/bryan danielson, eddie kingston

in which some friends have a long conversation and bryan is a shitstirrer with oat milk where his self preservation should be

(also on ao3)

.

"Thought I said I didn't wanna see you 'til February," Jon barked, catching Wheeler by the back of his hoodie before he could make it all the way to the front desk. He dragged the kid back toward the door, "Go home, idiot."

Wheeler stumbled a few steps, before he began trying to fight free. It was a losing battle, it usually was, but he was making quite the effort. "Hey! I heard you—I did, but—listen, Jon—"

"I'll listen in, like, three weeks." 

"Nope, you gotta—you got like five minutes to listen, before hurricane Eddie shows up!"

"Thank you for the heads up, but that ain't anythin' new an' you know it."

Wheeler gave a good struggle for a few more steps, sneakers scuffing across the thin carpet, then changed tactics. His head disappeared before Jon caught up with what he was doing, and he wriggled his way out of the hoodie. "Okay, gimme like three minutes, okay?" he asked, darting toward the desk with a head of staticky hair.

"Thirty seconds and I'm gonna throw you out on your ass," Jon warned, and threw the empty hoodie at the kid's face. 

He gave Jon an annoyed look, but didn't argue. "Okay, so, first of all, congrats on having sex, or whatever. Good job, knew you could do it," Wheeler started, then jumped even further out of range when Jon swatted at him. "Second, your boyfriend has absolutely no sense of self preservation. None. Just—nothing. Where self preservation is supposed to be, there's just, like, oat milk and carrots or something."

Jon leaned back against the front window, crossing his arms over his chest. His boyfriend. So much for keeping secrets. "You're saying that like it's a bad thing and not, like, endearing."

Wheeler made a face and tilted his head a little. "Well it's—it's really something all right."

"Alright, lay it on me," Jon muttered, rolling his eyes. "What did he do?"

"So Bryan decided to—I mean, he knows you, obviously, so he knows you probably didn't bother to text your best friend about, in Eddie's words, 'sleeping the enemy,'" he said in a rush, even including the bunny ears. "And, as you know, Eddie hates Bryan, has poor impulse control, and a tendency to lash out. Right?"

Jon sighed, dropping his chin to his chest. "And Eddie decided to come visit so he can yell it to my face," he finished. Of course he would rather yell at Jon's face than send him a few angry texts. Probably got on a plane the moment he could. 

Wheeler gave him an apologetic wince of a smile. "He's been angrily texting me from his Uber. You got, like, five minutes."

"You could have called," Jon grumbled, and went to flip the sign back to closed. He didn't really need Eddie scaring off customers. Not again, anyway.

"I did, and you didn't answer. I even tried the shop line, but you haven't even turned off the answering machine yet." When he looked back, Wheeler looked worried, chewing on his lip. "Do you want me to stay and play ref?"

"No, no. Go home. He'll just feel attacked if you're here." He stepped aside and waved Wheeler toward the door. "And put your hoodie back on, it's freezing out."

"Yes, dad." He rolled his eyes, but did as he had been told, shoving his head into the thick fabric. "But, really, seriously," he muttered, shoving his arms into their proper place, "let me know if you need help. Okay? I know how he gets."

"It'll be fine. Go home or you're grounded," he muttered, without any real heat. He caught Wheeler around the neck as he passed, hugging him in some kind of halfhearted choke for a moment before shoving him away. "Thanks, kid."

"Yeah, yeah. Lemme know if you need help cleaning up after the storm," he joked, but didn't bother to hide his actual concern. 

"It'll be fine," he insisted, again. And it probably would be, even if Eddie needed to throw a little fit about it. He could usually talk himself down with a few choice threats and a good pace. He'd done it plenty enough through the years.

True to Wheeler's warning, Eddie thundered in not two minutes later, brow pulled low and dangerous. He wasn't half as scary as he thought he was, but the last time he gave Jon that dark of a scowl, they'd been in a ring beating the shit out of each other.

He sighed and gave the man a little wave. "Hey."

"Got somethin' you wanna tell me?" 

"Nah, not really," he muttered, not that Eddie really needed any actual confirmation from him. 

"Fuckin' Danielson?!" Eddie threw his hands in the air, "I figured you two'd get around to fuckin' one'a these days, but boyfriend?! And I had to hear it from him?!"

"Are you done?" he asked, dryly.

"No, sweetheart, m'just gettin' started." He paced the room, hands clenched into fists at his side. "I can't fuckin' believe you."

"I really dunno why you're pissed at me. You knew this was gonna happen before I even did," Jon pointed out, thinking back to the last time Eddie decided to throw a fit about Bryan. "And we agreed that you'd trust me when it came to him, right? Why are you makin' such a stink now?"

"'Cause I'd hoped you had taste."

"Really? Taste?" He raised his eyebrows at the man, "I'm friends with you, and you thought I had taste?"

"Oh, fuck you. You two deserve each other," he groused, anger slowly dropping away with a sigh. He scuffed his feet as he continued his pacing. He kicked the nearest bookcase for good measure. "If you're gonna go and fall for somebody, I expect to hear it from you, not the weird gremlin you fell in love with."

"When was the last time I called you on purpose?"

"The last time somethin' important happened." He glowered at Jon, all his venom dampened by the clouds of worry. "We talked about this, an' you agreed you'd start tellin' us when important shit happens. And not just bad important shit, either."

"And I haven't walked that back! Just because my idiot jumped the fuckin' gun, doesn't mean I wouldn't've told you first." 

"Well you didn't tell me."

"Because Bry an' I didn't do a whole lotta talkin' last week, not 'til it was time for him to fly out." He shrugged, a little at a loss. Was he supposed to be angry? Upset? He'd wanted to set the pace, but that had been taken out of his hands. Fuck else was he supposed to do? "We decided to take a couple weeks and think about what we wanted, and not rush head first into anything like a pair'a idiots."

"Coulda fooled me."

He gave Eddie as sincere a look as he could manage, "I'm sorry we didn't consult before we fucked. I'll be sure to let you know next time."

"Oh, fuck you," Eddie snapped. He growled and tore the hat off his head, throwing it at Jon before he even had a chance to think about dodging.

Jon let it slap uselessly against his chest, not even bothering to bat the thing away. "Well, what d'you want me to say?"

"I don't fuckin' know, I dunno, I don't. It's a little late for you to say what I want you t'say," he snapped, still pacing a ditch into the floor. "You couldn't even fuckin' just tell me."

"I'm sorry I wanted to keep this for myself for a little while. But this isn't your fuckin' relationship, it's mine," Jon said, slowly. Eddie flinched, just a little, but it got him to stop fuming for a few moments. "I'm sorry my idiot decided to jump the gun, and take that choice outta my hands. You'd've heard it from me, otherwise. So calm the fuck down and stop throwin' a goddamn hissy in my fuckin' shop, please."

All the fight left Eddie in an instant. "Does he make you happy?"

"It's been a week," he laughed, rolling his eyes. "But, yeah. He does. I mean, he's been hangin' around here long enough that you've seen it for yourself—whether you wanted to or not. You might not like him, but you can trust him."

"Well, m'not gonna go that far," Eddie muttered, face scrunched up in a grimace. "He's still a prick."

"So are you."

"You ain't makin' a good case, Moxie."

"Fine, trust him not to hurt me, or whatever it is you're so damn worried about." 

"He's gotta fight me first," he grumbled, petulantly crossing his arms across his chest.

He blinked at Eddie trying to make the words make sense. They'd already beat the living hell out of each other once, and it had been beautiful. 

But that had been work. That had been title shots and records and long-held grudges. It had been over and done before he'd even shown up at Jon's shop. Hell, before Jon had even given himself enough free time to even sit and catch up on the product.

It had been beautiful, and brutal, and everything he missed about being in a ring. Everything he wanted to keep out of his shop, keep his distance from so it didn't hurt. Everything he wanted to forget.

"You wanna fight him again."

"He wants me to trust him, he's gotta fuckin' earn it, man."

Like a father polishing his shotgun on prom night. Jon rolled his eyes as hard as he could and dug his phone out of his pocket, dialing his other idiot.

"Oh, so you do know how t'use a fuckin' phone," Eddie muttered, tossing his hands in the air. "That all it takes? Somebody to suck all the anti-social out through your dick, and suddenly you know how t'communicate?"

He shrugged and hit the speaker button, listening to the staticky ring echo through the quiet shop. "I'm not not sayin' that."

Eddie made a face. "Gross."

"Hey, you asked," he snarked back, as the call connected.

"Well this is a surprise," Bryan greeted, all warmth and honey. The way he always was for Jon.

"Hey, babe, I know you're busy, but Eddie wants a match," he announced, cheerfully.

Bryan was silent for a few moments. "Okay. Is there a new reason, or the usual?"

"I think he wants to fight for my honor this time."

"I did not say that," Eddie grumbled, sending Jon a dark glower.

"You didn't have to," Jon snapped back, and rolled his eyes again. He was gonna strain something at the rate he was going. "So, you wanna fight my best friend for the right to hold my hand, or whatever?"

"Oh my god, Mox."

On the other end of the line, Bryan snickered. Jon could picture it, the wide grin, the crickles at the corners of his eyes. Smug fucker. "Time and place, Kingston. I'll be there."

"I think this is some'a that toxic masculinity Wheeler always talks about, an' I hope you both know that," he muttered, and rolled his eyes again. Of course they'd just keep on going, wouldn't back down, no matter how much Jon wanted them to. "Either a'you do real damage to each other, we're gonna have a problem. You got me?"

Eddie waved him off with a distracted, "Yeah, yeah, whatever," as he furiously typed out a text. 

"You think this will help?"

"That's a strong word for it." He left Eddie to his scheming, and wandered into his workshop, turning off the speaker so he could keep the warmth of Bryan's voice all to himself. "I'm gonna give him the same warning I'm giving' you, 'cause I know what you're both like, but don't harm him. Bleed all you want, slap each other's nips off, whatever. I don't give a shit which a'you fucks wins, I really don't, but I ain't playin' nursemaid if there are any broken bones."

"I'm not promising anything, because I don't trust him," Bryan reasoned, and it was—almost gentle. "He tries to kill me, I'm gonna kill him first."

"You're not winnin' back any brownie points, right now," Jon grumbled. He could feel a headache starting in his temples, tightening a band of pressure around his skull. 

"My point is, I'll play by the rules if he does. But I'm not gonna put money on it," Bryan said, simply.

"You put him on the shelf, you better not show your face 'round here for a long while," Jon warned, pacing across the room. 

Bryan made an offended little sound. "And what if—"

"I already told you I'm givin' him the same warning, babe, don't start with me," he snapped, raising his voice a little louder than he intended. "I'm not takin' sides 'less I have to. I'm just sayin' you two dipshits better not gimme a reason. Okay?"

A frustrated sigh, "He's just going to—"

"Just—please, Bry."

Another sigh, another thud as he hit whatever it was he wanted to take his own annoyance out on. "I won't escalate anything," he promised, then paused. "Again. I won't escalate anything again. How's that?"

Jon sighed. He surrounded himself with violent, stubborn, shitstirring dickheads. "I'm holdin' you to that."

"You're lucky I like you."

"You're goddamn right I am, luckiest man alive, but I'll still dump your ass if you hurt my brother," he said with as much finality as he could muster. "Am I understood?"

He was silent another moment. "You should be bossier when—"

"Don't you try an' distract me by bein' cute, Bry, I wanna hear you say it. Am I understood?"

"Yes, I get it. I won't make it worse than it already is."

"Thank you."

"Can we go back to that part where you boss me ar—"

"Bryan."

He sighed across the line, "Just trying for some levity."

"Try it when my two favorite people aren't about to literally fight." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "This play backfired on me. I kinda hoped you'd both hear how stupid you sounded and cool off."

"You know us both better than that," Bryan chided, gently. "But, I will try to play nice. That's all I'm promising."

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks."

"Stop expecting the worst, Jon. This is what we do. You haven't been out of the game long enough to forget that."

"Maybe, but this ain't some friendly competition, and you damn well know that, too." He slumped down into his chair, tilted his head back to stare up at the ceiling, "I thought we said we were gonna take a couple weeks before we broke the news. I thought we did that whole 'adults talkin' about shit' thing to avoid trouble."

"In my defense," Bryan started, and Jon readied another eyeroll, "he started it."

"So, what, he was hecklin' you and you thought it was a good idea to let him know about us just to piss him off more?" 

Bryan hesitated for a long moment. "I wouldn't say I thought it was a good idea," he admitted.

Jon laughed before he could stop himself. He'd surrounded himself with children. "You're the worst. The absolute fuckin' worst."

"Maybe. But you chose me."

"Yeah, but you started it," he snarked back, shaking his head fondly. "I should be so fuckin' mad at you, ya know."

"Am I on your shitlist?"

"Babe, you are my shitlist," he grumbled, and got a laughter for his trouble. "Please, behave. You get your ass beat for mouthin' off, I'm not gonna kiss it better."

"Yes, you will," Bryan laughed, warm and golden honey in Jon's ear. "I'll see you next week, okay? I'll text you when I make it to the hotel."

"I still think you should stay here, with me, but whatever, sure. See you next week," Jon grumbled, just for show. "Bye, babe."

"You're disgusting."

He heaved a sigh and shot Eddie an unimpressed look. 

Eddie looked annoyed where he stood in the doorway. "You got no business bein' all lovey dovey like that."

"You better get all your whining out now, I'm not gonna keep puttin' up with it." He sighed and tossed his phone onto the desk, "This goddamn match better be the end of it."

"It ain't gonna make me like him."

"M'not asking you to! I just want you to stop fuckin' actin' like I'm too stupid to know what the fuck I'm doing."

Eddie flinched again. He glanced away and glowered at the floor, teeth grinding down on something.

"C'mon. Use your words," Jon goaded, just to be an asshole. 

His lip lifted in a little snarl, but he didn’t turn his gaze back toward Jon. "I don't wanna see you get hurt."

"Then stop acting like it's fuckin' inevitable," he begged, trying to get Eddie to just listen. "The rate you're going, if I end up hurt, it'll be your doing before it's Bryan's."

Fucker had the audacity to look offended. Like he was innocent. Like he hadn't spent months giving disapproving looks and snide comments. Like he hadn't spent months acting like Jon was too weak to take care of himself. "I would not."

"You think it doesn't hurt when you come in here, spoutin' shit like this?" he asked, eyebrows raised. He met Eddie's eyes, made him look. "You're my best friend, and you barge in here actin' like I'm too stupid to know any better. Like I'm too fuckin' lovedumb to stand up for myself. Like I couldn't fight if I had to."

"I do fuckin' not think—"

"Are you about to invalidate my fuckin' feelings by tellin' me you didn't mean to? That you didn't intend to hurt me?" He hadn't gone to therapy long, didn't exactly give himself the schedule for it, but he remembered some of his doc's lessons. The difference between meaning well, and doing well. "You gonna tell me I can't get just as fuckin' mad as you, all 'cause you didn't mean to call me a fuckin' idiot?"

"I liked you better when you were still emotionally constipated," Eddie muttered, shoulders slumping. "I don't think you're stupid, I just don't trust him."

"And until you can get evidence to back that up, stop takin' it out on me. And that means, stop makin' me play fuckin' mediator, too. You're an adult. Fuckin' act like it," Jon grumbled. He stood and crossed the short distance, hauling Eddie in by the scruff of his neck. "The world ain't endin' just because I got a boyfriend, so stop acting like it."

"Did it have to be him, though?" It was muffled where he'd pressed his face into Jon's shoulder.

"'Course it did. It was a done deal the moment he showed up, and you know it." He gently shoved Eddie back, "Don't keep givin' him shit—not unless he starts it. Okay?" Jon, insisted. Just because he liked the guy, didn't mean he wasn't fully aware of Bryan's love of shit stirring.

Even still slumped as he was, Jon could see the little spark of mischief in Eddie. "So you're sayin' I can still give him shit."

"If…"

Eddie groaned and rolled his eyes. "Fine. Only if he starts it."

"Same goes for him, ya know. You go after him, he's allowed to hit back."

Eddie made a face. "I don't like you anymore."

"Bullshit." He gave Eddie another light shove toward the door. "Now, are you gonna run the register, or not?"

He relaxed a little, back on familiar ground. He flapped a hand at Jon and turned toward the shop. "Yeah, yeah, fuckin' hard ass."

"If you don't scare off any customers, we'll go to the gym later," Jon promised. "You can beat me up and everything."

Eddie swatted at him one final time. "I don't wanna beat you up."

"Then shut up for five fuckin' minutes and let me be happy," he shot back, hoping the point would finally fucking stick. He sighed and shook his head, waving Eddie off. "If Thompson comes in for a pick up, remind 'im I quoted him three months on the job, not three weeks."

He immediately perked up. "Can I yell?"

"Only if he pushes," Jon said, sternly. "If you can behave 'til lunchtime, I'll send you on some errands this afternoon. Deal?"

"Only if you promise to stop working at 6," Eddie shot back, but without much heat behind it. Like he realized, halfway through, that he didn't have much of a leg to stand on when it came to making anymore demands on Jon.

It was almost normal. Almost back to the standard bickering he was used to. Just on the edge of being back on solid footing.

He watched Eddie for a few moments, as he set about opening the shop back up, and ached. 

He hadn't ever expected Eddie and Bryan to get along. Not before, and certainly not after. But he'd hoped they'd at least be normal about shit. Wouldn't put him in the middle of everything. 

He understood Eddie just fine. Understood Bryan, too, thank fuck. Understood their fears and anger, the need to snip at each other. To bite and to bite back. Their desires to defend and protect Jon—even if they were both bassackwards in how they went about it. He understood each of them. It was the Eddie and Bryan Situation he had so much trouble navigating. 

He sighed again and turned back toward his desk, ready to bury himself back beneath his pile of work. People may not have made much fucking sense to him, but at least books did.

[froggyogata]

YuusakuOgata text hehe

I decided to bring here my first translated text for my favorite pairing, it's cute and romantic so enjoy!

————————

Returning home.

The week before the project deadline is always horrible because of the amount of work - Ogata leaves so early that the sun has yet to rise, and arrives at midnight. It's still two days until X-Day, it's Wednesday night, and he can barely keep his eyes open, staying in reality solely thanks to his own stubbornness and the five cups of strong coffee he drank during the day. His body is so tired that it no longer even suffers from heartburn - the coffee poured into his empty stomach during the minute breaks has long since replaced his blood. It circulates slowly through his veins, pounding in his temples with a dull familiar pain as he climbs into the back seat of a corporate cab and stares thoughtlessly out the window all the way home. His nervous system, overwhelmed by deadlines and the hundreds of calculations he literally inhales into himself along with oxygen during the work day, won't allow him to pass out from fatigue-he needs a shower, a bed, and Yuusaku to close his eyes and fall into a dead sleep until the next nasty alarm clock rings.

"Two days," the thought swirls smoothly in his emptied head, like a lone fish in a huge aquarium that hasn't been cleaned in a long time. 

When the cab stops at the driveway, Ogata says goodbye to the faceless driver and moves on autopilot, stubbornly shifting his feet forward. Space is fragmented into frames, the film has long been chewed up and torn in places, and if you ask him how he got to the apartment, bypassing the lobby and waiting for the slow-moving elevator, he will not remember. Only the isolated flashes of light from the bright lamps under the ceiling, the quiet trill of the arriving elevator, and the rustle of the carpets underfoot. Before the door to the apartment, he pauses for a moment, panting, waiting for them to part before him-as all the doors in the office do, and his tired brain logically expects the same from the usual doors. Then, after two heavy sighs, Ogata reaches into his pocket and finds the keys, takes a long time to try on the lock, and finally, after opening it, enters the apartment, trying not to make any noise.

He is greeted by darkness and the delicious smells of food from the kitchen - Yuusaku has long been asleep, the door to their bedroom is invitingly ajar, and Ogata catches a long promising glance at the doorway, knowing that he will go in very soon. This knowledge gives him the strength to move - he rambles into the kitchen, picks up a plate wrapped in foil and towel from the table, finds a spoon in the dryer, and eats right there, leaning against the countertop - yesterday he fell asleep right there at the table, and is not going to make such a tactical mistake again. The food - today it's noodles and breaded chicken, still warm and smelling like heaven - melts on his tongue and falls into his stomach so easily, as if Ogata's body were a bottomless abyss filled with fatigue. Trying to chew at least some of the food and feeling even more exhausted from it, he copes in a few minutes and, quietly putting the dishes in the sink, rambles to the shower.

Throwing one last wistful glance at the tub, Ogata quickly rinsed himself under the shower and brushed his teeth - he had neither the energy nor the time for a full bath, but on Saturday... saturday was his long-awaited day off, and he could at least lie in hot water for half a day and recuperate. Yuusaku would probably offer to help him wash his hair, and then something nice and frothy would come out, and he wanted it damn bad. 

"All the more reason to live to see Saturday" - Ogata hummed, turned off the light, slowly pulled on the homemade pants Yuusaku had left in the washing machine. And finally moved towards the bedroom in the dark from memory, without turning on the light.

They live on the penultimate floor and do not use dark curtains in the bedroom - the night light of the city is just enough to see that Yuusaku habitually sleeps on the left side of the bed, leaving the right side by the wall for Ogata. In the last few steps to the bed, Ogata's legs are already beginning to buckle with fatigue, but as he climbs over Yuusaku, Ogata does not allow himself to pile on top of him, and relaxes only the moment his body touches the mattress. 

Yuusaku, who had been breathing deeply and slowly a second before, immediately sighs softly, turns to him, blindly pulls his arms with the blanket wrapped around them toward him, and pulls him into his arms, embracing him. After one long, dark and warm moment, Ogata finds himself somewhere among the folds of the blanket. Now Yuusaku has one arm under his head, the other on his waist, his legs intertwined, and Yuusaku's nose gently tucked into his hair. Muttering an unintelligible greeting, Yuusaku exhales warmly and sleepily, snuggling closer to him for a moment, and Ogata feels the fingers on his waist move several times, stroking his skin. Darkness, soft and silent, envelops them, the room, this tiny world, one for two, hiding everything around them except the bed. Feeling his eyes gradually close, Ogata hugs Yuusaku and whispers contentedly:

- I'm home. Thank you. 

His head finally stops hurting, the pounding in his temples subsides, and Ogata physically feels his body slowly relaxing, soaking up the heat. Yuusaku beside him is big and measured, his soft firm skin under his palms feels so familiar, and Ogata is pleased to press himself against it, exhaling. The last of his strength leaves him, his head empties, even his legs stop humming.

- I will always be waiting for you, ani-sama, - Yuusaku mutters barely audible, without even waking up, runs his nose over her temple, kisses at random with soft dry lips somewhere on her forehead, and Ogata reflexively smiles, burrowing deeper into his arms and squinting happily. There, in the cramped darkness, after a few seconds he finally lets himself fall asleep, slipping into the soft darkness of tired but restful dreams. He knows he will be cuddled until morning, and it makes him sleep peacefully, knowing that nightmares will not disturb him. 

Saturday is still two days away, and he needs the strength to spend the weekend not just trying to get some sleep. Yuusaku, after all, will also have the weekend off, and Ogata intends to return at least some of the care that his brother has surrounded him with throughout this crazy week.

[megcheese]

My latest creation:

I made this two-piece outfit for our Hunger Games theme party. Instead of going literal and recreating a gown or outfit from one of the movies, I decided to just create a bold and eye-catching look. The skirt and top are from a Vogue pattern I picked up a few years ago. When I brought the pattern, I bought the houndstooth as well knowing that would be a good look but wasn't sure what to do for the top. Those of you who have known me for a while might be thinking that color combo looks familiar on me.

It's not just a repeat of my wedding gown colors, the top is made with the same fabric as the sash! The sash pieces were long, leaving lots of usable leftover fabric; more than enough to make a top.

The tiny mirrors were inspired by a dress I saw in an ad from Sak's. I've worked with sequins quite a bit and often have people who think I sewed each sequin on individually rather than buying a fabric covered in sequins. Well, this time I did hand sew each individual mirror.

I'm kind of against hand sewing since a machine does most things better and will use embroidery needles for hand tasks because they're blunter and have larger eyes. But this fabric was too fine so I had to bust out the tiny and sharp hand needles.

Which brings me to the disaster portion of my story...

10:30 pm Friday night, I had put the sewing project down next to me on the couch for a minute to look at my phone. All week I'd been sewing leaned over to one side so Charlie could snuggle in my lap while I work. My obliques were sore enough that I was trying to remember which move in which workout I'd done this week that get that way. None. I was just sitting crooked all week to accommodate snuggle boi.

So! My sewing was on the couch right next to me, with the thread and needle dangling off the edge. I use the double thread technique so the needle is secured and can't come off without breaking the thread. And I catch Charlie chomping on that dangling thread. I scold him and grab the thread and pull. But he pulled back and the thread snapped. And he ran away. At once I'm thinking, "where's the needle?" And start checking the floor where he'd been standing. Michael heard me holler so he went to the cat and saw Charlie gagging in the hall. A little saliva or bile was coughed up but no needle! Now I'm absolutely freaking out and calling the emergency vet only to find out they're not just closed for the evening, they're closed until Sunday. And I read about what happens if your cat ingests something sharp like a needle and now neither Michael or I can go to sleep.

The cat was acting normal so we did go to bed (but not until two am) and I talked to his regular vet first thing in the morning. And we pack up and go to the emergency vet at Cornell over an hour away. And of course Charlie poops in his crate while I'm driving so I have to clean that up in a Burger King parking lot that I knew was right off the 81 in Tully.

The vets were able to see Charlie, take an x-ray, and determine that the needle could likely be removed via endoscopy. Meanwhile, I still need to finish sewing these tiny mirrors for the party the same night. So I'm the crazy lady who's like, "My cat swallowed a sewing needle!" All while continuing to sew with another needle with the same characteristics in the waiting room. I even pulled it out in the exam room with the vet to show the way the needle was attached to the thread and describe how the thread would have to have broken in two places for the cat to have swallowed thread as well.

Seeing the x-ray with the needle was kind of a relief. Up until then, part of me thought maybe the needle was lost in the carpet at home and I was overreacting. Nope, this naughty boy did in fact swallow the needle and spending the day at the vet was the correct choice.

Here's my healthy boi, needle free, happy and recovering at home. We finally got to leave Cornell around four pm, after Charlie woke up from anesthesia. The endoscopy doc offered me the needle to take home but I politely declined. I was excited to see it though. They also confirmed no trauma to the esophagus or stomach, so he's going to recover well.

Moral of the story: don't let your cat swallow a sewing needle.

[dinosaurcharcuterie]

This still works on adults, btw.

The place I worked at before this had a really nice, modern building with lovely surroundings. Pay was great, benefits were fantastic. And it turned some people into what I can only describe as arrogant shit goblins to anyone they perceived as lesser.

The lunch staff was relatively spared, as they decided via committee what was on the menu beyond drinks and chocolate bars, and also how stingy they were with your portion size.

Maintenance could shut down part of the park around the building if it got too messy, and put your non-lethal repair request all the way down to the end of the wait list, so there was some calculation involved in the disrespect they faced.

But the cleaners? Some people decided those were free game. And in ludicrous ways. Trash was thrown on the floor instead of the waste basket 5 steps away. Sorting it, as these people did at home? Not happening. Someone put up signs to not take hot drinks in carpeted areas and it only seemed to motivate people to take their coffee break there. Let's not even mention the toilets.

There was very little in way of cleaning desk-based employees could be forced to do beyond take out trash. There were protections in place describing exactly which tasks were part of your contract and which weren't. This was mainly to keep interns from being hazed and managers from shoving off responsibilities, and it seemed to backfire spectacularly.

Until someone had the bright idea that cleaners had those same protections. They had been hired to clean the office space of responsible adults with a certain expected amount of manners. Not be the live-in maid of Gordon in Sales.

Your group had a chronic un-sorter? Your room was regularly found with the floor covered in tissues? Welp, guess you weren't part of the cleaners' responsibility anymore for a month or two. Have fun figuring out where the trash goes after the bin is full, because you will be reported if you start filling up the trash of others groups so they don't have space for their own. Oh, you want your floors cleaned and the desks sanitized? Put in a request, and wait for there to be a supervisor ready to confirm there's no tripping hazards as were reported last time. Yes, every time.

Toilet stalls covered in bodily fluids? Sink area regularly pollocked with liquid soap? Yeah, those restrooms were closed for "maintenance" now. How long? Doesn't matter to you. Next wing has other ones. Enjoy your walk.

The coffee stains on carpet could and did result in the really, really, REALLY nice coffee machine nearest to the area being removed. You could get a jug of black coffee from the cafeteria, if you were willing to make the trek. No perishables allowed to be stored in offices, too much of a biohazard, so no latte or cappuccino for you. Sugar? That attracts ants, don't keep that in your cubby! Maybe go up or down a floor to someone else's break room, listen to the rumors about why "your" machine got taken away.

Same could be done with dishwashers--and the crockery that came with them--or fridges or vending machines.

By the time I got there, the on-boarding talk included a pre-emptive "there will be natural consequences if custodial staff is not respected". Failure to heed that warning was swiftly called out by coworkers, albeit a bit more grumpily by those who felt like their place of work should come with their own personal punching bag. Some types were so far gone that they ignored that, too, and then complained to their supervisors about it. They were respectfully informed which comforts were stipulated in their contract, and which ones could only be provided in a work environment that allowed all staff to work according to theirs.

Most people adapted without issue.

So how do I know this wasn't all hugely exaggerated rumor?

One section of the building was kept for external contractors and inspectors. You'd be banished redirected there if your space was temporarily unavailable, or for some seminars. In the six years I worked there, there were maybe two of them were the trash was collected, maybe three months where the toilets were accessible and I think less than six weeks where the break area was more than a sink and some empty cupboards.

im always thinking about that post where someones grandma said “some people have never cleaned a bathroom and it shows” bc it does show

[drypure1]

Find the Best Dry Cleaners Near Me in Noida: Convenience, Quality, and Affordability

Looking for the best dry cleaners near me in Noida? Discover expert dry cleaning services, pick up and delivery options, and affordable rates for a cleaner home.

When you're searching for dry cleaners near me, you're looking for convenience, quality, and a reliable service. Whether you need your clothes cleaned for a special occasion or you're simply maintaining your wardrobe, finding professional dry cleaners that meet your needs can be a daunting task. In Noida, there are plenty of options to choose from, but knowing where to find the best dry cleaners in Noida can save you time and money.

In this blog, we'll guide you through the various services, dry cleaning charges near me, and everything else you need to know to make an informed decision when selecting dry cleaning services near me.

What Is Dry Cleaning and Why Should You Consider It?

Dry cleaning is a cleaning method that uses solvents instead of water to clean delicate fabrics like wool, silk, and other materials that can't handle the rough agitation of washing machines. It removes smells and stains while maintaining the integrity of the fabric. For many, it’s the best option when they need their clothes to look fresh and new without the risk of shrinkage or damage.

Have you ever wondered, “How to do dry cleaning?” don’t worry, as expert dry cleaners are equipped with the knowledge and tools to handle everything from sofa dry cleaning in Noidatoshoe dry cleaning service near me.

Types of Dry Cleaning Services Available Near Me

1. Standard Dry Cleaning Services:

This includes the basic washing of clothes such as suits, dresses, shirts, and other delicate fabrics. Whether you're looking for same day dry cleaners near me or need to schedule a dry cleaning pick up and delivery, mostdry cleaning apps now offer easy options to schedule pickups.

2. Shoe Dry Cleaning:

Yes, your shoes need cleaning too! Whether it’s your favorite sneakers or a pair of leather shoes, shoe dry cleaning near me has become an essential service. Noida has a variety of places offering shoe cleaning laundry near me, where they’ll clean, restore, and even repair your shoes. Many of these shoe repair noida shops also provide washing for shoes dry cleaning noida.

3. Carpet Cleaning:

If you’re looking for carpet cleaning services, you’re in luck. Many dry cleaners in Noida also offer carpet cleaning noida, with professional teams capable of cleaning both carpets and rugs at affordable prices. Whether it’s a routine clean or a deep carpet cleaning near me, these services use advanced cleaning solutions to ensure your carpets look and smell fresh.

4. Sofa Dry Cleaning:

Over time, dust, stains, and allergies may collect on your sofas. For the best results, consider sofa dry cleaning in Noida from a decent dry cleaner to ensure your furniture stays as clean and inviting as possible.

How to Choose the Best Dry Cleaner Near Me

When looking for a reliable dry cleaner in Noida, consider these factors:

Convenience: Look for dry cleaners near me Noida that offer pickup and delivery options. This is particularly beneficial if you’re too busy to visit the store or if you need instant dry cleaning near me.

Expertise: Opt for expert dry cleaners with years of experience. Experienced cleaners know how to handle different fabrics and stains without causing any damage.

Cost: Check the dry cleaning charges to ensure they fit your budget. Some cleaners offer discounts for regular customers or provide a dry cleaning price list in India, which can help you determine if the service is affordable.

Customer Reviews: Look for decent dry cleaners with good reviews, as word-of-mouth can help you find the best quality dry cleaning.

Cost of Dry Cleaning Services

Understanding dry cleaning charges near me is essential when choosing a service. In India, prices vary based on the type of service (e.g., dry wash near me price, dry cleaning cost, etc.). For example:

Suits and Dresses: Rs. 150 to Rs. 500 per item

Shirts and Trousers: Rs. 50 to Rs. 150 per item

Shoe Dry Cleaning: Rs. 100 to Rs. 500 per pair, depending on material and condition

Additional Services to Consider

Dry Cleaning and Ironing Near Me: Many dry cleaners in Noida offer dry cleaning and ironing near me as a combined service, ensuring your clothes are not only cleaned but also neatly pressed and ready to wear.

Franchise Opportunities: If you're interested in owning a dry cleaning business, you can explore dry cleaning franchise opportunities that provide you with a ready-made business model.

Online Dry Cleaners: For added convenience, online dry cleaners allow you to schedule your cleaning from your phone or computer, with the option for dry cleaning pick up and delivery right to your door.

FAQs

1. How can I locate the top dry cleaners in my area?

Look for expert dry cleaners with positive reviews, reliable service, and affordable rates. Apps and online platforms can help you compare options for dry cleaners near me Noida.

2. What are the charges for dry cleaning in Noida?

Dry cleaning charges depend on the type of service and the item being cleaned. For example, suits may cost Rs. 200-500, while shirts may cost Rs. 50-150.

3. Do dry cleaners offer shoe cleaning services?

Yes, many dry cleaners in Noida offer shoe dry cleaning near me, including cleaning for sneakers, leather shoes, and other types of footwear.

4. Can I get same-day dry cleaning?

Yes, several dry cleaners provide same day dry cleaners near me options, ensuring that your clothes are cleaned and ready on the same day.

5. Are online dry cleaning services available?

Yes, online dry cleaners offer convenient options for booking services through an app, with dry cleaning pick up and delivery directly to your door.

[exploreuknow]

Cordless Vacuums: Revolutionizing Cleaning with Convenience and Power

Cordless Vacuums: Revolutionizing Cleaning with Convenience and Power

Cleaning your home can feel like a chore—you drag heavy vacuums around with cords that never seem to reach every corner. Cordless vacuums have changed the game entirely. They glide effortlessly between rooms without plugging and unplugging. 

This article examines the latest developments in cordless vacuum technology, how it works, and how it makes a difference in cleaning. Whether you're a seasoned pro or new to these nifty gadgets doesn't matter!

The Rise of Cordless Vacuums

Cordless vacuums have transformed cleaning. Due to their cordless convenience, they are popular. As technology advances, manufacturers create lightweight designs with powerful suction. This combination makes it easy to tackle messes. Cordless models work well in urban settings.

Their portability doesn't compromise performance. A significant part of this is the shift towards flexible living solutions. Daily routines demand quick cleanups. Using these gadgets in innovative ways sparks interest among homeowners everywhere. Since cordless vacuums are easy and effective, more people than ever are switching to them.

How Cordless Vacuums Work

Unlike corded vacuums, the best cordless vacuum use rechargeable batteries. They free users from cords that tether them. Powerful motors create strong suction. Advanced filtration systems capture dust and allergens. 

Lightweight materials make these devices easy to maneuver around furniture and tight spaces. Cordless vacuums also feature detachable components for quick cleaning changes. LED indicators let users monitor battery life in some units. 

Brushless motors enhance efficiency and longevity. Combined with innovation, cordless vacuums are convenient and highly effective tools. Their compact designs make them easy to store when not in use.

Benefits of Using a Cordless Vacuum

Cordless vacuums make cleaning easier. Their mobility allows them to be used anywhere, allowing you to easily reach tight corners and high spots. They are lightweight and convenient; you can carry them around the house with minimal effort. Vacuums with battery power offer impressive suction.

Cordless vacuums effectively pick up dirt, dust, and pet hair. Another advantage is the ability to clean up quickly. You can use the vacuum for a few minutes instead of dragging out a bulky machine. Cordless vacuums often come with attachments. These multifunctional tools can clean upholstery, crevices, or even cars.

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Cordless Vacuum

Cordless vacuums can feel overwhelming, but key factors can simplify the process. First, consider battery life. Choose a model that lasts long enough to clean your entire home. Next, consider suction power. For carpets and hard floors, higher wattage translates into better performance.

Weight is also significant. Lightweight vacuums are ideal for tackling stairs or overhead cleaning. Keep dust capacity in mind. When cleaning extensively, larger containers mean less frequent emptying. See user reviews for ease of use and noise levels. Details make a big difference in daily chores and overall satisfaction.

Tips for Maintaining and Getting the Most Out of Your Cordless Vacuum

Regular maintenance keeps your cordless vacuum running smoothly. Empty the dust bin after each use. Full bins reduce suction power. Check and clean the filters regularly. Rinse washable filters to maintain optimal performance. Reattach them when completely dry.

Also, pay attention to the brush roll. Hair and debris can affect its efficiency. To remove tangled strands, use scissors or a seam ripper. Avoid overcharging your vacuum for longer battery life. Please keep it away from direct sunlight to protect its battery. Follow these steps for a cleaner home and longer-lasting appliances.

New Innovations and Technologies in the World of Cordless Vacuums

Innovative technology is driving the evolution of cordless vacuums. Manufacturers are constantly improving convenience and performance. Smart sensors are one notable innovation. Suction power is adjusted based on floor type. 

No manual adjustments are needed for carpets or hard surfaces. The battery technology has also advanced. New lithium-ion batteries last longer, allowing users to clean larger spaces. Fast-charging capability means less downtime. 

Many models include HEPA filters, which allergy sufferers benefit from while maintaining indoor air quality. Manufacturers are exploring lightweight materials that improve maneuverability, making cleaning more manageable for those with limited strength. The future looks bright for cordless vacuum enthusiasts!

Conclusion

The cordless vacuum has revolutionized home cleaning. It is favored for its convenience and performance, and technological advances continue to improve it. When choosing a cordless vacuum, consider factors such as battery life, suction power, and additional attachments.

Your vacuum will perform better if you maintain it regularly. With so many options available today, finding one that fits seamlessly into your lifestyle is easier than ever. Modern living spaces will require cordless vacuums in the future. They simplify our daily chores, whether tackling pet hair or doing quick cleanups between deeper cleans.

[snb-cleaning]

Best Cleaning Products for Homes with Pets

Having a pet is one of the joys of life, but it also comes with its own set of cleaning challenges. From shedding fur to muddy paw prints to the occasional accident, keeping your home clean while taking care of your furry friends requires the right cleaning products. Fortunately, a number of effective and safe options exist to help one keep a clean, fresh house. Below, we review a few of the best home cleaning products for homes with pets, including deep cleaning products and glass cleaning, and touch on how professional cleaning services can help.

1. Specialized Pet Vacuums

Pet owners know that no amount of grooming will completely eliminate fur from landing on your furniture, floors, and carpets. That's where a quality pet-specific vacuum cleaner comes in. Brands like Dyson, Shark, and Bissell offer vacuums designed to tackle pet hair effectively. Most come fitted with HEPA filters that help trap the allergens, dander, and microscopic particles your pets leave in their wake. Where floors may be either wood or carpeted, a model that comes equipped with a motorized brush head or at least one specifically for pet hair is greatly appreciated. Also, regular cleaning of the vacuum should be done to keep this machine running like new.

2. Pet-Safe General Cleaners

A good all-purpose cleaner is a must-have for any home with pets. However, it's important to choose one that is safe for your pets. Harsh chemicals can be dangerous, especially if your pets tend to lick the surfaces after cleaning. These brands offer plant-based cleaning products that clean effectively without harsh chemicals or fragrances.

These general cleaners are ready for anything, from countertops to floors, and can help with wiping away dirt, spills, and paw prints. They come in most handy when cleaning areas your pet will frequent, such as where their bedding or food bowls may sit.

3. Pet Odor Removers

Pets bring a lot of love-and sometimes odor! While regular cleaning can help, you might need an extra boost to tackle those lingering smells. Rocco & Roxie Professional Strength Stain & Odor Eliminator is one of the most popular choices among pet owners. It uses enzymatic cleaning action to break down organic stains and odors, including urine, vomit, and food spills. The best part? It's safe for pets, children, and even your furniture.

Another great option is Nature's Miracle Urine Destroyer. It’s an effective odor neutralizer that works wonders for those unexpected accidents, especially in homes with puppies or senior pets.

4. Pet-Safe Glass Cleaners

If you have pets that love to paw at the windows or get their noses pressed against the glass, you'll want a glass cleaner that can handle streaks and smudges without using harsh chemicals. Method Glass + Surface Cleaner is a popular choice for homes with pets because it's made from plant-based ingredients and doesn't contain ammonia, making it safe to use around animals.

As an even more natural alternative, Seventh Generation Glass Cleaner offers a streak-free shine and is formulated with biodegradable ingredients. These glass cleaners will leave your windows spotless and are gentle enough to use where your pets roam. Consulting with professional glass cleaners can also solve these problems.

5. Deep Cleaning with Steam Cleaners

Oh, a steam cleaner is highly recommended for a house that has pets. It does an excellent job in cleaning sanitized floors, carpets, and furniture-all this without using harsh chemicals. It acts precisely by heating up and thus killing bacteria, mold, and germs. Therefore, it is suitable for those homes where pets may bring dirt inside or even occasionally have accidents.

The Bissell Power Fresh Steam Mop works wonderfully on floors, while the McCulloch Heavy-Duty Steam Cleaner does an excellent job on more heavy-duty deep cleaning. These steam cleaners can take care of set-in stains, pet odors, and bacteria, and are non-toxic to pets and humans.

6. Professional Cleaning for Pet Houses

But even the best cleaning solutions cannot sometimes deal with what your pets can bring home. Hiring a professional cleaning service might just be the lifesaver. Many cleaning companies today have services specifically for pet owners, with products that are guaranteed pet-safe and the skill level necessary to deal with these issues.

Professional cleaners can perform deep cleaning on carpets, upholstery, and other high-traffic areas your pet frequents. For example, professional carpet cleaners can also help with odor removal and ensure that your home is thoroughly sanitized, providing peace of mind that your pet’s living space is safe and hygienic.

7. Pet-Safe Carpet and Upholstery Cleaners

Carpets and upholstery are notorious for holding onto pet odors and stains, but using the right cleaning products can make a big difference. Bissell's Pet Stain & Odor Remover works great on carpets and fabric upholstery, while another excellent option is the PetSafe Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner. Both products are designed to break down stains, neutralize odors, and leave your home smelling fresh without harmful chemicals.

For added security, one could invest in a commercial-grade carpet cleaning machine. Many of these machines also come with attachments that help to clean furniture and those nooks and crannies.

Conclusion

From pet-friendly vacuums to all-purpose cleaners and deep steam cleaners, the options for making the cleaning up after your furry friend easy and safe are unlimited. And if you need that extra hand, professional cleaning services will go the extra mile to ensure your home is spotless, sanitized, and safe for you and your pets. With the right products and a little bit of effort, your home can stay fresh and welcoming, no matter how many paws are running around!

[josephquinn23]

How to Choose the Best Rug Cleaning Equipment in Toowoomba

Cleaning equipment is a must in keeping the beauty and cleanliness of your rugs. For any homeowner or professional cleaner in Toowoomba, the right cleaning equipment will keep your rugs looking fresh, vibrant, and long-lasting. Here are some simple tips to help you choose the best rug cleaning equipment for your needs.

Consider the Type of Rug You Have Rugs vary in terms of what cleaning method is required; the material, thickness, and texture of the rug can vary. For example, the delicate wool or silk requires gentle cleaning to avoid any kind of damage; on the other hand, synthetic rugs can be very hard to clean with a robust equipment cleaning tool. In case of uncertainty about the material used in your rug, try out equipment that can be multi-purpose and is suitable for a variety of rug types.

Look for Powerful Suction One of the most important factors when choosing rug cleaning equipment is suction power. Strong suction is crucial for deep cleaning, as it helps remove dirt, dust, and allergens from deep within the fibers. If your rug is heavily soiled or has been neglected for a while, you’ll need equipment that can pull dirt out effectively. For Toowoomba residents, investing in quality Rug Cleaning Equipment Toowoomba with strong suction can make all the difference, especially in areas with a lot of foot traffic.

Check for Adjustable Settings The rugs vary in size and density, so you need to have equipment that can be adjusted according to your needs. Therefore, you should look for machines that offer adjustable settings for different carpet types and pile heights. This will allow you to clean everything from delicate area rugs to thicker, high-pile carpets without risking damage. This flexibility will ensure that you maintain the quality of your rug for years to come.

Ease of portability and usability If you intend to frequently move your rug cleaning equipment, take note of its weight and mobility. Lightweight, easy-to-move cleaners are great for small areas or when you want to clean several rugs in various parts of your house. Make sure the equipment is also easy to assemble, use, and store. The ease of design will make cleaning a lot faster and will save you time and energy.

Consider Attachments and Accessories Equipment usually comes with a range of attachments and accessories that will help you get the best out of rug cleaning. For instance, upholstery brushes, crevice tools, and scrubbers help with spot cleaning and hard-to-reach areas. Seek equipment that offers a variety of useful attachments so you can handle everything from deep cleaning to detailing around edges and corners.

Maintenance and Longitivity Rug cleaning equipment might just be an investment that means you want something really built to last and easy on maintenance. Choose equipment that lasts well and has simple maintenance procedures, such as washable filters and easy-to-empty dustbins or reliable components. Regularly doing maintenance will extend the longevity of your equipment and ensure it doesn't fail you.

Think About Your Budget Rug cleaning equipment varies in price, from low-end machines to high-end machines. The budget should be set depending on the frequency of use and the types of rugs to be cleaned. Though the cheapest option is attractive, quality equipment will pay off in the long run as the rugs will last longer and get cleaned better.

Conclusion Choosing the Right Rug Cleaning Equipment in Toowoomba It is necessary to think about your needs, which kind of rugs you have at home, and how much money you are willing to spend for cleaning equipment. With the proper equipment, you can maintain the rug, keep it looking good, and prolong its life cycle for many years.

[aaronm97]

Water Damage Restoration in Riverside: Restore Your Property Today

Water damage is destructive, attacking not only your property but also your sense of peace. One bad burst pipe or strong rainstorms and malfunctioning appliances are some of the many causes of water damage that need immediate attention. For those who are in dire need, Water Damage Restoration Riverside takes pride in answering your calls regarding the swift and efficient restoration of your home or office.

Restoration experts in Riverside, working with the best professional expertise and latest techniques, ensure that your property comes back to its original condition, showing minimal long-term damage. Let's look at how this service could help you regain your space after an attack of water damage.

Why Choose Riverside Water Damage Restoration?

It is quite overwhelming to handle water damages.But, a very effective service concerning restoration makes everything better. Here is why: Water Damage Restoration in Riverside is the best for homeowners and businesses

1. Fast Response Times

Time is of the essence when water damage occurs. The restoration experts in Riverside deliver timely responses to limit further damage to your property.

2. Expertise

Trained and experienced technicians access the degree of the damage and use advanced equipment to restore your property efficiently.

3. All Service Elements

From extraction of water to remediation of mold, restoration processes cover everything needed to bring your space back to life.

Water Damage Restoration in Riverside - allowing you to keep your property in trusted hands.

Common Sources of Water Damage

Water damage may result from several factors, but most of the common reasons that Water Damage Restoration in Riverside often receives include:

Bursting of Pipes

This is caused by intense cold weather, old pipes, or excess water pressure, which causes pipes to burst and water damage in a destructive process.

Flooding

Flooding from heavy rainfalls or poor drainage destroys flooring, walls, and furniture.

Malfunctions in Appliances

Leaky washing machines, dishwashers, and heaters do their share to accounts of water damage in homes and businesses .

Roof Leaks

Water may penetrate your property through cracks on a leaking or aged roof, thus spoiling the structure of your property as well as promoting mold growth.

However, regardless of the source, professional restoration services ensure that your property is restored, comprehensive, and in no time. The Water Damage Restoration Process

When water damage hits, a proven process is followed by the restoration professional to limit damage and restore your property. Here's what to expect:

1. Assessment and Inspection

The beginning activity for evaluating the extent of water damage is to dispatch the technician to use high tech equipment for identifying moistened areas in order to make the proper assessment.

2. Water Extraction

Standing water is extracted using submersible pumps or vacuums to cut on damage and speed up the drying process.

3. Dry-out and Dehumidify

Some specialized equipment is used to dry the areas to make sure all the moisture has been removed so that mold does not grow.

4. Cleaning and Sanitation

All the furniture, carpets, and other materials are cleaned and disinfected of bacteria, odour causing bacteria, and all such contaminants.

5. Restoration and Repairs

Damages such as drywall, flooring, and ceilings are fixed or replaced to leave your home like it never happened.

At every step, care is taken to make it an incidentless restoration process.

Why Professional Water Damage Restoration Matters

Home owners sometimes take up the repair work on their own, but without necessary knowledge and equipment, this often leads to further issues. Here's why expert water damage restoration is important:

Advanced Equipment: Restoration experts use high-grade tools for water extraction, drying, and cleaning.

Comprehensive Cleanup: Experts ensure everything affected is considered and restored to minimize mold and structural damage.

Quick Solutions: With experience and efficiency, restoration services complete the job fast while minimizing disruptions to your life.

Trust Water Damage Restoration in Riverside to keep your property and health safe. How to Avoid Water Damage

Water damage restoration service is irreplaceable, but prevention saves you valuable time and money. Here are a few tips on how to maintain your property:

Check Your Plumbing: Find leaks or corrosion, weak spots in your pipes and fix them right away.

Maintain Your Roof: Check your roof periodically to ensure it is in proper shape. Any damaged roof or leakage should be addressed as early as possible.

Clean Gutters and Downspouts: Obstructed gutters are known to overflow water that settles your foundation.

Install a Sump Pump: If you are staying in some place where flooding is commonly seen then, a sump pump will make sure that water does not flood the entire house

Check the Appliances: The leakages are strictly checked upon the washing machines, dishwasher, and even the water heater

All these measures taken beforehand will ensure that your need for full restoration services is at the minimum.

Selecting the Suitable Restoration Service

Getting the proper restoration company is very essential to ensure that results will be of quality. Water Damage Restoration Riverside Points to Consider Before Making a Choice.

1. Experience and Expertise

The right company must have experience handling water damage restoration properly.

2. Licensing and Certification

The firm should be licensed or certified as a guarantee of professional status in the business.

3. Availability

Water damage needs immediate attention. Select a provider that offers 24/7 services for emergencies.

4. Good Reviews

heck online reviews and testimonials to have an idea about the experience of previous customers.

Having a reliable service provider, you can rest assured that your property will be brought back to its original state.

Conclusion

Stressful as it may sound, Water Damage Restoration in Riverside assures the speedy effective repairing of your property. Swift response times to proper restoration services are always taken care of with extreme caution and precision.

Don't let water damage intrude on your life. Call Riverside-based Water Damage Restoration today and reclaim your space and peace of mind!

View Source : https://medium.com/@aaronm1297/homerestoration-restore-your-property-today-8c0eaa4d9d74

[ana16dsouza-blog]

The Cost of Professional Carpet Cleaning in Harrow: Is It Worth It?

The Cost of Professional Carpet Cleaning in Harrow: Is It Worth It?

When it comes to maintaining the appearance and longevity of your carpets, investing in carpet cleaning services in Harrow is an effective solution. While some homeowners may be tempted to clean carpets themselves to save money, professional services provide a deeper, more thorough clean that can significantly extend your carpet's life. This article explores the cost of professional carpet cleaning in Harrow and why it’s worth every penny when you consider the potential for preventing costly carpet replacements.

Understanding the Cost of Carpet Cleaning Services in Harrow

The price for professional carpet cleaning services in Harrow varies based on several factors, including the size of the area, the type of carpet, and the method of cleaning. On average, homeowners in Harrow can expect to pay between £20 and £50 per room, though rates may be higher for larger or particularly dirty carpets. For whole-home cleaning services, prices can range from £100 to £300, depending on the extent of the work.

Factors Affecting Carpet Cleaning Costs:

Room Size and Carpet Condition: Larger rooms or heavily soiled carpets naturally require more time and resources, increasing the overall cost.

Cleaning Method: Companies may offer different cleaning methods, including steam cleaning, dry cleaning, and shampooing, each with a unique cost structure.

Additional Services: Some carpet cleaners in Harrow offer add-ons like stain removal, deodorizing, or anti-allergen treatments, which can raise the price.

While the initial cost might seem high, it’s essential to consider the benefits of professional carpet cleaning and how it can save money in the long run.

How Professional Carpet Cleaning Prevents Costly Replacements

Carpets are often one of the most significant investments in a home’s decor. Dirt, dust, and spills can cause gradual wear and tear, leaving carpets looking old and worn. Regular use of carpet cleaning services in Harrow helps prevent these issues by deep-cleaning the carpet fibers and removing the particles that contribute to long-term damage.

Preserving Carpet Fibers: Dust and debris act like sandpaper on carpet fibers, wearing them down over time. Professional carpet cleaners use equipment and techniques that can remove dirt effectively, protecting your carpet from this abrasive damage.

Removing Stains and Odors: Even minor spills can lead to permanent stains and odors if left untreated. Carpet cleaners in Harrow are trained to remove a wide variety of stains, from pet accidents to coffee spills, that could otherwise result in the need for costly replacements.

Allergen Removal: Carpets often trap allergens, which can affect indoor air quality and the health of your household. Regular professional cleaning eliminates allergens like dust mites, pet dander, and mold spores, making your home a healthier place to live.

Comparing DIY Carpet Cleaning vs. Professional Services

It may seem tempting to rent a carpet cleaning machine and tackle the job yourself. However, carpet cleaning services in Harrow offer equipment and expertise that DIY methods simply cannot match. Here’s a quick comparison:FactorDIY Carpet CleaningProfessional Carpet CleaningEquipment QualityRental machines are often low-powerCommercial-grade machines provide deep and thorough cleaningCleaning SolutionsMay lack effective detergentsUses specialized, often eco-friendly cleaning solutionsTime and EffortRequires personal laborSaves time and effort, with professional resultsRisk of DamageHigher risk of over-wetting or damage to carpetsReduced risk with trained technicians

Hiring carpet cleaners in Harrow ensures your carpet is cleaned to industry standards, leaving it spotless and fresh without the potential hazards associated with DIY cleaning.

The Long-Term Benefits of Professional Carpet Cleaning

Beyond aesthetic improvements, the benefits of regular carpet cleaning services in Harrow extend to increased durability and lifespan for your carpet. By investing in professional cleaning every 6 to 12 months, you’re effectively reducing the likelihood of needing a costly carpet replacement sooner than necessary.

Increased Carpet Longevity: Regular deep cleaning prevents soil buildup and fiber wear, adding years to the life of your carpet.

Improved Home Value: Clean, well-maintained carpets contribute positively to a home’s overall aesthetic and can add to its market value.

Enhanced Comfort and Appearance: Professionally cleaned carpets look and feel new, providing a more comfortable and inviting environment.

Finding Reliable Carpet Cleaning Services in Harrow

Choosing a reputable company for carpet cleaning services in Harrow is crucial to ensure high-quality results. Look for a company that has experienced technicians, uses eco-friendly products, and offers a satisfaction guarantee. Many carpet cleaners in Harrow offer free quotes, making it easy to compare prices and find a service that fits your budget.

When considering a carpet cleaner, pay attention to online reviews and ask about the cleaning methods they use. A professional and reliable service provider should be transparent about their techniques, pricing, and the expected results. Look for companies that specialize in residential and commercial carpet cleaning, as they are likely to have the expertise to handle various carpet types and conditions.

Is Professional Carpet Cleaning Worth the Cost?

In summary, while professional carpet cleaning services in Harrow may come with an upfront cost, the benefits—such as preventing premature wear, extending carpet lifespan, and enhancing home value—make it a worthwhile investment. The expense of a new carpet can range from hundreds to thousands of pounds, making regular cleaning a far more affordable option in the long term.

By hiring skilled carpet cleaners in Harrow, homeowners can enjoy clean, comfortable, and attractive carpets without the hassle or risk of DIY methods. With professional help, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that your carpets are maintained at the highest standards, reducing the need for costly replacements and ensuring a healthy, clean home environment.