#obviously this is mostly a joke- I sketched this out in like 5 minutes as he was closing down stream

[mbohjeezart]

Tango said on stream yesterday that there wasn't any bunny maid Tango fanart! So I fixed that for him <3

[emilia3546]

Shadowsinger Part 5 - Gwynriel

ACOSF Spoilers! Do Not read this unless you have finished ACOSF and the Azriel bonus chapter

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Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

*****

Madja smiled as Gwyn followed her sisters into the healer's house,

"I believe you wanted to get a brace made for your wings?" She asked, gesturing for Emerie to sit, and she nodded,

"I can't fully draw a bow with the limited movement." She admitted, and nodded when Madja paused before reaching out to see exactly how far her wings could move on their own, and then with assistance. Gwyn and Nesta sat in front of Emerie, each holding one of her hands, and she squeezed each time something hurt, but never stopped Madja.

"How much higher do you need them to rest?" Madja asked,

"Not too much, I can't remember exactly what Azriel suggested."

"That's okay, I'll make one that's adjustable, so it can change as needed. Just so you're aware, bracing your wings higher than where they naturally rest will stretch the muscles, and might leave them a bit sore depending on how long you brace them for." Emerie nodded, "But it might also loosen the tightness that's come with the years, and if you want to, perhaps we can incorporate some physical therapy to improve movement a little."

"Physical therapy?" Emerie's eyes flashed with fear, "Not - not reopening the wounds to heal?" Gwyn gently squeezed her hand,

"No, nothing like that. You're not alone in wanting to avoid that, just stretches and exercises to improve strength and movement as your wings are. Perhaps with the right encouragement, your wings will be able to rest in a position suitable for archery without a brace at some point."

"That'll certainly be helpful," Emerie mused, "Okay, let's try it."

"Wonderful." Madja slowly released Emerie's wings, and pulled a sketchpad from under her desk, she sat silently for a few moments while Emerie turned to sit normally in her chair, "This is what I'm imagining," she explained, showing the females her sketch, "Does that look about right?"

"Yes. Thank you." Emerie grinned, and Madja smiled, her joy at helping a patient obvious in the way her eyes shone,

"I should have it made within a week or so, I will send word when it's done, and I'll let you know a potential schedule for your physical therapy."

"Oh. Um," Emerie started, "I don't live in Velaris, and I'd rather any letters not be found by my neighbors."

"I know," Madja said, smiling softly, "I meant, I'll send word to the House of Wind, I assume either Cassian or Azriel will help you when you come for training."

"Thank you," Emerie grinned, and turned round to Nesta, "Watch out, Nes, I'm coming after your title." Nesta narrowed her eyes,

"We'll see about that," she muttered, and Gwyn laughed,

"Oh please, neither of you stand a chance against me," she joked, and thanked Madja again before leading her sisters outside, to where Mor was already waiting,

"Well?" Emerie grinned and nodded,

"She says it should be made in a week!"

"That's great, are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, she also said that she thinks she can help with some stretches and exercises to eventually strengthen my wings so they won't need a brace." Mor grinned, and Emerie threw her arms around her, holding on tight as they winnowed back to the House.

Gwyn and Nesta shared a knowing look when they arrived, and slipped away, leaving Emerie and Mor alone for a moment,

"Oh, Gwyn, before I forget, there'a family dinner tonight, I doubt Emerie will be able to come, but you're more than welcome to if you want."

"A family dinner?"

"Yeah, at my sister's River House."

"You mean, a dinner with the High Lord and Lady?"

"With my sister and brother-in-law, my other sister, Elain, I don't think you've properly met, but she'll be there, and Amren and Varian, have you met them?"

"Briefly, but only for a couple of minutes,"

"And obviously, Mor, Cass and Az are all coming. It's okay if you're not comfortable coming though."

"No, I'll come, is it okay if I decide to leave early though?"

"Of course. Whatever you're comfortable with." Nesta didn't say it, but Gwyn easily noticed the pride in her eyes, pride for her, that she was willingly going to a gathering with people she didn't know well, or at all, in Elain's case. She smiled, Nesta didn't need to know that Azriel was the sole reason that she was comfortable with going,

"I'll see you tonight." Nesta grinned, before turning away,

"Oh, and my nephew will be there as well, at least for a bit." Gwyn smiled as Nesta disappeared off to whatever work she had to do.

*****

Gwyn was beautiful. There was no other way to describe her as she walked towards him, Azriel couldn't help the smile that sprung to his face, and his shadows shot across to her, not even waiting for his permission, dancing around her as she walked across to him. She had forsaken the robes of a priestess tonight, instead opting for a loose dress, the skirts not quite falling to the floor, leaving her shoes on display. The dress itself was midnight-blue, the skirts made from several swathes of fabric, flowing around her as she moved, and on her feet were a pair of flat shoes, matching the dress, elegant but practical. She had swept her hair onto her head, out of the way. She had dressed to look relatively formal, but so that she could still run, and fight. Azriel extended a hand, waiting for her to reach him, his shadows still surrounding her when she grasped his hand. They stayed with her as he flew her down to the River House, with Cassian and Nesta beside them.

Gwyn took a deep breath when Azriel set her down on the porch of the River House,

"You okay?" He muttered, and she nodded, but didn't step away from her side, going motionless when the door opened, and Feyre grinned at them,

"We're just getting sat down." She said, her gaze lingering on Gwyn for a moment, "Gwyn, I'm Feyre, we met briefly a few months ago." Gwyn returned her smile, and shook the hand Feyre held out for her,

"I remember," she faltered for a second, "I don't know what I should call you," she admitted, and Feyre smiled again,

"Just Feyre, no 'my lord' or 'my lady' within our family." Gwyn smiled, and,

"Alright, Feyre." Feyre grinned, and Gwyn seemingly opened up, her nervousness visibly fading a little at Feyre's friendly tone,

"Come on in then, you lot."

Azriel kept a hand on Gwyn's lower back as she followed Nesta and Cassian inside, and she flashed him a grateful smile, this was still difficult for her, but if he could make it any easier, he would.

Everyone else was already sat down when they reached the dining room, except for Mor, who was still sitting in an armchair across the room, playing with baby Nyx, her joy at his every giggle and squeal of delight plain for anyone to see. Were it not for Gwyn at his side, Azriel's gaze would have lingered, but he checked that Gwyn was still alright, and deliberately guided her to a chair away from the males she didn't know well. She was still close to Elain though, and Mor slid into the chair opposite Azriel after handing Nyx back to his mother. Gwyn kept close to him as conversations started around the table, casual conversations, no mention of work, or the potential situation in Illyria, not at family dinner. Gwyn was unusually quiet, mostly observing everyone around her, and talking politely to Mor and Nesta when she needed to. Every casual move was clear, calculated, her instincts for observation were perfect, had she been there to report back to someone, she would have been able to talk about everyone. A flash of pride shot through him at the realization that she was trying to figure out what to talk about with different people, and he cursed himself for not briefing her beforehand,

"Feyre tells me that you got some new seeds, Elain," he started, daring a glance at Rhys as her attention snapped to him, his brother wasn't watching, thank the Cauldron. Elain stared straight at him, and he tried not to squirm under her gaze as she excitedly talked about the new plants she was growing, exclusive to the Night Court. Was she still upset that he'd had to stop whatever had been starting to form between them? He almost winced at the intensity of her gaze, resisting to urge to ask his shadows what was up with her, but he wouldn't invade her privacy, even if she was mad at him.

"Did you ever find any night-blooming lilies?" It was the first question Gwyn had asked all evening, "We had some at Sangravah when I was young, but I've not seen them since,"

"No," Elain sighed, "I can't find them anywhere, it's as if all the seeds vanish the moment I try looking for them. I'll get my hands on some eventually. Excuse me," she muttered, standing to go and fetch the food, returning with Nuala and Cerridwen a few minutes later, leaving Gwyn hanging, and Azriel almost glared after her, but turned to Gwyn,

"Well done," he whispered, just loud enough for Gwyn to hear him, and he noticed Rhys glancing towards them for fifth time that evening, "If you're okay, I think Rhys wants to come over,"

"Oh?"

"You're a part of the family now. But he'll understand if you'd rather not tonight."

"No, it's okay," Azriel jerked his head slightly, and Rhys made his way slowly towards them, claiming the seat across from Gwyn, and smiled at her, "Hello, my lo-, sorry, Rhysand." He chuckled softly,

"Just Rhys is fine, Gwyn, we don't reinforce rank here."

"I know. Feyre mentioned, it's just a bit of a surprise," she glanced across to Azriel, just for a moment, wanting that little reassurance that he was still there,

"How's Nyx doing? You getting any sleep now?" Rhys rolled his eyes, and snorted,

"Sleep? What's that?" Rhys groaned, but grinned, and Gwyn smiled,

"Nyx is your son?" Rhys nodded,

"He's almost four months old now," he turned to see Feyre making her way across the room, Nyx in her arms, grabbing at her hair, and giggling when she passed him to Azriel,

"Say hi to uncle Azriel," she crooned, and grinned as she returned to her seat, Nyx stared up at him, and he reached out for something, grabbing at the air, the shadows,

"He's beautiful," Gwyn whispered, "I've always loved children, I used to look after the younglings at Sangravah."

"Do you want to hold him?" Rhys asked softly, and she nodded, giggling when Nyx hiccuped, staring up at her with wide eyes, then back at Azriel, "I hope we might see you around a bit more, Gwyn," Rhys said as he too left, following Feyre back to their seats. Gwyn looked around in a panic,

"Doesn't he want his son back?"

"You're fine, Gwyn, look, Nyx loves you." True to his words, the child had fallen asleep in Gwyn's arms, his little wings flopping down, and she carefully gathered them up,

"It's been ages since I held a child," she whispered, "I miss it." She smiled down at the sleeping child in her arms, "Babies don't ever judge, they see the world exactly as it is, and don't apologize for it." Azriel couldn't help but smile as she look back at him, laughing when Mor swooped back in to steal her nephew,

"My turn," she demanded, and grinned when Gwyn relinquished the child, his chubby hands pulling on a golden chain around her neck, a necklace, the necklace, oh shit, Elain was going to see it. He had to distract her attention, if Elain saw it, she'd mention it, and Gwyn, he never wanted her to think herself second best, if he'd been thinking he would have returned it, and bought her a different one, but it was too late now, shit. He could hide it, with his shadows. It was too late, Elain had already turned back, her gaze landing on the necklace,

"That's a lovely necklace, Gwyn." No. Shit, shit, shit.

"It was a gift from a friend at solstice, I never found out who." Gwyn smiled and touched the charm,

"I'm glad Azriel found someone who wanted it after I gave it back to him." Gwyn turned to face him, and he wished he could just vanish,

"What? Is that true? Did you give it to Elain first?" Tears were shining in her eyes, and devastation marred her beautiful face,

"Yes, but -" she didn't give him a chance to speak, running out of the room immediately,  "Gwyn!" he called after her, and glared at Elain, "What the fuck, Elain?" he almost shouted,

"She deserves to know. No one wants to be second best."

"She's not. I didn't even tell her it was from me! I just wanted someone to be happy with it, not using it as an escape from something else!" He snapped, following Gwyn out of the room before Elain had a chance to answer.

*****

He had just given her the necklace because Elain didn't want it. Azriel thought she was just someone to pass off unwanted gifts to. She would have been thrilled to learn it was from him, if he hadn't just been passing it on to her. She paused at the door, hearing Azriel's angry words to Elain, and debated going back, but ran outside, into the gardens, finding a bench to sit on. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but couldn't stop the tears from falling. She had thought he was different, better, but he had only thought of her when Elain had given it back, of course he wanted Elain, his brothers were with her sisters, so of course they were, whatever they were. She was foolish to think he'd ever want her. She buried her face in her hands and cried, letting out the sobs that she had hidden earlier, tears falling freely down her face.

Footsteps sounded on the marble floor at the entrance to the house,

"Go away," she muttered,

"Gwyn, please." Azriel. He thought he could just follow her out here, as if he had done nothing wrong,

"Why don't you run inside and find Elain!" she snapped,

"I don't want Elain." He said, not coming any closer,

"I won't be someone you just use to replace her. If you cared, you would have bought me a present for me, not just because the person you bought it for didn't want it."

"Gwyn," his voice broke on her name, "I never meant for you to feel second best-"

"Aren't I?"

"No! I just wasn't thinking."

"Obviously!" Gwyn glared at him, her vision still blurred by tears, "You were supposed to never lie to me! You're the first male I trusted! And you didn't even prioritize me!" She shouted, "I just wanted you to trust me, to not hide from me like you do with everyone else, and you lied to me."

"Gwyn please, it wasn't like that, I do trust you, I just, I was going to tell you, but then it was so long, and I thought it would just upset you to bring it up. Yes, I bought it for Elain, but it didn't make her happy, and I just wanted someone to be happy." He took another step towards her, something like devastation crossing his face when she shifted away, ready to run, and he stopped, "Elain didn't want to face her mating bond, either to accept or reject it, and she used me as a way to avoid it. I thought I wanted her, that she wanted me, but she wanted an escape, and thought I could provide it. I bought the necklace because I thought she would be happy, but I, Gwyn, there is nothing with her, and she gave it back when she realized that. I just wanted it to make someone happy. Clotho never told you it was from me, because it doesn't matter, I just told her to give it to someone who would be happy." Tears were shining in his eyes as he spoke, "I know I'm an idiot, you don't have to tell me that, and I know I can't fix it, but I'm sorry, I should have taken it back and bought you something different, but I wasn't thinking, and," he stopped, "I'm just sorry." It had made her happy, and she didn't know what to say. Perhaps she was overreacting, it was true that Clotho had never told her it was from him, and she supposed it didn't matter, but she unclipped it from around her neck,

"Then take it back now." A tear slid down his face as she passed the necklace to him, and he dropped his head, but before he could apologize again she continued, "Return it, and let's choose something different, together."

"You're not mad?"

"Oh, I'm furious, but not just because of you. I understand, I know what is to want to make someone happy, but you do make people happy, Az, you are more than just your job. I don't care what you've done, I just care that you're honest with me. You lied to me. That's what upset me, that, and I thought you preferred her."

"No, never."

"Let me finish. But mostly, I'm angry at her, she saw that I liked the necklace, that you had made someone happy with it, and she tried to ruin that. You should have got a different one, and you should have told me, but Elain shouldn't have tried to upset me with that, she was jealous, Az." Azriel smiled, and dropped to his knees in front of where she was still sitting on the bench, clasping her hands in his,

"I swear to you now, I will always tell you everything, always, Gwyn. No secrets." He gently kissed her hands, and she smiled,

"Thank you, that's all I ever wanted." The necklace was left on the bench when they returned to the dining room, where Elain was nowhere to be seen.

"Gwyn!" Nesta shot to her feet the moment they stepped through the door, glaring daggers at Azriel, "Are you okay? I'm so sorry, Elain, she was way out of line, I don't think she'll be coming back, I was pretty mad," Gwyn laughed at Nesta's explosive temper, but reassured her,

"I'm fine, stop it, it's not his fault, it was a misunderstanding, it's fine." Nesta narrowed her eyes at Azriel once more before relaxing,

"Don't ever pull that kind of shit again," she said,

"I have already sworn to never keep secrets from her." Nesta nodded,

"Good,  I won't have to cut your balls off then," Gwyn snorted and sat back down, apologizing to everyone for making a scene, but Mor just laughed,

"There's always something that goes a bit wrong, at least you two made up." Gwyn laughed, and stayed for the rest of dinner, her hand still clasped in Azriel's as they finished dessert, she didn't let go until they were in the air again.

"Where are we going?" The House was behind them as they flew,

"You'll see." Azriel chuckled, gently setting her down outside a shop, still open, even at this time, and pushed the door open, "Let me at least try to fix my mistake,"

"You don't have to. You apologized, and took responsibility, you're forgiven, it was a mistake."

"Let me do this." he repeated, "Neve! What do you have that would suit Gwyn?" A female popped her head up from behind the counter, studying her quickly,

"Perhaps something in emerald, one moment," Azriel led Gwyn to the counter,

"Pick whatever you want." Neve returned moments later, a pair of emerald earrings in hand,

"These are new, one of a kind, perfectly suited to your lady,"

"Oh, she's not-" Azriel started, but Gwyn smiled, stopping him before he could finish,

"They're beautiful, but they must be expensive?"

"That's alright." Azriel insisted, "Rhys massively overpays me."

"No, Azriel I can't accept this, I'll pay you back."

"It's a gift. For you. Please." Neve held the earrings up as if Gwyn were wearing them, and Azriel's breathing hitched, almost imperceptibly,

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. We'll take them."

"Excellent, I'll put the charge on your tab,"

"Thank you, Neve." Azriel helped her to put the earrings on, and grinned at her, "You look beautiful," he whispered before guiding her out of the shop, and flew her back to the House. Gwyn felt herself drifting off to sleep and buried her face in Azriel's shoulder, she was asleep within moments.

*****

Gwyn was asleep in his arms when he landed, and Azriel unconsciously hugged her closer, setting her down in her bed, stopping when she mumbled his name. He turned back, but she was still asleep, reaching across the bed to where he had been sat moments before. He was still there when she opened her eyes,

"Az?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you stay with me? I don't want to be alone tonight."

"Yeah, okay."

"Just turn around a moment, I need to change into a nightgown." He did as she asked, and quickly returned to his own room to grab a set of sleeping clothes and to move a few of his weapons into her room. When he got back, he made to pull the chair he had slept in before to the bed,  and Gwyn was already asleep, his shadows swirling around her,

She's fine, get some sleep,

They whispered, and he settled down in the chair, sitting next to her all night.

[mistymark]

VIGILANTE/S V

part five // 4.0k words // superpowered!au // (sort of) gang!au // series masterlist

summary; in which you consider yourself somewhat of a vigilante.

warnings; swearing, mentions of death, weapons and killing, gang shit really

notes; this is just a filler bc the whole thing ended up being way too long but !! hope u like anyway <33

One week into living in the warehouse, you’ve got your own routine. You know what times to avoid the bathrooms, you know not to eat Chenle’s cereal – a tip from Donghyuck, who informed you that Chenle once set him on fire for doing just that – you know that Jaemin is the only one who cooks breakfast, and most of the meals eaten in the warehouse are from local takeout stores with shifty delivery guys. You know that 15 pizzas are ordered for one meal – because Jaemin eats at least 5 of them.

“My metabolism is crazy,” he explains to you on your third day there. “I’ll be hungry again in, like, 2 hours.” Mark had laughed and said that was normal for anyone here.

Donghyuck had whispered to you, “Jaemin carries around jellybeans all the time for his blood sugar. If you want to piss him off, call him Jelly Baby.”

You know that every time Jaemin is given an assignment, he brings a girl back to the warehouse, something you’d discovered when you saw Jeno sleeping on the couch in the main room the next day. You know the boy named Renjun doesn’t train, and hardly leaves his room. You know that Donghyuck sometimes snores in his sleep, now that you’re sharing his room, which actually hasn’t been so bad.

Jaehyun had you move in together the day after you met him, and he’d been really nice about it, moving half of his clothes from his wardrobe so you had space, and boxing up most of his stuff to allow more space for your things. He’d even offered to take down his sketches and drawings so you had some wall space. It was a sweet gesture, but you found his posters interesting, so you told him to keep them up.

Doyoung had gone with you to empty out your apartment – not that it had much in it – and convince your landlord to break your lease. “Your landlord has a very weak mind,” he’d said in a monotonous tone, when he was carrying a box to his car, a flashy black thing that certainly did not belong in your neighbourhood at all. The dilapidated, crumbling buildings surrounding you were brown and dirty, the streets grey and filled with potholes, the people who inhabited the area looking just as worn. Doyoung, on the other hand, was clean and sharp, wearing fitted black jeans and a clean white tee. His shoes were almost as shiny as his car, which made you feel slightly self-conscious when you noticed how much he stood out here.

“He’s pretty much given up on life,” you’d agreed, which earned you a smirk from him. It was true, your landlord was a chubby, pot-bellied man who wore nothing but baggy, ill-fitting jeans and old t-shirts with various food stains on them. You’ve never seen him leave the building, and you often wonder if he knows what a shithole the place is.

“I can’t believe you actually lived here,” he looked up at the building, at the brickwork that was being held together by mould rather than concrete, at the wooden window frames that were rotten and splitting apart, at a window that was recently broken, now being blocked by a curtain taped across the panel – at the place you once called home.

Well, not necessarily. It hadn’t felt like home since your dad had died, if you were being truthful.

“You live in a warehouse with criminals,” you reminded him.

“We live in a warehouse with criminals,” he cracked a smile at you, taking the box from your hands and placing it in the boot of his car.

“At least my roommate only kills himself,” you mumbled on the drive back.

“Donghyuck wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Doyoung laughed. “He’d probably kill himself if a fly started a fight with him, just so he wouldn’t have to fight it and win.”

You watched the buildings go by – Doyoung drove slower than the elderly, you were sure – and all the industrial warehouses with cute, bright signs advertising children’s toys and courier services, wondering how many of them were a front for another operation, like Jaehyun’s. “Do you think Donghyuck can die? For real?”

Doyoung was silent for a moment, then, slowly, he said, “We have our speculations. We can’t know for sure, though. And none of us really want to.” You gave a small smile to him, though he was too focused on the road ahead to see it. When you’d first come to the warehouse, you were sure no one liked him, since no one seemed devastated by the fact that he was dead. Now, you knew he was family to them.

“You have a cassette player?” Donghyuck was supposed to be helping you unload your stuff into your now shared room, but he was mostly just being nosy, going through your boxes and not actually putting anything away.

“Uh, yeah,” you throw a glance over your shoulder, seeing Donghyuck sitting on his bed, rifling through one of your boxes. “It was my dad’s.”

He nods, gently putting it on the bed. He doesn’t ask any questions about it, or your family, which you’re grateful for, but it makes you think he doesn’t have any family of his own.

You know Donghyuck is the most open out of all of the team, but you also know not to ask any personal questions.

You know a lot of things after living in the warehouse for a week. You know that Jaehyun drinks tea in the mornings and coffee at night, that Doyoung cannot access Chenle’s mind. You know that Donghyuck is definitely not a morning person, and that he exclusively wears black, as if he’s always ready for a funeral. Maybe that’s exactly the reason; some kind of sick joke surrounding his immortality.

Most importantly, you now know how to survive Johnny’s training sessions. You’ve trained with most of the team, mostly the Shields – Jeno, Jaemin, Mark and Chenle – as their powers manifest physically, and are easier to control, but Johnny has also been helping you use his ability. “You’re smaller and weaker than the rest of the team, and most Shields in general,” he’d said, eyes roaming your body. It was the first time anyone’s ever looked at you like that without making you feel objectified. “If I’m around, my ability may be the difference in whether you win or lose a fight. Try again, and focus on me.” As if you already weren’t.

He’d hunkered down and gestured for you to begin. With the other members around, you could take Johnny down in less than a minute now. Alone, it took you upwards of 10 minutes.

The day you officially move into the warehouse, you’re exempt from training with the Shields, but Donghyuck takes the opportunity to teach you gunmanship.

“I’ve used a gun before, you know,” you say, but after 10 shots you still haven’t managed to hit the target. The firing range isn’t small, located in the basement of the warehouse, which you didn’t even know existed, but you should have been able to at least hit the target once.

He laughs, picks up the gun and nails the target’s centre 5 times in a row, “So have I. Do you want to be able to actually hit your target, though?” The hole in the centre of the target looks about twice the width of the bullet, made from the bullets hitting basically in the same spot each time.

He puts a hand on your shoulder, adjusting the position of your shoulders, then places one on your lower back, adjusting your posture. You’re stiff, and you know it. He clears his throat and steps back, “Go.”

You brace yourself and shoot, the bullet going straight through the target’s stomach.

“Not too bad,” he nods in approval, holding his hand out for the gun and easily changing the clip in three quick motions. He offers the gun back to you, “Again.”

“You sound like Johnny,” you say when you take it from him. You deepen your voice as low as possible to mimic your trainer and the short, efficient way he speaks, “Again. Stop. Go. Try again. Up.”

Donghyuck lets out a loud laugh that immediately brings a smile to your face. “That was amazing.” He sits down and leans back, a hand pressed against his stomach as he laughs, mimicking your imitation. You join him on the floor, resting your back against the wall and leaning over to grab the bag of potato chips he’d brought down with you. “Have you ever shot someone?”

He reaches over and steals a few chips, as if it was the most normal question in the world. But, there’s a slight shake in his voice when he speaks, “Shot? Yes. Killed? No.”

“Who?” He shoots you a sideways glance and you lower your head, “Sorry.” No personal questions.

The heavy stench of awkward silence settles over you. He breaks it, “Johnny.”

You don’t know what to say except, “Shit.”

“Yeah,” he swallows thickly. “It was an accident. Obviously.”

You’re about to ask what happened when you’re interrupted by someone coming down the stairs. Neither of you had bothered to shut the door to the firing range, giving anyone going up or down the stairs a full view of what you were doing. Jaehyun stops when he sees you both, sitting on the floor of the firing range, sharing a bag of potato chips. He doesn’t look at you, focusing on Donghyuck. He clears his throat, “Are you training, Hyuck?”

Donghyuck’s eyes are wide and innocent when he answers, “Teaching Y/n how to shoot.”

Jaehyun’s eyes move from the two of you to the target and back again, but he doesn’t say anything about the lack of holes in it. “Johnny’s ordering Chinese – if you want anything, let him know. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

He continues and you turn to Donghyuck, “Where’s he going?”

“Garage,” Donghyuck says, through a handful of chips. “Do you want the rest of these?” He offers the bag to you. You shake your head.

“What else is down here?”

“Weapons vault, garage, the range,” he answers distractedly, too focused on getting the last of the flavouring from the bag. “The gym…” his voice trails off.

When he’s satisfied that the bag is indeed empty, he stands up, offering his hand out to you to pull you up, “Jaemin takes ten minutes to pick what he wants to eat, so if you have a preference, we should probably tell Johnny now.”

You take his hand and let him pull you up, reaching for the gun that lays on the ground, “Where-?”

“I’ll take it,” he takes it, quickly turning the safety on and reaches around to his back, tucking the weapon into the back of his black jeans.

Your second day of training was with Chenle, in the gym, which looked more like the inside of an asylum than anything. Everything was clean and a pale, almost-white shade of grey, and the entire ceiling was a cloudy glass panel that illuminated the room, giving the room a bright and energetic yet sterile feel. The equipment was state-of-the-art, a dark contrast to the overall lightness to the room, and floor to ceiling mirrors took up two of the walls. There was a stack of clean towels in the corner, and a few televisions across the room, visible from each machine. A smaller version of the Super fight ring was situated at one end of the long room. Yet, the thing that shocked you the most was the bright blue flooring, an odd design choice.

Chenle was the least helpful out of the Shields in the team, watching you train with his ability, critiquing your control and your movements with a stern eye. “Wrong. Try again. Make it hotter this time, or you’ll do no damage.” As if to gloat, he held a hand up, and a dangerous blue flame engulfed it. Your own flame, a measly bright orange, wavered.

The entire time you’d trained with him, he’d done nothing but glare and criticise you. You were sure he hated you, or maybe it was just the fact that he wasn’t the only one who had his ability anymore.

Yet, as he was leaving to eat, he’d nodded in approval at you, “Good. We’ll train together again soon, I’m sure.” It was the most he’d said to you. Actually, if you added up everything he has said to you, it would still be less words than were in that sentence.

Basically, he hadn’t spoken to you much all week.

Jaemin, however, was the opposite, and the person you’d trained with the day after Chenle. If anything, he was too kind and too understanding - he barely helped you.

“It’s okay if you can’t run as fast as me, yet,” he’d assured you with a smile, his hands on your shoulders. His smile was wide and encouraging, his eyes kind, and you instinctively knew he was a heartbreaker. No one with a smile like that has ever been heartbroken, you’d thought. His flirtatious manner was also a dead giveaway.

Your suspicions were only confirmed when he’d been sent on an assignment at the Den, and entered the kitchen the day after looking a little too happy. A girl had snuck out a few minutes later, looking only slightly embarrassed as she tried to pull her shoes on and find the exit at the same time. Jaemin had just stood in the kitchen and smiled at her as he ate his toast, not even bothering to show her out.

“You’ll have to eat a lot tonight,” he informed you at the end of your training. “And make sure you don’t have any training tomorrow morning, because you’ll be out for a while since this is your first time testing your stamina with my ability.”

He was right; you were exhausted after only two hours with him. When you’d told him just that, his smile widened and he winked at you. You laughed and shook your head at him, throwing your towel at him, “I’m going to shower.” He opened his mouth but you shot him a stern look, “Do not ask to join me.”

His easy-going smile remained on his face as he shrugged nonchalantly, “Worth a shot.” He bent down to pick up his drink bottle and began tidying up the gym as you left.

The person that surprised you the most was Jeno. His ability was easy enough to control, since you could control when you wanted the super strength, but he was happy to train you in preparation for your own training with Johnny.

“I guess it’s easy if you can control when you want to use someone’s ability, since your emotions don’t get in the way,” he’d said, as he wound his fist up with tape and gauze. “But if we’re not around, you need to be able to defend yourself with just your, uh, body.”

You nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Keep a clear head and be logical. Johnny is the only one that can see what you’re about to do, so unless you’re fighting him, think about what you’re doing.” The intense look is back in his eyes when he looks up from his wrapped hands, checking to see if you’re listening, as you haven’t said anything. You can easily see why the others would hate fighting him – he’s smart and he’s dangerous. “If you don’t think, you’ll… you’ll get hurt.” Something in his voice has changed, but it’s gone when he speaks again, “You’re no use if you’re dead.” You quirk an eyebrow at him and he juts his chin up at you, “Hold out your hand.”

You do as he says and he steps forward and begins wrapping your hand delicately. It’s far neater than you’d expected.

“Were you a boxer?”

He lets out a humourless laugh, “No. I’ve just been in a fair few fights.” You try not to react, but he can see what you’re thinking when he looks up. “Relax, most of them walked away just fine.”

“Most?” He doesn’t respond, and you take the hint that he does not want to talk about it.

He’s actually quite a good trainer, you discover, and teaches you the strongest ways to take someone down. He’s less talkative than Jaemin, but his instructions are clear and easy to follow, and at the end of your session, you’re able to do basic sparring with him.

“It’s 6,” he says, looking up at the wall of the gym. Without even a goodbye, he grabs his drink bottle and gym bag, lightly jogging up the steps to head to his room.

That night, you ate dinner with Mark and Jaemin. Well, you ate while they played video games. Jaemin shared a room with Jeno, but you hadn’t seen him since your training session. Empty pizza boxes were stacked by the door, and you counted at least 5. Your own box was sitting beside you on Jeno’s bed, while Jaemin and Mark sat side by side on Jaemin’s bed, their eyes glued to the TV screen that hung on one wall. Their room was a lot more… normal than you’d expected. Donghyuck’s was a giveaway that he was a Super – or a psychopath, either worked – with the blood and the diagrams and the journals and the weapons stacked in boxes around the room.

Jeno and Jaemin’s room was fitted out with their beds, desks, wardrobes, bean bag chairs, an old gaming console and a flatscreen TV. A few movie posters and celebrities were on the wall, and old photos. Only Jaemin had photos, and even so, there were only a few taped to the wall above his bed’s headboard. You couldn’t make out any details from where you were sitting.

Mark’s reflexes were no match for Jaemin’s, and he lost almost every round, making you wonder why he still agreed to play.

“Hey, should I save some of this for Jeno?” You asked, staring at the pizza still remaining in the box. There were only three left, and part of you wondered if it would even be enough. The other part of you thought it would at least be polite to offer.

“Nah, he won’t be back til tomorrow,” Jaemin doesn’t even turn around in his seat, his eyes frantically following his character as it moves across the screen.

“Huh. Okay,” you pick up another slice just as the game ends and Jaemin turns to throw another wide grin at you.

“That means my room’s free for the night, if that’s what you’re wondering.” He laughs at the look of exasperation on your face.

When his attention is away from you again, you say, “Jaehyun sure keeps you guys busy.” There’s only a little bit of bitterness in your voice; you’d been with the team for four days and the only time you’d left was to sort out your apartment. Apparently, you weren’t ready for any assignments yet.

“Huh? Jaehyun has him on an assignment?” Mark’s confusion gets your attention, as he turns to look at Jaemin with a furrowed brow. This was clearly unusual – or, at least, news to him.

Jaemin barely glances at you as he responds, “Nah, he’s visiting his girlfriend.”

“Jeno has a girlfriend?” You ask, only slightly shocked. It wasn’t like you’d thought about their love lives, but you’d just assumed everyone was single. It went with the job description.

“Yeah,” Jaemin nods. “She lives on the other side of the city somewhere. At one of the colleges. He normally goes after trainings on Fridays, since it’s the only night she’s not studying.”

Even without seeing your face, he can sense your surprise.

“Don’t ask him about it, though. He’s very reserved when it comes to her. Doesn’t want any of us to know much about her. I don’t even know her n-”

Mark laughs when he finally manages to kill Jaemin, and Jaemin pouts and rolls his eyes, insisting he was too focused on you to play. “You’re such a baby,” Mark laughs louder, and Jaemin swats at him. His hand moves so fast you barely even see it hit Mark’s arm. “Ow! Dude!”

“One more game, come on,” Jaemin insists, turning back to the screen. Then he raises his voice, “Anyway, Y/n, he won’t even tell us her name, let alone anything else about her. So don’t bring it up.”

“Or he’ll literally chokeslam you,” Mark adds, which, for some reason, makes them both laugh loudly.

You nod, despite the fact they can’t see you, and go back to eating your pizza, “I’ve got next game!”

Mark sighs in relief, “Gladly.” Jaemin’s competitiveness was beginning to wear him out.

The following day, Mark taught you the basics of shape shifting. He was the latest addition to the team – other than you – and his control was even worse than yours. “Shape shifting is really difficult,” he giggled, nervously. “If you’re not 100% imagining what you want to be, you’ll turn into something way different. But don’t panic, it will restrict your ability to change back.”

Over the course of the day, you’d shifted into birds, mice, elephants, leopards, any creature you could think of. Though, you had humiliated yourself when he went to get snacks during your break, greeting and talking to the large dog that came trotting down the stairs, as if it were Mark.

“What are you doing?” He’d laughed when he walked back into the gym, snacks in hand.

You’d been at a loss for words, your cheeks immediately becoming inflamed. “I- I thought that was you,” you pointed at the dog, which was panting as it sat down on the stack of towels in the corner of the room.

“That’s Bruce, Renjun’s dog,” Mark explained, tossing you a can of iced coffee. “Don’t tell Jaemin you drank his coffee.”

You paused, the opened can raised to your lips. You lowered it, slightly, “Why does Jaemin need coffee if he already operates at like 10 times the speed we do?”

“For after he crashes,” Mark shrugs. “Sometimes speed isn’t everything.” He laughs at his own joke, “If he doesn’t sleep enough, he’ll still be exhausted. Sometimes he can’t afford to sleep more than 12 hours, so he relies on coffee.” He cocks his head to the side as he examines his can.

Later, when you’re sitting on the floor after successfully shapeshifting into cockroaches, you ask, “Have you ever tried turning into other people? Can you do that?”

“Yes, but – I really have to know what the person looks like. Like, I can imagine a dog and turn into a dog because any small details that I remember incorrectly will go unnoticed by a human,” he gulps down his cola. “Humans are more complex – one small detail could make me look totally different to the person I’m trying to copy.”

“Change into me, then,” you sit up straighter. “If you can see me, surely you won’t have to rely on your memory, right?”

He shrugs and locks his eyes onto you. You’d seen him transfer from human to horse, from sheep to frog, but somehow seeing him change from himself to you was more disturbing. His skin ripples and his bones make disturbing popping noises as they change, and you wonder if it hurts, even though you had shape shifted multiple times and knew it didn’t hurt at all.

Within a few seconds, right before your eyes… is you. “Hello,” he says in your voice.

“Okay, fuck that, change back,” you tell him, looking away. “That’s so creepy. Brilliant, but creepy.”

When he laughs, it sounds like him again, and you let your eyes drift back to where was sitting. He smiles, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. His eyes, not your own.

You could have so much fun with this ability, reminding yourself to try it on Donghyuck later.

You tell Mark this as he tosses a piece of popcorn into his mouth, and you both stretch out on the gym floor, laughing at all the pranks you could easily pull on the other members of the team.

[thephantomofthe-internet]

Read into Me Chapter 5: Romeo and Juliet

Steve Harrington x Reader

CATCH UP ON THE SERIES HERE

Words: 2,955

Warnings: Swearing, slut shaming, bullying mention

Tag List: @divinity-deos @thecaptainsgingersnap​ @wolfish-willow​ @scoopsohboi​ @herre-gud-nej​ @clockworkballerina​ @maddie1504​ @i-am-trash-so-much-its-scary​ @banjino-in-the-hole @buckysarge​ @wildcvltre​ @stanleyyelnatsiii​ @unusuallchildd @n3wtscaseofniffler5​ @peterparxour @alwaysstressedout @linkispink1995​ @asharpkniffe​ @a-big-ball-of-idk​ @used-avocado​ @mochminnie​ @sledgy14​ @the-creative-lie​ @yall-wildin-like-siriusly​ @ggclarissa​

After that afternoon, you spent practically every day after school with Steve, either in his bedroom or the library. It was weirdly nice. You didn’t always talk; mostly you worked in silence, Steve answering English questions or doing work for other classes and you doodling. You’d finished the sketch of Steve you’d started in his bedroom the same night you’d started it. You were actually quite proud of it; you’d managed to get the shadows on his face to make his face look hollow and strange, not beautiful like it usually appeared. And yes, you were comfortable with calling him beautiful. You found a lot of your subjects beautiful, they all fit into an easy collection of strong, attractive faces that could be found in Hawkins. Hawkins Most Beautiful: the collections of portraits labelled themselves.

Steve called you fairly often as well; usually on the days when you didn’t meet up he’d call so he’d have someone to keep him company as he worked. He seemed lonely to you. From your conversations, you learned little of his supposed friends, but you learned a fair bit about his family. Both his parents were rarely home. His father worked in the city and kept an apartment there, keeping him as far away from home as possible most of the time. His mother was home more often, but kept her hours in certain places, leaving him home alone most of the time. So it seemed, he was ignored past the age of twelve. You sympathized with that, your own parents weren’t exactly present, albeit for different reasons. He asked you a lot about Samantha, which didn’t bother you; you could talk about her far more than you could yourself.

“I can’t honestly say that I even really know her…” Steve laughed. You were sat in his bedroom one evening, the sun setting in creamy red swirls, ominous strawberry pieces in homemade ice cream. Sweet and yet worrying for reasons beyond you for the time being. You were sat at his desk, leaning back in his desk chair, turning left and right. Steve was sprawled out on his mattress, feet kicking beyond him casually, his papers spread out in front of him.

“Yeah, she doesn’t really associate with some of your friends. Tina isn’t really our biggest fan…” you replied, smiling softly. The memory of Samantha dumping a miniature carton of chocolate milk on her head in the seventh grade flashed through your mind, her shrill screech making you chuckle.

“Oh yeah? What’s up her ass?” Steve asked, turning onto his side to look at you fully. He looked incredibly posed and uncomfortable, his head placed in his palm and his ankles stacked neatly one on top of the other.

“They used to be best friends, before I showed up. Once I was on the scene, Tina decided that I was someone to bully and Samantha decided that she wanted to be my friend. They fell out because of it and Tina started bothering both of us. She stopped once we were in middle school.” You explained, pulling one of your knees to your chest.

“Tina’s a bitch…” Steve muttered, shaking his head solemnly.

“She’s got such a thing for you.” You chuckled, watching as his face coloured. You continued “Vicki too…they want you so bad.”

“How’d you know?” Steve scoffed, rolling his eyes dramatically. His face was still pink, it was almost adorable.

“Oh my god, they spend every class with their heads so far up your ass!” you linked your fingers together and pulled them under your chin. You batted your lashes at him with wide eyes, starting into an imitation of Tina “Oh…Stevie, tell me more about your basketball game…oh Stevie you’re soooo strong!”

Steve pulled the pillow from the head of his bed, throwing it at your head. “Oh shut up!” he groaned. You caught the pillow, chucking it back at him, smacking him square in the face.

Steve was great to hang out with. But that sort of friendship didn’t seem to transition outside the privacy of his bedroom. In school, the rules of social interaction began again. Steve returned to the arms of Tommy H and Carol, whose attentions flip between him and Billy Hargrove, and Samantha kept you busy with her questions, her arm wrapped tightly around your shoulders, squeezing you tightly into your side. And every time you passed Steve, she cracked a joke in your ear that turned you beet red.

In truth, it was clear that Samantha did not believe you when you told her that nothing was going on between the two of you. She had already decided that the pair of you were in some sort of torrid affair of Shakespearian depths. She seemed to earnestly believe that it was some secret, clandestine romance was happening behind closed doors. You didn’t really understand what she was imagining; it didn’t make sense to you. Steve was far too obviously interested in other people to be doing anything with you. You tried to point out all the girls who hung off his arm whenever she tried to embarrass you about it, but she didn’t see it.

“What you’re missing,” she said through a massive bite of cafeteria shepherd’s pie “Is that all those girls pay attention to him, but he doesn’t pay attention to them.”

“If we were having an affair, don’t you think that I would tell you about it? I tell you everything anyway.” You retorted, rolling your eyes at her.

“You didn’t tell me about Byers until I weaseled it out of you. That’s what I’m doing right now.” Samantha replied with a shrug, mushing her meal together with her plastic fork until it was a disgusting shade of brown, golden corn accenting the pile.

Talking about Jonathan Byers wasn’t fair and she knew it. In short, there was nothing to talk about. You’d had a small, teeny tiny practically nonexistent crush on the boy a year prior, but it was very clear that he didn’t like you back. Samantha had gone to Tina’s party in October, right as your crush was subsiding, and she’d told you that he was all over Nancy Wheeler. You’d had your suspicions about it, but hearing that he’d gone after someone else’s girlfriend and rejected you along the way hurt. Even though you weren’t interested, it still hurt. Samantha was still annoyed that you hadn’t told her about it until it was over, and since it was the only source of knowledge she had on your comatose love life, she brought it up all the time, much to your chagrin.

“All I do with him is sit in his room and help him study. And when I say help him study, I mean literally help him study, we do the chapter studies together and discuss the stupid book.” You said. That wasn’t the whole story; you talked a lot about life and listened to music. You were confident in saying that you were friends by now. You’d almost met his mother twice, both times in passing, and that seemed pretty important to friendships, when their family knew who you were. Still, it didn’t break into school. Steve stayed with his clique and while you tried to stray from yours, Carol or Tina would always scare you off before you spent too much time with Steve. It didn’t take much to scare you, a mere gaze could send you packing, and those two had been mastering the annoyed sneer since the fifth grade.

“Yeah, well you don’t see what I see…” Samantha muttered, turning her attention away from you and onto the loud clique at the centre of the room. Billy Hargrove was show boating, as usual, with Tina and Macy practically drooling onto their lunch trays. Vicki was trying to get Steve’s attention, her thin, spidery fingers gripping onto his wrists, speaking animatedly into his ear. Steve wasn’t facing her though; his whole body was turned away from her, and directly towards your table. Samantha noticed how he watched where you went, it’s why she thoroughly believed that something was going on beyond the surface, something even you might not realize. She knew what a person looked like when they were love struck. Often times, from the outside, it was easier to see when someone was in love with someone else before she could catch onto who actually liked her. She’d watched the women she yearned for fall in love with boring, lame men enough times to have mastered the signs of how men fall for girls. And Steve showed all the non-verbal signs. She couldn’t get a full read on you yet though.

Tommy had caught onto to Steve’s strange behaviour just as fast as Samantha had, although he wasn’t nearly as impressed. You were simply not worth the effort. Not by a long shot. You were fucking lame-never at the parties, never at dances, never at the lake on the weekends. And he knew you had money, you could afford to do all those things, you were just too much of a pussy to show your face. That was fucking pathetic! He knew his friend better than anyone else and a chick who couldn’t hang was not the girl for him. Steve liked fun girls, girls who could turn up for a last minute thing and not be weird about it. Nancy Wheeler was the farthest Steve needed to go on the preppy nerd scale, and that bitch ended up being a massive slut! Like nobody expected that shit. But Tommy knew that you didn’t have any surprises up your sleeves. Despite the fact that you never talked, he knew that you were plain about who you were. Everything was on the surface, and what he saw was not worth his friend’s time.

“Steve, buddy, I’m gonna go get another milk, walk with me.” Tommy motioned him over. Steve followed blindly, if only to get Vicki’s cold, clammy hand off him. Tommy had seen The Godfather one too many times and seemed to believe that he was some sort of small town mob boss, but Steve didn’t really mind following along with him flights of fancy. Usually they were pretty funny.

Tommy wrapped an arm around his taller friend’s shoulders, lowering his voice from the onlooker’s ears. “Listen, buddy, you gotta tell me what’s going up with that Y/N chick I mean you just keep staring at her it’s freaking weird, dude.”

“Y/N? She’s my writing partner for Lawrence’s class, she’s cool…” Steve replied, turning to catch your eye as they passed. He smiled at you, giving a short wave, which you returned with a small smile.

“She’s cool? That all?” Tommy pressed, stepping into the line and grabbing a carton of strawberry milk and the largest chocolate chip cookie in the basket. He unwrapped his arm from his shoulders, letting him go free for the first time in the conversation.

“Yeah, I mean she’s nice, what else do you want me to say?” Steve knew that was being a little defensive, but he didn’t like being questioned for his choices in friends or girls, he never questioned Tommy’s choices and he made the worst decisions most of the time. Carol was no prize and he didn’t say a word about her.

“You fucking her?” if Steve had had anything in his mouth, he would’ve spit it on the floor. Tommy didn’t even turn to look at him, paying the lunch lady in change.

“Jesus, dude, no.” Steve cried, recoiling from his friend. Tommy needed to get hit and while he didn’t have cause to do so yet, he firmly believed someone was going to do it soon.

“Hey, no need to freak out, it’s just a question.” Tommy pulled his friend back in, slapping his friend on the back. Instead of simply heading back to their lunch table, he pulled him to the side, standing next to the hot grab and go table, next to the cartons of fries.

“Now, the way I see it, you have something great going for you.” Tommy began, cracking open his milk and taking a long swig, leaving a milk film on his upper lip. “Vicki Clarke is a fucking babe and she’s begging for it! She’s all over your ass and she’s hot as hell! But you’re blowing it by spending all your time staring at some freak of nature instead. You could have a smoking hot babe at your beck and call, but you’re wasting your chances here, you see what I mean?”

“Not at all, dude.” Steve crossed his arms over his chest, looking over his friend doubtfully.

“Look man, I’m just trying to set you up for success here. Because that girl,” Tommy pointed at you slyly “Is not interested. If she was, she’d be over here, acting like Vicki is. But she’s keeping herself planted at that table with that goth freakazoid.”

Steve had no idea what to say. He opened his mouth to speak, to deny having any feelings for you, but that wouldn’t mean shit if he kept watching you. And Tommy was right, there was a girl there who wanted to listen to whatever he said, who chased him down. Vicki was there and you weren’t. So he swallowed his words and went back to his table.

“Hey, Steve…” Vicki drawled. There was red lipstick on her teeth. Steve didn’t say anything about it. It didn’t make her ugly. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, letting her rest in the crook of his neck. Vicki seemed over the moon by it and it gave him something to focus on other than catching your attention.

Samantha frowned, turning her attention back to you. “What’s Steve’s opinion on Vicki Clarke?” she asked.

“He didn’t like when I told him that she had a thing for him, why?” you retorted, flipping through the college magazine in front of you. You still hadn’t chosen anywhere to apply and applications for the major schools were due in the winter and community colleges needed their applications in for the fall semester in by the end of June at the earliest.

“Well, he doesn’t seem embarrassed now.” Samantha hooked a thumb towards the couple. You looked once, narrowing your eye to scrutinize the pair.

“Eh, that seems about right…” you murmured. You wouldn’t deny that something about it hurt. But you ignored the pain until returning home from school. As always, you called before making any moves. It was the polite thing to do, even though Steve had made the plans to meet up with you after school the night before.

The phone was picked up after three rings. Steve’s car was in the driveway, not his mother’s, so you knew who would answer. “Hello?” his voice sounded anxious and breathy, maybe even annoyed.

“Steve-o, we still studying? You wanna go grab food at Hula Burger?” Steve had introduced you to the burger place in Carmel, a little mom and pop shop with the best Cajun fries in the county, at least in your opinion.

“Oh shit…” Steve muttered “Y/N I’m sorry I-I kind of made plans, can I take a rain check on the burgers?”

“Oh…yeah, sure I guess…some other time…” you said softly. You wouldn’t try to hide the disappointment in your voice. The pain you felt in the pit of your stomach returned with abundance, not exactly sore and angry pain, but more of a black hole opening up there.

“I gotta go, I’ll see you tomorrow, ‘kay?” Steve asked. He was already running late. He was supposed to pick up Vicki in twenty minutes and he still needed to shower. He had genuinely forgotten about his plans with you and he felt like an ass for doing so. He did want to hang out with you, but a date was a good step after being decimated by Nancy. He wasn’t super into Vicki, but it was still exciting to go out with someone new.

“Sure…” you hung up after that. You stood from your bed, dropping your book bag at your feet. You were used to spending afternoons alone, that wasn’t strange to you. Just because you’d spent a few days with a boy didn’t mean that he was yours to hold back from his life. You could’ve pulled a fit and tried to make him hold true to his word, the way your mother used to act towards your father. But those memories made you sick, you didn’t like that behaviour. But you also didn’t like being cancelled on. It wasn’t a feeling you were used to, not from friends at least. Samantha never really cancelled on you, she always made sure to tell you when she was busy and not agree to plans. She’d never cancelled on you for a date, even when she was dating Keith the creep she always put your friendship on a different level than him. Of course, she wasn’t really into Keith, she came out like a week after they started dating and broke up with him after kissing Jessica Klein at a house party, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Steve had ditched you and it made your heart hurt.

You couldn’t help but watch him run out of his front door and into his car. You watched it pull out of his driveway and out onto the road. It was clear to you now, Steve was more interested in passing English than he was in being your friend. Vicki Clarke was the girl to pay attention, no matter how he acted around you.

So why pretend like he was your friend at all?

[aloeveraspeaks]

Something Sweet (Part 1)

A/N: This is a short I’ve been working on and it’s longer than I intended but it’s basically what happened in FPA cooking club before it was set on fire on the first day.

               Nanda walked into the cooking club room to see if anyone was in there, “Hi?” she asked hesitantly. Receiving no response Nanda decides to sit down in a nearby chair and draw. A few minutes later Coraline waltzes into the room with an apron and a cat paw oven mitt in hand. She notices Nanda and decides to introduce herself.

               “Hello, I’m Coraline! What’s your name?” She chirps.               

              Tika notices Coraline wander in, she’s curious as to what she’s doing so she follows her into the room.

               Adrien checks their watch as they sprint down the hallway. They’re late for their club, so they round the corner and jump into the room. Out of breath they burst out, “Sorry for being late! I hope we can still get stated on baking.”

               Akaiif wanders into the room seeming to be looking for something. “Hm? Hello?” They take a step in.

               “I really should think about getting here earlier.” Adrien sighs. He heads to the back of the room pocketing a note from Aloe with some vegetables from gardening club. He chuckles at whatever the note said as he begins to put everything away. Then he turns to greet the others.

               “Do you need something?” Coraline asks Akaiif with a friendly smile.

               “I was just looking around the school, it’s been a while since I’ve been here.” They look around once more. “Are you part of the cooking club?”

               Coraline nods, “Yup! Not freshly new, I’ve been in this club since last year.”

               “Ohhh, I think I saw you last year… anyways, I’m Akaiif.” They move in more to sit down at a table.

               Adrien goes up to address the two, “Are you joining the club today Akaiif?”

               “Oh no I actually used to come here to talk to the teach since he got handy tips on cooking. I’m already a part of a different club though.”

               “Oh that’s alright! You can still join us for today if you’d like.” Adrian smiles kindly, “we’re not doing much today, just baking cookies, but it should still be fun!”

               “How delightful!” Akaiif responds, “I wouldn’t mind helping, but I don’t think I’ll be eating cookies anytime soon.” They point to their mouth, it seems to be covered in duct tape.

               Nanda finally notices the others, she must’ve gotten absorbed into her sketching. “Oh hi guys. I’m Ananda but you can call me Nanda. Nice to meet you!”

               At this point Aloe walks into the room to see if anyone got the vegetables, “Hello!” She greets noticing everyone in the club. She glances to Adrian.

               Akaiif waves to Nanda and Aloe, “Hello.”

               Afrien loked a bit confused, but he didn’t want to ask about the duct tape so he turns his attention to Aloe, “Ah Aloe, Hello there!”

               “What’re you guys making?” Aloe asks.

               “Cookies!” Adrian respinds gleefully practically bouncing wih excitement, “what are you doing here roomie? Plan to join us too?”

               Akaiff got up and put on an Apron. Aloe joined them, “Sure why not.” She responded. “I was actually just coming to see if you got the ingredients.”

               “You two have the right idea! Everyone put on your aprons, while I search for the recipe I found.” Adrien pulls a stack of paper from his bag and ruffles through them.

               “Mind if I join?” Tika asks, “I’ve been wandering in and out for an hour, not gonna lie.”

               Adrian nods, “Anyone is allowed to join, cooking is more fun as a group!” He hands out the recipe for raspberry thumb print cookies then puts on an apron.

               “I can help bake! Thanks!” Tika says.

               “I believe Mr.Hour puts the flour here.” Akaiif opens a cabinet and grabs some flour.

               “I actually might need some help.” Tika laughs nervously.

               “That’s alright, you don’t need to know how to cook, any of us can help.”

               “Thank you! You’re so Sweet.” Tika replies.

               “I think Mr. Hour keeps the jam in the fridge let me get it.” Aloe says rushing to the fridge to pull out the ingredient.

               “Oooh I’ve never had these.” Nanda says having finished reading the recipe. She put on an apron.

               “I try.” Adrian replies to Tika, as he sets his recipe on the table and grabs the sugar. “The cookies are really good, trust me.”

               “All cookies are good don’t worry.”

               “Thumbprint cookies can be amazing as long as you bake them right, I once had a batch with too much salt and it was gross.” Aloe chimes in.

               “Aloe is right.” Adrian agrees.

               Akaiif looks into the counters grabbing a bowl, rolling pin, and cookie cutters. “alright I got these things.”

               “Um anything easy I can help make? I’m good with knives and Sh*t.”

               “Good job, I fon;t know if we’ll need the rolling pin or cookie cutters but I hink it might be interesting to try making the cookies in special shapes!” Adrian smiled, “The fun of cooking is trying things out.”

               Akaiif turns to Tika and sarcastically says, “Depends, can you cut out a cookie by using a knife?”

               “Yea probably.”

               “How about we do star shapes for some.” Aloe suggests as Adrian skillfully mixes the ingredients together.”

               “Oooh! I can cut the school logo on others!” Tika adds.

               “Star shapes seem pretty cute.” Akaiif nods and says as Adrian speaks.

              “Star shapes sound cute I like that.”

              Aloe chuckles at how in unison they were.

              “Yeah, Ooh wait do you guys like my nails? I got them done in the bathroom on the third floor.” She sticks out her hand.

              “The school logo would be a great idea!” Akaiif says helping to mix.

              “Well, make sure none of the nail polish gets in the cookies!” Adrian warned half serious half joking.

              “Don’t worry, not gonna be a problem.”

              “We should do each of the house logos too!” Aloe suggests again.

              “Yeah, I got ideas in mind let me just pull the logos up on my phone.” Tika replies.

              “That’s nice.” Akaiif said as they looked over the recipe.

              “Let me turn on the over.” Aloe says as they turn it to the temperature directed. She smiles satisfied with it as Akaiif pours the dough onto the counter. Adrian rolls it out then Tika gets ready to cut it.

              Tika cuts the dough into shapes with a thing knife, “Is this good?”

              “Yeah! Great, thanks!”

              “Hello…! Can I join? Library was boring because no one wants to join in.” Alyssya peeks through the door shyly. She has to know what the equipment the group has so she can use it at about three am in the morning secretly

              “I think the logo cookies would also be nice to thank our teachers for all their hard work!” Adrian said, “We should also make bells, to thank Mr. Hour for letting us destroy his kitchen every afternoon.” He laughed nervously.

              “Pretty good.” Akaiif compliments leaning over Tika’s shoulder.

              “No problem! Yeah that’s a great idea! We can drop off a batch at the office, and hey there. Of course you can join!”

              “Yup, anyone is allowed to join us.” Adrian chimes in.

              Tika finishes cutting up a batch, and goes over to the pantry. “Does anyone mind if I make some tea to go with the cookies?”

              “Thanks!” Alyssya replies, “I kinda have to make a custom breakfast for my dorm mates.”

              “Oh cool. What kind?” Tika asks, making the tea despite not receiving a response.

              “That’s nice.” Akaiff adds.

              “How nice of you! Your roommates must be lucky to have you.”

              Akaiff starts cutting some dough to make some cookies too. Tika twirls a knife in her hand while waiting for the kettle to sound, “So how many batches are we making?”

              “I’ll have to do that for you and Ella sometime Adrian.” Aloe Jokes fondly nudging him in the shoulder.

              “Lucky, I’d say no? I love mothering a lot of people so…” Alyssya puts her bag down obviously filled with math text books.

              Adrian chuckled at Aloe, “You better.” He then turns to Tika, “we don’t have to make too many batches. We can’t overbake again or else Mr. Hour will have my head.” He says dramatically.

              “I mean… The more the merrier?” Tika suggests.

              “We can pass out the extras to the students!” Aloe chimes in.

              “Yeah… true.” Adrian says thoughtfully. “I’m sure people would love our baking.”

              “I can give some to student council.”

              Akaiif starts putting the cookies into rows on a baking pan. “Has anyone finished any cookies? I’m ready to put some in the oven.”

              “Go ahead and put the cookies you’ve finished in the oven, we’ll catch up to you!” Adrian says.

              “Alright.” Akaiif replies putting them in then setting a timer. They’re about to close the over when Aloe speaks up.

              “Wait!” She shouts, “Let me put mine in too!” She quickly runs over with the cookies on a pan and shoves them in closing the oven.

              “I’m mostly Chaotic at day! After all, I am the Dermit cult leader with… uh… hahaha…” Alyssya seems nervous like she’s not supposed to say a word, “Anyways what can I help y’all with.”

              “Alright two batches in the oven.”

              “I’m usually very chaotic, but like… student council and sh*t. Also baking is so domestic you legit can not be chaotic with this.” Tika replies.

              “Oh trust me, you can.” Aloe laughs.

              “I guess since we’re handing some out to the students you can start your own batch of cookies if you’d like!” Adrian replies, smiling and holding out a recipe.

              “Well fair.” Tika replies, “but I’m too tired to set anything on fire right now and I’ve already stabbed a lot of dough.”

              “Relatable.” Akaiif looks at the timer, “5 more minutes.”

               “Alright, I think I will make brownies! …Which is totally different from cookies but whatever! Everyone loves brownies!” Alyssya took her oversized jacket off and tied it around her waist. She rolls up her sleeves and begins measuring out the ingredients she will need.

               “So what do we do while we wait, guys?” Aloe asks.

               “Sure, brownies sound good too, but don’t make too much of a mess!”

               “Hmmm…. I don’t know.” Akaiif sat down thinking.

               “20 questions?” Aloe suggests.

               “Sounds fun!” Adrian agrees

               “I’m up for anything.” Alyssya says sifting flour.

               “Okay then I’ll start.” Aloe says pausing for a second, “Would you rather be a pig or a cow?”

[neoraven]

What’s Joe Watching - May 2020

So, I have a bunch of free time, everyone has a bunch of free time, and this is some of the stuff I've been watching so far in 2020. This is mostly TV shows, I’m leaving out a few movies I watched only partially. I'm including some things that I bounced off and quit watching, but I fully reserve the right to go back to them a little later.

Justified - Pilot I intended to just watch the opening Tommy Buck scene, but I fucked up and saw the whole episode since everyone is so darn compelling. And every interaction with Dewey Crowe and Raylan is a treasure. It's amusing to see the Florida Crowe Clan brought up in the show's first 10 minutes or so. This episode is completely fantastic, but it also kinda made me realize how the whole first season is a pilot. Despite him looming over a few scenes, Raylan's father never even shows up. I don't think I'm going to do a full watch through the entire series, but this was extremely fun.

6 Underground - A Michael Bay Film I loved the action, and usage of Dave Franco (cough). As usual, the movie thinks it's way more clever than it actually is. I mostly enjoyed it, definitely has action a cut above the average Transformers movie. The characters don't live up to the likes of Pain & Gain or The Rock, though. Ryan Reynolds felt like way too much of a Deadpool-Mary Sue fantasy of a badass in 2020.

Tremors 1 and Tremors 2 Definitely started the sequel without knowing that Bacon was nowhere to be seen. That was okay though. These movies are fun, and at least early on, they manage to make each one different enough to hide the fact that they're losing recognizable faces with each movie.

The Rookie - Season 2 I'm going to tiptoe around and not spoil it out of abundance of caution, but the reveal was pretty thoroughly lame, expected, yet also seemed hurried and out of left field? It was all done pretty well, and the episodes were usually good, but I'm slightly dreading Season 3. Every character other than Nolan ended up in a pretty okay or even promising place, though, so they could just write their way out of it.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle This sequel has some great moments, but mostly suffers from the normal "too much more" problem that affects nearly all sequels.

Super Troopers 2 Still mostly funny! Even when retreading jokes from the old one. Full disclosure, I fell asleep before the big climax/finale, but It went off fine and everyone lived happily ever after anyways.

911 Lone Star - Season 1 This show was ridiculous for all the right reasons, and seemed to have the right mix of the Glee creative forces to make something goofy and fun. Really hopeful to see it picked up for a bigger and better second season.

Lincoln Rhyme The Hunt For The Bone Collector Did I like this show just because of the long, funny title? Probably. But it was still pretty fun. Parts of it felt like a movie length story stretched into a short season of TV, but the cases of the week helped with that, I guess. Despite the twist ending, I think this is going to end up a one and done show.

Mission Impossible 1 & 2 The first is such a great De Palma classic. I used to think of the second as "bad, but at least it's John Woo", but watching it this time it just felt bad period. I'm probably going to watch the rest soon, since the rest are extremely enjoyable.

Superstore - Season 5 Holy shit, this show was really funny, and the union storyline has been surprisingly good. I'm a little upset that real life circumstances are kind of boxing the show into a corner, between the season not being able to finish filming as well as it being America Ferrera's last on the show. However, I'm pretty confident the show will keep on being entertaining in some way. The Office survived Michael Scott's departure, obviously. That's an idea, Robert California buying Cloud 9 in season 6. Is The Blacklist still going?

This next group of things I started watching for some period of time, but walked away. I don't want to say they all completely fucking suck, though! I definitely might go back to them, but they're at least on a big pause.

The Great - Season 1 This just dropped on Hulu. It's really promising! It has Elle Fanning as the titular (Catherine) The Great, and Nicholas Hoult as her husband Peter. It's got a really weird vibe to it. One reviewer said it was more sketch comedy than historical epic. Peter came off as David Brent, but actually slaughtering people. It just hit a little too dark and uncomfortable type humor. I usually love that, and love the Office! But this just felt pushed a little far over the line for me to stay with. More uncomfortable than funny. But it's a really amazingly well made and clever idea for a show.

Tacoma FD - Season 1 - TruTV Looked like Super Troopers plus Reno 911 at first glance. But it just didn't really click. Actually, sitting here, I'm struggling to remember much about it.

Battlefield Earth (Rifftrax) Not sure why I'm including this on here, I've seen this (and the riff trax with it) a bunch of times. The movie was just too painful this time. Maybe I'm getting weaker in my old age to stand John Travolta's voice in this movie.

Mortal Kombat: Scorpion's Revenge This is an animated Mortal Kombat movie that I vaguely knew was R+ rated for violence. It was uncomfortably like what a 13 year old would consider cool gory violence. Like just cutting dozens of ninjas lengthwise and huge cartoon intestines sputtering everywhere. It was well animated and the action was fairly cool, but it was just gross to look at. I lasted long enough to briefly appreciate Joel McHale as Johnny Cage, though.

Brews Brothers - Season 1 - Netflix I don't have anything overwhelmingly bad to say about this one. The humor just didn't super click for me, and I bailed out fast. It's made by the gentlemen behind The League. I liked the title/pun/idea about two different brothers running a brewery together. It just kinda suffered from a bad cold opening of the first episode real bad.

Happy Endings - Season 1 Okay stop yelling at me for not liking this show. I gave it a shot based on the cast and rave reviews and loads of folks with good TV opinions trying to get it saved. The way the series starts just struck me way more sad than funny? I guess that's the point, and I'm not letting them get to the titular happy ending. But eh.

Okay, that's a lot of words, next up will be a bunch of shows I'm currently watching/enjoying/excited to finish! Or it will probably be so long that they will convert into completed shows!!! Who knows?

[tasharii]

Your Colors: Ch.3.

A/N: This was one giant chapter, I ended up breaking it up into 2. That’s why it took so long to get it done. Sorry for the wait!

Feedback helps me keep going. So please let me know what you think!

Summary:  Art was the one good thing between college, work, and the grey minutes in-between. Sometimes, it felt like she wasn’t alive at all. Just drifting. When she joined her new art class, she never expected to start experiencing everything in an entirely new light. All thanks to him. Or: Where Bucky Barnes gets more than he bargained from his new drawing partner.

Pairing: Reader x Bucky Barnes

Word Count: 8.5k

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Language, some angst

Masterlist

Chapter 1  Chapter 2  Chapter 3  Chapter 4  Chapter 5  Chapter 6  Chapter 7  Chapter 8  Chapter 9  Chapter 10   Chapter 11  Chapter 12  Chapter 13

****

It was raining outside. A slushy mix of rain and snow. Freezing more as the temperature swiftly dropped. The pattering beat echoed throughout the studio, along with the occasional crash of thunder. Y/N really needed to leave, but he hadn’t said anything yet. Class ended five minutes ago, but he was still silently standing in front of her final. It was displayed on its very own easel at the front of the room. Framed, and exposed for the first time.

Part of her still couldn’t believe that she had managed to finish it. The headache pounding behind her eyes and, obnoxiously, tall thermos of coffee sitting on her desk, reminded her that it wasn’t an easy accomplishment. Three days of straight, grueling work. After her study of Bucky’s arm on Friday, she drew like a whirlwind of crazy. Even dragged her project to the library during work and inked in details between helping customers.

They had agreed to keep their finals a surprise. It was kind of like a competition. Despite having seen every other piece up to this point, it was fun to try and surprise him.

Now she was starting to wonder if she had surprised him a little too much.

When Y/N got up in the front of the class to talk about the project, she was too nervous to look at him. She focused solely on her teacher, and answered everyone’s questions about her motivation, inspiration, and why she did what she did. It happened so fast that she had completely missed his reaction. After she went back to where she had been standing beside him, she kept glancing over to him for any response. She didn’t want to interrupt the next presenter, so she stayed quiet. All he offered her, when he noticed her looking, was a small smile and soft whisper of ‘Good job’ against her ear.

That wasn’t what she had been looking for.

Bucky had gone a few presentations after her, and she still couldn’t get over how damned talented he was.

Bucky didn’t appear the least bit nervous when he got up in front of everyone. He was confident, at ease, and put on his million-watt smile that she could only assume came from working in customer service. It was a pretty stark contrast to his normally quiet, reserved nature when he was in class. She noticed a couple of the other students seemed a bit surprised at the difference.

Carefully, he pulled his framed piece out of its black carrying case and placed it on his easel. For a few minutes he stood beside it quietly. Tall and broad in his long-sleeved plaid shirt, and dark washed jeans. Hair perfectly tussled. Naturally, he was handsome, and sharp even in simple clothes.

Y/N gathered around with the rest of the class in a semi-circle at the front of the room. Mr. Ramsey took critiquing seriously and made sure everyone participated. Her heart stopped as she stared at the beautifully illustrated charcoal piece. It was of a woman. Cropped to focus on her torso, and the little baby she held in her arms. She was smiling sweetly down at her child and didn’t seem to even notice the viewer. The shadows were deep to accent the halo glow coming from the subjects, and it almost looked like a photograph.

Right then, she knew this had to be Bucky’s mother. Y/N didn’t know much about her. He only ever spoke about her once, when she talked about her own. All she knew was that his mother had died when he was twelve. Left his father behind to raise one son and a daughter.

After a couple quiet minutes of everyone taking the picture in, Mr. Ramsey finally spoke up “Obviously this is a beautiful piece. Why don’t you tell us a bit about it? Where you got the idea, why you chose charcoal, and what was the hardest part?”

Bucky shifted his feet, folding his hands in front of him as he peeked over at the drawing thoughtfully “Um… I think the hardest part was choosing to draw her at all. I haven’t seen my mom since I was little. So, it’s hard to remember her. I wanted to do something that made me have to think about her. Made me feel closer to her. And while working on this, I started to remember her a little better.” He smiled sadly, and cleared his throat, studying his peers. Nervousness hidden just below the surface. She didn’t think anyone else even noticed how tense he was.

Y/N met his eyes and gestured encouragingly for him to continue. Bucky gave her a grateful nod in return and spoke back up “This was something I’ve been putting off for a while. I just haven’t had the guts to really work on it. Until lately.” He stared at her pointedly then, and she wondered if this was one of the things he had thanked her for before. She wasn’t sure what she did to give him courage, but, if she did, she was glad.

 Of course, when Mr. Ramsey had went around asking for critics, and opinions, she was first in line to give Bucky an earful. Pointedly gave an in-depth critic with things he might have done differently, but mostly with heartfelt compliments. A courtesy he hadn’t given to her.

Slowly, she shouldered her backpack and finally decided to just approach him. He hadn’t moved, but most of the class was gone. Leaving them alone with Ramsey in the back, writing reports for each project. She weaved her way through the series of desks and stepped up to his left. A line of easels stood side by side. Each held a different student’s work. They formed a line in front of the marker board that Mr. Ramsey sometimes used. It took up the entire front wall. There were still instructions left up there for their watercolor homework. They were supposed to practice with backgrounds.

Her easel was closer to the right, near the door. Coming to stand beside him, she surveyed her work for the millionth time. Ink had ended up being the final medium. She knew it would after practicing his arm in it a couple times. The drawing was like the sketch of him in her window. Same facial expression. Same bared arm, but he was wearing a ripped white shirt. His jaw was bruised, and he was lounging on her couch. One leg propped up against the armrest, the other off on the floor, right arm draped against the back of the couch, and metal one casually holding a glass of coke near his mouth. Shirt bloody, pants dirty, and hair absolutely wrecked. His bright eyes were on the viewer. Once again daring them to look.

It was a mixture of different poses she had done of him. When asked why she chose this, she had answered “I wanted to draw something human. Something that people could relate to in a million different ways.” It was more than that, of course. An emotional artist at heart, this piece also helped her vent out everything from that night. All the hurt and fear poured out into every single black line.

“So, something human?” Bucky’s voice jarred her from her stupor. She swallowed the nervous lump in her throat as he continued, “You really think people can relate to a guy with a mechanical limb?” He turned his head, eyes flickering between her face and the drawing.

She shuffled the warm thermos in her hands and nodded “Ya, I do. Being human hurts. Everyone loses something while experiencing it. Doesn’t have to be a limb.” She swallowed again, and finally looked at him as she spoke. Her voice was soft but strong, determined to make her point. He was staring at her intently, arms crossed. His bag hung across his chest, resting on his hip. “Different people lose different things. Their confidence, creativity, someone they loved, or even their heart. Doesn’t always equal out to the same hurt. But it’s still painful.”

“No one can completely lose their heart.” Bucky mused, and he was smiling, but it was such a sad smile. It highlighted the tired shadows under his eyes. She could feel a mirroring one on her face “Just takes a while to come back when it’s been hurt.”

Part of her yearned for him to be right. But she had been waiting for her own to come back for a long time. Even if it did, she didn’t know if she would trust to ever let someone have it again. Sometimes, in the quiet moments at night when she couldn’t sleep, it didn’t feel like she even had a heartbeat. Instead, a heavy void pressed down inside her ribcage. All consuming.

Bucky let out a loud raspberry, smacking his lips together. Then waved to the drawing, hand slapping against his leg as he dropped his arm “Well! It’s beautiful.” He laughed loudly, breaking up the tension “Best damn picture I’ve ever seen of myself.”

Y/N smiled wider, the air feeling lighter. It was easier to breathe, “Ya think so? Cause, well, your chin was a bitch.” She grinned as the familiar joke left her, and thumbed open her thermos, taking a drink of the coffee. It was still hot. The heat curled soothingly in her stomach and the smell of coffee comforted her.

Ramsey’s unamused glare burned the back of her neck. Probably wanted them to leave him in peace and quiet. She ignored him. Heat blew down from the vent above them, spurred on by the cold pressing against the brick outside. She fussed with her zipper, closing up her jacket with one hand, balancing her thermos in the other.

Pouting, he rubbed at his chin and then chuckled, wagging a finger at her “Don’t lie. You love it.” His eyes were warm and sweet. Familiar. When had Bucky’s smile start to feel familiar?

Just as she was about to respond, her eyes caught the time above the marker board “Oh shit I’m late.” Y/N was supposed to be at work no later than 4:40. It was ticking towards 4:30, and she had to get back to the school. Which was a 30-minute drive, longer with bad traffic. They were in Brooklyn. Orion was all the way over, across the bridge, in Midtown.

Hail had started pounding down from the clouds when she wasn’t paying attention. Just her luck. White dots started to collect on the roof, visible from the window to her left. It was supposed to snow later that night. Bucky helpfully snickered “I hope you boss is nice or your so screwed.” He followed her as she rushed out of the room and skipped the elevator all together.

The door to the stairway banged open at the force she shoved at it. She took the stairs two at a time with Bucky on her heels, “Katlin is going to kill me. She’s gotta get her daughter from practice.” Y/N groaned and glanced over her shoulder to glare at Bucky “This is all your fault!”

“What’d I do??” He gaped at her, as she turned the corner onto the next flight. Bucky’s footsteps were lighter than hers, but still echoed when he jumped to the landing behind her. Managing to keep up despite her going as fast as she could.

“If you had just told me what you thought! Instead of mysteriously gazing at my damn drawing! Then I wouldn’t have waited around for you to say something!” She huffed, reaching the last landing, and turning to gauge his reaction. She was already late. What did a few more minutes matter? Y/n’s chest heaved in both frustration and from running down so many stairs. Her free hand still held the railing, the other hugging her coffee to her chest.

Bucky stopped two steps from the bottom, and started laughing “Mysteriously? What? You’re the one that didn’t ask! I told you ‘Good Job’!” He waved a hand at her, shaking his head as if this entire thing was ridiculous. It was a little, but she barreled on.

“Oh cause ‘Good Job Pal’ is a worthwhile answer! You didn’t even tell me how you felt about it!” She wasn’t really mad. Not really, really mad, but she was irritated. Over the weather, and work, and maybe a little because he was so damn vague all the time. They could talk about nothing for hours, but if anything weighted came up he changed the subject. It didn’t help that he was laughing at her. Besides, she spent hours trying to make it perfect. Trying to draw him with the care he deserved.

Maybe he didn’t deserve it after all.

Confused, he stuffed one hand in his pocket, and the other on his bulky bag against his hip. He spoke her name sharply in disbelief, it ricocheted in the empty corridor “I thought you knew by now that your art is amazing. That I think it’s amazing. You’re able to make people feel things. Able to see things most don’t see.” His voice softened towards the end in the confession and he took another step down. She took a step back in return, letting go of the rail “Your anatomy was good. The shading was awesome.” He snorted, shaking his head “There’s not much I could critic except maybe the bloody shirt was a bit much. Considerin’ everything else you’ve got going on in there. But that’s just my opinion.”

The silence that followed his words left her heart pounding. Maybe it was alive, but she only ever got proof when Bucky was around. Scarlet crawled across her cheeks and burned her ears from how closely he was studying her. He raised his eyebrows with a clear ‘happy now?’ expression. She smiled nervously “Ya, but I couldn’t get it outta my head after that night, so I had to put it down somewhere.”

He jabbed his finger at her “See? Now I get it.” He took the last stair down to meet her and sighed sharply. As if with a heavy heart, he slung an arm over her shoulder in a half-hug “You shouldn’t need me to tell you how talented you are. You shouldn’t be able to forget it.”

Bucky hadn’t done this to her since that night either. Hadn’t wrapped an arm over her shoulder, playfully or otherwise. It made her feel warm. Like it was spring instead of winter, “It doesn’t hurt to hear.” She muttered, head down as he led them towards the entrance of the museum “I don’t always like what I do. I know I could do better.”

“Everyone can always do better.”

  The air outside was damp and cold. Hail littered the walkway, but it was starting to give way to snow. So at least she wouldn’t have to deal with being soaked and battered. Bucky didn’t remove his arm as they hurried towards the main road. Both were scanning for a taxi. Y/N was grateful for the extra warmth and protection from the biting wind. She tugged the sleeves of her jacket down over her fingers and kept her head ducked down. Should have worn something heavier. Instead of dwelling on her horrible self-esteem issues, she tried to change the subject.

“Got any plans tonight?” She asked over the howling of the wind, curling into Bucky’s hold to avoid the small bit of hail coming down with the snow. Her hair whipped around her face, and she tugged a strand out of her mouth. Snow clung to her eyelashes and very little sun got through the dark overhanging clouds. It was almost like nighttime came early.

He raised his hand, distractedly waving over a taxi. They stood at the very edge of the sidewalk, the toes of Bucky’s scuffed boots hanging over the edge, “Ya, I need to get home. A friend of mine’s coming over. Was gonna take her out, but since the weather’s actin’ up, I figure I’ll make her something for dinner. She’d probably like that better anyway.” He grinned when a taxi finally took notice of them and squeezed her shoulder.

Y/N felt her heart drop towards her stomach, suddenly very curious about Bucky’s apparent friend. A girl. Who he was willing to cook dinner for. She pressed her lips together and felt a little colder. Like the snow was soaking through her jacket but maybe she wasn’t imagining that.

As the taxi pulled over he asked, staring down at her “Do you mind sharing? My apartments on the way.” He gave a sheepish smile, the cold making his nose light pink. Bucky looked cute anyway. His hood was up on his jacket under his heavier coat. The hood made his hair press closer to his face and his eyes were a pristine wintery blue, reflecting the snow.

She shook her head and Bucky held the door open for her. Then climbed in behind her. He leaned forward and gave the address of his apartment, and then tacked on her college, the Orion Institute. She had never seen where Bucky lived. Not once in the entire time they spent meeting for their projects. They always met at her place. A part of her was excited to even just see his building.

They didn’t live that far apart. Bucky’s apartment was in Brooklyn Heights, less than 30 minutes from her apartment in Midtown. It only seemed far because of traffic. She lived within walking distance of the Orion Institute and only a mile from Central Park.

The taxi pulled away from the curb, navigating smoothly between a few cars in the road, “You make dinner for her often?” Y/N asked, settling back in her seat and running a hand through her tangled hair. Using the tie on her wrist, she pulled the damp mass back out of her face, watching Bucky plop his bag on the floor between his feet. He dusted snow off his coat and shoved his hoodie down.

“Not really. She’s just in town visiting her folks. Used to make her dinner all the time when we were dating.” He smiled wistfully, remembering something sweet. Then he shrugged, and the smile vanished “But that was a long time ago.” The windshield wipers ticked loudly up front and the soft crooning of the radio on an older jazz station drifted from the speakers. Heat made it back to them from the front and she rubbed her frosty fingers together.

Heart suddenly heavy, Y/N turned in the seat to look at him closer. She tucked her knee up onto the leather and fiddled with the material of her jeans. Carefully, she adjusted her bag, propping it on her thighs “So you’re still close?” Snow melted through the sleeves of her coat and carried the scent of winter with it. It just made her colder, despite the dry heat from the taxi.

Bucky pursed his lips thoughtfully “Kinda? I mean, me and Dot have always been pretty close. We don’t see each other much since she lives in Chicago now, but we hangout when she comes by. It’s always nice to catch up.” He shook some of the melting snow out of his hair, making it spike up. Gesturing with his hands as he spoke. Bucky seemed a little tense, talking about Dot. He made eye contact but was slow as he spoke. Picking his words carefully.

“Do you still like her?” That was probably one of the more personal questions she had outright asked him since knowing him. It made anxiety tighten in her throat. He had never mentioned any relationships to her before. Y/N kind of assumed he was single, based on never talking about a girl or drawing any mystery girls. Maybe she was wrong. She bit her tongue when Bucky scoffed.

“Like, like-like her?” He teased, snorting, and then looking out the window. He propped his elbow up on the door and put his chin on his hand. Water dripped down the glass as he turned his attention to the world outside “It’s more complicated than that.” He finally answered, voice quiet and far off. A car honked as it passed, and the snow was still coming down heavily. It made the scenery fuzzy. Almost ethereal. At least the pattering of hail had subsided. Just snow now.

“How?” She pried, curiosity biting at her. Her stomach pinched unpleasantly. Bucky had an ex-girlfriend who lived several hours away but came to visit him. Visit her family, too, but they were still in contact enough that he cooked dinner for her sometimes. And still considered himself close to her.

Bucky huffed, and pulled out his phone, fidgeting with it. The screen lit up, but he didn’t mess with it long enough to do more than maybe check a text before he locked the screen again. Jerkily, he dropped it into his lap and peered over at her before staring up at the questionably stained ceiling, “Complicated like. Like we were going to get married. But then I went overseas. And she didn’t wait.” He was steadily getting more agitated, and she belatedly realized that she probably stumbled on a button. He glared at the ceiling and then back down at his phone. Anywhere but her.

Part of her screamed to back track and change the subject. The rest of her was echoing with the realization that he was almost married. Y/N swallowed back the nervous lump in her throat and squeezed her fingers into fists. They were still cold, and the driver’s heavy cologne was starting to make her nauseous. She forced herself to watch Bucky’s reactions. So that maybe she could fill in the blanks of what he wasn’t saying.

“So, you still wanna be with her?” She asked gently, hoping to maybe not piss him off beyond all hope. Her hands played with her bag, twisting at one of the front zippers. A pencil dug at her thigh from the bottom of the bag. Managing to sting through the patterned material. She shifted the bottom, making the pencil move.

Bucky froze, frowning down at his phone. He didn’t speak up for a bit, but eventually laughed softly. It wasn’t a warm laugh, “Sometimes, I guess so.” He peeked up, smiling at her. A disheartened smile. His damp bangs fell in his steel-blue eyes, “But even if I wanted to. Even if she wanted to. It probably wouldn’t work anyway.” Bucky tapped at his temple and shrugged, looking like something heavy weighed down on his back “Not with the mess that’s up here now. I’m not really the relationship kinda guy anymore.” He stared deliberately down at his hands again, and she almost missed the last little bit he muttered, more to himself than her “Wouldn’t wanna make any girl deal with my mess.”

A few minutes passed where she tried to collect her thoughts. Tried to filter through all the snippets of things she wanted to say. Finally, she stared resolutely at his profile. Willing him to look back at her. The colorful city lights refracted through the melting snowdrops, casting shifting shadows across his body. His eyebrows were drawn together, deep in thought, as he stared down at his black phone screen, “Bucky.” He tensed at first, but then slowly glanced up at her. Reluctantly, as if afraid of what she was going to say. Obviously, he was uncomfortable, but she couldn’t imagine what was going through his head.

The car was slowing to a stop, breaks squeaking in protest. They were in front of an older apartment building now. A few people milled around outside in the snow. It was covered in brick and wilted ivy. The windows were small, other buildings hugging it on either side, but it was pretty, covered in snow and ice. He needed to leave, “You deserve to be happy.”

He raised his eyebrows at her, stubbornly silent. His blank expression gave nothing away. She pursed her lips, forcing her tangled web of anxiety down, “And you shouldn’t stop yourself from being happy cause you’re afraid of being a problem for someone else. You’re not a problem.” None of her words were coming out right. They all sounded better in her head. She was so afraid of showing too much of her hand. Letting him see the feelings that were just starting to become a delicate, flower bud inside of her. Something small and new that she just didn’t want anyone to see yet.

“This is sweet and all, but the meter is still runnin. I’m not gonna stop it ‘cause you two lovebirds need relationship therapy. Are you getting out or not?” The cab driver called from the front, voice harsh and loud in the tense quiet that fell after she stopped talking. She glanced up at him, taking in his black beanie and the white snippets of hair that stuck haphazardly out from under it. Her heart pounded, and her body flushed in embarrassment.

It was easy to forget that someone else could be listening.

Bucky jerked, caught off guard and scowled for a minute. He pointedly looked at her and rolled his eyes. Then turned and met the driver’s glare through the rearview mirror. The smile he offered was charming as usual, and he sheepishly apologized, “Sorry just give us a minute alright?” He leaned forward and dug a few 20s out of his wallet, handing them to the guy. That covered far more than just his ride. She knew better than to argue with him on it, though.

Then he faced her again, and Y/N could barely keep her breathing even. She wanted to know what he was about to say but she was scared. Scared that he would argue with her, or that he would see past everything. See the emerging feelings that she kept pushing down. She didn’t want him to know. Barely wanted to admit to anything herself. The budding rose in her heart felt like it was tightening its thorny vines around her lungs.

Before he could speak, there was a knock on the window behind him. Y/N jumped, startled. Bucky let out the breath he just took in to speak. Then tilted his head over his shoulder, annoyed, only for his face to brighten into a warm smile. A young woman was standing there. She had a brown fuzzy hood up to protect her from the snow, but Y/N could see firy red hair underneath it. Bucky chuckled affectionately “Goddamn impatient woman.” He picked up his bag and climbed out. Completely forgetting about whatever he was going to say.

Completely forgetting about her too, it seemed.

Bucky gave the woman a tight hug and talked quickly to her. Voice carried off by the wind. His door hung open, letting in the icy air. She couldn’t hear what they were saying. All she could think about was how pretty Dot was.

After a couple long minutes, Bucky leaned back in with a bright grin “I’ll see you Thursday ok?” His hand was resting on the top of the open door. Snow clung to his hair and his cheeks were chapped pink from the cold again.

“Ya, have fun.” Y/N replied lamely, forcing the biggest smile she could muster. She hugged her bag as hard as she could. Then hugged it harder when Dot’s hand touched his shoulder, drawing his attention back. So hard that the supplies inside hurt her chest. The pencil dug into her stomach this time. She didn’t care.

Bucky nodded distractedly, and let go of the door, stepping back. He wasn’t even looking at her anymore, “Ya sure. Have fun with all your books!” He called as he shut the door. It echoed loudly in the quiet. The car pulled away immediately. She stared at the space he used to be, ears ringing.

Annoyed, the driver turned up the heater and grumbled about Bucky letting all the heat out of the car. The heater sputtered nosily. Then he spitefully turned up the radio. Shifting, she placed both feet back on the floor, and shoved her backpack over where Bucky had been sitting. Numbly, she picked her thermos off the ground. The coffee was lukewarm, but she sipped at it anyway.

She ignored the driver, only muttering out an apology that she doubt he heard over all the noise. Sinking low into her seat, she watched the world pass outside, and tugged out her phone. She messaged Katlin an apology for being late. Let her know when she would be arriving.

As the taxi passed under a stoplight, heading towards the Brooklyn Bridge, the glowing green light reflected over her hands. The color reminded her of spring leaves. Distantly, she wondered what Bucky had been about to say. If only he hadn’t been pulled away.

Inside of her chest, Y/N imagined the rosebud sinking back into the soil. Where it would remain dormant and alone.

*****

The tip of her brush dipped into the water, and she let the bristles stroke across the top of her drawing. Pale blue pigment for the river bled down and pooled along the line of dry paper she created. It became a gradient, light at the top and dark at the bottom where most of the shadows in the creek were. She lifted the drawing board that her paper was taped to, keeping it from buckling. Carefully, she tipped the board so that the water flowed where she wanted to. Distributing the paint and giving the surface of the stream a textured look to it.

After a minute, Y/N sat the board down and glanced at the copy of the painting they were recreating. The landscape was created by David Taylor and called ‘Catching the Morning Light’. It was a simple creek surrounded by grass and trees with a faded background. Impressionistic in style and rich in contrast. All they had to do for class was recreate the painting to the best of their ability.

She sat the board back down and stretched her back. It cracked over her chair and she sighed in relief. Shifting a little, she tried to find a comfortable position for her numb butt on the hard chair. Then, she clicked through her phone, checking her messages and debating taking a break to get a snack from a vending machine downstairs.

Beside her, Y/N heard a frustrated sigh, followed by the clinking of a brush against glass. Aggressively, Bucky rinsed out his brush, nearly splashing out the water. She watched him from her peripheral as he held his brush over his pallet of paint, glaring at the colors. As if they personally offended him. Bucky scoffed, roughly dropping the brush back down on his desk.

They hadn’t talked much since Monday. Today was, finally, Thursday. She wanted to text him but didn’t want to bug him. Wanted to talk but didn’t know what to say. It felt like she might have done something wrong when he replied to the few texts she did send with short responses. But she couldn’t think of anything she did to piss him off. Normally, Bucky would be straight forward with her if he was mad about something. Especially, if it was something she did.

So, she just stopped texting him. And he didn’t text her either. Now she couldn’t decide if she was annoyed or concerned.

Bucky put his head in his hands and pulled his phone out. He clicked through it for a couple of seconds. Y/N watched as his shoulders bunched up and his jaw clenched. Since he sat down beside her that afternoon, he hadn’t spoken to her beyond a greeting. Then a couple snarky remarks about their project.

He wasn’t much of a watercolor kind of guy. She could tell. He understood the techniques. Understood, for the most part, how to apply them, but he had no love for the medium. No passion for it. Unlike her.

Y/N loved watercolor. It was easy because there wasn’t much need for precise control. It’s meant to be messy, for the most part. Didn’t have to be completely realistic and perfect. The colors would blend together beautifully and created amazing textures just about on their own.

The screeching of a chair against tile made her jump. Her brush nearly smudged the bundle of trees in the background all wrong. Bucky brusquely stood from his seat and stalked out of the room. Despite the door shutting quietly behind him, it felt like a slam. All the soft murmuring of conversation died instantly. The older woman, Hannah, sitting next to her stared at her questioningly. Y/N shrugged and shook her head.

She wanted to go after him but resisted the urge.

For 10 minutes.

It took all her self-control to focus back on her work. She got in a couple strokes for the silhouettes of the far-off trees but every few minutes she peeked at the door. Rhythmically, she tapped the edge of her brush against her scuffed desk. Her eyes drifted to Bucky’s painting. They had been working for about an hour now, but he barely even had a wet wash of color down. Only an outline of the creek, and a few splotches of color that she didn’t quite understand the purpose of.

Definitely not his best work.

Giving up, Y/N stood quietly from her desk. She placed her brush down carefully in its holder and tucked her phone in her back pocket. Some of the students stared at her, but she ignored them as she made her way to the teacher’s desk. Quietly, she told Ramsey she was going to the bathroom. From his look of exasperation, she got the feeling that he didn’t believe her. Which was fair. Still, he waved her towards the door before going back to his iPad.

Outside of the studio, the hallway was empty. To her left were the elevators and emergency exit to the stairwell. If she went right, there were a few doors leading to a couple more studios and meeting rooms. Beyond that, she would enter the museum area. With the Visible Storage, William Richards, American Art, and a few other displays.

She took a couple steps towards the displays and then did a small circle, trying to decide where Bucky might have gone. Her boots clicked against the tile floor. A soft buzz came from the golden lights on the ceiling. Y/N had a feeling he would have wanted to be somewhere quiet and alone. Walking slowly through the hall, she checked all the other rooms. Only one was active with some sort of lecture taking place. The other 5 were unoccupied and dark. She didn’t believe that Bucky would purposefully go sit in the dark. So, she turned around and continued to the stairwell.

Opening the door, Y/N stepped out and quietly shut it behind her. The click of the door sealing still echoed through the silent concrete flight of stairs. Faintly, she could smell ashy smoke. She walked down the first flight and turned the corner of the landing. There was a draft and she wished she had thought to grab her sweater. Glancing down, she saw Bucky shuffling over to sit as far against the wall as he could. Probably attempting to get out of the way of whoever was coming down. He huddled up in his hoodie, knees drawn close, feet on the step just below the flat landing. She now understood where the smell of smoke was coming from. Determined, she took the last step to even ground and strolled slowly over to him.

As she sat down beside him, she noticed a thin trail of smoke coming from a cigarette he was subtly hiding between his knees. Y/N didn’t smoke. Tried it once and nearly coughed up a lung, but she understood why people did. Everyone had their own reasons. She only ever requested that no one smoked in her apartment. Still, she was surprised. She never smelt cigarettes on him and he never once asked if he could smoke at her place. Or excused himself to smoke outside.

Bucky side glanced over to her before letting out a breath and bringing the cigarette to his mouth. He took a long drag and blew out a massive plum of smoke, then immediately waved it away, making it disperse quicker and looking a bit apologetic, “I swear I quit.” He explained, trying to smile but not quite managing “I’ve carried this pack with me for a year now. Just to prove I could have them on me but not light ‘em.” He rolled the cigarette in his fingers and stared at the burning end “Guess I have to start over now.”

Y/N settled in beside him, crossing her arms over her knees and curling forward. “That’s ok.” She gave a half shrug, studying his downcast expression as he flicked ash between his feet. It sprinkled on a second cigarette butt, “If you want to quit you will.” She laid her head down on her arms, using them and her knees as a pillow. Despite being extremely worried, she didn’t want to press. If he didn’t want to talk, she wouldn’t make him. It meant a lot to her that he hadn’t told her to go away. Softly, she wondered “Watercolor so bad that you needed a smoke break?”

Reluctantly, Bucky chuckled, and the sound made her stomach warm “Something like that.” He murmured, taking a last drag from the cigarette before rubbing it out on the stair between his feet. Smoke rushed out of his nose as he breathed out. The smell made her lungs burn but it didn’t bother her too much. It reminded her of the way her grandfather used to smell. There was something somewhat comforting there, even if her body rejected the tainted air.

Bucky stared dejectedly down at his feet, eyebrows pinched and almost angry. His right hand rubbed at the fingers of his left. Like he was trying to massage out an ache.

Y/N didn’t comment on it, instead she stared up at him and stated “I’m pretty sure they have a no smoking policy inside the building. If we get caught, I’m throwing you under the bus.” She kept her voice very dry and knew he caught the humor when one side of his mouth turned up, like he wanted to smile. He finally looked at her then.

The rings under his eyes were darker than normal and his skin was pale. His hair was a mess, like he ran a hand through it one too many times. Something made his back hunch forward. Almost like Bucky was trying to curl in on himself. Like he wanted to disappear.

“I’ll take full responsibility. Don’t worry. I’ll just pull my veteran status and say that the cold makes my arm hurt so I couldn’t stand outside.” Bucky flexed the fingers of his left hand again and grimaced, “They’ll let me off with a warning, tops.”

“How manipulative of you.” Y/N replied, pretending to be disapproving. When Bucky covered another wince with a thin laugh at her words, her frown deepened with concern, “Your arm hurting?”

Bucky flinched from her question, as if alarmed that she noticed. Then he studied her face, eyes a little suspicious, before slowly relaxing. She was watching him calmly, with a little bit of concern, but not really pity. He slowly nodded “Ya, well, really it’s my hand. It’s phantom pains. Happens sometimes when I’m stressed. It’s like my fingers are over an open flame. They’re throbbing.” His shoulders tensed up near his ears and he tried to smile, as if it wasn’t a big deal, but obviously it was.

Just his description made Y/N flinch in sympathy. He turned his attention back to his hand, rubbing at his gloved fingers. She rocked her feet against the concrete, rising up on her toes and then rolling back on her heels, restless “Does that help?” She asked, waving towards his hands with her own closest to him.

Not looking up, he nodded “Sometimes. Tony made my arm so that I can feel pressure and temperature. It’s still experimental. Not perfectly accurate. But, if I send pressure signals to my nerves long enough, the pains go away. Usually.” He huffed, frowning and biting his lip “Today’s just a really, really bad day.” That felt like a loaded comment. His voice cracked, dropping to almost a whisper near the end.

There was a long stretch of silence after that. Not an uncomfortable silence. Just quiet and full of thoughts. Y/N broke it with an offer, hoping to make him smile again “If watercolor’s stressing you that bad, I’ll do the painting for you. Ramsey doesn’t have to know.”

Bucky snorted and tilted his head to study her, smiling a little more when he saw the cheeky grin she gave him “I might take you up on that.” Then he turned back to his hand, slowly plucking off the glove he always wore. He stuffed it into his hoodie pocket and cleared his throat “But I don’t think it would help.”

“Wanna talk about it?” Y/N flicked her hair out of her eyes, tugging the long white sleeves of her shirt over her palms. The draft through the stairwell, along with the cold rock underneath her, had the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. She hugged her legs a little tighter. Being curled up helped her conserve some of her warmth.

The plates of his fingers hummed as he arched them, stretching them as far as he could. She didn’t think he was going to respond for a minute. He wouldn’t look at her. But then his words hesitantly broke the quiet. Almost shy, “It’s um… remember Dot?” He asked slowly, still not looking at her. His hair fell forward over his forehead in a soft wave. Nervously, he shuffled his feet, and smeared some of the ash across the stair.

She nodded, and he must have seen her from his peripheral because he continued “She stayed the night Monday.” Bucky’s nose wrinkled, and his lips were pressed into a fine line. Irritated, “I didn’t plan on anything happening but then a lot happened.” He let out a long breath “A lot. She didn’t leave until Wednesday.” He pushed at his metal ring finger, stretching it back, then forward towards his palm.

Y/N instantly buried the pain and disappointment that surged through her. It burned in her chest and twisted her stomach tight with thorns. But she pushed it down and locked it away. This wasn’t the time for her petty issues. Bucky was hurting over something. Something so bad that he was having phantom pains and relapsed into smoking, “Did it not go well?” She asked, keeping her voice quiet and as soothing as she could manage. Afraid of making him clam back up. Afraid he would throw his walls back in her face.

A spiteful, bitter laugh left him, and he regarded her, eyebrows furrowed “It was great. Really great. We laughed and talked.” He sat up, restless with too much nervous energy, tone spiteful “The sex was fantastic.” His voice rose towards the end, pent up frustration escaping in bursts, and he gestured with his arms. Only to wince with a loud curse and curl back in on himself when the pain in his arm spiked.

Y/N was sitting at his left and straightened up when he cried out. She brought her hand up, touching his arm, worried, “Careful!” He looked at her, surprised and covered her hand with his right one. His touch was gentle and warm. She frowned at him, the hand on his upper arm squeezed reassuringly “You ok?” The metal was hard under his plush sleeve.

Bucky exhaled sharply, squeezing his eyes shut and nodded “I’m alright. Just irritated it.” She dropped her hand. Subdued, Bucky rubbed at his fingers again “Anyway, then she got ready to go Wednesday. She was just about to walk out the door, but she stopped to tell me it was all a mistake.” He grimaced, teeth clenching in a mocking smile, voice fluctuating with flippant sarcasm “That she finally realized I’m not the man she fell in love with. That she’s not the girl I think I love.” His head dropped down, hanging low, and she could tell he wanted to cry. He swiped roughly at his eyes.

Not knowing what else to do, she reached over and tentatively laid her hand on his inner wrist. With just enough weight that he could feel her there. When he didn’t shove her off, her palm slipped against his and she laced their fingers together. His hand was cold against her skin, and she squeezed. For a minute, Bucky was silent, but then he squeezed carefully back.

“Why do girls think they have to make decisions for everyone else?” He asked, not looking at their hands. Hard metal against the soft skin. Instead, he stared down the staircase, somewhere off in the distance. Not really seeing anything, “I respect her realizing that I’m not…” He cleared his throat as his voice got thick and rough “I’m not the person I was before the army. I’m not. But she shouldn’t decide how I feel about her.”

“No, she shouldn’t.” Y/N spoke up and he tilted his head to peek up at her. Still slouched forward like he was trying to disappear. His eyes were shining grey in the dim light of the stairwell. Tears held back just by a thread. Full lips raw from biting them too hard, “It’s your choice whether you love her or not. She should have let you have that. Even if it was her choice to not love you back.” She licked her lips and swallowed the lump in her throat “But she shouldn’t have spent the night with you if she wasn’t sure.” She scooted closer and placed her other hand on top of his left one, encasing his hand in her both of hers and held tightly. It warmed the longer she held it. Her thumb brushed over the plates, feeling the texture. And Bucky let her.

He was quiet for a while. Just watching her hold his hand. Staring intently, as if thinking, but not pulling away, “She didn’t let me figure it out on my own. I thought maybe we could work it out.”

Y/N could feel his body heat down her entire side where they were pressed together. The solid weight of their hands made her feel connected to him. She wasn’t as cold anymore “She should have talked to you about everything before letting you feel that way.”

Bucky nodded, biting his bottom lip. Again, “I wish she had. It felt like losing her all over again.” He blinked past the mist in his eyes and shrugged, trying to brush off the weight in the air, “But I don’t think this’ll ever happen again.”

“Why not?” The hurt radiating from him made her chest ache. She kept gently rubbing his hand with her fingers. Down his wrist, over his thumb, across his own fingertips. Y/N hoped he could feel the comfort she was trying to translate through her touch.

“As mad as I am that she assumed she knew how I felt. She isn’t wrong. I don’t love her anymore.” Bucky scratched at the back of his neck with his free hand, cracking it, and then rubbed at his damp eyes “I think I just love the idea of loving her. Ya know?” He sniffed and laughed wetly, “At least, that’s what Steve keeps telling me.”

“Steve seems like a smart guy.” Y/N stated. She laid her head against his shoulder and continued, “I do understand that, though. It’s almost impossible to let go of someone you cared about for so long. They’re comforting. You know what to expect. It’s hard to get over that kind of heartbreak.”

“I guess you would know?” Bucky asked, raising his eyebrows. She tilted her head up to look at him. Their faces were stooped close together. The moment felt very private and intimate.

Y/N had the sudden urge to draw it. Draw them like this. From behind. Capturing their backs and tilted faces. The look of tired curiosity on Bucky’s face. Two people bonding over something universally sad and too common. A moment of intimate human connection.

Slowly, she looked down at her hand over his. The rings she was wearing glinted in the harsh light. This was easier than staring into his eyes. Her heart jumped as she admitted, “Ya, it took me over a year to even think about dating again.”

Bucky glanced up at the high ceiling and huffed, blowing out a breath. The sound reverberated through the stairwell “I don’t know if I’ll ever wanna date again.” He muttered “I’m too fucked up. No one should have to deal with my issues.”

Y/N instantly remembered the conversation from a few days ago. In the back of the cab. Right before Dot showed up and tugged him away. It felt different now. Bucky still had the same issues, but she understood just a bit better. After today. She leaned forward to make him look at her and shook his arm to get his attention when he wouldn’t “What did we just talk about?”

When he stared at her blankly, she groaned in frustration.

“It’s your choice to not want to date. That’s up to you but don’t go making decisions for someone else. If someone thinks they can deal with your issues, then let them try. Let them have that choice.” She finished, feeling like she hadn’t explained herself well enough. Yet again. Her heart was beating too fast. Too hard. He had to be able to hear it.

“Don’t shut people out.” Y/N finished when he remained quiet. She was holding his hand tightly now. Her foot bounced anxiously. Frustrated at herself and at this situation. Angry at a woman she didn’t know for making Bucky feel like this. Making him feel like he didn’t deserve anyone.

Bucky was still staring at her, minutes later, mouth in a hard line. She thought maybe she made him mad. But then he chuckled and started to laugh earnestly. Shaking his head, Bucky stood, and she let go of his hand. He let out a shaky breath and scooped up his cigarette pack, tucking the finished butts into it, “Gotta give you that one. You’re right. I’m a hypocrite.”

“That’s not what I was getting at.” She protested, pouting, eyes narrowed up at him. The light from the ceiling haloed around his head.

“I know, but it’s true.” He turned, peering up the stairs that lead back to their class, “I’ll try not to go around making decisions for other people.” Bucky promised and then looked down at her. He offered her his hand, and she took it. He easily hauled her up.

Y/N couldn’t help but wonder if there was more he wasn’t saying. More that she should say. But then Bucky was changing the subject and she didn’t get the chance.

“Have you ever actually looked through the Brooklyn Museum? We come here every week and I can honestly say I’ve never seen any of it.” Bucky mused, dusting off his pants “Wanna check it out?”

She smoothed down her white blouse, dusting the grim off her jeans. Their voices carried through the stairwell, seeming louder than they were. From down below, she heard one of the doors open. Voices carried up all the flights of stairs as people started coming up their way.

They should get back to class. She had to go to another class back at Orion in less than an hour. All their stuff was waiting in the classroom. She had a dirty paintbrush. The bristles were probably ruined by now from the paint drying. Ramsey was probably wondering where they were.

“Definitely.” Y/N replied, suddenly excited. His eyes were warm when he nodded. Finally, alive again. Not fully. There was still some sadness tinged at the edges. But it was an improvement.

Bucky playfully smirked and started down the stairs backwards. Showing off. The other people were getting closer. Then he turned and waved for her to follow him. Jogging down gracefully. But she hesitated on the landing for a second. He had just reached the bend when she took a small step towards him and called, “Buck?” He paused and looked back up at her curiously, hands in his pockets “Is your hand ok?”

He brought it out and squinted down at his left hand, opening and closing his fist a couple times. The silver glinted in the florescent light, peeking out from under his hoodie sleeve. He shrugged “Ya, it doesn’t hurt anymore.” Bucky raised his eyebrows, watching her “Comin?”

Y/N nodded “Right behind you.” Then she started down the stairs after him.

Next Chapter

Tags: @boy-leave

[trueloveseyeroll]

When The Tide Turns (6/16)

Summary:  The plan was to go to England, finish the case and head back home in a matter of days. Of course, nothing in Emma’s life ever goes according to plan. Not only does she end up travelling across Europe, looking for a Liam Jones in order to finish her case, she ends up travelling with Liam’s brother - an annoyingly handsome Killian Jones. And she doesn’t trust him one bit.

Rating: T, for language and a bit of violence later on

Beta-reader: I would never have finished this without the lovely  @forget-me-not-s :))

Artists: these artists are seriously such talentented and amazing people, and they deserve so much praise!!! @theblacksiren - check out her beautiful artwork for chapter 1 here! @optomisticgirl created the awesome banner - and @fairytalesandtimetravel has created a true masterpiece for a later chapter, and it honestly brings tears to my eyes, it’s so beautiful.

Word count: ~3697 (68k+ in total)

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 |  Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 |  Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 |

AO3

Emma trudged down the hall towards the stairs. Her hair was damp from the shower and her stomach was all but growling at her. She felt kind of pathetic. Already 10 AM, and she’d barely woken up yet - it could have been four in the morning for all she knew.

Emma didn’t get very far down the stairs. A certain Killian blocked her way.

They both stopped in their tracks and the uneasiness Emma had felt since she woke flared as she took him in. Last night had been... well, Emma was half-convinced it was all a dream.

Killian scratched his neck. “Morning, love. I, uh, I’ve already eaten.”

Emma lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, I kinda overslept.” She shrugged and blamed jet lag.

Killian shuffled a bit. He was still blocking the way - the stairs weren’t very wide here. “I just need to retrieve something from my room, but then I’ll join you. If you’d like of course,” he added.

Emma shrugged again. “Sure.”

Killian finally made space, leaving the stairs and going to his room as Emma went to the dining room. The uneasiness was tenfold now. Yesterday morning, she thought of Killian as nothing but trouble. An untrustworthy liar, who may or may not be helpful.

He was still trouble, that much was certain. But... so much of the anger towards him had disappeared. Instead, some sort of understanding was forming.

And Emma didn’t like that one bit.

The dining room was neither empty nor full. A couple sat in the corner, and two different families occupied the larger tables. Emma took a seat at the table farthest from all three, grabbing two pieces of toast, a croissant and a much-needed cup of coffee.

Belle wouldn’t join them today. She was back to working her normal schedule at the library. The plan had never been for Emma and Killian to stay in Valadilene for long after all. They’d only booked two nights and now... well, where the hell were they going to go now?

As Emma stressed over the impossibility of the situation, nibbling at her croissant, Killian made his way over to her table. She avoided meeting his eyes. Avoided looking at him at all, except a first glance.

Killian hesitated before sitting down. Only for a second, but Emma noticed it. She sipped her coffee.

“So,” Killian began. “How’s your hand?”

“It’s fine.” She had swapped his scarf with a proper band-aid before she’d gone to bed last night. She should probably return that scarf to him...

Killian seemed to be in deep thought, internally debating something. Emma couldn’t deny that she was doing the same thing - had been doing it since she woke up. She took it out on her croissant, peeling off the delicate flakes; until she realized she was wasting a pretty good croissant, and decided to change tactics.

“Do you think Liam is in that Neverland-place?”

Her question took Killian by surprise - or perhaps the fact that she’d opened her mouth and said something was a surprise in itself.

“I thought you didn’t believe in Neverland.”

“Of course I don’t believe in Neverland. This Neverland-place is obviously just a nickname or code for some other place. And I guess that if the ‘bedtime stories’ as you call them have been in your family for generations, it would make sense that they once needed a compass and a sextant to find their way. I mean, it’s not like they had a GPS.”

If Emma didn’t know any better, she’d say there was a look of amusement in Killian’s eyes. Except she did know better. And there was amusement in those damned blue eyes of his.

Before he could make some comment, Emma repeated her question. “So do you think Liam’s hiding there?”

Killian thought of it for a moment. “It’s a possibility.”

“So what we really need right now is a map.”

“I would think a map has always been something we could make use of,” Killian said. Emma had half a mind to kick his shin under the table.

“Yes, but now we actually know what we’re looking for on the map.”

“I doubt you’ll find the location of Neverland on a map, love.”

Emma glared at him. “Not on any normal map, no. But your uncle’s office was flooding with all kinds of papers - drawings of boats, sketches of constellations... there’s bound to be a map somewhere in between all that. Or maybe it’s in his house!”

Killian thought of what she said, but he didn’t look like he agreed with her. “You’re suggesting we go back to Willesby and ransack the home of a dead man?”

“You got any better ideas?”

Killian held her stare for a moment. He said nothing. His eyes fell to his hands in his lap. Or rather, the envelopes he held. He revealed them to Emma, placing them on the table in front of him. “I wanted to show you these.”

Emma studied the envelopes, Barrie Jones written on each of them.

Her eyes shot up towards Killian’s. “Are those from-”

“Liam? Aye,” Killian answered before she’d even finished her question. “I found them when I was-”

“Snooping around in Barrie’s office,” Emma finished, narrowing her eyes at him and the envelopes.

Killian only smirked. “I am a pirate after all.”

Emma ignored his joke. “What do they say?” she nodded at the letters. “Did he write anything about where he is?”

“Oh yes, the exact coordinates - I just thought I’d travel around Europe acting clueless for the fun of it.”

“Alright, stupid question,” Emma admitted. “But is there anything useful in them?”

“Why don’t you read them yourself, love. It’s mostly gibberish, but you did somehow find out about Belle, so perhaps...” Killian trailed off as he handed the letters to Emma.

It seemed so clear now, what he was doing; sharing a piece of his information, so that she felt pressured to tell him how she found out about Belle.

Emma took the letters from his hand, determined not to feel pressured to do anything. Liam’s album of drawings was the only thing she had. Letting Killian know about it would risk him taking it and leaving her stranded with an angry Regina back home. And who knew how Mr. Gold would take it when he learned she’d failed something as simple as a business transaction that had already been mostly finished.

Of course, nothing about the case was simple anymore.

“Germany, Spain, and Norway,” Emma read off the post-stamps. Maybe Germany’s actually Neverland, who knows? She opened Liam’s letter from Germany, noticing the lack of date. Just like his drawings.

The letter was short, Liam’s handwriting hard to read.

Dear uncle,

I shouldn’t have left. I can’t stop reliving it every moment I’m awake and every second I get of sleep. I’m haunted by guilt, don’t you understand? I should never have left Killian. But I know, Neverland has to be hidden. I know. Tell Killian. Killian has to know.

Liam

It took Emma a good long minute to read the few lines of scribbled words. Finally, she looked up at Killian. “Tell you what?”

“I wish I knew. However, my dear uncle never did get around to telling me whatever it was he should have told me.”

“Well, Barrie obviously knew something about Neverland if Liam wrote to him about it.” Emma looked over the letter again, reading one particular line out loud. “’Neverland has to be hidden’. That means hiding the sextant?”

“Aye, that’s what I assume,” Killian nodded.

But why did Neverland have to be hidden? You couldn’t exactly hide a place... Emma chose not to ask Killian though, doubting he had any good answers.

Instead, she opened the letter from Spain. It was easier to read, though Liam’s words were pretty angry. Angry at Barrie for disowning Killian. That was never meant to happen.

When the rest of the letter turned out to be incoherent nonsense - which Killian didn’t believe could be code language - Emma opened the third and final letter.

It’s done. Those two words were followed by a poem.

“It’s our mother’s lullaby,” Killian said as she read the lyrics. It was a nice song. A song of the sea, of course, befitting the Jones family and their obsession with the ocean...

“It’s got to mean something,” Emma wondered out loud. “I mean, the ‘it’s done’ probably means that the sextant was hidden by then - although it doesn’t make sense that he’d write that in a letter from Norway and not France... But what is it about the lullaby and the music boxes and everything?”

“I’m not sure,” Killian answered. “The lullaby shouldn’t mean anything to Barrie - he hardly knew our mother, and the song came from her side of the family. It was always a memory that Liam and I shared of her. I’ve been wondering if, with the instability in Liam’s mind, the lullaby was a way to keep himself grounded. But then he left his music box here, inside a torch of all things, and I can’t help but feel as if he left it there for me. He did write that there was something he wanted me to know, that he shouldn’t have left me. Perhaps...” Killian trailed off, as though he thought he’d said too much.

“You think he left a trail specifically for you?” Emma guessed. “And the sextant is just like... a breadcrumb.”

“Aye. The git just isn’t very good at leaving sensible trails, is he?”

Emma thought of the album of Liam’s drawings lying in her suitcase upstairs. Without it, she would never have found out about Valadilene. Killian would never have found the sextant. She’d wondered why Liam would send a drawing of Belle to his uncle, what it was that made her so important... was this it? Belle was supposed to stand out so Emma would go to Valadilene. Or - of course - not Emma, but Killian.

Still, why send the drawing of Belle to Barrie?

Maybe Jones has got it wrong. The trail isn’t for him, but for Barrie... Emma didn’t like that thought, and tried to deny she’d ever thought of it. Killian’s love for his brother was one of the few things Emma was absolutely certain about. If Liam never meant for Killian to find him, but only for his uncle to find him - the uncle that had disowned Killian - well, that was pretty harsh.

(She tried not to think of how much she didn’t like the thought of Killian being hurt like that.)

When Swan slouched back in her chair, Killian did the same. He hadn’t noticed how much they’d both been leaning in over the table.

Swan finished a piece of toast and sipped her coffee. She held the mug in front of her, cradling it in her hands. Killian wondered what conclusion the turning gears in her head were drawing as she stared at her mug.

He hoped he had made the right decision. Swan finding out about the sextant hadn’t been favourable, but inevitable, he supposed. As long as he kept her in the dark about the spyglass... the less she knew, the better.

Therefore, showing her Liam’s letters may have been stupid. On the other hand, there wasn’t much information for her to gain from them that he hadn’t already told her. Showing her the letters acted to gain her trust. He doubted its efficiency. But if they wanted to find Liam, they would both have to make efforts at trusting each other, even if they didn’t truly trust each other.

“I really think going back to look through Barrie’s stuff is the best idea right now,” Swan broke the silence that had settled between them.

Killian understood her point. Barrie clearly knew a lot about Neverland, if Liam’s letters were to be trusted. But Killian also knew that the spyglass wouldn’t be in Willesby.

“Perhaps we should make sure we’ve exhausted all other options before we head back to Willesby.”

“Jones, we have no other options to exhaust. We’ve hit a dead-end - the best thing to do is go back to the start and look for things we weren’t looking for before.”

“But what if Neverland truly doesn’t exist in any form? You’re looking for a map that might not exist; meanwhile, Liam is somewhere in Italy or who knows where.” In truth, Killian did believe in Neverland’s existence. He just knew that no map of the place existed.

Swan huffed. “What do you wanna do then? Ask Belle one more time if she knows where Liam went?”

Her question - though meant to be spiteful - sparked an idea in Killian’s mind. “Perhaps you’re right Swan. When you encounter a dead-end, going back and looking at everything with new and wiser eyes might help. And I’ve realized that we’ve asked Belle many a question, but never one about Neverland.” He raised an eyebrow, silently asking Swan what she thought.

She said nothing for a few seconds. Then her resolve seemed to wear off. “Fine. We’ll go talk to Belle. But I’ll need another cup of coffee first.”

“Neverland?” Belle repeated. They had found her in one of the aisles, replacing books on the shelves. “Well... he did say something about Neverland once, but it was a joke, really. You see, he wore this ring on a chain around his neck and when I asked him about it, he joked and said he’d gotten it from Neverland.”

A ring? Killian couldn’t remember Liam ever wearing a ring around his neck. He looked at his own bejewelled fingers - rings had always been his thing.

Swan turned her head towards him. “Did Liam have a girlfriend or someone else special?”

“Not that I know of,” Killian answered. Well, he did know of a girl, but not a girlfriend. But that was a secret he wasn’t quite willing to share yet.

Swan turned back to Belle. “You don’t know of any real place that’s sometimes referred to as Neverland, do you?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

The look Swan sent Killian wasn’t subtle in its ‘I told you so’.

“Well, thank you for all your help, Belle. And your patience. I think we’ll be heading back to Willesby today to see if there are any clues there that we’ve missed,” Swan said.

“I’m only sorry I haven’t been of more help,” Belle frowned; then she seemed to remember something. “What about Liam’s drawings? You said on the phone that you found me through one of Liam’s drawings - couldn’t there be other clues in the rest of them?”

Drawings? Had Swan found out about Belle through a drawing?

One look at Swan told Killian she wasn’t happy about Belle mentioning those drawings. But why had she kept them a secret? To have some kind of leverage?

Of course she kept it secret to have leverage. She doesn’t trust you any more than you trust her, Killian thought. And you don’t give away your best source of information to someone you don’t trust. He was following the same tactic after all.

Of course Belle had to go and mention the drawings. Emma tried to mask the irritation she felt, but with Killian looking at her like that, all “you’ve been keeping a secret from me, have you?” it was hard not to feel pissed.

“Um, I think you were the only clue to be found there,” Emma said, not entirely sure if she was lying or not. Finding Belle had been easy - she was the only person Liam had drawn - but how would any of the other drawings help? Going to Paris just because Liam had drawn the Eiffel Tower wasn’t exactly useful.

“Why don’t I have a look at those drawings, Swan? It’s funny you’ve never mentioned them - perhaps I have some knowledge that can help unveil a clue or two.”

Emma gritted her teeth. She knew Killian had a point. She just couldn’t risk him discovering something without telling her, and then leaving as soon as he got the chance. But it seemed the choice wasn’t hers to make anymore. Of course, she could lie and say she hadn’t brought the drawings with her. She doubted Killian would believe it though.

“They’re just drawings of landscapes and different objects,” Emma shrugged. “None of them are dated or titled or anything. Well, except the one of you, Belle.”

Emma really didn’t like the way Killian looked at her. As if he could tell what was really going on in her head, why she was reluctant to show him the drawings.

“It wouldn’t hurt to have a little look? And if there’s no clue to be found, well, it’s good we’ve already got a plan for Willesby then, isn’t it?”

Emma had no way to argue with him. So she gave in, and hoped she was wrong about Killian.

(That small hope didn’t bring her much comfort though.)

Emma let Killian into her room at the inn, though she had debated letting him wait outside while she found the album. It seemed too childish though - even for her.

Killian sat in the armchair leafing through the drawings as Emma surveyed his expressions from the edge of the bed. He never stopped to look at one drawing for long. But there was a constant pensiveness in his eyes, lingering on the surface.

At one drawing, a small grin lit up on Killian’s face. He turned the album towards Emma, showing her the drawing. “Look familiar?”

The sextant with its pegasus on the surface wasn’t something Emma would soon forget.

Killian continued to look through the drawings, past the picture of Belle (“and here’s our resident bookworm”), but he didn’t seem to find any clues.

Until he stopped turning the pages.

Emma narrowed her eyes at him. Killian stared at the picture, then darted a look up at her before looking at the door. Then back at the drawing.

He had found something. Something curious.

“Wait just a minute, love.” And like that, he rose from his seat, putting the album on the nearby dresser and left through the door.

As if.

Emma stood up no more than a second after Killian. She darted a look at the drawing he had singled out before following him out the door and into his room.

Killian went to his satchel, searching its pockets for who-knows-what.

“What’s going on?” Emma asked from the doorway.

Killian pulled the thing he sought out of his satchel, turning towards Emma.

Another letter? she thought, looking at the envelope in his hand.

“I might have found our next clue.” He said no more. Like a man on a mission, he walked right past Emma, and back into her room.

“Are you planning on telling me what it is?” Emma asked, following him again.

Killian stood by the dresser, looking at the picture once more. He didn’t answer her; he seemed to be hesitating. But the doubt was quickly shoved away, and Killian all but ripped open the envelope.

Emma stepped closer to get a look at the paper he unfolded. Another drawing. Emma furrowed her brows and at once she understood why Killian had found the picture in the album curious.

The one he held in his hand was exactly the same. Or well, almost.

Both drawings showed the view from a terrace overlooking a city with mountains in the distance. Two grand staircases led to the terrace on each side of the drawing and two statues stood tall, framing the centre of the drawing. Emma thought of the architecture of ancient Rome, or even Greece with the three white columns in the drawing’s centre, at the foot of the staircase. Or well, in the drawing in the book, there were three columns.

There were four in Killian’s copy.

“Where’d you get that?”

Killian didn’t answer right away. As if he debated telling her the truth or not. When he spoke, Emma was certain he had chosen not to lie though.

“Liam sent it to me.”

“I... when?” The way Emma had understood it, Liam had never contacted Killian.

“Three years ago. On my 27th birthday.”

“Did he write anything with it?”

“Aye. It’s mainly gibberish about Neverland though. About how beautiful it is, but no one should ever go there. It’s how I know Barrie had the compass - he wrote it in the letter, in between various descriptions of how hauntingly beautiful Neverland is.”

Both of them looked at the drawings, going over every detail. They were almost perfect duplicates. Except for the different number of columns.

“So you think this is the clue we’re looking for?” Emma pointed at both drawings with each hand, at the spot where one drawing had a fourth column and the other didn’t.

“I reckon it’s our best bet.”

“Now we just gotta figure out where in the world this is.”

“I’m happy to surprise you there, Swan.” Killian met Emma’s questioning look with a ghost of a smile. “I’ve had this drawing for three years. Do you not think I’ve already riddled out where it’s from?”

He drew out the pause, trying to build the suspense. He only succeeded in building Emma’s annoyance.

“What, you looked at the post-stamp?”

“Alas no, the post-stamp’s from Norway, and this seems a mite too exotic for Norway... it’s Barcelona.”

“Barcelona?”

“Aye. Catalonia’s national museum of art to be precise - also known as the MNAC.” Killian’s small smile turned into a quirked eyebrow and a cocky grin. “What do you say, love - fancy taking this a bit further southward?”

Emma glared at him, unimpressed with the innuendo.

“I could definitely do with some warmer weather,” she answered. She looked at the drawings again, internally questioning how trustworthy a clue this was. “Do you think we’ll find him there? And it’ll turn out that Neverland is actually just the name of a bar or something?”

Killian chuckled. “I don’t know, Swan. Perhaps. Or perhaps all we’ll find is another breadcrumb.”

[stokan]

The 20 Best Things of 2016

Fun fact: Many good things actually happened in the year 2016. It’s true! It wasn't all death and Trump, although as you’ll see, those two factors hang heavy over even the best of things. But just like every year, 2016 still managed to produce its fair share of great art, cultural triumphs, and viral delights. Leaving out, obviously, things from 2016 that it seems like I’ll probably love but have yet to experience (OJ: Made in America, Search Party, 20th Century Women, Fences, etc.), and TV shows I’ve already written about in years past (OITNB, Transparent, You're the Worst, Veep, etc) here are my top 20 favorite things from 2016, listed in no particular order:

1. Beyonce - “Formation” video

How upset old white people were about this should give you some idea of just how great it is.

When I was growing up, the biggest music video from the biggest female pop star of the day involved her dancing around suggestively in a Catholic school girl outfit. Trump may have won the election, but progress still remains undefeated.

2. Kendrick Lamar’s Grammys Performance

(Of course this isn't anywhere on the internet for me to link to. Because Neil Portnow.)

Kendrick’s performance was the performance that Kayne always thinks he is giving. It’s a performance that made everyone else who took the stage on Music’s Biggest Night seem like talent show contestants.

I don’t want to tell artists how to use their fame, but this is how they should use their fame.

3. Last Week Tonight - #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain

SPOILER ALERT: He didn't make Donald Drumpf again. In fact the viral success of this piece and lack of any resultant effect on Trump whatsoever does raise some big questions about the effectiveness of comedy in actually changing anyone’s mind about anything in 2016. But yet, like death from a thousand paper cuts, it definitely drew a little blood. And even though I really wish John Oliver had stuck with guns and only referred to Trump as Drumpf for the rest of the year, it was still a more thorough and effective attack ad than anything the Clinton campaign managed to put together, and that was basically their whole job. John Oliver can never be president, but the world is going to be a better place as long as he keeps trying to help decide who will be.

Also, says everything about 2016 that this piece now feels like it came out ten thousand years ago.

4. La La Land

Hey, remember joy? And love? And having hopes and dreams? Well La La Land sure does! The best and worst thing you can say about it is that it’s a pre-Trump movie. Maybe the last one ever in fact. But for my money, Damien Chazelle’s quest to Make Musicals Great Again is exactly the tonic we need right now. And it seems fitting the Oscars after the death of Debbie Reynolds are going to be headlined by a colorful and happiness-inducing musical about show business, complete with its own dream ballet. Sometimes the best way to reinvent an art form is to just do it the same way its always been done, only better and at the right time.

5. Olympic Swimming

When the Olympics began I barely cared. I was raised on the Olympics, but in 2016 there’s so much else going on it felt like maybe time has passed the Olympics by. And then the swimming started. And Ledecky destroyed all challengers. And Phelps proved that calling him the greatest swimmer of all time is still underrating him. And Simone Manuel made history. And Lochte Lochted. And Anthony Ervin spun an all-time Olympic athlete backstory into Olympic gold. And for a week there was nothing in the world more compelling than watch people swim laps in a pool.

So turns out the Olympics are the Michael Phelps of sporting events - the second you think they’ve slipped a bit is when they have you right where they want you.

6. LVL Up - “Pain”

Point: Rock and roll is dead

Counterpoint: “Pain” by LVL Up

7. Stranger Things

I hate the 80s. I hate supernatural shows and horror-based shows and “genre” shows in general. I hate homage as the starting place for a work of art. I hate culture’s obsession with nostalgia and youth. And yet I loved Stranger Things. It felt like nothing else on TV while feeling like so many other things all at once. It’s the show Lost wishes it could have been, and what JJ Abrams wishes he had made instead of Super 8.

Also: I hate that there’s going to be a season two. I hate that dialogue around the show seemed so #TeamBarb when clearly any sane right-thinking person is #TeamNancy all the way. I preemptively hate all the imitators Stranger Things is going to spawn. And I hate the Stranger Things backlash that’s inevitably coming and coming hard. But right now, in this moment, let’s all embrace a wonderful television ride and not worry about the demigorgons in the woods coming to put slugs in its mouth.

#KeepHawkinsWeird

8. Flossie Dickey

Sometimes you find true love where you least expect it. Like in an interview with a 110-year woman at a nursing home.

9. Sam Donsky on The Ringer

(Speaking of soul mates…)

In the age of Trump it’s more important than ever that we have writers brave enough to ask the tough questions. Like: Who would win the Oscar for Best Baby? What is the best night any celebrity has ever had at Madison Square Garden? And why does David Benioff always thank his wife by her full name?

From analyzing the Kim/Kayne/Taylor tapes like they're the Zapruder film, to asking 74 questions about a film no one saw or liked, 2016 was the year Sam Donsky officially made himself into this generation’s Woodward and Bernstein, if Woodward and Bernstein were mostly known for dissecting dumb pop culture on the internet. We may never fully understand why Trump won, but, also, what’s up with Chris Pratt’s vests?

10. Black-ish - “Hope”

A perfect piece of writing and a perfect argument for the continued existence of network TV.

That being said though, 40 years ago this would be a classic TV episode people would talk about for generations. Now, it didn't even get nominated for an Emmy. Maybe network TV is just beyond saving.

11. The People vs. OJ Simpson

It’s almost a cliche at this point to point out how many societal issues the OJ Simpson case touched on, but watching this miniseries unfold was a great reminder that looking at the the past is usually the best vehicle for exploring the present. To choose just one example, the scene where the jurors argue over what to watch on TV is a perfect encapsulation of how something like a Trump victory could some day be possible. And if Marcia Clark isn't a perfect Hillary Clinton avatar then I don’t know who is. My only complaints about a perfect eight hours of television are that it wasn't longer and that Sarah Paulson and Courtney B. Vance aren't eligible for Oscars.

12. Samantha Bee’s Donald Trump Conspiracy Theory

Look, I don't want to say that Full Frontal with Samantha Bee is the best and most important show on TV. That is has the best joke writers in the business. That it has the righteous anger and indignation that this year called for. That it’s going to be our guiding light for the next four years. And that it’s proof that giving The Daily Show to Trevor Noah was one of the dumbest decisions in recent television history. All I’m saying is that some people are saying that, and who am I to disagree? If I was going to make claims that outlandish, I guess the first pieces of evidence I would direct you to are this already iconic Donald Trump conspiracy and the show’s Harriet Tubman segment. But I’m not one to make accusations about things using facts and evidence. I’m no expert; I’m just a guy. A guy standing in front of samanthabee.com asking it to to love him.

13. David Bowie - “Lazarus” video

The ultimate mic drop.

They say Native Americans used to make use of every part of the buffalo. David Bowie was like that, only the buffalo was his life.

14. SNL

“Farewell Mr. Bunting”

Having enough trust in your audience and your vision to attempt this sketch is super inspiring. Getting people in 2016 to wait through two and a half minutes of build up in a viral video before it pays off feels like a miracle. And getting the feeling back in my face when I finally finish laughing at this is going to be really great.

“Black Jeopardy” This is what comedy can do when its at it’s best. It cuts to truths about America more clearly and cleanly than 1,000 think pieces ever could. Are comedy sketches eligible for the Nobel Prize in Literature now?

“Hillary Clinton/Hallelujah” And this is what comedy can do when it’s not comedy at all. When historians 200 years from now want to know what the days just after the election of Donald Trump felt like all they need to do is watch this. The best thing SNL has ever done.

15. Songs That Made Me Unsure Whether I Should Be Sad, Dance, Or Both

Christine and the Queens - “iT”

I have absolutely no idea what this song is about. All I know is it sounds like the feeling of being alive. Between this song and Marion Cotillard’s eyes the French really continue to have the whole beautiful sadness thing figured out.

Eleanor Freiberger - “My Mistakes” The best Rilo Kiley song of 2016. The world can change however it wants; as long as it keeps giving me new versions of the exact song I’m totally good.

Mike Posner - “Took a Pill in Ibiza” The exact opposite of me is an EDM-influenced song about taking drugs in a nightclub in Ibiza. Yet here we are. Turns out that existential melancholy translated into Douche from the original Neurotic Intellectual is still pretty damn relatable. And yes I realize this song came out in 2015, but this will always be the sound of 2016 to me.

16. Moonlight

Moonlight feels like a miracle. That a serious drama without any name stars about a poor, gay, black man coming of age could be made at all, yet alone breakthrough into the popular consciousness. That a cast this natural and flawless could be found, like an album where every song that comes on makes you go “no THIS one is my favorite!”. That there are two different sets of three actors so similar and so good that when I see them together doing press it hurts my brain because I can’t process that they were not ACTUALLY the same person at three different ages. That two people making small talk at a table in a diner could have a whole audience on the edge of their seats. That a no-name director with one prior little-seen credit could create the most powerful and well-made movie of the year. None of these things seems possible or plausible, and yet they're all true. This movie is a miracle. And its success gives me hope. To quote critic Dana Stevens, in the pitch-black year of Trump, Moonlight was a “crack in the wall that allowed light to shine through”.

17. Atlanta

In 2016, what even is TV? It’s basically anything now. And it’s everything. It’s whatever it wants to be. And no artist has yet risen to meet the challenge and possibility of our post-Louie world better than Donald Glover has. In 2016 Atlanta is TV, and TV is Atlanta. There are no rules. There is only what you can dream up.

What will season two of Atlanta be? It could be literally anything and no one would bat an eye.

18. Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book

Chance the Rapper is so millennial it hurts. Chance the Rapper definitely has strong feelings about safe spaces and Bernie Sanders. Chance the Rapper has never even considered doing something ironically. Chance the Rapper makes Lin-Manuel Miranda look like a cynical pessimist. Hell, Chance the Rapper named himself Chance the Rapper. And as a millennial, Chance the Rapper is the future.

And the future sounds amazing.

The future is like if Old Kanye had been raised on new Kanye and was actually good at rapping. (As the old saying goes: every generation gets the Late Registration it deserves) The future is like if Picasso painted with emojis. The future is earnestness being the new aggression. The future is Future being the past.

Hip-hop is dead, long live hip-hop.

19. “A Closer Look” on Late Night With Seth Meyers

I almost left this reoccurring segment off my list of the best of 2016 because it’s become such a constant part of my life that I assumed it had been around longer than just this year. Who knew when Jon Stewart retired that the new iteration of The Daily Show would be called Late Night With Seth Meyers? Or as I call it: Essential.

20. Revisionist History Podcast

Facts and knowledge really took a beating in 2016, but turns out both are still great if you just re-examine them rather then throw them out all together. Perhaps looking more deeply into our assumptions about the world can help us better understand human nature and the reality we all share. Who knew?

Of everything I experienced in 2016 this podcast is the thing I reference most frequently. I’m fun at parties.

[prouxvaire]

The Good, The Hard, and The Half-Finished Window Seat

Okay, listen, to be fair, it’s a mostly finished window seat.

And at this exact moment in time–the moment where I’m on a roll building assorted cabinetry, and my mom and I are having a blast working between our two houses on the weekends, and there hasn’t been a farm crisis in the last couple of weeks, and I’ve actually got the time and energy to sit down and write this post–things are good. Really good. I’m living the dream (as long as we all understand “the dream” is covered in sawdust and still doesn’t shower or do the dishes quite as much as is socially acceptable.)

But let me also tell you that while things in this moment are good, it’s only because I have been living right on the cusp of “what the actual fuck” for the last several months, unsure if I’m going to tip right over the edge into crazy-squirrel-lady-who-has-given-up-on-doing-anything-she-loves-ever-again or, you know, manage to claw my way out of that hole until things feel right in my life again.

(I’m not joking about the Crazy Squirrel Lady part. They invaded the house and started hiding walnuts in my laundry.)

Here’s the thing. My life is not now, nor will it ever be, a study in balance. I’m a creature of extremes. Of periods of time when I’m in the grips of a big project or a physical challenge and feel like I have the energy and vision and drive to take on the world… and times when I don’t. When I feel the absence of that energy so acutely that even though I know that it’s just a recovery period, and that I will find myself engaged and energized in my own life again at some point in the future, there’s a part of me that says (very loudly and incessantly), “Welp, that’s it. I guess I’m never going to do anything good again, and everything feels off in my life, and I’m just going to be exhausted forever. Awesome.”

I’m compelled to say that out loud, because what I really want to do is skip over all the things that have sucked lately and just talk about is how awesome it feels to be building all kinds of shit right now. But, even though I haven’t been in the right space to update this site as frequently as I used to, telling an authentic story is still the most important thing to me.

And life is (almost surprisingly) good right now, but only because I’m on the other side of some shit that has been really hard.

First, because I burned through a ton of energy this summer making a pretty big career change and spending a lot more time away from the farm that I’m used to.

And because I spent a solid 8 months training for a solo 50 mile hike in Iceland…

(I crushed it–finishing in 2.5 days instead of the 4-5 I planned for– but also very quickly felt the post-adventure blues. It’s a real thing.)

And then because the very worst thing happened… I lost Bubs.

I mean, I did not misplace him, obviously. I lost him to cancer (which, I know, sounds very melodramatic for a cat. After being otherwise healthy and acting normal he stopped eating one week, and then I found out his intestines were riddled with tumors and he didn’t make it out of the surgery to try to remove them.)

I get that cats are not humans, and for most people cats are not even dogs, but this cat in particular has been my companion for the last 12 years. He was literally the inspector for the very first big project I completed on my first house (the first badass pergola)…

And has been with me through every house, every relationship, every project…

And every blog post since…

I understand all of the intellectual things about how he had a great life, and we got to spend 12 years just hanging out together…

But it still fucking sucks, and I miss his cat face every day.

(Although I did find a desiccated bat on the middle of the living room rug two weeks after he died and was like HOW ARE YOU STILL DOING THIS TO ME WITH THE BATS, BUBS?! I do not miss waking up to dead bats in the bed, but I do miss my cat.)

So, that was hard. 

Not only is it tough not to have him around, but within a couple of weeks, the squirrels moved out of the attic and started hiding walnuts around my house. (The one I found under the covers of my bed was the last straw.)

Also, the mice started hiding Bubs old cat food in my shoes.

That’s not… I’m not making that up. It happened a handful of times before I realized some creature was doing this to me on purpose.

I mean, I knew Bubs was good at catching shit, but I had no idea how much work he was doing on a daily basis to keep the house free of rodents.

So, just to recap: New job, big adventure, post-adventure blues, dead cat, rodent invasion, and also this has been a tough year for a lot of my friends in a lot of different ways, so just add all of that into the general mix of hard shit and, oh, I’m sorry, did you come here to read about a window seat?

Yeah, so, I managed to come out on the other side of that mess of feelings, a little worse for wear, but with my sanity mostly intact. And then I built a window seat.

As one does.

I had my HVAC guys come and move the baseboard heat for me because it required a bit of finagling. Then I bought a piece of 10′ plywood, made a napkin drawing, and went to town.

It looks civilized from the outside, but the inside is just a mess of blocking.

Originally I was going to make the storage in this thing drawers (see drunk napkin sketch above) but then I realized that after I accounted for the baseboard heat, the drawers would only be 5″ deep. So I went for the next best thing…

Flip top! (A couple of stainless steel piano hinges did the trick.)

I only expect to access this storage space once or twice a year (it currently contains my window AC unit and a bunch of canning jars.)

And just to provide context for the size of this beast…

It’s over 9′ long. Like everything else in this house, weirdly oversized, but we’re just going with it.

I finished the top of the bench with iron-on veneer on the cut ends…

Legitimately the only use this iron ever gets. Also, if you ever have qualms about iron-on veneer, I also used this exact stuff on the tables I built for the office at my last job. Those tables have been in the common area of that office (used by 50 people or so daily for the last 3+ years) and the veneer held up beautifully.

Back to the project at-hand though…

The last step was to trim out the front so that it looks a bit more in line with my cabinets.

Trim is always the critical factor in taking a project from “what the hell are you doing?” to “Huh. That looks pretty damn good.”

Also, you can’t beat the view…

It needs to be painted, obviously, and I’m in the process of ordering a custom cushion, and then if you need to find me after that, I’ll just be laying in this window seat for the next eternity.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL.

Did I or did I not say I was on a roll with the cabinet-building?

After three years of staring at the ass-end of these cabinets, I finally got my act together and finished them.

This whole project was a study in creative problem solving and using what I had on-hand.

First, I wasn’t entirely sure how I wanted to handle the trim on these, but I knew I wanted to replicate the look of the cabinets because the big blank panel that used to be there (before I added a 3rd cabinet) kind of drove me nuts.

Because I custom-built that end cabinet with a wrap-around toe-kick, I had to get creative with the trim (which also meant replacing some of the facing on that cabinet because I didn’t think far enough in advance 2 years ago, apparently.)

And then, of course, once I figured out how I wanted to do the trim, I found out that none of my local lumber suppliers sell 3/8″ thick trim boards in any kind of usable length and width. Turns out, however, that I have a bunch of 3/8″ thick tongue and groove pine planks from an unfinished project upstairs, and if you rip the tongue and the groove off?

Perfect trim boards.

But then there was the question about how I should hold the the pieces of trim in place while the glue dried in the spots that had no usable clamping or nailing surfaces.

No problem.

Also, funny story, that is not paint in my hair. That’s legit all the gray hair the last four months seven years life has given me that I stopped coloring for a minute because I was too busy not having a meltdown to care about.

Good news, I did not have a meltdown. My hair is very gray. And the back-side of my kitchen cabinets look like this.

  I am considering that the bottom trim board really needs to be a bit beefier, and weighing that against my desire to screw around with this anymore when I’ve got a couple more drawers, and secret cabinets, and at least seven sheets of plywood’s worth of built-ins I’m hoping to get done soon.

I’m telling you, it was a long, hard end to summer but I’ve got a wave of energy when it comes to building cabinets right now, and I’m going to ride it as long as I can.

from https://ift.tt/2EEiMcT

[thomasrush851]

The Good, The Hard, and The Half-Finished Window Seat

Okay, listen, to be fair, it’s a mostly finished window seat.

And at this exact moment in time–the moment where I’m on a roll building assorted cabinetry, and my mom and I are having a blast working between our two houses on the weekends, and there hasn’t been a farm crisis in the last couple of weeks, and I’ve actually got the time and energy to sit down and write this post–things are good. Really good. I’m living the dream (as long as we all understand “the dream” is covered in sawdust and still doesn’t shower or do the dishes quite as much as is socially acceptable.)

But let me also tell you that while things in this moment are good, it’s only because I have been living right on the cusp of “what the actual fuck” for the last several months, unsure if I’m going to tip right over the edge into crazy-squirrel-lady-who-has-given-up-on-doing-anything-she-loves-ever-again or, you know, manage to claw my way out of that hole until things feel right in my life again.

(I’m not joking about the Crazy Squirrel Lady part. They invaded the house and started hiding walnuts in my laundry.)

Here’s the thing. My life is not now, nor will it ever be, a study in balance. I’m a creature of extremes. Of periods of time when I’m in the grips of a big project or a physical challenge and feel like I have the energy and vision and drive to take on the world… and times when I don’t. When I feel the absence of that energy so acutely that even though I know that it’s just a recovery period, and that I will find myself engaged and energized in my own life again at some point in the future, there’s a part of me that says (very loudly and incessantly), “Welp, that’s it. I guess I’m never going to do anything good again, and everything feels off in my life, and I’m just going to be exhausted forever. Awesome.”

I’m compelled to say that out loud, because what I really want to do is skip over all the things that have sucked lately and just talk about is how awesome it feels to be building all kinds of shit right now. But, even though I haven’t been in the right space to update this site as frequently as I used to, telling an authentic story is still the most important thing to me.

And life is (almost surprisingly) good right now, but only because I’m on the other side of some shit that has been really hard.

First, because I burned through a ton of energy this summer making a pretty big career change and spending a lot more time away from the farm that I’m used to.

And because I spent a solid 8 months training for a solo 50 mile hike in Iceland…

(I crushed it–finishing in 2.5 days instead of the 4-5 I planned for– but also very quickly felt the post-adventure blues. It’s a real thing.)

And then because the very worst thing happened… I lost Bubs.

I mean, I did not misplace him, obviously. I lost him to cancer (which, I know, sounds very melodramatic for a cat. After being otherwise healthy and acting normal he stopped eating one week, and then I found out his intestines were riddled with tumors and he didn’t make it out of the surgery to try to remove them.)

I get that cats are not humans, and for most people cats are not even dogs, but this cat in particular has been my companion for the last 12 years. He was literally the inspector for the very first big project I completed on my first house (the first badass pergola)…

And has been with me through every house, every relationship, every project…

And every blog post since…

I understand all of the intellectual things about how he had a great life, and we got to spend 12 years just hanging out together…

But it still fucking sucks, and I miss his cat face every day.

(Although I did find a desiccated bat on the middle of the living room rug two weeks after he died and was like HOW ARE YOU STILL DOING THIS TO ME WITH THE BATS, BUBS?! I do not miss waking up to dead bats in the bed, but I do miss my cat.)

So, that was hard. 

Not only is it tough not to have him around, but within a couple of weeks, the squirrels moved out of the attic and started hiding walnuts around my house. (The one I found under the covers of my bed was the last straw.)

Also, the mice started hiding Bubs old cat food in my shoes.

That’s not… I’m not making that up. It happened a handful of times before I realized some creature was doing this to me on purpose.

I mean, I knew Bubs was good at catching shit, but I had no idea how much work he was doing on a daily basis to keep the house free of rodents.

So, just to recap: New job, big adventure, post-adventure blues, dead cat, rodent invasion, and also this has been a tough year for a lot of my friends in a lot of different ways, so just add all of that into the general mix of hard shit and, oh, I’m sorry, did you come here to read about a window seat?

Yeah, so, I managed to come out on the other side of that mess of feelings, a little worse for wear, but with my sanity mostly intact. And then I built a window seat.

As one does.

I had my HVAC guys come and move the baseboard heat for me because it required a bit of finagling. Then I bought a piece of 10′ plywood, made a napkin drawing, and went to town.

It looks civilized from the outside, but the inside is just a mess of blocking.

Originally I was going to make the storage in this thing drawers (see drunk napkin sketch above) but then I realized that after I accounted for the baseboard heat, the drawers would only be 5″ deep. So I went for the next best thing…

Flip top! (A couple of stainless steel piano hinges did the trick.)

I only expect to access this storage space once or twice a year (it currently contains my window AC unit and a bunch of canning jars.)

And just to provide context for the size of this beast…

It’s over 9′ long. Like everything else in this house, weirdly oversized, but we’re just going with it.

I finished the top of the bench with iron-on veneer on the cut ends…

Legitimately the only use this iron ever gets. Also, if you ever have qualms about iron-on veneer, I also used this exact stuff on the tables I built for the office at my last job. Those tables have been in the common area of that office (used by 50 people or so daily for the last 3+ years) and the veneer held up beautifully.

Back to the project at-hand though…

The last step was to trim out the front so that it looks a bit more in line with my cabinets.

Trim is always the critical factor in taking a project from “what the hell are you doing?” to “Huh. That looks pretty damn good.”

Also, you can’t beat the view…

It needs to be painted, obviously, and I’m in the process of ordering a custom cushion, and then if you need to find me after that, I’ll just be laying in this window seat for the next eternity.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL.

Did I or did I not say I was on a roll with the cabinet-building?

After three years of staring at the ass-end of these cabinets, I finally got my act together and finished them.

This whole project was a study in creative problem solving and using what I had on-hand.

First, I wasn’t entirely sure how I wanted to handle the trim on these, but I knew I wanted to replicate the look of the cabinets because the big blank panel that used to be there (before I added a 3rd cabinet) kind of drove me nuts.

Because I custom-built that end cabinet with a wrap-around toe-kick, I had to get creative with the trim (which also meant replacing some of the facing on that cabinet because I didn’t think far enough in advance 2 years ago, apparently.)

And then, of course, once I figured out how I wanted to do the trim, I found out that none of my local lumber suppliers sell 3/8″ thick trim boards in any kind of usable length and width. Turns out, however, that I have a bunch of 3/8″ thick tongue and groove pine planks from an unfinished project upstairs, and if you rip the tongue and the groove off?

Perfect trim boards.

But then there was the question about how I should hold the the pieces of trim in place while the glue dried in the spots that had no usable clamping or nailing surfaces.

No problem.

Also, funny story, that is not paint in my hair. That’s legit all the gray hair the last four months seven years life has given me that I stopped coloring for a minute because I was too busy not having a meltdown to care about.

Good news, I did not have a meltdown. My hair is very gray. And the back-side of my kitchen cabinets look like this.

  I am considering that the bottom trim board really needs to be a bit beefier, and weighing that against my desire to screw around with this anymore when I’ve got a couple more drawers, and secret cabinets, and at least seven sheets of plywood’s worth of built-ins I’m hoping to get done soon.

I’m telling you, it was a long, hard end to summer but I’ve got a wave of energy when it comes to building cabinets right now, and I’m going to ride it as long as I can.

from Bathroom & Home http://diydiva.net/2018/12/the-good-the-hard-and-the-half-finished-window-seat/

from The Good, The Hard, and The Half-Finished Window Seat

[neoraven]

some partial movie and wrestling reviews

I don’t want to finish these, but I don’t want to just delete them either! It’s a few short sentence/reviews of movie, and half a wrestling show review/start from January of this year. I should go back and watch/review fully all the wrestling from January to Quarantine at some point. 

Here are a bunch of movies I've watched in the last while. I was going to rank them or rate them, but I'll just write a few words about each. They're roughly in chronological order, spanning the last few weeks (months?) or so.

MacGruber - I love this stupid, stupid movie. From every wrestler cameo to Val Kilmer's performance.

Geostorm - Speaking of stupid movies. Granted, this was a while ago, but I barely remember anything about this one. But I am certain I watched it. And Gerard Butler saved the world or something somehow.

Austin Powers 3 - I started this to just enjoy the opening credits thing, but ended up watching the whole thing. It's kinda bad, and ages the worst out of the trilogy, but Goldmember is way funnier than Fat Bastard.

The Other Guys - Michael Keaton gives such a bizarre and hilarious performance in this one, especially the TLC monologue. Also I'm always caught off guard by the ending credits / climax being an overt anti wall street / capitalism message.

Reno 911 Miami - Another one that I started only for the opening joke / cameo (I wanted more of The Rock after Other Guys, obviously), but watched the rest. I was never a huge fan of Reno 911, but I generally liked everything I saw, including this movie!

Scary Movie 2 -This was real bad

Wet Hot American Summer - Really funny and great background watching for anything. I think I was watching this after Oscars season for Bradley Cooper.

The Fate of The Furious (8) - Charlize Theron is such a badass in this. Also, more The Rock.

Avengers Infinity War- All these movies suck, I'm a moron and watch them anyways so I can be part of the ~discourse~.

Ghost Ship - I started this just for the opening part, and managed to actually turn it off. I'm not proud of not watching the whole movie, but it is what it is. It is really one hell of a wild first 8 minutes or so of this movie.

Ant Man & The Wasp - Okay, I take it back about the all of them sucking, I like Paul Rudd and this was mostly fun and enjoyable and the MCU would be better if most of the movies were more fun.

Triple Frontier - This is a kinda surprisingly deep and slow-burning shooty heist war thriller. Those are a lot of buzzwords, but it's pretty wild. I liked Ben Affleck in this! Everyone else is fine, too.

Avengers Endgame - Now we're back at all these movies suck. The opening is pretty interesting, to be honest, but then everything just slides back into a slog with all the barrage of characters and time heist, and versions of characters until your mind is leaking out of your ears. And that's before everyone materializes on the non-descript brown battlefield to show off their powers. Despite all the financial success, the best thing I can say is that I don't think they're ever going to pull off something like this again. But I shouldn't be so optimistic.

The Matrix - A classic. I love this movie, and it's super timeless. Even with some of the computer/tech stuff getting lapped in the 20 years since 1999.

Matrix Reloaded - I think it's a little unfairly maligned. The freeway stuff, the twins, most of the "Burly Brawl", were all great. However, the Merovingian and the Architect absolutely deserve all the jokes and SNL sketches and such at their expense.

Equilibrium - Didn't finish this once it got to the part with dogs and I remembered the rest of the plot. And remembered I didn't really like it. Some of the "gun-fu" stuff is cool, and Sean Bean's early contribution to the movie is hilarious.

Mission Impossible Fallout - Love these movies. Henry Cavill is pretty great in this one. This franchise has really been doing an amazing job running alongside Fast and Furious and being able to up the ante again and again. I'm really excited for where they end up going with the next two simultaneous sequels. Also it's probably a little too fan fiction-y for me to say, but it'd probably be cool if this franchise somehow crossed over with Hobbs & Shaw. (Never too much The Rock)

Halloween (2018) - Really surprised it took me so long to watch this. It's really up my alley, with me loving remakes, horror movies, this horror movie in particular, and also the work of the Danny McBride brain trust behind the camera/script. Jamie Lee Curtis is tremendous, and Judy Greer proves a great addition to the franchise. I really enjoyed it, it's definitely set the bar pretty high to be honest for these types of sequels (remakes or reboots or whatever you want to call them).

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

January has been a stacked month for wrestling. I'm just going to try to sum up all the great stuff I've seen so far. As I write this, the World's Collide  and Royal Rumble events are yet to come. The NJPW USA tour is in full swing as well, with their huge events going down over the next two weekends back in Japan. Also, a brief note about stuff missing - I saw a few NXT, NXT UK, RAW, and Smackdown matches mixed in, but very few of the full shows. Random thoughts from those - Keith Lee's title win was amazing. Lacey Evans legitimately is looking better. WALTER is still the best. My star ratings are on the 5 scale with fractions (1-20 essentially), just like Meltzer if you care about that. Anyways, let's start on New Year's Day.

January 1st - AEW Dynamite

Cody d. Darby Allin   ***1/2 -This was a really solid match, calling back to their previous draw, but without anything really great to push it over the top. Cody might be the most popular person in all of AEW, so maybe it's too soon to cool him off. I was still hoping for Darby to win and shoot into that next level. The victory with Arn's (completely legal) help was good to put him over, but kinda predictable.

Riho [c] d. Nyla Rose, Britt Baker, & Hikaru Shida *** -The champ retains in a match with the good type of chaos. The Baker frustration continued, as well as Nyla Rose lashing out and continuing her run as the enemy of tables everywhere.

Jon Moxley d. Trent **3/4 -Every match doesn't have to be a nailbiter, but there was never any doubt that Mox was in trouble here. They're both great, but this didn't really rise above the level of "just a match".

Sammy Guevara d. Dustin Rhodes **1/2 -This was a little messy and unmemorable, with some sloppy interference. But good to see Sammy get over on the veteran and continue some more of the Inner Circle vs Elite stuff.

The Elite d. Lucha Bros/PAC ***1/2 -I'm not the biggest fan of the Young Bucks, but they absolutely delivered in this main event. It was a fun, wild spotfest by some of the most talented people in the company. Omega looked pretty great too.

January 4th - NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 14 Day One I skipped all the early big tag matches that didn't have Liger. The Trios thing was pretty disappointing. Liger's farewell was great even if I didn't know half of the people involved until commentary explained their role and relationship and all.

FinJuice d. G.o.D [c]  ***1/2 -NJPW's tag division always gets the short end of the stick, but this was still a really good back and forth match. GOD made the good guys look especially great, and it was laid out to see them overcome the Bullet Club nonsense in the most satisfying way. Here's hoping this title change can reboot the tag division and get some fresh matches and great stuff going in 2020.

Jon Moxley d. Lance Archer [c] ****3/4 -Moxley seized the US Title in a wild, bloody hurricane of a wrestling match. Lance Archer more than held his own in the "Texas Death Match" with NJPW's unique rule set. The match managed to overcome that slight awkwardness and still be great. I can't say enough good things about this one.

Hiromu Takahashi d. Will Ospreay [c] ***** -Perfect match. The story was laid out with Hiromu being slightly rusty coming back, to Will being a little bit arrogant, ending with the crazy new finisher finally coming out to put the champion away. This was my first live major Hiromu match, and he definitely lived up to expectations. Ospreay continues to build on his great 2019 with yet another match of the year candidate right out of the gate.

[cessanderson]

The Good, The Hard, and The Half-Finished Window Seat https://ift.tt/2EEiMcT

Okay, listen, to be fair, it’s a mostly finished window seat.

And at this exact moment in time–the moment where I’m on a roll building assorted cabinetry, and my mom and I are having a blast working between our two houses on the weekends, and there hasn’t been a farm crisis in the last couple of weeks, and I’ve actually got the time and energy to sit down and write this post–things are good. Really good. I’m living the dream (as long as we all understand “the dream” is covered in sawdust and still doesn’t shower or do the dishes quite as much as is socially acceptable.)

But let me also tell you that while things in this moment are good, it’s only because I have been living right on the cusp of “what the actual fuck” for the last several months, unsure if I’m going to tip right over the edge into crazy-squirrel-lady-who-has-given-up-on-doing-anything-she-loves-ever-again or, you know, manage to claw my way out of that hole until things feel right in my life again.

(I’m not joking about the Crazy Squirrel Lady part. They invaded the house and started hiding walnuts in my laundry.)

Here’s the thing. My life is not now, nor will it ever be, a study in balance. I’m a creature of extremes. Of periods of time when I’m in the grips of a big project or a physical challenge and feel like I have the energy and vision and drive to take on the world… and times when I don’t. When I feel the absence of that energy so acutely that even though I know that it’s just a recovery period, and that I will find myself engaged and energized in my own life again at some point in the future, there’s a part of me that says (very loudly and incessantly), “Welp, that’s it. I guess I’m never going to do anything good again, and everything feels off in my life, and I’m just going to be exhausted forever. Awesome.”

I’m compelled to say that out loud, because what I really want to do is skip over all the things that have sucked lately and just talk about is how awesome it feels to be building all kinds of shit right now. But, even though I haven’t been in the right space to update this site as frequently as I used to, telling an authentic story is still the most important thing to me.

And life is (almost surprisingly) good right now, but only because I’m on the other side of some shit that has been really hard.

First, because I burned through a ton of energy this summer making a pretty big career change and spending a lot more time away from the farm that I’m used to.

And because I spent a solid 8 months training for a solo 50 mile hike in Iceland…

(I crushed it–finishing in 2.5 days instead of the 4-5 I planned for– but also very quickly felt the post-adventure blues. It’s a real thing.)

And then because the very worst thing happened… I lost Bubs.

I mean, I did not misplace him, obviously. I lost him to cancer (which, I know, sounds very melodramatic for a cat. After being otherwise healthy and acting normal he stopped eating one week, and then I found out his intestines were riddled with tumors and he didn’t make it out of the surgery to try to remove them.)

I get that cats are not humans, and for most people cats are not even dogs, but this cat in particular has been my companion for the last 12 years. He was literally the inspector for the very first big project I completed on my first house (the first badass pergola)…

And has been with me through every house, every relationship, every project…

And every blog post since…

I understand all of the intellectual things about how he had a great life, and we got to spend 12 years just hanging out together…

But it still fucking sucks, and I miss his cat face every day.

(Although I did find a desiccated bat on the middle of the living room rug two weeks after he died and was like HOW ARE YOU STILL DOING THIS TO ME WITH THE BATS, BUBS?! I do not miss waking up to dead bats in the bed, but I do miss my cat.)

So, that was hard. 

Not only is it tough not to have him around, but within a couple of weeks, the squirrels moved out of the attic and started hiding walnuts around my house. (The one I found under the covers of my bed was the last straw.)

Also, the mice started hiding Bubs old cat food in my shoes.

That’s not… I’m not making that up. It happened a handful of times before I realized some creature was doing this to me on purpose.

I mean, I knew Bubs was good at catching shit, but I had no idea how much work he was doing on a daily basis to keep the house free of rodents.

So, just to recap: New job, big adventure, post-adventure blues, dead cat, rodent invasion, and also this has been a tough year for a lot of my friends in a lot of different ways, so just add all of that into the general mix of hard shit and, oh, I’m sorry, did you come here to read about a window seat?

Yeah, so, I managed to come out on the other side of that mess of feelings, a little worse for wear, but with my sanity mostly intact. And then I built a window seat.

As one does.

I had my HVAC guys come and move the baseboard heat for me because it required a bit of finagling. Then I bought a piece of 10′ plywood, made a napkin drawing, and went to town.

It looks civilized from the outside, but the inside is just a mess of blocking.

Originally I was going to make the storage in this thing drawers (see drunk napkin sketch above) but then I realized that after I accounted for the baseboard heat, the drawers would only be 5″ deep. So I went for the next best thing…

Flip top! (A couple of stainless steel piano hinges did the trick.)

I only expect to access this storage space once or twice a year (it currently contains my window AC unit and a bunch of canning jars.)

And just to provide context for the size of this beast…

It’s over 9′ long. Like everything else in this house, weirdly oversized, but we’re just going with it.

I finished the top of the bench with iron-on veneer on the cut ends…

Legitimately the only use this iron ever gets. Also, if you ever have qualms about iron-on veneer, I also used this exact stuff on the tables I built for the office at my last job. Those tables have been in the common area of that office (used by 50 people or so daily for the last 3+ years) and the veneer held up beautifully.

Back to the project at-hand though…

The last step was to trim out the front so that it looks a bit more in line with my cabinets.

Trim is always the critical factor in taking a project from “what the hell are you doing?” to “Huh. That looks pretty damn good.”

Also, you can’t beat the view…

It needs to be painted, obviously, and I’m in the process of ordering a custom cushion, and then if you need to find me after that, I’ll just be laying in this window seat for the next eternity.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL.

Did I or did I not say I was on a roll with the cabinet-building?

After three years of staring at the ass-end of these cabinets, I finally got my act together and finished them.

This whole project was a study in creative problem solving and using what I had on-hand.

First, I wasn’t entirely sure how I wanted to handle the trim on these, but I knew I wanted to replicate the look of the cabinets because the big blank panel that used to be there (before I added a 3rd cabinet) kind of drove me nuts.

Because I custom-built that end cabinet with a wrap-around toe-kick, I had to get creative with the trim (which also meant replacing some of the facing on that cabinet because I didn’t think far enough in advance 2 years ago, apparently.)

And then, of course, once I figured out how I wanted to do the trim, I found out that none of my local lumber suppliers sell 3/8″ thick trim boards in any kind of usable length and width. Turns out, however, that I have a bunch of 3/8″ thick tongue and groove pine planks from an unfinished project upstairs, and if you rip the tongue and the groove off?

Perfect trim boards.

But then there was the question about how I should hold the the pieces of trim in place while the glue dried in the spots that had no usable clamping or nailing surfaces.

No problem.

Also, funny story, that is not paint in my hair. That’s legit all the gray hair the last four months seven years life has given me that I stopped coloring for a minute because I was too busy not having a meltdown to care about.

Good news, I did not have a meltdown. My hair is very gray. And the back-side of my kitchen cabinets look like this.

  I am considering that the bottom trim board really needs to be a bit beefier, and weighing that against my desire to screw around with this anymore when I’ve got a couple more drawers, and secret cabinets, and at least seven sheets of plywood’s worth of built-ins I’m hoping to get done soon.

I’m telling you, it was a long, hard end to summer but I’ve got a wave of energy when it comes to building cabinets right now, and I’m going to ride it as long as I can.

Kit

[nofomoartworld]

Art F City: L.A. Art Diary: The Final Entry

Doug Crocco

This is my last entry from L.A. I’ll explain why later, but basically I realized it was not the city for me, despite the past month+ of adventures I’ve had: Week One, Week Two: Part One, Week Two: Part Two, Week Three, Week Four.

Monday 7/17

#spiritual #technology #LA

A post shared by Michael Anthony Farley (@ellende666enerate) on Jul 17, 2017 at 6:04pm PDT

I realize I really miss walking, and that I have spent very little of the last month outside of a car/bus/train actually experiencing the city. I decide to take a semi-urban hike to the Hollywood Hills from Echo Park, roughly nine miles and an elevation climb of about 1,200 feet (an Empire State Building!). It takes a little over 3 hours, and along the way I fancy myself on a Situationist dérive.

A post shared by Michael Anthony Farley (@ellende666enerate) on Jul 17, 2017 at 6:32pm PDT

I pass Scientology compounds, mansions, slums, mini malls, beautiful old art deco buildings,  most of Sunset Boulevard’s eastern leg, Little Armenia, Thai Town, and plenty of weird sights. It occurs to me that L.A. seems so surreal and familiar at the same time because it’s an unlikely pastiche of different urbanisms. The scattered pockets of dense eclectic pre-war architecture (themselves mostly referent to other places’ vernaculars) don’t quite coherently connect to one another so much as they float in a sea of postwar sprawl and car-centric infrastructure. But bits of big-city reality end up accumulating in all the wasted space of the suburban dream—the dead sidewalk space fronting big blank side walls of supermarkets become tent cities, highway medians host street preachers shouting at passing cars futily, and those odd islands between boulevards and parking lots get occupied by food trucks and other vendors. People sleep and conduct a shadow economy in the grassy areas between the street and gated parks.1950s motels have been converted into studio apartments with businesses below.  L.A. feels like the not-so-distant future of so much of America.

At one point my sidewalk ends and I’m forced onto a steep hillside between a freeway onramp and a walled-off neighborhood of mansions patrolled by private security. I stumble upon an entire impermanent shanty town, hidden from the highway by scrub and the wealthy residents above by an impossibly high concrete wall topped with barbed wire. Los Angeles might have one of the worst housing shortages and income disparities I’ve ever seen in an industrialized nation. It’s a thought that sticks with me on my ascent past single-family mansions the size of office parks.  

Tuesday 7/18

I temporarily move onto the futon of artists Meghan Gordon and Manny Prieres in Koreatown. (Coincidentally, I’d written about Meghan’s work and Manny’s work, respectively, before I became friends with either or knew they were roommates). Staying with them is awesome. Their apartment is huge, full of windows, one adorable cat, and is walking distance to roughly 2,000 businesses and two subway lines. Their rent is maybe half of what a comparable spot in a convenient New York neighborhood would be. If they had a third bedroom, I would be seriously tempted to sign on as a permanent roommate.

Wednesday 7/19

A friend from Baltimore lives close-ish to Meghan and Manny, and we meet up to check out The Faultline, a gay bar that hosts a crazy drag competition on Wednesdays. Someone is dressed as Ursula the sea witch lipsynching to Divine and it’s a show-stopper. It feels appropriate that it’s hump-day and we find this very NSFW GIF-able neon sign. It’s a good night so far.

We leave the club to grab a drink at a quieter spot to catch up, but after 30 minutes of wandering, can’t find another bar. Although it’s before midnight, the streets are almost entirely empty. On our walk, we pass exactly three other people, all of whom are men who catcall her. She says that’s not uncommon. Street harassment is obviously a problem in every city, but it’s usually tempered by having positive or neutral experiences with the vast majority of the thousands of people one encounters in public space in other cities. The lack of pedestrian culture in 90% of L.A.’s surface area (excepting commercial strips in a handful of older neighborhoods) makes public space intimidating. It also emboldens creeps. Basically, in vast swaths of the city, the only people you see on sidewalks are either batshit crazy or scurrying from a car to an indoor space. We both admit we’re slowly becoming more misanthropic the longer we’re here. That thought really bothers me.

We both take Ubers home. I decide it might be time to book a flight out of L.A.

Thursday 7/20

Marcel Alcalá is having an informal showing of his recent drawings at Club Pro, an art space in a loft downtown. The pastel works on paper are really nice—they’re humorous, direct sketches that play with body image and sexuality in the age of dystopic-fake-cheery late capitalism. My favorite depicts an ambiguously-gendered person running gleefully with an erection—wearing only a tube top and go-go boots, one of which bears the acronyms: “DNA YSL NBA STD TSA”—between a house labelled “WELLS FARGO” and another “THE MALL”. In others, the imperfect figures seem to be posing for “sexy” selfies, but end up endearingly goofy.

After the opening, my former roommate from Baltimore invites me to her friend’s loft for a drink. It’s several stories above the eerily-dead-at-night Fashion District with sweeping views of the skyline. We can’t tell if it’s an apartment, coworking space, or event space. We’re both too embarrassed to ask, but joke that it looks remarkably like our old illegal warehouse apartment in Baltimore with several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of renovations.

I end the night at General Lee’s, a Chinatown cocktail lounge that’s become my favorite L.A. art people hang out. Aria Dean, assistant curator of net art at Rhizome, is DJing. Again, I run into multiple people I’ve known in different cities at different time who all ended up here. Between that and the movie-set-like vibe of Chinatown’s pedestrian passages, L.A. starts to feel more and more like a dream.

Friday 7/21

The post punk proto goth neo noir sci fi half robot half man anti hero Los Angeles has been waiting for. Pickle dog is VERY impressed.

A post shared by ManyDistantCities (@nolizzie) on Jul 21, 2017 at 5:58pm PDT

I’ve spent the night on Liz’s couch to avoid Uber surge pricing, and we take her dogs for a walk along the L.A. River. The L.A. River is basically a concrete drainage ditch full of abandoned objects that the dogs love playing with. We discover that the concrete “river banks” are actually the perfect angle to lay upon in the sun while hungover. She describes the river as “either a triumph of urban planning or a really big urban planning mistake?” We decide L.A. needs a museum dedicated to the history of its divisive built environment. Liz’s bulldog Pickle gifts us with a tire full of potentially-toxic river slime in our laps and our art-viewing plans take a backseat to laundry and showering as a priority for the day.

By the time I get back to Koreatown, Manny and several of his artist friends are heading out to the Bigfoot Lodge. It’s a kitschy bar that looks like a Wes Anderson set where a DJ is spinning the best set of obscure-ish old vinyl I’ve ever heard. The music is so good we don’t even realize we’ve stayed until last call. We all end up chatting at a nearby diner (that looks equally like a Wes Anderson location) until sunrise, when we notice Coyotes have encircled the parking lot looking for easy drunk prey.

Only in Los Angeles.

Saturday 7/22

Manny and I are having some much-needed coffee with one of our mutual friends, artist/curator Jacqueline Falcone. To varying degrees, we all think of Miami as “home” despite the fact that none of us were born there nor live there presently. Jacqueline moved here from Miami about a year ago, and the three of us start talking about the similarities and differences between the two cities. Both have beaches, palm trees, tourists, endless traffic jams, glamour, and the bad urban planning that seems endemic to places with perfect weather in this country.

We all concur that the biggest adjustment is the isolation one can feel in Los Angeles. South Florida is spread out, but nothing like the scale of L.A. But mostly the art scene in Caribbean Miami feels like one big loud family you’re immediately welcomed into with cheek-besitos and all-night parties. There, our friends would ride a bike across a causeway in a tropical storm or sit in gridlock for hours to not miss your opening. Everyone shows up absurdly late for everything, but there’s a sense of ironclad dependability. Meanwhile in L.A., people will sometimes cancel lunch plans if it’s overcast (really) or they just don’t feel like dealing with the logistics (constantly feeling pressured to look your best in public, moving a car or paying for Uber, the vast distances, expensive valet parking everywhere) of leaving the house that day.

I admit that L.A. is starting to feel oppressively lonely when I’m not with friends. In most East Coast or Latin American cities, for example, it’s not considered creepy to strike up a conversation with a stranger at a coffee shop or bar if you’re alone. It’s a lot harder to meet people in L.A.

Manny thinks that’s not such a bad thing—the isolation of L.A. forces you to be more independent. You drink less here, care more about your health, and have less distractions from studio time. Knowing his labor-intensive process (he precisely recreates things such as book and album covers in delicate graphite on black enamel) that makes sense. I, on the other hand, might be too much of an extrovert to deal with the creepiness of all the times I’ve walked for 15+ blocks without passing another human (and in the rare cases I have, been regarded suspiciously for being a pedestrian without the excuse of a dog to walk).

I’m struggling to remember a quote I think I read somewhere (or maybe made up?) as an angsty, wander-lusty teenager. It goes something like “The world’s great megacities always attract lonely people, where they can hide in a teeming crowd, like crying in the rain.” It doesn’t matter, though, because Los Angeles seldom has “teeming crowds” per se. And it certainly doesn’t have rain.

One thing I love about both Los Angeles and Miami is that art openings, to quote Whitney Kimball, have “replaced stuff to do” in a dearth of opportunities for chance encounters. She was writing about New York, but I always think her description is much more appropriate to the sprawly Sunbelt cities: “Non-art friends sometimes ask if I can take them to openings to meet people, which I thought was weird, until I stopped going to art events for a year and realized there aren’t a lot of scenarios in this city where you’re allowed to just stand in a room and mingle for free.”

I can’t think of a better example of this phenomenon than BBQLA, a tiny gallery in the back of a studio building that celebrates openings by roasting an entire pig in the parking lot outside. We arrive and all concur it feels very Miami—down to the side dishes of platanos and arroz y habichuelas served in the lot of a one-story warehouse covered in street art. After about two hours chatting with friends outside, I feel guilty I have spent less than ten minutes actually looking at the small show, Cabin Pressure, curated by Quinn Harrelson.

Janeva Ellis, “Bloodlust Hero”

That’s not to say it’s uninteresting. I revisit the exhibition text and realize it’s eerily in synch with what I’d been thinking about the past few days:

“The year is 2017 and over the vast urban sprawl of Los Angeles, the world has just ended, like a cracked egg. Many are taking post-apocalyptic selfies with the remaining minutes of their batteries.

But here, the crust of the peopled desert springs open, and something else crawls out from the earth’s core. It is possibly just a sentient silence, and yet an oasis germinates. Here lives a swamp, a jungle, a digestive system flipped inside out, a white cube of humidity transported from Southern Florida to Southern California.

To what extent does a group of works construct an environment? an ecosystem?

To what extent are they truncated into mechanisms of the jungle? into a single human body?

Like crocodile tears are artificial tears, this is an artificial rainforest, a simulacrum of the swamp. Constructed to push mutability to limits. Here alchemy transmutes mud to matter and nothingness to mud.”

Purvis Young

The most-discussed piece in the show is undoubtedly a small Don Quixote on a found metal panel by the late self-taught artist Purvis Young. Young has somewhat of a cult following, and there’s something nice about the un-precious (but also revered) quality of some of the objects he left behind. I’m mostly drawn to Janiva Ellis’s portrait of a melancholy demon, “Bloodlust Halo”. It’s a weird painting, one that elicits unlikely empathy. Most people don’t want to linger with me in the tiny exhibition space, though, because there’s an installation of handmade dirt-and-paper bricks that smells overwhelmingly like pee. For a show with only six or seven artworks, it sure packs a sensory punch.

Sunday 2/23

Organizer Phil Davis makes shirts for the participating MINIBAR artists. I love these.

File this under the “stuff to do” category of art happenings: I’m on my way to a miniature golf course in South Pasadena. I think this was a “Suggested Event” for me on Facebook, but I can’t remember the name or find the information about it anywhere and I suspect the friends I’ve dragged along are beginning to think I made it up as our Uber winds through a suburban park.

We arrive, though, and lo and behold there’s a small group of art-looking people hanging out in the snack bar of the golf course. We ask them if we’re in the right place, and they explain that Phil Davis has been curating a series of monthly group shows, called MINIBAR, in the club. The work is all small and kind of easy to miss, which is actually a nice layer to enjoying the overall unlikeliness of the idiosyncratic setting. Los Angeles has become known for art shows in small, strange places, but this one might take the cake. There are 2D works scattered around the walls above booths, and a video by Tyler Finnie loops on the TV behind the bar.

Tyler Finnie

I’m a big fan of Finnie’s “Liza Six Pack,”  which comprises simply a plastic six-pack holder superimposed over a Polaroid of Liza Minnelli in a brass frame. Other highlights include Jessica Williams’ “Keep on Dancing Til The World Ends,” a washy watercolor of a girl looking over her shoulders while walking her bike. She’s wearing booty shorts that say “BABY” on the ass and, like Liza, is a little funny/sad/creepy.

I bum a cigarette from someone I’m convinced I’ve met somewhere before—another art opening perhaps? A friend-of-a-friend’s dinner party? But they don’t remember me. This has happened to me three times in L.A. Later, someone will whisper in my ear that I recognize these people because they had supporting roles on the type of T.V. shows you lovingly binge-watch on Netflix when you’re sick. My urge to facepalm never wears off.

We end the night by walking through (but not playing) the miniature golf course, and fantasize about which structures would make the best tiny house squats.

Monday 2/24

I’m leaving a gym on Wilshire Boulevard at dusk and realize I’m across the street from LACMA. The sun is setting, and Chris Burden’s epic public sculpture “Urban Light” has just been illuminated. It’s really, really beautiful. From this distance, the gaggle of selfie-takers doesn’t even seem annoying. I’m struck with a sense of regret that I probably don’t have time to make it to all the museums I wanted to see. I debate pushing back my flight when I get back to my computer.

On the walk home, though, I pass through the dark dead space between Miracle Mile and Koreatown. There, two inhabitants of a tent village that’s sprung up in the yard of an abandoned brutalist office building follow me for several blocks, shouting alternately homophobic and (incorrectly-assigned) racial slurs until I cross into the bright neon and peopled-sidewalks of Koreatown. I’m beginning to feel like Los Angeles is hell-bent on reminding me that it hates me every time I start to love it.

Wednesday 7/26

I’m at a taco cookout at Big Pictures Los Angeles, an art space run by artist Doug Crocco about a 10 minute drive south of Koreatown. The space has several rooms, one of which is functioning like an open studio of Doug’s own recent work, and another showing excerpts of Steve Gladstone: The End of Pictures alongside works from the group show Polaroid Black. BPLA also has the coolest toilet seat I’ve ever seen in a gallery, made from colored pencils in resin. It’s a really nice space that strikes one of the best balances I’ve seen here between professional and casual.

Excerpts from “Polaroid Black” (R) and “Steve Gladstone: The End of Pictures” (L)

Manny Prieres has a piece in Polaroid Black, a detail from the cover of the Joy Division album Closer, enlarged and rendered in hand-drawn graphite. Until you’re right on top of it, you’d swear it was a silkscreen. It occurs to me that Manny feels like an old friend because his work would’ve appealed as much to my younger, more punk-rock self as it does to me today.

Manny Prieres

Doug Crocco’s colored pencil drawings are just as meticulous and lovingly crafted. At first, I mistake them for oil paintings or collage. The appeal of the distraction-free studio life is starting to reveal itself to me.

Doug Crocco

Thursday 7/27

It’s my last night in the United States for the foreseeable future, and I want to gorge myself on Ethiopian before heading to Mexico City (it’s oddly my one comfort food you can’t find in the world’s second biggest city). Liz, ever the obliging tour guide, takes me to Little Ethiopia to meet up with a friend at a vegan spot and it’s amazing. We end the night miles away at Hop Louie, a Chinatown dive bar known as a go-to spot for drinks after openings and a fantastic juke box. Tonight though, it’s kinda dead.

I step outside with a friend and realize the things I’m really going to miss about L.A. Chiefly, all my friends who keep trickling out here for the promises of big-ish houses, careers, and endless sunshine. Sometimes those dreams are actually fulfilled! Sometimes though, people end up endlessly stressed over car payments and the dead-end jobs they necessitate. L.A. seems singularly magnetic to the best (and sadly, many of the worst) people of the 25-45 demographic. Maybe I’m either too immature or prematurely crotchety for the appeal?

At any rate, I could see myself living in Chinatown. Ironically, its faux-pagoda-lined pedestrian malls are likely one of the earliest examples of “Disneyland Urbanism” I can think of—a genre of made-for-tourists architecture that usually makes my cold, modernist eyes roll. But this kitschy simulacrum of a neighborhood has somehow accrued a lived-in vibe of a real place that L.A.’s far older fake chateaus haven’t quite. There are people on the “street” here, and even if they’re just outside for a smoke, that’s a world of comfort.

L.A., this isn’t goodbye forever, just a “see you later”. To quote your former governor, I’ll be back. But definitely as just another tourist. 

Postscript 7/31

I am publishing this from Mexico City. I really wanted to fall in love with Los Angeles, but despite my best efforts, I couldn’t. I really wanted to. The art scene is great. The weather is usually amazing. Mostly, I wanted to love L.A. because so many of my favorite people in the world have made the city home for various reasons. Their hospitality (and that of their friends) has been so humbling.

But that warmth stands in contrast to a city whose culture, in general, is at times pretty unfriendly. I realized L.A. can be a very lonely place when you’re by yourself with unstructured time. Being a human body moving through space outside of a car can be downright depressing, if not dangerous. It’s not really the kind of city for wandering around and people watching or spur-of-the-moment unplanned encounters. I know that those things aren’t important to everyone, but since being back in a more conventional “city” city, I have to admit that they are to me.

It dawned on me that I was neurotically starting to feel like a second-class citizen on account of not having a car, a buttload of disposable income, nor a face/body/wardrobe worthy of 100k+ Instagram followers (there were literally times people cropped me out of photos, because I suppose I was “off brand”). I found myself becoming a little vain, self-conscious, suspicious, and resentful—qualities I don’t like to see. A lot of that has to do with money. The myth that L.A. is “affordable” only holds water when housing is compared to San Francisco, London, New York or a handful of other global financial centers. Indeed, it seems like a substantial chunk of the “affection” a lot of transplant artists have for L.A. is rooted in resentment toward New York—as if those were the only two cities on the planet.  When one accounts for transportation costs and the obsessive commodification of “health culture” (example: eating vegetarian in Los Angeles is more expensive than any other city I’ve ever lived in) L.A. ends up being pretty damn pricey.

I’ll definitely be back in Los Angeles at some point—as I mentioned, it’s home to so many of my best friends. And I never made it to the beach! But I don’t think I can live there. My first night back in Mexico City, I actually teared-up a few times because I realized I wasn’t crazy for feeling isolated in L.A. I missed walking in crowded streets, and strangers being nice to me, cheap food, and dancing not just for the sake of an Instagram story (it’s noticeable how much less time people spend on their phones outside of the Los Angeles bubble).

Honestly, I am probably just personally incompatible with the L.A. lifestyle. I’m sharing this because I suspect a lot of other people tempted to relocate there might be too. I have plenty of friends who are super happy living there, but also met plenty of people who weren’t. I guess I just fall into the latter category.

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