#something a bit more Pink for the prickly pear

[keymintt]

(to taste) only enough to know what you cannot have

[rederiswrites]

Worked in the front garden this evening. Reginald came and visited me. Got a total of eighteen plants in the ground in the front, and did some potting up of succulents in the back.

Everything in this corner is just lovely. My columbine is even more beautiful this year than last, and the yarrow and bee balm have spread and grown so much in this, their second year. I'm so excited to see them bloom. I think the natural purple bee balm is further down and we have the red in this photo.

My calendula is entirely self seeded now, but this one plant must have found a sheltered spot, because it's far outstripped the rest and bloomed such a vivid orange that it kinda screws with my camera. That, and one escape dandelion.

In the back left are the many seedlings of funky-colored echinacea. The plants were pretty puny last year, but this year they're coming up thick! There was a red variety and... Something else? And an absolutely wild one called "green twister" that had pink and green flowers. I grew that one from seed last year, and an very eager to see if it's still there, because it didn't bloom last year. I do wish my actual echinacea purpurea had spread so much, but I only see a couple new plants in that area.

This was a surprise find when I was weeding. There are two next to each other and none anywhere else, so it's a sure thing that I planted them. I *think* it's St John's Wort. Don't actually remember planting that so uh... Sweet.

I won't make you stare at a few leaves trying to figure out what I'm trying to show you, but I will say that within the last week I've seen new growth of a bunch of unusual natives I'd pretty much written off as lost money. I ordered them in late fall last year, and then because of The Sick never getting better until this year, I only got any of them in the ground by--i genuinely think it was December. They died back to the ground by mid-January, and I'd put them down as (quite a bit of) wasted money. But now I find myself pretty unmistakeably in possession of four Cardinal flower plants, six Rattlesnake Masters (best plant name ever?), two wood betonies, and at least four things that are definitely deliberate but which I cannot yet identify. Penstemon? I don't know, but I'm thrilled. I thought it was all lost, but in fact it's almost all growing! Unearned blessings for sure.

I lied, I will make you stare at leaves.

Seedling bonanza! Poppy, calendula, wild violet, and in the bottom right a massive concentration of something that's far too small to id but given the placement might be a return of the toothache plant. I am intimidated by the future task of thinning. But what bounty!

More seedling mania. Here, calendula, marigold, and a few chamomile. I'd expect there to be a LOT of reseeded coreopsis here too, but if so I can't id it yet.

My succulent garden continues to be one of my great joys. And just look at all that new growth on my prickly pear! It would be amazing to get flowers and fruits this year. Just think, this was two pads in a pot last spring! By next year I'll have to start harvesting just to keep it back.

Tree pretty.

[noroi1000]

Hiya! Could i get a romantic matchup? I’m a gay demiboy. I’m 5’1” with a petite hourglass-pear body type (average chest, hourglass waist, thicc from the hips down). I have short dark brownish-auburn curly hair that tends to be more messy and fluffy, with big brown eyes with amber undertones, and long dark double layer eyelashes. I’ve got pale skin with tons of freckles and naturally pink lips that are a little on the fuller side. I’m also not very athletic and generally tend to be lazy, although i love to dance and explore places. My MBTI type is INFJ-T. I tend to be very prickly and defensive with strangers, and get snarky if someone bothers me. I am actually very shy and have a fear of strangers. I’m also easily startled. When you get to know me i am very chaotic and affectionate, and i tease people i’m close with. I also have a fiery temper and anger issues. Generally i’m chaotic good. In a relationship i am very cuddly, soft, and submissive, and can sometimes be clingy. My love language is physical touch and memes. I do struggle with several mental health issues, which are depression, anxiety, adhd, highly sensitive personality, low self esteem, and autism. My hobbies are video games, art, reading, and writing, and i want to be a botanist. I melt when given compliments, and struggle to accept them. I pretend to be tough but am actually a bit on the fragile side. I have a very eclectic music taste, and my favorite band is MÅNESKIN. My favorite colors are pink, green, grey, and yellow. I have a horrible sleep schedule, and often only manage to actually sleep every other night. 

I think your Jujutsu kaisen matchup is

Yuta Okkotsu

He is a quiet and sensitive person. You can put it that way, actually. He doesn't like too many strangers. It is even difficult for him to make friends. He often makes a bad first impression. He doesn't come close to them. You could say that he was previously paranoid about meeting people. He was just depressed and afraid of contacts. Once he made friends, he became very nice (and it really was just the real him).

On first acquaintance, he may appear silent and reluctant to get acquainted more closely. This changes over time. It is often surprising that he changes his character and world view. Namely, he is always quite cheerful, but his first impression will almost never come out.

He is very nice to friends. He tries to help and spend time. He certainly doesn't want to upset them or make someone hate him. However, if someone upsets him, he will persistently try to ensure that that person never harms others again. He can get very loud and scream without wrapping.

He likes to laugh. But making fun of someone else is not for him.

He had problems with mental illness for quite a long time. Actually, he didn't want to go anywhere, and even tried to kill himself. Friends help out of it. He has spoken to someone and everything works out. Even though he got rid of his worst thoughts, he is still afraid for his own life and that of his relatives. That's why he knows he has to protect them.

At first glance, he looks like a completely different person. He doesn't smile, he is gloomy and even sometimes emotionless.

He is one of the most affectionate and understanding people. He is sensitive and compassionate. And there's no denying that human life is something he doesn't care about. He tries to protect every human being. Whether he knows that person or not.

He also has sleepless nights. Or at least he hadn't slept before. He was scared and just couldn't sleep. He was tired. Later he started to look different. Though I think his sleep schedule is also incomplete. At certain times, he may still feel insecure and also lonely. This is why bad emotions may come back and not let him function normally.

However, he struggles with that smile. With a smile he tries to be as friendly as he can be. The smiles of others help him get rid of or mask bad experiences.

Headcanon:

• He certainly doesn't want you to feel worse. Mental health is just as important. Therefore, he doesn't want you to have to experience what he did before. You must be happy. After all, he loves it.

• Often times, he may act a little differently when he sees how you are acting. From a nice sweet person, you can turn into a more explosive one.

• He is very happy that he is no longer a stranger to you and you do not close yourself away from him. Especially since you don't shy away from contacting him.

• He loves your interests. It is not bad or dangerous (he may be oversensitive on this point at times). And it's also interesting. He fully supports and admires your passions and admires your passions. There are things you can do together and also separately. You don't need another person at every moment of your activity. Sometimes you have to focus on something. Additionally, your talents surprise him. But instead of feeling a little overwhelmed by the fact that someone can do a lot more than they do, and he also has more knowledge, he feels proud to have you for a very close person.

• He needs delicacy. Just love. The gentler person who will give him the greatest amount of comfort when he gives it to you.

• He is able to tell you very often how wonderful you are. Say he admires you a lot. Complete everything you do. It's just beautiful to him. He often blushes with a smile to show that he is happy. He may feel ashamed at times after what he says, but he had to say it. He couldn't keep such tender words within himself.

• Whenever he has time, he could come running to you to spend his free time cuddling. He really likes it. He loves the touch. Especially when you can calm him down. Not to mention the comfort that you feel then. He likes it when you hold his hands or cuddle him by hugging his waist and back tightly. Even though he loves being a big spoon in bed, he can be small.

You can laze together in bed without paying attention to anything.

• The important thing is that you give in to his pleas and just hug him. Even if you don't want to let him go later. But even if he goes somewhere for a moment, later he will come back ready for another dose of love.

"Come hug me. You deserve a reward and a rest after doing a lot. It's that nice and good. Come to me. You're so sweet."

[cowboy-anon]

Welcome to the Apple-Verse

Meet the Apple-sonas! (16 and counting!)

In the event that you have no idea what I’m talking about, long story short, we started talking about Apple the Whumpee AUs. Thus Banana and Orange were born! And then we got to talking and we got to Tree! And then Lettuce! And then Radish. And Wine. And-- look, just check out below to learn about them all lol.

CW: Alcohol/alcoholic, blood, implied dissociation, degrading language, DUB-CON mention, emotional manipulation, exhaustion, fire, flaying (skinning) mention, inadvertent manslaughter, institutionalized slavery, low self esteem, kinda masochist whumpee, minor whumpee (not anymore but was), neglect, NON-CON mention, parental death mention, pet whump, poor self care, self harm, Stockholm Syndrome, torture mention, “would rather die” than do something

-> Dub-con and Non-con mentions apply to Wine and his universe’s Benji. Briefly mentioned and not at all in depth, but please proceed with caution. (Second-to-last Apple-sona on the list.)

OG Apple

Sweet boy Apple who can do no wrong. Lovely green hair, is obsessed with Clay, who hates him. Master of persuading himself Clay’s neglect is for good reason. Would die before admitting otherwise.

Banana

Yellow haired Apple, has a little bit of common sense in the form of a voice in the back of his head telling him he deserves better. Very often ignores said voice, is widely considered the weakest of all the Apples. On the plus side, Clay likes Banana more than Apple’s Clay likes him.

Orange

Orange haired Apple, so blind to the neglect he doesn’t even have to rework it in his head to justify the action. It just is. Orange’s Benji very much worries for him.

Tree

Apple the gentle giant. Still very much obsessed with Clay but terrified of him too. Also obsessed with Marvel movies. Loves saying “I am Groot” jokingly but absolutely introduces himself as “I am Tree.” Lowkey annoys the bejesus out of his Benji.

Lettuce

The Apple of Health Nut Clay. Is forced to exercise to near exhaustion and does so happily. Is secretly jealous of Benji, who is dissected for being the “near perfect” human pet. Self harms in the form of skinning.

Radish

Apple with reddish-pink hair, was actually chosen as a stress reliever by and for Clay. It’s not so much neglect as straight up torture. Almost always covered in blood, terrifies the Benji in that AU and is used to scare them straight.

Watermelon

Apple with split hair dye, half reddish-pink, half green, with an entirely black wardrobe. Cares very little about what his Clay thinks of him. The same goes for his punishments. Is very attached to his Benji though.

Coconut

Apple with iridescent hair. Considered the prettiest of the Apple-sonas, his Clay practically worships him. He’s punished sensibly and made “pretty,” and Coconut kind of likes it. Resident misunderstood Apple-sona.

Pomegranate 

Apple with pink hair. Spontaneous and horrible at planning. Tries to please his Clay with a combination of gut feeling and a lack of common sense. Very often misreads the room and ends up infuriating his Clay more than anything else.

Cow

Apple with cow print hair. Yes, I am aware he’s not named after a plant lol. Not as infatuated with his Clay as the rest of the Apple-sonas. Has a bull-like temper but is very easygoing otherwise and has a soft spot for outsider Apple-sonas. Has a gold septum piercing and ear tag (like a cow) and is the best of all the Apple-sonas at applying hair dye.

Dragon Fruit 

Apple with reddish-pink hair and plenty of light blond highlights. A pyromancer who lost his parents in a fire of his own creation. Hates his powers and hides them from Jimmy, who is trying to help him through his internalized traumas. Very much wants to help others but is afraid of hurting them.

Cactus Pear

Apple with dark magenta hair. Known for his prickly and standoffish nature. Is very affectionate towards his Clay, who treats him very well but also emotionally manipulates him into believing he’s the only one who’ll ever love him. Incredibly dependent on Clay but also very lonely. A hopeless romantic.

Elppa

Apple with bright red hair. Also lived the opposite of Apple’s life. The salesman saved him, Clay cared for him, and Jimmy is the one who kidnaps and tortures him. Doesn’t understand the other Apple-sonas’ hatred towards their Clays. Dislikes most of them greatly because of it.

Fig

Apple with long, purple to pink ombre hair. Selectively mute and has a very pronounced slouch from his four years with the salesman. Was then sold to Clay and preened. Began speaking again. However, he was only cleaned up to be sold again. In Jimmy’s care, began to regress. Still exhibits muteness. Winner of the ‘Saddest Apple-sona Prize.’

Peach “Star Fruit”

Apple with peach hair. Very similar to OG Apple but has an extreme passion for astrology. Very quiet, shy, and self conscious about said passion. However, after gushing about it, he earns himself the nickname “Star Fruit“ amongst the Apple-sonas.

Cherimoya

Apple with natural hair. *gasp* Was born into the system, trained and groomed and kept unmarked and adorable so that when their owner finally got a hold of them, they’d be lovely to break. Jimmy “saved” them before that. Now they live with Jimmy, naive and with no real understanding of how the world works. Very much only wants to please their Jimmy despite Jimmy’s best efforts to show them they’re human, not a pet.

Wine

Apple with dark red hair, the Apple of Alcoholic Clay. Alcoholic Clay regularly is intimate with Benji, who is usually unresponsive, so when he is especially tipsy, he goes to Wine, who actually very much enjoys their time together because Stockholm Syndrome. Afterwards, however, Clay always gripes about how disgusting Wine is, leaving Wine very confused but also very much in love.

Bonus - Dirt

Pet Clay AU. An outcast like Coconut. Is a frightened and skittish whumpee and very obedient. So beat up and ruined that the other Apple-sonas barely recognize him.

Headcanons by the Official Apple Party Headcanoner

(x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Apple-sona Art!

All the Apple-sonas to Date! / Star Fruit (x) / Cow (x) (x) / Lychee (x) /

[nemorialex]

Wave Three

@gilligansgarden Dave - ??? [Cherry Apple]

Another "surprise me" request. Dave seemed to really like the classic apple pie from before. This one was pretty similar, except this time there were cherries mixed in for a tangier bite to the more mellow apples used. Also the crust wasn't lattice, it was enclosed with a few tiny leaf-shaped holes on top (and the leftover crust was used as decoration on the crust.)

@scumscuttlers Inezra - ??? [Prickle Fruit]

Inezra didn't know what sort of pie she wanted. Alex tried to look up some local "traditionally troll" flavors, as a challenge to try baking something new. The fruit looked like some sort of aggressive cross-breeding of a prickly pear and a dragonfruit. The taste is strongly bitter, sour, a bit spicy in that "tongue tinging" sort of way, but with an undercurrent of sweetness to it. Putting the strange fruit into the dessert helps boost the sweetness. The crust is a classic, flaky sort and they don't add any topping to this one, which displays the bright hot-pink/red inside with black seeds

[REDACTED PURPOSE] Pies

Every pie Alex sends out comes in a metallic pie tin and a shimmery plastic wrap covering, with the ends of the plastic gathered above the dessert and a green bow keeping the it closed

Wave One

@err505 Lux - ??? [Salted Caramel Pretzel]

Lux requested to be surprised. The pie that's sent over is somewhat thin, with a graham cracker and pretzel crust, a rich layer of salted caramel filling, and a generous helping of whipped cream on top.

@gumptioustactition Dirk - Coconut

A delicious classic. Regular pie crust with a thick coconut filling, whipped cream, and plenty of toasted coconut shavings on top.

@plasticross ??? - Iron and Neon

It was more than likely a smart-ass answer. Alex didn't care. They took pie seriously. After researching "iron rich foods" they decided to try their hand at a fig pie. A classic crust and a thick, jam-like filling that's sweet and full of seeds. The whipped cream that's piped on top (in lines and a cursive "Hello") is heavily dyed "neon" blue, and thanks to a secret, earthy ingredient, it even glows slightly. It's meant to look like a classic store sign.

[milkydrawings]

SPOILERS!

Guys, that leaked audio, we need to analyze it. From what pearl said in the beginning, it implied that steven crashed the van with greg in it somehow and it seems likely from a pink outburst. How did he go pink? Maybe from something his dad said or something else triggered him. Whatever happened he crashed the van. For some reason pearl was calmer than i expected so it couldn’t have been that bad of a crash. Steven responds saying that “it is not an outburst!” Since he yelled i’m guessing he went pink boi until he calmed himself down. When Pearl says that was what she mean’t. He claimed it was nothing. So he obviously doesn’t want their help (prickly pear showed this as well.) pearl was trying to get him to face her and his powers seemed to have put a wall against her. Steven then apologizes and says he wants space, he wants to go to his room. But Amethyst stops him, and tries to talk to him and garnet brings up what i think most of us were thinking (at least me) and steven probably went pink on them again. Now here is where things get interested, where i theorize a bit more. Garnet tells him to calm down and talk to them, Amethyst tells him to simply chill, and pearl says he needs to do something about it before he hurts someone. Garnet then says “Don’t let this power control you, you’re better than this.” Now steven yells with a full blown “LEAVE ME ALONE!” Now a lot of us have noticed plenty of parallels between some scenes in future, if the corrupted steven theory is correct. I think something similar may happen, a parallel between these and another scene. Future is getting real.

[tisfan]

Terrible Things (You’ve Done)

for @gilajames 1000 - 1500 words

I would adore some fluffy Tony Stark/Victor von Doom werewolf/shifter fic. (With or without Doom still being a villain and doing what he *thinks* is fluffy, but requited love regardless.)

Title: Terrible Things (You’ve Done) Written by: @tisfan Square: G1 - Restricted Dog Breeds Rating: Teen Pairing: Tony Stark/Victor Von Doom Triggers/warnings: none Tags: werewolf AU, dubious sense of humor, first time shapeshift Created for: @bannedtogetherbingo2020 Word count: 1362 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24530134

Summary: Tony Stark is out of time... and he’s done terrible things... Restricted Dog Breeds: the piece that was banned for this discussed information about the dog in question, which are illegal in that township. I thought it would be a cute tongue-in-cheek if this pertained to lycanthropy, which would probably be illegal if anyone believed in werewolves.

Twenty seven days and twelve hours later.

“You can’t be serious, Tones,” Rhodey said. He wasn’t quite blocking the door, but it was getting close to that. He meant well, Tony was sure of that, because Rhodey always meant well, but just this one time--

“Honeybunches, you gotta trust me,” Tony said. “Contrary to what everyone thinks, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“You have no clue what you’re doing,” Rhodey muttered, but at least he got out of the way. Which was good, Tony could feel in his bones that he didn’t have much time left.

He was out of options.

Von Doom was his only hope, and that was terrifying. And yet, the alternative was worse.

“Let me go with you,” Rhodey said, catching his elbow. “If-- Tones, I don’t trust this guy, you can’t trust him.”

“I know,” Tony said. “But if it all goes wrong, I don’t want you anywhere near that shit show. Tell Pepper I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you gonna be sorry,” Rhodey said, dragging Tony into a bone-crushing hug. Or it would have been, Tony thought, if he hadn’t been changed. If there wasn’t something else new and alien inside his body, just waiting for its chance. He could smell Rhodey’s human odor, the way his skin felt under the press of Tony’s face, the way his heart beat. Enhanced, animal senses; he was a predator in a herd of sheep.

It was utterly terrifying.

And yet, Tony knew the longing to shed his clothes and run free.

Run with me.

“Gotta go, prickly pear,” Tony said. 

The motorcar was already started in the drive, Jarvis would have seen to that, turned the crank and made sure the steam engine was fully pressurized. Tony had discovered only a few weeks back that a horse would have nothing to do with him, now. He’d nearly caused an accident the first time, the horses panicking and nearly killing his driver, Happy, in the process of rearing and kicking until the carriage wasn’t much use for anything aside from kindling.

The way was smooth, at least.

Von Doom was many things, probably more myth than man these days, but one of them was a lover of progress.

The roads were paved all the way from the city below to his castle.

That said, the motorcar wasn’t made to drive up a mountain, and it took Tony hours to get there.

The sun was setting and Tony was panting for breath, fighting with everything in him not to-- whatever it was that he was going to do.

He barely remembered the parking brake, dashing from the motorcar to the front entrance of Von Doom’s castle.

Maybe he was expected; the door opened under his hand, and Doom was there, green cloak swirling in the evening breeze, that steel mask showing nothing of the man underneath, no emotion, no surprise, no nothing.

No mercy.

The moon peeked out from the horizon, and Tony felt the change shift in his blood.

There was no time.

*

When Tony woke up the next morning, he felt only moderately horrible. A three of ten on the hangover scale. The room was dimly lit, which was good, and he was laying on something that rather resembled a large dog bed, and he assumed that was bad.

He wasn’t dressed, either, which was pretty uncomfortable.

Despite his expectations, his hands weren’t drenched in blood -- although he did have a few feathers clinging to his skin, and his fingers and toes were filthy. 

He shivered again, trying to figure out where the hell he was.

Scrubbed his hands over his face; fingers came back flecked with dried blood. And there was a heavy, leather collar around his neck.

Right. This was really, really bad.

A moment later, the door opened and he caught a glimpse of a metal sabaton, pushing a basket into the room. The door closed with a boom.

His nose, still wolf-sharp and sensitive, told him there was food in that basket. Eggs and toast and sausage and bacon and steak and berries. His stomach, not really caring all that much about his emotional state, growled.

He edged forward cautiously. He wasn’t sure what he was being careful of. That someone would come in and attack him, or that he would attack someone else.

He didn’t feel crazy, but he also couldn’t remember what had happened, the night before.

There were clothes, too. Soft, clean. Tony pulled them on. At this point, anything was better than being naked and vulnerable.

At someone else’s mercy.

He was just settling in for breakfast when the door opened again.

This time, Doom swept in, a few of his identically clad servants behind him, one carrying a bucket  and some towels, the other carrying a chair, which he sat in front of Tony and then Doom sat down in it.

“You’ve done terrible things, Mr. Stark,” Doom intoned.

Tony looked down at his hands. “Just tell me,” he said.

“First, you were completely disorderly, and got into the chicken coop. You’re just lucky that the rooster chased you out before you could eat more than two of my best layers, otherwise I couldn’t have any eggs for breakfast,” Doom said, and he flipped up his metal mask, looking at Tony with the same disapproval that people reserved for misbehaving children. 

Well, somewhat less disapproving than Howard had, since Doom didn’t really look ready to take a fresh-peeled switch to Tony’s backside.

“And you chewed up my best leather slippers, I’m quite put out. Also, you shed all over the sofa. Do you ever brush your hair? Further, you got into the midden heap. Trash, everywhere! What am I supposed to do with you, Stark? You’re like a badly trained puppy. It’s disgraceful.”

Tony’s mouth dropped open, all the muscles in his jaw refused to work.

Finally-- “What?”

“What did you expect,” Doom continued. “You don’t even know who bit you, it’s not like you’ve been initiated. Can’t expect perfect behavior out of your wolf when he’s got paws the first time. It was smart, coming here. I didn’t expect that, but I approve.”

“I didn’t hurt anyone?”

Von Doom rolled his eyes. It was surprising, really, how attractive Doom was. Tony’d heard the legends his whole life of how the man had gotten a trifling cut on his face when he was a boy and sealed the metal mask over it, still hot, to hide from the world.

There was only the thinnest scar on one cheek, and it didn’t make him ugly. As a matter of fact, he was quite handsome, with silvering hair and amber colored eyes. 

“They’re still telling that ridiculous story?” Von Doom said. “No, werewolves don’t eat people. They don’t track down their loved ones to rip out their intestines, and they don’t become mindless monsters.”

Tony held out his arm where the bite -- now a simple pink impression of teeth, fading. Soon it would be gone, he thought -- had been. “And then how do people become werewolves?”

“Bad luck, usually,” Doom said. “Look, don’t let me keep you from breakfast and then I’ll let you have a bath. Tonight, you’ll meet the were who made you, have your initiation. Meet your pack. It’ll be easier, after that.”

“Who made me?”

“He didn’t mean to,” Von Doom said, not meeting Tony’s eyes. “He was hunting, and you struck a creature with your carriage. Do you remember?”

“I thought it was a--” Tony blinked. He’d thought he’d hit a man, at first, that had staggered, drunk, into the road.

The thing in the ditch was no man, and had lashed out violently.

“You thought it was a man,” Von Doom said. “And so it was.”

A strange, sudden knowing filled Tony’s chest. “Who?”

Von Doom swallowed and looked at him. “I would have thought you’d have guessed. He’s me.” 

[amwritesstuff]

Touch Me (Bakugou/Reader)

You were feeling a bit neglected by your boyfriend as of late. Well, maybe 'neglected’ wasn't the right word, as he did text you often. Being a high ranking Hero in a large city required him to work at odd times, keeping you apart more than either of you liked. You didn't necessarily mind. You understood what you were getting into when you agreed to date him and you were used to mostly being on your own before meeting him.

Your family was never really all that physically affectionate and you didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable with spontaneous hugs that you seemed to always crave, even if friends said they were fine with you doing it. It wasn't until you and your boyfriend started being intimate did you realize how truly touch starved you were. Lying there in bed, curled up to his side as he embraced you? You would argue that had been more euphoric than the act that initiated it.

But, Bakugou Katsuki was not a touchy-feely individual. That was a fact no one could deny. He hardly let anyone close enough to get to know and understand him, let alone share a friendly side hug. He was a prickly pear that refused to lower his defenses for anyone and you respected that. The two of you would give one another small touches here and there and you didn't ask for anything more, though you wanted nothing more than to wrap yourself around him and just hang off him, absorbing his love and warmth through his skin like a parasite.

However, you were a civilized individual. You controlled yourself. For the most part.

You were feeling lazy today, and since you didn't have anything planned, you indulged. Still in your sleepwear, you dozed in front of the TV, mindlessly flipping through channels. So lost in your haze of nothingness, you didn't register your door unlocking and opening. Nor the creak of that one floorboard in your front hallway. You did notice the feeling of being watched, however.

Looking up, you jolted in surprise to find someone hovering over you from behind the couch. It took a moment for your brain to register that it was Bakugou, cheekily smirking down at you. You hit him with a pillow.

“You ass!” You laughed. “Don't sneak up on me like that!”

“I wasn't sneaking,” he grabbed the pillow from you to retaliate. “You just weren't paying any attention!” You sat up, watching him meander into the kitchen.

“I thought you worked a double shift today,” you called out to him as you peeked at the clock. It was way too early for him to be off.

“Was told to take off the rest of the day. Something about being at our best for some investors coming in the next few days.” He sounded annoyed. You knew how to fix that.

“Well that's just silly,” you couldn't keep your grin hidden. “Being the best, you're already always at your best!”

“Damn straight, babe!” You could practically hear the arousal in his voice screaming 'fuck yes, stroke my ego!’ What you actually heard was the refrigerator opening, followed by his tongue clicking. “You really need to stop drinking this piss water.”

You rolled your eyes. “Then stop pilfering my fridge and bring your own. I'm starting to think you come over just to eat my food.” He appeared in the entryway, 'piss water’ in hand. There was a smoldering glint in his eyes as he made his way over to you.

“Of course I come here just to eat.” He leaned close, voice dropping. “My favorite meal lives here, after all.”

He got a quick peck in before you pushed him away, muttering about him being such a horn dog. He chuckled at your embarrassment, moving to sit in the recliner. He paused for a second, glancing back at you. You cocked your head with a question, already settling back down. He turned to you and started moving your feet. You whined in protest, nudging his hands away.

“What are you doing?”

“What's it fucking look like? I wanna sit! Now move over!”

“Nuh-uh!” You suddenly felt a bit playful. “Not only was I here first, but this is my couch, in my apartment! And you're drinking my beer!” He was scowling, a cute pout pulling at his bottom lip. You really wanted to nip it.

“Well, maybe the reason I fucking agreed to take today off was because I wanted to spend my fucking time with you!” Oh. Oh he was pouting! His cheeks were tinted red as he turned his head away.

While you were ecstatic that he had openly admitted that he wanted to be with you, you were also a little flustered. You weren't used to the whole relationship thing still, he being your first. You were pretty oblivious when it came to people dropping hints your way. Honestly, you blamed your time in customer service jobs for this, having to put on and be around others that constantly had a smiling, polite facade in the face of other smiling, polite facades that only dropped when they didn't get their way.

Granted, Bakugou hadn't exactly been blunt in flat out telling you he liked you. It was more of… aggressive flirting. A very roundabout way of dropping hints that, oddly enough, you picked up on. An emotionally stunted individual trying to confess feelings to an emotionally oblivious individual and actually ending up together without too much fuss was baffling to any outside observers. Emotions were such stupidly complicated things.

You smiled warmly at him, holding your arms out and making grabby hands.

He gave you a look. “... The hell are you doing?”

“Pulling you in. Cuddle with me.”

“I would if you moved your damn feet!”

“Side on side action with a draped arm isn't enough. I need more.”

“If you want to fuck then-”

“I don't want to fuck! I don't want to move from this spot! I don't even want to take my clothes off! I just want to be close to you!” That did it. His face went pink as he coughed to hide his own embarrassment. It took him a few seconds to right himself.

“Then move over-”

“Lay on me.” Well, that seemed to do it even more. He choked on his own spit, face blooming in a dark red.

“E-excuse me?!” He didn't bother to try to collect himself, voice jumping in pitch a little.

“Lay on me!” you repeated through a giggle. “I…” Your words died as you really started to take him in. He was rigid, eyes comically wide, and jaw tight. You were making him uncomfortable, weren't you? It was rare that he ever initiated touch, and when he did it often led to sex. You were putting him out of his comfort zone with such a bold request right out of the blue.

You dropped both your arms and eyes in shame. “S-sorry… I-I just…”

The sound of a bottle being set on the side table cut you off. Looking up, you found him avoiding your gaze, face still beet red and holding a scowl. He muttered something about not complaining about him squishing you as he lowered himself right on top of you, head resting on your chest.

This… this was happening. This was happening!

You couldn't quite believe it. He was still very stiff and wouldn't stop shifting around to get comfortable. You kept your arms away from him, afraid to push him too far since he was indulging you. Once he finally settled, he let out a sigh that released some tension, moving his arms to rest at your sides, like he wasn't sure what he should be doing with them. You both stayed that way for a while, tense, unsure, and mildly uncomfortable but not wanting to get up in fear of disappointing the other.

Hesitantly, you brought your arms up to rest on his back in a loose embrace. He let out a breath, feeling his muscles loosen a bit more. Ever so lightly, you began running your nails along his back. He didn't protest.

You found yourself smiling, a warmth flooding through you. He may not have been entirely enjoying this, but he was pushing through it for you. Humming in content and appreciation, you relaxed beneath him. The feeling of his weight pressing down on you was beyond comforting.

He huffed, shifting his head slightly, his hair tickling against your collarbone. Carefully, in case he wanted you to stop, you brought one hand to his head, gently running your fingers through his locks. Again, he let you. He actually relaxed farther into you, his arms curling more into your sides in a light embrace.

You both laid there for a while, basking in one another's presence as the television created soft background noise. You figured he might be watching it, but you? You were too preoccupied with watching him. Seeing his back moving ever so slightly with his even breathing. Reveling in the feel of his hair between your fingers, watching it bounce back into place with each stroke. Feeling his warmth, that was often too much for you to handle, mingle with yours, coaxing you into a pleasurable state of bliss.

A sound caught your attention. At first you ignored it, thinking it was just something on the TV, however, it continued to persist, a little too sporadically and a little too different volume consistency. It wasn't until you felt a small vibration along your belly did you realize it was coming from Bakugou.

He was snoring! A feeling spread through your chest… you couldn't quite put words to it. It was just a monumentally joyous feeling that blossomed from him being comfortable enough around you in this position to fall asleep! Unbridled affection might be the closest description.

You brought a hand to your mouth in an attempt to stifle your giggles. It was in vain, however, as your chest movement woke him with a soft snort. He grumbled, lifting his head enough to peer at you. You supposed he was going for a stern glare, but his sleepy expression made him more cute than intimidating. Not that you'd ever tell him.

“I'm sorry,” you cooed quietly, running your hand through his hair again. “I didn't mean to wake you.”

He grunted, starting to pull himself up. Disappointment immediately thrummed through you. This was ending much too soon. But, if he was done, he was done. You were just happy that he had humored you for as long as he had.

He surprised you though when he resettled himself to where his head rested more on your shoulder, his forehead and nose pressing against your neck. His hands wiggled their way under you in the attempt to pull you closer. Heat rushed over you as he let out a long, warm breath against your throat, nuzzling you for a second before relaxing fully, causing a ripple of goosebumps to breakout over you.

Your smile came back full force. “If I didn't know any better, Katsuki, I'd say you were enjoying this.”

His voice was a bit gruff, muffled, and uncharacteristically quiet. “Good thing you don't know any better.”

“Right,” you lightly chuckled, bringing your hand up to play with the hair at the nape of his neck and turning your head to rest against his. “A very good thing…” Engulfed in, dare you say, your boyfriend's loving embrace, you began to doze off yourself. Until his groggy voice pulled you back.

“Hey, if you ever need to do this again… let me know.”

“Hmm… You're willing to take time out of your busy schedule to put up with me being clingy? 'Cause I think I might need this to be an everyday thing to keep my skin hunger at bay.” You felt him stiffen at that. Clearly, he had not heard that term before. You tried to keep from laughing too much.

He heaved a heavy sigh, as though all of this was just the biggest inconvenience. “Fuckin’ hell- don't make this weird. I'm putting up with it to keep you from moping around.”

“I do not mope!”

He nipped at the juncture of your neck and shoulder, causing you to jump a little. “Shut up before I get up…”

You honestly didn't think he would unless you really pushed him, but you really didn't want to test it. You were too comfortable and far too happy to now know that he was apparently as touch starved as you were.

But, just in case this was a rare occurrence that you would need to look fondly back on, you prepared the camera on your phone for when you were sure he was asleep. No one would believe you otherwise.

[caffeinity]

Tagged by @iofthebunny

Rules: Answer 20 questions, then tag 20 bloggers you wanna know better

1. Name: Ty

2. Nickname: I don't actually have one, to my knowledge.

3. Zodiac sign: The zodiac has no power over me!

4. Height: 170 cm

5. Languages: Bit of English, bit of German, terrible at both

6. Nationality: US citizen, but I would rather claim my nation of birth, Germany.

7. Favourite season: It depends on the time of day really. I love spring in the morning for the birds and the scents, midday autumn for the beauty and weather, winter evenings for the romance of bundling together and watching the snow, and summer nights for the lovely gatherings and music.

8. Favourite flower: I have no specific flower, but I appreciate them all. I'm more of a cactus person so maybe the pink bloom of the prickly pear!

9. Favourite scent: There was a hand lotion I encountered years ago that smelled just like new love feels. It was the tingling guts feeling, the sigh of relief and hopeless wandering of the mind. It was smiles and hand holding. I come by this smell every couple of years and it sends me right back to that first moment, like re-reading a favorite novel.

10. Favourite colour: Some colors just make my eyes react differently, like certain shades of orange and pink. I remember my first time seeing a particular shade of coral, salmon pink, something in between. It was a beautiful bass guitar that I should have bought right then and I haven't seen that exact color since. It may forever be my favorite.

11. Favourite animals: For as long as I can remember it's been the tortoise. I almost lost my mind in an excitement overload when I got my little tort!

12. Favourite fictional character: Makita from the Red Star comics. I found her issue when I was a teen trying to decide who I'd become and I was fully drawn in by her. Against all odds she keeps fighting for her people, for her freedom, and I desperately needed such a strong character to admire.

13. Coffee, tea or hot chocolate: All three! I have coffee every day, sometimes with hot cocoa stirred in, and many afternoons I'll have a cup or two of Earl Grey.

14. Average hours of sleep: I truly feel sleep is a waste of time I could better spend researching, building, or writing. I probably get a good 5 hours regularly, but some days the drowsiness catches up to me and I'll sleep a proper 8.

15. Dog or cat: I absolutely love both, but I just can't live with dogs. They're like extroverts in the sense that they overwhelm me with their need for socializing. Cats require a significant amount as well, but they allow me time to recover between moments of affection.

16. Number of blankets you sleep with: I'm all over the place with this one. Sometimes 3 or 4 light ones, sometimes 1 big one. The most comfortable thing is sleeping in a chilly room with several blankets.

17. Dream trip: I simply want to revisit the cabin on Lake Superior I stayed at in Canada. Far from any roads so there's no traffic noise, no boats came close enough to be a bother, and the nature was brilliant. It was a perfect place to set up a hammock and read.

18. Blog established: This blog was created in 2017, but I had a blog before that for years.

19. Followers: 2851.

20. Random fact: As a kid I broke my tailbone and sometimes, to this day, if I sit improperly that whole region of my body goes numb.

I can't think of a whole 20 folks, but I'll tag these blogs. Don't feel obligated if you're not into this kinda thing!

@rymindymin @kungfuhustler @lookingatstufflookingatme @s-gay-w @klumpkloss @spiroandthelacktones @valkyrie-katarjyna

[radiantmists]

A Playful Diversion

Read on AO3

The demon Aziraphale arrives in the Garden and takes a deep breath, smiling at the full moon above and savoring the taste of rich earth and growing things.

He looks down at his pale new body, admiring the soft rolling curves of it, and stretches just to luxuriate in the pull of the muscles below. Then he spends rather a lot of time brushing off the dirt from his travel through the ground, finding a stream to wash his face in until he’s sure he looks nothing like some of the filthy demons he’d seen down below.

(This thought comes with a prim, petty sort of disgust that feels extraordinarily satisfying, now—Pride is a sin even if it’s passive-aggressive and condescending rather than loud and bragging.)

Aziraphale wanders through the Garden after that, keeping a vague eye out for the two humans. He’s supposed to be causing trouble, and they seem to be a likely target, given Her special interest in them. He doesn’t make too much of an effort, though, not even to stay hidden; it’s not as though he could truly hide from Her anyway, so why bother? She will do what She likes, after all, so he might as well just enjoy himself. There’s no rush.

(Sloth is also a sin, but he’s a demon now; no reason he should try to be diligent.)

And he is enjoying himself. Whatever quibbles he may have had regarding the reasons for the whole thing, the Garden is gorgeous, replete with flowers and butterflies, with charming little streams and hidden nooks where the wildlife sleep peacefully. And the fruit…

Aziraphale tries everything he sees. He delights in the tartness of the raspberries and the crisp crunch of the pears, the sweetness of strawberries and the cool juice of the peach running down his chin. He finds that biting through the rind of the orange is a mistake, but ultimately the bitterness is rewarded with the sweet tang of the flesh within. After that, he starts to peel away thick skin and crack open gourds, scooping out the white meat of coconuts and cherimoya with his fingers. There’s a false start before he realizes that the good part of the pomegranate is the seeds, but once he does… oh.

(Gluttony is also, of course, a sin, when appetites are selfishly carried to excess, and Aziraphale has no thoughts of moderation.)

Pineapples and watermelon are a bit more of a challenge; while plucking gooseberries, he raises pale pink scratches on his arms, and the less said about the ordeal with the prickly pears, the better. And that’s to say nothing of the honey. He has to do some very fast talking to convince the bees that he’d repaired their hive, see, there was no need to sting, and he’d be ever so careful in the future, if they’d just let him have a little more…

Eventually, though, he finds the most well-guarded fruit in the Garden.

It isn’t immediately obvious; the fruit is an inviting dark red, with skin that looks thin and easy to bite through. But as Aziraphale reaches up through the branches, a warning hiss makes him jerk his hand away in surprise.

In the dappled shadow of the leaves, a pair of glittering golden eyes reflect the moonlight. Slowly, he makes out the shape of a great long body wound through the branches of the tree, sleek black scales shifting to a deep crimson at its underbelly.

“Oh, hello, dear,” Aziraphale says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. I’m Aziraphale.”

The snake stares at him, and he thinks it would probably blink in bemusement if that were something a snake could do.

“I’m Crawly,” it says finally.

“You certainly are,” Aziraphale replies dryly, and then realizes—that was its name. Creatures do not have names, which means that he isn’t speaking to a snake. He’s speaking to an angel. And he’s just told an insipid joke about his (admittedly rather ridiculous) name.

Before he can panic at all, there’s an odd hissing sound, and he realizes that the angel is laughing.

“I really didn’t mean to disturb you,” Aziraphale says uncomfortably. “Just… the fruit looks rather lovely.”

“It’sssss forbidden,” Crawly hisses, scales whispering over the branches as he readjusts his perch in the tree, freeing up the front of his body to strike.

Aziraphale blinks. “This one? Are you quite sure?” When the angel only stares, unblinking, he adds doubtfully, “only there are others that seem to be rather more… threatening, you know.”

“I moved all the poisonous ones, honeyface,” Crawly says, defensive. Aziraphale resists the urge to self-consciously scrub at his suddenly very hot face, trying to find a retort, and then pauses suddenly.

“There are poisonous ones?” he asks, a sort of retroactive worry curdling his full stomach. Beelzebub will not be impressed if he’s ruined this body already. “Where did you move them to?”

“A cave. It’s got a stream running through and a great hole in the top for light, but you couldn’t have just wandered in there in that shape,” Crawly assures.

“I should like to see that,” Aziraphale replies, relieved now and imagining the picture it must make, light shining down in a column on the lush greenery, the whisper of water trickling along just out of sight.

Crawly eyes him suspiciously. “I’m sure you would, demon,” he accuses. “I put those out of reach for a reason, I’m not showing you where they are so you can go make the humans sick.”

“Are you implying I’m going to poison them?” Aziraphale asks, affronted. Then he tilts his head in thought. “Actually…”

The angel winces.

“They—they know better than to eat those anyway,” he insists, and angels don’t lie but there’s something a little too keen in the warning. “She pointed out all the things that were dangerous.”

“Then why did you have to put them out of reach?” Aziraphale asks mildly, and Crawly hisses in frustration. Which means that poison is still a possibility, assuming he can figure out how much is needed to just make the silly things sick without getting himself in too much trouble. Fortunately, he realizes, there might be a much more interesting opportunity right in front of him. “What’s more, if you moved all the others, why did you leave this one? Did She forget to point it out? Or,” he adds inncocently, “is it too big?”

“I’m an angel,” the angel says, testily. “I can move any tree I like, size isn’t an issue. And She did tell them if they ate it they would surely die and all that. But She placed it specially here—“

“Did she now?”

“Um, yeah…”

“The Lord took special care to place one single poisonous tree in this specific spot? In Her rather enormous Garden?” Looking around, there is a grassy sort of clearing around the tree that Aziraphale might have noticed if he hadn’t been so consumed with excitement over the fruit. What’s more, it seems possible based on where he’d started, and the direction he’d been walking and the amount the moon had moved, that this was the exact center of the Garden. Which means it must be a rather important tree.

“Well, it’s technically not—“

Crawly cuts himself off, but it’s too late—Aziraphale’s mind is in motion, picking the words apart. What was not what? The Garden is certainly enormous, and certainly Hers; the angel had said himself that She placed the tree specifically, and that She told the humans the fruit was—

No. No, that wasn’t quite what Crawly said, was it?

“It’s not technically poisonous, is it? You even said,” Aziraphale realizes, “you moved all the poisonous ones. This fruit isn’t poison at all, it’s just forbidden.”

“They’ll die if they eat it,” the angel insists stubbornly. “She said so.”

“Maybe,” Aziraphale says, because trying to convince a loyal angel that the Lord lied is a fool’s errand. “But if it’s not the fruit that will kill them, what will? Her?”

“Ssssshe wouldn’t do that,” Crawly replies, hissing with outrage. “It’s wrong. They’re her favorite creation, and it’s just a fruit, that wouldn’t be—“

“Right? Fair?” Aziraphale scoffs, fists clenching, and Crawly rears back at his sudden vehemence. “It isn’t right to make us create all this and then ignore us to focus on them, and then cast out anyone who wants to know why. It isn’t fair to pick favorites.”

(Envy is a sin, a horrible ugly little ball of resentment that sits in the stomach like rotten fruit, weighs the soul down like a stone.)

There’s a long, bitter silence. They stare at each other, neither willing to budge, until finally Aziraphale sighs and relaxes his posture, shaking his head.

(Wrath is a sin when anger festers and vents itself at undeserving targets, but it’s one he frankly finds rather distasteful.)

“It’s hardly fair, either, to put such a delicious-looking fruit they can’t eat right in the center of a Garden full of ones they can. It seems… confusing.”

“Well, that’s what I’m here for,” Crawly says.

“She put an angel here to remind the humans not to eat a fruit?” Aziraphale had known she was fixated on them, but that seemed excessive.

“Well, all She said was that I’m a guardian, gave me venom and a flaming sword and all,” Crawly replies, mouth wide to show his teeth, and Aziraphale resists the urge to flinch back at flaming sword. “But I mean, it seemed implied. Who else would I be guarding, the trees?”

Probably just this specific tree, Aziraphale doesn’t say, because he’s too busy gaping at this ridiculous, wonderful angel. ‘It seemed implied’—maybe it had, but only from a very specific vantage point. A naïve one, of course, one of blind, unquestioned faith, yes; but it was faith in the idea that She reflected this angel’s simple, perfectly instinctive love, the conviction that nothing was more valuable than life.

Aziraphale doesn’t have that kind of faith anymore, has felt firsthand the imperfections in Her love. But perhaps…

No. Crawly is an angel, he reminds himself, a loyal soldier of the Lord who might be friendly and delightfully witty but who has been armed with a flaming sword that he’ll probably try to drive through Aziraphale’s heart when their conversation ends. His love is no more perfect than Hers.

“Hey, you okay?”

Aziraphale started, blinking up at the branches. It made sense how he’d managed to miss Crawly; weaved between the branches as he was, his black scales blended with the night shadows, while the glimpses of red scales that were visible were a perfect match for the fruit.

He’s not up to date on serpentine body language, but Crawly actually seems concerned.

“Yes, yes, quite alright,” Aziraphale replied, trying to regain the thread of the conversation.

“Do you still want one?”

And now Aziraphale’s completely lost. “What?”

Crawly laughs, the same soft, hissing delight. “The apples, do you still want to try one?”

“I—well,” Aziraphale stutters, thrown. Is this some sort of test? Will he be allowed to go without a fight if he doesn’t seem interested? “I don’t want to ‘surely die’, if that’s what you’re asking—“

“Oh, that’s just for the humans.” At Aziraphale’s surprised look, Crawly explains, “I asked, because the animals kept trying to eat them.”

“I see… but this still feels like a trap,” Aziraphale says worriedly. All the same, he can’t stop himself from glancing at the fruit again, ripe and inviting and new.

Crawly laughs again, sounding almost fond, but this time he starts to move, coils flowing over the branches until he hangs in a single loop, and for a moment Aziraphale thinks the angel’s laughed himself right out of the tree. Then something changes, the loop over the branch melting into strong fingers with black-tipped nails, the head shifting and the red scales flowing back over it into long russet curls, lids forming gently over golden eyes and then blinking open to reveal them glittering in mirth. The black scales have retreated but not disappeared, tracing a path down Crawly’s neck and disappearing over his slim dark shoulder, reappearing at the bony hips and branching over lean thighs to curl around his dark, pointy knees before spilling out to cover his slender calves and ankles.

Crawly drops to the ground on scaled feet with a final chuckle, plucking an apple from the tree as he lets go of the branch.

“Look,” he says, and with glinting white teeth and thin, grinning lips he bites into the apple, ripping away a full mouthful, large enough that when he swallows without chewing Aziraphale can follow the lump down that long, slim throat before it disappears.

Aziraphale jerks his eyes away from sharp collarbones and what lies below them and gulps convulsively.

(Lust is a sin, he tells himself, and you’re a demon, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, but maybe it’s a sin he doesn’t understand all that well, because somehow Aziraphale is sure that Him Below would disapprove of the way he wants to stare at this angel just as much as She would.)

“It’s perfectly safe,” the angel tells him, and Aziraphale wants to snort derisively, but then Crawly smiles soft and a little teasing. “Come on, I know how much you want to—it’s delicious, really, and I promise I don’t sting.”

“How do you know—“

“It’s all over your face, honey,” Crawly drawls, eyes shining with amusement, and it takes a moment for Aziraphale to process the jibe, to blush brick red again and scrub viciously at his sticky chin with the heel of his hand. So much for not looking like a grubby demon, he thinks.

“Why,” he asks, and Crawly softens.

“It really is delicious,” he repeats, “and it’s clearly meant to be enjoyed. And somehow, I don’t think anyone will enjoy it more than you.”

And he holds out the apple.

Of course no one is going to enjoy it more—neither demons or angels, or even the Lord, make a habit of eating, and the thing is forbidden to the humans. There’s no one else who’d enjoy it at all, really. But somehow, it’s obvious that that’s not what Crawly means. Aziraphale can’t suppress the feeling that there’s something being offered here beyond a sort-of forbidden apple, something intangible but very, very important.

He reaches out and takes it.

(Greed is a sin: wanting in excess, more than you need, more than you deserve, all for yourself, and it must be excessive the way he wants everything, it must be too much and selfish even if he has the fleeting, mad impression that Crawly is offering.)

The apple is delicious, divinely sweet without being cloying. He savors the first bite, the way his sharp front teeth pierce the delicate skin easily and the satisfying crunch between his molars as he chews, the weight of the fruit on his tongue and the way the juice lets it slide smooth down his throat.

He opens his eyes to find the angel staring at him with eyes wide and shocked and almost plaintive, sort of leaning forward and altogether consumed with something Aziraphale can’t identify.

“Do you want another bite?” he offers.

“No,” Crawly blurts, “no, you can finish it. Like I said, never see anyone enjoy it like you.”

��Alright then,” Aziraphale replies, and does. Crawly leans back against the tree and watches, smiling, and maybe that should make Aziraphale feel self-conscious but something about that golden stare just leaves him feeling warm.

When he’s done, he licks the juice off his fingers, closing his eyes and humming in satisfaction, then startles as a wave of pure lust hits his demonic senses.

He opens his eyes and grins knowingly, and Crawly sucks in a breath, biting his lip with teeth that are a touch too sharp. Aziraphale fancies that there are more scales spreading across that dark skin than before, and for a moment he thinks Crawly will dart back up into the tree to coil up and hide in the branches again. He suppresses a laugh.

“That was wonderful, thank you,” he says, and Crawly shifts a bit before leaning back, deliberately careless.

“Well, I’m glad you found it… diverting,” he says.

Aziraphale chuckles, surprised and a little delighted. “Were you distracting me?”

“Well, it’s been twenty minutes since you walked up, and who knows how much trouble a demon could cause in twenty minutes,” Crawly replies. “Think I did a good job.”

“In that case,” Aziraphale says, “I suppose I should be getting on. I can’t have a sweet little angel like yourself thwarting all my demonic wiles.”

For a moment, it looks like Crawly is going to take issue with that description, but then he tilts his head, challenging.

“You could do that, and see how sweet I really am,” he drawls, “or I could show you some other sweet things in this Garden. Have you tried mangoes?”

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Aziraphale replies, intrigued, and Crawly grins, standing.

“There’s a tree over this way,” he says, starting out of the clearing.

Aziraphale goes to follow, frowning back at the apple tree. “Shouldn’t you be on guard?”

“I am. I’m guarding them from you,” Crawly insists, turning back. His tongue flickers out from between his teeth, and he shrugs. “They’re asleep miles away, and besides, I’m sure you could get them in far more trouble than any apple tree.”

(Later, of course, he’s proven quite thoroughly wrong, and Aziraphale laughs himself silly. Crawly glances up at the twitching white wing still sheltering him from the pouring rain, and has to remind himself to glower rather than laughing along.)

***

I'm not sure if I'm going to write more for this, but I sure have a lot of thoughts about it, so if you have an opinion, a question, or just want to know a random fact about this au, or just want to yell about good omens, my ask box and chat are open for business :). Also, if you enjoyed this, please consider reblogging!

[thesweetblossoms]

Like A Hummingbird

🌴A way to nurture a beautiful temperament is to think the most beautiful thoughts or to read them. Thus often, when too weary to think, often after a day of work and of fulfilling unrelenting obligations, chores and after squandering scant time on a shameful social media habit, I seek stories; from older written pieces, contemporary, freshly inked works, imagined or real, of possibilities, at times, of hidden and prevailing adoration, such as “Persuasion” by Jane Austen or of passionately experienced adventures such as “Green Hills Of Africa” by Earnest Hemingway. Old stories, by beloved authors, are manna from heaven, offering an enchanted gateway, to other realms, consciousnesses, insights and expressions within pages. My taste varies, depending on my mood, the need to feel inspired, or to escape. It is a way, almost, of spending time with wildly brilliant and shockingly intense personalities, such as in “My Art, My Life: An Autobiography” by Diego Riviera, or of savoring elegant, thoughtful, curated lifestyles, transatlantic journeys, encounters with artists, thinkers, writers and old New York culture in “Virgins and Other Extinct Species” by Dorethea Straus.

Another method to slowly amend and nurture a lovely countenance, might be, to sense the beauty that occurs, by happenstance, by rhythm, by grace, by custom or by chance; maybe, the melancholy of times beating retreat, or of moths nuzzling against perfumed basil leaves, or the years first pumpkin spiced flavored offerings, or by stumbling upon beautiful essays such as the one by Brian Doyle, who wrote, before dying, about hummingbirds, “Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime”. Chancing upon the insights in his poignantly crafted essay, left me stunned with the unfathomable programmed nature within life, and with the poetic idea that the rate at which we breathe, determines whether we live for two years like a hummingbird or many dozens more like a turtle. Thus, even though the average life is accounted for, to the last heartbeat, we have the subtle power to define and shape its narrative and its intensity. Perhaps, by the ideas that fall into our laps, left to us to transform from dust to gold, in an alchemical fever, or by the happiness we spread by freely offering smiles, gentle words or encouragement, by the work we do either directly attempting to improve the lot of others, or in more attenuated manners by working within an industry, providing indispensable goods and services, or ideally, in nurturing our dialogue with nature, by planting new seeds for poppies for the hummingbirds and by bathing in the sumptuous, dappled and haunting light through shimmering palos verdes trees on dusty pink desert sands.

It is a constant challenge to pummel deeper into and within reality and experiences, to pass the threshold where magic resides in secret charms and veiled mysteries. Yet, I try to, navigate into this dimension, within the seemingly mundane, in wondering why certain clocks stop without reason at a certain time, or relishing the surprise and savoring the anticipation in discovering whether a plant in the garden is a tomatillo or a Thai chili pepper, or realizing that my lingerie is a perfect matched set of misty lavender even though, I chose them, while groggy, in the dark, in an effort to not disturb my slumbering husband. However, the truest magic is felt while partaking of the intoxicating charms of a desert garden, with jasmine, olive trees, bougainvillea, palms and prickly pears canopied by a plain azure sky bereft of fog, mists and rain, but replete with clouds of drunken butterflies.

I have a theory that we are, one and all, able to create technology, for anything we create with your mind is technology; it is usually something that is new, that is novel and that has utility, so for many of us, when we germinate an idea, we also unleash new technology. It can be created in a glass castle by a cobalt and dolphin frequented sea, by a crisp, fireside in a snow plundered cabin, in a remote lab set in a wild, isolated island or lounging in the sea of pillows on our sofa, serenaded by the half moon and by the candlelight, as unlike mining, cultivating and brokering resources reaped from the earth, technology is conceived in our mind. So what could we create if we tried? Maybe a way to travel into the future, or to the past, or maybe the means to have old Parisian roses blooming every day, no matter the season, or of solving the crisis for refugees and quickly rehabilitating them to continue their parallel lives and shared time, upon earth with us, who are blessed to have a home, or even by designing random bits of paper that we come across to be more aesthetically pleasing, like fryers or boarding passes, or by being able to fly on a magic carpet, or to live in a community with many more spaces, to read, create art and music, and so many, more ideas, that the inexplicable union of time and space, has yet to reveal to us.

Speaking of technology, often, in the past, I would be very hesitant to call Apple or any other awe inspiring company, I would feel helpless against it’s aura and power. But, recently, I’ve realized that one should never be intimidated by the influence and omnipotent nature of a firm, even if it can be daunting to challenge or lodge complaints against a behemoth without feeling like a inconsequential ant. But, we must remember, even the oldest companies, such as a the Hudson Bay Company or the first, The East India Company, is young in the vast chronology of civilization. History has also established, that with the years, even the largest titans may stumble. Many companies, become complacent, bloated, arrogant or careless, with technology, the cycle is accelerated, as like the horse and carriage and the telex system, many are rendered obsolete. We must remember that, even these unicorns, as a basic rule, are a source of value for consumers, a purveyor of new methods and of offerings that people need to assist them, but as soon as that proposition weakens, or they become too big, or they monopolize until the point of distaste, the knowledgeable and savvy hasten to better options, for like companies, ingenious, innovative and sharp minded entrepreneurs and customers, also seldom remain still. With this new understanding, the gleaming, untouchable and impenetrable company seems less godlike and more fallible, as are we all.

Darling readers, there are times I lack funds, I lack sleep, I lack the ability to fashion a beautiful home, yet I rarely lack impressions and ideas, and for that I am heartily grateful, I feel lucky for the ability to see, feel, taste, touch, smell, discover and dream, and afterwards, spill these into the pages for you all. Thank you for reading.🦋

[fenneckitsune]

Draconic Drinks and Spirits

Lots of people love booze. Lots of people also make booze. Theres many items that we have on FR that your dragons could use to brew up something you can mix and match with other drinks. Taverns have to get their booze from somewhere so this here is a list of items we have currently (as of August 30th 2017) that could be used to create a nice brew, which unlike Baldwin, should give your dragons exactly what they want. I’m no expert on this stuff so most of this is comparing fr items to real world alcohol ingredients and a little bit of imagination. (if you’re skeptical about the gulls, feel free to look up ‘seagull wine’)

Treasure Plant: Liqueur. golden brown liquid gives drinker a happy feeling.

Crimson Rootvine: basically a potato beer or vodka that has a red tint

Lace Lantana: Fruit of plant used for wine. popular in daiquiris. flowers used to garnish.

Royal Lantana: Same as lace lantana. reserved for use for kings and queens and other nobility. growers and brewers are hand picked by the nobility themselves. This is considered a great honor.

Tradewinds Gull and Murkbottom Gull: Iceflight is horrid. Instructions are simple, put a gull in a bottle of water and let it ferment. very few dragons aquire a taste for it and is generally homebrewed. Generally considered inhumane

Potash Peach: a favourite for wines in fire flight. known for its sweet taste and firey afterkick.

Charged Duneberry: Not for the faint of heart. Lightning is famous for its Duneberry Liqueur which is cyan in colour and gives off a slight glow.

Seaberry: Used for wine in the sea of a thousand currents. Its creation is a well kept secret by many water flight clans. Most barrels are made of palm trees. One particular clan uses driftwood for the barrels. how its kept in there is another secret entirely.

Winter's Delight: Ice Flight is known for its ice and dessert wines. Winter's delight ice wine is said to be the finest, generally reserved for the well off and wealthy. adored by courtesans and royalty alike.

Tundra cactus: One of Ice flight's sources of vodka.

Blackberry: Shadowflight makes a wine from blackberries, combining it with brandy and diced fruit makes for a lovely sangria.

Crisp Leaf Amaranth: Arcane, Plague, and Water clans all have varying methods of Brewing Ale from this plant.

Sandhills Amaranth: Nature uses the seeds and stems for their brew, Shadow uses the leaves and stems for theirs. Both have a different taste depending on what else the beer is brewed with.

Amaranth: Earth is the only one to brew beer from this form of the plant. Ice and Lightning prefer to consume it as grain.

Red Delicious Apple: Nature flight loves a good sweet apple cider.

Sour green Apple: Windflight is usually known for sweeter spirits, which is why its such a surprise to have such a sour liquer. Its popular to give newly adult dragons this, tricking them into believing its a sweet drink.

Honeycrisp: Iceflight uses this to make a rather strong applejack. Other clans use it for a nice cider.

Granny Smith Apple: Light Flight makes a lovely dessert wine from these apples. It has a golden colour to it and is an excellent gift to roll into any social gathering tagged "to the fairest."

Green Plantain: Wind uses these to make a beer that is strangely served warm. Its opaque, dense, and generally made in large quantities.

Plantain: Used with Red bananas and combined with maize flower to make a beer. Its generally considered a summer beverage.

Herbal Plantain: Used moreso in herbal teas, the leaves of this plant are used to add 'health benefits' to the banana beers. Its yet to be proven if they actually do anything.

Broadleaf Plantain: Due to its hardy nature, beginner homebrewers tend to experiment with this plant in anything from liqueurs to gin. Some results are better than others.

Greater Plantain: Due to its great taste, its used rather in flavouring rather than in the creation of its own drink.

Sugary Prickleaf: This plant can be used as an alternative to sugarcane for making molasses. and molasses means you can make rum! Pirate dragons rejoice!

Gradish: its roots have the perfect sugars to be made into a rum like drink, vodka or even spirits with enough alcohol in them that it could kill you! endless possibilities!

Acorn: Not a common thought for a drink, but shadow and nature make a good liquor from these tiny things.

Blood Acorn: Lairs on the borders between shadow and plague make a liquer from these acorns. It has a slight red tinge to it.

Stonecorn: It takes a skilled eye to tell the difference between a pebble and a stonecorn. However it takes an even more skilled hand to brew these suckers into a fine liquer. Its said to go down really smooth if made right.

Sunkernel: It takes large quantities of these to actually make a batch of liquer. Its more golden in colour.

Hainu's Eye: These and woodland acorns are soaked in gin or brandy to produce a flavour many nature and plant eating dragons enjoys.

Fire Flower: Not used to create its own beverage but is mixed in with cinnamon and grassland grains for Dreadram fire whiskey. generally served with a spade tail in or wrapped around the glass.

Honeycomb fragment: The honey is used in meads in every flight. Its also used to make vodkas or a strong spirit named Horilka.

Miniature Potash Peach: Used in similar ways as a full grown potash peach, Though the result is usually as sour as the mini fruit itself.

Stonewatch Flatblade: apart of the Aguave family, The Harpies of the roost have been known to create tiquila with it.

stonewatch scrub: Same use as the flatblade, though this is the more common plant to be cultivated for such a use.

Cinnamon: not used to make its own drink, however it is used to flavour things. The result is generally spicy.

Strawberry: Most commonly used in nature and wind to make liquers or wine. 

Engineered Superberry: The berry of choice for lightning flight berry related wines. the result is always blue.

Sour Strawberry: Used to make... sour berry liquers and spirits. what a surprise.

Maiden's blush: mix with caution due to the slight toxicity. Its incredibly challenging to create a spirit out of this flower so the result is generally very rare and affordable to only the rich and thrill seeking boozewyms.

Hallowed Ivy: Often mixed with Treasure Plant to enhance the positive spirits given with this spirit.

Watermelon: Waterflight has ingeniously figured out a way to make a fine brandy with these melons.

Sugarmelon: Though its more commonly used for flavourings to infuse liqueurs with, there is a variant of the melon brandy using this melon.

Lume Daffodil: can sometimes be used in combination with peppermint to make creme de menthe.

Strangler seeds: though a nuisance to put in someone elses garden, these seed could be put to much better use in a liqueuer. generally a brandy liqueuer similar in taste to a mire chesnut brandy liqueuer, but much cheaper.

Blooming pods: Similar usage to strangler seeds, however the taste has more bite to it.

Luminous almonds: Used to make a sweet amaretto thats popular in light flight.

High-Voltage Almonds: the amaretto made with these almonds has quite the kick to it. Non lightning dragons consuming this beware.

Irridated Pear, Wasteland Pear, Prickly pear: All used to make vodka. No change in taste depending on where it originates.

Blue Honeycomb: Same usage as a normal honeycomb but due to the challenging nature of brewing anything from this quickly solidifying honey, its generally considered a drink for those of high status and or wealth. Breweries will reuse off batches honey for hard candies. Not for hatchlings.

Spearmint: used for mint schnapps. Peppermint is generally considered better.

Peppermint: Used in Peppermint Schnapps and Creme de menthe. Generally the most popular drink made from this is putting the schnappes or creme de menthe into a nice cup of hot cocoa.

Cindermint: Used in its own Cindermint Schnapps and Creme de Cindermenthe. Also used in other 'spicy' drinks to add a little extra kick. A favourite of Fire flight.

Golden Pepper,Blacktongue Pepper: a lair in fire flight uses them to create a vodka so spicy they claim its the hottest drink in all of Sornieth. Their advertising even suggests not to buy it.

Butcher's Fig: Used in a Fig spirit. has a red tinge to it. still stains the maw red if enough is consumed.

Fig: Used in fig liqueuers.

Sunbeam Fig: used in spirits and liqueuers. Almost entirely cultivated in light flight. due to the challenge of obtaining the fruit its considered rare and expensive. a favourite among Light flight royalty.

Patio Rose, Heart Rose, Blue Rose, Pale Pink Rose: All used for rose water that some dragons think is a good idea to mix with alcohol. It probably just waters it down.

Now go forth and have those drunkard dragons and brewers get creative!

[zmediaoutlet]

la cocina es el centro de la casa

for @thebratfarrar, for her birthday

(read on AO3)

Dean’s been sweating since he woke up this morning. Actually, going by how damp the sheets of his little borrowed cot were, he sweated all night, too. He’d had a weird panicked moment where he thought he’d wet the bed, somehow. Sammy had still been passed out in the bed and Dean had laid there under the slow-turning fan and given himself five minutes to just be… miserable. As far as he can tell, Benson, Arizona, is the armpit of the world. Why couldn’t Dad have caught the hunt in November, or something.

Mrs. Gutierrez is kind of a hard-ass, but she knows about food. When Dean comes out of the bedroom she’d stashed them in, the hot little house already smells awesome, and she barely looks up from whatever she’s doing in her skillet, waves him to the table. He rubs at his eyes with the heel of both hands. He’s not used to these kind of hours in the summer. Ever since he turned sixteen and proved he could be trusted, Dad would take the opportunity of school being out to take him along on more hunts, the two of them running through the woods or watching through the dark of the warm nights or digging graves together, coming back to whatever motel or campsite where Sammy was waiting for them in the hours just before dawn, crashing down sore and feeling good about a job well done. He wants to be out there now. All this ridiculous heat would maybe be a little more bearable if he felt like he was doing something.

A plate clatters down in front of him and he jumps, opens his eyes. Mrs. Gutierrez raises her eyebrows at him and he says, “Thank you,” automatically, and then, “Um, I mean—gracias, ma’am.” She huffs and goes back to the stove. He completely can’t tell if she likes him or not. He’s guessing not.

That said—who cares, if she feeds them like this, holy crap. This will be their third day here, since Dad figured out where the boys were going missing and Mrs. Gutierrez offered to look after them while Dad and a few of the older guys went out looking, and like every single thing she's fed them has been amazing. This is—eggs, and pieces of tortilla, and some weird white cheese, and enough thick roasted-dark red sauce that he sweats even more, and he groans out loud.

“Respira, caballero,” Mrs. Gutierrez says, in a dry voice, and he opens his eyes again to find her leaning against the stove, cup of coffee rested on her plump belly.

He wipes his mouth of red sauce, tries to dredge up some manners. “This is really good,” he says. “Um, mucho bueno?”

“Muy bueno,” she says.

He nods. “Yeah, that,” he says, and she actually smiles a little, wow. Her face is weathered, deep lines around her eyes and mouth, and they’re deeper when she smiles. He scoops up another bite, and around a mouthful of just awesomely good, spicy eggs says, “What is it called?”

She frowns a little, and he sort of points his empty fork at the plate and makes an exaggerated confused face. “Ah. Chilaquiles.” He mouths the word, scooping up another bit of tortilla, and she says it slower for him. He knows his accent sucks, but he is kinda trying. Might as well, with them stuck here.

“Buenos días, señora,” Sam says, coming into the kitchen, and Dean rolls his eyes. Of course, Poindexter’s picking up the Spanish like a weird short sponge. “¿Cómo está usted?”

“Muy bien, mijo,” Mrs. Guitierrez says, and her smile goes wider for Sam. Dean’s really got to learn more Spanish. In short order, Sam’s installed with his own plate of—uh—

“Chilaquiles?” Sam says. “Awesome. Muchas gracias, señora.” Dean sighs. Sometimes Sammy’s such a kissass, and he doesn’t even know it. He turns pink when he gets his first really spicy mouthful, though, and Dean smirks at him as he starts to cough. He gets him a glass of water, too, but still. At least he’s still got something on his little brother.

They’re long days, out here. Mrs. Gutierrez lives far enough away from town that there’s no way Dean’s walking—he’d roast before he got more than a mile. Dad’s got the Impala, of course, and Mrs. Gutierrez loaned her ancient Ford to another one of the older Mexican guys who’d gone along to help. Dean’s got his and Sam’s duffels and they’ve got a shotgun each, not that Dean would be letting Sammy help if it came to a fight. He can’t waste ammo on shooting practice, though, and it’s too hot to try to get Sam to wrestle with him, and there’s nothing to do. Sam’s been reading, of course—he picked up the summer reading list from his last school and they kinda accidentally stole a bunch of library books when Dad abruptly took them out of Boise a few weeks ago. Dean’s been reduced to watching these really terrible Mexican soap operas in the kitchen with Mrs. Gutierrez when she does her embroidery in the afternoons. He can’t understand what anyone’s saying, but the acting’s so over-the-top that he sort of gets it. Right now he thinks Rogelio is sleeping with his brother’s wife, though it might just be someone’s secretary. Mrs. Gutierrez clucks her tongue disapprovingly when Rogelio starts making out with the lady, and shakes her head. “Es una bruja,” she says, and bites off a piece of thread. “Él va a perder su corazon, y luego su pinga.”

“She’s totally going to cheat on him, too,” Dean says. And—yep, whatshername smiles all sexy over Rogelio’s shoulder at the other dude, and he and Mrs. Gutierrez sigh at the same time.

The sun in the afternoon beats down endlessly. Sam says that next month it'll start raining really hard, which sounds like bull to Dean, but Sam insisted. He hopes to hell they're not here long enough that he learns if Sam was BSing or not. Right now he's sitting on the porch, under the broad tin-sheet awning, tossing pebbles out at a weird purplish prickly pear cactus about ten yards away. Mentally he's awarding himself five points every time he hits a pad, and subtracting two points when he starts to think that he might actually sweat himself to death. He's at around thirty-seven  when Mrs. Gutierrez comes out, fanning herself slowly with a magazine. "Hi," Dean says, and he sounds bored even to himself.

There aren't really chores to do. He would've offered to fix up her Ford, but obviously that ship sailed. They're all just waiting. Dad's been gone about five days now and he's not worried, of course not, because Dad's been gone way longer than this and he always comes home fine. A little beat up, sometimes, and sometimes Dean has to stitch up a few holes Dad managed to collect, but that's nothing to worry about. It's all part of the job. He taps his thumb against the rough wood of the bench, beating out a pattern, and it's a surprise when Mrs. Gutierrez  runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead, a weird kind of rough-gentle. "Venga," she says, when he's startled into looking up at her, and jerks her head back at the house. "Come," she says, in a thick accent, and disappears back into the dim of the house, the screen door clanking shut behind her.

Sam's still stretched out on the bed in their tiny room, reading something with his bare feet slowly waving in the air. In the kitchen, Mrs. Gutierrez surprises him by dropping an apron over his head. "Whoa, no," he says, but she turns him around by the shoulders and ties the string behind his back. It's got little chickens printed on it, Christ.

"Tenemos que limpiar," she says, and puts a dishcloth in his hands, and points him at where the lunch dishes are soaking. Well, okay. He guesses he needs to be earning his keep, fair enough. The apron seems like overkill, though. She starts chopping up peppers while he scrubs up, and then the little TV on the counter gets flicked on. "Rogelio va a morir," she says, giving Dean a significant look. "Dead. I bet you."

"Oh, you're on," Dean says. He's pretty sure Rogelio's going to kill Ana. She totally deserves it.

Dean's finished the dishes and is putting them into the rickety cupboards (Mrs. Gutierrez just points at the right cupboard for each one, because seriously, he's never going to learn the names of any of this stuff) when a van pulls up outside. He goes to the window immediately—but no, it's not Dad, or any of the other guys. Instead a bunch of ladies spill out, all somewhere within ten years of Mrs. Gutierrez's age. She goes out to greet them and there's a chorus of mostly-cheerful sounding Spanish, hugs and cheek-kisses exchanged.

Sam pops out of the bedroom, asks, "What's going on?" and Dean can only shrug. Sam looks at him more closely. "Dude, are those chickens?" he says, starting to grin, and Dean grabs him and gives him a swift noogie right then, because you gotta nip that shit in the bud right away. If anyone's making fun of anyone here, it's not going to go that direction. Sam yelps and drops his book, shoves at Dean's grip, and of course that's when Mrs. Gutierrez comes back in. Dean lets Sam go immediately, shoves his hands into the pocket on the apron. "Chicos," she says, kind of sharp, and Sam picks up his book, says, "Lo siento, señora," with an apologetically ducked head—and when she turns her head away gets Dean with one of those sharp little elbows right in the kidney. Dean manfully sucks in the grunt and thinks maybe he can get away with dumping water over Sam's head tomorrow morning. It'd count as trying to cool him off, surely.

The women have come with bags of food, and dishes, and one has a crock-pot of something that releases a stupid-good smell as soon as the lid comes off. Dean gets tasked with pulling the little kitchen table off the wall, so there's room to move around it, and the ladies start unpacking their bags. Sam watches, interested, until Mrs. Gutierrez shoos him back out into the bedroom. "¿Quién es el gringo?" one of the women says, nodding at Dean where he's stacking the chairs out of the way, and he hears Mrs. Gutierrez say, "Es el hijo del cazador," and he doesn't know why that makes the lady look at him with kind of sad eyes.

"Hi," one lady says, and smiles at Dean. She's maybe forty, a little silver in her hair, though not nearly as much as Mrs. Gutierrez has. "Dean, right?"

"Yeah," Dean says. She's pretty, in a mom way. He's acutely aware of his chicken apron. "And my little nerd brother in the other room is Sam."

"Elena says you're good boys," the lady says, and Dean doesn't know who she means for a minute, and then obviously looks surprised, because she laughs. "I guess you're probably a troublemaker most of the time, caballero."

The other women have been busy, setting up something all around the table, and Dean looks at that instead of looking at her. "Most of the time," he says, shrugging.

"My Francisco is the same way," she says, in a tone like she's telling him a secret. He hates it when teachers do that, like they're trying to pretend that they're his friend, but when he looks she's got this weird expression on her face, and he puts a few things together real quick. One of the older women puts a quick hand to her shoulder and she shakes her head, smiles at Dean. "We're going to make a dinner for when the hunters come back. Elena tells me that you have some things to learn in the kitchen."

"Cooking's not really my thing," Dean says.

The lady tugs on his apron. He is really starting to hate the stupid apron. "Cooking is everybody's thing," she says. "When you have mouths to feed."

He thinks back to mac and cheese with ketchup in it, Sammy trying not to complain, and—okay, so maybe she has a point.

It turns out they're making tamales, which Dean's heard of but hasn't ever seen before. He doesn't see how corn husks are going to be good to eat, but he figures if anyone can do it, Mrs. Gutierrez will. The women all form a circle around the table and go total assembly line: soaking the corn husks in warm water, unfolding, smearing the weird corn dough into the center, and then a spoon of the shredded meat from the crock pot (turkey, it turns out, when he sneaks a bite, and Mrs. Gutierrez thwacks him on the shoulder immediately), and then folding the neat little package, and tying with a string. Dean gets put on soaking duty, probably because it's the hardest thing to screw up. The lady who speaks English—Graciela, apparently—stands at his right side, and Mrs. Gutierrez at his left, and it's tight work around the little table with their elbows all jostling together, but it's kind of fun, too. He's good at following routines.

They're all talking in Spanish, but that's okay. He can't follow the words, but he can kinda catch the rhythm of it, just like watching the soap operas. His job is so easy that he barely even has to look at what he's doing, and so he watches the women, instead. There's five of them, including Mrs. Gutierrez, and Dean thinks back to when Dad was reading that newspaper article—five teenage boys missing in Southern Arizona, no leads, and how when Dad showed up at the first house the man hadn't even wanted to talk to him, had been drunk before noon sitting there on his porch. It had been the mother who'd stepped forward, started talking to Dad low and urgent, and Dean couldn't hear anything from where he was waiting in the car, but he saw the look on her face. She's the one who made the turkey and her face is drawn, there are dark circles beneath her eyes, but she's chatting, too, and smiles at something the woman next to her says. Not a big smile, but a smile. Dean doesn't know how she can do it.

"It's good to have a job to do," Graciela says, quiet. Dean hands her a softened husk and watches her spread the corn into it with deft, small hands. "When your dad hunts, you take care of your brother, yes?"

"Yeah," Dean says, and dips a new husk. "I mean, I go on hunts, too. I'm pretty good. I couldn't go on this one though, 'cause—um."

It's not like she doesn't know. He's just the right age to be taken, by whatever's doing the taking. Graciela says something he can't quite hear, and Mrs. Gutierrez jostles his elbow, catches his attention. They've filled four great big steam baskets, one right after the other, and it's now like a million degrees in here since the first batch has been cooking. She brings him over and lifts the lid on the basket—thick gouts of steam plume up but she just ignores it, even though she's sweating too now. She plucks out one of the neat little packages with her bare hand, apparently made of asbestos, and then puts it on a plate and hands it to him.

"For me?" he says, holding it in both hands. He glances at Graciela, who's wearing half a smile. "I thought we were making dinner for when the guys get back. Shouldn't we save it?"

Graciela leans her hip on the table. Sweat has gathered at her temple, has darkened her pink dress. "Mijo, the men will get their share," she says. She nods at the little corn package on his plate. "Something you need to learn: when you make the food, you take the first taste."

He looks at Mrs. Gutierrez, who nods at him, and he shrugs. He's not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth—or, uh, nice lady, either. It does smell awesome. "Sammy!" he calls, taking the plate with him, and Sam pops out of the bedroom immediately when Dean comes out into the tiny sitting room. He was probably sitting there moping about why he didn't get to sweat his butt off making dinner. "Come on, squirt, try a tamale. Wanna see if it's poisoned."

"Ha ha," Sam says, but he sits down next to Dean on the couch anyway. They poke at it together, and from the doorway Graciela says, "Open it up first, boys," in a soft voice, and oh, duh, and Dean snaps the string with his pocketknife and peels open the husk, and between them with careful fingers they take bites of the soft corn, saturated through with the spicy turkey, and holy crap is it good.

"Holy crap," Dean says, through his full mouth, and Sam nods, scooping up another bite almost immediately. "Hey, don't eat it all," Dean says, and Sam rolls his eyes but hands the plate back to Dean.

"You think you can figure out how to make these?" Sam says, licking his thumb clean.

Dean shoves at his shoulder, gentle so he just rocks a little. "What, you think I'm gonna be your personal chef, Sammy?"

"Yeah," Sam says, grinning at him. "Tamales and mac and cheese and 7-11 hot dogs, that'll be your menu."

Dean pushes Sam over onto the couch and takes the plate with its empty husk back into the kitchen. "Really good," he says, to Mrs. Gutierrez. "Um, mucho—no, muy bien."

"Muy bueno," she says, correcting him again, but her eyes are soft. She cups his cheek in her hand for a few seconds and he stands still under it, doesn't know why she's looking at him like he's a puppy—but then she takes the plate and puts it in the sink, and hands him the dishrag again, and he sighs. There's way more dishes now.

Dad and the few men who went with him come back two days later, with four of the five boys who'd gone missing. Dean wonders if Graciela's boy came back, or if he was the one left behind, but he doesn't want to ask. The tamales get distributed to all the houses and Dad even stays for an extra hour to eat his own share. "Pretty damn good," he says, smiling at Mrs. Gutierrez, and she puts a warm hand on Dean's shoulder and smiles back. Dean does do a quick tune-up her old Ford, while Dad finishes up eating and washes up a little, because he owes her. Rogelio did end up getting killed by Ana, and Dean said a few choice words that Mrs. Gutierrez understood even through the language barrier and got smacked upside the head for it. Sammy had a good laugh over that one.

"Ready to go, kid?" Dad says, behind him.

Dean finishes locking the carburetor cap into place and drops the hood on the truck. Nine o'clock at night and it's still hot as hell out here. He nods at Dad, and Dad nods back and starts loading up the trunk with their bags. Dean goes back inside to grab Sammy, and Dad says one last thank you to Mrs. Gutierrez for looking after them. Always makes Dean feel like a little kid. Mrs. Gutierrez nods, says, "Adiós," and when Dad turns away she presses a heavy little package into Dean's hands, wrapped in a flimsy grocery bag, and kisses him once on the forehead. He has to work hard to hide his surprise. Then he's not all that surprised, when Dad gets them a motel outside of Kingman later that night and he finally gets a chance to open up the package, to find a tupperware, filled with eight perfect little tamales, and a tub of thick red sauce.

[heelmaryse]

Romeo + Juliet // Braun Strowman Drabble

Characters: Braunt Strowman x OFC 

Warnings: None. Kind of fluffy. Kind of awkward. Idk

Request: Braun Strowman + #50: “We’d make such a cute couple."

“Hey Braun!” She bounced up to the tall man, giving him her brightest smile possible, “Here’s that book you wanted to read,” She waved her paperback copy of Romeo and Juliet in front of his face. Or more like in front of his chest. He was a very tall man.

“Book?” Braun barked out, his eyes widening for a split second, a flash of nervousness clouding over his features. A flash she’d have probably missed if she had blinked because a second later he was frowning down at her, “What book? I didn’t ask you for any books.”

“Sure you did!” She didn’t let his borderline hostile tone have any effect on her as she smiled up at him serenely. She knew it was all a façade anyways – a defence mechanism. He’s a sweetheart really, she thought to herself, chuckling because she barely knew him yet this was something she was sure of.

“No I didn’t.” Braun insisted as he regarded her warily, but she caught his gaze slip down towards the Shakespearian text in her hand, a glint of interest evident in his eyes. Once again only for a split second before he went back to frowning.

“You did!” She waved the book animatedly once more before shooting him a sheepish look, “Okay, well, you told Bray you’ve read Hamlet and you liked it so now you wanna read Romeo and Juliet, right?” Braun opened his mouth to speak but her excitement to relay her story caused her to cut him off, “So Bray told Bo who told Alexa who told Nia who told me. And guess what, Braun?”

Braun cleared his throat – and was that a smile he was trying to stifle? – “What?”

“I love Shakespeare too! We could totally, like, talk about Shakespeare, you know? Whenever you’ve got some down time, I mean.”

Braun ran his hand through his hair, a gesture she usually associated with nervousness, and there was pinkness spreading across his cheeks, “Listen, I don’t know who, uh, who told you about me reading Shakespeare or whatever – ”

“But I just told you! Bray told Bo who told Alexa who told Nia who told me!” She jumped in, interrupting him once more although not really meaning to. The taller man sighed and sat down on a nearby bench, grabbing his wrestling boots and beginning to lace them on.

“It’s, uh, it’s not true,” Braun said, and she noticed he was focusing super hard on tying up his boots, not even sparing her a glance, which made her wilt slightly, “Whatever, uh, whatever Bray told you. Or Nia told you. Or whoever told you. I don’t like Shakespeare. They’re most likely ribbing you, or something.”

“Oh.” She said, feeling her heart sink about ten tonnes. Damn it. Now she felt like an idiot. She tended to get overexcited over things sometimes. And the prospect of Braun Strowman of all people sharing her love for Shakespeare? She’d been thrilled. Specially since she’d spent months trying to approach Braun, trying to find out what his interests were so she could bring up a talking point with him.

She may or may not have had a tiny crush on him.

She sat down next to him on the bench, a look of utter dismay on her face, “Sorry, I guess Shakespeare just gets be overexcited,” She confessed to the taller man. And you, she added silently, you get me overexcited too.

“Me to– I mean, uh, it’s okay.” She looked up to see Braun finishing lacing up one boot and starting on the other, his face once again turning slightly pink as he focused completely and exclusively on tying his boot up.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” She tried again, before mentally kicking herself because that was such a stupid thing to say. Braun only grunted, not even bothering to give her a verbal response which basically meant this was it. She’d blown it. He hated her now. He thought she was some Shakespeare loving freak who couldn’t keep her mouth shut, she was sure of it.

She sighed, standing up, “I guess I’ll see you around then. Sorry again for ambushing you with Shakespeare,” She laughed nervously, about to make her dejected exit in a hurry when she heard another grunt.

“Could you, uh, leave the book behind?” She heard his deep drawl behind her which made her stop dead in her tracks. She turned around slowly.

“What?”

Standing upright at his full, intimidating height, boots all tied up, Braun shuffled awkwardly on his feet, face red and eyes not really looking at her, but somewhere beyond her shoulder – as if he was too nervous to look straight down at her.

“The book, um,” He coughed nervously, “It’s Romeo and Juliet, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Her heart skipped a beat, “You don’t actually wanna read it, do you? I thought you said Bray and the rest of them were ribbing me?”

Braun scratched his head, “Well, kind of…” She looked up at him, waiting for him to continue. And he looked so different now – so different from the menacing giant who had suplexed Big Show right through the ring. He shuffled on his feet again, “They told you I read Hamlet… Well I haven’t, but I want to… I read a bit of it when I took my nephew to the, um, the library the other day.”

Oh. Oh!

She grinned widely, and Braun’s face looked embarrassed, flushed – as if he’d just revealed the biggest secret in the world to her. She stepped closer to him, holding the book up for him to take. Which he did. He grabbed it, and her smile widened. There was just something about the visual of his large hands thumbing through her tiny paperback copy of the Shakespearean play which made her very happy.

“So you do like Shakespeare after all!”

Braun finally met her gaze, and offered her a small smile, “Maybe.” He grunted, but this time it was a humorous grunt, and that monosyllabic answer was enough to set her off.

“This is great, Braun! Now you can read it when you’re on the road, or maybe even when you’re at home? If you’re not busy, that is. And we can have discussions, like, it’s one of my favourite plays. There’s stuff about prickly pears in there that’s gonna make you laugh – it made me laugh. And, Braun –”

“You talk a lot, don’t you?” For once it was Braun who cut her off, and she smiled sheepishly when she saw the smile on his face.

“Well, it’s not every day I meet someone who loves Shakespeare like I do. Honestly, Braun, we’d make such a cute couple, and –”

She stopped dead in her tracks suddenly, and for once it was her who blushed violently at her own slip-up, and Braun’s eyes widened. Shit. Time to go jump off a cliff.

Braun opened his mouth to speak, but just then Mark Carrano’s voice sounded loudly from the other side of the room, “Strowman! Vince wants you, something about going over scripts!”

She was mentally digging herself a ditch to jump into when she felt a large hand on her shoulder. His large hand. For once, she did not know what to say. Braun’s hand squeezed her shoulder slightly, which made chills run down her spine.

“I’ll talk to you later, is that okay?” Braun asked her, and she nodded. Of course that was okay! The taller man smiled, “Good. I can’t wait for our, uh, our Shakespeare discussions.”

The smile never left his face as he marched menacingly over to Carrano.

A/N: I DON’T THINK I DID BRAUN JUSTICE TBH. It’s fine tho, I have two more Braun requests to get it right tbh. Also once again if this isn’t very good then just know I haven’t written in a while... But there’s more drabbles to come tonight so tell me if you wanna be tagged!

@unabashedwwesmut @hardcorewwetrash @swedish-strong-style @not-that-kinda-gurl08 @pixievampira @sjbh 

[coolcactaceae]

Today has been a wonderful day so far at the science lab! I was a little nervous going in, because today we are doing some testing on some dangerous forms of matter, like positrons, and prickly pears. This is something that I mentioned to Cecil over dinner last night. I said that the results were going to be unknown, and he said he was worried about me and that he hoped the results were not anything that hurt me. I reassured him that I was going to be totally safe, because I am a trained professional and have done things similar to this hundreds of times, although not exactly like this because this is brand new. But I know Cecil is just worrying because he loves me very much and wants to protect me, because he has tied his life together with mine in so many amazing ways and feels he is so much better for it.  

I walked in a bit late this morning because of a personal delay, and so Dave and Nilanjani were already there setting up. I asked them to run me through the steps of the experiment again one more time, just to be very safe, not becuase I didn't know what they were. It would be difficult to explain them all here, but rest assured that they are all VERY scientific and mathematical. After that, I excused myself to the washroom so I could take a few deep breaths to calm myself. I looked in the mirror and I knew the face staring back at me was the face of a true scientist. The silver-streaked hair, the dimpled cheeks, the deep amber eyes that could hold all the mysteries of the universe in them. I could do this. I HAD to do this.

So I started by slowly dropping the first prickly pear into a vial filled with a neon blue, bubbling liquid. As it was engulfed, a reactin started that turned the liquid first purple, then pink. It was gorgeous and I stared at it, trying to take every inch of it in, trying to burn the experience so hard into my brain that it would stay there forever. Then I realized I actually did feel a burning sensation on my eyes, and then Dave said "Uhhh, Carlos, your goggles?" I hastily strapped them on and gave him a big smile and a thumbs up. I'm pretty sure that reassured him. I finished by moving to the chalkboard, confidently writing "Science!!!", and nodding.

One down, maybe eighty or so to go! This will be fun! Isomers!

[krissysbookshelf]

Enjoy An Exclusive Sneek Peek Of: Wicked Like a Wildfire by Lana Popovic!

All the women in Iris and Malina's family have the unique magical ability or "gleam" to manipulate beauty. Iris sees flowers as fractals and turns her kaleidoscope visions into glasswork, while Malina interprets moods as music. But their mother has strict rules to keep their gifts a secret. Iris and Malina are not allowed to share their magic with anyone, and above all, they are forbidden from falling in love. But when their mother is mysteriously attacked, the sisters discover a wicked curse that haunts their family line.

LEARN MORE

  ONE Cattaro, Montenegro

  MY SISTER AND I WERE BORN ALL TANGLED UP together, both tiny enough that our unruly descent just narrowly missed killing our mother. I liked to think there would have been a fair bit of screaming on Mama’s part in the ruckus that followed, but that’s just my wicked fancy. Maybe she was stoic and flawless as ever, Snow White giving birth under glass. Either way, tending to her, no one spared the time to note which of us had arrived first. And so although we weren’t identical, by sheer bloody technicality we were always the same age, neither a minute older nor younger than each other.

Mama kept us in a single cradle, one that ÄŒiča Jovan had carved for her from cherrywood before we were born. It was a whimsical thing fit for changeling children, wrought with mermaids trapped in ivy, open seashells with tiny apples growing in them instead of salty flesh. Sometimes I wondered if I’d have liked my own cradle as much as I would have liked having my own room once we were older. But Malina still liked to fall asleep by matching her breathing to mine, rubbing her feet together like a grasshopper.

The only real bedtime story Mama ever told us traced back to those early days, when we were both so little the tops of our skulls hadn’t yet hardened into something that could withstand the world. The mother I knew might have been tempted by that fragility, the urge to press her thumbs into such yielding clay. To see what marks she could make.

She must have been so different, then.

Instead, when we were old enough for our pale eyes to focus, she brought an assortment of offerings on a milky sea-glass platter. From it, she plucked tiny slivers of fruit and brushed them over our lips, one by one. Apple, mango, strawberry, papaya, prickly pear, some so exotic she could only have gotten them from the cruise ships that docked in the bay, rather than the open-air market outside the Old Town walls. Each was at its peak, the perfect moment of ripeness before turning. Then she passed violet petals beneath our noses, followed by jasmine, orchid, and peony; small lumps of ambergris; splinters of oud wood and sandalwood and myrrh.

Waiting to see which would bring forth the gleam, the magic that ran through our blood.

For me, it was the hibiscus flower, the petal red and fleshy as our mother trailed it over the tip of my nose, before she let me gum it to release its tart flavor. For Malina, it was a gleaming, perfect cherry, which Mama crushed into a paste that she let my sister suck from her ring finger.

It was bad luck to name a daughter after the thing that first sparked the gleam, Mama said. So I was Iris, for a flower that wasn’t hibiscus, and my sister was Malina, for a raspberry. They were placeholder names that didn’t pin down our true nature, so nothing would ever be able to summon us. No demon or vila would ever reel us in by our real names.

Even caught up in the story, Mama could never quite explain what the gleam looked like once she found it. Maybe our cloudy baby eyes cleared, like a sky swept by a driving wind. Maybe our tiny hands clenched fistfuls of air, seeking the tools that we’d use to capture the gleam once we were older. She never said.

Listening to her tell it, I could have sworn that she’d loved the needy little creatures Malina and I had been. Even if the whole thing was just a story—who rubs flowers and fruit and whale vomit on babies, anyway? What if one of us had been allergic?—it was still beautifully spun. There was love in its very fabric.

Then again, all that was seventeen years ago. These days, had someone asked me if our mother loved us, any “yes” would have caught in my throat like a fish bone. And had someone asked me if I loved my mother, I thought I knew what I would say.

But then she died without dying, and I didn’t know anything at all.

  THAT WHOLE WEEK felt like a gathering storm. It was only the end of May, but already so stifling that just the effort of breathing made you mutinous. Malina and I worked split shifts at Café Tadić since school had let out for the summer, and that Tuesday I’d drawn the early straw, which I usually preferred. On my way out at six a.m., I’d see the sunrise over the mountains that Cattaro huddled against, the sky glowing like a forge before the craggy peaks above us lit with the first slice of the sun.

It reminded me of what my world had once looked like, brilliant and blazing and alive from every angle, back when I could make almost anything bloom.

But the sky was still a barely blushing dark as I trailed the side of our tiny house just before five, wincing as the courtyard pebbles dug into my soles. I’d taken my flip-flops off to minimize crunching in the predawn hush. Mama would already be at the café—she’d been asleep long before I snuck out the night before—but Mrs. Petrović next door was a nasty, busybody hag who could have been a KGB spy in another life, or possibly this one. Ratting me out to Mama made her downright gleeful, pointless as it was. Mama knew perfectly well she couldn’t keep me inside when I wanted out. I only bothered with the skulking to avoid the fights—“What kind of mother do you make me look like, sneaking out like a thief in the night?”—and even that was mostly for Malina. She couldn’t stand the sound of our mother’s rage battering against mine.

I was still bobbing along on some mixture of high and tipsy as I hauled myself onto our window ledge and swung my legs over, the contentment lingering round and compact in my belly like a sunwarmed egg. That wouldn’t last. Soon, it would crack into a slimy nausea, just in time for my arrival at the café.

A faint rumble of triumph echoed through me. Along with most everything else that I did, Jasmina the Peerless hated it when I came to work hungover. And this morning I wouldn’t even have time to wash the alcohol fumes from my skin and hair. A small—and smelly—victory, but I’d learned to take them as they came.

Malina was still sound asleep as I gingerly dropped both feet onto our splintered hardwood floor, toe to heel, bending over to deposit my flip-flops beside them. My stomach lurched; maybe that rumble hadn’t been all triumph. I leaned my butt back against the sill, breathing deeply to settle my insides. We kept our window flung wide open in the summer, and the slight breeze stirred the multicolored Japanese parasols fanned out across our ceiling, stripped of their handles and overlapping one another.

This was one of my projects from years ago, before I graduated to proper glassblowing under ÄŒiča Jovan’s watchful eye. When my gleam began to wane, Mama had presented me with a consolation prize, an article about American artist Dale Chihuly’s largest installation: the Fiori di Como, a garden of glass flowers blossoming on the ceiling of the grandest hotel in Las Vegas. Its steel armature alone weighed ten thousand pounds; it had to, to support the forty thousand pounds of glass that clung to it. It was the biggest glass sculpture in the world.

I had painted the parasols with a painstaking, delicate rendering of the wisteria flower tunnel in Kitakyushu, Japan, gridding out the slim ribbing of the tunnel’s truss to create the optical illusion of dimensionality—so that whenever Malina and I looked up, it would feel like we stood in the Kawachi Fuji Garden, beneath a pink-and-violet, pastel rain of dripping wisteria. Mama hated it. She didn’t have to say so, but I’d seen the tightening in the small muscles of her face so many times when she came in to fetch one of us and couldn’t keep herself from looking up into the shower of flowers I had painted for Malina and me.

Maybe her distaste made me love it just that much more; I wouldn’t have put that past me. But that was a fringe benefit, far beside the point. What I really loved was looking up and knowing that a place existed for me somewhere far away from here. A place that belonged to me at least in half.

But this morning, the sight of the paper petals gave me a flutter of unease. Passed out on Nevena’s couch last night, I’d dreamed of flowers, fields of black roses that glistened wet beneath a sky hovering on the brink of storm. Each time I woke it had been gasping and sweaty, heart stuttering in my chest until the alcohol and weed dragged me back down. I hardly ever remembered my dreams, but I could still nearly smell those dark roses, taste the slippery dew on the petals as I tore them off their stems and placed them on my tongue.

Shaking off the sudden chill, I tripped over one of Malina’s strappy sandals and banged into our vanity table, cursing under my breath as our perfumes rattled. Our room was so tiny that we could reach out and bridge the gap with touched palms when we sat on the edge of our beds. On cue, Malina flung herself over from her stomach to her back, like a breaching dolphin. She draped an arm over her face and mumbled thickly. I caught a drawn-out “Riss,” followed by what sounded suspiciously like “calzone.”

“Oh, I think not, milady,” I told her. “Fetch your own lunch. You don’t have to be at the café until one anyway, so just grab a sandwich on the way or something and we can have calzones from the Bastion for dinner, if you like.”

She gave a disgruntled groan and rolled back over to face the wall. I shrugged and turned to our tarnished mirror. My black tank top from last night was at least three years old and too small, embossed with a pair of glossy red lips pursed around a sequined skull. With my low-slung denim cutoffs, it showed the canvas of lower belly pinned between my hip bones—and if there was one thing Mama couldn’t stand, it was an unseemly amount of daughterflesh on display. My hair was too straight to tangle, but the eyeliner had smeared nicely in my sleep. The overall effect was a little like something wary, pale-eyed, and possibly bitey peering out from the overhang of a cave.

Perfect. Degenerate chic, at your service.

Before I slipped out, I darted over to kiss Lina’s sleep-mussed temple. Her black curls—so dark they seemed nearly blue in certain light, but with the most surprising sable undertone where the sun caught their depths—were bird’s-nest tangled, and she smelled warm and sleepy, Dove soap and the lingering patchouli that was the base of her favorite homemade perfume. Beneath it, I could smell her skin, and my stomach bucked with love. For a moment I had a pang of powerful longing, like a gong rung inside my belly, for the nights when we had slept cuddled together, our sweet baby breath whispering over each other’s faces.

Lina stirred, scrunching up her face like a little girl. “Riss,” she mumbled, “is there a reason you’re sniffing me like a truffle pig?”

I dropped down onto my own bed as she propped herself up on her elbows, yawning hugely. “Maybe I just relish the scent of sister in the morning.”

“That sounds purely wrong.” She wrinkled her nose. “Can’t say I reciprocate, either. What were you doing at Nevena’s, anyway, bobbing for apples in a tub of rakija? I don’t know how you stand that stuff; you’d think they could make apricot brandy taste better than rat poison mixed with cheap perfume. Who else was there?”

“That is for us, the cool and popular, to know, and you to find out.” I grimaced. “Or more like the cool and the popular and yours truly, Nev’s impostor tagalong. No one else much worth talking to, really. But you should still come out with me sometime. Get all wild and free and such, for once.”

She gave me a sleepy half smile, a glossy black curl sliding over her rounded cheek. My sister had the sweetest face, a gentler rendering of our mother’s that drew from our father mostly in the slight slant of her gray eyes. Her full lower lip was cleft like a cherry, and it made all that beauty somehow both playful and kind. You could easily see the shared blood between us, and maybe on the surface, you might even mistake us for the same substance.

But like water and alcohol, the resemblance ended there.

“Maybe I like staying home?” she said. “Maybe I have better things to do with my nights than tag along to your spite parties?” It always got under my skin when Lina talked in questions; she’d picked it up from years of playing ambassador between me and Mama.

“Oh, like maybe walking on eggshells around Jasmina the Peerless while she plans the next day’s menu and ignores you?” I mimicked. “And I don’t go out just to spite her, you know. Not everything I do is about her.”

“Seems like it is, these days,” Lina said quietly. She dropped her eyes, black lashes fanning lush against her cheeks, her fingers twisting into the sheets. Her hands were the unloveliest part of her, wide palms and spidery violinist’s fingers with cuticles run ragged from her nervous nibbling. My own had gathered a respectable collection of burns and nicks from glassblowing and working at the café, but they were still fine-boned and pretty, the nailbeds slim. I won when it came to hands. At least there was that.

“A little easy for you to say, isn’t it? You can still sing like you used to, back when she still let us practice with her.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my voice, like one of Mama’s orange rinds before she candied them. “I can’t make anything bloom other than flowers anymore, and even then only I can see it.”

Except for when I drink just enough, I didn’t add. Or smoked so much that my thoughts sparked around each other like a school of minnows, slippery and silver, impossible to grasp.

You can sing like you always could, and still she doesn’t even hate you.

“I’m sorry,” Lina whispered, struggling to meet my eyes. I knew she could feel the roil of my emotions, that it chafed her not to sing it back at me or soothe me, but sometimes I couldn’t curb myself just to ease her. “I know that’s hard for you. But maybe it’s better this way? I can sing, but that’s all it is—weird, maybe, but just _song_. There’s nothing for anyone to see. But you, it used to be like New Year’s Eve when you made things bloom. And you know we can’t be all flash and glitter like that. It’s not safe for any of us.”

I clenched my teeth until my jaw burned. Safety was Mama’s eternal refrain. It was why we’d only eaten the moon together at nighttime in the tiny garden behind our house, hidden by the trellis of creeping roses and oleander, back when Lina and I were little. “Only in the dark, cvetiću, and only with each other,” Mama would whisper in my ear, holding my hands in her strong grip as I bloomed the starlight dappling through the canopy of leaves above. “That’s the only place we’re safe.”

I couldn’t remember the last time our mother had called me “little flower,” or touched me with such tenderness. As if I had grown into a cactus instead of something softer, and she didn’t want to risk my spines.

“The townsfolk with the pitchforks, I know,” I said. “Lovers and neighbors and friends, all turning to burn the witches. But don’t you wonder sometimes if it’s worth it, giving up so much? When we still have to keep folding ourselves so small all the time?”

Lina looked away, a soft flush rising on her pale skin. “Of course it’s worth it,” she murmured. “Beauty’s worth it even in the smallest scale. You have your glass, I have my violin. It’s enough, like Mama always said.”

Yet even as she said it, she began humming under her breath. The back of my neck prickled, and a wash of goose bumps spread down my arms. Even after all these years, hearing Lina harmonize with herself always gave me chills, the way it sounded like three voices in one. This melody was subtle, three layers of a bittersweet arpeggio that split and reflected my emotions like a prism: the anger, the loss, and the biting sense of injustice, along with a gentle apologetic undertow that was her own offering.

There was another hue to it, too, a tinge of guilt that didn’t feel like mine. Even as the song melted my annoyance with her like spun sugar in water, I frowned, trying to place it.

She caught herself abruptly and cut off the melody.

“Sorry,” she said, clenching both hands in her lap until her knuckles turned white. “I know you hate it when I do that. Do you—will you be going to the square after your shift today? If Nevena stays longer at the café, I could leave early and bring my violin, come keep you company?”

Coming from Lina, this was a fairly high-level peace offering. I sold my glasswork figurines to tourists in the Old Town’s Arms Square, and Malina’s singing and playing always meant I’d sell more that day. It made customers pliant, more willing to part with their money for a pretty piece of glass. Mama had no idea we ever did it, of course. And if it felt a little swindly to sway people like that, it only added to my thrill. Lina had never liked that part of it as much as I did, even if she was only making it easier for people to do what they already wanted. It baffled me how much this bothered her; what was the point of power at all, if she shrank back from it anytime it caught and flared?

Especially when hers still gleamed so brightly while mine guttered by the day.

“I thought you had a violin lesson with Natalija this afternoon.”

“I can cancel that, if you want. I already saw her earlier this week.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said curtly, stepping back into my flip-flops. “I only have a few pieces left from the last batch, anyway. Not enough to show.”

She sighed behind me. “Riss—”

“I’ll see you later.”

I could feel her eyes heavy on my back as I left.

  Original post: http://ift.tt/2fKiJ4a

from Blogger http://ift.tt/2i3YzD0