#i need to put my brain in one of those power washer things i think

[yuzuriha-sayori]

Do I Make You Horny Baby?

A Hawks x Reader NSFW 

This (little) piece started off in our Hawks’ NSFW group chat where Hawks quotes Austin Powers 🥴

Word Count: 4390

Thank you to these sweet Birdies for pushing me into finishing this because...it’s been months since I started it. I literally wouldn’t have finished without you guys haha. @bluecookies02 @vixenpen @heyitswhiplash @musicisme196 @hawkschickenwings @the-magician-in-alice @himbokutokou @ryuukotakami @kusuouchiha if I’ve forgotten someone or someone wants to be removed from tags, please let me know~!

~*~*~*~*~*

Today was supposed to be like any normal day; just a short shopping trip to your local market to gather a few missing ingredients for dinner, and pick up a coffee on the way back. You hadn't expected it to come down after walking a few blocks back home. The once bright and crisp air outside quickly turned windy and wet. 

"Damn this rain." You muttered to yourself, clutching your paper bag of groceries and coffee to your chest as you jogged briskly back to your apartment. If you had enough common sense to check the weather forecast, you would have brought an umbrella. But with how hectic life had been lately, small things like these often slipped your mind, only becoming an issue when life decided to take a turn against you. 

Just as you made it to the last corner you had to take, the bottom of your now soggy bag gave way, spilling the contents of what was supposed to be for dinner. Your heart sunk immediately as you stood there with not enough time to react, looking equivalent to a dog caught in the rain. Though before your groceries could hit the sidewalk, a swarm of red overtakes your vision. 

"You should be more careful with your things kid." A rather honey deep voice caught your attention. Looking up, you locked eyes with the most handsome young man you'd probably ever seen in your young adult life. Crimson feathers that seemed to float in the air held the few contents of what was supposed to be for dinner. 

It felt like time had stopped as you stared into his sharp golden eyes, your lips parting in a forgotten "Oh". Out of all the people to see you as disheveled as you were today, the No. 2 Pro Hero, was the last one you expected. The young man's usually wind whipped hair was plastered all around his face, his large crimson wings doing very little to stop the heavy rain beating down on the two of you. 

"S-S-Sorry!" You managed to get out, breaking eye contact. Almost instantly you were able to gain your thoughts back as your brain scrambled to figure out what you were going to do with your items. Your flimsy paper bag was out of commission. 

The hero gave a small laugh, seeming to not mind the pouring rain, "It's alright. Just make sure you pay more attention to the weather before coming out. It's that time of year after all." You could only nod at the ground sheepishly, too embarrassed to make eye contact. 

"Were you headed home? I can help you carry these." The sudden proposal made your head shoot up almost immediately. Despite your hammering heart, you met his gaze and could see genuine sincerity. 

"It's not too much trouble? I couldn't possibly trouble someone that's usually so busy." You say, waving your free hand frantically. The other hand still clutched the coffee you were trying to save. You were very aware of how Hero work wasn't easy, nor did it ever stop. 

As if madam bad luck was trying to put in some overtime today, a large truck came speeding past, splashing murky ground water at you. Hawks, with his inhuman reactive agility, didn't hesitate to shield you from the splash while simultaneously pulling you into him. Your coffee slipped out of your hand and fell to the ground. 

"You have quite the bad luck, little bird." The rush of adrenaline that surged through your body was almost incomprehensible and it took a minute to register what had just happened. Too many seconds had gone by and he was still holding you close to his chest. As he spoke, you could hear how his chest vibrated low with each word. 

Quickly pulling yourself away, you nodded and laughed awkwardly while keeping your gaze to the ground, "It seems so." Your cheeks burned but you brushed it off as the result of how warm his body felt against your face. Sighing with defeat, you grabbed your now wasted coffee cup and tossed it into the trash can that was nearby. 

"Well, I don't think we could get any more soaked out here. Where to?" The blond said enthusiastically. You glanced up at him to see that despite the confident smile he had plastered on his face, he had to be absolutely miserable. He was drenched head to toe in muddy water and his large jacket sagged and clung to his frame. You imagined it was horribly heavy after absorbing so much water. His wings, a usual bright red, were now dark and slightly leaden in appearance. 

"Right!" You grabbed his hand and hurriedly tugged him around the corner, walking in the direction of your apartment. "I'm so sorry! We'll get you dried off at my place. It's just a bit farther down this street." 

"No need, I can dry off once I'm back to my agency." He quickly dismissed, his tone lighthearted. "By the way, I never asked for your name." 

"A-Ah, [l/n], [l/n] [f/n]..." You couldn't help the burn in your cheeks at his inquiry as you two walked up the stairs to your apartment door, stopping right outside it while you dug for your keys in your pockets. 

He repeated your name slowly and then chuckled, "It has a lovely ring to it." 

"Thank you!" You exclaimed rather loudly in surprise. "B-But uhm also, well, your agency is across town. You'll get sick staying in those clothes. I insist, please come in and dry off." 

Hawks, being the man that he was, couldn't hold in his little quip, "Trying to get me out of my clothes already?" Your keys, that you had just managed to pull out, fumbled right out of your hands and hit the ground. Whipping around in shock, you were met with a playfully disappointed look as he continued, "We just met, you haven't even taken me out to dinner first." 

"I-I-I didn't mean anything inappropriate I swear, I h-have honest intentions!" Your face flushed with embarrassment as you completely missed his teasing. 

"Pfft." The hearty laugh that left the crimson winged hero echoed as he picked your keys up and handed them to you. "I'm only joking kid, gotta stay positive on bad days." He flashed you a big smile. You didn't understand how despite looking like a complete mess, he could still smile in such a way. It made your heart skip as you turned away, finding the right key and unlocking your door. 

"You nearly made my heart explode, please don't tease me like that." Walking into the mud room, you slipped off your shoes and jacket, both soaked down to the fibers and slipped into your house slippers. Sighing in defeat, you turn to the young blond that followed you in. His feathers still held on to the few items you had purchased earlier. "Here, give me your jacket. I'll put it in the wash." 

"You don't have to do that." The hero said, waving his large gloved hands up simultaneously. Your lips turned into a pout. Quickly grabbing each item from his feathers, you darted off to your kitchen. You left him standing confused at the entrance as he watched you dart from one room to another. It was but a few moments later that you returned with a towel and house slippers. "Oh, thank you." 

"Now give me your jacket." Your hand was extended to him while doing the grab motion and your face said you weren't taking no for an answer. 

Hawks could only sigh and shake his head in defeat, a small smirk on his lips. "Fine fine, you win little bird." Shrugging out of his jacket, he looked you over. You were still dripping water all over the dark wooden floor. You quickly caught his concerned expression and waved him off. 

"This can be mopped up. We don't want you catching a cold. Worry about yourself okay?" You gave him a big smile and traded the towel and slippers for his jacket. It was indeed very heavy. "I'll toss this is the wash for you, if that's okay? It won't take long. In the meantime, you can use my shower. If you don't warm yourself up, you'll surely get sick." 

His mouth opened to protest against the shower but decided on focusing more on you, "Worry about myself? Big words for someone who isn't worried about their own self." 

You blink, confused at his words. "What do you mean? I'll shower after you of course. You're covered in dirty water." Turning to take his jacket to where the washer was, you froze when you felt his breath against your neck. 

"You should be more worried about inviting someone you just met into your home." His husky words spread like warm chocolate across the skin of your neck and you jump a few inches forward before almost snapping your head around with how fast it spun around. 

Hawks was bent over to your height as he slipped off one boot with one hand, the other holding onto the frame of the wall. You realized he'd sounded so close with how low he was bent over. A closer inspection and you noticed just how well toned he was, his compression shirt clung tightly to his lean muscles. 

Your mind raced with a plethora of absolutely perverse thoughts. You were still a young adult after all. Oh how those muscles would feel under your fingers. The image of them tightening, his breath getting caught in his throat, as you trailed feather light touches down to his-- 

"Yo." 

His voice suddenly broke you from your hungry stare, jumping out of your skin in reaction. Hawks' fierce golden eyes stared into yours, a thick eyebrow cocked up in a questioning manner. His lips were pressed in a straight line but you swore the corners twitched upwards. Heat began creeping up your neck at an alarming rate and you whipped back around. 

"Bathroom is on the right. Leave the wet ones in the basket!" You said in a hurry, scurrying off to the laundry room. Any second longer and he'd have seen just how red your face turned, the heat reaching all the way up to your ears. You dropped the jacket into the washer and leaned over it, holding onto both sides as you took deep breaths for what felt like forever. The sound of the shower turning on brought you back to reality. 

After calming yourself, you made your way to the bedroom, rifling through all your clothes to find something he might fit. 'He probably gets that a lot. He is an attractive man.' You told yourself. Finally you found a pair of decent sweats you rarely ever wore that he could possibly fit into, and a large plain black tee. "These should do~." 

Nervously making your way to the bathroom, you saw he had indeed left his wet clothes in one of the baskets by the door. Swapping the wet ones for the clean pair of clothes, you also pulled down another fresh towel from the linens closet nearby and placed it in another basket for him. 

'Calm down, it's no big deal.' Oh but it was though. The No. 2 hero was currently using your shower, and more than likely your body wash, to clean himself. 'Holy fuck. My heart, please...' There was nothing more embarrassing than getting caught staring at someone with dirty intentions. 

It took much willpower to not want to take a peek at what kind of underwear the pro hero wore. You mentally screamed at yourself as you dumped the contents into the washer and started it, setting the basket down next to it. 'Dear lord please forgive me.' You sighed, dragging your hand down your face, 'I am an unholy human being.' 

"Ah shit!" A sudden realization hit that dinner wasn't prepped. You quickly darted to your kitchen. The items you grabbed, previously forgotten on your counter, were for your crockpot. Something easy to forget since you were always so busy. As you began preparing everything for dinner and tossing them in the pot, you started to hear something coming from the bathroom. 

It took a second to register, occasionally mistaking what you heard, but eventually you tuned in and were pretty sure you weren't mistaken. The pro hero was singing in the shower. It was soft whistles that almost sounded like chirping. "Pfft," you couldn't help let the small laugh escape, thinking it was absolutely adorable. 

Food prepped and crock pot set on high for 3 hours, you got to work mopping up your floors. It didn't take long considering there wasn't much floor space to worry about. Hawks continued to sing throughout your quick work and only stopped shortly before the shower cut off. You were already finished and had water on the stove when you could hear him approaching. 

"Something smells good." You could hear his quickly becoming addictive voice roll over you as he walked into the shared kitchen/living room arrangement, hips resting against the small wooden table you had. You turned, tea cup in hand when you caught the sight before your eyes.

His beautiful golden hair was still damp, tufts of it fell over his forehead and partially his eyes as he rubbed the back of his head with the towel around his neck. He looked otherworldly with how beautiful he was. Your eyes darted their way down his frame to see how your clothes fit on him. The black tee fit him fine but your eyes stopped abruptly at the sweats. You almost dropped your jaw. They were just a tad bit too small. Hugging his hips fine but didn't leave too much room for...for what he carried between his legs. 

"Ah, you're still wet. You didn't at least dry off?" You couldn't even hear him speaking to you as your head was filled with the dial up sound. You even missed his smirk and light exhale as he stepped towards you and wrapped the towel he had used to dry his hair around your shoulders.  

His actions were quick to snap you out of the stupor you were in and the tea cup slipped from your fingers. "You really have a knack for dropping stuff don't you?" In almost an instant, a red feather grabbed the almost shattered cup and dropped it into your hand.

"T-T-Tea?" Was all you were able to get out as you looked at the man sheepishly. He returned your bewildered expression with a smirk, pointing to the shower. 

"I think you should go warm yourself up before you get sick, kid. I should be taking my leave soon." Just as he finished speaking, a ding came from the laundry room. 

"Oh that's your clothes! They should be done washing. I'll move them over. Tea while you wait?" You returned his smile sheepishly. 

Hawks could only sigh with a smile and fold his arms across his chest, "Alright, but you should shower first. I’ll wait here." Scooting the wooden chair out from under the table, he plopped himself down and got comfortable. “I hope this tea is good, and if I have time, maybe I can get to try whatever you’re cooking? It smells like chicken.”

You nodded to him and spoke rather quickly, “Yes it is chicken! I will be right back!,” and dashed off to switch the hero’s clothes over. He eyed you as you again darted across your apartment just a minute later to where he had come from, assuming that that was the direction of where your room was as well. Not that he was paying attention or committing it to memory or anything.

You had planned to take a quick shower but your embarrassment kept you in there longer than you expected. There was something embarrassing about the fact you were naked under the same room with Hawks. As always, your brain started rapid firing off inappropriate thoughts, imagining the pro hero walking in on you. Maybe liking what he was seeing and offering to wash you himself. Washing you with himself, rubbing his thick veiny-- ‘Seriously? A hentai trope? I have got to get it together.” You told yourself while finishing up hurriedly and ignoring the arousal you were feeling in between your legs. If you stayed in there any longer under the heat, you were sure to faint. The last thing you needed was Hawks rescuing you from falling only to find you stark naked. Goddammit it here we go again.

Doing your best not to take up too much of his time, you were soon to join him, wearing sweats much like his, but these fit your frame. You made a mental note to apologise for assuming the ones you found would have fit him. ‘I don’t think he noticed now did he?’

“I’m sorry if I took so long,” You told him, turning the eye on for the pot of water you had previously placed there. You reached up to grab another tea cup to join the one you had earlier and glanced over at the cooker. The food was to be done soon. You were quite surprised how almost 3 hours had already gone by.

“You’re fine, kid. Say, what are you cooking? Besides it being, you know, chicken. Is that garlic?” 

You turned to nod at him with a small smile. “Honey garlic chicken. I’m preparing it with rice if that’s fine with you?”

“Ha, you’re cleaning my clothes, you offered your shower to me, and you’re letting me join you for dinner. I’ll take whatever you give me sweetheart.” There was something about the way he said the last sentence that made it stick in the air thicker than the honey in your chicken. His eyes never broke from yours.

You were the one to break the gaze, nervousness taking over. “Almost forgot the rice haha oops!” You stuttered, clambering around getting your rice washed and into the rice cooker. The loud whistle of your water boiling in the pot nearly made you faint and you rushed to grab it off the stove, though Hawks beat you to it. He opted to get up and do it himself rather than using his feathers; his feathers and heat didn’t quite get along. 

“O-Oh thank you!” You stammer, taking note of how close he was to you. His gaze on you was like the warm air of summer, hot and clingy. The lack of control over your own eyes caused you to catch sight of his quite prominent dick print in the sweats he wore. Your breath caught and you whipped back around to finish pouring your cups of tea. You could feel heat pooling between your legs and you couldn’t help but press them together. The image of just how thick he was continued to burn in your head. 

Just as you sat the steaming pot of water back onto the stove, he moved in even closer. Every hair on your body stood up with the goosebumps forming. The air, swirling with so much sexual tension, could cut through anything faster than his feathers. Hawks was by no means a fool, and could tell how easily such small actions from him made your body quiver.

“Do I excite you?” You jumped and tried to turn around. You hadn’t known how close he was to you which caused your ass to graze against his semi hard cock. A whisper of a moan escaped his lips, “Easy there baby bird, didn’t I say dinner came first?” 

With half your body turned to him, the feeling of time stopping between the two of you for the second time today arose. Your heart thrummed in your ears as you locked eyes with the man that seemed to be sculpted right from God’s hands. 

“See, when I ask you a question, I expect an answer.” You could only nod, the function of your lungs seeming to fail at that moment. “Now I’ll ask again,” He leaned down, lips just barely ghosting over your own before he spoke again, so dangerously low that it shot electricity right between your legs, “Do I make you horny, baby?”

Before the struggling ‘Yes’ was able to escape your lips, the sound of not only the cooker, but the dryer went off. You wanted to groan in frustration but Hawks caught on quite too fast and put his arms on either side of you, flat on the counter top. His heated gaze meant he wasn’t leaving without an answer. 

“Y-Yes.” You whispered to him. The unholy growl that left him made you shake with arousal before his lips crashed against yours. One of his hands slipped down to roughly grab your waist and press you into him as he rocked his hips forwards. “F-Fuck.” You managed to choke out. 

Slipping his hand into your pants, his skilled hands and long fingers made work of you like you were a violin. The whines and moans escaping you only spurred him on as he grinded himself against you and made you melt into him. “You are quite easy to read, you know that?”

You shook your head frantically, rocking into his hand as he wound that rubber band in your gut so tight. You wanted to tell him dinner was ready, that you two should eat but you dared not to have him stop what he was doing. His now completely erect cock sprung free as he slipped his pants down. “Do you want this?” He groaned against your neck, “Do you want me to put it inside? Stretch that tight little hole of yours?”

“Yes! Please oh yes! I want it!” You cried out, wanting nothing more than him to fill you up with that deliciously thick cock you’d been eyeing all evening. He was more than willing to oblige as he pressed down on your back with his free hand so your chest rested on the counter. You reached down to slide and shake your pants down and stepped out of them. A knee came between your legs to nudge them apart and you soon felt something prod against your entrance. It felt hot and slick as he rubbed the tip of his member against you. “Take a deep breath,” was all he said before he spread your hole wide open with his cock, sliding all in with one deep thrust.

The air was forcefully knocked out of you as you felt your belly swell. He filled you up so full you almost felt like you’d break. It hurt, it most definitely hurt, but it didn’t stop the whorish wails that escaped you as he began pounding into you with a hunger. “Jesus fuck you’re so tight, [y/n]. God you’re gonna make it hard to pull out. You’re just-- FUCK you’re just sucking me right in.”

His words made you clench around him more. He growled so deep and snapped his hips into you faster, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” One hand was between your legs, working you up to him and the other gripped your hip in a death clutch. His skillful hands and the way he stretched you out and pounded you so deep had you rushing towards your release.  

“Oh God please! Please! Please!” You scream in pleasure, seeing nothing but stars. He fucked you relentlessly and you were sure he was going to break you.

“Please what?” 

“Please cum inside me. I’m! O-Oh! I’m begging you please!” Drool ran down your chin as your legs gave out, no longer able to support themselves and the pounding you were taking. Just as he felt your legs start to give out, both his hands clutched your hips to hold you up. It was easy for him to control where he was able to thrust into you as he aggressively slammed into your sweet spot.

“Ooooohhh fuck. Fuck yes!” He hissed, his strokes becoming arrythmic. “That’s it sweetheart, give yourself to me. Give your everything to me!” He groaned, biting into your shoulder. Almost too soon were you falling apart, screaming out as you met your release all over him and the floor. You cried out in more of a sob as you shook against him, body tensing up and shaking in waves. A few more snaps of his hips and he was joining you, burying himself deep inside as spurt after spurt of warm viscous sperm filled you. He held you close as he shook, one arm under your stomach to support your weight and the other lay flat against the countertop as he hunched over you. 

“Fuck baby bird you’re really milking everything out of me,” he rasped as the muscles of your walls squeezed him over and over. Once you were finally done spasming, he slowly slid out of you. Hot sticky seed followed seconds after to join your fluids, spilling out onto the floor with a dirty sounding splatter.

Just moments after hearing the sound did you finally speak. “I just mooooopped.” You manage to whine out, still being supported by Hawk’s arm. He chuckled and tried to let you go but your legs quickly buckled out from under you. Catching you, he swiftly picked you up into his arms and held you.

“I’ll take care of that. First off, I think we need another bath.” He smiled down and your embarrassed expression, fully grasping the fact you two just fucked like wild animals in the kitchen.

“B-But the food.” You stammer out.

He laughed that hearty deep honeyed laugh that made warmth spread over you, “I did say dinner first, but...I’ll let it slide this time. May I kiss you? I don’t know, you just look so kissable right now.”

A smirk spread across your lips, “Now you’re being polite hm?” Despite your teasing you nod and meet his lips as he walks with you in his arms to the shower. 

“Let’s see if we can fulfil a hentai trope next huh?” The winged hero exclaims excitedly, making you stare at him shell shocked. You could only laugh weakly, knowing you were probably in for a long evening. Thank goodness for crock pots, or your dinner would have surely been burnt.

[calamityk8]

"My name is Barney Rolfe, and there is something wrong with my brain. I am admitting this to you with the full understanding and acknowledgement that what I am doing is absolutely not going to be fully understood; but perhaps in pieces it can reconcile the most fragmented and deranged parts of my psyche, or at least arrange them in a way that will relieve this incessant pressure that always haunts me. Whatever happens, well, at least I have tried to do something to explain this innate and incessant madness, which is more than most get a chance to do.

Okay, here goes.

Belatedly, I suppose, there were neurons misfiring to account for, some chemical mishap that perforce disengaged my social abilities to adapt and be of use to others. Panic and hysteria have ruled the contours of my experience for longer than this busted-up brain can recall. Looking back, well, I can gauge the horrific aspects of it, in the present. Of course hindsight’s a malignancy at this point. I have become this disease; it as all that I am: a sporadically hebetude-induced corollary on the razor’s edge of sanity’s rusty hook. Saying things like this doesn’t help. I know. It’s just hard to judge oneself from the outer limits of perspective’s gush and flow. Trapped in this insidious circle of discontent and maladjustment, I am oozing the sap of life’s lost lust.

I might have a way to put it, so let me.

Having severe systemic and constant depression and simply “being bummed” are two very distinct and different things. One is a disease; the other is just one of the myriad consequences of being alive. If someone has cancer you don’t tell them to, “buck up and get over it.” We don’t admonish a stroke victim to, “stop lying around, and get up and do something with yourself.” Even our advice for sufferers of the common cold is sympathetic, as cough-and-congestion victims aren’t told they are being “weak” or “soft” and should just “be happy because things could be a lot worse.” But, for some inane reason that is preconditioned into us by years of inhumane pseudoscience, diseases of the mind are linked to some weakness or lassitude of the individual, as if that person who is suffering from a disease such as depression or severe anxiety is somehow inept and is to be blamed for their troubles. As if it is within their control to get better by “just trying a bit harder at it.” It’s really a nonsensical viewpoint to take; but, alas, it is one of many such idiotic theories held by the masses.

Here — there is this too: you’ve got to fight this one alone. Other people can help you, but in the end it comes down to you fighting for your life all by your lonesome. This is a difficult thing to internalize, but once you do, in some wary way, a strand of hope will spring from this, as finagled and shoddy with trepidation as it may be. There will be a surge of selfhood guiding you, a reliance on the one person you can always count on: yourself. It is a scary thing, but like most scary things one finds as obstacles on the wayward path of one’s existence, extremely worthwhile to conquer. Just like any other terminal disease, depression kills; suicide is merely its mechanism.

This shouting in my head, it never seems to cease.

I am nervous and concise around others. I only laugh when it’s expected. Being alone has become my only comfort, though it too is getting to be unendurable. To guide me I take some small salvation in the long history of human endeavor to fight through the gnashing teeth of internal strife. According to Lecky’s History of European Morals, “A melancholy leading to desperation, and known to theologians under the name of ‘acedia,’ was not uncommon in monasteries, and most of the recorded instances of medieval suicides in Catholicism were by monks.” I dream through these trials and tribulations of ancients, attempting to stem the tide of my own demise with less troubling thoughts than the ones I’ve come to own: I am the angular distance of a star below the horizon; the dusty truth of eons of suffering through a terrible weight’s pressing down; sunken and lost; in old, forgotten times what they once called grevoushede. Grevoushede. Acedia. I breathe the words and balance the syllables on my tongue, unable to savor their taste or texture. I am a weightless pin pricked in the skein of an upside-down world I’ll never get close enough to know.

Who could ever fall in love with this raggedy bag of afflictions?

I trek through the ruins of my obsession, draped in sorrow’s mask, leaning on tiny tics and safe places to guide me. The cracking of my toes, one by one. Snapping all of my fingers back and forth. Clicking my tongue on the roof my mouth. Blinking an even number of times with one eye and then an odd number with the other. Popping my ears with my jaw. Smoothing my eyebrows down with my fingertips. An innumerable array of distractions that ease the arrhythmic pulse of thoughts that come but never go, blurring out my sight, and leaving me trembling, all filled-up with static but as empty inside as an ice cream shop in the freezing rain.

Woe is my middle name.

All of these little vacancies in my head surface and fill into the most chronic of all conditions. Possibilities go awry with suspicious and judgmental looks. Maybe I’ll put on some Dolly Parton and fall in love with a bookmark. These are thoughts that calm the deliriousness at it swarms. Exceptional circumstances to bow down to in this glut of terrors, this amassing of torturous routines: the bath mat must be lined up perfectly with the tiles, the showerhead at just the right angle, the curtain stretched just so, and the shower water, the god-damn shower water…always and forever just a touch too hot or too cold. The chores of being me, they never end.

The human senses can somehow even detect whether a television set is off or just on mute without looking. And everyone can tell the difference between boiling and room-temperature water being poured in much the same manner. But it is when these senses go astray, when they slip and frazzle and get pinched, that’s when one comes to know the real intensity of those senses’ powers. A daily trauma that haunts me wherever I go, my brain stuffed with the lint of leftover churning, dizzy and lopsided and playing alive, I ignore the impossibilities of being able to maintain a normal existence for as long as this sapped torpidity allows. The courage I need to muster just to leave my place and walk to get groceries is at most times an insurmountable obstacle, and so I stay in and worry and worry and worry about everything. Every object grows too precious to disturb as I put it on the pedestal of the postponed quenching of my desires. There is nothing I can do or think that will snap this spell of disenchantment that grips me tighter as it deepens this hole I am eternally residing in. Just making it home from the grocery store with a few shopping bags of food sometimes feels like the greatest accomplishment in the world. I should be doing other things with my time, I know: concentrating my efforts on more grand pleasures and goals. But these things of consequence, they are not for me. I lose so much more than I gain in these battles. Small, inconsequential, pyrrhic victories are the only ones I’ve known.

Hope is a bestial thing with daggers and fangs; I make up a thousand reasons to not have any of it bombard me as this disease attacks relentlessly. There are honestly times when I cannot even bring myself to lift a finger to scratch an itch. I’ve been prescribed a list of medications too long to register properly in the catacombs of my lingering doubt about the chemical cohesion of my wherewithal: Abilify, clomipramine, Lexapro, bupropion, Celexa, Cymbalta, Lithium, Xanax, Paxil, amitriptyline, Lamictal, and that grand old sturdy classic Prozac. Etcetetra. It seems that I am only etceteras: more and more of less and less. It’s all a wash. It was a messy chorus of boos from the cheap seats as I struggled through side effects and listened to the growing drone of a singularly horrible voice that wasn’t quite my own resounding in my skull: “You’re no good. You’re a lost cause. Stop whining; start winning. You’re no good. You are just no good,” over and over; nauseated at all times; woozy, delirious, insomnia-plagued and diarrhea-bound; garbling my words when forced to speak, fumbling through life like a doped-up zombie with no appetites, every little thing so impossibly far away.

The window washers will not sing for me. The faucets around here all look like dead swans. I sweep. I litter. I am unable to know for sure if anyone else ever feels the way I always do. I am ill with this ravenous beast that pesters and claws at and drapes itself over me, leaving me with the gumption of soon-to-be-roadkill sluggishly slouching across a busy highway. I yawn instead of moan. I burst into tears in the dark of crowded movie theaters just before the feature starts. I am normal. Really. I am sane — maybe even too much so. I do wish I could just go insane, but, sadly, I cannot quite contemplate how to accurately achieve this feat. My brain will not assuage nor relent with its ceaseless cracked and mangled disturbances.

The boring by-rote recitation of symptoms rattled off to every doctor who’d listen. They don’t know who I am, what I’ve suffered through, how I came to be this way that I am; and there’s no device by which I can properly explain it to them. It’s not like they can run a test, take some blood, or do a biopsy, and then figure out what’s wrong with me. It’s a hidden thing, deep within the walls of my pain, not on or off any scale they’ve ever invented. I am my own example. There are no answers to any of this. They used to take out parts of people’s brains, thinking it would relieve their suffering. But it just left folks lobotomized to a dull, vegetable state, unable to form words or dress themselves. Perhaps they were happy, though. Perhaps they were thankful for the big, empty space that now occupied what they’d formerly called living. Perhaps there was no person behind those dead eyes left to care. The disease wins yet again, as it always does.

Clinical diagnoses follow me with heavy clomps. “Heavy dysthymia with a robust anxiety level. Somatic cross-cutting, serious signs of high Altman-scale mania, repetitive and troubling thoughts bordering on multiple phobias and generalized panic. Personality Trait Facet Scores high on rigid perfectionism/grandiosity/anhedonia type, though scores lower across board than patient believes. Unusual and abnormal, but not psychotic at all.” As you can see, the weather inside my head is rather frightful, to say the least. I trudge through the murky terrain of my past with great regularity. I am muddy with it, soaked through from the storm of my memories, which are remembering themselves over and over and over again and again and again, until I do not rightly know what has happened or what is happening now. Who am I but this box of disturbing thoughts?

Madness in the family. A quirk in the genes being passed down just like Huntington’s or any other inherited affliction. This one’s just as deep in the bones, though not as noticeable, not as prominent in the makeup of one’s persona. My father was a brazen raver whose depression put the business end of a rifle under his chin to finally wreck its one final havoc on him as pulled the trigger in defeat; his father before him too came to an early funeral, though his disease’s weapons of choice were gasoline and matches, as he lay in immolation by the pumps of an empty gas station in the wee hours of his final night on earth. This dreary thing, it just goes and goes right on down the line. Shelter from it is inconstant at best. It is as if I am in hiding from my inheritance, from my own true self — a hibernation of sorts: falling in and out of a troubled sleep, groggy and drooling through another afternoon, I become obsessed with trifles. I organize the cups and plates on my shelves until they all perfectly line up. I become tempestuous at a single hair being out of place. I talk to myself constantly, mostly demeaning phrases and freshly coined derogatory slurs aimed at myself. I have been parked too long in my heart’s handicap spot. There is very little “me” left here to notice.

So, do not look at me lightly, with deferential judgement or pity’s hidden ire. My sorrows are so much smaller than you’d suppose. My shoes come untied just as much as yours do. I can be as brave and also as craven as most. I eat blackberries and put salted butter on my toast. There are no cures, only temporary stopgaps for relief of symptoms. I am not in control of the way that I feel. I will try. I do try. None of this is less than extremely difficult. I do not need nor crave your sympathy; I just want understanding. Perhaps, even after all this exegesis and other inexplicable explanatory notions are through, this is still too much to ask. In the end, casting aside whatever ideas anyone might get to having about me and my plight, I only return right back to where I began: my name is Barney Rolfe, and there is something wrong with my brain."

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-08-23

More homestuuuuuck

I’m a little tired today so I don’t expect much intelligent analysis out of myself, but if anything classpecty happens I doubt I’ll be able to help myself regardless.

oh, always

(EDITS: added note on horn colors, link to ask on potential Blood powers reference)

> CHAPTER 12. Really Convoluted Metaphorical Horseshit

cuuute

In the bowels of a different ship, at a moment in time that is not pinpointable in either direction from the previous interaction, another Dave raps quietly to himself.

another dave raps quietly to himself.  i am glad that phrase exists it brings me joy

(LATER EDIT: A friend on Discord pointed out that throughout this entire update, Karkat's horns are #FF0000 red. They were normal candy-corn colors in previous glimpses at the ship crew, though they used a dark single-color shortcut typical of old Homestuck at one point... but THIS time it stays STARK red even when we zoom in close later. Is this just artistic liberty? Did Karkat color his horns for fashion? Does this happen to red-bloods like the Sufferer after a certain age? Just how much time has actually passed, here? We might have to wait for the commentary for this one.)

KARKAT: I WAS SAYING I THOUGHT WE MIGHT GO, I DUNNO, ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE ENTIRE SHIP WHILE THE CLOTHES WERE WASHING. KARKAT: SEEING AS THIS DECREPIT MACHINE WE WERE SO BLESSEDLY PROVIDED WITH MAKES A WHIRRING SOUND SO PANCHAFINGLY ARHYTHMIC THAT IT THREATENS TO ERADICATE THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF TEMPO FROM THE UNIVERSE.

Karkat really has chilled out hasnt he?  like this is surprisingly level for him, and that fact is hilarious.

KARKAT: AND YET SOMEHOW BASICALLY ALL THAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE WE STARTED THE LOAD IS THAT YOU’VE BEEN USING IT AS A FUCKED UP BEAT TO WHISPER TO YOURSELF ABOUT FLOWERS TO.

oh gosh that’s why he’s rapping

> ==>

DAVE: kanaya was telling me this kids story the other day about this dude who didnt cherish a flower enough until it peaced out to do flower stuff idk its not pertinent to the story DAVE: except the flower was a person DAVE: because it was a metaphor

Oh right, coming back to the Little Prince stuff I was too lazy to metaphor-deep-dive into, and literally asking the same questions we were asking about who the Little Prince’s story applies to mapped here if anyone at all, like Dirk and such, or what biases were in the retelling of it and the way Kanaya phrased it.  So now we’re practically mocking it by deep diving it here, hence the last page’s “DAVE: i was just thinking through some really convoluted metaphorical horseshit”, which means we’re both about to further explore AND shit all over the existence of this story metaphor until it doesn’t mean anything and most of the meaning we drew from it earlier is made a joke~

well, not “we”, cause I was too lazy, so... y’all

DAVE: anyway what goes down in the story is that once the flower lady is out of the picture DAVE: the main character goes around making all these connections between her and everything else in the universe until every damn thing feels like a symbol for how much he fucked up and how much he will never see her again KARKAT: THIS SEEMS PRETTY FUCKING INTENSE FOR A KID'S STORY DAVE: yea thats pretty much what i said

Oh holy shit.  That’s yet another way to put it.  Are we doing a whole moral takedown of the Light aspect today?  cause it sounds like we’re taking a dump on the Light aspect and RoboRose getting too obsessed and immersed in it, which would be excellent

DAVE: but i guess its not so much what the story was technically textually about but more like the version of it kanaya internalized and then told me when we were talkin about how she misses rose

exactly

DAVE: so like now im taking the story she told me she was projecting her feelings onto and projecting my feelings on top of that

yes absolutely, you just rephrased it a different way with that exact same bias

DAVE: this is just one big game of emotional projection telephone so feel free to go paraphrase it to roxy later and make it about whatever fuckin thing youre currently missing

perfect. i need an emoji for that Italian thing for when you pinch your thumb and forefinger together and kiss it

ah this’ll do:

its like the expression “choice” but in nonverbal form

[...] whatever fuckin thing youre currently missing KARKAT: YOUR ABILITY TO GET TO THE POINT DAVE: gotem DAVE: anyway you’re not gonna have to miss that skill of mine for long DAVE: get ready for this shit because i am about to slap you with the point so hard youll fall ass first into the washer DAVE: just scrambling around in there getting all sudsy DAVE: but your brain is gonna be so blasted from the mindfreak of a point im about to make that there wont be anything left to clean

Anytime dave is told to get to the point he is contractually obligated to spend at least 20 seconds talking about how he’ll get to the point in a way that is not getting to the point

DAVE: so its genuinely cool that kanaya can go around creating meaning that may or may not be actually present in every little thing DAVE: connecting every feeling she has to the idea of her wife existing out there DAVE: so i told her she should keep that shit up DAVE: but im having the opposite issue where im struggling to find anything to be that kind of tether because every single thing i could possibly consider about what it is were doing just reminds me of yet another thing to be afraid about

Great examples of Light being good and bad!  Attaching strands of connective meaning to everything.  --though, in Dave’s case AND Kanaya’s case you could argue it’s both bad in terms of effects.  That it’s great for Kanaya to care, but that she should be able to divest herself and live on her own terms without idealizing Rose literally everywhere she looks, personal growth which would be useful in helping bring Rose back to her in the first place.  The struggle they’re looking forward to is largely philosophical, not just physical, and until Rosebot acknowledges that she was wrong it’s not over.

DAVE: everything fuckin sucks huge cosmic donkey sack and im terrified KARKAT: OK, SO I FEEL LIKE YOU SKIPPED A COUPLE NECESSARY STEPS IN YOUR POINT CLARIFICATION PROCESS.

Pretty sure Dave was on the same page as most Epilogue and start-of-HS2 readers.  This situation is pretty bleak to dump our heroes into, no matter how much we believe will be resolved in the long run.

DAVE: ok but were you going with sweet or savory please give me that much at least KARKAT: YEAH IT WAS GOING TO BE SUNDAE-BASED. DAVE: nice KARKAT: YEAH. KARKAT: DO YOU WANNA WATCH MORE GBBO AFTER THIS? DAVE: absolutely

--ah, Great British Bake-Off, can’t say I’ve indulged

do they still have that?? did they save it from old Earth?  or did they go where unflooded Britain used to be and say hey, new show reboot

KARKAT: GREAT. ANYWAY, LIKE I WAS SAYING, FOR THE LOVE OF SWEET HUMAN CHRIST, PLEASE BACK UP TO WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU’RE ACTUALLY SCARED OF. KARKAT: ALSO COME HERE, IDIOT.

That last line is like, exactly as fucking sweet and awesome as we imagined their relationship to be.  :)

> ==>

OH MY GOD THAT’S ADORABLE

DAVE: ok yeah this is a better position to unleash all my inner fears n anxieties from

indisputably.

DAVE: those times its like my mouth was saying words about the situation wherein our friends are AWOL and maybe dead but my brain wasnt fully letting me experience the emotion that goes along with them DAVE: man its like i cant even start genuinely thinking about how afraid i actually am for rose and john without my brain flippin its wad and whiting out DAVE: like haha fuck i hope theyre ok DAVE: now i better make a fuckin joke before i succumb to the gaping mouth of despair waiting for me to fall in it as soon as i look down and acknowledge that its there ogling how juicy my ass looks as it trembles with terror

I really hope that the writers of HS2 know full well that this feeling? the one Dave is describing here? is what many of us who got way overinvested in the well-being of Homestuck’s surviving characters felt reading the Epilogues and Homestuck^2.  So I really hope they’re working through it in a way that will result in a preponderance of GOOD THINGS happening and hope-filled situations.  Cause that “can’t even think about X” feeling is too familiar, and if they understand it as well as it LOOKS like they’re getting to, I’d really like them to give us a helping hand healing.

I think that’s what they’re going for?  Seems hopeful for me to think so, but they HAVE been doing better as HS2 has been going forward, from an emotional standpoint anyway; definitely better than the Epilogues.  And I’ve worked through some of that stuff with the help of that, because it’s MUCH easier nowadays to think about Homestuck without my gut clenching.

DAVE: i guess im just fucked up about how to worry about dirk and be angry at him at the same time DAVE: because if i get as unholy pissed at him as i sometimes wanna be i also gotta admit to myself that maybe i coulda done something different there

Mhmm, Karkat’s potentially a pretty good person to speak with here since he’s done so much work trying not to feel responsible for everything that’s ever gone wrong.

DAVE: also like DAVE: and this by the way adds a whole other layer of guilt on there that i dont really know how to fuckin reckon with but DAVE: even with all the shit hes pulled and the fact that we are more or less heading toward having to take him down DAVE: whatever that is gonna mean and whether or not he planned it like that DAVE: i just DAVE: me and him had come so far with each other and it was really cool for a while to have him and i DAVE: ugh DAVE: i dont WANT to hate him

Yeah, Dirk and Jane’s heel-turns were really shitty for anyone who was a fan of them in the fanbase, as well.

KARKAT: WELL THEN QUIT FUCKING PICKING AT THE SEAM ON MY SHORTS AND SPIT IT OUT. THEY'RE BARELY HANGING ON TO THE DEFINITION OF "SHORTS" AS IT IS.

That is an adorably real boyfriend-laying-in-boyfriend’s-lap thing to do

DAVE: the part i mentioned before about how we really have no goddamn clue how long this trip is even gonna take DAVE: i cant help but feel like its barely getting revved up DAVE: and for me and roxy and jade and callie and kan thats normal shit at best and boring at worst but we all have our immortality to thank for that DAVE: we can just dick around in space for near-eternity waiting to catch up to our friends who may or may not be our enemies now and itll be fine DAVE: i mean no itll be categorically miserable DAVE: but well survive it KARKAT: HOLD THE FUCK ON. DAVE: but you KARKAT: DAVE. DAVE: no lemme say this

Oh god damnit.  Karkat’s limited lifespan.  As if we hadn’t ALREADY covered a nauseatingly extensive gamut of disheartening topics of conversation.  We really have to confront every shred of misery in their past, present and future one after the other after the other in the Epilogues and HS2, don’t we?  >:(

I guess it had to be discussed, though.

DAVE: we dont talk about it much and i got shit to say about it DAVE: its not like i never thought about how youre mortal before but i just thought wed be able to figure it out before it mattered DAVE: come up with some kind of plan DAVE: i was just distracted being happy with you i fucking guess and so i didnt think up a way to fix it DAVE: and now thanks to dirk we have to work it out right the fuck now DAVE: because i cant spend this trip just sitting around watching you get old and die

Jesus.  I mean, WE know(?) that it’s not gonna be THAT many years, but THEY don’t know that.

Unless it really IS going to be that many years and HS2 is going to shamelessly take a fucking sledgehammer to our feelings for no goddamn good reason.  Which it won’t!  Right???  >:T

> ==>

Dishwasher ding

> Dave: Grapple with the clean, soggy consequences of the passage of time.

Hey, don’t make it a metaphor here. --though, fuck.  I suppose we are dealing with everyones dirty laundry.  God damnit.  SURE, deal with it all story but then GET IT OUT OF THE WAY AND PUT SOME SERIOUS FUN AND LAUGHS IN HERE so we don’t feel like we’re wading through an entire garbage dump!!!  *click*

Karkat’s eyebrows-only mouthless frown is really cute.

> ==>

okay Karkat explain the nope you’re lodging

> ==>

*put*

> ==>

*foot*

> ==>

DAVE: ok go on

I mean I at least appreciate the time investment in adorable boyfriends.  That’s definitely something of SOME good value they’re giving us in exchange for this misery

> ==>

That Karkat image makes me wanna do that red-shaky-gif-thing with it

KARKAT: IT'S NOT LIKE I'M NEW TO THE PARTICULAR MOOBEAST WRANGLING EVENT OF SOMEONE I PREVIOUSLY LOVED BRUTALLY TURNING ON ME AND LEAVING ME TO TRY AND CRAM MY FEELINGS ABOUT THE SITUATION BACK TOGETHER ALL ON MY OWN.

True

KARKAT: HE DID THAT ON HIS OWN. AND WE MADE THE CHOICE TO GO AFTER HIM ON OUR OWN.

Yes, and you’ll possibly convince him more of that over time, though not in this short conversation

KARKAT: I WAS FOLLOWING YOUR LITTLE TRAIL OF COOKIE CRUMB FEARS UNTIL IT LEAD TO THE BIG SNACK FINALE OF WORRY ABOUT MY FRAGILE MORTAL MEATSACK. KARKAT: IF I HAVE SOMEHOW NOT BEEN CLEAR ABOUT THIS WITH YOU YET, LET ME GO AHEAD AND RECTIFY THE SITUATION RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. KARKAT: HANGING OUT WITH YOU ON THIS LONG TRIP TO WHO THE SHITTING FUCK KNOWS WHERE IS QUITE LITERALLY THE HAPPIEST I HAVE EVER BEEN IN MY ENTIRE MEAGER EXISTENCE. KARKAT: I'M SO ABSOLUTELY BLISSED THE FUCK OUT OF MY MIND TO BE ABLE TO LOOK AT YOUR STUPID IMMORTALLY SMOOTH HUMAN FACE SKIN EVERY DAY AND NOT HAVE A COMPLEX ABOUT IT.

D’AWWW

And with that darkly angry expression too, that’s PERFECT

I mean it’s true.  What exactly would they be doing DIFFERENTLY on Earth C other than enjoying each other like this?  It’s pretty fucking great.

...hm.  Isn’t this journey-not-the-destination stuff pretty Breathy?  Karkat’s proving more balanced by the moment.

KARKAT: AND I'LL BE STRAIGHT WITH YOU. IT'S NOT LIKE I HAVEN'T BEEN EXPERIENCING SOME COMPLICATED GUILT, MYSELF. KARKAT: THE FACT THAT I'M HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE JUST FUCKING CHILLAXING AND BEING IN LOVE IN SPACE IS A CLEARLY INCONGRUOUS WITH THE REASON I'M ACTUALLY HERE CHILLAXING TO BEGIN WITH, AND I'M NOT LETTING MYSELF FORGET THAT, EITHER.

Pff.  He feels guilty for ENJOYING IT so much.  <3

KARKAT: BUT I RESENT THE IMPLICATION THAT MY HAPPINESS IS REGISTERING FOR YOU AS YOU HAVING TO JUST "SIT AROUND AND WATCH ME GET OLD," BECAUSE I KNOW YOU KNOW IT'S MORE THAN THAT.

I’m glad Karkat knows that DAVE knows somewhere in him that it’s more than that, because yeah, if Karkat thought he DIDN’T know that at some level that’d be a reason to take MUCH MORE SERIOUS offense.

KARKAT: LIKE, JESUS, DAVE. YOU KNOW I'M AFRAID FOR YOU, TOO, RIGHT? KARKAT: OR DID YOU FORGET THE WHOLE HEROIC DEATH THING? KARKAT: I WORRY ABOUT LOSING YOU FAIRLY FUCKING REGULARLY.

Hah!!!  Point taken.  Karkat must view Dave as practically more fragile than HIM.

KARKAT: ONE: WE'VE BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH HELLACIOUS PANWARPING TRAUMA THAT I REFUSE TO NOT ENJOY THIS SHIT WHEN I FINALLY FUCKING GET IT, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT MAY OR MAY NOT LAST. KARKAT: TWO: IT'S NOT LIKE WE'RE DOING NOTHING. WE’RE MOVING. WE’RE WORKING. WE’RE HEADED SPECIFICALLY TO A PLACE WHERE WE WILL UNDOUBTLEDLY ENDURE YET MORE FUCKING HELLACIOUS PANWARPING TRAUMA. KARKAT: AND THREE: WE'RE DOING THAT BECAUSE WE HAVE FRIENDS WHO WE CARE ABOUT THAT NEED US. THAT IS OUR FOCUS, HERE. NOT OUR FEAR. IT'S ABOUT THE PEOPLE WE HAVE TO SAVE. KARKAT: SO DON'T FUCKING WORRY ABOUT ME, DAVE. I'M FINE.

Okay, this is great and wholesome.  I am now retroactively GLAD that this topic got brought up.  :)

> ==>

Dave is still afraid. There is a part of him that will always be, he thinks. He has accepted this about himself. There is another feeling coursing through him too, though. It’s something he's felt before, though never quite so intensely. He looks up at Karkat and understands, viscerally, the simple power his words have. They pump through Dave’s own body, alive and warm and true.

He wonders if Karkat realizes it, or if he’s just, as always, saying what he feels as he feels it. Dave doesn’t attempt to dissect it further. There will be time for that later.

Every really loving moment like this is sort of undercut by the fact that it’s also, in some senses, part of alt!Calliope’s narration and, by extension, her fanfiction.

EDIT 2: There's also either a hint to potential Blood powers or even an explicit Blood power use here that I didn't recognize. I'm leaning towards it's-laying-the-groundwork-for-future-use-of-Blood-powers-but-isnt-magical-in-this-case.

> ==>

Smooooch!

That was nice.  Still gonna wait on doing any commentary til next time or a Bonus update or two, cause I’m beat.  See y’all next time!

[imsarahcate]

Good things: -I'm doing the thing and making the phone call(s) -I have food in the oven (stoffurs mac n cheese for the win) -I scooped -I got lots of Jack snuggles this morning when I went back to bed -My new wrist brace arrived and the ice pack is in the freezer to set.

Bad things: -Not 100% sold on the new brace.  It doesn't have a support bar for the thumb and I don't know if that's going to make it less effective for me -Probably gonna be on hold for a while -Do NOT have the energy to go out and fax in paperwork -I think my recent bouts of nausea are both a good and bad thing.  I think that the pain med switch IS helping.  I can almost tell when the morning med wears off because I notice a drastic pain increase when it does.  But the flip side of that (and the cause of the nausea) is that my baseline pain levels are SIGNIFICANTLY higher than they were.  

.

I know I've talked before that a couple of years ago Dr. D and I both came to the conclusion that not only was my neuropathy not going away, but it was likely going to continue to get worse.  It was one of the reasons he was so supportive of me getting a powerchair.  But then, in general (unless I really overdid it), my pain stayed at a baseline.  When I did push too much, I'd end up just completely wrecked- sick to my stomach, nauseated, sour stomach, dizzy.  So I have a standing rx for zofran just in case.  

. This past week I've had to take it almost every day, and more than a few times- multiple times during the day/night.  Since before the snowstorm, I have noticed my pain has been a lot worse.  I kept chalking it up to doing too much but the truth is- I really HAVEN'T been doing "too much."

.

And I don't really know what to do about it.  I don't know that anything CAN be done about it.  The fact of the matter is (and Dr. D has had to remind me of this on more than one occasion) pain meds (even at their most effective) will never stop the root cause of my pain.  For me, best case scenario is that it stops me from noticing the pain my body is in to a degree so that I can ration my energy and activities and give myself some kind of life AROUND recovery times..But my neuropathy isn't fixable.  It's not like... an anti-depressant which can actually HELP your brain with serotonin uptake.  It doesn't have a real functional power over what's happening in my body.  So the pain meds dull my awareness, but they don't keep my actual body from experiencing the pain and stress of the neuropathy itself.

.

At some point, (hopefully far far in the future) there will be a point when I have to choose .. pain management over driving.  Independence over side-effects from pain meds.  These are not choices I'm looking forward to.

.

To be honest, quarantine during the pandemic has been, in a small sense, practice for this.  For the time when I will have to be much stingier with my activities and energy.  It's one of the reasons I really really want to get back to getting the house totally in order.  The better shape everything is HERE the easier it will be for me to a)just exist here, and b)manage regular chores during recovery periods when I DO choose to overexert.

.

I started typing this all out on facebook but frankly, I don’t want people there to know how bad it’s really getting already.  I mean, some folks KNOW, but i haven’t laid it out quite this... explicitly for my loved ones to just... see and read.

.

I have really distinct plans to get the house up to speed- and I’ll have a little bit of $ from dad’s estate to do stuff which will help a lot.  I need to get threshold ramps in the house, and a ramp from the driveway to the  porch.  I need to finish sorting, storing, organizing and putting KW’s stuff in the garage so that what’s in the HOUSE is all mine and stuff I need/want/use.  

.

I want to have a ramp put in the garage up the steps to the kitchen/utility room.  Once KW HAS eventually gotten all her things- I’d like to turn the garage into my art/crafting space AND move the daybed in there for additional guest sleeping too.  It’s big enough I think that I could have a VERY SMALL studio portrait space, a crafting area, and the daybed, etc.  When the weather is nice, and with a ramp for access, I could sit out there in my wheelchair and craft or paint or take photos.

.

Shifting my art/crafting/beading stuff to the garage will free up a LOT of various random spaces in the house too.  Which will let me better organize what’s in it.  The reno we did a few years ago means the kitchen and big bathroom are essentially accessible for me in my chair NOW (if the kitchen was.. um... clean), and i have a space to add a dishwasher if I end up needing one.  One thing I definitely plan to get with estate money is a new washer dryer.  I even found an ada compliant set at lowes!  

.

Basically, I haven’t told anyone in my real-life yet, but I’ve been working on a list of things that need to get done in order for me to continue living alone once things really do take a turn.  I think CityDad would probably fly out and stay with me for a couple weeks if I asked him to- he’d be able to help me build out and shift the garage into a more useable space once it’s empty, (this project is not going to happen even within a year...even if I had everything for KW totally packed up, I have no idea when she’ll actually sit down to go through stuff and either take it/trash it or donate it.)

.

But it’s been on my mind a lot as I’ve noticed this pain increase.  What do I NEED on my worst days now- so that when those days are my baseline I can make my life as simple as possible and maintain as much independence as possible.

.

I don’t know.  And it’s not like it HAS to be said somewhere, I just... I needed this all out of my brain for a minute.  I needed to scream it into the void without upsetting my loved ones about the decline.  

.

For now, I’m just... doing the best I can, day to day.  And making sure my zofran refills keep getting approved.

[rocky5678]

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PowerVolt is a little and light device that is exceptionally simple to utilize. It can control pointless force from getting into your wires. By halting the overconsumption of power, this gadget enormously lessens your electric bill. It professes to cut power bills of utensils utilizing power voltage current to 90%.

PowerVolt organization has turned into an objective for goliath power organizations. They have restricted this gadget from stores, and presently they are spreading Powervolt Energy Saver trick surveys. In any case, an ever increasing number of individuals acknowledge what these force organizations are doing behind their backs. That is the reason everybody is picking PowerVolt power saver. Multiple million individuals have introduced PowerVolt in their homes, and the quantity of clients is developing step by step.

At the point when you plug in this gadget close to your circuit board, it will begin directing the power going through the wires. It diminishes the energy utilization of all the home devices like clothes washers, coolers, forced air systems, TVs, microwaves.

This contraption can be utilized in any spot or climate. You can utilize it for an office, large houses, or condos. You can even utilize PowerVolt for RV stops as well. It disperses the produced energy surplus equally among every one of the gadgets, which assists with diminishing flood. It sift through filthy parasitic energy volts keeping the home apparatuses safe and forestalls high voltage spikes.

PowerVolt power saving gadget is a lifeline for the working class. Ongoing years have seen a huge expansion in electric bills. Individuals living off a normal month to month wage battle to take care of their electric bills. Basically winding down lights and fans will not have an effect in light of the fact that the capacitors and controllers that the force organizations give are manipulated. It will enhance the force utilization regardless of whether you are saving energy. That is the reason just the PowerVolt contraption can settle the flows in your home. Inordinate voltage admissions can harm your electronic gadgets. Be that as it may, assuming PowerVolt is connected, you don't have anything to stress over.

PowerVolt assists with preventing high voltage batteries from eating up a lot of pointless power. This gadget can use energy contributions of Powervolt profound cycle battery, Powervolt v65-6 battery, Powervolt lithium battery, Powervolt marine battery, Power volt uncompromising battery, Power volt greatest high voltage battery. PowerVolt is intended to identify and support any electronic gear that is utilizing a lot of energy. Numerous PowerVolt client surveys have sponsored up these claims.PowerVolt has helped a great many individuals to cut down their incredible electric bills.

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How Does PowerVolt Work?

In this piece of the survey, I will clarify how PowerVolt works and how does PowerVolt respond.

The PowerVolt gadget is really easy to utilize. It doesn't need any establishment strategy. As a matter of first importance, you should connect the PowerVolt hf charger. After it's effectively connected, the green PowerVolt lights will turn on, demonstrating that the gadget is working accurately. In the event that your house is colossal, you should put one unit close to the breaker box and a second one far away from the crate.

After the PowerVolt energy saver is actuated, it look over every one of the electrical gadgets associated with the electrical framework. It directs the electrical framework and forestalls lost cause. It lessens the electrical energy utilization, builds the life expectancy of all the electrical gear. It builds the heap limit of the hardware.

This gadget utilizes capacitors to recuperate power, then, at that point, it develops it and gives this capacity to the inductive engines. This cycle is vital to developing the electromagnetic field encompassing the engine twisting with the recently recuperated energy. PowerVolt gadget rescues and gives reused power all through the electrical combination. After the gadget gathers and reuses the energy, it is dispersed through the electrical lines. Since the hardware gets protected reused energy locally, this gear can perform more assignments proficiently without overheating. This strategy sets aside you cash as well as gives your electronic gadgets a long life.

This gadget will likewise ensure your home and every one of the gadgets when a force flood happens. By settling the voltage and adjusting the energy, this gadget will build energy utilization while decreasing power bills. Huge

mechanical processing plants utilize these techniques to diminish their power cost. On account of the PowerVolt inverter, presently you can apply these techniques in your own home and check those brain desensitizing electric bills.

Does PowerVolt Work As Advertised?

As indicated by great many PowerVolt surveys by genuine clients, this is by all accounts the main gadget in the market that can lessen power costs by over 70%. Utilizing this gadget is flawless. You don't have to realize how to work out power voltage and current to utilize the gadget. The force volt-ampere equation is just straightforward. Is your Powervolt wrenching battery? All things considered, we don't think about the Powervolt vehicle battery yet what you cannot deny is that the Powervolt energy-saving gadget needs no battery or equipment to work. You essentially need to connect it, and that's it in a nutshell.

PowerVolt Benefits

PowerVolt is the best energy saver in the market right now. However, that'sthat's not simply my perspective. You will discover various PowerVolt energy saver surveys web based support up my cases. The most outstanding aspect of this remarkable device is that it is profitable in a variety of ways. So in this segment of the audit, I will bring up the huge advantages of PowerVolt.

This gadget is incredibly useful for the individuals who will in general utilize a great deal of power. PowerVolt energy saver will balance out your power, lessening your electrical utilization yet amplify the viability. You can set aside to 90% on power charges utilizing PowerVolt.

You don't need to stress over this gadget burning-through power to begin its work interaction. PowerVolt balances out the force voltage of your home and balances the flow stream to diminish the power cost.

PowerVolt power saver can bring down your family electronic gadgets energy utilization like ACs, TVs, cooler, lights, fans, vacuum cleaners, microwaves, and so on

You can utilize this gadget in any spot you need. It will work fine paying little mind to the size of the spot it should cover or how solid the voltage of that condo or office is. PowerVolt is a minuscule and lightweight contraption. You can convey it any place you need. It doesn't need an intricate establishment interaction to kick it off. You should simply discover a force attachment and plug it in.

PowerVolt shields all electronic gadgets from voltage over-burdens. It channels the current stream and uses reused energy to control every one of the home apparatuses. So these gadgets can work productively without overheating. The materials used to make PowerVolt are fire and blast verification. It forestalls electrical floods, lists, and plunges in power, circuit over-burden, and electrical shocks.

PowerVolt forestalls pointless energy utilization. All of energy that this gadget can recuperate will be put to legitimate use.

PowerVolt is incredible for the climate. This gadget checks squandering of energy. It uses reused energy to control electronic gadgets. The more energy we save, the better it is for the climate. Less energy utilization can decrease the CO2 level in the climate.

PowerVolt shields your family gadgets from grimy energy and electrical force spikes. It expands the life expectancy of your electronic gear.

As should be obvious, PowerVolt is a fabulous item. Evaluations for PowerVolt are. Exceptionally high, five stars. Assume you intently dissect all the PowerVolt purchaser reports. All things considered, you will see that the cost of their power bills was diminished by a normal pace of 70% for in a real sense each client. You can set aside to huge number of dollars by utilizing PowerVolt energy saver. Presently you realize how great is Powervolt Energy Saver.

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PowerVolt Pros And Cons

Each item at any point made has the two advantages and disadvantages. The producer of PowerVolt tended to it themselves.

[marishasscott-blog]

W.hy the W in W.omen stands for Wrong

Ever tried to send your significant other to the store for female sanitary products and they look at you with the most fearful face ever ? Yea, me neither ! Throughout this journey with Endo, (I'll just refer to it as such considering it resembles Lord Voldemort and he's referred to as he who must not be named because of the longevity of the letters as well as the fear to say it) I've been embarrassed to "tell" people what is wrong. Simply because without a photogenic sample, it's hard for others to understand. And I mean who REALLY wants to look at and hear about a vagina ??? But, the female reproductive system is literally the treasure at the end of the rainbow for women. It's connected to EVERYTHING! I mean how do you think it's able to open up the size of a honeydew melon to let a full sized baby human escape as if it was at six flags sliding down a water park freely ? Exactly ! Amazing right ?! We normally get to see and discuss the woman's body when someone's glorifying it in a music video, on the runway, or even in some celebrities cases ... just put out there... but never in the light of actually looking at it or discussing how it can affect our WHOLE body when a part isn't working right. If we can talk about it then, why can't we talk about bleeding, pelvic pain, pads/ tampons? Ya know real life stuff ???? We cringe when a woman says "oh it's that time of the month" BUT we laugh and copy cat when celebrities display it for the world to see. Crazy huh?! With Endometriosis, there's ALOT of blood. And I mean a lot. So much, I was at risk for a transfusion. Just because of a period. I bled that heavy ! I used to get embarrassed when someone would ask what's wrong. I'm thinking in my head, how can I put nicely my vagina is pulsating with this sharp pain & I'm bleeding out like a major artery has been hit ? Hmmm I can't. Or couldn't because I didn't want to gross anyone out. Endo affects the whole reproductive system. Basically what happens is the lining that's outside of your uterus sticks to any organ inside of your body it can. Sort of like double bubble that gets in your hair and your mom has to regretfully cut it out. Same thing! Yikes. Once it sticks, it then grows and continues to twist and turn around your organs covering it each time you menstruate. The blood is now outside of the space it's supposed to be in, so it's trapped, constantly trying to get out which makes you bleed for days on end. Painful & a nuisance. Uh yeeaaaa. The problem I ran into was how do I tell people that when they ask what's wrong without it being so gross? Simple I JUST DID. I had to stop being embarrassed and channel my inner Amber Rose or inner Kim K to say hey, I'm just as aware of my body as them. Because of Endo, I only have one ovary and one Fallopian tube. I still have my uterus so if my child prays to the baby Gods for a sibling (yet again *face palm* a brother to be exact) only with God's grace and my one good side will he get one. There was so much infection, cysts, and fibroids, my complete left side was destroyed and had to be removed. I had to have a D&C, the same procedure some moms who experience miscarriage have to have to clean their insides out I had to have that too, and scar tissue was removed. Everyone who knew was all like, "oohhh I'm so sorry for you you're so young", "eewwww that's gross", or simply "I didn't think THAT would make you have all THAT going on". Those type comments put me into a shell. I didn't want anyone to know. I was ashamed. Everyone thought it was "nasty". I'm thinking in my head now y'all can watch porn and Nelly's video tip drill and bounce around, but can't bare to hear about blood coming out of the very same place you were birthed? Contradictory much ? The reproductive system and monthly menstruation is important. Saying "I'm bleeding" is not disgusting. Think about it. If you can sit and talk about sexcapades with your girlfriends or talk sex with a guy your digging or even involved with and are comfortable spilling the tea, knowing your body as well as your partner knowing your body should share the same validity. Don't let the words vagina, blood, pad, tampon, cramping, ovary, uterus.. etc gross you out or make you feel ashamed. A woman's body is only good for one thing. Sex. Society says anyway. The outside may look golden, but Endo has taught me that no matter how smooth as a baby's bottom the freshly waxed vagina feels and looks once ONE thing is off in there, you've wasted your 59.99 madame. If it's not sexual it's not important. Society says anyways. We've deemed menstruation as the unspeakable. We're programmed to be embarrassed about periods or that who must not be named. With Endometriosis, there's a lot of that. Many days I've had to take a whole overnight bag to work or just in general with clothes and items J.I.C. Being a woman is not shameful. Being a woman with constant reproductive issues is not wrong. We praise video girls and half naked or naked for that matter women on Instagram because of the arousal waves it sends through our brains and bodies, but we won't take the time out to stimulate and arouse our brains and bodies with female reproductive system literacy. It's all the same. A woman's body. Her temple. Guys, or girls ... the next time your lady needs an extra moment of compassion or for you to go to the store to buy sanitary products for that time of the month or if you see her rushing to put clothes she's bled through, or sheets she's bled on in the washer so you won't see, do it. Let her know it's okay. It's life. It will happen again. Endometriosis is unpredictable. You can count those 28 days on your menstruation calendar and even still if it feels like it, oh Hail Mary! The W in Women isn't Wrong ladies and gents. Our bodies and its reproductive topics aren't nasty or degrading. Let's change that W to Wonderful because being a woman, our bodies do wonderful things. We have the power. Let's stop idolizing our bodies for sex so much and educate ourselves on the other W.onderful things it does. Even with Endometriosis I'm proud to be a woman. #womenwithendometriosis #iamoneinten #endometriosisawareness #endtheendo #thejourneythroughendometriosis

[ronaldbosieyiii]

Chainsaw Mill: How to Slab Logs

Things I Used:

ISOtunes Bluetooth Hearing Protection: http://amzn.to/2pEjNtv

Rancher 460 Chainsaw: https://amzn.to/2RjnVtw

Chaps: https://amzn.to/2ywcE1O

Helmet: https://amzn.to/2PXL9EW

24″ Chainsaw Mill: http://bit.ly/2CQC7WC

10′ EZ Rails: http://bit.ly/2P14AAh

Ripping Chain: http://bit.ly/2CV93h0

Ultimiate Workbench Plans: http://bit.ly/2LdT3Z0

Woodpeckers Square: https://amzn.to/2yD2c8J

Miter Saw: http://amzn.to/2tF5Azc

Miter Saw Stand Plans: http://bit.ly/2pwceVy

Infinity Miter Saw Blade: http://bit.ly/2xW1YvK

Electric Chainsaw Sharpener: http://bit.ly/2qjzh54

Chainsaw Mill Winch: http://bit.ly/2Q2cZjp

Triton SuperJaws: http://amzn.to/2qFLYJF

SuperJaw’s Log Jaws: http://amzn.to/2jh0oNM

Woodpeckers Slab Flattener: Will be available November 2018 so stay tuned

Triton 2 1/4 Router: http://amzn.to/2zRSdvF

Infinity 2″ Slab Flattening Bit: http://bit.ly/2Odk2Ee

Infinity Bit Extender: http://bit.ly/2EOXUAD

Last week I modified a trailer to go get some logs, this week I’ll be slabbing them up. As milling is an entire world of it’s own in the woodworking niche, I learned a crazy amount in just a few days and I’m going to try and cram as much of that information into this video as possible, so lets gets right to it. 

There are two main methods for milling logs: a bandsaw mill like Matt Cremona’s…

…or a chainsaw mill. I’m going with a chainsaw mill…..for now. Tractor Supply is now a supplier of Husqvarna equipment and I’ve partnered with them to use the Rancher 460 chainsaw with a 24” bar on my mill. Note that the chainsaw you buy has specs on the longest bar it can support. So if you want to cut certain diameter logs, be sure to buy a saw that can support it. 

I’m actually going to jump ahead because there are a lot of components to this one so let me show you the final outcome before I get into the details of each one.

The components are: the chainsaw of course. Next is the mill which is a railing system parallel to the chainsaw bar that guides you for a straight cut.

On your very first cut, you need a flat reference for the mill to ride along, which is what these rails here are.

Then something I put on mine but is optional is a winch. This is mounted to the mill then hooks up to this bar you see here. 

Now that you see what I end up with, let get back to the beginning of putting it together. I started off with the rails that will go ontop of my logs to give my mill a flat reference for the first cut. You might have seen people use a ladder for this application before, but I went with rails made by the same company who made the mill I’ll be using which is a family owned business called Granberg. They are called EZ Rails and do come in a variety of different lengths but I went the 10’ rails which come in two 5’ sections that can be used separately or together. They have these cross bars with spikes and this is how the rails are attached to the log. 

Next I switched out the stock chain on my chainsaw, which is a crosscut chain, to a ripping chain. Just like any other saw blades, the teeth are designed with a certain task in mind and if you are going to go from crosscutting to slabbing, you need to invest in a ripping chain. The teeth are filed to a steeper angle on ripping chains since it’s a much more aggressive cut since you are cutting along so many more growth rings lengthwise.

After getting the chain on and tighten down, I moved on to assembling the mill that goes around the chainsaw. This is the railing system that is parallel to the blade, and it can be raised or lower to determine the thickness of your slab. Since I have a 24” bar I went with the 24” mill from Granberg. 

And just a fun fact, Elof Granberg, who started the company, designed the first Alaskan chainsaw mill back in the 60s. So anything milling related, the company has. 

You can see that the chainsaw now fits right into the mill then tightens down on the bar to hold onto it. 

Like I mentioned earlier, an add on I opted in for is a winch on the mill. This will drastically reduce the amount of work I manually have to do to get the saw through the piece of wood and I’ll show you how this works in a few mins. 

First I want to set all that equipment aside and quickly build a log stand so I don’t have to cut these logs on the ground. Since I’ve never done this before I wasn’t sure what set up would be best, so I went with some 2x6s with a steep angle cut in at both ends on my miter saw, then a hole drilled in the center. I flipped them around to be opposite of one another then stuck in a bolt with a few washers and nuts. I used two nuts so that I could keep this joint pivoting which will make the stand foldable. 

After repeating to make three the same, I lined them out, used a clamp to hold them in an open position with the feet flat on the floor, then placed another 2×6 to tie them together, and to also create a hard stop. A 2×6 was placed on both sides and now you can see it can fold up and be stored or transported, but then quickly deployed to be used. Depending on your length of logs, should determine how many of these Xs you include on your stand. 

Ok! After all that assembly I was finally ready to get a log set on my stand and to start milling. Cody used the tractor to snatch onto a log on the trailer then set it in position. Now the log doesn’t have to be perfectly flat but the next step is easiest if it is somewhat flat, so I first started up my 460 and took off a high spot. 

With this being the first cut, I started by placing my EZ Rails in place. Again, these will be the flat reference for my mill to get a straight first cut. I lined up the cross members so that the spikes, or dogs, would all land on the log then I hammered them in.

With it attached I next leveled up the rails. You don’t need them to be level along the length of the log, just across the log, I don’t know if you can see but there are two leveling screws at each one of these cross members to make this happen. 

Then the last thing to attach is the winch’s anchor point. If used, this is attached to the end of the log so that it can peak up in between the two rails. And you can see here that once you start the saw and get the mill set on the rails, the winch cable goes from the reel to this anchor point then attaches back to the mill. This allows me to keep my left hand on the throttle of the saw, and my right hand on the winch to advance or back off on the cut.

A few things I want to say:

1) Beware folks because this is highly addictive. I want to slab up everything now to where if you stand still long enough in my shop, I’ll start attaching the rails to you!

2) This operation can be done alone but it’s kinda a lot and is sooo much easier if you have a second hand around. You’ll see Brain there cutting wedges for me and placing them as I get further into the log. This is to keep the slab from pitching your bar and binding.

3) I tried moving the mill along without the winch just to see the difference and I’ll say that the winch makes such a huge difference in how much effort is required. I 100% recommend it if you get into this. 

After getting through my first cut (which took 6.5 mins btw), I set the top aside then started on the second cut. Now that the log has a flat reference along the top I no longer need the EZ Rails, I can just set the mill directly onto of my previous cut and start the process over again. The only thing I had to do before making this cut was to adjust the depth of my mill to the slab thickness I wanted. I set it for 2” then got after it. 

I am really shocked at how quickly I was able to get through an entire cut, this second cut took me just under 5 mins to make. The main components for making that happen is much like any other cutting tool in the shop…..the right power source and a sharp edge. This Husquvarna had no issues chopping through this oak, mesquite, or even pecan which are all pretty hard woods. This work does use up the bar oil though, so make sure you are keeping an eye on your tank.

Now I won’t lie, I was pretty disappointed at this oak when I got a look inside. I was hoping this thing would be beautiful but the log was apparently pretty old and very dried out so the inside was really cracked and honestly not something I was interested in keeping. Looking back on it though, I think testing and tuning, getting things figured out on a junk log is a pretty good way to go. Like anything else you learn so much on your first go and I still had a blast. 

I didn’t have any more long logs but my neighbor offered me a short pecan and mesquite log so I jumped at those to try next. You can see that instead of cutting the tops of my log stand down, I just shored up the bottom with some scraps. This is because I’m not yet sure what the average diameter of log I’ll be getting is, and I didn’t want to cut them too short but note that it is an alternative to filling up the bottom.

Something else I did when the log got smaller was use the log jaws in my Super Jaws. These are a set of jaws with blunted teeth specifically designed for grabbing onto logs. Oh and a helpful tip I got from Instagram is instead of placing the log level lengthwise, place it downhill so that gravity can help you when you are milling through. 

As far as keeping things sharp, I sharpened my chain after every third pass which might be excessive but I’ll learn with time where the sweet spot is on sharpening. In the past I’ve always used a file to sharpen the teeth but Grandberg has this 12v electric sharpener that attaches right to the bar. It hooks up to a truck or car battery so I used the battery from the log snatching trailer to run it. Even if you don’t get into milling this sharpener is worth getting. 

The last thing I had to slab up with this crotch piece of pecan, after making the first cut I stuck it in my super jaws to make the remaining cuts and just look at how cool this one came out!

The next step is to set the slabs aside to dry and a general rule is it takes one year for every inch of thickness. So a 2” slab should be left to dry for two years. For video sake, lets say it’s been two years and these are now dry and ready to be used to make something. 

I’ll first need to flatten the slab. Since it’s much wider than a jointer the most popular method for flattening slabs is called a router sled. You can make a home made jig but my friends over at Woodpeckers Tools heard I was slabbing and asked me to try out their new slab flattener coming out later this year. If you are familiar with Woodpeckers then you’ll know they excel at precision which is exactly what a flattener needs to get the best results. Everything needs to be level and stay level to give you a perfect cut across your entire slab so you don’t have a lot, or any post clean up work to do. The jig has two long rails that I temporarily attached to my workbench, then it also has a sled that sits onto these rails. Inside this sled is where a router base is set so that it can slide up and down the length. 

After taking my time to get everything set up, I positioned my slab and set the depth of my router bit to start removing material to flatten the slab. I’m using my Triton 2 1/4” Router since I have my larger 3 1/4” in my table. Then for a bit I’m using a 2” flattening bit and also a bit extender made by Infinity. If you don’t have this extender and you just have the bit in your router, it’s really common for the bit to run out of throw and not get down far enough to hit your slab. 

With things set up you can see how it works. The router base moves along the sled then the sled moves along the rails. Allowing you to gradually move over the slab in order to flatten it. That is a wicked cool tool if you ask me. 

If you have never flattened a slab before then here are a few things I learned from my experience. 

When working with a piece that has a slight twist in it, you first need to shim it up and keep it stable to flatten it. I would find the two corners that were rocking then stick in a few wedges.

Next I set the bit according to the highest spot on the slab so that it starts off with removing the high spots. This means you aren’t removing material everywhere on the slab on the first pass. The objective is keep removing all of the high spots pass by pass until you are finally removing material from the entire slab, meaning it’s all on the same level and is flat. 

I set the bit to take off about 1/8” material. Also remember that with a larger diameter bit, you will want to slow the speed of your router down. I have my router set to 2 out of 5. I start on one side of the slab, move the router across then bring it back. Once I bring it back I move the entire sled down the slab to advance the cut. And that’s it, it’s just a matter of repeating until I make it across the entire slab. 

Once I get the slab down to where I’m removing material from everywhere evenly, I change the bit depth for a final smoothing pass. And this is to just to cut down on some of the marks left behind from the rough cuts, but honestly if you keep your bit sharp you’ll be amazed at how perfect the surface feels.

I hope you found this informative. I cant believe the mount of information I learned in just a week! And of course, now I cant wait until I have my own inventory of wood that I’ve milled up myself.  Stay tuned for my next video which will be turning live edge slabs into furniture.

The post Chainsaw Mill: How to Slab Logs appeared first on Wilker Do's.

from Wilker Do's https://ift.tt/2qll9Z9 from Ronald Bosley III on Blogger https://ift.tt/2QfvvFq

[allofusandco]

D

with @amadnessofmuses

Benny, who runs a diner, finds a very strange kid raiding his kitchen.

Dean:

His heart beat in his chest, breath coming in short pants as his body slammed into something solid. He could feel the fear creeping up his spine, spreading over his skin, hairs standing up along his body in its wake. The light was bright in his eyes, blinding him, stinging until he closed them against it. His mind flashed to the first time it had happened. It had been the same then.

He’d been playing in the corn field when the noise has started, the same one that rang in his ears now, he’d run, heart beating so fast, terror propelling him through the rows and rows of corn that blocked his view. He’d run into the light, the same one that was receding behind his eyes. They were leaving again. Leaving him alone once more. Darkness always meant he was alone.

Shaking, the boy pushed himself into a crouching position, ready to run, eyes searching the tree line, taking in the surroundings. Woods, trees, swamp. There would be food this time, he could eat, he could make shelter but there would be predictors, there was always predators. Panting softly, he pushed himself to his feet; ears straining for any sound that would let him know where to go. He was silent as he stepped forward, bare feet making no sound on the muddy swamp floor. His brain told him to stay away from the water; his training said it wouldn’t be safe to drink anyways. Looking down at himself his eyes widened at what he was dressed in, jeans, ripped at the knee and coated in blood from a gash in his knee long since healed. A t-shirt with a band name he wasn’t sure he remembered any more, something itched in his mind, a tune, something foggy to couldn’t really get too. Usually they gave him more supplies than this, food for the first two days of survival while he got his bearings, small weapons, sometimes at least a knife, this time there was nothing.

The boy took a hesitant step forward, eyes turning up to the horizon, the sun was long since gone, it was late, the moon sitting in the peak of the sky. He had a few hours till the sun came up. He could stay awake till then, he’d stayed awake longer. He didn’t know if he could go that long without food, not as his stomach rumbled, the sound echoing over the hum of bugs, over the sound of music. Music? There had never been music before.

Cocking his head to the side he listened, eyes closed as he pinpointed where it was coming from as he cleared his mind, pushing out with his powers. It was easy enough to find the source of the sound, a radio, in the back of a kitchen, a diner with food. Even now he could smell it as his mind mapped him out a path to get there. No obstructions, a few humanoids but nothing he didn’t think he could take. They didn’t appear to have any weapons or powers, not like him.

Taking off at a run, he slid twice, bare feet slipping in the mud that splashed along his legs as he ran, mouth watering for the food he could smell. When he reached the diner his eyes scanned the small building, seeing two men out in front, as he snuck around the back through one of the doors, nose guiding him to the food.

Reaching out he grabbed the food by the handfuls, shoving it into his mouth as he eyed the men. He wished he could remember what he was eating, the taste, the flavor, it all stirred something in his mind behind the training, but he couldn’t care. He needed to eat and needed not to get caught but he could see the man turning around, green eyes wide as he took in the scene, mind mapping escape routes as he shoveled more food into his cheeks.

–––––

Benny:

Quiet sort of night, nothing special for mid-week, when he was busier at lunchtime anyway. Handful of regulars, the ones he knew by name and the ones who never spoke a word except to order the same thing every day, eyes cold because they didn’t want to be known. Couldn’t run a place like this as long as Benny had without learning when to leave someone the hell alone.

Probably time to turn the deep fryer, but Benny was sat at the bar chewing on a toothpick, hand curved around a mug of cooling coffee he’d have dearly liked to top up with a little bourbon, talking. Charlie Pitt, owner of the pawn shop just off fourth, talking as he so often did about Vietnam. Wasn’t a single word in his story that Benny hadn’t heard at least a dozen times but he never minded listening. And he was tired. Sort of tired that creeps up when nothing really happens or changes for a few years, wearing a man down.

“Saw him a couple of years later,” Charlie was saying. “Didn’t even recognize me. Junk, you know. Start on that shit to dull the memories and it eats your soul.” He drained his mug and Benny reached automatically for the coffee jug, topping it up. Glass washer finished its run and he returned to his place behind the counter to polish all the glasses before they dried too streaky. He adjusted the dial on the radio (good music on a weeknight, but during the day, Benny preferred to pick his own than play the cheesy pop the station preferred; nothing but holy rollers and talk back that put his teeth on edge on any other station he could tune to, just here).

“Benny,” Charlie said, and Benny raised an eyebrow. Something sharp in the man’s tone. “Got a rat in the kitchen.”

“No rats in my kitchen,” Benny said, shaking his head. “Could eat off the floor back there. Shut up before you put me out of business, Charlie.”

“Not that kinda rat,” Charlie said.

Benny turned to look. Stuck there like a deer in the headlights, barely visible behind the heat lamp he’d turned off an hour or more ago, was a kid. Benny didn’t have a whole lot of experience with them, but he’d have guessed he was about ten or twelve. Dirty face and hair, a t-shirt that looked too big for him, eyes wide, cheeks bulging like a chipmunk’s; hands still in the half cold basket of chips he’d made to tide himself over a little while back and forgotten about.

“Hey,” he said, putting down the glass. “Hey, kid. You’re not in trouble. Just…”

He didn’t look like some casual thief, the kids who occasionally broke in overnight looking (and failing) to steal liquor, pouring ketchup all over the place. Looked hungry.

He took a few halting steps towards the kitchen, palms up.

“You lost, kid? I can call someone for you.”

–––––

Dean:

There was a back door to his left, it led out into the swamp. There was the door to the kitchen, that led him out the front but it would take him past the man, so would the door he had come in. His only hope would be the back and he was sure that was what the man thought too. Shoving another handful of food into his mouth he swallowed down some of the others he had been chewing on. The man said he wasn’t in trouble, so had they.

What was curious was the way the light around the man showed, he showed blue, he showed good and he wanted to trust him but he didn’t know if he could. Maybe the monster in this round were different just to confuse him. Then again he looked just like a human not a monster. Giving himself a few more seconds to decide he took in the other man in the building the light around him shown in blue too, it would have helped if one was red, there was never good guys only the bad guys and the monsters.

Panting through his nose he took a step back, hands curling around as much food as he could get before he took off heading for the side door, hands forcing the soft food into his pockets. He could go back the way he came in. The path was clear and the route was safe, he could still see the energy lines he’d left behind when he came in. They would be easy enough to follow. he had to get past him, even if he was bigger than him. He had fought off bigger, that was when he had weapons however. This time he didn’t, all he had was his powers and food slick fingers as he tried to run past the guy, arms coming up to try and block him from touching him.

–––––

Benny:

There was that hospital. Next county, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. Benny was pretty sure after a week or two of hospital food, even cold chips would taste pretty good. Long way to come, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. Could even have been one from the… well, where they looked after kids who weren’t quite right in the noggin.

But no, he’d guessed that far too quick. Benny watched the kid’s eyes dart around the room, weighing up all threats and possibilities, including Benny himself, deciding he was better off heading back the way he came, where he at least knew the dangers. He was smart, quick. And slippery as hell. Something bad had happened to him, bad enough so he had honed his instincts, in a way no kid should ever have to.

But Benny was no slouch, and he was fast enough, despite his size. The race to the door was brief, but Benny had an arm around the kid’s waist and the door closed pretty damn quick. Still talking.

“Well, now, if you’re willin’ to stuff your pockets full of those nasty cold chips, wonder what you’d do for a basket of them, fresh and hot? Cook y’ up a burger, maybe, get y’ a chocolate shake.” Give him time to… well, Benny didn’t know quite what, call the police, maybe?

Or not. No, just get him talking, see if he could figure a few things out.

“Or a can of coke. You tell me. Even got some pecan pie, for dessert.”

He felt the resistance let up, and pulled away just far enough to see the kid’s face properly. He was filthy. Hands, face, his hair. If he was on the run from someone he had been for a while.

“Y’can call me Benny,” Benny said. “You got a name, chief?”

He turned on the deep fryer again; wouldn’t take long to be ready.

–––––

Dean:

The kid was shocked when the man’s arms came around him the door closing before he had ever gotten a chance to get close to it. He hadn’t expected the man to move that fast. It wouldn’t matter if he used his mind on him but he at least knew that physically beating him was out of the picture. Instead he stood where the man left him, breathing slow and even as he concentrated on him. He sounded like he was telling the truth, he sounded like he did want to feed him but he wasn’t sure.

Closing his eyes for the briefest of seconds he focused on the part of his mind that could read people, that could read their energies. When green eyes opened again he could see colors around the man, the way his own energy and the man’s mingled, his own trusted him. Something about the colors and feel of him said he was good. He showed in colors of blues and purples and not in reds and yellows that made him a bad man.

Blinking, he took a step back, head cocking slightly to the side as he reached into his pocket pulling out the food he had been eating and offering it back to the guy. His stomach growled and it took everything he had not to eat the cold chips. That was what the man had called them.

“Chips,” he echoed the word and the food back to him.  He didn’t want them if he could have better. He didn’t want chips if there was pie.

“Pie,” he added. Something about he word he remembered. Something about it made him want to smile inside. He didn’t know why and he couldn’t find a memory to put behind it but he wanted it.

–––––

Benny:

Such a strange kid. Benny mighta thought he was one egg short of a dozen, if not for those eyes. But he took the cold chips (kid needed some clean clothes, who had a son this size?), and tossed them in the trash.

“Strictly speaking,” he said, ushering the kid to a table, “pie is dessert, and dessert comes after. But somehow I don’t think anyone’s gonna stop us. G’night, Charlie,” he said, as his friend left, last one for the night. He locked the door and flipped over the closed sign. On the counter was a platter with two-thirds of a pecan pie Benny had made only yesterday. He cut a double-sized slice, added a scoop of ice cream for kicks, and set it down in front of the kid, with a dessert fork and a long-handled spoon.

“I’m Benny,” he said. “This is my place. So anything you want, long as I can make it, I’ll make it. Sure would like a name for you, though. Somethin’ I can call you, since ‘kid’ sounds a little rude.”

Not big on talking, though.

“And if there’s someone you think I should phone… mom or dad? Grandparents?” Something told Benny parents weren’t part of this picture, though what, he couldn’t have said. Maybe just the fact the kid was running around out there starving. He supposed if nothing else, he should call child services, though the thought made him ill; no kid had a great time once they were in the system, and it changed them. He scratched his head. Had to clean that little face up, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to get between the kid and his pie.

“Maybe I’ll join you.”

He cut himself a slice as well, and sat again.

“So. You ready to tell me? Your name? Or am I gonna have to make something up?”

–––––

Dean:

The kid watched every move the man made every step, every move of his hand, every turn and every breath. He watched as he cut the pie and put something cold and wet looking on top of it and then as he got himself the same thing. He wanted to eat it but he had eaten bad things before and he didn’t want this to be a thing. He didn’t want to deal with that again. He could still remember the pain in his stomach, the way he had curled up on the ground unable to move, they’d had to pull him out of the training earlier than he should have been and he had missed his reward. He didn’t like it when he didn’t get his reward.

So he waited, waited with wide green eyes watching the man carefully, fingers twitching on the table beside his fork as he waited for Benny to eat his. When he did, once the man swallowed his bite he dove into his own, fork in the center of his curled fist. He pushed at the stuff on top watching as it slid off the side of the pie and onto the plate below. When it was gone he dove into the pie scooping up half of it at once and shoveling it into his mouth, cheeks bulging as he tried to get it down as fast as he could. He didn’t know when Benny would change his mind and take it back.

With his other hand he held out his arm, to show it to the man who had asked his name. On the inside of his left arm just an inch or so below his elbow was a single letter. D.

“D” he offered, voice a little gruff as he stuffed another large bite of pie into his mouth, working on this one just a little slower than the first.

–––––

Benny:

Benny remembered back in elementary school; hit and miss affair, out here, it always had been, some kids showing up on the regular, some making an appearance once or twice a week, many without shoes. The church brought school lunches for the poor kids, and some of them you’d see eat so fast they couldn’t have tasted a damn thing, like if they didn’t do that someone else might come and take it (and knowing some of their older brothers and sisters, sometimes that was the plain and simple truth of it).

“Slow down,” he said. “You’re gonna do yourself an injury.” He stood and brought the rest of the pie down to put on the table. “All yours, much as you like. I ain’t gonna take it, hell, I made it. And I can make another one.”

At last that arm uncurled. Benny almost recoiled. What kind of a monster tattooed a little kid like that?

“Uh-huh,” he said, scratching his chin, and trying not to betray the horror he felt. Would you have to hold a kid down, to do that? Kid seemed kinda stoic. Maybe not. “D. Big D. Yeah, okay, D. Look at that. Now I know your name and you know mine, we’re friends. Time to celebrate with some more pie.”

He couldn’t call child services. He couldn’t do something that might end with this poor kid being handed back to folks who’d mark his skin like that when he was barely old enough for long pants. Benny watched for a while. Real food would be smarter but he wasn’t gonna argue the point.

“Maybe now we’re friends you wanna tell me a little bit about yourself,” he said. “Like, maybe we could play a game. You tell me the first thing you remember seein’ when you woke up this morning.”

… yeah, nice try, Benny.

“Or the last thing you remember when you went to sleep last night. Your pick.”

–––––

Dean:

D’s eyes went wide when the rest of the pie was sat in front of him and he slowed down even more swallowing the large bite in his mouth and filling it without a second thought with another mouthful. The man talked and D listened. He liked the way the man’s words matched up with the way his aura moved around them. He could tell he was being honest, the blue swirls at the back of each word indicated that he was being truthful, the bubbles matched.

When the bright men had done this to him he hadn’t let them know that he could tell this,  whenever they said something to him, whenever ever they would lie the colors around them would change, their words turning a nasty yellow green color.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled around a mouthful of pie. Pushing himself up in the chair he leaned forward eyes on Benny as his tongue peaked out from between his lips. He leaned down licking the top of the other pie before stabbing his fork into the center of it a snarled Mine leaving his lips.

He knew the man didn’t intend to take it but he had to just so no others showed up to take it from him. Returning to his seat he stayed poised ready to strike as he used his hands to eat the pie, licking it from his fingers.

“They’ll come back,” he added softly. He didn’t know what the purpose of this test was or why he was here without fighting but he knew they would be back. They always came back.

Leaning down under the table from his chair, mouth still full of pie he let his eyes scan the sky for their lights, when he didn’t see them he sat back up, stuffing his face with more pie. He wanted to answer the man’s question, he wanted to show him what he saw last night when he went to bed, what he saw when he got up.

“Wanna see?” He asked moving so he could stand up on the chair and then onto the table, steps light and easy, dirty bare feet stepping carefully over the plates of pie until he was face to face with Benny. Narrowing his green eyes he could feel them roll to the back of his head, vision going dark as he sent the man an image of his cell from the night before. The small cell was all glass, he knew it because he had seen it from the outside, from the inside however it was all white, nothing but white creating the illusion that it stretched for ever when in reality it was only a few feet.  The next image was the first one he remembered when he had been dropped from the light above him and into the dark swamp, the view of his own restaurant looming in the background.

Pulling away from the man’s mind he stood there panting as he came back from the vision, chest heaving as he panted in small gasp of air, he could still feel the sharp pain in his head as he moved over the table and back to his seat. Reaching up for more pie he shoved some in his mouth, hand wiping the blood from his nose like it was nothing out of the normal. For him it wasn’t, this time it wasn’t even bad. Next time it would be easier because he wouldn’t have to forge a link with the man’s mind.

–––––

Benny:

Benny had a vague idea that it was a really bad idea to let a kid stuff his face with nothing but pie, but he didn’t want to walk away and make something else, either. Besides, rough day, apparently. Maybe he’d try for something green and leafy tomorrow. He’d come up with something that might appeal. Never saw a kid turn down a burger and fries.

He didn’t laugh when D – was he really gonna call the kid D? – licked the pie. This was a kid who’d learned to fight for his food, and it worried Benny too much to let him so much as crack a smile.

“Y’know, folks around here like my cooking, but I ain’t never seen someone appreciate it with this much gusto,” he said, angling his head to work out what the damn hell the kid was doing under the table. He’d never felt so far out of his depths before. He sat up straight again. Who did he know, who knew about kids? The woman who was always comin’ by asking’ him to go to one church thing or another; she had kids. Benny didn’t want to call, though, because she had some funny ideas about him, too. Or she might call the cops.

“See what?” he asked. It was unsettling, to suddenly find himself so close; D’s eyes were huge and a bright green Benny wasn’t sure he’d seen anywhere before, save maybe on a cat. He startled as they rolled back. Seizure? Benny wanted to reach out, try to catch him before he fell, but he was overcome, suddenly.

He couldn’t move, not until it was done. Couldn’t make much sense of the first, but something told him there wasn’t much sense to make of it, either. The second one was clear enough. But more to the point; how the hell had the hid even done that?

Benny was badly shaken. Always figured on his being a practical sort of fellow, not prone to flights of fancy, never really believed in anything he couldn’t see with his own eyes. But that – his head wanted him to believe it was a hospital, somewhere, that same hospital he’d been thinking on before. But he didn’t believe that. Couldn’t even force himself to believe that. He just sat, pale and still as a ghost, as D tucked into his pie again.

When he could force himself to, he moved to the counter to fetch some paper napkins, and placed them on the table alongside D’s plate.

“Your nose,” he said, though it didn’t seem to be bugging the kid none. Benny felt like he was losing his mind, the images he’d seen… no, it wasn’t that. This was all about the way he’d seen them. This was all about the fact that a kid with bare feet and pie all over his dirty face had pushed those pictures into his mind.

“Seems to me we gotta do something to keep you safe, Big D,” said Benny, hating the way his voice sounded thread, low as it was. His hands shook slightly. He was exhausted, suddenly, and needed to sleep. Was that his mind stepping in to protect him or had that brief link really worn him out so bad?

“Reckon you should stay here,” he said, crossing his arms on the table so his hands wouldn’t shake. “I don’t know who the hell’s after you, kiddo, but I don’t guess we should let them find you. You can’t run around out there.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “My place is out the back. I got a couch, we can make you up a bed. I guess you ain’t slept anywhere that comfy in a while.” He only hoped the kid slept at all.

–––––

Dean:

D was focused on the pie, the one on his plate until it was gone and then the one in the pan he was tugging closer and eating with just as much vigor as he had the first piece. He wasn’t worried about the man and what he had done. It had been done to him and he was still alive. He didn’t even think twice about what it could be doing to Benny and how it could be affecting him. It hurt, that was part of the process but that didn’t mean he should worry, Benny would be fine. At least he thought that he would.

He watched Benny carefully with curious green eyes, leaning over slightly in his seat to see around him at what he was pointing his thumb at. He didn’t see anything back there but the door and he wasn’t sure what Benny was talking about, he knew he was safe and didn’t mean him harm but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a little weird.

Swallowing the mouthful of pie he was working on he leaned back into his seat, eyes fixed one again on Benny, head tilted slightly to the side as he played his words over in his mind again. “What’s a couch?”

–––––

Benny:

Trying to have a regular conversation with this kid was like trying to argue with a funhouse mirror. Benny didn’t know which way was up. Though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, either. He felt a tremor in his hand, and watched Dean continue to eat like the laws of the universe didn’t just get beat all the way out of shape.

“A couch is… like what you’re sitting on, that bench, only it’s soft. You can sit on it, or you can stretch out to sleep. I’ll find you a soft blanket, too, that’ll keep you warm and comfortable. Pillow to rest your head. You can have a bath in the morning, wash some of that dirt off you. And we’ll figure out what to do next.”

And he’d cook a good breakfast, or this kid was going to be running around on a sugar high for days, which might not be the best considering his powers.

“You can have some more pie tomorrow,” Benny promised. “But you must be beat.” Had to be, the pictures he’d put in Benny’s head. Benny clenched his hands into fists and splayed them out again, working out the tremor.

–––––

Dean:

D thought that a couch sounded like fun, some place soft to stretch out. He almost felt like he remembered a couch before but he didn’t know where he would have seen it. Shoving the last bite of pie in his mouth he dropped his licked his fingers clean before wiping them on his pants and looking at the man again when he said he was beat.

Wrinkling his face up, he looked around ducking down once again to look out the window at the sky before letting out a laugh. “You haven’t beat me,” he laughed.

“If I was beat they would have come, I’m not beat yet,” he added voice serious as he looked at Benny. Benny seemed nice but he didn’t seem to understand what was going on here. Somewhere there was something to battle, something he had to fight. That was how it always went. He got put on a planet and had to fight, Benny was saying he was beat but he wasn’t beat yet.

–––––

Benny:

Benny blinked at D, and glanced at the window, trying to understand what the kid was lookin’ at. Beat. Beat, As in hurt, maybe, or like he didn’t win, or…

“Naw, kid. Beat, as in tired, y’know. Y’feelin’ tired?”

Jesus, maybe the kid didn’t even sleep. Benny tried to think through the images that were still swirling in his head, but his conscious mind seemed to be trying to eliminate them like the remainder of bad dreams in the morning light. Did he see anything that said D even slept? The blinding disorientation of finding himself somewhere unexpected… if he got shifted all over the ass end of the galaxy and back again every time he closed his eyes, he might not want to sleep.

“D… you ever close your eyes, and…” This was absurd. “Let your body be still for a few hours, maybe you get to dream about a pretty girl… wake up with the sun out. Wake up in the same place, like?” How did you explain sleeping to someone who didn’t? Benny hoped he was wrong. If there had ever been a kid who needed a good night’s sleep, it was this kid right here.

–––––

Dean:

D watched as Benny struggled to explain something to him. Did he ever close his eyes and see pretty girls? Did he close them and open them in the same place? He had closed his eyes plenty of times and seen people. It was a thing he was trained to do. The men had shown him how.

                   “I see people all the time when I close my eyes.”

He wasn’t sure what the man was trying to tell him about in this world. Maybe it was some kind of power that Benny had. Sitting up straight, he closed his eyes, letting himself sink into the darkness, searching out the nearest mind past Benny’s, searching for a girl. As he walked through the blackness he could see a speck of white coming closer, the neon outline the trees and things around him took coming into view as he walked around the space outside f the building he was in.

                  “There’s a girl down the road. She’s pretty; she’s in stasis with                   a man. He’s in a deeper stasis then her. They don’t have any                   weapons in the house. They have a smaller girl. She’s alone in                   her room and the window is open.”

He opened his eyes then, a grin spreading over his lips as he looked at Benny, leaning in over the table some, a predator ready to pounce.

                   “Do you want me to catch her for you?”

–––––

Benny:

Benny watched in rapt fascination as D closed his eyes, focusing, and began to speak. Might as well have been a different language, but Benny got there eventually. Stasis – sleep. He was seeing June and her husband, and their girl. The words ‘no weapons in the house’ gave him a chill, but he didn’t think the kid was malicious.

He reached out a hand, and patted D’s hand. “You don’t need to catch anyone,” he said, feeling overwhelmingly sad. Was this kid just bending over backwards to please him, or was that what he’d been trained to do? And trained by who? Benny’s mind went to government conspiracy easily enough, but this seemed infinitely stranger than that. If the government couldn’t get their shit together to fix a damn street sign, he didn’t think they could be smart enough to manage this, either.

“Stasis,” he repeated. “I guess that’s what I mean when I say sleep. Do you go into stasis, Big D? ’cause that’s what I meant about the couch. It’s good for you. Gives your mind a rest, and your body, too. I ain’t gonna let anyone take you, kid. Not from my house.” As if there was a damn thing he could do about it. He offered his hand.

~complete~