#it completely takes over when Pico smells it

[dracomeir]

The only way for me to stop focusing on my cat Pico AU is to write down all this info, and share it with others, or my brain will just hit replay over and over because “Hehe, I love cats.” I really wanna focus on my next story, so here’s stuff on my favourite merc trio.

Cat Pico Getting turned into a cat boy caused Pico to lose a few brain cells, and he can no longer speak. As a result, he mellowed out as he slowly accepted his fate since the day he went missing. He seems to be more mentally sound, but that’s because he stays in his smaller form most of the time. The one orange brain cell in this form is strong. He embraces his instincts, causes mischief, and has no space to think about anything traumatic.

In his true form, Pico is at the shorter end of average height. He still has cat ears and a tail, but the one orange brain cell is weaker. This allows him to think more like a human instead of a cat. The only time he’ll ever be in this form is when he feels truly safe, or the situation is incredibly dire. No one knows about this form. Not even Darnell or Nene until later on in the story.

Darnell Since Pico’s disappearance two years ago, Darnell has taken on the role as leader. He maintained a good relationship with the trio’s informants, arms dealers, and regular clients. He did his best not to get on anyone’s bad side unlike Pico who did so in the past. This led to his “peaceful” life where he lives together with Nene due to rising rent costs. Then that changes the day he found a cat in a vending machine.

Nene For some reason, Pico doesn’t bother Nene at all. All cat behaviour is directed at Darnell only, and she’s really glad she doesn’t have to deal with that. The only time she’ll stop the ginger is when a job arrives. She makes sure there’s always a steady flow of cash, and that the trio doesn’t end up in the streets again.

[nottysnake]

like real lovers do

☆pairing: theodore nott x reader

★wc: 1.7k

☆genre: fluff, angst

★summary: theodore keeps getting into fights and you need to know why. 

☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾☾

loud. that’s all your head could process with the boosted bass coming from the speakers in the middle of the slytherin common room. 

“fuck, it stinks in here.” pansy says, sitting on my right. “mattheo threw the party this time. what do you expect, no weed?”i say. pansy snorts, “yeah right, he couldn’t last an hour without it, he’d ended up assaulting someone.” “that’s not true pans and you know it. that “someone” would be dead, not injured,” mattheo says, coming up from behind the couch we are sitting on, arm wrapped around theodore’s broad shoulders. i look up and see theo, finally seeing his face up close and not from across the room. “woah what the fuck happened to your face?” the flashing green lights can’t mask the big purple, swelling bruise forming on the bottom left of his jaw. i quickly sit up on my knees, turning to face theo while leaning against the back of the velvet dark green couch, courtesy of mr. malfoy.

 i reach up and carefully place my hand on the unaffected side of theo’s jaw. it’s a nasty looking bruise, but all i can think about is how close i am to theo and the fact that the minty gum he is chewing is causing my mouth to water. “nothing.” he says while grabbing the palm of my hand. “liaaaaaar” pansy and matt say in unison. pansy gets up “alrighty, i’m not getting involved in this one, good luck nott.” she says while leaving, quickly making her exit. i narrow my eyes at theodore, who is currently smirking. mattheo unwraps his arm from theo’s shoulder. “as much as i like when you rip him a new one, i somehow always get yelled at too, so i am just gonna…” mattheo drifts off, leaving us, and the bruise, alone. 

“why won’t you stop.” “stop what, piccolo?” his voice is raspy. i can now distinguish  the faint smell of weed and firewhisky. he must’ve started chewing gum before they came up to us, he knows i hate firewhisky.  my heart stops for a second and my eyes soften at the name he uses for me. he rounds the couch to sit on my right, never letting go of my hand. i shift towards him still on my knees, leaning towards his jaw to get a better look. “you can’t call me that when you’re in trouble” i say frowning. taking my hand back and placing them on my lap, looking down trying to figure out what to say.  yeah, i get upset when matty gets hurt when he fights someone for talking shit during a quidditch match. or when draco and potter get into it for whatever merlinforsaken reason. but when it’s theo, it's completely different. my heart feels like it physically stops and my lungs stop working. my chest tightens and my eyes blur.

“what's wrong pico-”

 “you know what’s wrong, i hate when you do this.” i whine. “it's too frequent now, you got detention for fighting with pucey the other day, you’re making them every week practically. your eye JUST healed and now you have to wait on your jaw to get better. i just don’t ge-” im swiftly cut off my being pulled into his side. maneuvering my legs to be splayed out over his instead of towards him. his left hand is now rubbing my back, while his other is holding my head, i close my eyes and sigh while i feel his lips against the top of my head “im sorry, baby”  i lean in closer, finding shelter in the crook of his neck. “then tell me why, you never tell me what happens, just that you beat the shit out of these people and that you’re sorry. don’t i deserve more than that if you're gonna continue making this a habit and making me sad every time i see another mark on you?” 

it's his turn to sigh now, “stop looking too much into it.”

 with that, i get up from the very comfy and warm seat that is his lap, and walk away. weaving in and out of people who are very drunk and probably very high. i’m getting bumped into by people and the dress i am wearing, that is already very short, is getting slowly higher and higher due to the amount of dancing drunk idiots run into me, riding it up. i can hear theo telling people to fuck off or get the fuck out of the waymeaning he is catching up. however, i am able to weave in and out faster than him. reaching the stairs, i get ready to ascend the ones to the right which leads to the girls dormitories, but i am grabbed by the waist before i can even make the first step. i gasp and tense , but a quick look down confirmed it is theo by the watch he is wearing that i got him for christmas two years ago. dang it, he caught up.

i relax, letting him now lead me up the stairs on the left, probably to his dorm room. he is still behind me, and his arm is still around my waist. each step we take, the closer i feel his body on mine, and the more im hyperaware of it. “let me go” even though i really don’t want him to. “okay” he let me go, but once we made it to his room. he opened the door and guided me through. no one was in there, draco must’ve been with pansy. lorenzo and mattheo were probably drinking, and blaise was probably hooking up with some girl who he will fall in love with for the next week and then forgets exists the next. i’d bet accuracy on that one. 

as he shuts the door behind us, he lets go of my waist. suddenly,  it;s cold, and my mouth temporarily frowns before he turns me around to face him with his arms on my shoulder. he ducks down to look into my eyes, “i am sorry piccolo. i’m not sorry for doing it, but im sorry that i upset you when i do and i still do it knowin that. i just react.” his face is genuine and his words are slow, something that happens when he is telling the truth. “please tell me why, maybe i can help.” he closes his eyes for a second and then takes a deep breath. opening his eyes, he moves his hands to my face, cradling me like i'm the most precious thing in the world. “they deserved it. adrian was telling a couple of his blokes in the courtyard that he wanted to fuck you. he was saying all the vulagar things he would do to you and i heard it and i snapped,” he starts, breathing heavily “i didn’t even think, i just went at him. his lads got scared and left, but i knew who they were and whenever i saw them i just beat the fuck out of them for laughing at what he said. that’s what happened tonight. they all deserved it for fucking with you so im not gonna say sorry for giving them what they deserved.” 

“you got hurt though”

 “i’d get beat to the brink of death to defend you and make sure you're safe. i couldnt give a fuck less if i get hurt”

 “but i do theo, i give a fuck!” i yell, my voice cracking while my tears start to well. his eyes widen, bringing me into a hug. his arms squeeze around me and i am home.  

“smettila di piangere amore mio” (stop crying my love).”he whispers.

”i dont even know what that means” i muffle against his chest. his hands soothing me, leaving a trail of heat on their wake. 

he chuckles, “why are you crying?” 

i dig deeper into his chest, “i don’t want you to hurt. i don't want you bruised. i just want you to be okay. i get stressed whenever i think about you in any state of harm and it hurts my heart. i don't care what they were saying about me. they don't matter. you do” 

i feel his lips on my forehead. “i care what they say about you. they cant just speak ill of what's mine. especially you, piccolo”. theo moves his arms to wrap around my waist once again. finding solace against him, i wrap mine around his shoulders. with instinct, theo starts to lift me and my legs find shelter around his hips. the bottom of the short black dress i wore to the party is surprisingly not exposing me, but i feel one of his hands position right under my thighs to stabilize myself against him as he moves us to his bed. he sits down against the headboard, now making it so i am sitting/laying atop him, arms still wrapped around his shoulders. “look at me” he whispers. i shake my head. “tesoro, look at me.” i sigh, tilting my head to comply. my eyes reach his, except they don't meet mine. i am looking at his eyes, while he is looking down, at my lips. i breathe shakily, and he copies.

 “fuck it” and with that, he kisses me, and i am in heaven. he grabs my face, and i feel every emotion theo is feeling right now. All for me. 

the kiss is sweet, not rough, like everything theodore nott embodies. theodore nott loves me, and i love him. and not like how best friends love each other. like real lovers do.

theo pulls away panting, and i open my eyes to meet his. “i love you piccolo. i love you and i won't let anyone speak of you like that. ever.” my heart swells at his confession.

“ i love you too theo.” i pause, then smirk. “if you really loved me, you wouldn’t get into more fights.” 

ha, now he's backed in a corner. 

my celebration is quickly turned into surprise as theo flips us, and my back collides with the soft mattress of his bed. he is leaning over me now,smirking, and my brain stops working. “shut up and let me kiss you as my apologies, i can get yelled at later. i want you now.” and so he does, and so i forget why he was in trouble. i just focus on his sweet lips on my lips, and i am euphoric.

[insinirate]

I CANNOT get over bf preforming wrestling moves on pico just to get cuddles and maybe a smooch

picos not picking up on bfs signals hes just gotta do things his own way

[hexalianrebel-blackfeathers]

Crossfire

Panda’s Notes: Hey, it’s a new fandom. >w< I kind of fell in love with the chaos and characters from Friday Night Funkin’, so I’ve got a few stories in mind. This one is based on this piece by @fluffymary!

Find it on AO3!

John didn’t have a side. Demons, mortals; the blood of both ran through him. All he really knew was war. The smell of the gunpowder; the ringing in his head from explosive shells; the sounds of tanks and jeeps rolling across their battlefield and the men calling—

“Sir!!” He flinched out of his inner monologue and spun around to see one of his soldiers panting softly in the doorway. “He’s back again.”

As if on cue, there was a chorus of shouts under a melody of loud gunfire. Usually, John wouldn’t bat an eye, but today, he snatched his helmet and the staff leaning beside his door.

“Get Squad 17 together; tell them it’s time.”

The soldier sprinted down the hall, and John took a brisk march in the opposite direction. As he passed the infirmary windows, he could see several soldiers already appearing in beds; and with enough frequency that they quickly began to appear on top of each other. The kid certainly wasn’t slacking this time either.

The soldiers that had recovered were quick to fall into line behind John as he made his way out of the building and onto the field, fanning out to return to where their weapons had fallen from their deaths.

The air screamed as something tore through it at supersonic speeds, and the bullets from several soldiers’ guns were redirected or ricocheted back into their own or a fellow soldier’s face. A cloud of dust suddenly appeared, swirling around the little beast that caused it with his sudden stop.

Fully clad in red and green scales, carrying a beast of an automatic rifle, and excitedly whipping a long tail was the brat they’d met all those weeks ago; and had been continuing to meet every time the bastard needed to blow off steam or something. The little dragon glanced over his shoulder, eyes glowing bright green as he smirked with sharp teeth at John.

John only huffed as the dragon disappeared in a burst of speed, and he drew a strained breath as he felt blood strike his face from a soldier that happened to pass near him. Oh, he was going to teach this kid a lesson alright…

“Sir, do you copy?” John’s radio crackled softly on his shoulder, and he glanced around warily before tipping it closer to catch his voice.

“Copy. What do you want?”

“Squad 17 is in position. On your mark, sir.”

John smirked this time, drawing his staff from its holster on his back and stepping forward. “Everyone, you know what to do.”

The soldiers mobilized quickly, scattering away from the main area and gathering up in a tight group on the target practice field. Many were less than thrilled about the position they knew they were in, and they could only clutch their riot shields and brace when the call went out.

“Here he comes!” Someone shouted, and indeed, the beast could be easily spotted perched on a lamp post and sneering down at them. The rifle in his hands glowed with his green aura before he ripped it into the pair of Uzis they were all too familiar with. The second he vanished, soldiers were dropping and vanishing left and right as bullets ripped through them.

John took his time approaching; there was nothing more that the little bastard seemed to enjoy beside playing with his prey. In the meantime, he leaned into his radio, reconfirming the position and preparation of every member in Squad 17. He could feel a surge of power swirl around him and his staff, and he couldn’t resist the smile on his lips as he finally called out to their attacker.

////////////

Pico adored the battlefield. Miles away from any cities or towns to damage or helpless people to put at risk; dozens of targets to mow through for his personal speed tests; and, most importantly, he knew he couldn’t kill any of them. Pico had known about the “Tankman’s” power long before he’d first been summoned to this place by Lilith’s own abilities. He’d always assumed it was just some kind of rumor; one if his mother’s exaggerated stories.

But here he was again, watching the same soldiers he’d shot through the head reemerge from the main building to come rushing back to the fray.

Fuck whatever Heaven’s got; this was the life.

He must have been a damn sight, tail wagging all over the place. He hadn’t razed like this since he was little, and even then, it was with his mother over his shoulder making sure he was sticking to the targets and locations she’d been assigned. Nothing like letting a fully loaded toddler do your job for you, after all.

He was smacked out of the casual memory by a bullet bouncing off of his armored hand. An attempt to disarm him, probably. Yeah, right. He lunged into a run, his aura spreading out around him. He never got tired of the way bullets hung in midair, easily redirected by a slap from his hand or tail and usually finding a new target in one of the soldiers firing at him. He paused again to catch his breath, unable to keep from laughing to himself as he rolled his shoulders and checked the stopwatch he’d mounted on his rifle.

He felt a sort of tingle as a new, powerful aura hit his senses. The half-blood; the leader; the Tankman. He glanced over his shoulder, sneering a bit fiendishly at the man before zipping off and sending a shot through the soldier that was running by him. He adored pissing him off almost more than mowing through his soldiers. Almost. Nah, no he didn’t.

He spotted a crowd growing at the far end of the training field, and he made his way to the top of a lamppost to get a good look. They were practically lined up, every other row bearing riot shields that wouldn’t stand a chance against Pico’s shots while the others were taking aim.

“Here he comes!” Someone called, and they all seemed to brace and cringe.

Oh, well, now he had to flex. He made a show of transforming his rifle into his favorite pair of Uzis before lunging down into the crowd. The sounds of his guns couldn’t even reach him with how fast he was moving, and he couldn’t resist tackling some soldiers to the ground to make room for a sweep of bullets before shooting them as well. His average time was coming up; he just knew it. He needed a good finisher. Maybe something flashy…

“Alright, you little shit!” Pico flinched at that familiar voice, looking up from his position of standing on a soldier’s chest. Oh, perfect! A high level tag. It’d be a first, for him at least, but taking Tankman down a peg in front of all his soldiers would be a fantastic note to head home on.

“This little game of yours ends now, ya goddamn salamander!” Tankman barked at him, holding a…a fuckin…glowing stick?

Pico blinked, capping the soldier he was standing on before turning to face his target. Why was it taking so long for him to catch his breath? He could have been over there by now. He scoffed as he caught sight of Tankman’s smirk; what’s a little headache if he got to punch that jaw in?

His aura spread out as he prepared to rush, and whoa, whoa, time-fucking-out!

He was dizzy; way too dizzy. He stumbled to a stop, keeping his distance from Tankman; but he was still shaking. His guns vanished, and his head cleared a bit. He could see the staff in Tankman’s hand glowing, and when he narrowed his eyes to hone his demon senses, he could see purple lines and symbols etched into the ground around him. Unfortunately, such an effort threw his head back into a spin, and he found his butt hitting the dirt as his tail and scales shifted off of him to leave him seated there in his school clothes. He pushed his red curls out of his face, panting softly as he glanced around at the soldiers surrounding his new little cage. Shit; there went his run.

“Men, I’d say Operation Coyote was a complete success.” Tankman said with a grin as he stepped forward, and the soldiers cheered and laughed around him.

Pico growled as he locked his gaze on Tankman. His face shifted suddenly as his eyes glowed, flames wisping between the gaps in his teeth as he—promptly faceplanted into the dirt from the sudden lightheadedness.

“Aw, isn’t that cute?” Tankman jeered as others chuckled, and Pico looked up to see him kneeling beside the edge of the circle, which seemed a lot smaller now than it had a minute ago. “He tried to do the scary eyes.” The man popped the visor off of his helmet, and Pico’s face fell as bright purple eyes bored into him from pitch black sclera.

Tankman sneered for a moment at Pico’s speechless staring, standing up as he reattached the visor. “Heh, and that’s how you do it, kid. You like your new playpen, brat?”

Pico blushed a bit, embarrassed, and quickly got to his feet. “It’s tacky, old man.” He growled, clenching a fist and trying a punch. He wasn’t surprised when his hand couldn’t go past the circle, but he was surprised when Tankman’s hand came through to grab him by his shirt.

“Yeah, it’s an older setup;” The man hummed, easily dangling Pico’s human form as the kid kicked against the barrier. “It’s amazing what you pick up when you’re raised by Demon Hunters, eh?”

Pico snarled softly, trying to pry those deceptively strong fingers off of his collar. “When I get out of here, I’m gonna fucking—!" He was shut up when his face was yanked against the barrier.

“You’re not gonna do a damn thing, you shitty little snake-spawn!”

Pico had winced a little at what he assumed must be the “Captain voice” he’d heard rumors about, a cheeky smirk seating itself on his lips to mask his nerves.

“We’re getting sick of your games, runt; and it’s about time you were put in—”

“What?!” Pico shouted exaggeratedly, tipping his head back and kicking the barrier again. “I-I can’t hear you; some old fuck blew my eardrums out with his bitching!”

He just knew Tankman was glaring at him through that stupid visor, and Pico couldn’t help laughing tauntingly until he was dropped on the ground. The man drew his hand back, resting it on his hip as the other tightened its grip on his staff.

“Men, next step. Get started.” He ordered shortly, stepping backwards.  

Pico scrambled to his feet. Okay, he was fine as long as he didn’t use his powers; no problem. The soldiers were regrouping, and about ten of them stepped closer to the circle with staves or wands or whatever conduit they carried. Pico growled softly; he had a feeling he knew what they were doing, but dammit, he couldn’t tell which of them was going to attack first. He glanced over his shoulder, sure that they’d go for his blind spot, only for something to lash around one of his wrists.

He yelped, planting his feet and trying to lean back. He did his best to suppress the instinct to use his demon strength, and he growled angrily as he was forced into a tug-of-war with at least one full-grown man who didn’t look like he was having much of a problem keeping the magic coil still. The soldier beside him seemed to perform the same spell, another coil of magic energy zipping around his free wrist.

“Ack! F-Fuckers!” Pico barked, his sneakers dragging in the dirt for a moment before he was yanked down to the ground. He cried out as his tongue got caught between his teeth, and he struggled to find traction to pull against the magic ropes.

“Not bad, boys.” Tankman called, sauntering into the circle. He rested his boot heavily on Pico’s back, and a pair of soldiers managed to wrangle Pico’s flailing legs from outside the circle. “Well, kid, not so tough now, are ya?”

Pico growled up at him, but dammit, he couldn’t think of a response. They’d actually caught him.

“Pfft, no stupid quips either, huh?” Tankman jeered. “Damn, that’s almost sad. Stevie! Front and Center!”

Pico could hear footsteps running toward them, and another soldier made an effort to pass through his sightline and give him a wave.

“Hello, Pico.” He said almost politely, carrying a book under his arm; and Pico hated how genuine he sounded. “Ah, sir, the spell’s ready when you are.”

 ////////////

John couldn’t help a roll of his eyes when Steve greeted the little brat, given the position they were all in. He was a sweetheart to a fault.

“The spell’s ready when you are.” Steve said with a smile, the book floating out of his palm as his hands glowed. As the pages flipped rapidly on their own, John cracked his knuckles and grinned.

“Good to hear it.” He chuckled, removing the glove on his left hand. “Hit me, Stevie.”

Steve took a deep breath and spread his fingers, and John felt magic wrap around his arm. It coiled and tightened between his fingers, supplying his powers without the circle draining them away. His arm shifted: a dark black-purple form with sharp fingers, meant to reach and pull at souls and the essences of life itself.

“Alright, kiddo…” John hummed, curling his fingers and sneering when he caught sight of the brat looking up at him. “Time to learn ya a thing or two about messing with soldiers.”

The kid yelped when John’s hand clutched at his shoulder, and John’s eyes glowed behind his visor as he forced the brat into a partial shift. Scales quickly covered his back, and half of his head became dragonesque, glowing eye included. The soldiers restraining him had to plant their feet and pull as he got a burst of strength to fight.

“Stevie?” John huffed, setting his knee on one of the kid’s legs as his free hand gripped a handle on his belt.

Steve knelt in front of their captive, smiling in that calming way he does. “Now, Pico, I can imagine how upset you must be, but I’d suggest you keep still. All we’re going to do is a sort of test. Research purposes.”

“Fuck you…” The brat hissed, and John smacked him on the back of the head with his free hand before he could stop himself.

“Don’t fucking talk to Stevie like that, shitstain.” He growled, returning his hand to his belt to finally pull up the knife he’d been unsheathing. “Since you don’t want it sugar-coated, I’m going to scrape some scales off you so our boys can find out what kind of bullshit makes you so damn bulletproof. Knowledge is half the battle, you know.”

The kid’s glowing eye turned to him, a mouth half full of sharp teeth trying to snarl.

John just rolled his eyes. “Yeah, kid, I’m so terrified.” He flipped the knife in his hand, angling the blade against the boy’s spine.

Despite the fact that he’d spent at least an hour sharpening the damn thing that morning just for this, it simply rattled along the scales like a tire of the off-road track. John sucked his teeth, his shifted hand clutching tighter when the brat tried to kick again.

“Knock it off!” He barked, sounding closer to a whine from where John was kneeling.

John bit back a chuckle, but a smirk played his lips as he set the tip of the knife at the back of the kid’s neck. “Why should I? You haven’t quit shooting up our battlefield every other day for weeks! I’d say this is the least of what you ought to get.”

Steve was eyeing the kid curiously, and he took a seat on the ground to look a little closer. John crisscrossed the knife along the scales at the center of their prisoner’s back, growing a bit frustrated when he realized he was only dulling his blade.

“I s-said quit it!” The kid’s voice pitched to a squeak, and he tried and failed again to pull. John actually paused this time, quirking an eyebrow.

“Ah, I see!” Steve suddenly said, smiling happily as he tipped his head to try and make eye contact. “You’re a little ticklish, aren’t you, Pico?”

The kid promptly looked away from him, not even letting out a growl this time.

Steve smirked a little, crossing his arms. “Oh, you’re very ticklish; my mistake.” He corrected teasingly, purposefully raising his voice a bit and giggling at the look the kid must have given him.

John rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Takes one to know one, Stevie.” He said with a little smile of his own, attempting to curb his frustration with that cute blush on Steve’s face. Of course, after all this hassle, the damn kid’s dragon hide turned his sharpest knife into a tickle tool.

Wait a fucking second…

  ////////////

It probably would have been easy for Pico to just tell Tankman that his demon form was pretty blade-proof, but he couldn’t resist the chance to upset him a little for putting him through this. He quickly regretted that decision when the knife managed to catch his nerves despite not breaking through his armor.

“Knock it off!” He insisted, trying to keep any giggles from slipping into his voice. That “Stevie” guy was watching him closely, and Pico was too focused on trying to struggle to hear whatever Tankman was saying. A shiver shot up his spine when the knife made zigzags across it, and damn him, that tickled so bad!

“I s-said quit it!” He squeaked out, still unable to escape the magic coils on his limbs.

“Ah, I see~!” Stevie said playfully, watching Pico’s face as he struggled. “You’re a little ticklish, aren’t you, Pico?”

The human half of his face felt hot, and he looked away from that stupid smile. He was just trying to get Pico’s guard down; he just knew it.

“Oh… you’re very ticklish; my mistake.” Stevie taunted, raising his voice enough that a few soldiers behind him actually reacted.

Pico gasped indignantly, and Stevie just giggled. Oh, he didn’t care how nice this guy was; Pico was lighting him up next time. He heard Tankman scoff, and he realized the knife wasn’t touching him anymore.

“Takes one to know one, Stevie.” Tankman teased, but then he seemed to pause as Stevie was pouting at him. Pico blinked and shook his head as it suddenly started to shift back to fully human. He didn’t have the leverage to look over his shoulder, but he saw Stevie and a few soldiers behind him smile and snicker.

Before Pico could figure out what was going on, he found himself laughing loudly and trying to struggle again. Tankman’s fingers were digging and scribbling over his back and shoulders, occasionally giving more firm scratches right over his spine. His hands crawled up and shoved into the spaces between his shoulders to flutter along his neck, ripping a squeal out of Pico’s mouth as he tried to scrunch his shoulders up to his ears.

“Gee, Stevie, I’d say he’s definitely pretty ticklish~” Tankman taunted, wiggling his fingers against Pico’s neck where he could. “The little brat’s caught my fingers.”

Pico, indeed, was making an effort to keep Tankman’s fingers pinned where they were despite the squeaky giggles he kept pulling out of him. This was embarrassing enough as it was.

Tankman leaned slightly, and Pico heard him whistle. There was a bit of a murmur, and a few footsteps crunched on the dirt.

“Oh, quit being a bitch, he can’t hurt you. Now, come here.”

Pico tried to look back, only to squeak and squirm when Tankman so much as twitched his fingers. Another weight set itself on his left ankle, and he could feel his sneaker being worked off.

“W-Wait a minute; that’s not fa—!” He tried to protest, giggles mixing in as Tankman leaned over him.

“Oh, yeah? And why is that? Your little dragon paws tickwish too?”

“Fuck you!” Pico shot back, unable to keep from laughing when the new soldier scratched gently at the sole of his foot, seemingly tracing the snake patterns on his sock.

“You know what I think is unfair?” Tankman continued, letting his nails drag one last time as he finally pulled his hands away from Pico’s neck; Pico still hesitated to let his shoulders down. “I think it’s pretty damn unfair that you keep running in here taking pot-shots at my soldiers just for shits and giggles.”

Pico had to bite his tongue to keep from giggling as Tankman aimed a poke between his shoulders to punctuate the line.

“So, obviously, it’s only fair that they get a few pot-shots at you. And hell, if bullets aren’t going to work, we’ll stick to what does.”

Tankman’s hands burrowed into Pico’s armpits, and the poor kid shrieked and yanked his arms down. “Ohoho! There it is! That’s a tickle spot, alright!” Tankman’s left hand came to pry at Pico’s right arm, his free hand scribbling faster and digging to draw out loud squeals.

Fingers were scribbling all over his foot, and someone else was digging into the back of his knee. He let out a cackle when someone’s hand found the soft part of his side, almost catching the edge of his stomach. Stevie still sat in front of him, ruffling Pico’s hair with one hand while the other gave gentle scribbles around his ears that made him giggle even harder.

“Sir, why don’t we flip him over?” Stevie suggested. “Get the poor thing out of the dirt.”

“Heh, yeah?” Tankman asked playfully, hooking his hands under Pico’s arms. “Or do you just want to find out if his tummy is as bad as yours too?”

“John!” Stevie scolded with a chuckle, and Pico flailed a bit as he was lifted up. Two soldiers grabbed his wrists, and—Wait, when the fuck did his hands get free anyway?! Pico didn’t have a chance to think about it, since several soldiers’ hands returned to their positions of scribbling or pinching around his torso.

Pico’s voice was lost in squeals and cackles as he tried to writhe. That same bastard had ahold of his foot again, and someone else was reaching over to scratch under his toes. An arm was hooked around his leg, and fingers scribbled under his knee; a claw-shaped hand vibrated and squeezed around his stomach, catching the edge of his bellybutton every time he squirmed; knuckles dug and twisted against his ribs; and there was some feather-light tracing under his chin and down his neck.

Pico was a damn patient person. He’d have been willing to forgive all that shit.

If the fuckers weren’t teasing him!!

It was mostly the fact that they were laughing at him that irked him—no, he was not just going loopy from his own laughter, the soldiers were chuckling at his ordeal like fucking sadists—but the cooing in his ears and to each other about ‘how cute’ he was, and ‘poor thing’ and ‘Maybe we could let him go if he’s learned his lesson~”

Oh, yeah, that Stevie guy was so dead.

Tankman laughed beside him, arms crossed for a moment as he tapped his foot. “Nah, maybe a little longer. Kids like him tend to need some tutoring, y’know?”

Stevie gave him a little push, chuckling, and Pico tried his best to find some clarity.

A little headache was worth the glow that came to his eye.

  ////////////

John shook his head as he observed the chaos. Poor kid was kind of getting destroyed. Not that he didn’t deserve it, of course, but John certainly didn’t envy him right now.

Steve approached him with a smile, softly nudging John with his shoulder and adjusting his glasses with his thumb. “The guys are ruthless as usual.” He commented, sidestepping the poke John tried to give him.

“Yes. I’ve trained them well.” John chuckled, only to snicker and shake his head as a few of his soldiers broke off into their own little tickle fights.

“Think they should let up a little yet? I almost feel bad for poor Pico.”

John wanted to roll his eyes, but they stuck on Steve as he smiled fondly. “Yeah, no.” He snorted. “Good cop ain’t on call today, Stevie.”

“Maybe we could let him go if he’s learned his lesson~?” Steve suggested, raising his voice so the kid could hear him.

John let out a laugh, crossing his arms over his chest. “Nah, maybe a little longer just for that. Kids like him tend to need some tutoring, y’know?”

“John, you’re terrible.” Steve giggled, punching his arm lightly, and John chuckled with him until he felt something.

He looked up to see the kid glaring at him as best as he could through all that laughter, one eye glowing a bright, flickering green. He rolled his eyes and smirked.

“Yeah, kid, I’m so scared…” He huffed, stepping forward and kneeling in front of him. “But as long as this circle’s up, your powers aren’t getting you any—”

Something rattled, and John spun around for a second. It had sounded like it was right against his head, as if he was wearing a rattlesnake around his neck.

Rattlesnake…

“John?” Steve called hesitantly, looking around for a moment as well. When John’s eyes fell on him, they widened fearfully before he could catch himself. A tiny spot of green light rested perfectly still on Steve’s chest. As he was pulling his staff from over his shoulder, a hail of bullets came down fast enough to turn Steve into a fine mist and hard enough to rip deep burrows in the dirt where he once stood.

“Stevie!!” He cried out, eyes narrowing sharply as he turned around. “Men, get back; get behind me!”

The air itself seemed to rattle with gunfire as the soldiers around the bastard kid were quickly thinned out. Those who had managed to get behind John were encased in the purple shield he cast. Slashing lines were cut deep into the dusty earth, cutting through anyone in their path, and, as John was quick to realize, upsetting the ground enough to break the barrier spell they’d spent so long setting up.

The kid seemed to realize, too, since he shifted quickly into his demon form and curled up tight to protect himself. The rattling came closer until bullets were battering John’s shield. He growled to himself, and the soldiers around him attempted to aid him in boosting the shield’s power, but it seemed to chip faster with their effort.

It burst within seconds, and all of John’s soldiers were gone before he could blink. And to top it all off, John’s body was thrown to the ground by a weight attempting to cave in his ribs. A heavy boot came down on his collarbone. When he was finally able to open his eyes, he found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle, his helmet lost or broken somewhere during the chaos.

Two rattling tails swayed slowly in his peripheral. Less than he was used to; she wasn’t too mad. The gun was shoved up against his cheek as she ground the toe of her boot into his neck.

“O-Okay, easy, easy! Krotalía!” John choked out, grabbing at her ankle with one hand.

“Sergeant John Captain…” She hissed slowly, eyeing him through the sights. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten my name. Maybe got your hand shot off in a way ya finally couldn’t fix it. Would explain why ya never write me anymore.”

John could hear his soldiers’ footsteps coming from the main building, but they knew to keep their distance from this one.

Krotalía continued with a snide chuckle. “But, nah. Here I find you: still in one piece; still running the boys up and down the field; and most importantly: Picking on my goddamn kid!”

“Ma, I was fine!” The kid suddenly argued, stepping forward half shifted. “I could have handled them!”

John saw one of Krotalía’s tails split into two, and a gunshot rang out as the kid was thrown backwards with a little squeak.

“Oh, we’ll be discussing your punishment in a second, ya little hell spawn.” She snarled, but John could see her smiling over her shoulder.

“Alright, Rattlesnake, cut the shit.” John huffed, giving a small grin of his own. “Let me up. We’ll chat, yeah?”

Krotalía hissed faintly, unable to keep the smile off of her lips as she finally pulled the gun away from John’s face. “Yes, let’s…” She stepped back, turning away from him and giving her son a playful kick where he was lying.

John sat up with a wince, coughing softly and spitting some blood between his teeth. “So, who wants to talk about how your little brat has been razing through our battlefield like clockwork for the past few weeks?”

The woman chuckled, lifting her kid up by the back of his shirt and setting him down. “Yeah, I had a feeling he’d been getting some training in somewhere. He’s been getting awfully competitive with me lately.”

John glared slightly; fuck him for expecting a mischief making snake bitch to discipline her mischief making dragon brat.

She laughed at him though, resting her rifle over her shoulder. “I know that look, Johnny; you read like a bad script.” One of her tails whacked her kid to nudge him forward. “Go on, Pico. Make nice for once.”

The kid crossed his arms and looked away, thumping his tail on the dirt behind him; and when he finally looked up at John, he just stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry.

John snorted before he could catch himself. “Y’know, if you’re going to act like a four-year-old, maybe you should expect the tickle monster to get ya again next time too.”

He blushed brightly and snarled, shifting suddenly and attempting to lunge, only to be caught in one of his mother’s tails. “Dammit, Pico!” She growled while John just laughed again.

She set him on his feet again, and he shifted back to a mostly human shape before she gave him another whack on the back of his head this time. He grumbled angrily and stepped forward, extending a hand.

“…You know I’ll be back, right?” He asked, hinting a smirk.

“You gonna call your mommy to bail you out then too?” John teased, but he was quick to accept the handshake before the brat… Ugh, before Pico took it back. He even ruffled that mess of red hair as he chuckled and let go of his hand. “Krotalía, you don’t have to make him apologize. We’re all friends here, yeah?”

Pico spit out a little spark of flame and tried to pout, but he couldn’t help smiling a little. Krotalía looked between the two of them and rolled her eyes with a sigh.

“Boys…” She snickered, slipping one of her tails around Pico to guide his turn away from John and the soldiers. “C’mon, kid. Let’s go over those numbers you got.”

Pico had bounced excitedly at the idea, but he glanced back as they were walking. He drew one of his handguns from thin air and sneered right at John. “I’ll get you, old man…” He growled playfully, getting a little smack on his arm by his mother’s tail.

John chuckled, shaking his head. He’d look forward to it.

“John!” John glanced back to his troops, and the crowd parted slightly to let Steve run up. John smiled as he caught him in a hug, sighing softly over his shoulder and squeezing him tight.

“Are they already gone?” Steve asked softly, having to fix his glasses when John let him go. “That’s a shame. I wanted to speak to her.”

“You would say that after getting fucking shredded, wouldn’t you?” John chuckled, giving Steve a playful shove before addressing the soldiers that had gathered.

“Alright, men! I’d say we handled that pretty well, all things considered…”

There was a chorus of chuckles and murmurs in agreement.

“Now, I think we all know damn well this isn’t the last time we’ll be seeing Pico rushing through here. More importantly, the kid’s not gonna fall for that trick so easily again. It’s time I put you all on some heavier demon hunter training.”

He glanced back at Steve, who was already flipping through his summoned spellbook. “Game on, Stevie?”

Steve smiled fondly and shook his head. “Game on, sir.”

[crowfootwrites]

The Bath [Rafael Barba x Reader]

Hi all! This is my first attempt at writing one-shots, to keep me sane while I work on a v long Barba x OC fanfic. Also, DISCLAIMER: I'm still getting used to Tumblr as a platform, so please excuse any weird formatting or me just generally not knowing what the fuck I'm doing.

Also, I would greatly appreciate any feedback or engagement with my writing! This fic was created based on a prompt from @creativepromptsforwriting, who I adore.

It had been an incredibly long day by the time you made it back to your apartment that night. You checked your phone as you made it to your front door. 10:03 pm. You sighed. Today had been Rafael’s day off and when you had arrived at work this morning, you had actually hoped to be finished early so you could head home and spend some time with him. But then your boss had dropped a stack of overdue needs assessments on your desk and told you they needed to be up to date by end of day. You had slogged through all of them, even working through lunch, but it had still taken you until 7:30 to finish them. And then all of the assessments needed to be charted. And then you had to answer all the emails you had been avoiding all day in favor of finishing the assessments. You had finally dragged your ass out of the office at 9:30, and all you could think about was sinking into a warm bath with a glass of wine and the company of your very handsome boyfriend.

As you shoved your key grumpily in the lock, mad at the world for taking away your time with Rafael, you hoped he wasn’t upset. You had, of course, messaged him right away to let him know how your day was shaping up, apologizing that it might be a late one. He had, of course, been completely understanding and kind about it. It would have been hypocritical for him to react in any other way, given the work hours he traditionally kept. But you silently hoped that there wasn’t actually some little seed of resentment growing there. Both of you had such busy lives, such hectic schedules, and it wasn’t entirely uncommon for both of you to have to apologize to one another for work getting in the way.

As you stepped into the apartment, you breathed in the warm scent of corn tortillas. Music was coming from the living room, a swell of soft piano carrying through the apartment. You dropped your bag on the entry table and shucked off your heels, padding to the kitchen to find Rafael standing in front of the stove, his back to you. You had just a moment to gaze at him before he noticed you, and you smiled in pleasure at the way his t-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, at the streaks of silver in his hair. When he turned around to greet you, his smile was genuine, his eyes clear and content. You crossed the kitchen in two long strides to wrap yourself in his arms.

He chuckled, a low sound rumbling in his chest against your ear. “Hola, preciosa.” He placed a kiss on the crown of your head, breathing in the smell of your lavender shampoo. “How was your day?”

You look up at him with a pout, partly playful, but partly serious. “Long and bad.”

Rafael smirked, his hand coming to cup your cheek. “Lo siento, baby… How about this? I’m finishing up dinner. Let’s eat, and then we’ll get you in the bath, huh?”

You nodded. He knew you well.

After the two of you had finished dinner – incredible roast pork tacos with fresh pico de gallo – you padded to the master bathroom to start running the bath. You lit the candles perched around the edge of the bathtub and tossed in a lavender scented bath bomb, hoping to ease some of the stress from your muscles and your mind. You could hear Rafael clanging around in the kitchen, washing pots and loading the dishwasher. You thought about going back out to insist on doing that for him, considering that he had cooked, but you knew you didn’t have the energy. You’d have to make it up to him. Maybe you’d get up early in the morning and pack him a lunch.

You stripped your satin tank top and dress pants off, kicking them towards the hamper in the corner. You flipped the lights off and immediately felt your headache ease a little. Slipping out your bra and underwear, you felt your body finally relax. You turned off the water and stepped slowly into the tub, letting the heat caress your skin, sinking beneath the surface of the pale purple water. Your eyes closed automatically, heavy after such a long day, as you laid your head back against the edge of the tub.

When you and Rafael had gone apartment hunting after deciding to move in together, you had told him that your only demand was a good tub. Baths were your favorite form of self-care and you usually indulged in more than one per week. So, he had spoiled you by finding an apartment with a large, deep, garden tub and the night you moved in, you had made him soak and given him a massage, to show him what he had been missing out on as more of a shower-type man.

A quiet knock on the door pulled you out of your reverie as Rafael came into the dim room carrying a glass of wine for you and a scotch for himself. He handed you the wine and you breathed a heavy sigh, so glad to be home. The light from the candles flickered, bouncing off the shiny white subway tiles around you. Rafael settled on the edge of the tub, his gentle fingers running long your shoulder and up your neck. Your head lolled towards him, eager for his touch. You raised a wet hand from under the water and gripped his fingers, placing a kiss on his palm. He sighed, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. You looked so peaceful, the shimmering purple water like magic around you, and suddenly Rafael wanted nothing more than to have you in his arms. He leaned over you in the tub and placed a kiss on the crown of your head. As he pulled away, you heard his low voice murmuring, “Is there some space left in that bathtub?”

You grinned. The only thing that could make this bath better was enjoying it with Rafael.

“Always, mi amor. Come join me,” you hummed softly.

Rafael stripped down and helped you sit forward in the tub, sliding down behind you. You leaned back, sinking into the soft embrace of his body, his chest and arms solid around you. He placed a soft kiss to your shoulder, the busy thoughts that were always in his mind suddenly quieting. His tan knees bracketed around your ribs, and you ran your fingers over his thighs, feeling complete. Silence reigned in the bathroom and you focused on the rise and fall of Rafael’s chest against your back, counting his heartbeats like the very best sound of home.

[fnf-brain-rot]

pico & whitty - high

⚠NSFW WARNING⚠

Pico never liked to think of himself as submissive.

Even if he was dating a 9 foot tall man, he still convinced himself he would be on the top of their endeavors, even if they didn't have them too often. Whitty is asexual, so he never initiates their little things they may have. Pico however was very needy. Boyfriend was convinced it wouldn't last long because Whitty was such a gentle giant. Pico made sure to tell him to go eat shit.

Whitty didn't mind having sex with Pico, however he was really bad at picking up the hints, so Pico would have to be blunt and honest about when he was horny, even when it flustered the fuck out of both of them.

When they did fuck, however, Pico was always on top of the other, refusing to be under Whitty in any way. Whitty figured it hurt his pride or something.

________________________________________________________________________________

Pico sat in their little apartment, alone, watching family guy, as he does. He had nothing to do today, and Whitty went out to buy some groceries, specifically milk and bread. The ginger haired male simply waited for him to get back, as he had been gone for only thirty minutes, but that felt like hours to him. He wanted to cuddle with his tall man. He would never tell him that though.

With a bored groan, he got himself off the couch, stretching his aching limbs. He had the urge to get completely wasted, and hopefully he'd K.O before Whitty got back so he wouldn't have to deal with a drunk Pico. He wasn't aggressive or abusive when he was drunk, he just didn't feel comfortable being intoxicated around anyone, not even Nene and Darnell. He sighed, making his way to the kitchen, scratching his chest through his shirt like he'd been asleep for a while. They didn't buy alcohol all too often, the bottles looked fancy sitting on the counter though. 

he walked right past those. The ones Pico really wanted were in the fridge. Nene recently passed one onto him. It was like strawberry lemonade, or something like that. This was a while ago. He decided to give it a try while he could.

The bottle was easily identifiable. It was a rather small glass bottle, curved like fancy glass art. The small bottles mean it's hella strong. He popped off the top, then took a whiff. It didn't smell like absolute dirt. In fact, it was rather sweet, and had a fruity aroma to it. That's a good sign. He took a sip on his way back to the couch. It tasted even sweeter than it smelled, which made his face contort in distaste. Trying real hard to hide the taste of alcohol, huh? He could barely stomach cotton candy, and this shit was borderline pure sugar.

After getting over halfway through the bottle, he began to question if it was really even alcohol. He shrugged it off, setting it on the coffee table in front of him. Oh well, at least he wasn't eating to pass the time. He could literally feel himself gaining weight ever since he took a break from his usual activities. Whitty thought it was cute. He usually punches him for that.

________________________________________________________________________________

Whitty got back about an hour later, holding about two bags of groceries on his arm. "Pico, I'm back!" He called out, but got no response in return. He narrowed one of his eyes, but chalked it up to the other being asleep. He went on like usual, taking the bags to the kitchen, putting up the groceries. It wasn't until he could hear movement down the hall from the living room that he realized his lover was awake. "Pico??" He looked over his shoulder. "I swear to god if you jump out of the closet again I will strangle you.." He mumbled under his breath. He shoved all the plastic bags into one, then began his way down the hall to their bedroom.

He felt the movement stop once he got to the floorboard that creaks. "Don't come in!" Pico's voice shouted from the other side of the door, startling Whitty a bit. He sounded either distressed or.. frustrated? "What's wrong?" Whitty called back, voicing his worry in his tone. He had to make sure Pico wasn't having one of his episodes, he hated for him to go through them alone. "S'nothing! J-Just.." Pico's voice trailed off. Whitty couldn't stand by anymore. He pursed his lips before pushing the door open. "If you really didn't want me to come in, you would have locked the door." he noted, poking his head into the room. Pico moved quickly before he could see what was going on. He had a death grip on the bedsheets, as if he were pretending to sleep, despite being wide awake enough to tell him to go away earlier.

"Pico, hun, what's up with you?" Whitty made his way inside. "It's hot in here, why don't you open a window or something." He walked over to do just that, but didn't expect what he would see when he turned to look at Pico's face. It was flushed red. His entire face, as if he was sitting in a sauna for an hour. He bit his lip before hiding himself under the blanket some more. Whitty let out a small huff, then sat on the bed, pulling the blanket off the other in one sudden swift motion. Pico let out a small whine, unintentionally, and was quick to cover himself.

poor guy was bare from the waist, and Whitty could put together what was going on. "Oh, so you're just horny? Why didn't you just say so?" He puffed one of his cheeks in frustration, while Pico shook his head. "S-S'not just that.." He struggled to say, and Whitty couldn't help but laugh a little. "Come here you." This was a signal Whitty could easily pick up, and Pico looked like he was suffering. "Do you want me to help you out?" he gently asked the shorter male, but got a response he wasn't expecting. he had reached out for his arm, but when he touched him, Pico recoiled, grunting in discomfort. Whitty tilted his head, seeming confused, This was an obvious cry for help, right?

Pico had began to tremble from his presence alone. "I-I do.. You just.. surprised me.." he mumbled his words. Whitty reached for his arm again, gently taking it this time. he helped him sit up, a gentle smile on his face. Pico simply scoffed, sitting on his knees, though not looking at Whitty. "What's with the smug look.." He sneered at him, but Whitty simply moved one of his hands down to caress his hip. That gentle touch alone was enough to elicit a small gasp from the ginger. "You're quite down bad, aren't you?" Whitty joked, and Pico headbutted his chest in embarrassment. "Fuck off, you didn't even know what that was until yesterday.." He growled in response. His harsh tone was replaced by quiet whimpering soon after as Whitty began to stroke at his erect cock gently, pleased with the trembling mess under him.

"You're so cute when you can barely speak." Whitty commented, innocently enough, taking his precum covered hand and prodding a finger at Pico's twitching hole. "Fuck you.." Pico strained out, arching his back and digging his nails into Whitty's shoulders. "Kinda the opposite right now." Whitty never missed the opportunity to throw it back at him. He pushed the finger inside, slick with his erotic juices.

The pleasure shot up Pico's spine in violent waves, more than he had ever felt in his life. "W-Whitty..! Nngh..!" He panted heavily against the taller male. Whitty could admit he genuinely found it cute. He added another finger, gently spreading them apart inside of him. He wasn't sure what could have made Pico so sensitive. He usually acted like he would take any moans with him to the grave.

The ginger stuffed some of Whitty's hoodie into his mouth to silence himself, wettening not only the clothing but himself with his drool. He tried discreetly moving his hips up and down onto Whitty's fingers to get the most out of it, and Whitty couldn't help but laugh to himself. "Fuck.. H-Holy shit j-just fuck me already..!" He pushed Whitty's hand away, moving away from his lap and onto the bed. He pressed his own chest against he bedsheets, propping his butt up into the air. Whitty took in his body with wonder in his eyes, feeling his cheeks warm. Good god he loved this guy so much.. "S-Stop staring at me and hurry up!" Pico barked at him, and Whitty jumped a little, then quickly nodded. "Right, right."

He unbuckled his jeans, already being semi hard from Pico's cute demeanor. He took hold of his large meat, pressing the tip against Pico's entrance as a warning he was about to go in.

Pico impatiently pushed himself onto Whitty, bouncing his hips against him so he wouldn't have to wait any longer. "God... FUCK! Whitty please.. Oh fuck..!" He almost couldn't control the moans leaving his lips, pressing his face into the pillow below him in desperation. Whitty began to move his hips along with the ginger, biting his lip at how he contracted around him. "You're very noisy this time around, huh?" The taller man commented lightly, pulling him by the hips to get a deeper angle.

It felt like his cock was burning Pico's insides, like a volcano dripping magma. Beads of sweat began to form all over, and his skin felt hot to the touch. Whitty almost began to suspect the other had a fever. It wasn't until Pico began to sob, his moans growing higher in pitch, that he realized he was close. Whitty sped up for him, light grunts slipping past his lips. He usually tried to do all he could to please Pico during sex, but he could tell right now that all Pico wanted to do was fucking cum, as he began to beg him for.

With one more hit to Pico's sweet spot, he released all over the bed sheets, gripping the pillow tight between his fingers as the trembling finally began to calm down. Whitty finished a bit after, though he pulled out to do so. He didn't feel like helping clean him out today.

Whitty sat on his knees and helped to move Pico a bit, mindful of the back shot he just gave him. "What got you so worked up today?" He asked him curiously, and Pico simply let out a huff, still refusing to look at him. "Probably that shit I drank earlier.." He admitted softly, the weight of his eyes soon becoming too much to bare, and he would have passed out if it weren't for Whitty. "Come on, I refuse to let you marinate my bed sheets with your meat juice." He picked him up, only to get a scoff in response. "Meat juice? Seriously?"

[masquerade-story]

Chapter 3 - Changes

Rayne pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to suppress the headache lingering behind her eyes. Being awoken by Crystal having one of the worst seizures she'd had in years was stressful enough, but the strange unexplainable nonsense going on was a whole new level of headache.

"Who can I even blame for this?" Rayne muttered, rebelliously stabbing at the cheesy eggs and chorizo frying in the skillet. "Grey wanted us to stay in a haunted house and picked this one, but the rest of us agreed to it, and it's not like Grey could have possibly even suspected ridiculousness like this to happen! I thought there'd be some weird cult kidnapping shenanigans going on so I slept on the bed near the door to catch intruders and instead of shifty robed intruders we get an impenetrable fog and an enormous snakey voidbeast that definitely doesn't exist anywhere on Earth!"

"Do you have any idea what Crystal was talking about?" Lillian asked, flipping over a tortilla on the griddle. "She was more incoherent than usual, but it seemed like she knew what it was."

"She was having a damned seizure, I bet she barely even knew who we were!" Rayne snapped, then sighed with sagging shoulders. "Sorry, Lils. I just... I don't like not knowing what's going on. I know she said she felt like things were going to change, but this... This is a bit too much change, isn't it?!"

"None of us are good with big changes," Lillian nodded her agreement, completely unbothered by the brief outburst, much to Rayne's relief. Being mean to Lillian felt like being mean to a starved, abandoned puppy in the rain. "We got popular pretty fast, and we all panicked, remember? We were scared by so much attention. You and Grey handled the public relations for a bit since you have retail experience and excellent poker faces. Me and Crystal had to hide behind you and breathe into little paper bags."

"It wasn't that bad."

"It was absolutely that bad. Our first video addressing all our new fans? It's hilarious, we look so nervous and panicked. Crystal was frozen and pale, and I was shaking so bad my face was blurred! And it got us even more fans somehow?"

"Pity, probably."

"Probably. That spooked us even more though! We wanted to make music and we wanted people to like it, but I don't think any of us were ready for the amount of attention we got. It took ages to adjust!"

"Yeah, but Lils... That's all... That's different. It's just... That's normal life stuff, you know? We got lucky, but it happens. People get lucky like that sometimes. People go viral every day for different things. But this?" Rayne turned, gesturing with her spatula in the vague direction of the nearest curtained window.

Before they started cooking, Lillian went around shutting the curtains for every window in the house, just in case. She glanced over her shoulder nervously in the direction Rayne was gesturing, then turned her attention back to assembling scrambled cheesy eggs, hash browns, chorizo, black olives, grilled onions, mango salsa and sour cream into delicious burritos she tossed back into the pan to grill shut, then topped with fresh pico de gallo once they were back on a plate. Lillian was the only one who knew the perfect balance between a fully stuffed burrito bursting at the seams, and a burrito that could still be closed and eaten with some semblance of civility.

"Life is stranger than fiction," Lillian muttered, deftly flipping three burritos into the greased pan. "People always say that, don't they?"

"Yeah well, we've reached downright fantasy at this point. I signed up for a haunted house, not whatever this shit is!"

"Maybe this is just what happens to people who go missing in haunted houses?"

"I-" Rayne opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again when she couldn't think of a counter argument. She heaved a sigh, turning off the stove burner once the last of the chorizo and eggs were finished cooking. "You're right. We should just wait for Crystal to hopefully explain something, then we can figure out the rest together. One step at a time, like always."

Rayne refused to think about anything in particular while she wrapped up a plate of burritos in foil, setting it aside in the stove for Crystal to eat once she woke up. Grey made his way downstairs shortly after everything was finished cooking, snagging a plate for himself and choosing to eat on the porch, staring intently out at the creepy fog. Lillian went out to keep him company, but Rayne chose to eat quietly in the dining room, staring at the pretty floral design around the outer edge of the plate.

Every time her thoughts dragged in the wrong direction, she forced herself to think about song lyrics, or melody composition, or clicked out different metronome timings with her tongue against her teeth.

Worrying and freaking out wouldn't help anyone, so why wouldn't her hands stop shaking?

Though she took her time eating, Crystal still hadn't descended the stairs by the time Rayne finished breakfast and washed her plate. She tossed dirtied cookware into the sink for Grey to wash later, then hurried up the stairs to check on her sister.

To her surprise, Crystal was sitting up in bed, staring out the window with a vacant expression. Winding tear tracks left shimmering lines on her pale face, causing Rayne's heart to skip a beat.

"Coco? Are you okay?" Rayne asked softly, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her sister took a moment to acknowledge her presence, turning her head with slow, hesitant movements as though doing so was a tremendous effort in itself.

"I... I'll be okay. We'll... be okay. But..." Crystal's voice trembled, a hoarse whisper that caught in her throat. She bit her lip, then forced a pained a smile. "Can you... Bring my food?"

Rayne waited a moment more, but Crystal didn't seem ready to explain. So she sighed, nodded, and went back downstairs to fetch her sister's plate from the oven, and poured her a cup of juice in case she needed a drink.

Crystal always ate slowly after a seizure, and sometimes made faces like the food was unfamiliar in taste or texture, even if it was something she'd eaten dozens of times before. She'd take a bite, wrinkle her nose, look momentarily confused, and spend about thirty seconds slowly chewing one mouthful.

Once she finally finished eating, Crystal slowly slid out of bed, and shuffled downstairs while leaning on the arm Rayne offered for support. Grey and Lillian were still outside, empty plates on their laps, shivering in their pajamas yet unwilling to look away from the fog, and the strange creature diving within it.

"It helps if you don't look directly at it," Grey mumbled as the screen door creaked open, squinting his eyes. "If you try to focus on it, the headache comes back."

Rayne tapped his shoulder to pull his attention away, gesturing back to the house. "C'mon, if we're all gonna sit out here, we should have some blankets."

"Yeah, okay."

They fetched some quilts from the linen closet, brand new blankets provided by the realtor that still smelled like detergent. Everyone bundled up, sinking comfortably into the patio chairs, sitting so close together that all their knees touched.

"How are you feeling?" Lillian asked Crystal, finally tearing her gaze away from the fog for a moment.

"I'm okay," Crystal whispered, staring down at her knees. "I just... We never got to go to the Grand Canyon, you know? We never got to go visit our hometown again. We never got to tour Europe."

"It's not too late to do those things," Rayne pointed out, pulling the blanket close around her shoulders. "Once we sort whatever this is-"

Crystal was shaking her head, and Rayne's voice trailed off when she saw tears welling up in her sister's oddly bright blue eyes.

Grey, Lillian, and Rayne all felt an odd sinking feeling in their chest. They exchanged concerned glances, but no one could find the voice to ask the question weighing on their hearts.

Luckily, she didn't make them wait long. Crystal looked up suddenly, exhaled a shaky breath, and extended one hand from the blanket to point toward the fog. "It's finished."

The sinuous unknowable creature in the fog twitched its many fins and tendrils, bringing all its coils together into one big Gordian knot of inconceivable nonsense. Then the whole thing surged, diving into...

The air?

The ground?

Space?

A point beyond the fog, vanishing into nothingness. Once the last trailing tendril was out of sight, the fog began to gather as well, rushing around the house to follow after the strange creature. Waves of mist, undulating and twisting into deceptively solid-looking shapes that twisted and churned around the house and its property, colors appearing between gaps in the waves filled with shapes and blurry figures that took one's breath away to stare at for too long.

"There's no earthly way of knowing, which direction we are going," Crystal sang softly, as colors and lights flashed through the mist in strange, pulsing patterns.

"There's no knowing where we're rowing, or which way the river's flowing," Grey continued, half-singing and half-laughing incredulously at the whole situation.

"Is it raining? Is it snowing? Is a hurricane a-blowing?" Rayne picked up while an odd shiver traced down her spine.

"More than a speck of light is showing though," Lillian muttered, ending their Willy Wonka reference before it went too far. "So is the danger growing or not?"

"Yes and no," Crystal whispered, pulling her blanket up over her head as a makeshift hood.

After more than half an hour, the last of the fog and lights and strange shapes finally surged forward to disappear into the same mysterious point of space as the unknowable creature.

With their view of the surroundings beyond the property fence no longer obscured, Grey, Lillian, and Rayne all turned as one to stare wordlessly at Crystal, who had a sad, wry smile on her face. As they struggled to find words, a single snowflake drifted down and landed gently on the tip of Rayne's nose.

Grey sneezed, disturbing a flurry of flakes that threatened to land upon his shoulders, and the rest took it as a signal to run inside as fast as their suddenly cold bare feet could carry them.

-----

"What is that?" Rayne asked, pointing toward the largest front-facing living room window which was rapidly being covered by a thick layer of frost.

Crystal, wedged on a sofa seat between Grey and Lillian, stared up at her sister with innocent puppy-dog eyes. "A window? Or the window seat?"

"Don't sass me, young lady!" Rayne groaned, dramatically sweeping back the curtains and gesturing toward the window again. "I meant on the other side! Beyond the fence! What is that nonsense?!"

"Ahaha..." Crystal laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck. Grey grabbed her arm and pinned it to her side, while Lillian did the same with the other arm.

"No avoiding us, this time! I knew things were getting weird but that's beyond weird, Crystal!" Grey's voice cracked mid-sentence, echoing the panic building in everyone's hearts.

"I only know a little, really!" Crystal muttered, carefully avoiding their heated gazes. "Not much more than you all probably guessed. I know why I had the seizure, and kinda what that creature was doing, though not what it exactly was cuz I don't think it even has a name as we conceive of them..."

"How about you start with what you do know," Lillian said, pointing toward the window to echo Rayne's earlier gesture.

"Like what in the world is THAT!?" Rayne gazed past the frosted glass and rubbed her upper arms, the chill in her body having nothing to do with the sudden drop in temperature, or the snow falling to gently coat their property in a blanket of soft white powder.

Just a day before, they'd hiked through a lovely, dense, deciduous forest thick with life. But what waited on the other side of the fence once the fog cleared was certainly not green North American woodland in the midst of summer. Snow fell gently from the skies, large snowflakes working to bury everything beneath a blanket of white, and the trees...

The trees beyond the property fence were massive, gargantuan even - the smallest had trunks that looked to be at least thirty feet in diameter, labyrinthine crowns of branches reaching toward the snowing clouds, dripping with icicles where foliage was absent. Crystal and Rayne were from the western coast of the US, where they spent plenty of time among redwood trees as children, yet the trees outside were much taller and wider than they'd ever seen.

For the trees still clinging to their foliage despite the bitter cold outside, the leaves visible were dusky shades of blue and purple instead of familiar greens. A roughshod dirt path led away from the forest down a field of gently rolling hills, toward a port town nestled in the basin of a small valley surrounded by mountains on one side and a frigid steely gray ocean on the other, which they could see clearly from the living room thanks to their new location.

Their house and its property looked exactly the same, but it was all situated halfway toward the top of a rocky mountain wedged between the end of the mountain range and the lengthy shoreline. On the section of beach closest to their forest, large white creatures that resembled giant plesiosaurs were laying on rocky outcroppings, heedless of the icy waves splashing their enormous bodies.

A wide stream broken only by a single cobbled bridge was visible from the front porch, winding through the trees and presumably turning into the wide river that eventually bisected the distant town before escaping into a natural harbor. Several ships dotted the horizon, white sails like puffy clouds against the cloudy sky, bobbing to and fro in the choppy waves.

It was definitely not the view they enjoyed before going to bed the night before. The trees alone were alarming, but the creatures on the beach in the distance were what Rayne had pointed one shaky finger at.

"Where the hell are we?" Rayne hissed, but Grey just laughed, a hint of hysteria in his voice.

"Another world, obviously!"

"No shit?!"

"What, you think there's any beaches on Earth that just have plesiosaurs vibing on an arctic beach?" Grey turned to Crystal and waggled his eyebrows to distract from the trembling of his shoulders. "It's another world, right? We're not on Earth, right?"

Crystal laughed, nervously twisting her fingers together. "Aha, yeah, well... You're right. It's not the arctic though, it's just early winter..."

"Can you explain a bit more than that?" Rayne asked, struggling to keep her voice calm while her sister hesitantly nodded.

"Okay, it's just... It's kind of an out there explanation?"

"This is kind of an out there situation, so..."

"That's fair, but... My seizure, see, was... I was having... I got a bunch of information. Just, like, downloaded into my brain I guess, and it's still taking me awhile to sort through some of it."

"And you're sure this information you... Received... Is legit?"

"Sure as I can be about anything right now."

"Valid."

"Bear with me, alright?" Crystal glanced around, waiting for everyone to nod before continuing. "Okay, so... I need you guys to imagine a field of flowers."

"What?" Rayne said, turning away from the window to arch an incredulous eyebrow.

"I said to bear with me! Imagine a field of flowers, and it's the most perfect field for flowers that you can think of. Rich, fertile soil. A clear babbling brook nearby. Warm weather, but not too hot. Lots of butterflies and bees. And little creatures that maybe sometimes nibble a few flowers, but also clear out all the harmful weeds. It's basically flower paradise."

"Alright..."

"Now imagine a huge breeze sweeps through the field, and carries a bunch of seeds far away. They're taken out of the paradise, but manage to set root somewhere really nice. But then once they're grown, then their own seeds are taken by the wind again. Over and over, further and further from that beautiful field... Until one generation ends up on the edge of a desert."

"A desert?"

"The edge of one. Where the soil is semi-arid, the sun is harsh, and even the wind is hot and unforgiving. Rain rarely falls, but somehow these seeds still manage to survive. They plant their roots deep and they endure. It's nowhere close to their ideal environment, but it's all they've ever known. And then one day someone comes along and digs up a few of the plants from the edge of the desert, and takes them to be replanted where the rain is gentle and the soil is rich. It's not the meadow paradise of their ancestors, but it's infinitely better than anything those flowers had ever known."

"So we're the flowers?" Lillian muttered, tapping her chin, and Crystal nodded.

"Yeah. Our ancestors at some point migrated through the Veil to-"

"The what?"

"The Veil. Endless worlds beyond worlds, separated by this thing, this being or deity or construct called the Veil, which I... I don't really understand it, I just know it's important and kinda weird. It keeps the... Worlds? Universes? Planes? All safely separated and compartmentalized. Connected, yet disconnected at the same time."

"Ah, kind of like the Veil in folklore. Avalon, Tir Na nÓg, or Tartarus! Places next to our reality, yet a different space all its own!" Grey muttered excitedly, his eyes sparkling.

"Yeah, exactly."

"Our ancestors moved through this Veil a bunch of times and ended up on Earth?" Rayne scoffed, but considering everything that'd happened that morning, she wasn't ready to entirely laugh it off. "We're aliens? Or fairies? For real?"

"Yes? No. I mean, they were aliens when they moved to Earth? But we were born there so we're Earth native and not aliens. We're still human though, not fairies as we understand them, but... I mean, what we understand humans to be are already pretty weird creatures... Earth humans are very different from humans in other worlds, I think? That's the impression I got from my... Ugh, visions." Crystal cringed, as though the very word felt embarrassing to say aloud. She was always uncomfortable with her ability, since she often questioned her own sanity and the validity of what she saw, so admitting they were genuine supernatural visions with definitive language was something she usually avoided.

Seeing her sister openly acknowledge her own visions made Rayne furrow her brow, but she didn't point it out, and instead voiced a question. "And that creature thing is the one that replanted us... Wherever we are, now?"

"Mmm... Sorta. It lured us to the house because it was a thin point in the Veil, and we just happened to be extra susceptible to its call because of our bloodlines. It was a subconscious pull, the interest we all had in the house, and the... The desire to stay awhile."

"And why did it do that?"

"To eat our bonds."

Rayne grimaced. "Our... What?"

"That... Creature. The Eater. It doesn't eat physical matter, so we weren't in real danger. It eats things that would be intangible from our perspective, and its favorite are bonds. Our ties to Earth. Our connection to that reality, that plane of existence. We, uh... Even if we found a way to cross the Veil again, we... We can never go back to Earth." Crystal braced herself as the other three sharply inhaled through their teeth. Lillian stifled a brief sob, pressing her fingers to her lips, while Grey clenched his hands into fists and pressed them firmly into his shaking knees.

"We can't go home?" Grey whispered. "Like... Ever? For sure?"

Crystal's slow, affirming nod made tears spring to Lillian's eyes, and she covered her face with her hands. "Oh no... Oh no!"

Rayne swore softly under her breath. The weight in her chest had yet to settle. She thought of her boyfriend back home, their slightly rocky but precious relationship, and could tell by the look on his ashen face that Grey was remembering his own lover.

Lillian, meanwhile, clutched one of the sofa's throw pillows to her chest and continued to sob quietly. "Mom... Dad...! They'll be so worried!"

"No, they won't."

The soft whisper had everyone turn to Crystal again, but she avoided their gazes while her own swam behind a curtain of tears. "Crystal," Rayne said, intending to speak softly, only to wince when her sister's name rolled off her tongue like a curse.

"They," Crystal began, wringing her hands together until her knuckles were stark white. "They... Won't remember us. None of them. I told you, our... Our bonds were eaten."

"It ate... Their memories of us!?" Grey snapped, raising his voice for the second time that day. Crystal flinched, but nodded.

Rayne let out a shaky breath, covering her eyes with one hand. "Thank God."

"What!?" Grey snapped, jumping to his feet. "How could you-"

"Thank God!" Lillian echoed, her voice muffled from behind the throw pillow. Grey turned on her, but she kept going. "Thank God they won't realize we're missing. Thank God they won't worry about us, spending the rest of their life wondering where we... Thank goodness!"

Grey visibly deflated, falling back onto the sofa with a soft grunt. "Oh. Yeah, that's... Yeah."

"I'm sorry," Crystal said, tears rolling down her cheeks. She flinched again when Grey draped his arm over her shoulders, and Lillian reached over to hold her hand. "I'm so sorry, I..."

"It's not your fault!" Rayne said, flopping down in the nearest armchair and kicking up the foot rest.

"It might as well be! I could tell change was coming, that it was something weird and something big, and I just..."

"You told us, and we all stayed at the house anyway thanks to... What, the Eater's call? It's not like any of us could see this coming, you know? Going to another world..." Rayne trailed off, her furrowed brow once more raising until her eyebrows threatened to disappear into her hairline. "Wait, if we're in another world... Why does the electricity work?"

Grey and Lillian both froze, then slowly turned their face to look up at the living room light, gently illuminating the room with its glow. Then they all turned to look at Crystal, who rubbed her cheek against Grey's shoulder to wipe off tears since her own nightgown was sleeveless.

"It's an echo."

"Gonna have to give us more than that, Coco."

"The house. It's an echo of the house on Earth. Like a... A metaphysical reflection. The light works because it worked on Earth. The hot tap will make hot water because it's supposed to. The stove will work because it's supposed to. And because it's an echo... Anything viewed as damage will be restored overnight. New plants will grow, we can bring stuff in or add on to the house. But the base line condition will always remain the same."

"No leaky roof? Ever?!" Grey said with more enthusiasm than Rayne could muster for the situation, and Crystal nodded.

"Toilet won't stay clogged more than a day. Nothing will stain. And..." Crystal began, then paused with a strange expression on her face.

"What?" Grey said, leaning against her side. "And what?"

"The food and blankets and toilet paper, everything that was within the fence the instant we opened the front door. It counts as part of the property, so its loss counts as damage. If you want, you can check the fridge. Everything we used for the barbecue last night is back."

"Thank you dear God in Heaven for this bounteous gift of eternal butt paper and free testosterone refills." Grey whispered, holding his hands together in a praying gesture and glancing toward the ceiling while the others laughed. "Wait... Does that mean our phones will never break? All the stuff we carried in our backpacks and the handcart?"

"Yeah. They're part of the house so they'll physically reset every night but it allows for certain conditional changes based on an item's function... We can write on paper in the books or notebooks and it won't be undone overnight, leftovers in a dish won't vanish, stuff like that. So like, new photos can be saved."

"What good does that do?" Lillian grumbled. "Not like we can use them for calling anyone."

"Joke's on you Lils, I've got music and games and books on mine!"

"Mine too."

"Same here. Movies too."

Lillian gaped at everyone, then threw her hands in the air. "I mean, yeah! I do too! But that's not-"

"We gotta be happy for the little things right now Lils," Grey said, flapping the hand still draped around Crystal's shoulders to pat his twin's arm. "Small victories."

"Is there anything else?" Rayne asked reluctantly, almost afraid of hearing the answer. And seeing the look on Crystal's face, she knew she was right to be concerned. "Alright, spill it."

"Um, well... Our powers are real."

"I beg your pardon?"

"They're real." Crystal smiled wryly, knocking her knuckles against the side of her head. "I know we all love and believe in supernatural stuff, but we also sometimes question whether it's really real or us just seeing what we wanna see in a bunch of interconnected coincidences, you know? Or if it's mental illness manifesting in one way or another, you all know my... My feelings on that one, particularly. But uh... No, they're real. My... My visions are real. The way I... Know things is real. And...

"We're not in the metaphysical desert of Earth anymore. This world has the equivalent of decent soil, clean water, favorable weather." Crystal held out her hands, her smile slowly growing into a more genuine grin. "Our powers manifested without any resources to feed them, in an environment almost perfected to suppress supernatural abilities, but this world is different, closer to our ideal environment. How much stronger do you think we'll get now?"

[quinn-in-amsterdam]

Alone with You || Fabrale

Tagging: Quinn Fabray & Derek Hale When: May 24, 2018 Where:: Derek’s house Notes: Quinn and Derek talk about their pasts. TW: Discussion about murder, cheating, and death.

Derek 

Telling Quinn had been a huge weight off of Derek's shoulders. But it also meant that one of the only reasons for him to be apart from her, time he spent talking to Laura or shifted, was completely gone. And if he hadn't had his head firmly jammed up her ass before, he certainly did now. Derek knew that she was inside when he was still halfway down the walk, head raising, and he jogged the rest of the way inside, pinpointing her and shucking his sweat-stained shirt. "Made yourself at home?"

Quinn 

In the kitchen Quinn placed a toasted bagel on a plate and set cream cheese and jelly next to it. When Derek entered she could see the shirt practically peel off his body. “Haven’t has a chance to do that before. I thought it would be a practice run for whenever I decide to move in.” She want over to him and laid a hand on his damp, cook skin and kissed Derek’s heated lips. “Since you have such a love for bagels, I brought you one.”

Derek 

When she decided to move in. An eventuality, instead of a possibility. The thought made him settle in, resting a hand against her back when she kissed him so that she couldn't pull away so soon. The other hand dropped his shirt on the floor and made to press against the side of her face. "Have you eaten?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned. "Only makes sense that I'm able to return the favor."

Quinn 

Both hands immediately went to Derek’s chest and she tried to wiggle away from him. “Oh God. You’re sweaty, Derek. And my clothes will reek of your sweat.” There was laughter with this though she didn’t want to stink later. “I had a smoothie before I came over.” She said, declaring defeat and wrapping both arms around him. “You want to cook breakfast for me?”

Derek 

"Hey, you're the one who came over to me. Am I supposed to be keeping my arms at my sides, here?" He pressed in against her when she finally gave up, and he pressed a kiss against her forehead. "Why, what are you doing today that you don't want to smell like the inside of a gym sock?" He pulled away enough to look at her. "Absolutely. I'm going to eat that bagel, but you need more than a smoothie. Something with protein."

Quinn 

“I wanted to say good morning to my boyfriend. Next time you come in, clammy to the touch, I will wave at you from across the room.” Quinn’s nails dug into his sides, teasing him with them. “I will love to watch you cook while shirtless but if you run out to grab a rabbit to cook I’m out of here.”

Derek 

"Well, this way we get to shower together. Really, this all seems like some sort of convoluted plan to get into the shower with me. You know that all you have to do is ask."  He jumped back when she tickled against his sides, hypersensitive to it, and the fear emerged in his eyes to have one of his vulnerable spots revealed like that. "How do you feel about eggs and sausage?"

Quinn 

“I do like when we shower together. It’s not my fault one of us is in need of them so often.” She enjoyed his reaction and knew this was one to remember for when he was difficult. “How do you prepare your eggs? Do you have turkey sausage?” She couldn’t give a simple answer...

Derek 

"It's not my fault that you get me sweaty." He let that linger in the air, but eventually shook his head, knowing that he was being ridiculous. He was keeping his elbows tightly contained into his sides now, eyes flicking to her hands every so often so that she couldn't get the jump on her. "However you want. And I can run down to the corner store."

Quinn 

Quinn’s head lowered slightly, eyes on him with a you-can’t-be-serous expression before a bit of a scoffing laugh escaped. “Is that so?” The smile gave away how flattered she is. Quinn’s hands went to Derek’s back now and she drummed her fingertips while he spoke. “Very well. I won’t be too difficult by requesting an egg white scramble with diced tomatoes, spinach and peppers. Only letting you know for next time. I will like turkey sausage, an English muffin and fruit salad with a cup of low fat yogurt. I’ll make coffee here.” Now to see if he’ll actually put this together for her or not.

Derek 

Derek hesitated, pulling away from her so that he could go to the fridge. Ordinarily, it would be a lot of chicken ready to be de-skinned and baked, salmon, and green vegetables, but he'd diversified a little bit with a second person in the house. He triumphantly pulled out each ingredient in turn and set to work, first grabbing his plate and taking a bite of the bagel, dipped hurriedly in the cream cheese. "What would have been too difficult?"

Quinn 

She went to the counter and leaned a hip against it, forearm on the counter top while she shook her head in disbelief. “I’m surprised. And impressed. Maybe a little turned on, too. Do you typically eat this kind of food.” Quinn picked up the fruit and went to the sink to wash them. “The scrambled eggs. It’s a pain the separate the yolk.”

Derek 

Derek just shook his head. "You underestimate me." He got down a small mixing bowl, then dug out an almost empty water bottle from the fridge. He drained it, and popped the eggs one by one out of the bowl by squeezing the water bottle against them and letting the yolk fill the vacuum. "I hate tomatoes. And I prefer chard to spinach."

Quinn 

“I’ve seen this done before but never tried it in my own.” She said after the fruit was placed into a bowl and set to the side. “Who taught you how to cook?” Her hands dried on a small towel and she gathered the vegetables. “I’ve never had chard with eggs before. I’ll give them a try. Why don’t you like tomatoes?” After she asked this Quinn realized there was still a lot to learn about Derek. “I don’t like the taste of raw mushrooms. Cooked is fine.”

Derek 

"Oh, no, not in eggs. Just in general. Eggs, I go for ketchup or a little bit of bleu or goat cheese. Depending on the mood." He went over to wash his hands quickly, and fished out a pan when he came back. "My dad taught me how to cook. Five kids. I spent all the time with him that I could get my hands on. Especially because he really didn't know the first thing about sports, and I was the sporty kid." He started up dicing the peppers on a little cutting board. "I hate tomatoes. I love pico. I love ketchup. I hate red sauces, like pizza and pasta sauces. I have no way of justifying this. I hate cooked mushrooms. Raw is fine. I'm not making this up."

Quinn

Once everything was finished she went back to the counter and brought herself up to sit and watch while Derek prepared breakfast. “So you and your dad would cook for a family of werewolves? Were the meals a ridiculous amount of food? Just from speaking to Carter alone I see how big a werewolf’s appetite can be.” Quinn’s fingers trailed through her hair and she had to take that moment to give Derek a playful poke with her toe. “You’re more of a pain in the ass when it comes to food than me.”

Derek 

"The meals were insane." Derek used the blade of the knife to get all of the vegetables into the pan with just a little bit of oil to get some color on them, and he threw the tomatoes in a minute or so later, before he added the eggs. "Especially with my mom as an alpha. I still watch Laura put away way more food than even Carter can. And part of Carter's appetite is definitely just Carter." He poked her back, aiming for her stomach. "When you're in shape, they don't call it picky. They call it disciplined."

Quinn 

“And your dad? He was human wasn’t he? Or did he get turned by an Alpha?” Quinn hoped she remembered this correctly as she wanted to understand and follow everything Derek told her. “Well, your cousin eats a lot then. He talked about McDonalds and this steak house which has an all you can eat special. I mentioned the three of us should go together. Give me a chance to meet him in person.” Quinn recoiled from the poke and batted at his hand. “No. I’m calling it picky.”

Derek 

"My dad stayed human, yeah." He smiled a little bit at how she had remembered. "Supposedly didn't take it quite so much in stride when he found out. But the timeline between the wedding and Laura is a little sketchy, so he probably didn't have the same luxury of decision making." He worked on scrambling the eggs, working through it all with a rubber spatula. "He does eat a lot. And I think that's a great idea. Let me know what he says." He grabbed for her hand, reflexes quick, and pressed a kiss against the back of it. "I can put mushrooms in this right now."

Quinn 

Quinn was glad to see she remembered correctly and smiled happily at this. “So it’s not unusual for a human and a werewolf to get married and have children? Because, and I’m being honest, I don’t know if I can be one.” They’ve been up front and honest about everything and Quinn wanted to get this out in the open. She reached out and tugged on Derek’s shirt to pull him to stand between her legs. “In a moment.” Her hand passed through his hair and she leaned forward to kiss his lips.

Derek 

"It's not uncommon at all." He kissed her, hands placed on her legs, and he couldn't even bring his face away when he pulled back. "I don't know if I even want you to take the bite. It's dangerous. And I... I like you just the way you are." He nudged their noses together, suddenly conscious of what he'd said to Carter the other day, about how being with Quinn made him feel fifteen years old. "...So, you know how Punnett squares work?" An insanely idiotic question from someone who had last taken biology in tenth grade to someone with an M.S., approaching a doctorate.(edited)

Quinn 

“You mean if I ever decide to take the bite you won’t like me as much?” She teased, kissing him again before giving Derek a swat on the arm: light and playful. “I know how distracting I can be but if you burn my eggs I’ll whine. A lot.” She kissed his nose. Something cutesy and unlike her but it was easy to do with him. “Vaguely. I haven’t looked at one in awhile.” The question was out of left field though she was curious what was on his mind.May 17, 2018

Derek 

"It would be one of the most worrying things that ever happened to me. But if it was what you decided to do, I'd support you." His attention went back to the stove, and he stirred the eggs around a bit to make sure thst they were evenly cooked before throwing them onto a plate. "So, I have one, dominant werewolf gene. And you don't. So there's a 25% chance any kid we had would be human. Also terrifying."

Quinn 

“Why would it worry you?” She expected a smart ass response but was greeted with this instead. Quinn slid off the counter and turned around to gather small bowls for the fruit salad. “That’s better than a 0% chance.” She scooped out the fruit and set it to the side before she went to warm water in the electric kettle she brought from her house. “Then the chance we may have one human kid isn’t completely written off.” Soon the French press had fresh coffee grounds, ready for the hot water. “Why is that terrifying?” Quinn was in her head, wondering if having a human child would make her more attached to the others but she knew her was ridiculous; so Derek’s last sentence didn’t register until later.

Derek 

"Because there's a chance that the bite doesn't take, and that you would die a horrific and painful death," Derek said, and he didn't seem to be aware of how he was gripping the counter, tendons on his hand extremely prominent. "...Would you not want a child who was a werewolf? I think it would be terrifying because human children get hurt. And sick. I broke four ribs and punctured a lung once and I was up and playing the next day."

Quinn 

This took time to sink in and Quinn, who kept by the kettle looked to him. “Are there people who willingly take the bite, knowing those consequences?” While she asked her hand went to her cross to fidget, unaware of this until a few beats later. Quinn turned the kettle off and poured the hot water in. “I know I’ll love all our children, Derek but I do have concerns when it comes to mothering werewolves. I mean. You just said you broke ribs and punctured a lung. That would give me a heart attack.”

Derek 

Derek nodded, and he finally glanced down at his hands. He pulled away fron the countertop altogether. "There are. And even the... vast majority of people who got it violently are fine. But some..." he shook his head, and turned to lean against the counter. "Human children break ribs and puncture lungs too. They spend weeks in the hospital for it."

Quinn 

“Weeks compared to a day is a major difference. Did you even see the inside of a doctor’s office?” Quinn pushed the plunger down slowly and went to Derek and wrapped her arms around his body. “I’m used to certain things, such as people having children who are 100% children and not dying from alpha bites. Please don’t take my inquiries as me dismissing who you are. It hasn’t even been a full week since you told me about all of this so, of course, I need to adjust. I love you and want us to have our life together. The one we’ve been planning since the start.”

Derek 

"It was a veterinary clinic." He paused, because he knew that she was going to have some things to say about that, and he pointed a finger into her face. "Which is something very typical for our pack, because our emissary was a vet, and he saw us in his vet practice, not because werewolves and vets are a thing." But any sass that he had died, and his eyebrows came together as he listened to her. "...I told you you love me."

Quinn 

Before she could get a word in Derek went into a quick explanation and it still had her wanting to say more about it, “Why did your emissary pick that as his job? I mean, I can see it works because you don’t have to deal with paperwork or people asking questions.” Her mind went to how she read stories where people who didn’t want to deal with the law visited veterinarians instead. “And there it goes. It went straight to your head.” Her arms raised and she draped them around his neck. “Instead of saying it back you pulled an I told you so. Fitting for us.”

Derek 

"He's a druid first. It's a species. Like werewolves or fae or antelopes. They hold all kinds of jobs. Deaton just happened to be a vet. His sister was a guidance counselor. All kinds of jobs." His hands made his way to her back, and he pulled a slow smile. "I love you too. Eat your eggs."

Quinn 

“Fae? You mean to tell me fairies are real? How about vampires?” This was a serious question though it felt funny to come out of her. Quinn wondered for the fourth or sixth time since Derek revealed his secret if she was dreaming. “A Druid vet and guidance counselor. It’s not at all what I expected but it’s easier to hide in plain sight.” The smile said it all but Quinn didn’t give one in return. “You still haven’t cooked my sausage or put my yogurt in a bowl.” She didn’t need any of these but it was what they did. Anchored against him Quinn rose on her toes and kissed his lips.

Derek 

"You think that werewolves are real and fairies aren't? Every country in the world has mythology about the fae. Ghosts aren't real, at least as far as I know. Vampires... I guess it depends on what you think of when you think of a vampire. There are bat shifters. There are Lilitu. Two totally different things." He haplily returned the kiss, tucking a hand under her butt and supporting her a little bit. "I will go down to the store and get some."

Quinn 

“I don’t know what’s real and what’s fake anymore. Until a week ago I thought werewolves were a work of fiction but now I know that’s so far from the truth. And I have to laugh because it would be like me to fall in love with one since I’ve not had the best of luck with the men I’ve dated.” Even though two of those breakups were her doing. Which was something she knew she needed to disclose at some point. Someday... “I’ll have you go to the store later. The eggs will be cold by then and I’ll want you to make them again.” She kissed his chest and pulled away from him. “The coffee is ready. I think I’ll take cream and sugar in mine today. I feel indulgent.”

Derek 

The cream had to be opened, foil peeled back from it when he took it out of the fridge. He'd bought it just for her, and carefully added enough so that the color approximately matched how he had seen her take her coffee many times before, and then he added some sugar, taking the mug and the plate of eggs to the table. He sat down with the bagel, taking another happy bite. "You say werewolf like it's a character flaw."

Quinn 

Quinn thought back to what she said, bowls of fruit salad in hand as she went to set it on the table. “No. It’s not a flaw.” She didn’t think she made it sound like one. Quinn set one bowl down on Derek’s side of the table before she took a seat. With fork in hand she went ahead and gathered some egg but didn’t bring it to her mouth. “Trust me. If I thought it’s a flaw I wouldn’t be here.”

Derek 

"You don't accept flaws in your potential partners?" Derek quirked an eyebrow, but the same smile as always was being fought back on his face. "You made it sound like this was something that you were used to. Deadbeat boyfriend, Asshole boyfriend, werewolf boyfriend. The latest in the chain of Quinn's unfortunate life choices." He ripped off another piece of the bagel, scraping up half the jelly as he went.

Quinn 

“No, Derek. I expect the people I date to be as flawless as me.” She placed the food into her mouth and chewed the scrambled eggs slowly while she looked at him. “Why do I get the impression you’re saying these things to rile me up? Don’t you dare list yourself as someone I consider a mistake because I will go over there and take the last of that bagel. Then smack you.”

Derek 

"So long as you don't smack me with the bagel, I think we're going to be okay. Though, I think I still need a shower. What do you think?" He was still absolutely shimmering with sweat after his jog, and there was still a full order of bodyweight exercises for him to get through before he would even get to the bathroom. "I mean, I think, comparatively, I'm pretty flawless."

Quinn 

“On second thought I’ll stay here. I can’t smell you.” She laughed and went for another forkful of the eggs. “I think you should have showered as soon as you walked through the front door. And you’re not flawless. You’re a pain in the ass.” As soon as she said this Quinn laughed, lowering the fork onto the plate to cover her mouth. “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?”

Derek 

"A pair is one word for us." Derek ducked his head to hide his smile, tearing off another hunk of bagel with his teeth, just picking it up with his hands this time and going for it. "Yeah, but then you get to see me not holding back on doing push ups. If I towel off, will you sit on my back?"

Quinn 

Quinn moved from the eggs to her small bowl of fruit, and she glanced at Derek after the suggestion was made. “I’ve only seen you run and collide with bikes so I don’t know how you held back before.” Something clicked just then. “Your sense of smell, sight and hearing are heightened yet you were still too distracted by me the afternoon you ran into the bike? Was it my scent or seeing me from a distance which caught your attention?”

Derek 

Derek hadn't expected to be called out like this before he'd finished his breakfast, and he gave a small cough. He was silent for a couple of beats. "I... was distracted the same way that any red-blooded man would be distracted to be seeing you doing yoga in the park like that. I might be a werewolf, but I'm not a monster." 

Quinn 

There was still fruit left but Quinn abandoned it for the time being and went over to Derek. She stood behind him and lowered, wrapping her arms around his neck, loosely and lowering down to hug him. Quinn kissed the side of his cheek and smiled against it. “So I turned you on in public?” She had to ask instead of leaving it alone.

Derek 

Derek turned back a little, just so that he could see Quinn out of the corner of his eye. The littlest rumble came from his throat. "Turned me on is a bit of a strong word, wouldn't you say?" But he wasn't denying it. He couldn't get to the right angle where he could kiss her from the chair, but he wasn't willing to disturb the grip she had on him.

Quinn 

To give him a bit of a hard time, Quinn shifted over and went to Derek’s other cheek; kissing it a few times and had to fight back a laugh with what was said. “Then how would you put it because what you said before made me think you pictured me sexually even before you knew my name.” Her breasts pressed against the back of his shoulders and as much as she teased about Derek needing to shower after his run, she didn’t actually mind how sweaty he got. 

Derek 

"No one said that it was sexual." He knew that he was fighting a losing war here, but he wasn't going to go down without having given his best. He finally turned around to the side in the chair, bringing her down to kiss him on the lips. It lasted for a few beats before turning back. "What did you think of me, besides that I was an idiot?"

Quinn 

"How can it not be sexual when you said red-blooded man. It leads me to view it as you wanted to have a go at me while I was in the middle of one of my positions." She teased, sitting close to him now she was on his lip. Quinn's hand went to the back of Derek's neck and she leaned in to kiss but merely brushed their noses together. "That was it. You nailed it." He hadn't but why should Quinn give away what her actual thoughts were, doing her best to keep her heart rate low because she didn't need her boyfriend to call out her lie. 

Derek 

Derek felt a little robbed when he wasn't kissed, but he leaned up to meet her lips anyway, after the soft touch of her nose. "Was I at least an attractive idiot?" he asked, touching at her wrist. It was a subtle way to get a better read on her heart, pressed up against te skin like that.

Quinn 

She shrugged a shoulder and said, “An alright looking idiot is more like it.” Quinn slipped her wrist away from his hand and went to stand which only lasted a second as she changed her position to straddle his lap. “You may have been distracted when you ran into the bike-“ Quinn’s forearms fell upon his shoulders and her fingers caressed the sides of Derek’s bearded cheeks, “but when I went to check how you and the bicyclist were you must have heard and sensed my reaction to you.” She spoke so easily about one of his abilities, as if everyone could do this. “I couldn’t stop looking at you. The way you had your arms on full display...it made me want to touch you.”

Derek 

"See, I'm gathering so much data from this." He wrapped his hands around her, reaching around so that he could pop the very last of his bagel into his mouth. "For example, I didn't know that your eyes went right to my arms. I can just do curls until I die. I never need to do a sit-up again." He pursed his lips just a little to fight off his smile. "What if everyone reacts like that to me? What if I just block it out?"

Quinn 

“Don’t you dare stop working out the rest of your body. I expect all of this to be in top shape.” Quinn leaned back and dragged her hands down his chest. How was it he still felt damp from sweat? Quinn’s hands pushed underneath his shirt and touched the skin of Derek’s stomach. “You better keep blocking it out because I’m the only one that matters.” He was so cocky and it made her smile because she liked when he acted this way.

Derek 

"Only the best for you, my love." He was a little surprised with himself at how quick the pet name rolled off of his tongue. He groaned against the contact, half expecing the scrape of her nails against one of the few vulnerable spots on his body. "Possessive?"

Quinn 

“Did you call me possessive?” She knew he did, nails scraped along his skin while her gaze was on his. “Maybe I am. I place the blame on you.” Her nails went upwards and she laid her palms flat against Derek’s chest; the shirt material collected at her wrists so she could peek down at his body whenever she wanted.

Derek 

The second he felt the contact from the nails, he felt an irrational feeling of closeness towards her, because he just knew her so well, felt so connected to her that moment that he had to kiss her, something hard and, yes, possessive curling up inside of him. "Victim blaming. I feel the same way, though."

Quinn 

When the kiss came, Quinn fell back momentarily and felt the press of the table against her lower back. It was hard and hungry, a combination which thrilled her. Quinn’s hand curled just enough to scratch his skin; intentionally doing it this time. “How are you the victim?” She asked breathlessly. “I want everyone to know you’re mine.” She didn’t know where this came from or why she said it but she felt that need for him to hear it. “You can wear a shirt which says Quinn’s boyfriend on it.”

Derek 

Derek stood up now that he had Quinn against the table, lifting her up the littlest bit until she was resting on top of it. His skin healed quickly over her touch, not even able to leave a mark long enough to see it, as her fingernails would be blocking the way until it was able to heal. "Where are we going to get a shirt like that? And I think we have those in this culture. That's a wedding ring."

Quinn 

Up on the table she looked behind her and moved some items out of the way but was interrupted halfway through the clearing. “True. Or a tattoo.” She didn’t anticipate this and thought it over. “You and I both know a proposal is coming. We’ve been talking about our future like a couple people who don’t want to bother with the dating norms.” Her hands went to Derek’s shirt and she pulled it up.

Derek 

"I'd get another tattoo, but I have to get it physically burned onto my body with a flamethrower." That knowledge might bring to light the one that was already on his back, and maybe illuminate the lack of detailing or color that really went into it. "You're going to propose to me?" he raised his arms, letting the shirt fall to the floor. "That's so sweet. I was a round diamond the size of a ring pop."

Quinn 

“A flamethrower? Are you serious? Why would it take that to get a tattoo?” Quinn’s hands rested in his hips, thinking of the black symbol on his back. “It’s so neat and precise...” she whispered to herself about it. “I have a tattoo. I cover it with makeup everyday to keep from being reminded of it.” Then, with a soft laugh and shake of her head. “You’re too high maintenance, Mr. Hale. I can’t keep up with your luxurious taste.” 

Derek 

"A flamethrower. My skin heals around the ink. My body has a lot of compensatory measures in place to eject poison. But if you burn something into it, it tends to keep the shape. You might need to get it touched up over time." Hie eyebrows went up, and he grabbed her arm, looking over it. "You have a tattoo? Quinn, I've seen your entire body. What are you talking about? And... fine. If you think so, I'll have to take matters into my own hands."

Quinn 

“You do know how ridiculous that sounds don’t you? Not that I don’t believe you and don’t even try to demonstrate it because I doubt I’ll be able to stomach it.” She said, clearly in disbelief. There was so much to take in with what Derek was capable of, how different their bodies were. “I use-“ her hand went up to smooth his raised eyebrows and laughed. “I use some expensive tattoo concealer. I don’t like seeing it as it’s a reminder of a not so great time of my life.”

Derek 

Derek did relax his eyebrows, but he was still looking around at Quinn's skin for evidence of any little patch of makeup. He seemed increasingly displeased when he couldn't find anything. "I know. Everything that I say sounds ridiculous. It's not common for werewolves to get tattoos. Mine's special." He scented at her skin, trying to pick out where a smell of concealer might be coming from.

Quinn 

There he went on the hunt and Quinn wanted to let Derek carry on, giving him the chance to find it but she decided to throw him a bone and stood up, turning around. A hand went to raise the back of her shirt and the faintest indication that there was something there could be spotted. The tattoo wasn’t as dark as Derek’s which made it easier to cover. “I need to get this removed.” She said, leaving the shirt up.  She knew what was coming next and didn’t want to reveal the tattoo to him.

Derek 

Derek grabbed one of the napkins off of the holder on the table, licking it and rubbing at the tattoo. It didn't pull off perfectly, being good enough concealer, but enough that he could vaguely see what it was. That only raised his curiosity, and he worked at it a little more. "Is... Is that Jason Bateman?"

Quinn 

As expected she felt him wipe at the tattoo and Quinn closed her eyes. Everyone from high school knew about the tattoo, which happened during a time when she struggled with her identity and depression which followed giving Beth up. Why she picked that or what made even think it was ironic to begin with. Also the guy turned out to be a scumbag recently and now she had that inked onto her body. “No.” She blew out a breath and said. “Ryan Seacrest.”

Derek 

There were a million questions flooding Derek's mind as he learned the identity of the blobbed face, still mostly covered by the makeup, and he tilted his head to the side a little bit. He walked around so that he could face her properly, and took her hand, kissing the knuckles. "Let's google some tattoo removal clinics."

Quinn 

“I considered going to one but I read it hurts. A lot. I’ve been through child birth and-“ she was about to reveal she had a nose job but was that something he needed to know? Then she might have to talk about her days before she transferred to her high school as a whole new Quinn. Leaving Lucy behind in the past. “I’m only making excuses. She admitted. I hope it doesn’t leave a a scar. It’ll be nice to stop applying this cover up every day.” 

Derek 

"I'll be there to hold your hand." He raised it up a little bit, and squeezed the hand. Maybe it wouldn't be ideal for him to sit there for an hour six times over six weeks, but he was willing to do a lot to make sure that Quinn was happy and comfortable. "We'll find someone really good. We can take our time to research it."

Quinn 

She returned to sit on the table, which wasn’t an ideal spot but it kept her high enough for them to look at each other without hurting her neck. “We’ll see after the first session. It might not be as bad as I painted it.” Quinn pulled him over and and stared at him for a good while before she said, “Sometimes I think I don’t deserve you.” This wasn’t easy to admit and for her to do so wasn’t what she expected to do as she was a rather proud woman. With Derek, however, she found herself giving him that glimpse over the sturdy brick wall she constructed over the years.

Derek 

That had Derek stepping forward, defeating the point of her not having to arch her neck fairly well, and he moved her legs apart just a little bit so that he could stand between them. "...Yeah?" He was quiet for a beat as he debated whether or not to be exactly as vulnerable and cheesy. But it was never a real debate with Quinn. "I feel the exact same way."

Quinn 

With him between her legs, both hands on his bare sides, she drummed her fingers before pressing her forehead to Derek’s shoulder. She needed a moment to compose herself as there was something about this which struck her. “I used to bully people. When I joined the Cheerios, the cheer squad at my high school, and was made head cheerleaders it fueled my need for power. To be on top.” She pulled away from him now and looked up. “I think back on those years and wonder if karma had gotten back at me with everything’s that’s happened.” Her head shook slowly and she dropped her eyes again. Quinn licked her lips and grew quiet. “I don’t see myself as a good person. I’ve been working on it over the years and I’ve talked to my priest about it but I keep thinking that maybe I’m inherently selfish and cold and-“ she took in a breath and scoffed at her own behavior. “mean.” 

Derek 

Derek related to it all in a way that he couldn't even begin to describe to Quinn. He nodded, unable to look away from her eyes until they broke contact with his. He was fighting every instinct to tilt her chin up and regain the connection. She was going to come back to him when she was ready. "You're not a mean person, Quinn." His voice was even, without an ounce of pity. "You're strong, and self-righteous, and independent, and that wasn't a choice for you. You're not going to let other people make you feel less about yourself because of how they're trying to keep you down."

Quinn 

One thing Quinn hated was vulnerability. It was something which developed over the years when she was a little girl who wanted to be taken seriously. In camp, at church, in school. Even at home. It was a constant battle for affection and it wasn’t until she managed to lose a lot of weight and go under the knife, entering McKinley with a new persona, that she got what she’d been chasing. It paid off but it came at a cost, causing her to act in a way which she later regretted. The regret that Derek might be able to get a glimpse of now that she brought her eyes back to his. His understanding warmed her and she thought that maybe he actually did mean it and wasn’t just saying words at her. Which would be a first for him as Derek’s honesty was very prevalent since the beginning. “I won’t. I won’t let anyone do that to me again. I wish I went about it in a different way with certain people.” It took everything inside to not crumble. “You are the best thing to happen to me. My love for you is one I’m completely sure of. You came at a time when I needed someone who can understand where I come from and I hope you feel you’re able to get that with me.” 

Derek 

Derek nodded, and he couldn't even glance away from her, afraid that this open side of her would be completely gone by the time his eyes made their way back. His hands went to her legs, and he grabbed at their sides a little bit, needing to feel her, real and concrete under him as he heard these words. "I love you too." He leaned in so that he could kiss her, though he was fairly quick about it. "I moved to Amsterdam because I needed a change. I was in a rut. I wanted to get away from my old life, and my guilt, and my mistakes, and be a new person."

Quinn 

Her hands went to his shoulders and pushed toward his neck until she comfortably relaxed her arms along the sides of it. “Did it help?” She couldn’t possibly begin to piece together the guilt he must feel, certain it must be something terrible.

Derek 

It was terrible, it was a weight that was never more than a moment or two from his mind, and he looked at her with such a softness in his eyes, such appreciation, that it was wonderful that he could stand with the weight of it. He nodded. "I feel like I have a future."

Quinn 

To take in the look he gave her, it practically swept aside the contempt thoughts which plagued her on a daily basis. “A future together.” She smiled, it small and yet noticeable. Quinn kissed his lips and kept it longer than the one he gave before as she felt the both of them needed this. She pulled back, but kissed his lips a couple more tiles before she stopped completely. “Maybe I need to stop assuming the worse and accept that there is the possibility of a good life. I thought I was destined to be either alone because,” she laughed at what she was about to say, “I don’t think I’m the easiest person to love for the long term. When we’re together I know, without a doubt, you intend to stay with me. Even when I turn into a bitch about things or give you a hard time. Since it’s in my nature.”

Derek 

Derek looked over her face again, one last examining look. She was saying these things, about how she always thought that she would be alone, why she thought so, and... if he had already told her about Kate, about the worst thing that he had ever done, and how she was still here in front of him, Quinn was someone who deserved to know the truth. He took her shoulders lightly, feeling the tone in the air change a bit with the gesture. "...You know how I keep giving you very good reasons to grab the door and run?"

Quinn 

“And I keep proving how stubborn I am by making myself further at home.” She replied, tilting her head to the side. This did cross her mind at times, how she’ll have to keep adjusting to life with him. That she hasn’t been through a full moon with him. Or...she had but didn’t realize it. The night at the club came to mind and Quinn recalled the way he seemed and how he wasn’t happy with what happened to her. Quinn looked at him and waited, keeping quiet about the memory.

Derek 

"Stubborn is one word for it." He sighed, but there was no exasperation behind it. He looked down at her shoulders, his hands, one of the places that they were connected at the moment, because looking at her in the face sometimes felt just like looking at the sun. "I killed someone. A long time ago."

Quinn 

This caused her breath to catch in her throat and Quinn assumption the guilt must be attached to something terrible came to fruition. She was sure he picked up the change in her pulse but what kept her from moving away from him was the way Derek had carried himself with her and everyone he’s been in contact with. He didn’t strike her as some sort of stone-cold killer. “What happened?” She chose to ask. In need of the story.

Derek 

Derek's eyes closed. It had taken a long time for him to piece the events of the night together, blinded by how his mind had tried to shut as much of it out as possible, pieced together by Peter's timeline and his mother's memories through his eyes of what had happened. "...Her name was Paige. I was fifteen years old. I... had someone give her the bite. A stranger. I didn't tell her. I didn't ask her. I just did it. And she was dying. So I... broke her spine." His voice stayed even, even as he felt the snap of the bones underneath his hands, something that he felt at least once a day.

Quinn 

“Why did you ask someone to give her the bite?” When Derek spoke of the bite to her before he made it very clear it wasn’t something which needed to be done. That it has the potential to kill you. Quinn’s hands went to Derek’s cheeks and she brushed the side of her thumbs along the grain of his beard. Her heart hurt from the expression he wore and she knew this was a heavy burden of his.

Derek 

Derek's stomach clenched at the question. It was something that he asked himself a lot. "...I wanted her to be like me." He opened his eyes finally, looking up at her. "The same things I've told you. I wanted her to be strong. To heal. To not get sick. I was afraid she'd leave when she found out what I was. These were all things people were warning me about. I didn't know..."

Quinn 

“People told you she would leave if she found out the truth?” Quinn remembered how fifteen was and how impressionable you can be of how bad choices were usually done with the encouragement of others. Beth was the result of wine coolers which led to sleeping with one of Finn’s friends. This was on a whole other plain and she didn’t drop her hands. “Did you know there was the possibility of death before you asked someone to bite her?”

Derek 

Derek nodded. "...Yeah. I... one of the things I remember most clearly is my uncle Peter telling me that... Gods, it all sounds so stupid and insignificant now. He would tell me that the perfect ones always left when they found out. "It wasn't the first time in my life I'd heard it. We were cautious around humans. We protected ourselves. ...I knew. It could happen to old people, sick people... babies. No one could have expected it to happen to her."

Quinn 

Quinn’s hands went to his shoulders now and she made sure their eyes were connected. “You were fifteen and listened to someone who you thought you can rely on. It cost someone’s life and it’s-“ she placed herself in that girl’s shoes. Bitten without knowing why and only dying once the pain got to be done, due to a mercy kill from the person who set it in motion. Quinn let a shuddery breath out and hadn’t realized her gaze fallen until she looked at him again. Her hazel eyes shone with tears which threatened to spill over the last hour. “You loved her. You wanted to be with her completely and thought the only way to make it possible is if she was like you.”

Derek 

Derek wanted to look away, look down, break this gaze, but he felt stuck to the ground, the same way he would if he had been facing his mother or his sister, his alpha, someone with complete contrpl over him. He nodded a little; that was all that he could do. "...she wasn't a... life lesson. She wasn't just my girlfriend. She was a person. She was a concert cellist. She had two older brothers. She loved The Wizard of Oz."

Quinn 

Her lips pressed together and Quinn found her lower lip trapped underneath her teeth, releasing it slowly. Her arms went down and slipped around Derek’s middle and brought him completely to her. She pushed her hands up the middle of his back for a moment before she brought her right one back to his neck and slid it upwards to his head. Quinn pulled Derek down so she could hug him as best as she could, guiding his forehead to her shoulder while she kept a hold of him. “You didn’t mean for it to happen, Derek. You thought she was strong enough to survive the bite. You made a mistake of going against your better judgment and forced a life you weren’t even sure she wanted. But you didn’t mean for her to die.” She said, keeping her voice low while her own tears finally spilled. 

Derek 

Derek felt torn in several different directions when Quinn tilted his head into her shoulder. Whether to stand up and comfort her, because he could tell that her chemosignals where going crazy, or to pull away and change the topic, or... He had it decided for him when a powerful tremble came from somewhere deep inside of him, and it rolled into a full-body shudder againsf her embrace. "No. I... I've never meant to hurt anyone."

Quinn 

Her hand stroked his back and didn't say anything while she held Derek close. Her cheek nuzzled against his hair and temple, turning every so often to kiss these very spots. There was still a lot to process with what he revealed to her but right now she wanted him to know she was here. She was going to listen and place herself in his shoes. She wanted to be more than his girlfriend, as Quinn wanted Derek to know she was his friend as well. "What happened to her after you broke her spine?" She could have left the question for later but chose not to.

Derek 

Derek felt his bile rise at the question, at the memory, but the less primal part of him realized that it was valid, and that this was something that he needed to talk about with Quinn. But that didn't stop him from gripping just a little tighter, to stop his hands from shaking. "...Peter took her from me. I still don't know how he knew that I was there, or what happened. He took her into the woods, near our home, where someone would find her. Everyone... thought that it was an animal attack."

Quinn 

"That's-" she thought of the right word to use here though chose to go with the one which came to mind, "terrible. To be found in the woods. For her family to think of their daughter out there on her own with questions as to why she was there in the first place." Quinn kept the rest of her comments to herself as she knew it wasn't helping. "Was there a funeral?" She hoped there was and that the bite was done in a place where it wouldn't keep it fr- Even thinking about this caused Quinn to closed her eyes and cry a little more. It was a lot.

Derek 

There was another one of those deep rolling shudders, the nauseous feeling doing nothing to be eased away. He pulled back and swiped across his face a little bit. "There was a funeral," he said, remembering the day. "I... I didn't go. What right did I have to look her parents in the eye and..." he swallowed the rest of his sentence down. "I dropped out about a week later."

Quinn 

Quinn knew something about not attending funerals for someone she loved but she didn't dare bring that up with Derek right now. Instead her hands returned to Derek's cheeks hands covering part of the dark beard which she preferred over clean shaven. "With what happened? No, it would have been wrong to be at the funeral but you needed that time to say goodbye. Grieve. To unload everything that's accumulated inside you since the moment the bite was planned." Quinn kept such a soft and understanding voice as she spoke, tear tracks evident on her pale cheeks. "This is such a tragic story and I wish I can help soothe the pain." Her brows came together and she licked her lips. "Do you want to visit her when we got to the states?"

Derek 

It was one of those moments where Derek was sure that he didn't deserve the touch, shouldn't have someone in front of him right now, witnessing this and being forced to say these pitying things. He squared his shoulders off, picking his head up fully, jaw cracking a bit as he stretched it from where it had been so tense before. "...If we go to Maryland... I like to spend my time with Peter there."

Quinn 

"The uncle who told you to bite Paige?" Quinn didn't think she would like this man if she ever met him, which was inevitable as she wanted to meet all of his family. The way Derek stood now felt different than before and she lowered her hands and folded them in her lap. "Will you want me to stay elsewhere?"

Derek 

"He was my best friend. And it's not like he knew any better either." He felt this surge of defensiveness for Peter, and he realized that Quinn might not know. He might not have told her, or she might not remember. He was always throwing so much at her. "Peter's been in... he's essentially in a coma since the fire. He doesn't show a lot of brain activity. That's your decision."

Quinn 

How could she forget...? Quinn needed to have a sit down and piece together everything Derek shared since they first started to talk, as there was so much happening and the amount of names which swirled in her head felt as if they jumbled together: Peter, Laura, Paige, Eric, Kayla, Cora...She wasn't sure if that was everyone and didn't even count Carter as he was here in Amsterdam. "No. I'll stay with you. I-" she didn't want to admit this, "it slipped my mind." She sounded defeated because she hated not keeping track of all the important things in his life.

Derek 

Derek didn't know how to keep track of what had happened in those formative years of his life. So much of it was a blur, and omission from the sheer trauma of it all. "...i really appreciate that." He leaned over and kissed her quickly. "I know. I know. It's a lot."

Quinn 

“Derek,” she started and looked into his eyes. There was a sadness she never seen before and she wondered if it was always there and she hadn’t picked up on it. “What happened was a mistake and it cost the life of someone you love. But it doesn’t mean you’re a monster. A terrible person. You were young and you felt you were giving her a life she would have wanted. A life with you.” Both her hands took his. “To take her life wasn’t easy. I know it wasn’t as you most likely hoped her body would take the bite at the last possible second but,” her eyes shimmered with unfallen tears. “it’s what needed to be done to save her from any more pain. Paige was with you in her final moments and as sad and heartbreaking it was you were with her. She didn’t die alone because I’m sure that girl loved you as much as you loved her.”

Derek 

He held her close now, hands going around her back, and he watched her for a couple of seconds, his eyes shining a little bit. "I know. I know. I've... had a lot of time to think about this. Half a lifetime. I'm alright. I get through it. I know that... everything's going to be alright. "And I just need to move forward, Quinn."

Quinn 

“Just like you said before. You feel like you have a future and I hope it’ll be one you want with me.” Was this really the time to bring this up? Derek shared something personal, something many would see as terrible and probably unforgivable but Derek shown his heart to her and how good a man he is. “There is something I should let you know. I didn’t know how to bring this up because it’s never a good time to, but I feel this is our chance to be up front with each other. To make sure this is what we want.”Even thinking it made her stomach clench and she took a deep breath. “I cheated one two of my boyfriends. I cheated on Finn and on Sam.” She didn’t want to continue but did. “I got pregnant with Beth by Finn’s friend Puck.”

Derek 

Derek took a couple of seconds to process that. She had cheated on Sam? And they were still friends? Had that been what had broken them up? She'd gotten pregnant when she had treated on her boyfriend? He thought about how to react for a few seconds. "...I couldn't imagine that. Especially at fifteen... sixteen... you must have felt so alone."

Quinn 

Quinn opened her mouth a promptly closed it because she didn’t know how to follow that up. A hand went to comb through her blonde hair and she took in a lungful of air before releasing it slowly. “When I cheated on Finn I was so caught up with being popular and being the center of attention. I wasn’t very popular or well-liked before I went to McKinley and it went right to my head. Then things happened with Puck. I was drunk and he told me to trust him, which was so unbelievably stupid. I couldn’t even own up to what I did when I found out I was pregnant and I made Finn think he aaa the dad even when we’ve never had sex.” Quinn had to pause with this. “I told you. I’m not a good person. A good person wouldn’t do this to someone.” She hates the fact she was crying over this when it was her own doing for this happening in the first place.

Derek 

Derek nodded. These weren't problems that he could understand, and he forced himself to listen, instead of solve and sympathize, which seemed to open be how he brute-forced his way through these types of issues. He looked her in the eyes when she gave him a chance, and his thumb came up to wipe away at a tear. At this point, it seemed like sticking his finger into a dam. "You were sixteen years old, and you were trying to make the best decision, even if it wasn't the right one, even if you knew that at the time. You were in desperate circumstances. You're not the same person you were then."

Quinn 

She wasn’t and she knew this. She’d grown from her mistakes and learned from so much pain which shaped her into the woman who sat before Derek. She was still strong, stubborn, and maybe arrogant at times but she also came into herself and didn’t allow her thoughts to steer her into situations which would not only hurt the ones she cared for. But herself as well. She nodded at last and reached for him. There was so much more she wanted to say but the tears and the things they said to each other left her mentally exhausted. “God. Look at us.” Her hand went to swipe at the tears and Quinn tried to do what she always did whenever to cried; brush it aside and act as if nothing happened. Though, “I think we did something that most couples don’t do until well into their relationships.” 

Derek 

"Since when are we most couples?" Derek asked, but even through his soft smile, he knew that she had a point. They hadn't even officially been dating for a month, and he already had ideas that Quinn's friends didn't like, he was sure, that he knew Carter didn't like, and... well, if he hadn't told Laura yet, then it was sure to not be a very good idea. But it didn't stop him from wanting it. "You wanna walk with me to class?" There was a train ride in there, but most of the walk was peaceful, and made all the better if Quinn was there.

Quinn 

Quinn smiled which felt foreign at this point. She wanted to tell Derek to not go to his classes but it was towards the end of his semester and she wouldn’t dare encourage him to jeopardize his education. “I walk sounds nice.” She said at last, kissing him. “You don’t plan to shower? I think it’s my duty as your girlfriend to order you to take a quick one.”

Derek 

"Can't I just pretend to be fifteen for the day?" Derek asked, thinking about how he was going to have to walk out of the room, away from this bubble, and not being too excited at the prospect. "Get a can of body spray down at the corner store? My deodorant is Hermes. No one's ever going to smell me." He pressed their foreheads together quickly. "Besides, I don't care what anyone else thinks."

Quinn 

“No. I rather you don’t because I’m the one who has to smell you while we’re together.” She placed her hands on his chest and backed away. Quinn walked around him and gave Derek a light, playful swat on the ass. “Come on. We’ll get one together. I’ll even let you wash my body.”

Derek 

"You think that's going to be a quick shower?" But there wasn't any hint of complaining in his voice. At some point, Derek had bought shorts that were actually appropriate for running, and they made their way fast to the hard floor of the kitchen as he grabbed her hand, pulling her towards the stairs.

Quinn 

When his shorts hit the floor Quinn shook her head because that was the fastest she’d seen him undress. “As long as we don’t wet my hair then we can be in and out.” With the way Derek bounded up the steps she knew it’d be faster if he just flung her over his shoulder.

Derek 

Derek was right there with her, spending half of his time on the same wavelength as her. He lifted her up when they hit the stairs, taking them two at a time, even though that wasn't where he maxed out. He was still used to hiding that part of himself around her, away from home. "You good?" He set her down as they hit the top.

Quinn 

It wasn’t over his shoulder but it still left Quinn breathless from the momentary thrill which came from the sprint. “I am.” She pushed her hair away from her face and walked away from Derek. They should hold off with the sex until later, after she processed everything which happened today but she also wanted that connection with him. Quinn pulled her shirt off and tossed it by the bed and made quick work of her sports bra. The tattoo on her lower back was partially visible from where Derek uncovered it and Quinn went straight to the bathroom. “You better hurry up.” She teased.

[theseadagiodays]

April 6, 2020

Travel at home

I have always been a passionate traveler, with an insatiable curiosity for new experiences, cultures and sensations.  But what also comes with all the titillation is a fair dose of unfamiliar, unsettling, and often challenging new circumstances every traveler must agily welcome if they are to thrive.  When you are served dinner with no cutlery in Kalkata, scooping sloppy curry with your hands has to do.  When you’re penniless and lose your companion, hours from home in Bangkok’s busy streets, you must ingratitate yourself to the kindness of strangers for bus fare to your hotel.  It strikes me that this same flexibility can serve us well as we navigate the unchartered territories of this new nation we all inhabit, called COVID.

But what moves me most as I wander the world is the way in which constant new sensory input elevates my present-minded attention so intensely.  My ears delight in a particularly evocative call to prayer in Morocco.  My mouth savors the sour sweetness of a Colombian maracuya (passionfruit).  And my nose even appreciates the cow dung furnaces on the side of the road in India. It is like meditation in motion.  After each journey, when I return home, I set the earnest intention to sustain such sensory focus at home.  But as the days pass, this consistently becomes increasingly difficult.  However now, with little opportunity to venture much more than metres from our door, we need new strategies to remain sane and stimulated.  So, I think we can all benefit from living like tourists at home. I believe there is a science to this. I’ve even coined a term for it. It came from a time when I heard education expert Ken Robinson define the word aesthetics.  Associated with beauty, most think of the definition as subjective.  But he simplified this by pointing out that the opposite of aesthetics is anaesthetics (that which numbs our senses).  So, aesthetics are those things which make us feel.  Since this revelation, I have come to call myself an aesthesiologist because I believe that all artists are in the business of making people feel.  And this is why I feel that sharing artistic resources on this blog is the best medicine I can offer as we all ride out this crisis together.

So, maybe today you can consiciously pay attention to some subtle new observation each of your senses notice in your environment.  The way the light hits your tea kettle at dawn.  The call of a returning bird at spring time.  The crunch of the potato chips that you’re binging on right now.  Lately, I’ve certainly learned to feel extra fortunate that I can taste or smell at all, because my husband completely lost his sense of smell 3 weeks ago.  Most have probably heard that this is an alarming and bizarre potential sign of COVID, particularly in people with no other symptoms.  So, having come thru full incubation period, we’re at least past the scare that it could have become worse or that he might have infected myself or others with whom he’d had contact prior to quarantine.  But he never thought he’d look so forward to the day he could smell my farts again.  (Meanwhile, I’m indulging in all the beans and garlic I want)

At any rate, if home sensations don’t tickle you enough, there is always virtual travel.  And while that certainly risks inspiring a vicarious longing that may not serve you, for others, it can elicit some of the same wonders as adventures themselves.  So, if you’re craving sensory immersion into other worlds, New York Times can help you do this with their 13 recommended travel podcasts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/travel/travel-podcasts.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage&contentCollection=AtHome

I know I have certainly spent many days in quarantine wallowing over my screensaver trip photos, longing for a time when I could journey further afield once more.  But I have also been swept away by the photographic brilliance of some of the work that the New York Times is featuring weekly, in their World Through a Lens column.  Marcus Westerberg’s shots of Zambian wildlife (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/travel/zambia-safari.html) were particularly emotional for me, having just had one of the most meaningful travel experiences of my life there, last year, when I served as resident visiting artist at a music school in Lusaka.  In fact, I arrived exactly one year ago, today, and can’t wait to return to those magical people.  A girl has to dream, after all...

April 7, 2020

Creativity at Home

If any of you are variety-mongers like me, seeing only the same person or people, day in and day out, can have you dressing up your spouse in wigs or Hawaian skirts or bear costumes just to mix things up a bit.    But largely, I’ve been hearing that many parents and siblings are embracing ways to capitalize on their excessive togetherness. I think it’s why the show Survivor has been so successful all these years. Forced into small spaces and “tribes”, we tend to do whatever it takes to get along with our fellow captives.  Cooped up together for days on end, there is no limit to the clever activities some families have created to keep themselves occupied.  

This crew took a simple tube and board of wood to create some exercise apparatus that has kept them busy for hours:  https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5518064

Others are taking vicarious travel to the next level with some Photoshop fun - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/travel/coronavirus-fake-travel.html

And the most impressive might be this 5-person brood, each with operatic quality voices, who belt out their rendition of One More Day, from Les Miserable.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-52106893/coronavirus-family-goes-viral-with-lockdown-les-mis-song-adaptation

But, if you happen to be stumped for ideas yourselves, here are a few ways you can kickstart your family’s creativity.  A bunch of resourceful theatre company’s have been commissioning playwrights to create short Plays at Home, designed for actors and amateurs alike to perform in their own living rooms.  Most are staged for 1-7 humans, with joyful themes, and participants are welcome to share video recordings of their readings.

https://www.playathome.org/?fbclid=IwAR3_Uib1GQV5134ZbF7IEI5F5lpt0HQdxYkd1HtiNeUFws1UKCvVV4_2KEQ

And right here in Vancouver, my friend Vanessa Richards is finding thoughtful ways to engage community in collaborative singing, by sustaining her weekly free choir sessions, now in Livestream, every Wednesday, from 6-7:30.  You can check out Van Van Song Society here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/togethersinging/

April 8, 2020

Quarantine Living - Al Yankovic style Some of you may be too young to recognize this reference to our favorite weasly moustached 80’s bard, who humorously bastardized everything from Queen’s Another One Rides the Bus to Michael Jakcson’s Eat It, with his own comic lyrics.  But lately, like our Les Miserable family, Weird Al Yancovic’s “wordsquatting” trend is spreading more virally than corona.

This original take on the Beatles, I gotta wash my hands is a classic.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxOJ7hh3H-I

For more potty humor, I adore this Philipino artists’ no-toilet paper campaign, I love tabo- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzb98tQp53I

And certainly, the most high tech example has come from Vancouver’s own Phoenix Chamber Choir, in their rendition of the hugely popular Queen song, Coronavirus Rhapsody- https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1720158275935?fbclid=IwAR3gEdqv95oX4KT_W4F4_naJyASRhUaGpr-T56Aux9k4tCStGvow9xgHIQw

April 9, 2020

Reading Respite Endless screentime has probably left many of us fatigued and squinting, with a need for stronger reading glass prescriptions that we can’t fill, because all the optometry shops have shut down.  So, these next suggestions are offered with that caveat. However, for me, the tactile experience of a book in my hand can still be a nourishing antidote to digital overload. Often just a page is capable of transporting my body, mind and soul away from news feeds, virus counts, and press conferences.  

Never a fan of e-readers, I have always passionately supported my local bookshops.  And thankfully, there is a current intiative intended to do the same, at a time when the threat of a certain Capital A behometh taking over global commerce is greater than ever.  So, you can actually feed your spirit and your neighborhood bookseller by purchasing any literary craving here. Thanks to the new site, bookshop.org, you can order what you’d like from the local bookstore of your choice, while this company acts as liason.  And the fair split allows your local vendor to keep 30% of total profit, when direct sales that are no longer possible for them may have only been slightly more (40-45%).  

As far as what to stories to consume at a time like this, it has amazed me how much films like Contagion and Outbreak have had huge resurgences. This tells me that relevance and resonance are key factors in people’s entertainment choices.  However, if you’re looking for something that relates to your current circumstances, but leaves you not with more fear, but with actual hope, inspiration, or tools for survival, here are a few better options:

Emily St. Mandel’s Station Eleven is, in fact, a post-apocalyptic tale.  But her narrative’s most clever survivors form a travelling Shakespeare troupe, demonstrating the power of art to heal in dire times.  

For some existential musing reaped in self-isolation, Thoreau’s Life in the Woods always still provides.

And if the new stressors arising from this crisis find you busier than ever, but you long to slow down, travel journalist, Pico Iyer, in his prophetic 2014 book, The Art of Stillness, makes a strong case for the fact that “in our madly accelerating world, our lives are crowded, chaotic and noisy. So, there’s never been a greater need to slow down, tune out and give ourselves permission to be still.”

April 10, 2020

How Might We Fill This Space?

Never before have Memes, Tik tok or Cat Videos provided such many needed lifelines for people all over the world.  But the video that most stirred me to action was this stunning dance collaboration that popped up in my Facebook feed, during the early days of self-isolation, before my first Zoom conference, before I’d seen my first collaborative musical Quarantine Song spoof. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3pFxsYPLgU

This global initiative to weave together dance gestures, while performers were entirely physically separate, seeded the idea for a community art and writing project that I have recently started with a few friends.

In an effort to connect artists during this physically distant time, we have launched Spool of Thought.  And all artistic contributions are welcome to the thread.  

https://www.instagram.com/spoolofthought2020/

On this page, we invite people to respond to the question, “How might we fill this space?”as we adjust to different rhythms of being. The idea is to weave together our thoughts, through the fluid form of cursive writing, in a non-linear narrative documenting this unique time on our planet.

The full instructions are below, for those interested and eager to participate:

1.Using Notes (iPhone) or Evernote (Android) and the digital pen, draw a continuous cursive line from the left to right side of the note (arranged horizontally) and write a word, phrase or sentence that responds to the prompt: How Might We Fill This Space?

2. Save it to your photos.

3. Then,send it by email to: spoolofthought2020@gmail.com, and we will add your text to the Spool of Thought Instagram page.

4. Please include your name, your location, your occupation, and your Instagram@ for the caption of your photo.

5. And feel free to share this invite with your community, along with these instructions.

6. Finally, enjoy watching the spool unravel on @spoolofthought2020, as the thread grows, and tag us wherever you choose to share: #spoolofthought2020.

[tonyb-blog]

Part 2 If you missed Part 1 of the Blog post following our recent trip to Spain and Portugal you can read it here. In that post I mentioned that after spending some time in the Picos mountains we headed off to Galicia, traveled to Santiago and the Atlantic coast and then headed down to Portugal for a few days.

So to continue the story …

It was one of those trips that was jam packed full of genuine ‘wow’ moments and despite having done my fair share of decent roads across Europe over the years and seen fabulous views on so many occasions I was still being hit numerous times a day with breathtaking scenery and stunning roads and there were so many times that we just had to stop the bike to take it all in.

Sometimes it was just the sheer beauty of the scenery that opened up before us, at others it was the joy of rounding a corner to see jaw dropping roads winding away into the distance, whilst at others the simple delights of gleaming and tranquil villages with numerous inviting cafes and street bars to stop at.

Our accommodation was good throughout the trip and we had definitely made the right decision to travel without a plan – our guiding principles were pretty much as simple as: secure parking for the bike and Wi-Fi (so we could look for our next accommodation) – and it all paid off a treat.

In Ponferrada we had stayed at a pretty large hotel that despite being out of character to the rest of the places we stayed in, was ideally situated and ticked the parking/WiFi boxes.

It was a complete bonus that there was a local festival being celebrated at the time we were there and the splendid castle was too good to miss wandering round.

The trip shaped up well right from the start really and we had soon slipped into an easy routine of being on the road for around 09:00/09:30 or so, and typically checking into accommodation by around 16:00 which allowed plenty of time for wandering around the places we were staying in.

It also meant the trip was quite different than when I travel on my own – when normally I ride greater distances and spend longer on the bike each day.

Traveling in September proved to be ideal as far as the weather went, for the most part temperatures were around the mid 20’s although we did have a few hot days around the mid 30’s – but other than on two days we were never too uncomfortable with the heat, which was quite a contrast to July’s trip when temperatures down in Croatia were mid 40s!

Traveling without a plan meant that we were always flexible to what lay ahead and what the road offered us – so on some occasions we simply turned off our ‘route’ to find out what was down the next road. When we did that we were seldom dissapointed – whether it was to find an empty beach or just another staggering view.

Although we returned home with a decent set of pictures what they can’t actually do is really capture the scale and expanse of what so often lay before us.

We booked one night in a hotel called Flo do Douro in the pretty little town of Miranda do Douro in Portugal. It certainly wasn’t a grand place but it was decent, the hosts quite charming, good underground parking for the bike and at €35 a night for both of us it was good value as well.

I had been down that way a few years back when I had traveled on my own through Spain on a GSX-R 1000, but my time in Miranda has been only fleeting, so it was good to be back there for a little longer with my wife – in fact we decided to stay there for two nights before moving on.

The only down side of our stay there was that being at the end of the ‘season’ meant that we were somewhat limited for places to eat.

On our second day there we simply went out and rode the bike south … and then when we had had enough we headed back to the the hotel. In addition to riding over the biggest dam I have ever seen, we also rode through the area in Portugal that had been ravaged by wildfires earlier in the year during the intense heatwave that had affected various parts of Europe – as dramatic as it all looked it was also tragic to see the land that had been laid to waste and pretty sobering to know that over 60 people had lost their lives as a result.

I mentioned earlier that pictures no matter how good can ever really quite capture the sheer scale of the landscape nor can they capture the lingering smell of burnt forests.

After our decent stay in Miranda we headed off further into Portugal and then Spain, I’ll write some more about that in Part 3

two up in spain and portugal (part 2) … Part 2 If you missed Part 1 of the Blog post following our recent trip to Spain and Portugal…

[samanthasroberts]

Review: PicoBrew Pico

Brewing beer is a complex mix of art and science. To make a typical pilsner, for example, barley is malted, milled, then steeped in hot water to create wort, a liquid that smells like the perfect breakfast. Hops are added for bitterness and flavor, then yeast to create complexity and, of course, make alcohol. Carbonation comes from forcing CO2 into the mix, or, with time, it can carbonate naturally, spurred along by feeding extra sugar to the yeast.

PicoBrew Pico

5/10

Learn How We Rate

Wired

It makes beer!

Tired

It’s loud, it’s bulky, and you don’t learn much about brewing.

Buy It Now   |  PicoBrew

How We Rate

1/10A complete failure in every way

2/10Sad, really

3/10Serious flaws; proceed with caution

4/10Downsides outweigh upsides

5/10Recommended with reservations

6/10Solid with some issues

7/10Very good, but not quite great

8/10Excellent, with room to kvetch

9/10Nearly flawless

10/10Metaphysical perfection

Go to a brewery or try it at home and you’ll learn there’s a lot of time and process: heating, cooling, filtering, maturing. There is also cleaning—profound amounts of cleaning.

The brand new Pico from PicoBrew is an $800 home appliance that offers a Keurig-style approach to brewing suds. You pop a prefab “PicoPak” into the machine and make beers from microbreweries all over the country and around the world, along with Pico’s own blends, all right on your countertop. Customers can, say, order PicoPaks to turn out an Abita Turbodog from Louisiana, a wheat beer like Harlem Brewing Company’s Renaissance Wit, or A Little Dinghy Blonde from the Spinnaker Bay Brewery right up the street from my Seattle apartment.

The Pico features impressive technology. Those PicoPaks—sealed white paperboard boxes containing brewing ingredients—are recognized by the machine upon insertion, and each one is treated differently depending on what it is. That creation of wort is an automated and tailored to the individual beer. If you’re an avid fan of regional microbreweries, it’s like having the ability to tap a keg 3,000 miles away. Breweries that partner with PicoBrew can connect with faraway fans that they might not be able to reach otherwise.

It sounds enticing but in terms of use beyond just a couple of batches, I think it appeals to a fairly narrow demographic.

To qualify, you will need to tick off as many of the following boxes as possible:

Be a beer fanatic

Live in a remote area with no microbreweries or selection of good beer nearby

Have $800 to blow on a beer machine

Be fairly uninterested in the ins and outs of making beer

Not mind waiting a week or more for the beer to be ready to drink

Have a man cave or similar secluded area for brewing

Own a reverse osmosis machine (preferably)

Enjoy cleaning

When I first fired up the machine, I thought of how cool it would be to quaff a beer poured from the keg that night. After all, PicoBrew’s video says it “Brews in 2 hours,” which is a definition of “brewing” that excludes things like yeast, carbonation and, importantly, beer at the end of those two hours.

There’s certainly a moment where you hit a button and the machine starts whirring and the display reads “PREPARING TO BREW,” but it’s the kind of thing that will leave you much less frustrated if you read through the manual once before you take anything else out of the packaging. (I botched my first batch for not reading closely enough. My fault.) It turns out that, depending on the beer you’re making and the process you choose, it takes a lot longer than that.

In that spirit, since different beers have different requirements, I wished that each PicoPak came with a scroll-shaped flow chart to illustrate the time involved in each step and the materials—both included and not included—that you’ll need. I had to make a couple of last-minute grocery store runs: once for distilled water for brewing and again, later in the same brewing cycle, for hydrogen peroxide to clean out a serving keg.

I brought in my friend Dave to help because he’s a user experience researcher by day and homebrewer and beer lover the rest of the time. Together, we worked through the entire brewing process methodically.

First Draft

The Pico is a large appliance (easily more than twice the size of any other appliance in my kitchen) where you put the PicoPak, along with a sidecar pack of hops. The packs are compostable and look like they’re from Aunt Beru’s kitchen in Star Wars. The Pico heats distilled water or water that’s been run through a reverse osmosis process, and runs it through the packs creating the wort, which it transfers it to a “brewing keg” that sits on the counter next to the Pico. The wort cools overnight in the keg, then gets a sprinkling of yeast which, depending on which beer you’re working with, the method used, the ambient temperature, and if the beer being made requires dry hop packets, means you’ll need to wait several days if not a couple weeks before you have something to drink.

Saying ‘I made homebrew’ with beer from the Pico made me feel like a bit of a faker.

Dave and I had planned on playing cribbage and eating lunch while the Pico did its thing, but once we hit the “Brew” button and the machine got cranked up, the volume was somewhere between that of a fish tank pump and an air compressor.

“It’s like living near the airport,” Dave said on our way up to play cards on the roof.

“How about doing it nowhere?” my wife would ask, echoing a famous New Yorker cartoon, when I went to make a batch a few days later. “Would nowhere work?”

Up on the roof, I asked Dave if he’d keep a Pico in his kitchen.

“I would,” he said, “but I’d be asked to move it.”

Small Change

Over lunch we did some back-of-napkin math to figure out the economics of a PicoPak, and found the cost by volume between microbrew and Pico beer are roughly competitive. You end up with about a gallon and a half of beer from every PicoPak, which costs between $20-30, plus, let’s say, $3 to $5 or so for the distilled water and cleaning supplies each batch needs. A growler is half a gallon, so that’s around $10-15 per growler for the Pico, compared to going to a Seattle brewery where growlers go for $8-15.

“Real homebrew math is harder,” Dave joked. “Those are five-gallon batches.”

“Five gallons of beer doesn’t seem like a problem,” I said.

“It’s not,” he confirmed.

I called Darren McKee at Seattle’s Sound Homebrew Supply who helped me compare the whole PicoBrew setup versus what you’d need for homebrewing. He told me that a high-end five-gallon homebrew setup costs about $500, and grain kits for individual beers cost $35-50. So that’s up to five clams per growler, but it’s homebrewing, so a more hands-on process.

Dave went home beer-less and I let the brewing keg we’d been working with cool overnight then, the following day, added a yeast packet to the wort. Once the yeast had worked its magic, I used the Pico to transfer beer from the burly brewing keg to a flimsy serving keg, a process called racking. I pushed a CO2 cartridge connected to a regulator valve into the top, pressurized the serving keg and … was only 36 hours from drinking a beer.

Neat freaks might get particularly excited here. I learned as I brewed that every step of the path involves cleaning, some of it extensive. You’ll also need large quantities of hydrogen peroxide, powdered dish detergent, and a 17-millimeter wrench. If you’re like me, you’ll need to run to the store or order all of these things to keep the ball rolling. You’ll have a host of bits and bobs like little O-rings, and conical springs to keep track of and clean. (Tucking a few extras in the box would be a welcome addition.) The furnished cleaning implements for these is, of all things, a pair of oversized pipe cleaners; they’re fine when you’re scrubbing out the interior of a keg post, but near-comical in their uselessness while trying to clean the inside of either of the kegs.

Taste Test

Days later, once it was all done, it was still exciting to try the beer. After my user error with the first batch, a keg of Lucky Envelope Brewing’s Mosaic IPA came out tasting fantastic, with that great fresh-beer flavor, and a surprisingly lovely texture. I also made Pico Pils, the company’s in-house pilsner which turned out mysteriously cloudy but tasty. A batch of Harlem Brewing Company’s wheat beer came out well, though a little flat, for the first two thirds of the keg, but the bottom third was way too cloudy and smelled like it would give me a headache, so I dumped it.

The breweries provide their recipes to PicoBrew, which figures out how to make it work with the Pico, but if I owned Harlem Brewing Company, I’d want to protect my brand more carefully; this is clearly not what they’re serving on 125th Street.

So I enjoyed the beer, but I struggled with the idea that despite being integral to the beer-making process, I hadn’t learned a thing about brewing. Saying “I made homebrew” with beer from the Pico made me feel like a bit of a faker.

There is clearly a lot of thought that went into making the Pico work and despite my misgivings, it’s an impressive machine—it makes beer! For the right, deep-pocketed person with most of those criteria listed above, it might be nice to try microbrews that they couldn’t get their hands on otherwise, but considering the effort you need to make, why not go all the way and try homebrewing? Or, if you have consistent, reasonably easy access to whatever it is that you consider to be decent beer, pick up a six-pack at the grocery store or go support your favorite local brewery.

Food writer Joe Ray (@joe_diner) is a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of The Year, a restaurant critic, and author of “Sea and Smoke” with chef Blaine Wetzel.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/review-picobrew-pico/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/03/14/review-picobrew-pico/

[adambstingus]

Review: PicoBrew Pico

Brewing beer is a complex mix of art and science. To make a typical pilsner, for example, barley is malted, milled, then steeped in hot water to create wort, a liquid that smells like the perfect breakfast. Hops are added for bitterness and flavor, then yeast to create complexity and, of course, make alcohol. Carbonation comes from forcing CO2 into the mix, or, with time, it can carbonate naturally, spurred along by feeding extra sugar to the yeast.

PicoBrew Pico

5/10

Learn How We Rate

Wired

It makes beer!

Tired

It’s loud, it’s bulky, and you don’t learn much about brewing.

Buy It Now   |  PicoBrew

How We Rate

1/10A complete failure in every way

2/10Sad, really

3/10Serious flaws; proceed with caution

4/10Downsides outweigh upsides

5/10Recommended with reservations

6/10Solid with some issues

7/10Very good, but not quite great

8/10Excellent, with room to kvetch

9/10Nearly flawless

10/10Metaphysical perfection

Go to a brewery or try it at home and you’ll learn there’s a lot of time and process: heating, cooling, filtering, maturing. There is also cleaning—profound amounts of cleaning.

The brand new Pico from PicoBrew is an $800 home appliance that offers a Keurig-style approach to brewing suds. You pop a prefab “PicoPak” into the machine and make beers from microbreweries all over the country and around the world, along with Pico’s own blends, all right on your countertop. Customers can, say, order PicoPaks to turn out an Abita Turbodog from Louisiana, a wheat beer like Harlem Brewing Company’s Renaissance Wit, or A Little Dinghy Blonde from the Spinnaker Bay Brewery right up the street from my Seattle apartment.

The Pico features impressive technology. Those PicoPaks—sealed white paperboard boxes containing brewing ingredients—are recognized by the machine upon insertion, and each one is treated differently depending on what it is. That creation of wort is an automated and tailored to the individual beer. If you’re an avid fan of regional microbreweries, it’s like having the ability to tap a keg 3,000 miles away. Breweries that partner with PicoBrew can connect with faraway fans that they might not be able to reach otherwise.

It sounds enticing but in terms of use beyond just a couple of batches, I think it appeals to a fairly narrow demographic.

To qualify, you will need to tick off as many of the following boxes as possible:

Be a beer fanatic

Live in a remote area with no microbreweries or selection of good beer nearby

Have $800 to blow on a beer machine

Be fairly uninterested in the ins and outs of making beer

Not mind waiting a week or more for the beer to be ready to drink

Have a man cave or similar secluded area for brewing

Own a reverse osmosis machine (preferably)

Enjoy cleaning

When I first fired up the machine, I thought of how cool it would be to quaff a beer poured from the keg that night. After all, PicoBrew’s video says it “Brews in 2 hours,” which is a definition of “brewing” that excludes things like yeast, carbonation and, importantly, beer at the end of those two hours.

There’s certainly a moment where you hit a button and the machine starts whirring and the display reads “PREPARING TO BREW,” but it’s the kind of thing that will leave you much less frustrated if you read through the manual once before you take anything else out of the packaging. (I botched my first batch for not reading closely enough. My fault.) It turns out that, depending on the beer you’re making and the process you choose, it takes a lot longer than that.

In that spirit, since different beers have different requirements, I wished that each PicoPak came with a scroll-shaped flow chart to illustrate the time involved in each step and the materials—both included and not included—that you’ll need. I had to make a couple of last-minute grocery store runs: once for distilled water for brewing and again, later in the same brewing cycle, for hydrogen peroxide to clean out a serving keg.

I brought in my friend Dave to help because he’s a user experience researcher by day and homebrewer and beer lover the rest of the time. Together, we worked through the entire brewing process methodically.

First Draft

The Pico is a large appliance (easily more than twice the size of any other appliance in my kitchen) where you put the PicoPak, along with a sidecar pack of hops. The packs are compostable and look like they’re from Aunt Beru’s kitchen in Star Wars. The Pico heats distilled water or water that’s been run through a reverse osmosis process, and runs it through the packs creating the wort, which it transfers it to a “brewing keg” that sits on the counter next to the Pico. The wort cools overnight in the keg, then gets a sprinkling of yeast which, depending on which beer you’re working with, the method used, the ambient temperature, and if the beer being made requires dry hop packets, means you’ll need to wait several days if not a couple weeks before you have something to drink.

Saying ‘I made homebrew’ with beer from the Pico made me feel like a bit of a faker.

Dave and I had planned on playing cribbage and eating lunch while the Pico did its thing, but once we hit the “Brew” button and the machine got cranked up, the volume was somewhere between that of a fish tank pump and an air compressor.

“It’s like living near the airport,” Dave said on our way up to play cards on the roof.

“How about doing it nowhere?” my wife would ask, echoing a famous New Yorker cartoon, when I went to make a batch a few days later. “Would nowhere work?”

Up on the roof, I asked Dave if he’d keep a Pico in his kitchen.

“I would,” he said, “but I’d be asked to move it.”

Small Change

Over lunch we did some back-of-napkin math to figure out the economics of a PicoPak, and found the cost by volume between microbrew and Pico beer are roughly competitive. You end up with about a gallon and a half of beer from every PicoPak, which costs between $20-30, plus, let’s say, $3 to $5 or so for the distilled water and cleaning supplies each batch needs. A growler is half a gallon, so that’s around $10-15 per growler for the Pico, compared to going to a Seattle brewery where growlers go for $8-15.

“Real homebrew math is harder,” Dave joked. “Those are five-gallon batches.”

“Five gallons of beer doesn’t seem like a problem,” I said.

“It’s not,” he confirmed.

I called Darren McKee at Seattle’s Sound Homebrew Supply who helped me compare the whole PicoBrew setup versus what you’d need for homebrewing. He told me that a high-end five-gallon homebrew setup costs about $500, and grain kits for individual beers cost $35-50. So that’s up to five clams per growler, but it’s homebrewing, so a more hands-on process.

Dave went home beer-less and I let the brewing keg we’d been working with cool overnight then, the following day, added a yeast packet to the wort. Once the yeast had worked its magic, I used the Pico to transfer beer from the burly brewing keg to a flimsy serving keg, a process called racking. I pushed a CO2 cartridge connected to a regulator valve into the top, pressurized the serving keg and … was only 36 hours from drinking a beer.

Neat freaks might get particularly excited here. I learned as I brewed that every step of the path involves cleaning, some of it extensive. You’ll also need large quantities of hydrogen peroxide, powdered dish detergent, and a 17-millimeter wrench. If you’re like me, you’ll need to run to the store or order all of these things to keep the ball rolling. You’ll have a host of bits and bobs like little O-rings, and conical springs to keep track of and clean. (Tucking a few extras in the box would be a welcome addition.) The furnished cleaning implements for these is, of all things, a pair of oversized pipe cleaners; they’re fine when you’re scrubbing out the interior of a keg post, but near-comical in their uselessness while trying to clean the inside of either of the kegs.

Taste Test

Days later, once it was all done, it was still exciting to try the beer. After my user error with the first batch, a keg of Lucky Envelope Brewing’s Mosaic IPA came out tasting fantastic, with that great fresh-beer flavor, and a surprisingly lovely texture. I also made Pico Pils, the company’s in-house pilsner which turned out mysteriously cloudy but tasty. A batch of Harlem Brewing Company’s wheat beer came out well, though a little flat, for the first two thirds of the keg, but the bottom third was way too cloudy and smelled like it would give me a headache, so I dumped it.

The breweries provide their recipes to PicoBrew, which figures out how to make it work with the Pico, but if I owned Harlem Brewing Company, I’d want to protect my brand more carefully; this is clearly not what they’re serving on 125th Street.

So I enjoyed the beer, but I struggled with the idea that despite being integral to the beer-making process, I hadn’t learned a thing about brewing. Saying “I made homebrew” with beer from the Pico made me feel like a bit of a faker.

There is clearly a lot of thought that went into making the Pico work and despite my misgivings, it’s an impressive machine—it makes beer! For the right, deep-pocketed person with most of those criteria listed above, it might be nice to try microbrews that they couldn’t get their hands on otherwise, but considering the effort you need to make, why not go all the way and try homebrewing? Or, if you have consistent, reasonably easy access to whatever it is that you consider to be decent beer, pick up a six-pack at the grocery store or go support your favorite local brewery.

Food writer Joe Ray (@joe_diner) is a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of The Year, a restaurant critic, and author of “Sea and Smoke” with chef Blaine Wetzel.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/review-picobrew-pico/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/183441197687

[fnf-brain-rot]

[Whitty x Boyfriend] Chapter 9 - do you know what love is?

Thursday.

It's been over a week since Whitty started staying at Boyfriend's place. He stopped sleeping completely, and constantly had his head poked out of windows, or the peep hole in the front door. Boyfriend woke up every morning to Whitty cuddling him in bed, nervously wrapped around the smaller for reassurance.

Boyfriend wanted to do something to ease his anxiety.

Boyfriend walked with Whitty into the living room, holding his hand as a guide. He noticed the other has been a lot more touchy as well, which he didn't complain about. He encouraged it. "What do you wanna do today?" The smaller male looked up to him when they sat on the couch. Whitty shrugged. It was obvious his mind was elsewhere.

"You want me to call Gigi so we can hang out again?" Boyfriend then asked, and Whitty shook his head. Just the two of them huh.. Today should be a calm day. Boyfriend gasped quietly to himself, though he startled Whitty. "What? What happened? Did you see something??" Whitty stood up off the couch, and Boyfriend snorted a little. "No no, I had an idea!" He reassured him, somehow coaxing him to sit back down.

Whitty was obviously anxious staying in the same space, so why not have a change of scenery?

________________________________________________________________________________

It was so chilly outside, Boyfriend wished he had a car. He would be too scared to drive anyway.

They had been walking for what felt like an hour. Whitty knew Boyfriend wasn't a damn machine, so he let him rest on his shoulders. Boyfriend tried his best to behave on Whitty's shoulders, but being so high up felt like a little gremlin was kicking at his insides, no matter how fun it was.

They arrived to their secluded little spot just on the outskirts of Philly. It was quiet outside the city. Whitty appreciated that. "I looked up some peaceful places to go, and there's this hiking trail out here that I found. Dunno if it's safe though." He looked down at Whitty from above. Whitty didn't seem bothered. He never even thought of leaving the city to hide. He always felt trapped within the confines of the looming, steel buildings and brick walls. This, however, is a nice change of pace.

"You wanna get down?" Whitty then asked the blue haired man, and he shook his head. "No, not yet! My feet are still dying!" He whined in response, letting out a bunch of incomprehensible noise after the fact. "Okay okay! I'm not forcing you off! You big baby.." Whitty snurked a little, and Boyfriend tugged on his fuse in retaliation, making him stumble back a bit with an "Ack!"

They eventually started moving again, walking down the trail that dipped lower into a bunch of broken trees and crazy brambles. Boyfriend got smacked in the head a little too frequently with branches, so he opted to get down and walk. What they didn't expect to find, however, was a little lake. It was small enough to be more of a pond, but big enough to call a lake.

Boyfriend would totally go swim if it wasn't freezing right about now. It was around the holidays, the ones capitalism loves so much. "Wow.." Whitty breathed out at the sight. It was cloudy, but faint rays of light beamed down onto the murky water. There were a few large rocks scattered about, and Boyfriend ran to sit down. He didn't care if they were covered in moss.

"The sweet smell of amphibimous creatures." Boyfriend sighed happily as Whitty took a seat next to him, resting his elbows on his knees. He's starting to think he didn't say that right.. "Amphibi..am.. tiny pond animals." boyfriend put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest, acting like he never messed up in the first place.

"Tiny pond animals?" Whitty parroted him, and the smaller nodded. "Yep! Like frogs, and turtles, and salamanders." He stood up and walked over to the edge of the water body, crouching down. "C'mere!" He whisper shouted to the other man. Whitty mimicked his actions, crouching the same as him. "Listen.." They both looked out to the lake, when Whitty noticed something. There were many tiny sounds around them, from the occasional croaking noise, then the constant high pitched buzz. "What are the noises?"

"The tiny pond animals! And some bugs." Boyfriend smiled up at him. "Watch this." Whitty scooted himself back a bit to give Boyfriend some room. The rapper stuck his tongue out, as if he were focusing on a single spot in the water, then shot out his hands. Water splashed on them both as he tore his hands back up just as fast. "Tadaa!!" He was holding a.. "What is that??"

"It's a frog!" Whitty watched in interest as the frog's neck puffed out. It was fast, but he could still see it. It let out the croaking sound he had been hearing earlier. "It's so small.. and green.. and.. slimy?"

"You wanna hold it?" Boyfriend inched it to him invitingly, and Whitty nodded quickly, holding out his hands to take it. "You gotta hold it tight or it'll jump away. Not too tight though, they're very fragile." He set the frog on his hands, and Whitty held it to the same capacity as Boyfriend had before. It was slimy. "Why is it so slippery?" he asked the blue haired shorty, who laughed lightly. "I think they said it's cause it's mucous. It's uh.. I think it's for protection. Some frogs have poisonous mucous, but those ones are mainly in the jungle." Boyfriend patted himself on the back for knowing so much.

"Where's that?" Whitty tilted his head curiously. "The jungle? Oh, in tropical areas and such. You know."

"Tropical?"

"Y...Yeah?"

"Where's that?"

Boyfriend gawked at him. He really didn't know anything did he? "Did you have any sort of education when you were younger?" He quickly asked him. "No.." Whitty muttered honestly. Boyfriend sucked air through his teeth. Even he knew he was pretty stupid, so Whitty being stuck with him of all people might not get him far. Whitty let the frog go, and watched it launch itself back into the water.

"I'll teach you as much as I can then." The smaller nudged his side gently. "Can you tell me about love, then?" Boyfriend blinked at the question, then his face began to go red. "Uh.. What makes you wanna learn about that?"

________________________________________________________________________________

The day after the carnival, Whitty talked to Girlfriend about feeling weird around Boyfriend. He told her his insides felt funny, and he felt it every time Boyfriend hugged or kissed him, but he also felt the same watching him do that to someone else. He recognized it as a negative emotion, but he wasn't sure what about it was negative.

"Fluttery, huh? I see.." Girlfriend giggled to herself, gently applying the man's blush. Whitty liked the feeling of the brush.  It was soft, and somewhat comforting. "Do you know what it means to like someone?" She spoke softly, lowering the brush to look at him. Whitty shrugged. "To appreciate them?" Girlfriend nodded. "There's two types likes. Platonic, and intimate. Platonic means you like them as  friend, or a brother or sister. Intimate is more like.. a romantic partner."

"Romantic partner?"

"Romance is.. love. You said you were twenty percent human, right?" Whitty nodded. "Then you must have the ability to love someone, not based on numbers anyway."

"But what does it mean to love someone?" Whitty asked her softly, and she laughed a little. "It's that fluttery feeling you get when you and Boyfriend touch. When you see him smile, laugh with him, eat with him, cuddle with him. When you're around him and you "feel weird", as you put it, that means you like him, more than just a friend or a brother."

Whitty took all her words to heart. So he wanted to be more than a friend to Boyfriend. But what does that mean?

________________________________________________________________________________

Finding a partner is a big deal in society, so he wanted to be gentle on Boyfriend. He didn't want to scare him or make it weird. "It has to do with the affection stuff you taught me, right?" Boyfriend nodded quickly. "Yeah but uh.. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Things other than that are a lot more intimate. Are you sure you wanna.. get into that?" He tried to hide his flustered face with his coat. Whitty nodded, then went back over to sit down on the stone. He patted his lap, and Boyfriend's face got even more red.

He eventually mustered the courage to walk over to him, turning around and sitting in his lap. "No, like this." Whitty lifted Boyfriend up, who clung onto his arms in surprise, and turned him around, forcing his legs apart across his lap. Boyfriend's face flushed a deeper red as Whitty wrapped his arms around his waist, holding him close. Whitty wasn't cold.. he can produce his own heat. Boyfriend appreciated that, as he began to warm up just cuddling him.

Boyfriend would admit, he was kinda touch starved. That would probably be why he was so quick to have sex with Pico.. It's also why he was so eager to show Whitty affection. That and there was no way the guy has never had a damn hug.

"Do you like this?" Whitty asked Boyfriend softly, and the smaller swallowed, then nodded. "Yeah it.. feels nice.. Do you like it?" He threw the question back, which Whitty didn't expect. That feeling again, in his chest this time. This is probably what Girlfriend meant. What it's like to like somebody. Or even love somebody. They made eye contact, and Whitty took his time to finally slow down and look. Boyfriend had such cute little cheeks.. He knew really nothing about societal body standards, but Boyfriend was nothing short from beautiful. His smooth, milky white skin, and the red hot blush that dusted across his cheeks, and his little button nose.

Most people wanted blue eyes, or green eyes, or eyes that change color, but Boyfriend's pitch black irises held more emotion than he's seen in anyone else's. "Yeah.." Whitty smiled, hugging the male tighter. "I really like it."

Boyfriend laughed a little, his own arms wrapped tightly around Whitty's torso, honestly trying to get as much warmth as he could get.

They hung around the area for a good few hours, cuddling the entire time of course, watching the sun move around in the sky. Boyfriend took it among himself to talk to him about how big the world is, and just how many things were on this planet. He saved the 'We're on a giant rock floating in space" talk for another day. He didn't want him to have an existential crisis so soon.

It was around five in the afternoon when they decided to start making their journey back home. Whitty felt enlightened, happy, and.. safe. Boyfriend wasn't the scariest looking dude, he certainly wouldn't be able to protect them if something were to happen. Whitty didn't mind though. He.. loved him? For who he was. He's done so much for him already, now he's gonna do stuff for him in return, and show him how much he appreciates him.

"You wanna stop and eat somewhere? I'm kinda hungry." Boyfriend put a hand on his growling belly, and Whitty hummed in thought. "If you can afford it." Boyfriend playfully glared up at him. "I told you not to worry about money with me." He gently punched his hip, but winced as his hand connected with literal fucking metal. Right, mostly robot. "That's what you get for not letting me worry about your financial situation." The taller laughed lightly, beginning to walk ahead as Boyfriend stood behind to recuperate.

"You fucken-" Boyfriend began to retort, but soon couldn't really hear much. He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt his body hurl itself backwards. He tumbled across the pavement, seeing nothing but white for a good few seconds. Inhaling a gasp, he opened his eyes and looked up at the slightly cloudy sky. What the fuck was that?? All he could hear was a high pitch ringing, which could mean..

He quickly looked down in front of him, his eyes wide with fear. "Whitty?? No no, Whitty!" Whitty's body lay unmoving on the pavement some ways from him. His voice was muffled in his own head. What happened?? Can he just explode at random?? He scrambled over to him, examining his headless body. He's exploded before, but there was an indicator for when he would explode. His fuse wasn't lit this time. What.. What caused it??

They weren't too far into the city, just enough for the lower income houses and some empty lots to be visible. "Jesus christ.. I-It's okay Whitty, it'll be okay,  fuck.." He whimpered out softly. He did all he could, lifting his body by the arms and beginning to carry him out of the open. They sat behind some random building, the ground littered with trash and dirt. It smelled pretty bad, but that didn't matter now.

What mattered was that Whitty woke up safe and sound.

[allofbeercom]

Review: PicoBrew Pico

Brewing beer is a complex mix of art and science. To make a typical pilsner, for example, barley is malted, milled, then steeped in hot water to create wort, a liquid that smells like the perfect breakfast. Hops are added for bitterness and flavor, then yeast to create complexity and, of course, make alcohol. Carbonation comes from forcing CO2 into the mix, or, with time, it can carbonate naturally, spurred along by feeding extra sugar to the yeast.

PicoBrew Pico

5/10

Learn How We Rate

Wired

It makes beer!

Tired

It’s loud, it’s bulky, and you don’t learn much about brewing.

Buy It Now   |  PicoBrew

How We Rate

1/10A complete failure in every way

2/10Sad, really

3/10Serious flaws; proceed with caution

4/10Downsides outweigh upsides

5/10Recommended with reservations

6/10Solid with some issues

7/10Very good, but not quite great

8/10Excellent, with room to kvetch

9/10Nearly flawless

10/10Metaphysical perfection

Go to a brewery or try it at home and you’ll learn there’s a lot of time and process: heating, cooling, filtering, maturing. There is also cleaning—profound amounts of cleaning.

The brand new Pico from PicoBrew is an $800 home appliance that offers a Keurig-style approach to brewing suds. You pop a prefab “PicoPak” into the machine and make beers from microbreweries all over the country and around the world, along with Pico’s own blends, all right on your countertop. Customers can, say, order PicoPaks to turn out an Abita Turbodog from Louisiana, a wheat beer like Harlem Brewing Company’s Renaissance Wit, or A Little Dinghy Blonde from the Spinnaker Bay Brewery right up the street from my Seattle apartment.

The Pico features impressive technology. Those PicoPaks—sealed white paperboard boxes containing brewing ingredients—are recognized by the machine upon insertion, and each one is treated differently depending on what it is. That creation of wort is an automated and tailored to the individual beer. If you’re an avid fan of regional microbreweries, it’s like having the ability to tap a keg 3,000 miles away. Breweries that partner with PicoBrew can connect with faraway fans that they might not be able to reach otherwise.

It sounds enticing but in terms of use beyond just a couple of batches, I think it appeals to a fairly narrow demographic.

To qualify, you will need to tick off as many of the following boxes as possible:

Be a beer fanatic

Live in a remote area with no microbreweries or selection of good beer nearby

Have $800 to blow on a beer machine

Be fairly uninterested in the ins and outs of making beer

Not mind waiting a week or more for the beer to be ready to drink

Have a man cave or similar secluded area for brewing

Own a reverse osmosis machine (preferably)

Enjoy cleaning

When I first fired up the machine, I thought of how cool it would be to quaff a beer poured from the keg that night. After all, PicoBrew’s video says it “Brews in 2 hours,” which is a definition of “brewing” that excludes things like yeast, carbonation and, importantly, beer at the end of those two hours.

There’s certainly a moment where you hit a button and the machine starts whirring and the display reads “PREPARING TO BREW,” but it’s the kind of thing that will leave you much less frustrated if you read through the manual once before you take anything else out of the packaging. (I botched my first batch for not reading closely enough. My fault.) It turns out that, depending on the beer you’re making and the process you choose, it takes a lot longer than that.

In that spirit, since different beers have different requirements, I wished that each PicoPak came with a scroll-shaped flow chart to illustrate the time involved in each step and the materials—both included and not included—that you’ll need. I had to make a couple of last-minute grocery store runs: once for distilled water for brewing and again, later in the same brewing cycle, for hydrogen peroxide to clean out a serving keg.

I brought in my friend Dave to help because he’s a user experience researcher by day and homebrewer and beer lover the rest of the time. Together, we worked through the entire brewing process methodically.

First Draft

The Pico is a large appliance (easily more than twice the size of any other appliance in my kitchen) where you put the PicoPak, along with a sidecar pack of hops. The packs are compostable and look like they’re from Aunt Beru’s kitchen in Star Wars. The Pico heats distilled water or water that’s been run through a reverse osmosis process, and runs it through the packs creating the wort, which it transfers it to a “brewing keg” that sits on the counter next to the Pico. The wort cools overnight in the keg, then gets a sprinkling of yeast which, depending on which beer you’re working with, the method used, the ambient temperature, and if the beer being made requires dry hop packets, means you’ll need to wait several days if not a couple weeks before you have something to drink.

Saying ‘I made homebrew’ with beer from the Pico made me feel like a bit of a faker.

Dave and I had planned on playing cribbage and eating lunch while the Pico did its thing, but once we hit the “Brew” button and the machine got cranked up, the volume was somewhere between that of a fish tank pump and an air compressor.

“It’s like living near the airport,” Dave said on our way up to play cards on the roof.

“How about doing it nowhere?” my wife would ask, echoing a famous New Yorker cartoon, when I went to make a batch a few days later. “Would nowhere work?”

Up on the roof, I asked Dave if he’d keep a Pico in his kitchen.

“I would,” he said, “but I’d be asked to move it.”

Small Change

Over lunch we did some back-of-napkin math to figure out the economics of a PicoPak, and found the cost by volume between microbrew and Pico beer are roughly competitive. You end up with about a gallon and a half of beer from every PicoPak, which costs between $20-30, plus, let’s say, $3 to $5 or so for the distilled water and cleaning supplies each batch needs. A growler is half a gallon, so that’s around $10-15 per growler for the Pico, compared to going to a Seattle brewery where growlers go for $8-15.

“Real homebrew math is harder,” Dave joked. “Those are five-gallon batches.”

“Five gallons of beer doesn’t seem like a problem,” I said.

“It’s not,” he confirmed.

I called Darren McKee at Seattle’s Sound Homebrew Supply who helped me compare the whole PicoBrew setup versus what you’d need for homebrewing. He told me that a high-end five-gallon homebrew setup costs about $500, and grain kits for individual beers cost $35-50. So that’s up to five clams per growler, but it’s homebrewing, so a more hands-on process.

Dave went home beer-less and I let the brewing keg we’d been working with cool overnight then, the following day, added a yeast packet to the wort. Once the yeast had worked its magic, I used the Pico to transfer beer from the burly brewing keg to a flimsy serving keg, a process called racking. I pushed a CO2 cartridge connected to a regulator valve into the top, pressurized the serving keg and … was only 36 hours from drinking a beer.

Neat freaks might get particularly excited here. I learned as I brewed that every step of the path involves cleaning, some of it extensive. You’ll also need large quantities of hydrogen peroxide, powdered dish detergent, and a 17-millimeter wrench. If you’re like me, you’ll need to run to the store or order all of these things to keep the ball rolling. You’ll have a host of bits and bobs like little O-rings, and conical springs to keep track of and clean. (Tucking a few extras in the box would be a welcome addition.) The furnished cleaning implements for these is, of all things, a pair of oversized pipe cleaners; they’re fine when you’re scrubbing out the interior of a keg post, but near-comical in their uselessness while trying to clean the inside of either of the kegs.

Taste Test

Days later, once it was all done, it was still exciting to try the beer. After my user error with the first batch, a keg of Lucky Envelope Brewing’s Mosaic IPA came out tasting fantastic, with that great fresh-beer flavor, and a surprisingly lovely texture. I also made Pico Pils, the company’s in-house pilsner which turned out mysteriously cloudy but tasty. A batch of Harlem Brewing Company’s wheat beer came out well, though a little flat, for the first two thirds of the keg, but the bottom third was way too cloudy and smelled like it would give me a headache, so I dumped it.

The breweries provide their recipes to PicoBrew, which figures out how to make it work with the Pico, but if I owned Harlem Brewing Company, I’d want to protect my brand more carefully; this is clearly not what they’re serving on 125th Street.

So I enjoyed the beer, but I struggled with the idea that despite being integral to the beer-making process, I hadn’t learned a thing about brewing. Saying “I made homebrew” with beer from the Pico made me feel like a bit of a faker.

There is clearly a lot of thought that went into making the Pico work and despite my misgivings, it’s an impressive machine—it makes beer! For the right, deep-pocketed person with most of those criteria listed above, it might be nice to try microbrews that they couldn’t get their hands on otherwise, but considering the effort you need to make, why not go all the way and try homebrewing? Or, if you have consistent, reasonably easy access to whatever it is that you consider to be decent beer, pick up a six-pack at the grocery store or go support your favorite local brewery.

Food writer Joe Ray (@joe_diner) is a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of The Year, a restaurant critic, and author of “Sea and Smoke” with chef Blaine Wetzel.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/review-picobrew-pico/

[cashcounts]

Vapefly Galaxies MTL RDA Review | MTL Squonking on a Budget

Vapefly Galaxies intro

The Vapefly Galaxies is an affordable 22 mm mouth-to-lung rebuildable dripping atomizer. Affordable MTL RDAs are not as common as some of us would wish nowadays. In fact, the Galaxies along with the recently released Berserker RDA are the only two worthwhile budget-friendly MTL RDAs to enter the market lately. Did Vapefly, creators of the surprisingly good Nicolas MTL tank, hit another home-run in the MTL game?

Colors: black, stainless, gold, rainbow Price: ~$25

Vapefly Galaxies gallery

Vapefly Galaxies specs and features

Kit Content

Vapefly Galaxies MTL RDA

Screwdriver

BF pin adapter

Cleaning cloth

Spare parts

Ni80 pre-built single -strand coils (2)

Ni80 Clapton (2)

User manual

Specifications

Size: 22 mm x 32.4 mm

Coil: single

Material: PMMA/stainless steel/Delrin

Thread: 510 threaded

6-level side airflow system

Unique limitless screw airflow control

PMMA/Delrin material for anti-heat

BF pin adapter included

Easy single-coil building deck

Deep juice well

Notable Remarks

A piece of vaping history: MTL RDAs are nothing new. In fact, there was a point early in vaping history when most (if not all) RDAs were mouth-to-lung. As time progressed and airier, cloudier atomizers became the mainstream, MTL RDAs became kind of a novelty.

Subsequently, vapers who enjoyed a tight draw had to pick between either restricting the airflow of some of the less airy direct-lung RDAs out there or spend a lot of money for the MTL RDAs that made their appearance around the $80-100 mark.

Build Quality and Design

Machining on this small RDA is of high quality. From the engraved galaxy-like logo to the domed press-fitted Delrin top, Vapefly is showing an attention to detail that is not all that common for RDAs that cost under $30. It just feels smooth.

The RDA itself came clean with no weird machine oil smells and the such. I took it out for a quick rinse and I was good to go. I received the stainless-steel edition which comes with a black Delrin top and an Ultem mouthpiece. Three colors on my dripper were too much for me so I immediately replaced the included mouthpiece with the black one from my Berserker Mini RTA.

The dome shaped top-cap comes with built-in notches that limit it from turning around. This feature is very helpful both for guiding the airflow adjustments and unscrewing the RDA.

All in all, there are absolutely no complaints on the Galaxies build quality and design, especially considering the price point this one comes at.

Build deck

The build deck features two posts, a negative stainless steel, and a positive gold plated one. Don’t let the two screws on each post confuse you, this is a single-coil only RDA with the second screw being there for airflow adjustment (more on that later). Props to Vapefly for also including cut-outs on each side for placing your coil tool, a feature I always appreciate.

Building on the Galaxies is not the easiest task in the world. And the reason for that is not the usual challenges that MTL vapers have grown accustomed to, i.e. tiny build decks and even tinier wicking holes. The only problem with this one is its wire trapping design. The width of the posts combined with the small size of the screws make trapping round wire a bit of a challenge. This means that you can either try to wing it (praying your wire is not going to slip out) or spend some time trying to keep your wire centered while at the same time setting the screw. But I have found that adding in 45-degree bends to the leads makes it much easier.

Still, I can’t help but think that a tiny modification (a larger screw for example) would have made this deck a piece of cake to work with. Know that you may need some patience, especially with the thinner gauge wires used for MTL builds.

Airflow

The RDA features an elaborate airflow design, with the planets of the galaxies that appear on each side functioning as the airflow channels. Removing the top cap reveals a three-step airflow system, letting you choose the number of airflow holes you would like to use. The first step features only the bottom 0.8 mm hole, moving to the second step adds the middle 1.2 mm hole and the third step will add the top hole, measuring 1.5 mm in diameter.

The air will then be channeled through a slightly angled single hole on each side of the RDA, placed just under your coil. On top of that, each of the two posts of the RDAs build deck features an airflow adjustment screw, letting you reduce the airflow even more.

With the deck screwsrestricting the airflow, one hole will give an MTL draw which is not loose but not super tight either. Adding the second hole will still be MTL but of the airy variety and all three will give a very restricted DL draw. I actually enjoyed slip-streaming on three holes open but I settled for one hole with just a tiny further restriction from the deck airflow adjustment screws. Be wary that the screws will produce a slight whistling sound at some settings, another factor to take into account when aiming for the perfect draw.

Performance

In my opinion, this RDA is made for squonking. Dripping through the mouthpiece is not practical and removing the top cap to drip will soon become a chore, especially with the airflow having to be set in its exact place every time. But, when built accordingly, it performs as a squonking MTL RDA should.

I tried the included Ni80 26-gauge wires as well as the Ni80 thin fused Clapton wires and they both gave me a rich and satisfying vape. I also tried my usual MTL builds on a mech squonker, 5 wraps of 28-gauge Kanthal and 7 wraps of 28-gauge stainless steel with a 3 mm inner diameter – the deck seems to favor 3 mm inner diameter coils due to its relatively large size. Flavor was on point with every build and the throat hit was an unexpected surprise. It was almost too much!

Due to the slightly angled airflow and the relatively large size of the juice wells I had no leaking when over-squonking. I did notice some condensation on the airflow when I removed the top cap though, so be sure to clean every once in a while.

Coil positioning is of paramount importance with this one. Don’t be afraid to move your coil around if you haven’t found a satisfying vape, a little goes a long way. Use the cut-outs as guides for coil height and try to position the middle of the coil exactly in front of the airflow channel.

Another important thing to remember is to not remove the deck airflow adjustment screws completely. I noticed a drop in flavor when I did so and soon realized that the reason behind it was air escaping through the holes these screws are securing. Even if you are not planning on using them for airflow adjustment, I’d suggest keeping them firmly screwed in place. It wouldn’t hurt to periodically check their status, especially if you are using the RDA on a mechanical squonk box.

Likes

Many airflow options

Satisfying MTL draw

Great machining and build quality

Squonk-friendly

Good flavor

Practical notches on the top cap

Impressive throat hit

Did I mention the price?

Dislikes

Fiddly wire trapping design

Airflow options can get confusing

Can’t really drip through the mouthpiece

Some condensation

Verdict

The Vapefly Galaxies is a solid MTL RDA. It doesn’t come without its flaws, with the fiddly nature of the deck and the slightly confusing airflow adjustment options being the most notable ones. But once you manage to work around these minor inconveniences you will get a very satisfying MTL vape that you can adjust to your preferences.

I keep mentioning its price and for a good reason: you do get a bang for your buck with the Vapefly Galaxies. Is it the best MTL RDA out there? Probably not. But if you are in the market for an MTL RDA and price is a factor, you can’t go wrong with this one. In fact, pairing the Galaxies with a Pico Squeeze will give you a reliable squonk MTL setup for less than $50 — that’s as close as one can get to the definition of “money well spent”!

What are your thoughts on the Vapefly Galaxies MTL RDA? Let us know in the comment section!

Save 15%

Buy Now

[3one3]

The Sequel - 900

Food Blog

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“What are you doing? What is that sound?”

“I’m cutting limes into wedges for the tacos but I’m trying to cut them on a plate because my butcher block and cutting board are both covered in veggies, so every time the knife hits the plate it makes that terrible sound.”

“That’s a lot of vegetables.”

“I’m drowning in avocado and red onion.”

“Want me to let you go?”

“No. I miss you. I missed your voice. You never call me.”

“The phone works both ways, cariña.”

“Actually I do need to get off. I just don’t want to. Can I call you during the dinner? I’m not gonna sit out there and make it weird.”

“Text me 30 minutes ahead of time and it’s a date.”

“K.”

“Bye, baby girl.”

“Later.”

Okay, two pans worth of onions and peppers ready to go. Sweet potato cubes ready to go. Avocado cream drizzle just needs a squeeze of one of these limes. Rice is cooking. Black beans are on the stove ready to fire. Pico needs to be mixed. Cilantro is chopped and covered. And gross. Still need to slice avocados, but that can wait ‘til closer to dinner. Need to cut some for the guacamole too. Red onion, check. I know I said I’d do a version of the avocado cream with cashew cream instead of yogurt but I’m too lazy. What else? Christina wiped her hands on a towel and looked around her kitchen, which was organized chaos.

Grilled steaks and fish were out. Taco Night was in. She told André his team dinner menu was impractical, because everyone likes their steak and their salmon cooked differently and it would be difficult to make sure everyone got what they liked if two people were trying to bulk-grill all the food. Instead she furnished a list of ingredients that were heavier on the prep but much easier to actually cook. There was 7 pounds of spice-rubbed pork shoulder getting fork-tender in her slow cooker for the meat eaters, shrimp defrosting in the sink for the pescatarians, and spicy sweet potato and black beans for the vegetarians and vegans. They had flour and gluten-free corn tortillas. Everyone was covered, and most importantly, everyone could serve themselves and have exactly what they liked. Christina could put everything out on her island counter like a buffet and then be completely done with her hosting duties.

They’re supposed to be here in like half an hour, which means I have 15 minutes before I need to put anything in the oven. I’m taking a chip break, the rider decided upon completing her prep survey and checking the time. She grabbed the bag of whole wheat tortilla chips, ripped it open, and dumped the whole thing in a wooden salad bowl. Then she scraped the diced tomato and onion from her cutting board into a smaller bowl with finely chopped Serrano chile and some of the cilantro. She squeezed one of her lime wedges over it, sprinkled some salt on, and delicately mixed it all together. It seemed like she only stepped away from her chips and salsa for a couple of seconds- just enough time to open the refrigerator and get the bottle of Pellegrino- but André managed to get in there and start eating her snack.

“Do you need anymore help, pretty girl?” he asked with his mouth full. He’d been on the patio getting the space heater and the fire pit going. The extra folding table was already set up end to end with the glass one so that everyone could sit together, face to face, and he brought the dining room chairs out after promising he would make sure they didn’t get dirty. Before all that, he had to help in the kitchen.

“I think we’re good for now. I was just going to sit for a little.” Christina picked up the pico de gallo and the tortilla chips and walked away even as the player was trying to dip a chip. He followed her around to the other side of the big island and pulled a stool out for her so that they could have a break before the swarm of Bees arrived. On a scale from 1 to letting a 4-0 Revierderby lead slip, how pissed would she be if I asked her to finish making the guac before she sits down, he wondered. Then he felt the bag of ice wrapped to her ankle hit him in the knee as she climbed onto the tall seat and decided not to ask her to get up to make him more food. Christina had to ride and teach all day, and there was no rest for her between rushing home from the barn to see Lukas off with Zoe and Noah and beginning her vegetable cutting. She just changed her clothes, strapped on her ice, and went to work.

“Thanks for doing this,” André told her once he was in his own seat. She was gobbling chips.

“You can thank me by getting your shit sorted out and winning some games.”

“On it.”

“Can you make sure the puppies don’t get too much people food?”

“Where are you going to be?”

“I’m making myself a burrito bowl and hiding upstairs.”

“Why?”

“I’m not part of the squad. You guys should be alone to talk out whatever you’re gonna talk out. Believe me, I’m perfectly fine eating dinner in bed and watching TV all night.”

“I have a gift for you that I wasn’t going to give you yet, but maybe you could use it tonight.”

“I like gifts.”

“I’ll go get it.” The player scooped some chunky salsa for the road, but paused to kiss his girl’s cheek before getting down from his stool. Christina pushed both bowls away while she chewed her last crunchy whole wheat triangle. She didn’t want to ruin her appetite. The pork smelled amazing. She had designs on pigging out, having a long chat about nothing with Juan in bed, and passing out. Lukas was having his first sleepover and his dad vowed to do all the cleanup from the dinner. There was no reason to have to do anything else for the rest of the night. She hoped the gift was a holiday candle, or an interesting face mask, a cozy blanket, or maybe, if she were really lucky, an air popper. Popcorn and a movie sounded great. But André came back with a long, slim box wrapped in chrome paper and tied with a burgundy velvet bow. It definitely wasn’t big enough to be an air popper.

“I can tell you didn’t wrap it,” the rider smiled once the box was in her hands.

“I paid the extra €5 to have it wrapped for Christmas! Open.” A sneaky smirk lurked behind the unusual humility with which he presented the present. Normally he openly salivated in anticipation of the response. He watched her tug the pretty bow loose and carefully place the ribbon on the counter. It was nice enough to keep. The top and bottom of the box were actually wrapped separately, so she didn’t need to tear the heavy duty paper. Before lifting the lid, she shook the box and asked if it was a dragon. André said it was not, and apologized for that.

“Okay, let’s see...” Christina plucked the top off the box and immediately recognized her gift as a sex toy. It was an unmistakably phallic wand with bulbous top after a pinched in bit at one end. It was smooth black silicone, just as she asked for. The length of it was plain- tapered at the tip and a little narrowed in the middle. It was not intimidatingly big or disappointingly small. The proportions were just right, like her other toys.

“It’s rechargeable, bendy, and self-heating. How nice is that?” her partner asked like a salesman. “I think it has 10 different vibrations.”

“Thanks, babe,” his wife chuckled. She then bit her lip, but it wasn’t a shy gesture. It was more like she was trying not to laugh.

“Do you like it? Try bending it. It’s probably not charged yet so I don’t know if it turns on.”

“I definitely like it. I’m just...” Christina snorted and couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you really want me to be using this upstairs while you’re outside having crisis talks with the guys? Isn’t that weird? Who does that? Who is like, “Oh, there’s a dinner party happening at my house but I’m not really part of it so I’ll just go masturbate”?”

“Why would I care? Now that you mention it, it might actually be kind of sexy to think about that- To know what you’re doing. I for sure would know what we’re doing together when everyone leaves! It’s supposed to be very quiet, by the way.” He watched her lift the toy from the box and investigate its flexibility. It was a solid thing, so it took some effort to bend it. It held whatever curve one shaped it to. “I think you’re supposed to use that big part for your clit. That’s why it bends. To make it more comfortable to hold, I guess.”

“You did good. I’m very interested in this self-heating business.” Seriously, he’s good at picking out vibrators. He’s three for three, she realized. I can’t wait to try this. I have a phone date with Juanin. It’s like my stars have aligned! Except that would be particularly cruel wouldn’t it? Break in the new vibrator boyfriend gave me with Juan instead? While boyfriend is home, even?

“Go plug it in in the bedroom so it’s charged up for later.”

“Okay,” she laughed. Things had really changed. There was no way she would be so relaxed in a conversation about a sex toy with André when they first got together. It had become just a regular thing, or a funny one. She pulled the USB cord out of its indented place in the packaging to make sure she wouldn’t need scissors to free it, and then took everything upstairs. Just holding the device- feeling the silicone texture, and the weight of it, and the hardness under the surface- was kind of exciting. She thought to check the tiny user manual to see if it indicated how long it took to charge. There was always the possibility of trying it out and then eating dinner. Especially when she discovered that it was already fully charged. She went up through the different speeds and vibration patterns, and turned on the heating feature. The device took about as long as a curling iron to warm to a sort of humanlike temperature. It wasn’t going to burn anything. I’m gonna take a picture of it and text it to Juanin with my 30 minutes notice.

André helped with the food when his party caterer returned. He was in charge of dredging the shrimp in chili powder, cayenne, salt, pepper, and cumin, and skewering them for the grill grate on Christina’s gas range. Having 6 burners, a grill, and a griddle made the range her favorite feature in the whole house. She gushed over it to people all the time, like her mother-in-law. This made André feel very proud. His dad once told him that one of the most important things a man can do for his partner is flatter her with the finest kitchen appliances. He’d enlisted his son’s help in choosing a new toaster oven for Luise, and his teenage son had no interest or patience for walking around the store and comparing all the toasters. A toaster was a toaster. The wisdom stuck with him though, because his mom was thrilled with the eventual choice. She was happy for days, and used it to make things she normally would have put in the regular oven. And her happiness was tied to who gave her the very nice, extremely expensive, top quality toaster oven. Thus “he who provides his wife with the finest goods for her kitchen is the most accomplished man” was ingrained in André and set out as a future goal. When he met girls that made him smile, he tried to imagine their future response when he was able to give them the best appliances money can buy. Doubt was cast upon a budding relationship if he decided the girl probably wouldn’t care that much.

Christina loved having two ovens and a separate broiler too. She had three sheet pans of vegetables going in there while she made the guacamole and started setting out serving dishes and plates and bowls and utensils on the island. They did get the holiday decorations out the night before but never actually started the decorating, except in the kitchen. The rider filled her glass fruit bowl with white, silver, glittery, and disco-ball like tree ornaments, and put two staggered height pillar candles in there with them. It sat on the raised part of the island with the stemless wine glass and the carafe full of Cabernet Franc. André teased her about how unnecessary it was to decant wine for that specific dinner “party”, and she countered with some excuse about how it made up for the fact that she was wearing skinny track pants and a sweatshirt.

“The onions and peppers go on the long platter so that they’re not all piled up and steaming themselves,” she told him when he grabbed the plate in question with the intention of using it for the trio of cheeses.

“You know how we’ve been talking about what you want to do next with your career, and what else you want to try? You should do something with cooking, pretty girl,” the footballer suggested somewhere between kidding and thoughtful.

“Like what? A YouTube channel?”

“Or a blog. I don’t know. You’re so good at this.” Who else thinks about the shape of the plate and the effect it has on the food? Oooh, people must be here.

“Your phone is ringing.”

“I hear.”

Christina didn’t have much time to consider the suggestion. The embattled Bees arrived in a steady stream of calls and texts seeking passage through the security gate and guidance on where to park. André handled that, and his wife handled transferring food to the appropriate plates and dishes, shredding the pork, grilling the shrimp, warming and setting out the tortillas, showing the guys where to find different drinks, and accepting cheek kisses and compliments on her spread. She did in fact make herself a big bowl of rice, savory carnitas, cotija, cheddar jack, pico de gallo, and shredded lettuce before announcing to the 30 footballers milling about her home that “the buffet” was open, and she did take it straight upstairs. Spencer and Lucky were invited to join her but they were much too interested in running around to sniff all the strangers. She put the bowl on André’s nightstand because it was the closest to the door, went in her dressing room to take her pants, sweatshirt, and bra off, and was then surprised to hear her partner in life and in food prep call her name questioningly from said door.

“What do you need, babe?” she asked, leaning out of her closet and looking toward the adjacent doorway.

“Thank you so much for taking care of everything,” the blonde forward said. He walked over to give her a smooch. “Love you.”

“Welcome.” His girl smiled inside and out. It’s very nice to be appreciated, she thought. Even if it’s for something he shouldn’t have sprang on me in the first place. He’s been very helpful and he gave me a really nice new vibrator so I guess it’s all okay. “If I hear a riot, I’ll call the police, mm?”

“Sounds good.” André gave her another kiss, on the forehead, to close out his hit and run, and went to get some food and take his place at the table outside.

I’m gonna eat and watch TV and then I’ll call the Spanish Teddy Bear. I’ll give him his heads up now. I think I should save my gift for later with boyfriend though, especially if he doesn’t finish this dinner with a good feeling about the team. I can make him feel better, or distract him at least. I’d be such a ho if I christened the new vibrator with somebody else. That’s ungrateful ho shit. But I’m still gonna send the picture to Juanin because I’m a tease like that. I miss the fuck out of that boy, Christina thought as she got settled under the black satin quilt and chose a jersey pillow to serve as her lap table. Schü was right yesterday. I did want his attention. I want anybody’s attention. Sometimes it really sucks to be here with him while he’s in a bad mood, or he’s really busy, or wants to do stuff alone all the time, when I know there is someone in London who is desperate to hang with me, and be fun, or even just be with me on the couch. It makes me miss Juanin even more than I always do. Plus I want to complain to him every day about how angry I am that we moved here for Dortmund and Dortmund just keeps getting worse, and I mean as a whole situation, not just results. It’s been nothing but bad for us. I want boyfriend to be happy. He was happy one night when he scored an equalizer against Real Madrid and he was semi-happy when they won the league cup. That’s it in a year and a half. The rest he’s hurt, not playing, or losing. This pork came out soooooooo good. What did Teddy Bear say? The rider rested her fork in the oversized salad bowl and lifted her iPhone off the pillow to read the Chelsea midfielder’s response to her photo.

“Do you give it a name?”

“No. I’m not that girl.”

“See if it fits in your butt.”

“Not that girl either.”

“Your Christmas wish list is weird this year.”

“I’m that girl that asks for a new vibrator and secondhand sweatpants.”

“One of a kind.”

“Do you think I could be that girl who does cooking tutorials on the YouTubez? Or nah?”

“I think you can be any girl you want. That would be a big project though. We’ll talk about it when you call?”

“K. See you in 30.”

Christina wrote one more text, to Zoe, before fully resuming her burrito bowl grazing. The text breaks were actually important because they prevented her from inhaling the food too quickly, as she was prone to do. She asked Zoe how dinner went and if Lukas wanted to talk to her or Face Time or anything before bed. Zoe said she was letting the boys stay up until Noah’s regular bedtime, a bit later than Lukas’, and that they were playing with action figures and watching Toy Story. Lukas’ mom was really looking forward to introducing him to some classic Christmas movies. His dad told her to pace herself and not overdose on Christmas too soon and run out of Christmas stuff. André told Lukas a different story. He told him it was going to be wall to wall Christmas, for weeks, and that they were going to help Mommy have the best Christmas ever. Of course, that was before he forgot their tree shopping date- the very first part of the holiday season.

Her 30 minutes of dinner, CNBC Europe, and getting upset about geopolitics went quickly. Juan called right on time. He was on his couch with a blanket, his MacBookPro, and a to-do list of images to make for the restaurant’s Christmas menu announcements to be posted on social media. His faraway friend shared André’s stunted idea about doing some sort of cooking or food blog.

“What do you think? Should I do long pithy posts and funny videos with cool recipes?”

“I think you should ride. You just told me the thing you want to do is ride and win. You know you can’t do it as well as you used to if you take on too many other things. Make riding your focus. You haven’t found the same kind of motivation again yet. I’m afraid if you stray now, you may not get it back,” the Spaniard testified with logic and levelness, and most importantly, keen interest. “Not too many days ago you got very upset- furious, even- and then very unhappy about a mistake from hours earlier that you had already dismissed as meaningless.”

“Well it didn’t bother me that much when it first happened,” the rider shot back, referring to a miscalculation she made in the ring in Doha on her Winter Soldier. It cost them a rail in the second round of the Champions League finale. She walked out of the ring shaking her head at Daniel, who was already saying the name of the sponsor on the jump. But then she just shrugged and said it wasn’t a big deal, and that riding the approach to that fence differently could have resulted in a knockdown anyway. Hours and hours later, at a corner table at the jazz club, Christina worked herself almost to tears of condemnation for not doing better in the tack, and being smarter, and above all else, for acting like her mistake didn’t matter. She hated letting herself off that way. The attitude disgusted her when she was able to look back on it. “It just gnawed at me whenever I re-rode the class in my head.”

“It gnawed at you because you were careless, it cost you, and you pretended not to care to protect yourself from being disappointed. I don’t know how you never learn that doing that to yourself- trying to put off the disappointment- just makes it worse when you finally let it in. You used to always face everything head-on, cariña,” Juan practically whined. He was always lamenting the disappearance of that quality in her.

“I know.”

“Don’t load up your schedule with other commitments again,” he reiterated, voice lowered, intensity dialed up. “Work on your horses, on your body, and your relationships. The mind takes care of itself when you do that. You’ll be happiest when your horses are performing their best, you feel good physically, and you spend lots of time having fun and relaxing with your family and friends.”

“Okay.”

“I know you’re looking for things that help keep you sane and happy, so that you can ride with a clear head.”

“Yeah. I just keep thinking that maybe more non-horse hobbies would help with that,” Christina shrugged before rolling over onto her side and pulling her blanket up.

“I get it,” her absentee teddy bear affirmed, emphatic. “I just believe you’re better off making your relationships your hobbies. I don’t want to sound selfish when I say this, but the time you use for writing a food blog or something is time you aren’t spending with Lukas, or André, or your girlfriends, or me. For you, and I think for me too, the most important thing is to be with my friends and family. Then it doesn’t matter what we do- it’s always fun, or relaxing. Don’t launch a video account and teach people how to make lasagna two ways. Just cook something with Lukas. Come here and cook with me in a professional kitchen. You get what I’m saying?”

“Yes. But I’m gonna be real honest. What if I go 100% No Holds Barred Show Jumping All-Star and I’m still making dumb mistakes and my instincts are still bad? At least when I’m not 100% committed I can keep telling myself I’m not at the top because I’m not trying that hard. I’m really and truly afraid that my best- No- That Dirk’s best, for example- isn’t good enough anymore.” Phew. Got that out, Christina thought, applauding herself. It was hard for her to air real fears and insecurities. What she said could never be for Tom’s ears, for example, because it would jeopardize the footing her whole working persona was built on. Her whole professional existence was staked on confidence and an unyielding belief in her horses and their supremacy over the others. To let anyone see her doubts in them or herself would feel like a violation of her very being. But it was a petit, intelligent, and understanding Chelsea midfielder that she was speaking to, and he could learn anything about her without changing his belief in her.

“You have to find out, cariña,” he replied without a moment’s hesitation. His immediate reactions were so valuable to her, because they were instinctive and real. He didn’t take the time to think about what she said and then take care to qualify his response so as not to upset her, or to deliberately manipulate her in some way. Sometimes André’s ponderous nature on matters of consequence that he didn’t fully comprehend from the get-go read as strategizing and made the eventual reply feel a bit contrived. “You find out the answer as quick as you can, and if it’s the wrong answer then you go to work to fix it. If your best isn’t good enough anymore, you make a new best. And don’t even try to argue that because I know you believe too that’s how it should be.”

“I do agree on that,” she chuckled, amused by his forcefulness. “It’s daunting though. I don’t want to feel like Stevie G.”

“I really don’t think you need to be worrying about that. Your 80% is better than most riders’ 110% right now. Get back to the hundred and you’ll be the best again. Use getting to the hundred as inspiration and motivation to get the extra 10% you used to unleash in big moments to shock everyone. I would love to see this.”

“Thanks. You have a way of making me feel better about myself by making me feel bad about myself.” That is the clearest way I’ve ever been able to put The Juan Effect into words! By George, I’ve got it!

“You’re welcome? I guess?”

“I would hug you so hard right now if I were in London.”

“Have you ever had shaved octopus?”

“Is that food or like a sex thing?”

“Food, cariña.” Juan’s eye-roll was audible over the line. He was calm again after getting a little excited there about self-improvement and reaching for top. Christina could hear his typing and taps on the computer resume too.

“So like octopus carpaccio?”

“Yes.”

“Come on. You know the answer to that.”

“You should try.”

“What else is on the holiday menu?”

“My mum’s slow roast lamb, and Spanish bread pudding.”

“Sign. Me. Up. Are you having Christmas dinner at home or at the restaurant?”

“Home! The whole family will be here with me Christmas Eve to eat.”

“Good. That’s how it should be. Are they all staying for Boxing Day football again? I didn’t even look at the fixtures yet. Are you home or away?”

“Home, against Brighton. Most of the family is coming. I’m saving a ticket for my girlfriend though, in case she decides at the last minute to come to her favorite match of the season.”

“Do you want me to?” she questioned in a small voice after a brief pause to be touched by the player’s sweetness. “Or are you just looking out for my love of Boxing Day at Stamford Bridge?”

“If you’re asking is it important to me that you come for that game? No, not especially. I know you love the atmosphere with all the kids. I always want to see you though.”

“That’s very sweet. Lemme ask you this though- which do you want more- for me to come over that morning for the football and stay one night while your family is there, or...for me to come the morning of New Year’s Eve, and stay for a party and the associated hungover lie-in on New Year’s Day?”

“Is “both” an option?” the Spanish footballer laughed. Christina said it was not. “Would you really come for New Year’s?” he asked with more sincerity in his lilt. “I thought you wanted to be at home?”

“I do. Home is as much with you in London as it is here.” THERE’S a truth I’m willing to confront head-on. For better or for worse.

“Come home whenever you want, baby girl,” Juan sighed with something like muted satisfaction. There was a softness in his voice too, which the primary listener found deeply comforting and personalized for her. “If you’d rather come for a party than football, or if you want to be alone together the next morning instead of surrounded by nosy Spanish people, either is okay with me.”

“Let me think about it, okay?” She pushed and pulled idly at the “stuffing” in her satin quilt to make it fit evenly in its square instead of bunched up in half of it. It was one of her favorite blankets but it was impossible to prevent that bunching problem. No amount of shaking it out helped. It drove her nuts whenever she let herself think about it for too long. Luckily she wasn’t really thinking about it while she tried to fix it. She was thinking over André’s potential reaction to either London visit. The New Year’s one was something on the fringes of her mind for a few days already. It was amplified a little the previous morning when she found the pretty and romantic red party dress in her closet. The flared Gazar silk skirt, with its organza underpinnings, was a touch dramatic for her, and it begged to bounce and twirl at a glamorous celebration.  

“Mhm.”

“Hang on a second. I have a message.”

“Come downstairs. We’re going to have dessert. Schmelle brought you an Oreo cheesecake as a thank you,” Christina read on the screen.

“I’ve been summoned downstairs. I’ll call you back?”

“I’ll be here.”