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luvdsc · 4 years ago

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mark lee sucks at technology.

tap the heart if you have a big, fat, embarrassing crush on your best friend!

pairing :: lee mark x reader genre :: fluff / best friend + social influencer au word count :: 5,883 words warnings :: none playlist :: dumb stuff (lany) ⋆ feeling (coin) ⋆ so far so good (gabrielle aplin) ⋆ electric love (børns) ⋆ love by mistake (bad suns) author’s note :: i was debating if i should post it on his bday instead, but i decided to drop it earlier, so uh, happy (approx. one week early) bday to mister absolutely fully capable (except when it comes to tech stuff) !!!! thank you for blessing us with your god tier raps ♡ ↳ part of the not clickbait series.

In your required upper division business course aptly titled “Essential Marketing Strategies,” you had learned about a concept called personal brands. A personal brand is explained as the first impression a person wishes to perceive based on their own experiences, qualifications, and achievements. Your professor had told you and your classmates to pick three words to define your own brand. For instance, you chose to label yourself as charismatic, fun, and creative.

Your best friend’s brand would be awkward, endearing, and technologically challenged.

Okay, so that is definitely more than three words, but who’s counting? You might as well tack on “Y/N’s big fat crush” at this rate because everyone and their mother knows that you carry a torch—or more accurately, a blazing wildfire that can easily be spotted from Pluto—for your best friend.

Well, to be more precise, you should probably say everyone, except Mark, knows. And that’s not for lack of trying either. You completely dropped the art of delicate subtlety months ago already. Maybe you should add “hopelessly oblivious” instead.

The rolling end credits to the sixth Harry Potter film are playing on the screen in front of you, signaling the nearing end of your magical movie marathon. You’re seated on the worn down couch in Mark and Donghyuck’s shared apartment, watching the former make his drink with the fancy, gently used Keurig newly settled on the scratched countertop. Johnny dropped it off a few days ago because he had splurged on a better coffee machine (“It even makes Instagram worthy whipped frappuccinos!”) and didn’t want his old, but still perfectly functioning caffeine provider going to waste.

“What’s wrong with this thing?” Mark slaps the side of the machine, and it starts to emit a low whirring noise. “Oh, that’s good, right? That sound is good, you think?”

His question is immediately answered by the sad squirt of hot water speckled with coffee grinds falling into his mug for a few seconds before the machine shuts off.

“What the hell?” he mutters angrily, carding his hand through his hair in frustration, and you finally decide to take pity on your best friend. Getting up from the comfy spot you know you sadly won’t be able to recreate perfectly again later, you stride over to where your best friend stands and flip open the top of the Keurig.

“Hyuck didn’t take out his used coffee pod,” you say, pulling out the incriminating evidence of your best friend’s roommate and disposing it in the trash can next to the refrigerator. “Where’s the espresso one you’re gonna use? Why didn’t you put that in?”

His jaw slackens, and he sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, avoiding your gaze and mumbling, “I thought I’d just open it later and pour it into my hot water.”

“Mark,” you start, placing your hands on his shoulders firmly and staring into his eyes with a serious look on your face. “Please know that I’m saying this in the most loving way possible, but you are an absolute idiot.”

You release your grip on his shoulders and grab the espresso pod dangling from his fingertips before slotting it into the Keurig. You remove the mug he placed underneath the spout and wash out the accidental coffee water before placing it back in its original position and pressing the start button on the machine. With a sigh, you lean against the side of the counter, glancing at your friend who looks like a child being scolded for stealing from the cookie jar.

“If you pour the pod into your mug, are you just going to chug all the loose coffee grinds, too?”

“... I didn’t think that far ahead.” His lips start to unintentionally form a tiny pout, and your eyes (and your heart, too) soften.

You’re very relieved that Donghyuck is off filming with your friend because he definitely would be making fun of your heart eyes that frequently make an appearance around a certain Mark Lee. Which you always deny. Because you certainly do not have a gigantic crush on your technologically inept best friend.

You glance over at him again and have to physically fight yourself to resist the urge to kiss his cute pout away. Okay, so maybe you harbor a very respectable, medium sized crush. But it's no big deal. It’s completely under control. Unless you’re counting the fact that your best friend is still unaware, and you’re running out of ideas to try and see if he likes you back before you actually shoot your shot. Then it’s very much not under control because you’re losing sleep over it and you don’t know what to do to be any more obvious without stating the, well, obvious.

“Well, now you know. If you forget, you can FaceTime me and I’ll give you instructions on how it works.” You pat his shoulder reassuringly before pausing. “Wait, you do know how to FaceTime, right?”

“Yes!” he exclaims, sulking even more before confessing in a quieter, defeated tone, “Hyuck showed me last month.”

Mark grabs his finished drink and follows behind you, settling back onto the couch next to you. The streaming service already has Deathly Hallows Part 1 in the queue and ready to go, and your best friend is ready to click play until he notices your attention being focused on the smaller screen in your hands. He wonders if you’re about to post another one of your popular cooking videos on that app that shares a name with the most iconic song of the 2000s (hint: the name of the song’s singer is made up of four letters and a dollar sign).

“Are you uploading one of your videos?” he implores before taking a sip of his drink with a satisfied smile. Somehow, it always tastes better when you make it, and he can’t figure out why for the life of him. When he went to Johnny’s place, his older friend uses the exact same pod and water ratio for his espresso, and yet, it’s never as good as yours.

“Nah, I’m ordering my grocery delivery before I forget. Do you want anything?” You select the option to load your usual grocery items into your cart before debating on whether or not you should splurge on buying several packages of those seasonal Pillsbury sugar cookies that only come in stock during certain holidays. It seems like such an insult to the entire premise of your Tiktok account based on baking and cooking, but you’re an absolute sucker for those soft pastries.

“Yeah, can you get me a Shin Ramyun ten pack? Hyuck ate the last one two days ago and didn’t tell me.”

“You sure you don’t want ten boxes again?” You decide to get those Pillsbury sugary delights, happily adding three boxes to your cart. Everybody has a weakness, and yours just so happens to be a premade one way ticket to diabetes. You’re here for a good, delicious time, not a long time.

“No! That was an accident!” He objects, flailing his hands around, before falling back against the couch cushions in defeat. “But Hyuck does all the online grocery shopping now.”

“Thank god. You guys finally have quality toilet paper again.”

The past month of bathroom occurrences was plagued with scratchy tissue that felt more like goddamn sandpaper from the horrible depths of hell. To be honest, you probably would have rather used actual sandpaper, given the choice. You even made sure not to drink too much water any time you came over, but today, you decided to splurge on a venti passion fruit iced tea with sweetener from that very popular franchise sporting a mermaid logo and fiscally cosmic name. To your pleasant surprise, your trip to the toilet this time was wonderfully padded with Charmin Ultra Soft, not that absolutely awful off brand one with the gross texture of a dried pinecone from inferno.

“Hey, that toilet paper was a good steal! It was a three for one deal,” Mark protests, and you narrow your eyes at him.

“Wow, I wonder why it was priced so low.” You deadpan, and Mark blanches, recalling all those restroom incidents that were rather rough. Literally.

“Anyway, do you think my viewers wanna see me make chocolate crinkle cookies or mochi doughnuts?” You bring up the two recipes you managed to perfect and add your own spin to on your phone, eyes scanning the ingredient lists.

“Both. And tell me when you’re making them, so I can come over and eat them.” He gives you a wide grin, and you let out a snort at that. His smile only grows as he says happily, “I love your job.”

“You only love it because you can freeload off of me,” you jest, but nevertheless begin to start to add all the ingredients for both recipes to your shopping cart. You always film cooking videos on Tuesdays, edit on Wednesdays, keep Thursdays free for last minute touch ups and emergencies, and post one every week on Fridays with other various random videos uploaded whenever in between. With that in mind, you schedule your upcoming grocery delivery for Monday.

“Hey, you need me. I’m the best taste tester.” He puffs up his chest proudly before hastily tacking on a more genuine reason. “And because I’d starve without you. I can’t live off of instant ramen and frozen chicken nuggets forever. Gordon Ramsay already confirmed my shitty cooking skills. I need you to survive.”

“Oh my god, when I uploaded those pics of your scrambled eggs on Twitter, I lost like a hundred followers in less than a minute.” You confirm the delivery and place your phone on the coffee table, picking up the opened bag of Cheeto puffs before settling back in your seat. “My cooking credibility was completely shot. I had to explain to my fans that I didn’t make those.”

“Yeah, but now everyone calls me Eggy Boi online!” he whines, and you laugh. You have to admit, it’s quite a funny play on the whole “edgy boi” terminology. You wonder if Mark will find it amusing if he discovers his roommate is the culprit behind his new online persona (He probably won’t, and you reckon Donghyuck enjoys living in a safe space where he doesn’t have to sleep with one eye open, so you stay quiet about it. You’ll use it as leverage some other time).

“Okay, Eggy Boi, come by on Tuesday because I’ll be baking in the afternoon,” you say casually, grabbing the remote control from your best friend and pressing play.

You very narrowly avoid a green gummy bear to the face. It lands somewhere behind the couch, lost forever to the dust bunnies and other snacks that missed its target. You know for a fact that it’ll stay there until the boys decide to move to a new apartment. Mark grumbles at the miss, biting off the head of a red cherry flavored gummy bear perhaps a little harder than necessary.

“I hate you. But I’m still coming over next week because I want a doughnut.”

“No cookie?”

“... and a cookie. Maybe two.”

Wednesday comes faster than you expected, and you’re currently holed up in your apartment’s second bedroom—which you had transformed into a snazzy office space—completing the edits to your second video on mochi doughnuts. You already finished polishing the one about the cookies earlier, thank goodness. If you had to stare at your computer screen for another three hours, you would rather eat those pastries Mark tried to make two months ago, but had mistaken salt for sugar. Adding a cup of salt to any baked good is an extremely effective way to make anyone who tasted your best friend’s brownies experience a trip to the beach. Because they essentially just swallowed a mouthful of sand and ocean water. Because it’s salty as heck. Just like Mark was when you told him.

Speaking of your best friend, he’s currently puttering around in your kitchen doing god knows what. He knows better than to try another recipe and possibly blow up your number one moneymaker—your prized oven—in the process. Your heart nearly drops when your ears pick up the faint chopping sounds of a knife against your wooden cutting board. Is he going to try to temper chocolate again? He nearly burned through your entire stock of dark, milk, and white chocolate last time.

After much contemplation and deciding that you deserve a good procrastination break and a fully intact kitchen, you’re about to go out and see what he’s up to when Mark timidly appears in your doorway, clutching onto a white bowl of watermelon cubes with a fork tucked neatly in it. He shuffles in, dropping the snack on your desk before turning to walk out without a word, not wanting to disturb your work mode.

Your heart warms up at the sight, and you speak up, a small smile slipping into your face. “What’s this for?”

“Knowing you, you probably haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.” He pauses in the doorway and adds on sheepishly, “And I can't cook anything, so this is what you get.”

Your heart swells tenfold, and your smile widens even more as you spear a piece of fruit with the fork and quickly pop it into your mouth. “Thanks, Marky.”

His cheeks flush with a pretty shade of carmine, and he fails to suppress the little giddy smile that appears on his face at your nickname for him. He walks out of your office, reddened cheeks still rising up higher than ever. “Y-Yeah, of course. No problem.”

By the time you finish adding the final few touches to your edited video, the bowl of watermelon has been picked clean. You save your video and transfer both of your completed projects to your phone, making a mental note to schedule their uploads and add them to your account’s posting queue later. Shoving your phone in the pocket of your sweats after ensuring the successful transfer of your videos, you pick up the empty dish and walk out towards the kitchen, the silver fork clinking against the side of the bowl with every step.

As you wash the dish and utensil, Mark wanders over from his spot on the couch, leaning forward and casually placing his chin on your shoulder. Almost instantaneously, you feel the heat rising to your cheeks as you briefly fantasize about your best friend wrapping his arms around your waist and how domestic and sweet the two of you would look, like one of those cheesy couples the two of you always made fun of.

“What’s up?” you ask, making a conscious effort to hold your voice steady and not waver over the fact that Mark is basically draped over you. After you place the dish on the drying rack, you turn around to face your best friend, sorely miscalculating the distance as mere inches separate your face from his now.

“I—” Puberty decides to make an ugly appearance in the form of an ill timed voice crack, and he internally curses as he takes a step back, willing the incoming blush to go away. Letting out a small cough, he tries again, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

“I, um, Jisung sent me some kind of dance video. He said it’s a challenge? I kinda don’t know what to do with it? Like do I make a new dance, record myself, and send it back? Actually, isn't it easier to just do a dance battle face to face?”

“Can I see the video?” You already have a good idea on what the video will be, but you want to confirm it. Mark fumbles with his phone, pulling up the video in his text messages. He angles the phone towards you for you to see, and you grab his hand, bringing the device a little closer to you for a better look and clicking play.

“Oh, it’s a Tiktok challenge! He’s doing the Say So dance!” you exclaim, recognizing the song almost immediately as your eyes follow the fluid dance moves, completely enthralled. “So a challenge isn’t going up against someone, like a battle. It’s just some kind of trend or concept that you try to copy yourself. You’re supposed to learn the same dance and record yourself for this one. I can show you some other challenges and help you practice and record this one tomorrow if you wanna drop by after work!”

“O-Oh, okay, sounds good.” Mark stumbles over his words, attempting to focus on what you’re saying and the dance Jisung is doing, but all he can think about is the way your body is pressed against his side, hand comfortably wrapped around his. He freezes up as the tips of his ears grow redder and redder with every passing second, and his face sports a similar color. He silently prays for the telltale crimson to go away by the time the dance is over.

When the video ends, you once again realize the close proximity between you and your best friend. Your face burns at this revelation, and you awkwardly take a step back. Clearing your throat, you hastily release Mark’s hand (He inaudibly lets out the breath he’s been holding in this entire time, yet he also already misses the way your hand felt grasping his).

“Uh, anyway, I’m gonna make a latte. Do you want a drink, too?” You walk towards the other side of your kitchen with Mark trailing behind you. You take out a floral, peachy colored mug from your cupboards before pausing and looking at your best friend. “Wait, do you remember how to use a Keurig?”

“Yes!” He says, slightly exasperated as he picks out his own cup from your cabinet. He always uses the same one—a cerulean blue mug with squiggles all over it—and all of your friends and guests know not to use it because it’s unofficially officially Mark’s mug (And perhaps, you did indeed buy it from that overpriced kitschy tableware shop down the street two years ago with your best friend in mind).

“Really?” You select the latte option and press start after you had already positioned the mug beneath the spout and inserted a green tea matcha pod. He finally relents, shoulders sagging and a defeated expression on his face.

“... No.”

You chuckle, taking the mug from him and carefully putting it on the counter. You grab the espresso pod you know he likes from the drawer below and place it next to the cup. “It’s okay, I’ll teach you again.”

Mark tries. He really does. He tries very hard to concentrate on memorizing the simple process, but he keeps getting distracted. His eyes are focused on the correct button to push before they start to trail up to your fingertips. And then, they go from your hand to your arm, then up to the elegant curve of your neck, and finally, to the way your lashes frame your pretty eyes and how the tip of your tongue sticks out slightly as you concentrate until all he can focus on is you, you, you.

Suddenly, in what feels like a blink of an eye, you’re done and handing him his finished drink, complete with a perfectly whipped milk foam on top. You ask him if he knows how to make it now, and all he can do is lie and nod with a barely convincing smile.

After all, how can Mark tell his best friend that the reason he never remembers is because you’re the biggest distraction?

Mark should be here in five minutes, according to his most recent text message. And in the text message below that, your friend had sent you a challenge. More specifically, it’s the one she completed with Donghyuck a few weeks ago. When you said you wanted bold suggestions on how to figure out if your best friend feels the same way about you as you do about him, you didn’t want one this bold.

Yet, the video link to your friend’s “today I kissed my best friend” challenge along with a winky face from her is staring mockingly at you. While you aren’t one to back down from a challenge, the mere thought of kissing your best friend causes vast colonies of butterflies to erupt in your stomach and your ears to feel as if they have caught on fire. You’re already tongue tied with your head in the clouds, and he isn’t even here yet. How utterly fantastic.

However, your mother definitely did not raise a quitter, so you spring into action when you hear the faint jingling of a key being inserted into your apartment’s door (You had given Mark a copy of your key almost immediately after you had moved in). You move the pretty indoor fern given to you by Jaemin as a housewarming gift last year closer to the edge of your towering bookcase, leaning your phone against it. You quickly position the device to capture a good view of the couch area in your living room and press the record button, arranging a few of the leaves to hide as much of your phone as you possibly can without obstructing the lens.

You run full speed to your bedroom, letting out a sigh of relief when you’re safely inside and hear Mark finally unlocking the door successfully and shuffling in. When he calls out to you, you try to even out your breathing, walking out of your room with your tripod and laptop in hand.

“Hey,” you greet him in the most casual tone you can muster. You place the tripod down and sit before opening your laptop and setting it on the coffee table. “I thought we could watch a few challenges for fun before trying the Say So one. Have you watched Jisung’s videos before?”

“Um, well, no, not really,” he confesses sheepishly, taking a seat next to you on the couch, leg pressing against yours. He squints at the YouTube video you pulled up earlier before he had arrived, reading the title before clicking the space button to start it. “Savage Tiktok dance compilation part two?”

“Wait, hold up.” You pause the video and then turn to face him with an incredulous expression on your face. “You’ve never watched any of Jisung’s dance Tiktoks?”

“No… I don’t even have an account.” His cheeks are dusted with the lightest shade of pink as he quietly admits, “I watch all of yours though.”

Your eyes widen at his confession, face heating up as you stammer out, “O-Oh, well, I can help you make an account later to upload your video.”

“Sounds good.” There’s a few seconds of silence as you mull over his previous words before he speaks up again awkwardly, “Should I, uh, play the video?”

“Oh! Yes, right! Of course, hit play,” you laugh nervously, twisting and playing with the hair tie around your wrist. He starts the video again, and the two of you watch the compilation, slowly relaxing once more as you tap your fingers to the rhythm of the song and he bobs his head to the beat.

“Do I have to change outfits like that?” he questions a few minutes later, eyes growing round as he sees the girl on the screen switch between four different outfits throughout the dance. His closet basically consists of the same five black shirts that he stole from Jaehyun. Even if he did do an outfit swap, there would literally be no difference at all.

“You don’t have to,” you assure him, clicking the enter key to play the next video that’s recommended: another Tiktok dance challenge compilation. “All you have to do is copy the dance.”

Mark nods, taking a glance at the laptop screen before his hand shoots out and he pauses the video, leaning forward to take a closer look at the little recommended video title banner at the top. “Wait! What’s that one?”

He clicks on it, the new video now loading up. The two of you wait patiently for it to begin, waiting for the spinning disc to stop. But it doesn’t. In fact, the whole chrome page goes blank and then, the little pixelated Google Chrome dinosaur pops up on your monitor, announcing that you have no internet connection. Furrowing your eyebrows, you try to reload the page before trying to re-establish your laptop connection to your wifi. Unfortunately, you cannot find your appropriately named “drop it like it’s hotspot” wifi anywhere to connect to.

And that’s when it hits you. Your landlord had sent out a notice to the entire apartment complex last week about the electricity being powered down today from 4 to 6 p.m. for a maintenance check, and a quick glance at the digital clock on your laptop shows that it’s a little past four.

You groan, closing your laptop and flopping back against the couch cushions dramatically. Mark cocks his head, slightly confused, before he pokes you in the arm. “What’s wrong?”

“I completely forgot about the scheduled electricity shutdown for the entire building. We won’t have any wifi for the next two hours.” You pout, your bottom lip jutting out in the slightest, and Mark doesn’t think it’s fair that you get to be this cute and have this much of an effect on his racing heart rate.

“That’s okay, we can… play some board games?” he suggests offhandedly, pushing away the embarrassing thought and nudging your leg with his, and you smile before a sudden idea occurs to you.

“Or we can still do some Tiktok challenges! What was the challenge you clicked on?” You quickly sit upright, turning to face your best friend, eyes sparkling in excitement. “I memorized a few of the dance ones already! Was it Renegade? I can teach you that one. Jisung showed me how to do it.”

“Um,” he starts, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. His eyes dart everywhere, except you, as he lets out a feigned cough. “It wasn’t a dance one. It was about, uh, going up to your boyfriend… and um, hugging him... when he’s playing video games.”

“Oh.” You answer lamely, not knowing what to say. You unsuccessfully try to push away the image of you attempting that challenge with your best friend. “Those are really cute.”

“Really?” He says doubtfully, wrinkling his eyebrows and fiddling with the frayed sleeve of his sweater. “Wouldn’t the dude get mad?”

You don’t know what suddenly possessed you to do this (you’ll have to ask Renjun and his paranormal loving ass later), but you thank whatever demon did for that split second because you find yourself gently grabbing Mark’s arm and slipping your head underneath it. You swing one leg over his lap and settle down until you’re securely sitting in his lap, bent legs on either side of his hips, hands curled around the soft fabric of his sweater on both sides and resting on top of your thighs. His arms instinctively go around your waist, wrapping around you securely.

You tilt your head to the side slightly, studying the flustered boy in front of you with a teasing, albeit a little anxious, smile on your lips. “Are you feeling mad?”

Splotches of red litter his cheeks and decorate the tips of his ears, but your best friend furiously shakes his head at your question, bashfully ducking his head afterwards and muttering a soft “No.”

You swallow hard, heart pounding erratically in your chest as you timidly ask, “Would you be mad if I do this?”

Mark looks up at that, confusion written all over his face. His arms start to loosen around your figure, hands now resting on your waist. “If you do what?”

You take a deep breath. “This.”

You lean in and gently press your lips against his. Mark freezes in shock, and you quickly retreat soon after, gnawing at the inside of your cheek as you wait anxiously for his reaction. Your heart feels like it’s about to fall out of your chest and be buried six feet under.

A tiny noise of surprise belatedly escapes from him and crimson spreads across his cheeks like wildfire. His doe eyes are wide and sparkling, staring at you in bewilderment. Your best friend lets out a small laugh of disbelief before a full blown smile breaks out across his face. He gazes at you adoringly, breathing out softly, “I’m not mad at that.”

You perk up at that, draping your arms around his neck as you lean forward, beaming. “Really? You’re not?”

“Definitely not.”

This time, Mark meets you halfway, his lips slotting against yours perfectly and making you feel tingles up and down your spine. Your eyes are closed, and you are so hyper aware of the way his hands grip your hips, how he tugs you closer, and how his lips chase after yours. The number of butterflies from earlier multiply in your stomach, and you have ascended past cloud nine by now.

When the two of you break apart, your eyes flutter open, and you nudge your nose against his affectionately. The brightest grin blooms on his face once again, and he buries his face in the crook of your neck, muffling his little giggles and hiding the awfully vibrant cerise that rapidly blossoms on his face.

“Is this a good time to tell you congrats for completing your first challenge?” you say, resting your cheek against the crown of his head. You pull away when he lifts his head up, surprised.

“I wasn’t playing video games though,” he says slowly, processing your words and thinking back to the challenge that started this all.

“It was a different challenge. It’s the one that Hyuck did a few weeks ago,” you confess, and realization dawns on him, his face lighting up for a split second before a look of horror takes over.

“Oh, no. Is that why you had your phone recording on the bookshelf?” Mark asks, dread beginning to cloud his mind.

“Yes…” you say slowly, a little perplexed. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Oh my god, I ruined your video,” he moans, dropping his forehead onto your shoulder. “I saw your phone when I walked in and thought you were filming earlier and forgot to turn it off, so I turned it off for you.”

When the words finally register in your mind, you can’t stop the laughter from bubbling out of your throat, and he raises his head up to look at you with wide doe eyes at the pretty sound. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

You can’t stop laughing at the situation, and he looks at you worriedly, gnawing on his bottom lip slightly. You force yourself to calm down, a soft chuckle leaving your lips before you beam at him, leaning in and placing the softest kiss on the tip of his nose. “It’s okay, Mark. I’m not mad. That video wasn’t important anyway.”

“But still,” he whines before letting out a groan and slapping his hand against his forehead when the realization sinks in even further. “I’m such an idiot.”

“But you’re my idiot now, right?” you say teasingly, albeit a little shyly as well, as you reach over to tug his hand away from his face and lace your fingers with his.

“I mean, I kinda thought I was always your idiot,” Mark laughs softly and a little embarrassedly, eyes averted and cheeks turning pinker than ever. The largest grin spreads across your face at that, and you turn away slightly to hide it. You didn’t think your best friend can possibly be any more endearing, but he manages to prove you wrong every time.

“Well, then now you can add ‘Y/N’s boyfriend’ to your resume,” you say, and he fails to suppress the pleased smile appearing on his face at your remark, his rosy cheeks rising even taller than skyscrapers.

“So, uh, what sort of job description does that have?” He gazes at your intertwined hands in wonder, still completely giddy at the reality of you being his best friend and something more.

“Sharing hoodies, giving me attention, kissing, holding my hand, going on dates, you know, the basics,” you answer, squeezing his hand tenderly, and his doe eyes instantly light up. Mark feels a little bolder than before, and it shows when he grins widely and says:

“Can we do number three again?”

“Yes, we can, Eggy Boi.”

He wrinkles his nose at the name, disgruntled and unimpressed, as he crosses his arms over his chest, sulking. You let out a laugh before leaning in and crashing your lips against his. He immediately relents at that, enthusiastically responding and hugging you closer to him, and you can’t help but smile into the kiss as you feel his own smile appear as well.

At that moment, you decide that you want to change Mark’s personal brand. Because his should be “absolutely wonderful, positively amazing, a cute kisser, your boyfriend, and your bestest friend.” And yes, that is most definitely more than the allotted three words, but again, who’s really counting?

Certainly not you when you’re too preoccupied with kissing your best friend. Correction: best friend and new boyfriend.

One new notification: donutkillmyvibe uploaded a new video!

moominjun commented:

so you’re saying the reason why we didn’t get the highly anticipated best friend challenge video is because @ marklyrawr turned the camera off?

donutkillmyvibe replied: yes 😔 I’m sorry to disappoint everyone 🤧

nanaislove replied: omg no bby it’s ok 🥺🥺💞💓💓💝💗 you didn’t have to make an apology video for that 🥺💗💓💘💖

goofys.chuckle replied: yeah it’s mark’s fault. he’s the disappointment here 🥴

morklyrawr replied: hahahahaha stfu hyuck

tytrack commented:

mark is going through puberty. I apologize

dobunny replied: @.@

goofys.chuckle commented:

are we getting whip(ped)lash pt 2 by eggy boi?

morklyrawr replied: YOU’RE THE ONE WHO STARTED THAT NAME?????

goofys.chuckle replied: uh gotta blast 🚀

showmethemonet replied: @ goofys.chuckle does this mean you’re staying over again?

goofys.chuckle replied: @ showmethemonet yes if you want your super cute, mega talented, very handsome boyfriend to still be alive 🥺

showmethemonet replied: @ goofys.chuckle oh my god I didn’t know I was dating bts jin???

moominjun replied: LMFAOOOOO

goofys.chuckle replied: heart 💔 been broke 📉 so many times ⏰ i don’t know 🤔 what to believe 💯 mama 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 said 🗣 it’s my fault 😢 it’s my fault 🤦🏻‍♂️i wear my heart ❤️ on my sleeve 💪 i think it’s best 👍🏻 I put my heart ❤️ on ice 🧊

jenojam commented:

why am I not surprised……

itsmebetch replied: just mark thingz 🍉

suhprisemf commented:

mark your head looks flat af

jungjaeprince replied: 😂😂😂

10vely replied: @ jungjaeprince be quiet don’t cry

letswonwon commented:

whoop whoop

junguwu commented:

OMG CONGRATS ON YOUR RELATIONSHIP SWEETIE 😍😍

takoyaki_prince commented:

MARK!!!!! you look handsome !! 😘

jisungpwark commented:

rip to @ donutkillmyvibe ’s future videos that mark will ruin. press f in the chat to pay respects 🙏🏻

bigheadking replied: F ✊🏻😔

peachyangel replied: f 🥺🥺

yoitslucas replied: F 🤪🤪🤪 but glad you’re happy, man ❤️

donutkillmyvibe replied: F ��

morklyrawr replied: @ donutkillmyvibe wtf babe????

officialgordonramsay commented:

didn’t i tell you to get back on tinder ?

apado_god commented:

nice 😎👍🏻

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mosylufanfic · 4 years ago

Text

Holding Out for a Hero

I’m so proud of myself, I finished a 12 Days of Killervibe prompt at the last minute!

Holding Out for a Hero

Caitlin pinched the bridge of her nose, breathing out against the burn in her eyes. No matter how she juggled the numbers, they always came out red in the end.

"Dammit, Daddy," she muttered.

The bell over the door jingled, and she jerked her head up, pasting a bright retail smile on her face. "Welcome to Jack Frost Toys!" she called out, quickly minimizing the accounting software. "Are you looking for anything specific?"

Usually they weren't. Usually, they came in, wandered around a little bit, and left. If she was lucky, they bought something before they left.

But the man standing just inside the door, snow dusting his hat and shoulders, said, "Yeah, please, I'm begging you. You're my only hope."

She cocked her head and guessed, "A . . . Star Wars toy?" There wasn't any particularly hot Star Wars toy this year that she was aware of, and she followed every toy blog and website she could find.

He laughed, tugging his gloves off and shoving them in his pocket. "No, just a desperate nerd looking for a Puffy Penguin. My niece is three and she watches the show on repeat. I know Leo Lion is like the hot toy this year, but Maya knows what she wants. For her it's Puffy or nothin', and I couldn't tell if you had any from your website so I came down here just in case and please?" He widened his eyes at her. "Please."

Her heart melted. One of the best things about this store was seeing children find their new best friend. Second on that list was adults who cared enough about the children in their life that they moved heaven and earth to find, not just the latest hottest toy, but the toy that was just right.

She slid off her stool. "I've got some ZooFriends toys right over here. We're sold out of Leo, of course -" Everywhere was sold out of Leo. "But I've got Puffy in a variety of styles."

"Oh my god," he breathed, snatching a Puffy Penguin stuffie off the shelf and holding it as if it were the Holy Grail. "You've got them all. Elly and Slowpoke and Skyhigh - " He stared at the elephant, sloth, and giraffe toys lined up next to the penguins.

She smiled brightly. "Now this one says phrases from the show, but this one is a lot huggier if you ask me -"

"I'll take them both," he said, grabbing the talking Puffy. "Holy shit. Nowhere has ZooFriends anymore. How do you?"

She bit her lip. "Lucky, I guess." She stepped away and grabbed one of the plastic hand baskets printed with the store logo. "Would you like a basket?"

He took it. "Really? Because it's three in the afternoon on the first Saturday of December. A toy store should be wall-to-wall. Where is everybody?"

She turned away. "Amazon," she said. "Walmart. Websites, chain stores -" She shrugged and tried to laugh. "The plight of the modern small business owner. Is there anything else I can help you find?"

"I'll keep looking around," he said, studying the shelf. "So you're the owner?"

She nodded. "This store has been in my family for five generations."

He almost dropped the basket. "Five - Did they even have toys that long ago?"

"Oh, toys have been around as long as humans have had childhood! Did you know they've found marbles in Egyptian tombs? And dolls in archaeological digs. Toys are how children learn about the world, and how they start to decide their identities and practice interactions with others! They . . ." She trailed off, blushing. "Sorry, my major was psychology and I did my senior thesis on the role of play in early childhood development."

He held up a hand. "Hey, I'm the last person to shame anybody for nerding out. That's pretty awesome. You're in the right business."

"For right now, anyway," she murmured.

"What?"

She smiled brightly. "I don't suppose you have any more nieces or nephews that need Christmas presents?"

He studied her for a moment. "Do you have any action figures?"

"Collectible or to play with?"

"Collectible?" he said hopefully.

She led him down the aisle and to the back wall. His eyes went wide. "Oh my god, you've got Max Mercury, black series." He grabbed it off the wall. "And Brainiac? This is a great section!"

She smiled. "My dad invested in these because he was hoping to bring in the collectors."

"Well, he made good choices." He picked the Braniac from its spot and turned it over in his hands, studying it closely.

She left him to it and went back to the counter. She didn't feel like agonizing over the accounts when he was still here, so she cleaned the counter, dusted the book corner, and rearranged the ZooFriends shelf to fill in the empty spots he'd left when he took the two Puffy toys.

After half an hour, he came up to the counter with an overflowing basket, most of it action figures. With her heart singing the song of small business owners, she scanned them briskly. His purchases came out to well over two hundred dollars. It was a drop in the bucket of her costs, of course, but it was a bigger drop than most.

He handed her his credit card without a wince. When she ran it, his name popped up on her screen. She handed it back with the receipt. "Here you go, Mr. Ramon."

"Cisco," he said. "Please. Mr. Ramon is my pop."

"Cisco," she said. "I can wrap these if you want."

"Just the Puffys," he said. "The action figures are for me."

She grinned at him and selected a print of happy reindeer to wrap the stuffed animals. "Naturally."

He laughed self-consciously. "I'm not sure whether to be insulted or not. I promise I'm a grown-up man."

"Of course you are," she said, hands busily folding and taping. A really nicely grown-up man, too. She battled back her blush and hoped he hadn't noticed. "But I'll never look down on any adult who still likes toys."

"Well, sure, that's a good hundred and fifty dollars of my total."

"There's that," she acknowledged, setting aside the first perfectly wrapped box and picking up the second. "But toys are important to children's imaginations. And children grow into adults, who still need their imaginations." She nodded at the Max Mercury he held. "I don't think any of us ever really outgrow the desire to be someone's hero."

"Well," he said, "you're my hero today."

She met his eyes and felt the blush rise again. "Thank you."

He grinned and accepted the bag with the two wrapped presents inside. "And come Christmas morning, I'll be Maya's hero."

She smiled. "She's lucky to have an uncle doing his best to find her the perfect present. I'm glad you came by today."

"Yeah, well, it was coming out here or spending a hundred and seventy-five dollars on eBay and hoping like hell it made it here in time." He fiddled with his wallet. "I really don't mean to be that guy, but your website is . . ."

Her face went hot and she made a business of putting away the scissors and the tape and rolling up the rest of the wrapping paper. "Archaic?"

"I was going to say behind the times," he said tactfully. "If you had web ordering, you'd be sold out of ZooFriends and a whole bunch of other stuff."

"I know," she said. "But I really haven't had the time to get a good system set up since I took over the store. I need inventory software that integrates with ecommerce and for that I need technical skills, money, and time, and I don't have any of those."

He leaned on the counter. "You don't have to tell me, but how did it get this bad? You clearly love this place and I really don't feel like you would have let it fall behind like this if you had a choice."

She chewed her lip. "My dad died in September."

Sympathy spread over his features. Not the plastic, practiced sympathy she'd seen so often, but real compassion. "I'm sorry. Was he sick?"

"He had MS," she said. "He'd had it since I was ten, and he'd always kept on top of his medication and his therapy and everything. So - " She looked down at the perfectly clean counter and wiped it off again. "So when I was away at school and he told me he was doing fine, I believed him."

"He wasn't doing fine," Cisco guessed.

She shook her head. Tears burned in her eyes again. "It probably started small. Just little things falling through the cracks. Then the cracks got bigger, more things fell through. . . ."

He nodded. "They tend to do that."

"Mhm. Then last spring, he had an assistant manager who embezzled a lot of money - "

"What!"

"They caught him!" Caitlin assured him. "But most of the money was gone, and the stress of that just sent my dad's health into a tailspin. I'd just graduated so I moved back home to take care of him."

"And I'm gonna guess you were so wrapped up in that, you didn't even realize what was going on with the store until you took over."

She sighed. "Got it in one." She mustered up a smile. "I didn’t mean to dump that on you. It's bad now, but things will come around. They always do. The holidays are the best time of year to be a toy seller."

"Yeah," he said. "They sure are." He smiled back and gathered his purchases. "I'll tell people about this place."

"Great," she said. "Here's my card, by the way."

"Caitlin Snow," he read off the little rectangle of cardstock.

"That's me. Let me know if you have any particular collectibles you'd like me to obtain."

"Hmm?" He was looking at his phone. "Uh, yeah, if I think of any, I'll give you a shout. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," she echoed, watching him leave. The jingle of the bell over the door echoed in the toy store's emptiness.

Walking back around the building to his car, Cisco snapped a pic of the business card Caitlin Snow had given him. Then he dialed a number on his phone and wedged it between his shoulder and his ear as he pulled on his gloves. "Hey, Iris? Got a moment?"

"Hi, Cisco. Half a moment. My editor's breathing down my neck again about finding some heartwarming story to fill up Sunday space."

"Yeah, I remember you mentioning that. What would you say to a struggling fifth-generation local toy store owner who just took over the business after her dad's death, carries everything from ZooFriends stuffies to high-end collectibles, and knows toys backwards and forwards?"

Iris paused and he could practically hear the gears clicking. "Tell me more."

A week before Christmas, Cisco finally found a good excuse to drop by Jack Frost Toys again. With the name of a rare collectible action figure in his pocket, he turned into the parking lot and found it jam packed. He finally managed to wedge his little car into a space half on the gravel and climb out.

This was a good sign, right?

When he walked in the front door, the girl behind the counter wasn't Caitlin. "Welcome to Jack Frost Toys!" she called out before returning her attention to the grandma-looking lady at her counter. "We absolutely do gift certificates. How much would you like that for?"

The place was transformed. There was no other word for it.

When he'd come in the last time, it had been neat and bright and colorful, but empty and somehow sad. Now there were people in every aisle, voices ringing off the rafters. He cut down the doll aisle and almost stepped on a kid sprawled out on his belly, leafing through a colorful picture book. A little girl was staring at the Barbies as if she were deciding the fate of nations. A couple of moms were talking to each other over the Lego sets.

"It's just such a cute little place! It was getting so run-down there for awhile, but this new owner’s really spruced it up."

"I used to come here when I was Mandy's age and it always seemed like the most magical place to me. I'd forgotten all about it, honestly, but we're coming back."

Cisco smiled to himself and edged around them to the collectibles wall.

The door to the stock room opened and Caitlin came out, arms loaded down with what seemed to be flat-folded gift boxes. She stopped short when she saw Cisco. "Hi!"

"Hey," he said, smiling at her. She was wearing reindeer antlers and her hair was up in a bouncy ponytail. "You're busy."

"We are! I'm sorry, I've got to -"

"Yeah, go ahead."

She went to the front counter and stashed the gift boxes underneath. "Allegra," she said to the girl who'd greeted Cisco as he came in. "I just got off the phone with our supplier and they'll have more wrap here tomorrow. Can we hold out?"

"It'll be tight, but we should be okay."

"Great. I'll be back to cover your break in a few minutes, okay?"

"Take your time, I'm good."

Caitlin edged back around the counter and paused to check in with the moms. She considered their questions, looked around, and plucked a few sturdy wooden toys from a lower shelf. "I really like this designer for the textures they incorporate," she explained. "Babies enjoy being able to experience different kinds of material as they explore the toy, and it stimulates their brain development. Have a look at these. I'll be right here if you have any questions."

"Thanks so much."

She beamed and moved on.

Cisco watched her consult with the little Barbie lover and pick out a second book for the reader, as well as four or five other small interactions. It was like watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel or Einstein doing calculations on a chalkboard. She was in her element.

She came around the end of the aisle and spotted him again. Her face lit up. "I'm so glad you came by again." She threw her arms around him.

"Uh," he said. "Hi again to you too." He gave her a quick hug back.

She pulled away, blushing. "Sorry. I - I just wanted to thank you. I know the article in the paper was your doing."

"Oh," he said. "No, that was nothing. I just called up a friend. She's the one who did the interview and that great photo - "

Iris had been savvy enough to pose Caitlin by her display of the coveted ZooFriends toys. Cisco had noticed how bare the shelf looked now.

" - and you were the one who made this shop so amazing that once people knew it was still here, they came."

"But none of it would have happened if you hadn't put it in motion. You said I was your hero that day for having the Puffys, but you’re my hero now.

“Pshaw,” he said. “Like you said, nobody grows out of that.”

“But not everybody does something. So. Thank you."

"Well, you're welcome." He looked around. "So you're doing pretty good, it looks like."

She nodded, beaming. "People started coming in after that article, and PalmerTech asked me to purchase toys in bulk for the families at their company holiday party. All my part-time workers are doing as many hours as they can, and I'll be able to pay the rent for January and February, and if it keeps going like this, I can hire somebody to revamp the inventory system for ecommerce."

She ran out of breath and panted for a moment, her eyes bright.

Cisco had to smile back at her. "That's amazing."

She nodded. "I mean, we're still competing with Walmart and Amazon, and we still took a real hit from what Jay did. So we're not out of the woods, but this - " She looked around, eyes still bright. "This is going to give us some breathing room.

"I'm really glad."

She turned her smile back on him and stole his breath. "Sorry, I'm just chattering away, and - did you come by looking for something else? Another collectible?"

"Ah - well, I was planning to ask about the limited edition Star Wars figures they're talking about for next year."

"I don't think I'm going to be able to order any of those until March, but I can definitely get your contact information."

"Oh. Okay, sure. But actually it was an excuse."

Her brows crinkled. "An excuse?"

"I really wanted to come by and see if you wanted to go get coffee or something. Sometime." He looked around. "I mean, maybe not right now because it's still December and you're slammed, which is great, but - "

"I'd like that."

His stomach filled up with warmth, like drinking an entire mug of hot chocolate. "You would?"

"Very much."

They smiled shyly at each other until Allegra called out, "Caitlin? A little help?" She had a line that stretched halfway down the doll aisle.

"Oh!" Caitlin said. "Uh, I should - "

"Yeah! Go. I'll hang around until you're free, and then I'll get your phone number."

"Okay." She gave him one last smile before rushing up to the counter and opening up a register. "I can help who's next over here! Oh, sweetheart, that's a great choice. Your best friend is going to love it."

Cisco watched her for a moment, smiling to himself, and then turned to browse the collectibles. She'd been right, he mused. The holidays really were the best time of year to be a toy seller.

FINIS

#Cisco Ramon #Caitlin Snow #killervibe #12daysofkv20 #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #fluff #toy store AU #I know December is retail hell #allow me this fluff okay #the flash

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purplesurveys · 3 years ago

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1254

Of the many different American accents, which one is your favorite? I don’t really have one. Aside from the few ones that sound pretty distinct, like country accents or the New York accent, nearly all of them sound the same to me.

What was the last thing you watched on Youtube? CM Punk’s comeback promo. That’s something that’s been on repeat throughout the day for sure...I still can’t believe he’s back; I had long accepted that he was done with wrestling so this is definitely a memory for the books :’)

Are your kitchen windows open right now? I don’t think we ever open ours.

What was your favorite job you've ever had? I’ve only had one job so I can’t pick favorites, but so far I am having a blast at my current one.

Do you know anyone who had a kid before they were financially stable? I really don’t want to assume but if I had to guess, my high school classmates who had kids either straight out of high school or in the middle of college. All of them are still sustained by their parents, based on their posts.

What's your phone's wallpaper picture? My lockscreen is V; my home screen are all the boys huddled for a group pic.

When was the last time you saw the person you had your first kiss with? November last year, and I really can’t imagine a situation where we’ll have to be in the same room once more. Of course, I’m sure there would be high school reunions down the line but she’s never been the type to show up for occasions such as those.

Have you read any of Shakespeare's works other than Romeo and Juliet? Yeah, we had to read three more works of his in high school. We were prohibited from relying on the No Fear versions, but I never wanted to spend my time having to decode Shakesperean writing so I just smuggled in my No Fear copies during English class.

Is there anything hanging from the doorknob in your room? Yeah.

Why did you move to where you're living now? Because living with 11 people in a duplex meant for 5 was starting to be too much for my mom. And because it was damn near impossible living with alcoholics and smokers who would also sometimes get violent.

Have you ever kissed someone 3+ years younger than you? I haven’t.

Do you clean your house all at once, or a little bit at a time? My mom is in charge of cleaning and she’s the type who doesn’t care even if you’re only trying to help – she wants things done her way, so she’s been more than alright shouldering every aspect of the house’s cleanliness.

What's your opinion on wearing pajamas in public? Do you yourself do that? I’ve seen people do that and it actually looks pretty fashionable if they’re able to pull it off. But in general, I don’t really care what people want to wear; I’m more particular about other things, like their scent lol. To answer the second question, no I don’t wear PJs out in public. What was the most severe punishment your parents gave you when you were growing up? Taking away my laptop and internet privileges and indirectly helping me fail several classes that required me to do research.

Have you ever been to California? No.

If so, when was the last time you were there? Never.

About how many times per month do you eat dinner at a restaurant? Back in college I used to go once, twice a week. I obviously haven’t been able to do this for the last year and a half.

Do you think dreams actually mean anything? Why/why not? I think it can sometimes be a reflection of emotions we’re currently feeling – like how I tend to get nightmares when I’m in a period of depression. It’s not always like that, though, and sometimes my dreams just bunch a random cast of people and dump them in a random scenario for a completely nonsense dream.

What's something you're really bad at compared to others? Creativity.

Do you know anyone who treats retail/restaurant employees poorly? My parents could.

Are most of the books you own hardcover or paperback? I think it’s a healthy balance of both. When was the last time someone betrayed your trust? What happened? Mmmh, I think just that whole period when the breakup took place. My ex had done a full 180 and suddenly wanted nothing to do with me. It was confusing and overall extremely hurtful. How much was gas the last time you filled your car up? I don’t pay attention, honestly. I already have a preset amount in mind whenever I drop by the gas station and just see how much it would fill my car.

Do you usually fill up at the same gas station? I have a go-to brand but they have hundreds of branches around the metro, so it’s usual for me to gas up in different cities.

What was the topic of conversation the last time you spoke to a sibling? Nina’s the one handling the photocard trade I mentioned in a past survey since she’s done deliveries and shipping in the past, so I just asked about the status of our booking.

Are you currently looking for a new job? No, I love mine.

How many times did you move when you were growing up? 3-4? I’m not really sure how many times exactly since my parents had also moved when I was a baby.

Who is the person you are the closest to? (emotionally, not physically)? Angela.

What are some odd habits you have relating to food/eating? I consume condiments like soup/broth hahaha. If a dish has mayonnaise or ketchup, I mix in a generous amount of mayonnaise or ketchup with my rice. Another habit would be peeling off all the batter from my fried chicken and setting it aside so I can have it as the last part of my meal.

Are any of your relatives musicians? They’re not musicians per se but a good number are exceptionally skilled at the piano. Still baffles me how I didn’t get to inherit that trait :(

Have you ever been in fear for your life? Yeah, I always feel unsafe when I have to walk in very public sidewalks.

What was the last caffeinated drink you had? Do you drink this often? 3-in-1 coffee, my go-to type of coffee lol. Yeah, I have it nearly everyday.

Have you ever read any books by John Steinbeck? No.

When was the last time you painted a room in your house? I’ve never painted a room.

How has your day been so far? Pretty uneventful but I’m happy I got to relax and lie in bed a lot. I’m not feeling too anxious for Monday tomorrow since my workplace is having another mental health break day on Friday, so I only have to work four days this week yay :) Then next Monday is a holiday so I’ll be getting a four day weekend!!

#survey #surveys

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riveliciousx · 5 years ago

Text

@toxiicpop @25daysofchrismuts @sanromatrix // read it on AO3

My contribution to the 25 days of chrismuts

Tags: Rolleigns, Sexting, Phone sex, Video chat sex, Dom/sub undertones, Implied relationships, Masturbation, prolly got more plot than it should but it isn’t really explored at all haha

Making do

Christmas not falling on a Monday or a Friday was fortunate —it was indeed good they didn’t have to work on the 24th nor the 25th, particularly for those really looking forward to spend the holidays at home, or wherever, in company of their families; but hapless Seth couldn’t count himself among the lucky people that had managed to, at least, get home.

Deep down, he would have preferred to be busy, putting on a show and flumping on bed after eating to his heart’s content in the name of Christmas Eve, then move on the next day as if it was any other week. He hadn’t made plans for anything in particular anyways, and maybe that was what bothered him the most. It was like a regular day in between cities, except here nature had called the shots to have his flight delayed —and then cancelled—, leaving him with a sensation of being stranded while the rest of the world kept on with its celebrations.

Wasting time in a hotel room wasn’t exactly worse than staying at home feeling awkward about not feeling quite jolly..., although it wasn’t better either, and it was driving him out of his mind. Seth had already zapped through the channels and ordered something to drink before giving up and deciding to lay down, staring at the ceiling for who knows how long until his phone buzzed on the night stand.

The low hum of the phone vibrating on the nightstand startled him, pulling him out of his trivial misery.

Seth reached for it, settling on his side and unlocking the screen: a text message, from Roman no less.

Sup, having fun?

He sighed. “Yeah, lotta fun,” Seth said to himself as he typed a reply.

As much as I can have in a hotel room

Roman took a while to get back to him. Seth looked at his phone every so often, unlocking and locking the screen several times, giddiness nesting in his stomach while his fingertips tingled in anticipation.

A few texts came in a haste just when he was about to give up and call it a night. Reading them one by one with care, imagining Roman’s voice in his head and how he’d speak those words to him, caused the whirl inside him become all the more intense, even though there was nothing suggestive in them. He closed his eyes and pictured Roman behind him, embracing him and whispering his concerns against Seth’s ear.

Sorry, I was helping in the kitchen, you know my mom

What do you mean a hotel room

Didn’t you get home

Seth bit his bottom lip, the earlier exasperation of spending the night trapped in a small room replaced by the warmth of lust spreading through his body.

What are you wearing?

You gotta wine and dine me first

He rolled his eyes and huffed annoyed. It wasn’t like they hadn’t done that kind of thing before; actually, it wasn’t like they wasted the chance to rekindle physicality in every occasion they could, so Seth didn’t see harm in acting on his lowest impulses without hesitation.

As he started to tap on the screen’s keyboard, an imaged was delivered to his device. Roman sported a long sleeve t-shirt that squeezed against his torso, leaving Seth’s mouth to water at the thought of feeling Roman’s pecs and sides; he could only assume how good his back looked too, broad and strong, and his hands trembled remembering the many, many times he clung to him, dragging his nails down on it.

Your turn

Seth propped himself back to take a picture. He angled his phone after undoing his pants and lifting his shirt enough to show his abs and leaning on one arm so Roman could get a peek of his happy trail along with the edge of his underwear’s elastic. He hoped his more risqué photo would egg Roman to follow Seth’s example and show more skin, because Seth wouldn’t be satisfied with an innocent and nonchalant selfie, let alone one only showing Roman’s clothed upper body.

The answer to his provocations came almost instantly, a curt damn read on his screen, and Seth typed fast, disappointed not to receive a reply in kind.

Like what you see?

No answer. Three, five, ten, fifteen minutes passed and Seth threw his phone to the opposite side of the bed; frustration recoiled in his stomach, replacing the arousal he had felt earlier. Now he was in a bad mood for real, wishing Roman hadn’t contacted him in the first place; it was better to be idle and bored than frustrated in Seth’s book, and the mere idea of getting off, angrily at that, didn’t appeal him at all.

He rolled on the bed and groaned. High strung as he was, he didn’t want to dwell too much on it, so what if he had been not so subtly turned down or ignored? He’d sleep it off and, hopefully, he’d be home the next day if the weather had mercy on him.

With a sigh, Seth got up to change and, when he had gotten off his tee, his phone buzzed once again. He stared at it for a moment, unsure of whether he wanted the night to continue or just get in bed. The screen announced an incoming videocall.

“Took your sweet time to pick up, huh?” Roman said when he saw Seth on his screen.

Seth just swallowed hard. Roman, like him, was shirtless, and Seth could tell he wasn’t at his parents’ anymore thanks to the quiet and calmness in the background.

“Didn’t want to risk it sending pics back and forth,” Roman explained. “You’re really something, teasing me while I’m with my family.”

Roman’s chuckle was like a purr in his ears, coaxing the tension off his body with its low and soft rumble.

“What can I say,” Seth finally spoke. “I know what gets my guy going.”

Another chuckle from Roman didn’t distract Seth from the fiery glow in his eyes. All of a sudden it felt like the sun was blazing outside, and Seth had to lick his lips as his mind slipped into a comfortable and warm daze. He had missed that, the way Roman knew how to give him what he wanted, what he needed ; he missed having Roman near, at hand’s reach for whatever selfish whim Seth had.

“Been missing me?” The question had a frantic nod for answer, and Roman gave him a crooked half smile that made Seth’s heart skip a beat. “Get all your clothes off. I wanna see you strip for me.”

Seth placed his phone against the base of the small lamp on the night stand and walked back a few steps so Roman could get a good view of him. He wriggled to help himself push his jeans down and pulled them off each leg slowly, then his underwear came off and he stood there, exposed and vulnerable, basking in Roman’s hungry stare.

A hum of approval filled Seth with pride while the anticipation had him fidgeting, antsy and desperate. He most definitely wanted to feel Roman all over his body, but having him spewing orders instead wasn’t too shabby; the imperative need to carry out what he was going to be told had his hands trembling a bit, and his head, his thoughts, got murkier and spaced out.

“What do you want?”

The words tugged at Seth’s most sensitive places and, gasping before being able to find the words he wanted to say, his body didn’t respond. His focus was one hundred percent on Roman, his expressions, his voice, the glint in his eyes, the way his tongue poked out of his lips to lick them.

Roman leaned forward, his face front and center in the phone’s screen. “Are you pent up? Feeling a little frustrated and needy?” The whine that escaped Seth’s lips was music to Roman’s ears, though he needed Seth to use words. “Hm? I want to hear you, Seth. Remember you gotta talk to me.”

Suddenly it was hard for Seth to speak, even his breathing had hitched up, the air in the hotel room so dense he felt he was drowning.

“Yes,” he managed to gasp. “I’m just so- I want you. I miss you, I’m on edge all the time and I have to put up this front, and you’re not there to take care of me. I need you.”

The desperate words flowed smoothly out of his mouth, and Roman stared at him for a moment. “Get in bed, baby. I want you to touch yourself like I would. I want you to do yourself and tell me what you’re doing.”

Seth went to his luggage first to retrieve the lube and then climbed on the bed. He was dizzy, his senses alight with the idea of Roman watching and hearing him; this time he was baring himself naked in a different level, opening his heart and spilling the many desires that had been piling for a long time, and yet it felt right.

He stroked himself with a lazy pace and opened his mouth, the rush of emotion making his eyes tear up a little. “I just want you,” he said. “I don’t care how, I want you to do with me whatever you want.”

“But what do you want right now?”

It was an interesting question, because Seth could think of a lot of positions he wanted Roman to fuck him in, nevertheless, what he was starved for was the contact of Roman’s skin, the way he enveloped Seth in a safe and warm cocoon away from the world, guarding off the bad thoughts and insecurities, loving him without restraint.

“I want to feel you.”

“Okay.” Now Roman nodded. “Touch yourself. Think it’s me, I’m here, I’m watching.”

Seth relaxed and closed his eyes, letting his hands wander on his body. A shiver shook his body when he reached the spots that Roman loved to tease: his nipples, his waist, his happy trail. He traced his muscles the way Roman’s fingertips would, and he eased to lean back while his hand kept going south.

“You look so good. I wish I was there.”

He gasped, encouraged to be bolder and more self-complacent.

Squirting a generous amount of lube on himself, Seth began jerking himself fast, moans escaping him in every exhale and he couldn’t hold back anymore. He utters his greedy itches, panting and gasping, goaded by Roman to go on and further; and Seth did, he went as deep as his heart and his body allowed, admitting how much he missed to be pounded against every surface in hotel rooms, in rental cars, in hallways backstage.

Seth fingered himself too, showed the corners of his body like an offering, even though he was unable to really give himself to Roman, and he did his best to make up for it with honesty, mumbling and moaning and shuddering, confessing all the unfashionable things he thought and felt. And Roman took it in, all of it, his eyes fixated on Seth the whole time, praising and cooing him the same he would if Seth was in his arms, and Seth swore it was the most intense orgasm he ever experienced when Roman told him how missed and needed and desired he was.

The peak of pleasure made his toes curl and his legs tense to the point of pain, and he was still shivering and shaking well after the hot spurts of completion had stopped.

“God, I wish you were here.” Seth croaked, holding the phone against the pillow, and Roman gave him a smile when his eyes started to close.

“You should come over for New Year’s.”

Seth muttered a weak yes as his eyelids get heavier and, the next thing he knows, it’s morning.

He sat up on the bed with the sudden realization, his body droopy and kind of sore, but he was sated and content, like he hadn’t felt in a while. A second realization hit him, because his stomach dropped remembering the night before; he didn’t take consideration of Roman, collapsing after coming and falling asleep while still videocalling with him.

“Oh, no.” He lamented and held his head in his hands. Roman wouldn’t reproach him, but he would sure tease and make fun of him, so Seth reached for his phone to apologize and promise to make it up to him the next time they were in the same proximity. “Guess I gotta-“

He froze in place, though; he had received a few messages after the videocall ended.

There was a picture of Roman —his face out of frame, thankfully—holding his dick, hard as rock, precome beading at the tip; then another, of the aftermath, Roman’s stomach covered with his release, his half hard dick in the forefront, although a bit out of focus. A Happy Christmas text underneath, along with a reminder of the invitation extended the previous night: Come over for New Year’s.

#WWE slash #Rolleigns #Rive writes

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the-coolest-mallard · 5 years ago

Text

Stealth Operation | Team Sabotage

@urchinxowens @justkeepdancing-nemo @oliversaluki

The boys sneak into the Hunted Deer and make a mess.

URCHIN

The light had faded and night was upon Swynlake. Everyone was asleep in order to build up energy to go back to work the next day. Everyone except Urchin - because he had summer holiday - and hopefully Louie, who Urchin was actually waiting for at their rendez-vous point a block away from Main Street.

Urchin sported his best spy gear which… well, consisted of a black turtle neck sweater, balck jeans and a black beanie that worked very little because his curls were overpowering it more and more by the minute, cascading out of the headgear.

With him also came a large cardboard box with air holes punctured on top. The boy sat next to said box and checked his phone, waiting for his partner in crime to arrive!

LOUIE

Ordinarily, Louie never got rid of his signature green. However, the plan they had was going to require stealthiness. So he also had dressed in all black. Black skinny jeans, black t-shirt, black leather jacket he found around the house. And of course a beanie as well, pushing down his own fantastic hair.

Louie had only one hand free to use (the other in a cast thanks to his genius moped moment), but he utilized his hand as best he could. He brought along with him some spray paint that he’d found at home, as well as some eggs both sort of put together in a bag. He’d feel a little bad about wasting the eggs but…there were a ton of things to toss at Gaston and he was gonna use all of them.

He made his way over with a grin, glad that he managed to find friends who were up for taking matters into their own hands. “Hey Urchin. Listen, I invited Ollie along too. He had some fun ideas for sabotage and stuff which is great and you know…I’ve only got one functioning hand so. Go team.”

OLLIE

Ollie kind of knew this was a bad idea but at the same time why not mess with someone who deserved it. Besides a little egg never hurt anyone and if he was there he could probably try and keep everyone from getting into too much shit.

So he had printed out harmless things, well not that werewolves were harmless but it was a prank that was harmless and his of choice.

Plus it was good to pull his leather jacket back on, pull the dark beanie on, and get out of the house from the crying baby.

It wasn’t hard to find the two other boys.

“What’s up?” Ollie stated softly dropping to curb beside Urchin.

URCHIN

“Woah, what happened to you?” Urchin couldn’t help but ask, gesturing at Louie’s arm. He didn’t look like that the last time Urchin had seen him, now did he? In any case, Ollie rolled up soon enough.

“Oh, hello! So it looks like we’re ready, huh? I’m honestly glad we’re not on our own, because I didn’t manage to get any raccoons,” he admitted, patting the cardboard box. The pat made the animal within wake up, though, because it had begun moving.

“I… got the next best thing. This is Felicia. She’s the cat who always tries to get into our kitchen,” the boy explained. “She’s ferocious. Should give our big dumb friend a headache when he tries to take her out of his business tomorrow.”

NEMO

Nemo had never snuck out of the Hollow before.

In the end– it had been kind of easy. He just waited for his father’s light snoring, put on one of his black dance hoodies, flipped up the hood, and then, quick and quiet as the wind itself, flit from outside his bedroom window.

He had to stop first at the Raccoon Hole to see if he could round up reinforcements. Course, he was no animal fairy and his Beast was seriously lacking, but as soon as he flashed the gold of his pixie dust, they were in. Raccoons loved all things shiny– kinda like magpies in that way. With his new comrades in tow, Nemo flitted fast as he could and tried not to think about how he had used up more than half his dust by the time he finally got to town.

He walked the rest of the way, hood up, skirting from shadow to shadow until he saw what he thought were the three boys he had never met before. His steps slowed, hands going into his pockets, heart rapid-fire, though from his flying or nerves he didn’t know. He swallowed and put on a big grin, sauntering forward.

“Um– hey! Are you erm, Louie, and Ollie and…?” he blinked. He didn’t know the other bloke. “Um. I brought Blueberry and Denise!” He blurted and pointed at his raccoon mates.

They chattered and lifted their paws in a friendly wave.

LOUIE

What had started as an awful day had quickly turned into something incredible. He had gathered three other boys to do something important: sabotage the old geezer Gaston. It was the perfect union, with every one pitching in the best of plans (and one fantastic fairy delivering the raccoons of destiny). He almost forgot about the wrist, though he held it up with a sheepish grin. “Crashed my moped. It happens. Won’t get in the way of awesome though.”

And this was truly awesome. Ollie was there, Urchin brought a CAT! And then finally, the other hero of the night Nemo there with the raccoons! Who needed brothers for mischief when you could make friends like these? “Mwahaha,” Louie cackled quietly, rubbing his hands together because this was better than he could have imagined. “Team Sabotage…we’ve come together this dark night to take down an old man’s ego.” He glanced over at the cat and the raccoons. “I welcome Felicia, Blueberry and Denise to our super good cause.”

He turned toward his fellow conspirators, the smile only growing on his face. “Urchin, Ollie, Nemo…you guys are the best of the best of the best with the coolest ideas. And I’m excited to pull off this mission with you. But first…we should probably have a sort of escape plan. My moped’s trashed so we can’t take that quick exit.”

OLLIE

Ollie really wasn’t quite sure what he was getting himself into at this rate. There was a cat and two raccoons? They couldn’t be too much damage? Or too dangerous. Either way Ollie was going to make sure they didn’t get into shit. Or try to.

He just lifted a hand in a greeting.

“I can double back and get my car? It’s kind of noticeable for the small town so I don’t know how much of a good idea that is for stealth.” Ollie mused with a shrug. “We gotta worry about cameras too and what not. I’ve never been so I don’t know what’s there but he’d be even more stupid not to have some sort of security.” Leaning forward Ollie rested on his knees trying to think of all the necessary things.

URCHIN

“Urchin,” the boy quickly said when the stranger asked for his name. Eventually, he managed to associate each person with their names, and smiled at the small collective of revenge-getters.

“Uh, we should probably try to stay out of very visible areas as much as possible, then,” the curly-haired boy pointed out after Ollie’s statement. “We can also ask the raccoons or the cat to disconnect anything we can find, if that’s even possible… and if anyone can talk to them.”

He stood up from his sitting place and grinned. “In any case, he’s getting what he deserves! So destiny will probably thank us for it or whatever. We will probably not even get grounded because of how much everyone probably dislikes this guy.”

NEMO

Nemo’s eyes flicked imperceptibly to his pocket. Tucked inside was his pixie dust pouch-- and in another world, Nemo would pull it out, grin bright, and show them all how to use it. Why need a moped when you could fly anyway, right?

But if he ran out of pixie dust, he’d never get home, and his dad would wake up and see he was gone, and he’d totally flip and Nemo would be grounded (literally) for the next forever.

He felt guilty, but he kept his hands in his pockets, fingers around that pouch, all to himself.

“Erm, I can’t-- explain electronics to them,” he said, rolling from the balls of his feet to his toes and back again. “My beast’s not that good and they’d definitely not listen. But um, I can fly in before hand and maybe turn ‘em off?”

LOUIE

“You can fly?!” Louie blurted first, instantly putting Nemo up there on the list of coolest people he’d ever met. That was awesome! He’d met this other guy who could fly once (Peter) but they hadn’t really spoken much since the incident at the ice cream shop. Nemo though, Nemo seemed like a super cool dude. So did Urchin and Ollie really. Immediately in for the world’s best sabotage team.

“Good idea on the security front too...hmm. If the car’s not the best option and the raccoons can’t tell...yeah okay. Here’s the plan,” Louie started, and honestly he wasn’t one hundred percent sure they’d just listen to him on this but what the hell. Act confident and like you’re the best option and eventually others will believe you.

“Nemo will fly in and turn off the security. From there he’ll call in the racoon pals to trash the place and the cat too. Phase two’ll be us swinging in there to egg the place and spray painting it. The werewolf pics will have to be more carefully put so they’re phase three. Ollie, you seem pretty like...responsible and shit, are you up for keeping watch? Make sure that the cost is clear?”

OLLIE

Well if Ollie had to have a title of being responsible, you know what he was okay with that. The more he thought about it the more he worried about it he was. This wasn’t New York where you could get away with shit because no one paid attention to you. This was Swynlake where anything that could go wrong would go wrong.

Call him boring. He was not getting tossed into jail for this though even if he could bail himself out.

“Honestly yeah I’m good with just keeping watch.” Ollie stated simply. “You guys can do all the trouble and we can make a simple signal that someone is on their way. Three knocks in quick sucession or something like that. So you know don’t be too loud in there.”

URCHIN

Urchin was disappointed they couldn’t tell the animals to do everything for them, mostly because it’d have been so cool, but the plan seemed solid either way. He listened intently to Louie’s words and tried to picture it in his mind - it’d probably involve a fun montage of crudely-drawn caricatures of the boys doing all the things if it were a TV show.

“Great! I think we’re all set, then,” he announced, picking up the box Felicia the cat was in, which shook almost uncontrollably as it was picked up. “Evidently, Felicia’s ready to move, too.”

NEMO

Right-- that meant he actually had to fly.

Instantly, Nemo got self-conscious, his hands fisting deep in his hoodie pockets. So dumb-- it wasn’t like they were gonna see his wing or anything. It just kinda felt like...well, his pixie life was in the forest and his human life was here in Swynlake. He’d never been in his pixie form here.

But Louie beamed at him. Nemo wanted to help. He didn’t have any other choice.

“Er, okay. Yeah-- okay then, I’ll um-- do that!” said Nemo. His eyes flicked back to Louie and his smile dropped as fast as it jumped onto his face in the first time. “Uh, now right? I should do that now?”

LOUIE

“Hmmm….the knock’ll work once we’re all in there, but I think Nemo you’ve gotta give us a bit more of a cue.” They’d be close by, but not too close, obviously. They couldn’t exactly be spotted by the cameras or anything. What would work better for that? “How about...Nemo you can do like an owl call or something. Hoot or something once you’ve got the cameras out of the way.”

He glanced around the group of misfits, a smile slowly lighting up his entire face. This was the kind of thing he lived for. Bringing together some cool kids to cause trouble for a man who absolutely deserved everything they threw his way. This was going to be the best. “Yeah okay. Nemo first uh huh. But maybe demo your call or whatever so we know what we’re listening for. But then yeah. Fly like an eagle or something.”

OLLIE

Ollie nodded, more than fine taking a step back. He wasn’t ever the leader type. It just wasn’t in his bones. So he listened to the plan. What an interesting group he had found himself in. Pushing himself into a standing position Ollie stepped back from the box with a potentially unruly cat.

“Are we gonna make code names at his rate?” Ollie joked. “Eagle one, Eagle Two. If I had to pick a dude and what not.”

URCHIN

Urchin frankly loved the idea of getting code names, but he wondered if he’d start confusing them. “Okay, okay,” he said. “But I want memorable code names. Otherwise, I’m gonna confuse everyone, honestly.”

He looked around and at the rest. They all seemed ready and eager to start. The box shaking in his hands seemed to imitate his own anxiousness to get started. “Not to hurry us up or anything, but if this cat manages to escape the box there’s no way we’re getting her back in. So, let’s make sure she does it once she’s inside, and pronto.”

NEMO

The idea of code names distracted Nemo from his erratic, buggy jitters firing off in his belly. He brightened up-- especially at Eagle one, Eagle two.

His hand shot up into the air. “Dibs on Eagle One!” he preened. He grinned wide, shooting the grin from one boy to the next.

He’d always wanted to be like an eagle-- strong, intense, fierce. Fast.

He then cleared his throat. “Erm, okay how about somethin’ like--” and he whistled sharp and loud, the sort of call he had mimicked before from the animal fairies.

It made Blueberry and Denise startle, then perk up on their hindlegs and wiggle their noses in the air.

LOUIE

“Alright great. Nemo’s Eagle One. That’s good. Hmm… Ollie can be Hawkeye or something you know, cause he’s keeping watch.” Louie probably wasn’t any better at this code name thing, but he could sure try. “Urchin you’ll be 007. You’ve got the whole look down. Leaving me with…” he hummed, debating for a long minute. “Rebel Leader.”

He jumped a little at the whistle, knocking into Urchin a bit and patting his shoulder as his form of sort of apology. “Okayyyy. Yeah. Good. That’s good. Eagle One...you’re clear for take off,” he added, grinning like an idiot and giving them all the thumbs up. This would be amazing. Team Sabotage was ready to go. “The rest of us, we gotta chill, till we hear Nemo. Alright?”

OLLIE

Ollie couldn’t help the snort of laughter as all the code names. He had been teasing but he was glad they took him seriously. It made him feel more like they were part of a group than he had in a long time. Sure he couldn’t be sure everyone had each others backs but it felt like they did.

Blinking at the animal call Ollie nodded. “Hard to miss but it should blend in.” Ollie mused with a nod. “Have any of you guys pulled off anything like this before?” Ollie questioned already starting to glance around and make sure he took his task seriously during the whole time.

URCHIN

Urchin grinned at his code name. It was probably the best one out of all of them, so he certainly didn’t complain. He did jump a bit when Louie knocked into him, but was quick to regain his balance and smile as a silent way to tell him not to worry.

“And chill we shall,” the boy declared. He put down the box for a few seconds and made sure his cap was on correctly, and then shrugged at Ollie. “I mean… You know what they say, there’s a first time for everything, right?” he said, grinning.

NEMO

First time for everything.

Wasn’t that the truth?

And Nemo-- Nemo was excited, especially as he glanced around at these other boys’ grins. It gave him the jolt of confidence he needed. He dug his hand back into his pocket and this time he pulled out the pixie dust pouch. “Okay! Okay okay, I’m um, I’m goin’!” he said as he skipped back, gathering a little bit of air on his heel that helped him glide. “Oi, Denise, Blueberry, follow me!” He took out a pinch of pixie dust, tossed it in the air, and leaped into the golden cloud--

In an instant, he was a small blur of orange and gold, zooming sharp as a rocket toward the Deer. The raccoons chattered and followed after him, their black and gray hides disappearing into the shadow.

It didn’t take long for Nemo to fly all the way up to the Deer’s thatched roof. He skittered around the panels then found the chimney and dived down into it. The raccoons, meanwhile, took the long way round and clambered up the gutters. Their claws scratched against the pipe work and the roof tiles.

Nemo emerged into a dark, dim, silent pub. It was actually a bit creepy how quiet it was-- Nemo used to humming cicada and whistling crickets and the wind, always there, murmuring into his ear. There was no wind here. The air was still, so still it felt-- dead. Dusty. Nemo didn’t like it and he scrunched up his nose before zooming on.

He found the cameras and scrambled on top of one, where he had to stop and rest. His little wind fluttered weakly and his lungs burned from all the effort of it. Breathing heavily, he drew his hands through his hair once before resecuring the hood over his orange hair. And then, squinting through the dark, he yanked hard on the tiny switch below the flashing red button. It didn’t budge. Nemo grimaced. This was the downside of being so small sometimes. He yanked again and again and the plastic rubbed against this tiny hands. And then one more time--

Nemo yelped as the switch gave way and he nearly toppled off the camera. His wings fluttered frantically and righted him again.

This was way harder than it looked.

It took him another five minutes to get the other three cameras all turned off, and then Nemo landed in a tired heap on the ground where he pinched out some pixie dust to help him return to his human-form. Nemo put his hands around made his call then and skipped over to the door to open it up for the boys when they arrived.

He poked his head out. “Coast all clear!” he announced. Something smashed behind him and Nemo giggled. “I think that was Denise.”

LOUIE

The mission was going off without a hitch. Nemo went for it, and the rest of the boys had a little while before they could be called in. “You know, I pull stuff like this with my brothers...but they’re usually too them to want to go for something really interesting.” Well, Huey more than Dewey, but it took some nudging to get them to want to cause some serious trouble.

But soon he heard the call, and he gestured for Ollie and Urchin to follow him as he rushed over to the entrance of the Hunted Deer. “Nice one Nemo. Your heroics will be remembered forever.” He carefully stepped into the building, holding onto a can of spray paint. It was time to mess up this newly prettied up place. Yesss. “Okay. Ollie, stick by the door yeah?” This teamwork was seriously going to rule. He’d never have a shot at something this good without them.

Louie moved toward the nearest wall, shaking the spray paint he had and considered it carefully. This would be his artistic masterpiece. “I know we should probably be beyond the immature dick art, but Gaston is one...so is it really so bad?” He considered the wall carefully. “Guys? Ideas on what we should put on the walls? It’s gotta be good.” He started ‘Gaston is a dick’ on one part, figuring it was both true and fun to write. The rest...well. He could probably paint something fun.

OLLIE

That wasnt that reassuring. People having only done this for the first time could be dangerous. Sure ollie hadnt spray painted or edges someone's place but he liked to think his own excursions in New York would count for it.

He didn't technically have a criminal record at least. (Not that he hadn't ever been caught but because people took pity on him as a kid)

But that's almost why he was starting to feel responsible for the group of boys. He didn't want any of them to get in trouble for this. At least trouble they couldn't get themselves out of.

Crossing over to the door Ollie nodded his head giving Nemo a heads up. "Okay you guys do your thing. I'll let you know if someone is coming. Stay as quiet as you can with you know Denise and everyone breaking things so you can hear if I have to give you guys a signal."

URCHIN

Loud meowing followed Ollie’s instructions, totally being louder than intended, as Felicia finally found her freedom when Urchin unsecured the box and let her out. Immediately, the cat started running and hopping around the place, uncertain of her location, and had already knocked down a pair of bottles from behind the bar. That’s what Urchin would call a resounding success!

“Uh - Draw him!” Urchin suggested. “Except make his nose a dick,” he added, because hey, dick drawings were in like 50% of graffiti, right? It felt like a crime not to do it.

NEMO

Nemo started giggling.

He’d never done anything like this before. It was like somethin’ outta a TV show, y’know, something he might watch at Roo’s house during one of his rare sleepovers. He didn’t realize this sort of thing happened in real life. That kids really did go out and-- and teepee places, and mess up houses, and use spray paint and markers and all sorts of things.

He felt a little guilty, but it was a feeling as fast as a blink. Mostly he thought about how pissed his dad would be if he knew. Not only was Nemo breaking a whole handful of Marlin’s rules, but he was doing that in Gaston’s pub.

He made a grab for a can of spray paint. “I’ll draw dicks on all the booths!” he announced and then scurried off to do so.

Meanwhile, there was more glass-smashing as Denise and Blueberry had their way with the storage room.

LOUIE

Never was there a better group of boys than now. He was sure of it. “Dicks on the booths yesssssss. Great idea Nemo!” Louie was delighted by the whole thing. And Urchin coming out with a dope drawing idea. Oh yeah. Louie would make Gaston as ugly as possible.

He smirked, taking one of the spray paint cans (a wonderful green) and studied the wall before him. “Good call good call. Alright, while I do my masterful art of Gaston….Urchin, put up those werewolf pics. Scare the pants off of him when he goes anywhere!”

He started spraying a sort of rendition of Gaston. If Gaston were more of a blob person with a dick nose. What? He was still working on improving his art. Maybe he’d bother Lou Bonfamille for more lessons. For now? Well he added some extras like a fart cloud by his ass and a speech bubble by his mouth saying ‘no one farts like Gaston’

Then he took a step back to admire his work. “What do you guys think? Pretty good right?”

URCHIN

Urchin nodded and saluted before heading off to do as ordered. He gathered the expertly-crafted werewolves and began making rounds about the place to find locations for optimal scare factor.

He decided to place the first one under the bar, hiding so that you’d only be able to see it if you were on the bartender’s side of it. The next one hung right by the bathroom doors, so you’d round that corner and piss your pants off on your way into the bathroom. That, of course, meant that he had to also set one up within the bathroom in place.

After setting up the rest in the general vicinity of the bar, the boy returned just in time to admire the drawing on the walls. “Perfect,” he commended. “I’m sure he’s going to love it.”

NEMO

Nemo got to work on the drawings, giving the spray cans a good shake. It took him a few seconds to get a handle on the paint-stream, but once he’d got it down, the dicks were pretty easy. He went booth to booth and spray painted them big across the seat, though he made sure to switch it up a few times, y’know, vary the size and direction and all-- artistic license. He knew it was all a bit silly but, well, he couldn’t get Louie’s compliment outta his head.

He thought Nemo was cool. And brilliant. And that he had great ideas.

And sooo… Nemo wanted to show off.

He jogged back over to Louie and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Louie, I ah-- I got an idea. Wanna see somethin’ cool?” he said.

And then Nemo drew his hands together, palms flat. And then, in one quick motion, he folded his fingers in one after another after another, then back again, until he had gathered a swirling ball of wind in his hands.

And then Nemo shoved the heel of his hand across the palm of his other one, pushing the blast of wind out--!

It blew out the napkins outta the napkin dispensers on several of the tables. “Nice, right!” He said, jumping up and down again. “I can do a windmill and probably knock everything over!”

LOUIE

Louie was easily distracted from drawing something else spectacular (maybe Gaston cowering before a werewolf or something) by his new friend Nemo. He twisted around, watching the guy carefully as he gathered wind into his hands and knocked napkins out of this dispensers.

“Holy shit, you’re the avatar!” Louie blurted and then grinned. “Sorry. It just looks like something out of a cartoon.” He glanced around to see that Ollie was still properly keeping a look out, and that Urchin was placing the werewolf stuff. And wow he picked great spots.

“Nice move by the bathroom mate. Hilarious.” This was the best bunch of guys he’d ever met. They’d be bound together by a common bound of mischief with this. Maybe he’d get them to make some sort of pact. Or something. “Okay. I’m gonna draw one more thing. Nemo...definitely knock shit over. That’s fantastic. Everyone do one last ridiculous thing and then we’ll get the fuck outta here. Ollie...you do something ridiculous too. Come on. It’ll be worth it.”

OLLIE

Ollie was perfectly fine chilling by the door. It wasn't like there was anything to scare him out here. The only thing that worried him was that some random adult would see them wasn't he an adult too. Was he supposed to be turning people in for their hijinks.

"You guys look to be doing perfectly fine." Ollie mused with a small laugh stepping back for a moment. "Plus I'm more musically inclined then I am artistically." Even with Gaston being a douche ollie doubted himself. Not that either one of his parents would care if he had to guess what they would think.

"Wait this place has a kitchen right? What about saran wrapping most of the stools together or something?"

URCHIN

Urchin was happy to be complimented for his ideas. Everyone else was doing pretty great too, which made him even more satisfied! After Ollie’s suggestion, though, the boy’s eyes seemed to outright gleam in delight.

“Ooooh, yes! He’d probably use that wrap to attack some deers and hang them on his wall or something evil like that anyway,” Urchin said, and immediately bolted into the kitchen. He took a while but trashed the place while he looked around, and Felicia even helped unintentionally by walking in and finding some leftovers on a counter.

Eventually, Urchin found a roll of something that people would likely use to wrap up take-out. “Here we go!” he proclaimed, tossing the few rolls he’d found out onto the main sitting area of the bar for the others to pick up.

NEMO

While they waited for Urchin to appear, Nemo did his fairy best too. He could feel the slight draft from the chimney where he’d flown down as well as the slightly open door where Ollie was standing guard. It was always much easier to play with already-moving air and so he splayed his fingers wide and gathered it in his hands. Once he’d rolled it all into a ball, he pushed it toward the booths and the mini wind-funnel skirted over the tables, skittering one after the other. Napkins blew from the dispensers and the salt and pepper turned over and got all over the table and seats.

Then Urchin came back and Nemo’s smile leaped back onto his face. He jumped up and caught it. “Nice!” he crowed and then went to work saran-wrapping everything together.

He forgot all about the guilt he’d felt earlier-- the slight panic, that stray thought whispering what would happen if he got caught? Now, all he was thinkin’ about was how fun this was.

Soon they finished, all the saran wrapped up. “Are we done?” Nemo said as he popped up, going back to Louie’s side since he seemed-- well. He was in charge, wasn’t he? He bounced a little on his toes, ready to perform a few more wind-tricks if he needed to.

LOUIE

Louie glanced around the room, looking at all the chaos around them. They had done a spectacular job on sabotaging the place. He was honestly impressed by everyone’s initiative. He needed to keep a note of this. From this day forward, if there ever was a guy that wronged one of them, Louie felt they had the perfect solution.

“I’d say so. We’ve definitely made a mess of the place. Suck it Gaston,” Louie added, as if the man was around to hear it. Well...maybe he’d just write it. No. They’d done a good job without that. “Time to make a hasty exit. Ollie, look and see if the coast’s clear? From there we get the hell outta here. We’ve done important work lads. I’ll never forget it.”

OLLIE

Ollie let out a laugh, so many of his ideas had been thrown to the literally as everyone took it and ran with it. A part of him felt bad until he remembered it was Gaston and he didn’t feel bad anymore. Ducking his head out Ollie listened to everything around the place.

“We’re good to go. Remember what happens at the Deer stays at the Deer.” Ollie teased ushering the guys out. “Let’s get out of here.”

#justkeepdancing-nemo #oliversaluki #urchinxowens #this was so fun to write #teen shenanigans!

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grimelords · 6 years ago

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My November playlist is finished and I've done something slightly different by actually ordering the songs into a cohesive playlist rather than leaving them in the order I added them. Listen in for everyone's favourite genre, acoustic guitar instrumentals, followed by old fashioned cowboy country, comedy and ridiculous songs, 80s and modern dance, out-there piano instrumentals, rocks and rolls, oddball rap, christian rock buried where nobody will find it, noise rock of all flavours and Mirror Reaper in full. I guarantee there'll be at least something in four hours of music that you'll like. listen here!

Deixa - Toquinho: I love how much happens in this song even before it even kicks off at about a minute in. It cycles through so many different feelings before it really powers up and the drums come on. The rhythm from then on is just mesmerizing, it's just so busy and never dwells on any section for too long, the interplay between the melody, bassline and chord rhythm is amazing. And then at about 2:20 it powers up again! Bossa Nova Strong. Also I'm feeling very disrespected because I just did some research on this song only to find out it was sampled by Nujabes on one of his bad anime youtube hip hop songs.

Just A Closer Walk With Thee - Marisa Anderson: Traditional And Public Domain Songs is Marisa Anderson's weakest album, which is a shame because I love Traditional and Public Domain songs. Her playing is on point as always, but the tremolo and distortion she's using overwhelms the recording more often than not. This song is the best on the album purely because she's playing so quietly that it only shows up when she gets loud so it works perfectly near the end as it crescendos.

The Three Deaths Of Red Spectre - Gwenifer Raymond: Gwenifer Raymond has a new 'non-holiday specific single for a cold climate' in her words and I absolutely love it. The sheer velocity of the middle section is flooring, before it breaks apart totally and reforms into a sort of shanty before metamorphosing again into a heightening mania. I love the constantly shifting structure of this, it barely stops to give you room to breathe all the way through before the very end where it almost feels like it's going to collapse entirely.

Mister Sandman - Chet Atkins: Happy to report that I've had Mr Sandman stuck in my head for three weeks now and still don't really know the words because of tumblr posts. It alternates between 'mr email / e me a mail / make the attachment a pic of a snail' and 'mr sandman / sand me a man / make him the cutest man car door hook hand'.

Do I Ever Cross Your Mind - Chet Atkins & Dolly Parton: I've never gone much on Chet Atkins but my girlfriend showed my this song and it has completely reversed my opinion and it's mostly due to Dolly Parton. She is just so lovely on this it makes me tear up - the song itself is so nice and the playing is perfect but her personality just shines through so brightly it's an absolute delight.

There's A Man Going Around Taking Names - Lead Belly: I've been doing research to try to find out what this song is referring to, or its origin but I cannot find anything concrete. A few people are saying it inspired Johnny Cash for The Man Comes Around, which is plausible and adds a mystic bent to it. It seems incomplete, like it's missing the turn at the end that reveals who exactly he is or what's happening so the whole song just ends up feeling very mysterious and ominous.

When Mussolini Laid His Pistol Down - Merle Travis: This song is from 1943, which is sort of amazing because that means it's not a song about history particularly but rather current events. A great paragraph from wikipedia: "On 24 June Mussolini gave his last important speech as prime minister. It went down in history as the "boot topping" speech, with the Duce promising that the only part of Italy that the Anglo-Americans would be able to occupy (but forever and horizontally, i.e. as corpses) was the shore-line (for which he used a wrong word to define it). For many Italians, that confused and incoherent speech was the final proof that something was wrong with Mussolini." Mussolini, truly history's greatest moron.

The Master's Call - Marty Robbins: As a result of Red Dead 2 and my own natural instincts, I've been having a bigger than usual moment with cowboy music this month which of course includes Marty Robbins' Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs. In my mind this song is both the true ending and end credits music of Red Dead 2. Arthur sees the face of Christ in a lightning bolt and abandons his life of crime and sin, pleading with the lord to forgive him and then God kills a hundred cows with another lightning bolt just to make damn sure Arthur knows He's serious.

Saga Of The Ponderosa - Lorne Green: I was hanging out with my old housemate a few weeks ago and it turns out we were both having concurrent Marty Robbins cowboy music phases which was great news because then he turned me onto this album by Lorne Green who was on Bonanza and apparently took it upon himself to expand the Bonanaza Cinematic Universe in the 60s with a few albums. This song is apparently an origin story of Bonanza which I have never seen. It's extremely good, very powerful music. Great story of this godlike man striding across the country and overriding his wife's decision by naming his son HOSS.

Hard Sun - Eddie Vedder: I think it's interesting in A Star Is Born that Jackson Maine doesn't seem to be a real life equivalent of any actual musician. He's not obviously an archetype of any real person and so it's hard to place how exactly famous he is in the world of the movie. He's washed up enough to be playing pharmaceutical conferences but still has enough industry respect to be playing a tribute at the Grammys. The closest I could think of was Eddie Vedder oddly enough, and this song from the Into The Wild soundtrack really does sound like a Jackson Maine original.

For Chan - Tim Heideker: I'm having a real thing with comedy music recently and I can't tell if it means I've got a brain parasite or comedy music is good to me now. I think what I like about this song is the bluntness. There's no two ways about these people, and after years of hearing about the alt right as mysterious political genius computer brains it's a nice break to just hear them called greasy fat basement guys like we used to.

That's Right I'm Five - Don't Stop Or We'll Die: More good comedy music! They played this song on Comedy Bang Bang without announcing what it was called first, so the chorus really surprised me and made me laugh a lot. "They're selling the stocks so buy them, launch the torpedoes, tell my wife I love her, and send my son to college, bury me in the desert in my osh kosh b'gosh - that's right I'm five!" might be my favourite lyric of the year.

Future Brain - Den Harrow: Den Harrow is very good. He's like a beautiful moron American man that some italian scientists built in a lab in order to conquer America from the inside. Here are some good highlights from his wiki article: "The name Den Harrow was conceived by producers Roberto Turatti and Miki Chieregato, who based it on the Italian word denaro(money)." "After years of fame and popularity, it was revealed by frontman Stefano Zandri and his producers that Zandri did not actually sing the Den Harrow songs; he was essentially a character who lip-synched to vocals recorded by a number of other singers. Furthermore, since they did not consider Zandri's name and origin to be "trendy" enough, the producers R. Turatti and M. Chieregato concealed Zandri's Italian origin, marketing him as having been born Manuel Stefano Carry in Boston. This was done so Polydor Records could market him more easily in the English-speaking world, where Italian-produced music was, at the time, viewed with skepticism"

Love A Girl Right - Little Mix: Check out this rewrite of the Thong Song they did for the new Little Mix album. It's beyond belief. My girlfriend loves Little Mix and she's right to because they're the only girl/boy band that actually takes advantage of the form and does harmonies instead of just having them all sing in turn or all at once. They've got good vocal arrangements but they have the worst fucking songwriters working for them. Songwriters that pitch 'what if the Thong Song had a crunchy nu-metal guitar in it'.

This City Made Us - The Protomen: It's interesting to hear a band change styles - most other Protomen songs are a sort of Springsteen pastiche but this one from their newer single is more like Iron Maiden or Thin Lizzy. Approaching the 80s from a different angle. It's impressive to switch so radically and still have enough of a unifying sound that it feels like the same band. 80s throwback rock is a generally pallid genre populated by freaks who can't move on but Protomen put so much heart into it it's hard to write them off.

Teardrops - Womack & Womack: I love this song because it has two choruses. The drums stay the same throughout, the chords stay the same through the verse and chorus and only change for the second chorus/bridge part ("the music don't feel like it did when I felt it with you"), which just gives the whole song this feeling of beautiful endlessness. It goes and goes and goes and you're always already living in the best part of the song.

Boys Will Be Boys - The Duncan Sisters: Very very good piece of disco with a very nice piece of country picking guitar near the start for some reason. I quit like that the chorus of 'boys, oh boys, will be boys - they can really hurt you!' goes from a lighthearted thing about relationships until the bridge near the end where it sounds more like a dire warning. She's staring straight into your eyes and saying 'they can hurt you. boys can hurt you. they can really hurt you.' while motioning toward the exit with her eyes.

Ayaya - Bicep: I've been trying to train my ear a bit better so I got a piano app on my phone and I just try to pick out the melodies of songs now when I'm bored. It turns out this is a very satisfying song to play. The melody is very simple, but the constant build and the couple of other melodies that come in around it make you feel like a super genius for just playing the same thing over and over.

The Call - David Mayer: I completely forget how I came across this song but I'm in love with the vocals on it. The effect reminds me of the one on Problem With The Sun by Nicolas Jaar, sort of pitched down and layered over itself. Outside of the vocals it's a pretty straightforward euro house chunk but damn sometimes a song just has a really good sound in it that you can't deny.

Problem With The Sun - Nicolas Jaar: My girlfriend's brother was telling me he was riding his bike the other day and had some kind of mental break where he was riding north in the afternoon but the sun was on his right, in the east - and for some reason his first instinct wasn't that he was wrong or disoriented, it was that there was a problem with the sun and it was in the wrong place. That boy ain't right but this song is good. I love that Nicolas Jaar uses this weird down pitched voice on a few songs and I really wish he'd bring it back, it sounds great and also funny to me.

Ensaslayi - Cecil Taylor: I don't have the brain power to comprehend any of Cecil Taylor's ensemble work that I've heard, free jazz in a band setting is simply too much for me it turns out -but I've really been getting a lot out of this solo album of his called Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!. This song in particular is one of the longer ones on the album, where another is only 53 seconds long and a few last around ten minutes. This is a nice midpoint, where he gives himself so much room to get lost in different directions without losing the thread entirely. I said it last time I was talking about him but I've really never heard anyone play piano like this and I absolutely love it. A lot of reviewers describe it as him playing the piano like it's a drumkit, which I think is accurate to a degree - but I think looking back from here this music makes a lot more sense within the context of black midi and things like that. The extreme edges of what a piano can theoretically do, but with a decisive and beautiful human edge and human brain that's responsible for and making sense of the chaos.

The Homeless Wanderer - Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou: I found out about this album cause Benjamin Booker was posting about her on his instagram story and it's just incredible. The TL;DR of her story is she's an Ethiopian nun that studied music in Switzerland and Cairo and wrote this beautiful piano music based on traditional Ethiopian pentatonic music. I love the rhythm of it, every note in the right hand get swirled around and around before it's settled on while the left hand moves so smoothly and delicately. Unfortunately-ish she's obviously in that genre of Searching For Sugarman secret blog music evidenced by her spotify similar artists being Karen Dalton, Alice Coltrane and Connie Converse. That's not a bad thing exactly, at least people are hearing about her, but her music is unique and amazing enough on its own without needing much mythologizing.

Carnival Of The Animals: No 12 - Fossils - Camille Saint-Saëns: My girlfriend was showing me Saint-Saëns' The Swan and then we were going through the whole rest of the Carnival Of The Animals and I'm happy to report that he not only did he do one for fossils but also centered it around the idea of a bone xylophone. I'm going to write an article for Vulture tracing the origin of the cartoon bone xylophone and my thesis is it starts here.

Perth - Bon Iver: Just thinking about how good Bon Iver is. I love how massive this song can feel, the drums combined with the big brass. It's small and soft on the grand scale, but on an album that gets as quiet and soft as songs like Holocene this song blows up like an atom bomb.

Yet Again - Grizzly Bear: This really is one of the best songs of all time I've decided. It feels like I get into a thing of listening to it on repeat almost every month now. I don't know what it is exactly - I guess it's every part of it. The lyrics are impenetrable (check) the riff is simple and powerful (check) the drums are doing a lot and keeping it simple at the same time. The the way the harmony vocals all intertwine in the prechorus part is amazing. The way the whole song blows up into a big radio static solo at the end. Every part of this song is great, I just love it.

Fuckin N' Rollin - Phantastic Ferniture: I found out that Julia Jacklin has a side project with a very shit name and they make very good music. I love when people have a whole other band for another side of their self. This is just Julia Jacklin if the lyrics were just first draft whatevers instead of incredibly poignant and beautiful and the music was just rockin and rollin with your friends. It's great!

Soft - Kings Of Leon: Number one best song ever about havin a bad dick!! I'd love to hang out lady but my dick! I'm passed out in your garden, I'm in I can't get off I'm so soft! I'd pop myself in you body, I'd come into your party but I'm soft!

Soft Serve - Soul Coughing: I played this while I was driving with my girlfriend and she said 'what the fuck is this' and she's right, as usual. It's Soul Coughing baby! The 90s 'slacker jazz' band! They sound dated as fuck, a real product of their time but I think they've still got a lot to offer. I had the chorus of this stuck in my head for a couple days which made me listen to this album more than usual when I mostly prefer their first one Ruby Vroom. Irresistible Bliss might have the worst album cover of all time though, so it's got that going for it. Google it.

Ya Mama - Wuf Ticket: There wiki article for this band says they had two songs in 1982 and that was it. Then it has a section titled Greaseman and then the article ends. Here's the Greaseman section in its entirety: "Wuf Ticket's “Ya Mama” achieved its greatest notoriety, and airplay, as a music bed for bits by shock jock The Greaseman on WWDC-FM in Washington, D.C. and later his nationally syndicated radio show where Greaseman would argue with a surly service industry worker." Anyway this is more of that very good early hip hop shit where everyone assumed songs should go for 8 minutes. It's just extremely weak sauce Ya Mama jokes for a very long time before they change tack completely and start talking about how Every Woman Is An Angel And Without Mothers We Would Never Have Been Born So Think About That Next Time.

Gon Be Okay - Lil B: I had the part of this song where he sings 'things are never gonna be the same again' along with the piano in my head the other day and spent fully an hour googling to try to find what song it was from before giving up. I woke up the next morning and suddenly remembered it was this song but was very shocked to find out that he actually never sings that line along with the piano melody, he says it once at the start and that's it. What's going on with my brain. Anyway in my searching I found out that the piano is sampled from the Spirited Away soundtrack so once more in my life I've been led to ruin by anime.

2 Minute Drills - Allblack & Kenny Beats: This whole EP is great. More sports themed rap please. Allblack is ferocious and Kenny's production throughout is great, the perfect mix of simple straighforward beats that still have a lot of space and energy in them, plus 'Woah Kenny!' has my award for Best New Producer Watermark.

Don't Gas Me - Dizzee Rascal: I don't know how he keeps doing it but somehow Dizzee Rascal continues to make extremely fun bangers without ever slowing down. The best line in this is when he says "no I don't drink Appletiser" (the sparkling apple juice) which is an extremely weird flex if there ever was one.

Acid King - Malibu Ken: It feels insane that a Tobacco and Aesop Rock collab sounds as good as this. I love that there's no drums the entire time he's rapping and I completely love the Mort Garson vibes in the instrumental which turns out to be a perfect soundtrack to the Ricky Kasso satan worship LSD murder story that Aesop's telling. Also in reading about Kasso I just discovered the very good stoner doom band also named Acid King, so expect to see them in next month's list.

Pirate Blues - As Cities Burn: As Cities Burn have reformed and put out a new single so I've been thinking about them a bit. On paper they don't sound good, over three albums they morphed from a christian metalcore band to a christian alt-rock band, and while they never reinvented the wheel I think they're a remarkable band who took a lot of risks in their own way and made a lot of rock solid music. They've got a lot of great songs but I think this is my favourite from their third album when it finally felt like they'd settled into a steady alt rock sound informed by their much heavier past.

This Is It, This Is It - As Cities Burn: The thing I like about As Cities Burn is that as much as they're a christian band (yuck) they're more of a band of guys who are christians (slightly less yuck) and the difference is huge. Rather than evangelising or preaching, their songs are about their own personal struggles with their faith (still slightly yuck). I like this song especially because the lyric feels close to gospel, 'we're all singing for our sins, unless grace be the wind' but with the added twist of being furious that you're trapped by the sin of your physical body.

Timothy - As Cities Burn: I think this song is just incredible. The lyrics are so strong and direct and heartbreaking, the vocal performance especially is amazing and it may be the only time in history that a 6 minute guitar solo has seemed good and necessary.

Face Tat - Zach Hill: There's an incredible video of the recording of this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGi9SOFX5rc that really looks exactly how it sounds and has a very similar energy to that video of 80 guys singing the halo theme in the boys bathroom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRG9KwvbVhk . This is what it sounds like when the boys are left alone. The biggest draw to Zach Hill's drumming is the intense primordial immediacy of it. He is just pounding away like a possessed animal and it's really on show here, especially combined with the occasional punctuating shout. Carson McWhirter's guitar is incredible too, the tone he's got where it sounds like three at once playing these incredible twisting riffs that turn on a dime. I think what I like most about this song is just how in sync they are - for such a chaotic, noisy song it sounds so rehearsed, somehow every single note is perfectly in time in the storm.

Betty's Worry Or The Slab - Hunters And Collectors: This is maybe the sweatiest song I've ever heard. It's a disgusting song about being incredibly sweaty and horny and I love the weird squeaky noise he makes after he says 'say it! say it!'. The bass sound in this is so fantastically meaty too, and combined with the brass at the end it's just great.

Worms Of The Senses / Faculties Of The Skull (live) - Refused: I cannot believe just how absolutely ferocious live Refused is. Insanely powerful without ever missing a beat in a song like this that requires incredible timing throughout. For some reason I've always thought Refused were an only ok live band after watching Refused Are Fucking Dead because all I remember of it is a clip where the guitarist accidentally hits the singer in the face with his headstock and they have to stop the show.

Mirror Reaper - Bell Witch: I got to see Bell Witch live a couple of weeks ago and it's one of the best shows I've ever seen. I can't really describe it other than it feels like the closest thing to a legitimate summoning ritual that I've ever seen. An invocation and an expelling of raw power and emotion between two people, it was really something. Also the best part was about two minutes in when they were really setting the scene with the sort of ambient beginning of Mirror Reaper and the whole crowd was dead silent and entranced as they built this mystic atmosphere and set the vibe a guy behind me said loudly to his friend 'hm pretty good so far!'

What's You Gonna Do When The World's On Fire - Lead Belly & Anne Graham: This is in my opinion the best genre of gospel song where they they just roast you for not being saved yet.

listen here

#playlists

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jsteneil · 7 years ago

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Dan is the closest of the Foxes to Palmetto, working in DC where the others have migrated North or East, with Kevin down in Texas as one sweaty exception. She visits more than the others, hopping in and out of her car on occasions, and always comes in the Foxhole court holding a large to-go cup from the campus’ coffee, looking radiant and focused.

Neil smiles more easily, these days, and he never fights the natural inclination of his mouth when he sees Dan and lets himself be hugged, maybe a bit tighter than someone who doesn’t answer to the name of Dan Wilds would.

“Rookie,” she calls, lobbing her paper cup in the garbage one day. Half of the freshmen turn their tired faces to her, dragging their feet after today’s hard practice.

Neil smiles. “Dan,” he greets, and waves his team away. Robin steals his car keys on her way out, clearly not eager to repeat the time she had to wait half an hour in the cold for Neil and Dan to finish talking.

Dan lifts an eyebrow. She knows Robin from last year, when Andrew, Aaron, and Nicky were still there to share a bedroom that now feels to big for two people, but she’s emboldened over the summer. Neil is quietly proud of her, like warming his hands to the residual heat of a slow-burning fire.

“I’ll run,” Neil says with a shrug. “I haven’t been jogging as I should lately.”

“Yeah,” Dan says, “maybe because there’s actual frost on the ground. Don’t be crazy, I’ll drive you back.”

“Okay,” Neil accepts, because he’s gotten better at acknowledging the casualness of the Foxes’ kindness. “Wanna get out of here?”

Dan’s hand flies to her chest.

“Who are you and what have you done with Neil Josten, local exy court vermin?”

“I don’t actually live here.”

“Then you can explain to me why I’ve found you sleeping on those damn couches more times than I can count,” a gruff voice says from behind them. “Get out of here.”

Wymack emerges from his office with his usual stack of papers and grumpy expression. Neil knows how much Dan means to him and how long they talked on the outer ring during the last half of practice, so he understands the way Dan laughs with her teeth and turns around to hold the door open.

“We’re having dinner at Abby’s tonight,” Dan says as they make their way to Dan’s rental car. “Wanna come?”

Tonight is the Foxes’ movie night. Neil quickly calculates pros and cons: Indian take-out in a room crowded with people he already spends too much time with everyday, or in Abby’s kitchen with some of the people who count the most in his life.

“Sure.”

He sends a message to Robin to tell her not to wait for him to start the movie, then closes the door of the car on the uncharacteristically cold winter.

“So how’s the team?” Neil asks at the same time Dan does, backing out of her parking space. They share a grin: Dan’s enthusiasm for the sport will never be on the same level as Kevin’s or Neil’s, but he likes more detached outlook she brings to the conversation nonetheless. Probably because exy means less to her than to him—although Neil’s had some difficulties wrapping his mind around this truth in the beginning—Dan is particularly soothing to talk to. Andrew suggested once that it may be because she refuses to make herself insane for something as inconsequential as exy, but Neil would rather bet that it was a thinly-veiled insult thrown to Kevin’s obsession.

“We’re getting into the season on a strong foot,” Dan says finally after Neil gestures for her to speak first. “The changes we’ve brought to the starting line are already showing results.”

“Drafting Perez was a risky move,” Neil says, because his interest in pro teams has considerably grown now that it’s a certainty of his future and not a dream sitting just out of his reach.

Dan’s smile grows sharper. To Neil, she’s still the young woman who led them all the way to finals in his freshman year.

“It was,” she agrees, “but it’s going to pay big time—we have a game with the Hawks next week, and I know where the odds are leaning.”

“I don’t bet,” Neil reminds her as they park in front of the Fox’s Paw, the campus coffee.

“Still? Neil, you have no respect for traditions.”

It’s true; mostly because he didn’t get to experience them before he met the Foxes. Dan keeps talking about the Eagles in the line to the counter, prompting questions in Neil’s mind that he never took into consideration before—it’s been three years, but it still feels weird that his captain ended on the other side of the plexiglass wall. Not wrong: Dan was made to mentor, but still.

Dan almost gets another coffee, then reconsiders and orders some kind of chocolate concoction that Andrew likes, provided they add cream and sugar in large quantity, because that’s Andrew’s favorite way to eat anything. A small stitch drills into his chest like he’s gulped too much air while running, like always when the realization comes that Andrew is miles away in a large city, and not smoking, up on the rooftop of their small world.

“So how’re you doing?” Dan asks, twirling the cream in her cup.

Neil hums in response. “I’m fine.”

“Uh huh. And without the bullshit?” She’s not fooled by his confused look. “Neil, I know how it is—”

He knows she does. In hindsight, he’s grateful for the reprieve she accorded him by talking so extensively about her team first.

“The first weeks are the worst,” Dan says, which Neil doesn’t believe because it’s already mid-November and Neil’s been feeling down since August, when Andrew moved to Boston for good.

Andrew flew down to Columbia two weekends ago, which means that Neil will fly north in ten days for Thanksgiving and spend the beginning of the week holed up in Andrew’s apartment with only each other, ice cream, alcohol, and cigarettes for company. The perspective brightens Neil’s immediate future, but it doesn’t relieve the constant ache of not having Andrew right next to him to exchange truths and stories with.

“Andrew came to our game against the Ravens two weeks ago,” Neil says instead of dwelling on the feeling.

“I saw on TV. The journalists had a field day.”

Neil nods slowly. He feels miserable, and he’s sure that Dan read it on every inch of his face. He longs briefly for the days when lying to the Foxes was as easy as breathing, when the reality of his feelings concerned him only.

“I find it easier to bear long distance if you talk about it,” Dan says finally, done with being subtle. “Nicky would agree.”

“You just want the gossip. How many bets?”

“There’s a consequential one on where you’ll spend Thanksgiving break. Renee says you’ll have a quiet week in Columbia, visit Bee. Nicky has quite a few bucks on you meeting in Boston and boning the entire time.” She winces. “Sorry, his words.”

Neil waves if it off. “I gathered.”

Dan huffs a laugh and drumrolls on the table, phone in hand. “Do I get to settle anything, or are you just going to send us a pic from Vietnam or something?”

“We wouldn’t fly anywhere this far,” Neil says, then relents: “Robin invited us to her parents’ for the day. I’m not sure Andrew will take her up on that offer, but we’ll see. We’ll spend the rest of the week in Boston, so I guess Nicky wins, for one.”

“Nicky only wins if you spend the whole time in bed,” Dan says delightfully as her fingers fly over her screen. “I don’t think I have to ask you how likely it is to happen.”

Neil snorts. “You’d think he’d have learned by now.”

“Renee’s happy you won’t be alone for the holidays,” Dan reads after her phone beeps a few times. “Allison is mad—she would’ve made three hundred bucks. Don’t look so pleased.”

“Don’t bet on my life.”

“Never gonna happen.”

They sip their drinks in silence for a while, basking in the warmth of the crowded coffee shop. Having Dan by his side in Palmetto is familiar, like the feeling of watching his shots land true. If Robin is his best friend, the quiet extension of himself, then Dan is his sister, warm, teasing, and proud.

“I miss him,” he admits, because he suddenly wants to. Andrew has always been a point of friction between them, but he can acknowledge the olive branch Dan has been offering him. He doesn’t mind taking it; the riverbanks are slippery enough as it is. “We talk a lot, but it’s not the same.”

They’re good at communication, because they can’t afford not to be, but most of their conversations are silent, exchanged through looks and actions. Neil knows Andrew enough by now to read his tone, what he leaves unsaid, but he misses the touches, the certainty of Andrew, there besides him.

Dan’s hand curls around her cup like she wants to grab for him but is restraining herself.

“Have you discussed the situation?”

“Of course. I thought long-distance was all about communication?”

“And Skype sex,” Dan adds with a grin curling her mouth.

Neil frowns. In a rare bout of sharing, he says: “Not likely.”

“Really.”

“I’m not discussing sex with you.” That’s a conversation for another day, possibly imaginary, definitely involving alcohol. Neil has managed to escape it so far by sticking close to Nicky, who, despite his own interest in the situation, is always prompt to deroute on his own sexual adventures and attract Aaron’s ire.

“Fine. Keep your gossip to yourself, ungrateful child.”

“I will.” He waits a beat then says: “He’s not happy there. He never says anything but I don’t think the team is right for him.”

“Problems with his teammates?”

Dan’s frown his sympathetic. Twice captain of her exy teams and now assistant coach, she knows exactly how much inside tensions can affect a player’s game—and their lives beyond.

“Whitney is outwardly homophobic and an asshole,” Neil says. Five years ago, he would never have thought he’d ever get so worked up about something not directly linked to his survival; five years ago, he also didn’t have Andrew Minyard in his life, to love and protect fiercely where Andrew himself doesn’t necessarily. “Andrew won’t stand for it forever.”

“You’re worried it’ll fall back on Andrew?”

Neil raises his hands in front of him, palms up. “Exy golden boy from an Ivy league college and three years of seniority. Andrew.” He tips his hands like scales. “You know what people are going to see, and you know that it won’t be the truth.”

“It might if someone can attest of Whitney’s slurs,” Dan says. “He doesn’t have a good reputation in the division. People talk. And I think Andrew knows better than pulling a knife under another coach than Wymack.”

“He doesn’t carry knives anymore. And that’s not the problem, is it?”

“No it’s not,” Dan sighs. “I’m sorry.”

She asks about the team to distract him after that, and it works—Neil will never miss a chance to talk exy, especially not when it’s his team, a responsibility he never thought he’d have. He remembers the sick feeling of fear and want when Wymack first told him about his future captaincy; some days, Neil can still feel it, curled tight in his stomach to make room for pride and affection, and all those other feelings that he’s learned along the way. He doesn’t need to ask Dan if it ever goes away. He’s not sure he wants it to.

They clear out their table a while later, when night has already fallen around the bright yellow streetlights, and head back to Dan’s car, jogging slightly to fight the cold. Neil leans his head on the window and staring outside past the fog of his breath on the glass, and only straightens when he sees the shape of Abby’s house, shadow pierced by large rectangles of light. Dan winds her arm over his shoulders when they get out the car and drags him to the door.

“We’re here!” she announces, opening the door left unlocked, as usual.

Neil sheds his coat and removes his shoes, padding in the kitchen to find Wymack and Abby prepping chicken around the table. A small pot is already simmering on the stove and filling the entire room with the smell of tomato and thyme. Abby gives them each a knife and different vegetables to peel; the celeri makes a cheerful crunching sound every time Neil lowers the blade.

“You’re a terrible cook,” Dan observes good-naturedly after Abby corrects him three times on how to best mince garlic. Neil doesn’t mind: he’s usually the first to admit that he doesn’t care all that much about cooking.

“I know,” he says, and thinks, Andrew prefers to do it anyway.

#aftg #all for the game #tfc #the foxhole court #neil josten #dan wilds #my writing #idk guys

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lhugbereth · 7 years ago

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KP- thanks tumblr, always a pal >:((( the message was basically Noctis watching Ignis perform in a professional event for the first time and being absolutely floored by how graceful and strong Ignis is, making everything look completely effortless. He knows Noctis is watching and shows off just a tiny bit and earns himself almost perfect scores in all his events ;)c

Hi KP! Sorry this took longer than expected.... I didn’t intend to write so much, but then fluff happened and I couldn’t stop x3 Actually, since Ignis doesn’t compete I changed it a youth sports charity event, and instead of perfect scores, he wins a prince’s heart instead.

Just in time for a little holiday magic in August, I present you with “Noct and Iggy are total dorks and bond over sports cars and bad puns”

(Part 16 of “Promptio on Ice” - here’s the masterpost!)

Dorky IgNoct under the cut! v v v

- It starts with a text from Prompto, of all people. Noct is definitely glad they’ve started hanging out (Prom is into all the same video games and comics, is easy to talk to and a lot of fun), but he’s even worse than Gladio when it comes to teasing him about his crush on Ignis. Prompto’s known Iggy for a long time, works with him almost everyday, and recently started sending Noct stealthy photos snapped during training - Iggy stretching, Iggy standing, Iggy sitting on the bleachers. One particular pic was nothing but a close up of Iggy’s ass as he bent over the mat (followed by emojis of a peach and an eggplant which Noct isn’t sure he wants to understand). This routine seems to be Prompto’s way of helping out his new friend, and Noct both loves and hates him for it.

- But this time is different. There’s no photo attached to the message he’s sent, but it still gets Noct’s heart racing all the same. He reads it again, and again, just to be sure he isn’t dreaming.

>> Gladdy’s taking me to Lestallum for the festival this weekend!

- He’s been hearing about the event all week. It’s an local youth sports competition to raise money during the holidays, and apparently Ignis has been asked to be the opening performer. According to Prompto and Gladio, he’s been working hard to debut a new technique for the event. Now Noct is being offered a ticket up close and personal. He would have to be crazy to refuse.

- It turns out, though, that the seat is more ‘up close and personal’ than he expected. When he arrives at the arena on the day of the event, Ignis is already there and occupying the chair next to where Noctis is supposed to be sitting. Upon seeing him, Noct nearly loses his nerve completely. He looks good in a pair of long white pants over a tight-fitting blue-and-black leotard. Too good, in fact. There is no way he can do this! But before he can turn and run, Ignis spots him, smiles, and pats the open chair. He’s pretty much doomed.

- “Ah, Noct. I was wondering who Prompto would send in his place. Thank you for coming.”

- “Uh, yeah. N-no problem.” Noct swallows as he takes the seat, meets Iggy’s gaze fleetingly before staring down at his boots. “I heard you’re, like, a guest of honor or something?” He tries to smile, but his nerves get the better of it and it probably ends up as more of a cringe.

- Luckily, Ignis doesn’t seem bothered by it. “Well, something like that. I’m a bit out of practice, though, so don’t get your hopes up.” He follows this with a wink that makes Noctis very glad he’s already sitting down. Fortunately, he doesn’t get a chance to respond (he would have just said something totally lame, anyway, like I’m sure you’ll find a way to impress me) because suddenly they’re being approached by an energetic young woman with curly blond hair and a headset.

- "Sorry t’innerupt, fellas. Mr. Scientia, we're ready for ya to get set up now."

- "Thank you, Cindy. Noct," he smiles as he gets to his feet. "I trust you'll be watching?"

- Of course, I can't take my eyes off you. Noctis clears his throat, forces a polite nod. "You bet, Specs."

- When Ignis turns to follow Cindy back to the locker rooms, he has a certain lightness in his step that wasn't there before. Without even realizing it, he's smiling. Cindy, who is in charge of the local youth sports center and therefore that day’s events, has known Iggy long enough to notice both. "So who’s yer new beau?" she asks with a sly wink. Ignis refuses to meet her gaze.

- “A friend of Prompto, or rather, of Prompto’s boyfriend. I’ll admit I don’t know him very well yet.”

- “Well, maybe after t’day that’ll change.” They enter the locker room, and the din of the arena fades behind them. “Are ya still planning to show us somethin’ we ain’t never seen before?”

- Ignis doesn’t answer right away. He’s been working on his new move for a couple of weeks - an acrobatic-style twist off the bars at the end of his routine - but he isn’t sure he’s quite ready for it. With all the extra time he’s spent at the ice rink with Prompto, there hasn’t been much chance for him to practice alone. If he attempts it now, there’s a chance he might mess up - or worse, injure himself. But next to him Cindy is waiting for an answer, so he smiles, pats her hand, and offers a noncommittal We’ll see.

- Out in the arena, the music starts. Cindy rushes off to MC the event, and after a brief (but far-too flattering) introduction, Ignis steps out to a roar of applause. He wonders fleetingly if Noct is clapping, too, and the thought puts a rare, genuine smile on his face. Perhaps Cindy is right - this may be his chance to impress him, to get closer to him and finally unravel his mysteries.

- Perhaps over coffee. Or wine. Yes, definitely wine. And a nice dinner. Would Noct appreciate a good Tenebraen roast?

- Ignis nearly laughs aloud when he catches himself. Of all the things tobe thinking about at a time like this.... Shaking his head, he turns to the mat - there are three bars set up, each at different heights and spaced far enough apart for him to easily maneuver between them. At Cindy’s cue, he clears his mind, powders his gloves, and takes a deep breath at the edge of the mat. Then, to the sound of the audience’s cheers, he starts forward. A brisk run, keeping his knees bent and his back straight, pivots into his jump and grabs onto the first bar with both hands. It’s smooth, appears effortless and that, Ignis knows, is the most important illusion. More cheers fill the air as he begins to swing himself, using his long legs to build momentum until he’s able to jump to the next bar.

- Somewhere in the crowd, he hopes Noct’s heart is racing.

- Iggy continues his performance, flipping and spinning in the air as he jumps from one bar to the next and back again, so many times that the audience falls silent in awe. Everything is perfect, every twist of his lithe body, every precise move that has him latching onto his next target without fail. And then, just as he he’s feeling his limbs begin to tire, he nears the end of the routine. One last jump has him landing with both hands on the tallest of the three bars. His movements slow, then he gradually builds them up again, swinging faster and faster until he’s nearly spinning in a full arc. The next part is tricky - he needs to turn himself around at the very top, releasing the bar in mid-swing with one hand while pushing off with the other to send him twirling upwards through the air. In practice he’s only managed to succeed a handful of times, but….

- He has to try. Hundreds of eyes are watching. Noct is watching. Without much time to debate the risks, Ignis throws himself into the final move. From somewhere in the arena he can hear Cindy’s excited voice announcing the debut of a special technique, the moment they’ve all been waiting for. Ignis grits his teeth - he’s almost at the right momentum, just a few more swings - there. At the top of the bar he lets go and his arm flies out wide. At the same time, he tries to turn his other hand - but something is wrong. His fingers are slipping away until there’s nothing left to grip. The bar is gone from his reach and instead of pushing off, Ignis is suddenly falling, falling.

- He hits the mat with a thud and the crowd gasps in unison. Even Cindy’s voice trembles into the microphone, and then she’s running.

- Noct is faster. He reaches Ignis just at the gymnast is sitting up, wincing and hugging his left arm to his chest. Blue eyes go wide. “H-hey, don’t move. Just stay still.” Iggy looks at him, face red with embarrassment and pain, but he nods. Noct kneels down at his side, puts an arm around his shoulders for support as Cindy and some of the other staff finally arrive.

- “You okay, Mr. S?!”

- “Help me get him to the locker room.” Noct gestures for her to grab his other arm, and together they walk him off the mats. Someone else takes over as MC to keep the crowd from panicking at the show going, but the din of it is lost as soon as they’re out of the arena.

- “I’m fine, really. Both of you, please.” But Noct’s hold on him is firm, not letting go even after they’ve sat him down on a bench and Cindy’s rushed off to get him some water and painkillers.

- “Can I see it?” Ignis swallows. His wrist is throbbing with pain - he must have landed right on it when he fell - but he cautiously extends it out for Noct to take a look. Gentle fingers stroke over his swollen wrist, press just enough to make him wince but quickly pull back. “It doesn’t look broken. Probably sprained, but we’d better get you to a doctor. Do you mind…?” Noct pulls out his phone and, at a wary nod from Ignis, sends a quick text. Then Cindy comes back with water and aspirin, and Noct announces that he’ll be driving Iggy to a clinic.

- Driving? Clinic? There’s a half-formed protest on his lips but then Cindy is shoving a plastic cup between them and he’s powerless to argue. He waits for Noct to bring his car around back, then is carefully helped outside to it.

- If he thought Noct was an enigma before, now he’s thoroughly mired. The ‘car’ turns out to be a sleek, brand new, limited edition Audi R8 (Ignis has only ever dreamed of owning such a beautiful machine) and yet Noct somehow still manages to drive it like it doesn’t cost half a million dollars. He’s glad they’re going to a hospital because he’s convinced they’re going to need one with the way Noct takes each turn - but somehow (mostly due to quick thinking by other drivers) they manage to arrive in one piece. The pills Cindy gave him have kicked in by now, and Ignis is able to walk up to reception with only a little assistance.

- The young clerk automatically gives him a large stack of forms to fill out and tells him to take a number. One look around the waiting room tells him they’ll likely be there a while, but just as he turns to tell Noct that he should go, he sees the dark-haired young man already stalking up to the counter. “Dr. Yaegre is already expecting us,” he says. “Let her know we’re here.”

- Ignis looks as surprised as the clerk looks unimpressed. “Kid, we’re a hospital, not a nightclub. I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t just - “

- “I’m Noctis Lucis Caelum and technically, I own this place. Call Dr. Yaegre and tell her we’re here.”

- There’s this little sound that Ignis makes in his throat. He isn’t sure what to call it - not a gasp, not a sigh, something more awed. He stares at Noct in sudden silence as the clerk hurries to get the phone. Lucis Caelum…. That makes Noct the son of Regis Caelum, the most powerful man in Insomnia and the owner of the Insomnia Kings hockey team. Which helps to explain the car and the company he keeps. It also, Iggy supposes, explains the way he’s so good at taking command, carrying himself very much indeed like the heir to a powerful family. But perhaps more than that, more than the pain his wrist and the whirlwind of the entire situation, Ignis finds himself left speechless by Noct’s sheer dominance. It is frankly the most arousing thing he’s ever seen, and it leaves him weaker at the knees than he was when they first walked in.

- The doctor is a lovely woman. Tells Ignis to call her Sania, hugs Noct as if he were her own son, and gestures them both to follow her down the hall. Several x-rays and tests later, she’s confirmed that Ignis’ wrist isn’t broken, but it is sprained, and quite badly. She’s going to have to splint it, and he’ll have to take a break from sports for at least a month, maybe more. The news isn’t as devastating to Ignis as he might have expected, perhaps because through it all he’s got Noct’s hand in his, giving him little reassuring squeezes as the doctor speaks. Although he knows this isn’t what Cindy intended, it seems she was right about this being his big chance after all.

- Sania leaves them to call a nurse for his splint. In her wake, Noct lets out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Ignis. What are you going to do for a whole month?”

- “I’ll manage. It will give me more time to focus on Prompto’s competition, at least.”

- They both smile. “Anyone ever tell you that you work too hard?”

- “I’ve been accused once or twice in my life, Mr. Caelum.” The use of his name has Noct wincing, which is...unexpected. Ignis frowns and reaches once more for his hand out of reflex. “...Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you feel you needed to hide who you really are?”

- “It’s just…. I don’t know.” With Iggy’s hand covering his on the arm of the chair, it’s a lot harder to think clearly. He keeps his eyes fixed on their fingers, not trusting himself to meet that beautiful emerald gaze. “Usually when people hear my dad’s name, they think they’re supposed to treat me like some kind of prince. It’s so frustrating sometimes.”

- “But you are a prince, Noct.”

- He suddenly looks up at him, blue eyes going wide, and Ignis can almost hear his heart breaking. He quickly shakes his head. “It’s not because of who your father is. It’s because of you. You’re brave. Caring. Commanding. Quite handsome.” Iggy adds a smile along with the last one, enjoying the flush of red spreading across soft cheeks. “I’m in your debt today. Perhaps you’d allow me to repay your kindness with dinner one evening?”

- “D-dinner? You mean…? Like, just the two of us?”

- “If you’d like, yes.”

- “Um. S-sure. Sounds nice.” Oh Six, am I dreaming? Is this real??

- “Lovely.”

- Noct can do little else but smile in return. Eventually the nurse enters their room and carefully splints Ignis’ wrist, finally running through a list of dos and don’ts before releasing him for the evening. Noct offers to give him a ride home - which he almost feels bad declining (his apartment is actually only a few blocks away) but he also values his life and so ultimately turns him down. They walk out together anyway. Dusk has fallen, and the air is thick with the threat of snow.

- “You sure you don’t need a ride? It’s getting cold.”

- “Thank you, but it would be far too much trouble. I...wouldn’t mind a bit of company on the way, though.”

- “You got it.” Noct shoves his hands into his coat pockets. Ignis walks a little closer to him as they head across the street. “Um. By the way. I’m really glad I got to watch you perform today.”

- A dry chuckle. “I’ll admit, it wasn’t exactly my greatest hour.” He holds up his wrist, the dark splint covering his palm and half of his forearm like a glove. “Still, it was heartening to know you were there.”

- “R-really?”

- “Of course. Especially since I was Noct expecting to see you.”

- “...Did you just…?”

- “Hm?”

- “Nothing.” Noct clears his throat, thankful that the approaching darkness hides his reddening cheeks. It doesn’t, however, hide the obnoxious grin plastered on his face. “Hey, Iggy?”

- “Yes, Noctis?”

- “I think...you were really Spec-tacular today.”

- “...Stop.”

Bonus:

- The moment Noct gets home, he flops onto his bed and quite literally squeals into his pillow. If Gladio or Prompto could see him now they would never let him live it down, but they can’t and so he doesn’t bother hiding his excitement. A date! A real date! With Ignis “Oozes-sex” Scientia himself! He’s got to pinch himself to make sure he isn’t somehow dreaming this all up. And then he texts Gladio to gloat.

>> Heh, ‘bout damn time. When’s your big night?

>> Um, we actually didn’t get that far….

>> You at least got his number, right?

>> …..SHIT

>> Smooth.

>> Prom’s with you right?? Can’t he give it to me?

>> No can do, Witless Wonder

>> You gotta help a bro out!

>> Prom says he can bring him along to your dad’s party this week ;) The rest is up to you

- Noct groans, letting his phone fall onto the mattress and then onto the floor. Some friends they are. How is he supposed to wait five whole days before he can talk to Iggy again? And then what is he loses his nerve? He can’t just whisk Ignis off to the hospital every time he wants to flirt with him….

- Five days. That’s how long he’s got to come up with a plan. And find something to wear that will catch the gymnast’s eye. If he’s going to do this, he’s gotta do it right.

#ignoct #promptio on ice #hockey player/figure skater au #gymnast ignia #rich kid noctis #oh yeah they want each other bad #their dork levels are perfectly matched #someone make them kiss #thanks for the prompt love #myfic #Anonymous

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okrunner · 6 years ago

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June 17 - There are lots of new Pics after this post

This morning we did a little backtracking. That’s the way things go when you’re winging it. We drove to see Malbork Castle, the largest castle in the world. It has never been overrun or outlasted in a siege. It is over 700 years old and was originally established by the Teutonic Knights to protect the region. We spent about 3 hours going through it with an audio guide. We then backtracked again to the upside down house that was built to reflect the futility and ugly, backwards society under communist rule. You can learn more about both of these sites by Googling them on the Internet. I don't want to bore you with the details. We are headed north toward the Baltic Sea. We found a wonderfully nice hotel on the way that looks brand new and had a wonderful restaurant for dinner. We had potato pancakes with goulash. They provided a cherry liqueur before dinner to cleanse our palate and the same after. I tried the Buffalo Grass vodka after dinner and it was different, but I can't really describe the taste. Our waitress and the waiter who helped us were good and very patient with us.

June 19

This place is so peaceful and quiet that we decided to stay another night and rest up from all the sightseeing we have been doing. There are a couple things to see in this area. There is a monastery established by an order of monks whose motto is “Memento Mori” , “remember, at the end there is only death” This area is in a part of Poland called Kashubia that has its own distinct language that other Poles often cannot understand. We unwittingly stopped in one of its most famous towns and the capital of the district. We went to the monastery, but it was closed for the day. We found out a little later there was a funeral there when we came back to visit the information office next door. We did go to the local historical Museum which chronicles some of the Kashubian lifestyle. They were known for their distinctive dress, with a lot of embroidery, and their customs. On the second floor of the museum a young lady came out of her office, spoke to us in German and explained a song that was printed on the wall with characters. She actually sang the song for us. She said it was a way to teach the children about the language and lifestyle because at one time it was forbidden to teach people this language. The hotel staff dresses in native costumes in the restaurant of our hotel. We had a very peaceful and relaxing day, except for when Elizabeth lost her cell phone at the monastery. We thought she had lost it in the information office but when we went back it was not there. We finally went back to the monastery and one of the monks had her phone. After coffee downtown, we were walking around looking at restaurants and seeing the public square when a young lady I would guess in her late twenties came up and asked us if we needed help, in English. We said we were ok. We're just looking around. She wanted to know more about America and how we liked Poland. It was a nice conversation. She her boyfriend really want to come to America. She asked about politics. We got into it a little bit but she had to go to work.

June 20

We went to a Ceramics Museum based on the information from the tourist place in our last town. Unfortunately the tourist information card did not say the museum was only open on Saturday. That's okay because we had a nice drive through the countryside and it was on our way to the Sand Dune national park on the Baltic Sea. Along the way we saw a huge Church procession walking in the southbound lane of traffic in a little town. There must have been several hundred people walking with a priest in the middle carrying something and music playing. It didn't look like a funeral because there was no hearse and no one was dressed in black. We just took our time and made our way to town because they weren't blocking our Lane. We checked on Google and found out it is Corpus Christi day, a national holiday in Poland. We made it to the National Park and parked our car in a parking lot which only took cash and there are no ATMs in that area. We decided to walk to the place where the sand dunes are available for climbing. There were no signs saying how far it was and a lot of people were walking and some people were riding in elongated golf carts. We had no idea that it was going to be three and a half miles to the place where the sand dunes were accessible. Along the way we stopped to take a picture at a platform and took a picture for a couple that was there. They then in turn took our picture and I asked where they were from. Christopher said from Italy and Agatha is from Poland. Of course you know the rest of the story. I said I am from Italy and my family from Naples. Christopher is also from Naples. I said my great-grandfather was from Sicily and my grandmother is from Nola. He knew where it was after it was pronounced it correctly. They were riding bicycles and said we were close to the end. I told them we had not known there would not be an ATM and we hope they will take Euros when we go back to the car park. Agatha offered to exchange a hundred polish dollars for Euros. We found a “bank” in the middle of a national park and exchanged the money. We walked another 500 meters until we got to the place you could actually climb up the sand dune. The sand dune was about 120 ft high but we made it to the top, but decided not to walk another half mile to the Baltic Sea itself. We took our pictures and took pictures of other families so they can be in one picture and took the shuttle bus back to the car. By that time, it was coffee time. We found a small bed and breakfast about a mile and a half from downtown. It's very quaint, clean and small. We only need a bathroom and a bed. We have a balcony and we would have liked to have the door open, but there is a chimney upwind of us that is blowing smoke right into our room. Thank goodness it's cool near the Baltic Sea. We found a pizza parlor to have dinner and we had so much fun watching the waiters and waitresses keep up with the flow of traffic because our seat was near the entrance to the kitchen and the bar.The waitress greeted us in German and brought us a German menu. Elizabeth asked for a English menu and the girls old no we don't have one or something like that. I told her I could read the German. We got a pizza and beer to watch the hustle and bustle and it was a constant flow of activity. At the end, I ask for the bill in German and paid the lady before I went up to her and told her in German that I come from America. She was a little shocked and embarrassed so I tipped her 20% and she was still shaking her head when we left.

June 21

We had no real plans for today so we went to the beach to put our feet in the Baltic Sea before we left town. The water was cold and the air temperature was, too. After that we drove to an outdoor museum of old buildings that were salvaged and rebuilt to create a sense of what life was like in the 19th and early 20th century in Poland. We pulled into what we thought was a parking lot and someone shook his head but we parked anyway. When we were getting out of our car, a man came over and gave us two tickets for the museum as a present we thought. We put them on our shirts and toured the museum which was interesting but not spectacular. We only spent a little while there and were able to rescue our car from the unauthorized parking space. Elizabeth had wanted to see a forest of crooked pine trees which was on the western border of Poland. We decided to go there, but when we got there, we couldn't see a pine forest that had crooked trees. We were in the middle of a neighborhood, but luckily we saw a sign for the Crooked Forest in English and walked about 200 meters into a forest where we finally found a small grove of crooked pine trees. No one knows why they grow like they do but you will understand why we wanted to go when you see the pictures. We looked for a place to sleep and found an apartment for $38 about 20 minutes away from the Crooked Forest. On the way there, I got a text from the manager saying there was a problem with the toilet. She said if we were coming right away, they would have to find us another place to stay. They did, but it took 25 more minutes to get to. It’s a two-bedroom apartment in the suburbs of the area where the trees were. It has a full kitchen with a balcony and a living area. The big bathroom has a clothes washer, but as usual, no clothes dryers. We found it okay and had dinner at an Italian restaurant 300 meters away before settling in for the evening. Tomorrow we head for Regensburg, Germany, and the oldest wurst haus in Germany for dinner. The saga continues…...

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tocoworks · 7 years ago

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Sweat Equity: How To Be More Efficient In 2018 ⏱ 🚀 🛠

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TRANSCRIPT BY DRAGON DICTATE

Who now are going I can see that face was live feeling good how are you feeling Eric Readinger real good yeah really it you get the show going on mean we gotta squeeze one last one in before 2017 goes out I know hopefully get the bonus content common when we pretend that where a dog is initiate next year and then get caught up in the life of your days later I hate New Year's resolutions I don't I don't like hey I don't like people telling me their words without me asking Jeff I mean II know I'm annoying I give out a lot of free device known as for but you do it all your law right Lisa consistent with the exact path but like the thing with plus I always heard here's a little here's a little advice sweat equity advice goals New Year's resolutions essentially goal right losing weight is a New Year's resolution but it's not a good goal July your lifestyle good goal do you know why though nonspecific will is you just write I'm girl and there's no light quantifiable thing is a need it so instead of going on the lose weight and 2018 have to go like by June I'll lose 25 pounds whatever is everybody's resolution should be understood actually be real with myself instead of I'm going to lose weight and then when people ask you about it like we some pictures at New Year's is get real talk when you get real lack landlady real talk in the pocket you just need to be real with yourself a 12 team you know that's what it is people tell themselves stories make it all good so everybody around them here's what their convincing themselves of how I like I been guilty of this as well where you go on the to do this to keep myself accountable right yeah have to sign works have timed doesn't sound like my dad take it all back as I've done that before to know me at what we all have its it's annoying if you 0400 for whatever 100 with your friends or family about it like I go on the run a marathon that I said that at one point last year think and then I didn't predict an injury and then once you got injured I just couldn't get back in it and so one of my I feel do she does like everybody listen to me on the road where the line but what was the entry I just bad hamstring pull which you as you know from some replace fantasy football if you draft any wide receiver yet having the same as a lingering IRA though never be hundred percent so I wait that out like you know it's not my favorite but let's get this ship going you ready for your Howdy toddy did you read it 321 God Almighty this is a sweat equity podcast come to you from cigar city Ybor city Florida beautiful enclave of the of the hood enclave enclave yeah I think I use that right in Tampa Florida we may be in Tampa but we were we keep it worldwide like pitbull but this advice as a business hustle advice I think a lot of people asked me what is the podcast they see my face popping up in their feed because were doing good with our targeted video ads that's something I love it if you hear little muffling the background that's a production meeting going on behind us of high level production film meeting made I might want to yell just a just have their meeting but what's on there I know I keep like going to the bathroom lexically go to get anything actors need a grant from you might grab any parts I again works like yeah but let's… Give a little love to her sponsor fresh books tax season is coming up my goal here you go here's my New Year's Gold pay your taxes pay taxes yes no I want to get taxes done by 15 January my business taxes that's the goal good luck I got a hustle but you know what it will you know I can cram yeah are you doing every three months yeah yeah quarterly is sure yeah they said we have to as an S Corp. you you know you have to with meeting minutes and all that stuff that we do all that go go fresh books.com/sweat and you get three a free 30 day trial but QuickBooks are not happy with zero there 00 at the next get out here go to that's that that's another song or no no no that's like a that's the vid me out of all these fresh books is the is the competitor to QuickBooks zeros, that the video drove off to the side there like third place probably for meals for me is good for what it is I mean I'm sure was writing books but look freshman and you need a bookkeeper we've got actual client that I can hook you up with if you want to email me at [email protected] will show her love she's got a virtual bookkeeping business and it just ties it Sophie you go to go fresh books.com/what and then email us the double hook up you could really email us for anything business I think we got something in place right yeah and pleasure yeah sure you know you want to send some pleasure pics will do this 90 style yeah I'm sending over there sending them to us I mean that matters depends depends I'm not doing them independence depends on the map and you know see we want to go 2018 New Year's resolutions I mean these are do you have anything no but look you shouldest do these once a month really shouldn't be a year yeah it's weird it's it takes easier for people to grandma look at myself with it are things going good for Maren okay and by October your different person I will eat like a fat pig from Christy Easley from Christmas to New Year's like no big like Burger King all day son yeah everybody that is that's a pretty standard thing or is it yeah to go worse than normal now I do it to the holidays you you do ketogenic will I do but I don't Christmas hello I mean I Brian you get at Iquitos yeah but I can get my bag and okay it's a gimmick around our house these next day you're right Rita is mental but Seattle get the hang agrees like some people do I know I don't usually but I feel like anything I have so little to hold onto his advice that I feel like I would if I do right now you would have been angry as if you win and I dress Onassis yeah I have to do a blood test tomorrow for health insurance incentives which means you can't eat associate today and I isolate this morning because you got to get like a pure sample or whatever and and cholesterol so they give you incentives if you like a reward if you're decent I can't going all stressed out a is one time I failed and I to go back and do it I was like one of many to walk out what your blood pressure is yeah and I was like no Isaac as I rushed over here to get to this thing and went right into it and I'm thinking about work let me go outside only to walk in the hallway for like 10 minutes I came back fine and that weird that's weird I did that recently the doctors to had to get in there real quick and on-site and don't let yeah the Dilip having high blood pressure worry give you high blood pressure that's another contract so I try not to let it psyche out I assume you got into the cholesterol one which is you know I don't know what's good cholesterol bad cholesterol but are you going to do that task so you do bunch of those things which is actually interesting because they make you do this app called rally we go to we rally.com it's actually I wanted to shed all over it because I might man I want I don't want to have to have this thing you tracking stuff the health insurance companies making use that now make you it's it's what I'd like a strong incentive but that's how they measure stuff they think you have to do like certain certain things of the blight but I got to go to Qwest labs and that will knock out like four of the rewards you can get okay as you get likes I can get 600 bucks back basically one was like you get 50 bucks for filling out a survey that's just like how many drinks you have it's like the basic general practitioner you know little questions I would ask you do you sleep well do you eat well all that stuff this is also the app yeah you answering this question is cool but then I tied it you can tie it into your so I have the Apple watch yeah that's about that yeah while I don't know how to use it yet I got it and I haven't had time to like yeah get to know this baby you gonna love it will I just wanted just to be able to jog with and not I have the old iPod that I have to load manually nice real nice real nice right I write if I am ever like I am assuming those like 10 years and my yeah but it's so cumbersome that I forget like I don't when I get a chance to run it's like oh you got yeah I I'll get the kids for 30 minutes you go for running like okay what I need everything to stick 10 minutes that I just can change and get out the door yeah and then getting music ready to go to site and it's not happen so the reason I like this is just I'd have streaming stuff because it has its own phone number I guess oh you got the a data plan yeah oh nice yeah so you can do the air pod headphone yes I'm a good goalie asked well basically I have flown on my watch and I have my air pods that you can't see my ears which I wanted to hook up to this but I think it would ruin the Bluetooth with the video yeah that's that's that's what's future ship well it's only acyl because light to my wife because she won't know they're in now I used to keep it that the ones under my shirt the the corded headset right so at least you can see that a lot of the time but now you just you can't see it all you could use these giant headphones is like holders for your air pods cut the cords because they fall out of my ears hey what these are your pod covers I had to buy these so they don't break not I but I've been falling asleep of those things in which is not good probably for my ears because I feel like I mean Felix's summer jam to pencil in there if I sleep on my side but it doesn't wake you up when I when I go to sleep all hit it hard but I wake up really easily anyway the thing with that is like all this stuff is to be more efficient anyway because I can arty feel that your pods like you can get about 30 feet away from your phone and it still plays whatever podcasting listen to music whatever 80s background with new wrapper genre music I like to listen to like that Eminem song but it's that thing of you know saving trips from going back your phone for something what I can charge the phone or not tethered to or I'm not I'm not going without listening to something for 30 minutes which is trust that but I can make calls and still it's weird it's it's it shouldn't be that big of a difference but it's talking also in the the watch I when I had a Fitbit which were super ugly come like they're ugly they're ugly looking this I got a get a new band on it but I got that ship and you got the big boy version I got the lady lady says I actually pilot pulled my hair out on accident because the rubber because when it gets to that I was going like that I head back head head hair and ended if I took a few with it so not feeling good but what I'm saying is I like the tracking of the stats because I like how much do I stand up during the day how many I do like that stuff I don't care big brothers watch me yeah I've also noticed that the Stan Golson it is not that I can I reach my standing goal laying on my ass okay so does it mean stick to stand really mean are you up I don't know I I think it met like I think discounts if you're awake sell real okay is it going around yeah because right now price as I'm standing right in my heart rate a little bit because were trying to multitask on air oh that's the other job I loved going on stage doing standup and seeing what my heart rate would be while on stage yeah you could try check the time and stop it'd be lower way lower they just normal onstage you weird yeah but both euros off before would spike about 10 to not be three-minute more which isn't really a spike but it would it would get up because you can't anxious your light will bit smug and run over and then when I'm on stage at site cruise control cleared it weird and did did for stand up last Friday which felt good had a really good set which is I forgot how good of a feeling that is when you're so nervous about getting up because I'd been that nervous price seven years yeah dude I mean you and how many months for five months. This podcast helps the mean I tried it I I pitch a lot of podcasts to our clients go look it's a good way you gotta do it like we wish we've been shoehorning in episodes last couple weeks just because it's just been nuts around here holidays baba but we didn't plan ahead like we can plan ahead by the quarter kind of thing like we should but like it's a good cathartic it it's a little bit of therapy it's a little bit of like I try to write some jokes for it right ideas yeah like what is our creative outlet for sure it is him is sometimes the only time we talk during the day but also it's like it's it does have to be polished obviously and it it's another way to get her voice out there for people to digest when they can handle it now one thing I I did come up with while running the other day and this will tie into how to be more efficient is I got a term I want to coin officially calling on the go so we've got some lingering projects that just that become like big picture ideas I feel like a lot of people have this unit maybe you want to do in addition on your house were you know you try to figure out how to save enough money to buy a ring for your lady were you would don't do that though but stupid if she's in the wedding rings and she got the girl for you what if you have a family ring by all means do that whole you can do that yeah don't don't be full by tapirs okay it's at this so many diamonds out there manually many the world look at the history of all that she is talking crazy you know it's all made that's why like advertising yet will I mean it's going to its settings going away you think the holy I don't I think it's to both I think with a lot of things it's going down but the other sides can imagine will I think the wedding industry of like having bad ass wedding that's going up the ring with the precious stones is not as big a deal anymore speaker wedge event coordinators for weddings or secretly like the worst coordinator like of anything you know what a millionaire not about to let yeah I've dealt with a lot of event court wedding coordinators of the site you do this for a living right like wool I brought all I brought all the reclaimed wood like furniture and Mike Horton Mike hey yeah they always focus yet have one thing that's her focus and talk about the farm theme and then it's like okay that's one part you have a schedule of when the wedding starts will know you have to fires right back yeah we are our buddy Damien is what employer just left yeah why would she stay for the wedding that's crazy I mean it was just like what it was a point where it's like I shouldn't be the most organized person at this wedding for what's about to happen it was like it's so crazy how people do not take their job seriously like that's Ivan Mike seriously that's just like basic level stuff that's that I don't care how anxious you get or how you're worried you are like showing up is half the battle if additional forethought either live like maybe this will happen and I'll have to do this anyways I cut you off about being efficient while you're running or something oh so we think of like big ideas right now have the everybody goes I want to do this when you learn another language this year or some like that and then becomes is over you never get to start a lot a lot of that is to start just just go okay and turning everything off 20 minutes after to start and it doesn't matter when whenever that 20 minutes is over or I I find it a break then that'll be it but a lot of people don't do that part and so you get to this overwhelming idea you've had in your hand we've got to do a pitch deck that this is why this is where I came up with that window pitched Atkins become this this huge snowball] but what I don't want to be is a Florida snowball will eventually just melts you never do it that that's the terms the term is Laura snowball however bad okay for look for businesspeople it's like murders but but I have come join us for economy sake it's not that funny that that witty but I'm saying like find me a better term for that I got your diet is as we've had a lot of that we want we want to do a lot of improvements for the show and it's like yeah when we want to get a wife or behind us we would have a digital we want to have a screen over here we can see our live reads or any of that stuff and then have a playback monitor so we can see ourselves but like you don't have to redo the 1000 other Arabia comes this thing that you never get to and so it's it's tough yeah and the longer you go the bigger it seems in sunny bigger than exacerbated in the beginning exactly that's what the snowball and then support a snowball because it just it just don't do it ever yeah you know we we we get a lot of stuff done to all of say objectively we get a lot of stuff done that we do say working to try to do it takes a while but at the same time I listen to so many people because we have so many startups and immature businesses and people asking for advice on time wheat we did have a lot of people that just never ever never ever get around to it some more efficient so how do we do that just starting that are this that but that's my advice for a lot of stuff that you even if you're just curious about some just try to start doing it yet all be afraid of the unknown I think I think you don't know what's coming with their big project you may dislike off while I don't I don't need to know any of that because it's too scary but once you go get into it and you can lay it all out front yourself and you always know what you're up against yeah and and suck at something and try that light all the time right like I want it I do want to go shoot bows for some reason I think I'm going the opposite direction to some keyboards off now I know I've I have a hankering for I want to I want to race cars only not dry stick in a and I want I like to occur I want to go bow hunting like legit bow hunting one day like the shipper you have to be awesome shape to do it yeah like you have to run mountains carrier pack into the woods right right sleep there I don't know why though I've never done I've race like go carts when I was little but neither really I don't have any experience with I just really hit your primal instinct kicking in yeah because them the software I'm getting this note and paler as you can see on video sitting in the office you know of the more I want to go to the other thing yeah go play football now I hear you it's weird that you like I do feel like I do weightlifting for that sort of adrenaline's worship but even that's like wearing on me now righteously I get it done it does have the same endorphin rush that used to go it is used to it that would be the number one thing I'd say if you want to be more efficient you should try to get in shape just like whatever that is for you you want to get like talking II think people do the four snowball word you get this thing were like I've got to get to this kind of yeah body build and when you don't get there after March I think I think Jim's make most of their money in January February oh it's my favorite time of the year seeing all the new faces that come in next week and then by spring break their own, yet each way before that if you had a month yeah because I mean you know I I'm going to the same gym at the same time almost every day I see the same people would you go funk at 5 AM so it's like that that's us different commitment to like yeah but I just don't like being around it's only been in the crowded gym like having to wait on things really you know having a lot of people around yeah what's not really I mean if she if you want at 5 PM and be to be a zoo the worst yes you know and that's what a lot of people do the word about how they're looking at the gym but if you like as cheesy as it is it is good to throw down some goals and like really be specific about it like no for me I need to be able to get I need to stretch and I need to get more flexible and I need to do like yoga once a month at least yeah if not once a week yeah stretching is the number one thing for you making yourself feel good right and I that I know it and I don't do it and it's really it's a comedian self-destructive kind of mind to not go yeah I know but only to just sit in the chair all day yeah it's that they need the stretching desk used applicable to believe they got I think you got some bites I mean no just I just need to not be an acyl and then take 20 minutes and go do it I mean you've got the 20 minutes I know you are it's there the panic sets in I got to get stuff done I can get it while I would get everything done over the long haul if I feel better yeah Chris's days were your body hurts so bad that you're not it is not efficient yeah and the 20 minutes you're using to stretch is not necessarily productive 20 minutes maybe it's something that you're to mess around if you know you have 20 minutes I want to take this a bit picked that right right out due to many an afternoon of design if you get down that rabbit hole like just moving it up and down like to position something yeah with a layer on Photoshop or something you can do that for an hour I know I've been trapped in the matrix for a week on the same ship what I do now is I just go I Fokker what am I trying to do here and then will I been using my watch I literally got yes my doing put your timer on your watch then when it goes off will vibrate at the hands on that another thing I but I think one of the things to be efficient other sleep hygiene's huge I don't like calling it that what we do sleep hygiene I've never heard that oh yeah I've only heard it in my brushing teeth before bed is that of podcast commercials for Casper Leah has for what's up yes going on what you you and Squarespace need to get you should together special Squarespace, Squarespace clearly woo hoo leaving Unilever sites I can reel off right now maybe that's why the wood was pitch about them not being a spy know we never went out we got it to say what's up hey hey hey keep saying Squarespace over and over in the Dragon dictate will pick up on it yeah if you do like these episodes are try to find some keywords were we do try to drop the audio files in Dragon dictate and put in the blog post will get better at it one Suite 120 once we calibrate yes or floors leases it'll be a lot better but for now it is what it is anyway sleep hygiene that's a made-up term by right that's the old yeah that's marketing copy but it's now I've heard it I heard their first in the nets, sleep down well like that is it is it just get enough sleep is that what they're talking so with that rally app it has like little baby goals you can do and I will send you notifications like remember to have like a regular bedtime I will have that remember to shut off all devices like you can and you can check got away with it you can well it will keep you up and it's and I know like I'm trying to think about outside I wonder how many good hours I have in a day like what's my peak right six on like on my laptop you know firstly beer for work and like what's diminishing returns .0 yeah working so it's like if I'm on more than six maybe eight I'm probably it's probably not can work yeah get it in your brain will that's why I try to get on the spin bike or due or work out I'll try to answer emails because at least it feels like I'm doing some claim emails or can be asked anyway you know a lot of it's like yeah Guido hey were here whenever yes you want to meet up it's a lot of that kind of stuff that I try to follow up on but that I need to be more efficient that's one of my things like cluster all these nonurgent if you heard of I is I think Scott Eisenhower it may have to look this up Eisenhower matrix okay if I get this right out on the field very very very business smart basically you put things in the four buckets indigo is a real thing yeah sweet alright so I did learn some business school so you have important and urgent if you have non-urgent and important you have urgent not important which I don't one of those two I don't get in that urgent not important doesn't make sense like what would be urgent that you don't like the sun born that's I think that's when I get conversions of bathroom so my dad I thank you again for like listening to the price of examples and then not important not urgent and you I always forget like to state the power of note, stuff like you got put some stuff in that bucket right a lot of that stuff doesn't matter like trying to like trying to go on fiber and getting something we are done to embarrass my fantasy football friend yeah that I used to do this but is that not important for your mental health but it doesn't it's a waste of time a lot of the time it takes like an hour like a better hour I can spend in some else but doesn't make you happy marginally knows what's the risk reward right so this is all business, logic basic business logic basic pitch business logic real talk but but like it is doing some of the fight OMG I'm constantly, think about like am I wasting this is my best our right we always talk about with clients ago trite working try to get your whole group at the best dollar per hour the rat right right this does make sense for the boss to be doing some of these little things unless that's the only person you know that can really do you so like you have a small business the boss may be the person that actually comes in and cleans up stuff because they're managing everybody else doing the actual work you know I just think about that a lot I don't I don't I don't know the answer what I know that's up to can always come to think about what's my best dollar per hour in this discounts at home to like what's the but you know is it worth watching Netflix do I need to watch it right you know yet to fall asleep when I just turn off and try it out trying to sleep earlier yeah but then you won't know how picky blinders ends than what PT finds it's been on there forever unlike you all get to that year and I'll get to that now I'm still stuck on the punisher and I lie liked it the punisher of all my God I had a plan in the background for like a day and I was traumatized yeah the little violent exactly yeah yeah that's the punisher dialogue kinda sucks to it's and yeah it's a lot of cheesy ship yeah I mean it's going to be that the guy the guy who plays Frank Castle is pretty good yeah he's a good I didn't want to like him but he was on the walking dead so never so yeah don't that's this is my wife's litmus test for if you're a good judge of TV like the walking dead PCS really yeah dude it's not good anyways I out I want to see Dunkirk that's more me I want to see that stuff you haven't seen it real life stuff so be more efficient 2018 how about some productivity apps release can do that right some so you get the Apple Lodge maybe you got some, smartwatch I think Samsung has a good one now I don't know all the ins and outs of it if anybody does have any hacks send it our way or comment on this post I mean just the stuff that comes with the Apple watch timers and things for stretching I use the time countdown timer all the time yeah all that stuff masturbation right where you get caught kind of things conventional yeah oh you will get it to the point hold it building to something called hope it's like what's the is it I don't Braveheart hello Canada hello been doing a lot of war movies may be maybe Troy thinking of but either way like wheat we been doing you got a live scribe pen and notebook the other Bluetooth pen you like and it yeah is in the during the call we are on a day so my phone's dead so have you linked it up though so it can discover your text learn change your handwriting into text yeah it's all that's I mean mine is standard with that I guess here's a little bit older mines an older model but it the software doesn't now my handwriting's like a ransom note so it's kind of tough I got a calibrate that between Dragon dictate and that in in this because I do like right I like writing it will help me memorize stuff I don't I also don't want to write too much in a meeting because of not avoid paying attention so try to write like you know bullet points Rob Eli: let me write this down right now go yeah the writing of the net with your hands to even if I want to call Illinois like I have things I can write down Evernote you like I can write it that you type it in but is not the same as writing it with my hand for some reason and will not just for me either one thing I got back to is and this is a little bit duplicative and I need to figure this out is hey I want to find an app to do list app that my wife and I can see it just reminds us of certain stuff yet get wonder list W you and is not good you're so I don't so I don't know if that's good for home right will like we have our grocery list on there it's linked up if you have sent me an even bigger store but put it on there you have a referral code that's another thing for if were given out stuff you might as well you know if you go in your app the Avenue for a friend white check that out about our syllabus for you but you got all kinds of goods I want to get down to the point were nonessential grocery items I want those to come in automatically through we have shipped here I want my dog food baby formula I liked him diapers all these things that we know we need we could probably your mark every enough three weeks we need this and then I don't worry about it Lucian do you want to go the grocery store yeah you can do Amazon subscription services we do for diapers or yeah we we might we might do that just because it is like those things that set like milk those things that that site where symbols or kinases on me when I get or meat that you will look at if I go to the grocery store but yet all the other ship but it's yeah it's that when you don't have drivers it's T-shirt time yeah and the guessers T-shirts are using dads but I mean like it's that thing of okay what are these little hats I can do it at half at home in the office to help out I don't like the Alexa she oh shoot you she she will gotta pay Alexa baby she doesn't like ISR she's up to sleep with one eye open always you know I don't want one of those at my house honestly yeah how was freaking out my family over Christmas tone of my in like dirt there is already news articles that these things are orb taken the data of what you're saying to put into advertise hell yeah they are I mean if you think that if you think it doesn't listen until you say hey Lexa how did you hear you say hey Alexa it's listening before like what what yeah I'm here real talk pretend I'm truly been the we have back pain we even paid $50 for that it it's either that technology is either worth like a thousand to five straight up or it's like I did know Samsung phones the whole business model is so that Google can get all that data to try to target you yes that's what the phones are so cheap yeah all that technology so cheap yeah I heard I heard that on want to say Rogan's podcasts talking some someone with tech guys like this month but it was like oh yeah that makes perfect sense why would Samsung dominate the market for cell phones that's like the 660 6065% now between women Apple and like 00 they lowered the price in there to make it up in the backend and no one realizes yeah apples do the same thing but they they don't have the straight line date to Google you know apples they love the same infrastructure yet to capitalize on rule yeah right the immediate civilian way right today sent streamlined right into their own entity but anyways I don't have a wonder list referral sales then we give you I don't know all these hello anyway here's here's another little thing pretty much any app you use if you're given and now they usually have a refer a friend discount so if it's one of these monthly subscription you pay for apps I I had to train myself to do this but like all we oh for sales the business development if you want to like a good dashboard you should check out this Pipe Dr., Apple use it gives you visual kind of a marketing funnel that you know who's interested who you talk to you're trying to close on and I just like that visual and I got a hold on let me go get that referral code not send it out as it is being like yours that you know yeah and then you get a month off or whatever Lumley Weber will if we find one I'll put it in the notes a wonder list that's good for home I'd say because I rumor checking for business insight on the distal do what I needed to do yeah I mean it's it's a straightforward passage projects right yeah with before I forget with live scribe you can ping it to Evernote the idea was to take a bloop Bluetooth painter talk about correct thinking live scribe and then you and there's moleskin notebooks if you like those by the way the Bluetooth notebooks never thought about that the hardbound ones but I may have ever thought about if I like moleskin you don't pull some people like him I used to write all my jokes and those because they that they had the how many moles had to die a lot when cares man don't make don't make it what is it two don't make a molehill and no mountain mountain and moleskin sober song or draw an arrow to Evernote an elephant never forgets that's their logo so what you can do is it'll transfer your handwriting into text and you can make a punch list that can automatically go to is Indu which is our business test manager that we haven't been using this once I got offkilter at that it is hard to we can afford so they they do turn it it's you get ADD with apps is always one better well yeah if you never learn how to use more than 25% of then it's not really smart but then you can take that punchlist and you can also hit it over to our project management system which is right WRI K which also can communicate to all these can communicate slack because Slack isn't just for chatting that should be our communication hub notifications all that stuff you so now we have now rebuilding this kind of like coverage in case something messes up right see what I if I heard this I would think men adding four apps would be more efficient and it sounds like it's it's overwhelming itself is not efficient but if you spend a little bit of time and get it right then it's automated from there on out and your love what I write philosophically a look at this way right like we got to figure this out to get and I was talk that always tell us what clients were doing like operations permittivity stuff it's going to be a little bit harder before it gets easier right right so it's gonna suck right now what we should what you and I should be doing is creating a map over our whiteboard in figuring out this like efficiency I want to do it, right after we get off in a couple minutes so at least we just started the Sally called back later no doesn't the right it was amazing call back just start will just started her money word-of-mouth is that we can't be dispensing advice and disco funk it's theater of the mind law is a joke it do it anything else to be more productive in 2018 anything that's been on your mind yeah okay so the other app that I use a lot I used to wonder list for dislike my daily I got to do this today I have a today list do this this is right then I have an app called habit list and that one allows you to just put in something like stretching you put in stretching I want to do I want to stretch be very times a week yeah and then when you do it that they the little button and it's in there and it keeps track of whether or not you're you're keeping up with your habits so I use it for all kinds lifting weights running in all the stuff that it's like you can cut and get away from you to Billy was last time I did do that and then you might pray five times a day right things pop an awful time you know it's easy to get away from your habits and remembering what you what makes you feel good you know way if you can't quantify it really none I members I need to quantify I was thinking of anytime I sit here make me feel good that I think of a monstrous ball don't know you Halle Berry I remember telling Bob Thorton yeah maybe feel right yeah nailed it I hope that I hope that production meeting Ernest Billings brush notes in the tally very low what would what would you know that I don't know do it with a male voice like you don't know it's a like gritty draining yeah what habit list is good I I've tried that at one point again I need vocalize almost outside like externally and go okay I'll get it download this app only use it yet is almost like 19 knee was a 90% of apps or something that or downloaded open once never used again see the good thing about habilis I think it pay for things like two or three bucks even then should shoot in the sky man I was looking at all the subscriptions I had for here in home this week and was like on to here's a user one trim if you're that yeah it's not sample site but it is no it basically you know if you're comfortable with putting in if people like mint were you can kind aggregate all your transactions and it'll note, more or less over time as you check things off it's good for your taxes to it'll be like you're spending way too much in meals I and so that's a good kind – four for that trim will look up your cable bill in all your stuff so you got put in the your banking account I did from this place are checking in our credit card for here and it was little go oh you're paying too much for frontier yeah a little one we negotiate some better for you oh yeah and so dates for you so they make a little vague if they get that negotiation okay that's out that's how they make money and it does it all on its own how does it I don't know I haven't gotten to the point were were actually negotiating but that that's the big cell and apparently like you guys know the deal with all the cable or Internet providers you basically especially with cable TV you can basically talk a minute like given it to you for a dollar yeah if if use if you're tenacious enough and I guess this cuts, cuts that yes yours with I'm done with you and then the negotiations begin hey want one thing you should get from your Internet provider and that's on my punch list is better router because these things suck after like a year of use and they become outdated so you can call Bob Ingo hey I need to upgrade the router and the going anyone in the you be like well Wi-Fi is now a lot better yeah and they probably want that because they've got a deal with the router company Macon Chittenden Nate takers back recycle it yeah making money will the region have to ask is because you don't they don't want you to use more bandwidth than you have to probably so I would say the reverse I would say like because if you look at your upload download speed that states you pay for hundred and hundred whatever that deal is your upload speeds always a lot slower on Wi-Fi and most people on Wi-Fi free hardline that's the only way we get 100 hundred yeah so like so I don't think it behooves them to be able to move more data from here like net neutrality is, that the whole thing yeah but the new router might be more efficient on the island and they can listen to your calls bitter over where the hell yeah yeah that to thanks the dirty side of them probably want to stop greater routers yeah the mean there's there's this as it will never get the answer to that herself utilize 100 other stuff in coaxial cables that can listen you now you know that I didn't know the rest will have those yeah will you have to have the cable to get I guess at coaxial cable to get the Internet in your house a lot of time and then people either have like old ones left there from last person or but I don't know where that is in that I don't think it's around like very prevalent I just think it's a plague in South Korea where everything is technically and I terms and conditions man those things are to get something to happen with that because there's just too much sneaky ship that people are signing up for an advantage of everybody it's great that there needs to be a law enacted that says it can only be this long or whatever which I think they try to do a couple times and they work around it was too long with thrilling and that's about all politicians do they just go what is this you can you write you guys read this for me yeah you're right actually need law to make that will to make laws shorter and then once that's in than they do for some time as a country okay well look we had glory years here in the US this is a sad day for good we had a good run what's what's get some music going out Remer at tax time is coming up hit up hello freshman school fresh books.com/let like you sweat to get hooked up but you feel good and you want to say anything to the peeps have a happy new year people don't make a New Year's resolution just try to be good take a lifestyle every day wonder list habit list all that list we'll see Israeli

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