#there's probably 3000 posts across those tags and more in other tags linked to those if you wanna know how i feel about this show

[askthetockclan]

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[mittensmorgul]

I feel like I should be posting more original content. I’ve been here for so long, posting original content analyzing every detail of this show, and posting literally millions of words on the subject, and the show has gone and done exactly the thing I’ve been writing about, confirmed in text that the story I’ve been watching in the subtext is really the story they were telling all along.

And I could be posting gleefully about the beauty of the most intense metanarrative, the absolute bananapants layers of meta in any piece of media I’ve ever consumed in my 46 years. From the self-referential and universe-bending plotlines to just how deeply embedded ALL of this has become as the central core narrative of the final season, as the characters grapple with what is even real when they’ve been characters in a story beyond their control or understanding for so long only to come so close to earning their freedom and “becoming real” by using their OWN words and declaring for themselves their truth and their happiness and their love.

It’s... mind boggling that everything I’ve ever written about this show is coming back around in a final grand swoop of the narrative arcs that I honestly don’t know what else I can do aside from waving one hand at canon and inviting everyone to just read the entirety of this stupid blog while looking smugly satisfied with myself.

It’s about love. The whole story is, was, and always will be about love. And not just destiel, but the whole damn show. The character of Dean Winchester, for all the jokes about being emotionally constipated, is essentially the embodiment of selfless love and has been since the start of the show. But because of the story itself, he had to become hardened to it, to accept that it wasn’t something he could have for himself if he lived the life he did. And yet he never let that destroy him, despite now understanding that that’s exactly what Chuck spent the last 15 years (and really the entirety of Dean’s life) attempting to do-- to break him for the sake of the story.

Cas’s confession in 15.18 wasn’t just about how Cas loves Dean, but why. Cas, the only version of Castiel in any of Chuck’s infinite universes who broke free of Heaven’s command, did so because of the love he saw in this selfless but self-hating man. Years of crack posts about Dean breaking angels cannot even begin to touch how deep this goes.

One line in Cas’s monologue about Dean thinking of himself as “daddy’s blunt instrument” was a line from season THREE, before Cas ever even MET Dean Winchester and began to know him. It was a phrase that had never been spoken aloud in reality. It happened literally inside Dean’s dream, where he knew he was doomed to go to hell and was confronted by the demon version of himself. Dean said this line TO HIMSELF, IN A DREAM, TWELVE SEASONS AGO. And then yelled down that demon-dream version of himself with this:

DREAM DEAN: Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument. Your own father didn't care whether you lived or died. Why should you?

DEAN: Son of a bitch!

DEAN pushes DREAM DEAN hard, knocking him into the wall above the desk.

DEAN: (screaming angrily) My father was an obsessed bastard!

DREAM DEAN tries to get up and DEAN kicks him down on the desk again. DEAN holds the weapon as a bat and hits DREAM DEAN once and then pins him to the wall with it.

DEAN: All that crap he dumped on me, about protecting Sam! That was his crap. He's the one who couldn't protect his family. He-

DEAN steps back and swings the weapon again, hitting DREAM DEAN twice.

DEAN: He's the one who let Mom die. who wasn't there for Sam. I always was! He wasn't fair! I didn't deserve what he put on me. And I don't deserve to go to Hell!

DEAN shoots DREAM DEAN twice in the chest. As he lowers the weapon and looking at DREAM DEAN, we see the latter is dead. Blood is splattered on DREAM DEAN's face and his eyes are closed.

--

And then after that, spoiler alert, he went to hell and Cas pulled him out.

Dean: Right. And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?  Castiel: Good things do happen, Dean. Dean: Not in my experience. Castiel: What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?

It took him YEARS to truly get past this. He didn’t really get to confront his own father until season 14, in a sort of “It’s A Wonderful Life” sort of episode where he could see what his life might’ve been like if things had turned out differently. And oh, Cas isn’t in his life. But he gets to confront John with his own self-acceptance, his own confidence in the life he’s made for himself and the people (including Cas) who have become his family. He gets to hear from John that he never wanted that life for Dean, and Dean gets to say, well I would choose this life anyway.

Until Chuck’s revelation pulled that rug out from under him. Dean had been-- if not deliriously happy, at least content with his life. Because it was HIS. And then he found out it wasn’t, that Chuck had always been writing the broad strokes of his life, had always been the one throwing catastrophe after apocalypse after cosmic crisis directly in his path because he wanted to watch Dean struggle to save the world yet again, and finally give him the ending to the story that Chuck wanted-- a broken and devastated Dean who’d sacrificed everything for the story yet again. And suddenly NOTHING about anything made sense to Dean anymore, and even Cas showing up in his life and then weirdly sticking around all these years was suspect to him. He trusted nothing, not his choices or his feelings or his own happiness.

But now? We know (and Dean knows) that Cas was one thing Chuck just couldn’t control. That he was never supposed to think for himself and rebel and fall in love with Dean. And Dean knows that too. He knows all of it. And ALL of that just went wooshing through Dean’s central processing unit in the span of two minutes and came up error messages, because it was too late now and Cas was gone again, and there might not be any getting him back this time.

So unless Dabb era has been entirely about destroying everything that was ever good about this show, and about their own storytelling, and the metanarrative and the subtext and the character arcs, making Dean and Cas’s relationship the main emotional arc of the entire season demands that Dean get a chance to answer to this.

If love is truly the ultimate weapon of their salvation, as the show has been screaming since s11, then Dean gets to keep Cas. Because anything less is failure at this point.

I’m sorry I haven’t been replying to many people in my inbox, but honestly I’m too tired to deal with anxiety over how the story will end. I only care about the story, and I’ve written more about it in the last howeverlong I’ve been at this than I can possibly reiterate before the next episode airs. All I can do is point and gawp at the fact that the story is what I have always thought it was, and be content.

Revenge of the Subtext, indeed.

[pilot-boi]

Shouting In Cafes: Chapter Five

New Impressions

A little more information gets found out, and Weiss has to be forcibly restrained from murdering Sun.

AO3 LINK

Sun came in every single day. His order was always the same- a grande white mocha -but his outfits varied from crop tops to tank tops to shorts to tight, tight jeans. Every aspect of every piece of clothing he owned seemed to share the same goal of showing off as much of his body as possible, even when that part of his body was covered. 

When he wore T-shirts, they were graphic with big bold text on them. One said REAL LIFE HORROR MOVIE. Another just read HOT BOY. He only seemed to have two pairs of shoes, which were flip flops and sneakers. He wore the flip flops more often, despite the quickly dropping autumn temperatures outside.

“Why don’t you try something new for once?” Neptune asked once while fixing Sun his daily regular.

He had gotten into the habit of leaning his entire body across Neptune’s counter while making his order. Sometimes propping up his head, sometimes just letting his arms drape over the edge. 

Today was a draping kind of day, apparently, because his entire body swayed from left to right as he thought of his answer. “Hmm. Good question! I’ll try something new. How ‘bout… Like a pumpkin spice latte or whatever?"

“Alright,” Neptune said and went to dump out the coffee he already made.

“No, you don’t have to dump it out! Just add the other thing into the first one!” Neptune felt his face twist into utter disgust. He just gave him the original, with nothing added.

Sun didn’t come in with dates anymore. He just ordered his coffee, ran past the counter at high speeds, swept up his coffee without looking, and swung into a chair near a window. Neptune would then watch him rack his brain for what selfie pose he should do that day.

He’d take the picture, then drink his coffee while looking at his phone. Every once in a while, he would bark a laugh at something he found funny, turning multiple heads at the loud noise, before going back to his ‘work.’ Weiss, who Neptune knew from some of his business classes, had all but ordered Jaune to evict Sun on more than one occasion.

Neptune honestly didn’t know how much longer it would be until Weiss took it upon herself to get Sun to stop “disturbing the peace” as she’d put it.

Sun had a habit of tipping back his chair. Once he leaned back too far and completely crashed onto the ground, spilling his coffee all over himself and generally making a huge racket. Neptune had thanked his lucky stars that Weiss hadn’t been there for once.

Once Sun caught Neptune looking at him take a selfie. He waved to him, giving him a cheesy grin. Neptune looked away.

It’d been three weeks since their first meeting and they hadn’t held an actual conversation other than little snippets of small talk, and for some reason that felt wrong. This guy was walking around thinking socks and flip flops were a good idea while also knowing about Neptune’s financial issues

Meanwhile, Neptune didn’t even know his last name. It felt weird. It made him uneasy. Was paranoid the right word?

And to make matters worse, Neptune still couldn’t read him.

Neptune prided himself on his ability to not only read a room, but to be able to read the faces in said room. He got a grasp on Jaune’s mannerisms within a day. All of his professors loved him because he could play to their exact emotions without them ever knowing.

But this fucking guy…

Some of his emotions were no brainers. Like the laugh. And the anger. And the confusion. But the in between ones… 

The ones where it looked like the regular Sun stepped away for a moment and revealed a completely different person. What the hell was he thinking during that time? Those expressions didn’t belong on the face of a rich frat boy.

“Neptune?” Jaune was tapping him on the shoulder.

Neptune fixed his posture. He had been leaning against his broom, apparently giving Sun a death stare from across the cafe.

“Did you get enough sleep last night?” He frowned and crossed his arms in a way reminiscent of his friend Nora. “Are you hungover?”

“No, I’m fine mom,” Neptune sighed.

“Okay, good. I have something to show you.” 

“What is it?”

“Nora found that guy’s Instagram.”

“Jaune?”

“Yeah?”

“Why the fuck?” he asked, bewildered. “And how the fuck does Nora know about this guy?”

“She got bored, and you know how she gets.” Jaune shrugged and Neptune groaned. He did know how Nora got. The ginger had a habit of tagging along with her boyfriend, Ren, whenever he came to the coffee shop to study. Weiss had succeeded in getting them to evict Nora on more than one occasion. She wasn’t exactly subtle, or quiet for that matter.

In other words, she’d probably get along with Sun like a house on fire. Neptune squinted at him. “You told her about him, didn’t you?”

Jaune had the worst fake-surprised face on the entire planet. “What? No! Of course not! How dare you, Neptune Vasilias!”

“Jaune.”

“Okay, fine I told her. Anyway!”

He suppressed a laugh as Jaune pushed his phone up to his face. Neptune then pushed his glasses up and the phone back at least half a foot. Jaune didn’t seem to notice.

“First of all, he has over 3000 followers on a personal account,” Jaune began. “Second, it’s pretty much all selfies.”

“Unsurprising,” Neptune said and took the phone into his hands to keep Jaune from waving it around as he tried to read. He scoffed. “Wukong?! His last name is Wukong.”

“Hey you’re no one to judge Mr. Vasilias.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Neptune began to scroll through the pictures. They were all selfies, that was true. All in different places, never in the same place. Save for the weekly compilation posts captioned “this weeks coffee! <3” with every single selfie he took during that week there, at The Daily Grind.

“Holy shit.” Neptune was almost impressed. This took dedication. This took effort. This took a man who really admired himself.

“Okay, okay, but this isn’t what I’m talking about. Don’t be an ass.” Jaune snatched back his phone and scrolled to the top of his account. He whipped it back into Neptune’s face, tapping her finger on Sun’s bio. “Look!”

It read: 

sun wukong

Gains!

20

beacon university

“Oh my god,” Neptune muttered.

“Yeah. So, apparently the dude goes to our college.” Jaune took back his phone and pushed it into his pocket. “Nora maybe also stalked his page and apparently he lived in Vacuo for a while and just transferred back here to go to school. Which explains why we haven’t seen him until now. Didn’t you wonder why he was just suddenly here?”

“I’m going to be honest with you, Jaune. I thought maybe he might’ve just been a hellish entity that popped into existence one day to torture me.”

Jaune rolled his eyes. “Okay, well he’s clearly not. And please, you two haven’t even argued since that first time.”

“I have to put up with his dumb hair every day.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Neptune’s mouth felt dry. He leaned back against the wall. “So, what, is it fate telling us we have to be around each other as much as possible so we can hate each other that much more?”

“Or maybe it’s so you two can, ya know, get along?”

“Not gonna happen.”

Both of their heads turned towards the sound of a squeaky chair scratching against the worn hardwood floor. Sun stood up, still texting on his phone, and grabbed his empty cup with his free hand.

He looked up, and found Neptune and Jaune staring directly at him.

Sun frowned. “What’s up?” he yelled. More heads turned. Weiss glared at Jaune as if he was making this happen on purpose.

Neptune turned away, coughing. He grabbed the broom and began to brush at an already pristine floor.

“We found your Instagram!” Jaune bellowed back, holding his phone proudly over his head like a prize. In the corner, Weiss snapped a pencil in half from the force of her rage. Ren didn’t even look from his books.

Neptune, on the other hand, was sure he was going to have a stroke then and there.

A grin Neptune was becoming all too familiar with spread across Sun’s face as he pranced over to the counter. He quickly made himself at home on the surface, kicking his legs from his seat. His tank top said I FLEXED AND THE SLEEVES FELL OFF. 

“Oh, yeah? Like what you see?” Sun asked, winking at him. How was this Neptune’s life?

“Correction. Jaune’s friend found your Instagram and I was subjected to it,” Neptune butted in.

Sun flicked his eyes over to Jaune. “Your name’s Jaune? Do you like what you see?”

“Stop flirting. He’s too good for you,” Neptune said and inched a little closer to his friend, starting to reach up and put a hand on his shoulder before stopping himself. Jaune remained looking blissfully oblivious, bless him. 

“Hey, Jaune, your boyfriend’s kinda a prick,” Sun laughed and gestured over at Neptune.

“I’m not his boyfriend,” Neptune said, crossing his arms.

“Okay, okay, jeez” Sun said, raising his hands defensively. He leaned back and his shirt rode up a little. Jesus, what was with this guy and crop tops? “So, you found my Instagram?”

“You go to the same college as us,” Jaune blurted, suddenly remembering how to speak. 

He said this at the same instant that Neptune said, “Sun Wukong really is quite the name.”

Sun blinked. “Sorry, what?”

Neptune was about to burst a blood vessel. “Jaune!” he hissed. Jaune was a great guy but… sometimes…

“What did I do?” he shouted, threatening to match Sun in volume.

“He doesn’t have to know that we go to the same college!”

“We go to the same college?” Sun asked.

Neptune failed to resist slapping a hand onto his face.

“Cool!” Sun said. “Why is that such a big deal, dude?”

“I don’t want you stalking me around campus, trying to be my friend!”

A smile spread slowly across Sun’s face, like moss creeping along a forest floor.

“Sweet Jesus.” Neptune shouldn't have said anything. Why did he say anything? Sun could not be trusted with this power.

“Why can’t we be friends, Neptune?” Sun whined and dropped his entire body on the counter again. His shirt bunched against his torso as he over balanced and nearly tumbled over the side. It was probably a health hazard that Neptune would be forced to clean up.

Neptune would have to clean it up, because Jaune was clearly too amused by this entire situation to be any help at all. 

“Because we barely know each other. You’re just somebody I met on the job,” he explained. He felt not unlike a teacher having to explain that two plus two equals four to a student who was insisting it was actually twenty-two.

“Yeah, but that’s how friendships start out!” Sun insisted earnestly.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m busy.”

“Then I’ll wait until you’re not!” Sun said this like it was a sudden stroke of genius.

“You’re going to have to wait two more hours then.”

“Okay!” And with that, Sun stood to his full height, pulled his shirt down, or at least as far down as it even went. Then he walked back over to his chair by the window and pulled out his phone.

Neptune stared. No freaking way.

He tilted his head towards Jaune, eyes glared to Sun as his fingers tapped against his phone screen. “He’s just going to sit there until I get off work, isn’t he?”

“It seems like it,” Jaune said, just as focused.

“What the hell.”

“He’s determined, I’ll give him that.” Jaune sounded almost impressed. Thanks for nothing Jaune.

Ten minutes in, Sun seemed to get bored.

Thirty minutes in, his phone died.

Forty minutes in, he started pestering the other customers for a phone charger. Weiss was tearing her hair out.

Fifty minutes in, he just started pestering the customers, despite Ren giving him a charger in a vain attempt to shut him up. Weiss actually just got up and left at this point.

An hour and twenty minutes in, he was chatting up an increasingly bewildered Jaune.

An hour and forty minutes later, he was chatting up Neptune, to Jaune’s relief and amusement. Neptune longed for the sweet release of death, and wished that he could follow Weiss out the door and escape.

How many minutes were left? When could Neptune go home? When could he get the scent of Sun’s hair gel out of his nose? He feared his clothes would soon be coated with it if it was strong enough to permeate the terrible coffee.

[brokestminimalist]

Minimize your bills!

 We have five bills.  Here they are: Utilities, Phone, Internet, Car Insurance, Car Payment. That’s it.  Those are the five things we pay every month.  How did we achieve this?  Partly, we’re just broke as shit and can’t afford any extras.  Partly we don’t like extras.  Extras take up time we don’t have and money we don’t have.  Let’s go over a few common types of bills here and see how you can reduce how much money you are paying to various companies every month.

Rent/Housing payment: We are very fortunate to own our own house.  It is paid for.  If you do not own a house, paying rent or a house payment is unavoidable.  There are arguments to be made in favor of both renting and buying.  We like owning our own house because we can do whatever we want with it.  Purple light bulbs? Totally.  Glitter walls?  You can’t stop us, motherfucker!  The truth is that there’s not much you can do to reduce your rent or house payment, it’s just going to be there.  Make sure to prioritize it over everything else; there’s no point having cable if you’re homeless.

Phone: We consider cell phones a necessity.  Chuck out your landline and get a cheap pre-paid cell phone.  We favor Boost Mobile but there’s also Virgin Mobile and a wide variety of others.  Don’t get yourself locked into a contract, it’s way more expensive and you don’t need upgrades every year.  If you don’t smash it or drop it in a toilet your average cell phone can last several years.  Right now we have a Samsung Galaxy J3 that we bought in 2016 and it’s still going strong.  We pay $30 a month.  Even if you are currently stuck in a contract, it’s always worth calling to negotiate. Also eliminate extra stuff like app and ringtone purchases and any bs insurance plans attached to your line.

Cable: No.  You do not need cable tv.  If you must have shows to watch, look at Netflix or Hulu or Crunchyroll or a dozen other cheap streaming services.  You do not need to waste 20 minutes per show seeing commercials; that is time out of your life that you will never get back.  You do not need 3000 channels when you can only watch one at a time.  Get. Rid. Of. Your. Cable.

Internet:  We can say yes to internet because it’s so intertwined into modern society.  You need it to fill out job applications, file a claim with your insurance company, to talk to loved ones across the country.  In our state you need it to apply for food stamps.  You don’t need to go broke for it, though.  Find a reasonably priced plan at a moderate speed.  Do not let anyone tell you that you need 150mbps to stream movies or play games.  10 is sufficient for SD, 25 for HD.  (If you have a 4K device then you need to go find a different blog to read, Scrooge McDuck.) If you can’t afford it, there’s always the library and many fast food restaurants that offer free wifi.

Insurance: Whether it’s health insurance, auto insurance or homeowners insurance, you probably need to prioritize this.  We are of the opinion that the young and very healthy can go without it for a few years, but when you hit your 30′s it’s a good idea to start doing the kind of preventive maintenance that comes with a health insurance plan.  Auto and homeowners insurance policies vary a lot, so contact your company and see what extras you can cut out to shave a few dollars off your bill.  If you drive an old beater, drop the full coverage and just hang onto liability.  Your deductible may be more than your car is actually worth. (PS, one cool perk we do recommend is roadside assistance if your insurance company offers it.  It’s often 3-5 extra bucks and they will come get you off the side of the road.  Worth it.)

Vehicle payment:  We can’t wait until our car is paid off.  We were very lucky to have been given a car when we were 18 and we drove it until it just wouldn’t go anymore, and then we kept driving it anyway.  From 2004 to 2017 we did not have a car payment, just liability insurance and getting the tags renewed once a week.  It was beautiful!  Right now we still owe about $600 on the used car we bought last year and life is going to be sweet again very soon.  Driving for free is a great experience.  To minimize this bill, pay extra when you can, put as much into your down payment as you can, and never buy a new vehicle.  The subject of minimalist vehicles will get its own post later.

Life Insurance: We know for some folks with kids and grandkids this is a necessity, but uh... frankly there are none of our relatives who deserve to get a ridiculous sum of money in the event of our death.  So let the state cremate us and auction our house off to the highest bidder.  Whatev.

Utilities: Unless you’ve got a roof made of solar panels (and if you do, we applaud you!) you probably are connected to municipal electricity, gas and water.  After rent this is going to be your second priority.  You can see our post about conserving electricity and water to reduce this bill as much as you can.  You can make a huge difference by doing simple things and most of them are low or no cost!

Cards/Loans/Debt: It’s always worth calling to negotiate interest rates.  The bottom line is, you’ll just have to pay these as you can.  We’ve been as broke as we can be for the last year or so, so we’ve got a credit card that was charged off because when you don’t have food to eat or heat in your house, you kind of don’t give any fucks about your old Visa card. We’re catching up though, and we’ll pay it.  Don’t let yourself default on loans if you can help it, stay in touch with credit card companies and be straightforward with them about what you’re able to do.  DON’T take out any new loans or cards.  

Misc. Other Stuff: This is stuff like gym memberships and house cleaning service and that kid that mows your grass and walks your dog.  You can reduce or eliminate all of these by going “Derp, I’m an adult who can do things for myself!”.  Mow your own grass.  It’s a great workout.  Scrub your own baseboards, you’re burning calories.  Walk your own freaking dog.  If you’re wondering how you can pay your light bill then you do not need to spend money on things you can do for yourself.  Grow a pair and do your own chores.

Childcare: This one is tough, and we admit we don’t know a lot about it.  From what we’ve read, swapping childcare with a neighbor or friend is effective if you’ve got someone you trust.  Don’t go cheap on this if you have to hire a sitter. The person caring for your child in your absence deserves to be paid well for their services.  So if you can’t afford to pay that person what you would expect to get paid for the same amount of work, you need to skip that movie you were going to see and stay home.  As far as finding daycare for while you’re at work goes, we will kindly ask our followers to chime in with suggestions. 

There are lots of other types of bills that you might have, but take a day to go through your finances and see which ones you can do without or can trim down.  Also give our post about Needs vs. Wants a look, maybe it can help you put things in perspective.  We know this blog is only tangentially about personal finance, but consider minimalism a tool for every area of life.  By reducing the bills you don’t want, you’ll have more to spend on the ones you do.

Links: Seven Common Bills

[black-wolf066]

Well, You Do Have My Chin

Update: OMG!!! MY TIRED 36 HOUR LACK OF SLEEP BRAIN ACCIDENTLY DELETED THE STORY I POSTED THIS MORNING!!! I meant to hit edit, and apparently I hit delete and when it gave me the prompt to hit yes or no, my tired brain that it said “would you like to edit: yes or no”.... so here goes round two... so sorry guys. I wanted to add that i have this on Fanfiction.net now too (under my account Wolf-shadow666) but I just curfunkled everything... ANYWAY underneath is pretty much the post that got deleted... thankfully i save everything on document...

First off, let me just say. I’M ALIVE!!! It is now 8am in the morning, I’ve been working on the better part of this little shit that wouldn’t leave me alone i mean piece since 9pm last night…. i have TO GO TO WORK IN AN HOUR!!! HELP ME!!!!! *flails all over the place* I swear i can adult right sometimes… just not today apparently…. keep this in mind as you’re reading cause even though I’ve proof read this thrice, I’m sure some (or many) things have escaped my brain’s notice.

anyway….

Here is the comment that inspired me to write this one-shot:

@timetravelingpotatoast said:

All I really want from this season is for Killian and Henry to become good friends and talk about Lucy’s “conspiracy” only for Killian to ask who she thinks he is. However, somewhere in the translation it’s lost that Killian is his step-dad, so Henry just says his dad, leading to a “well you do have my chin,” commentary from Killian.

When the curse breaks they just squint at each other for a really long time.

Now, for the sake of the prompt, this is gonna be very heavily AU from season 7. This is by no means a “fix-it fic” because I really am enjoying season 7; I’m only writing this because I really wanted to see something like this be a thing after reading the comment. I absolutely love father/son bonding fics between Killian and Henry and I need more of it in my life… (Seriously there aren’t enough Captain Cobra centered fics to satisfy my craving for it). And I know that I said “I wish I was creative enough to contribute to the fandom of Once Upon a Time”, but after posting my last little snippet; I figured “what the hell I’m gonna do it anyway” because that’s what fandom is (I still feel like I suck terribly but *shrug* if you’re having fun doing it than screw being good at it, right?). (((Also something that should have been maybe 2000 words or less, ended up running away from me toward 4000 (my brain projecting my need for more Captain Cobra moments I guess)… I realize a lot of it is probably considered filler and I could have done away with it, but I kinda wanted to build that relationship between cursed Killian and Henry much like the relationship between Snow White and Emma in season 1)))).

Anyway, here’s a bit of backstory that I came up with for the AU universe of this fic…. If you don’t care and simply just want to read the story, than you can simply scroll down to the Continue reading link:

So in this AU, I’ve pretty much figured that Rumple, Killian, Regina and Emma came to save the day for Henry (Henry may have asked for Killian, Regina and Emma, but the three probably went to Rumple for help or something and Belle urged him to go). I’m thinking the timeline in the realm Henry is in moves faster than the timeline that is Storybrooke, so Henry might be 25 and not 18, but to the rest of his family only 1 year has passed since Henry left in search of his own story((((wondering if this is actually canon considering how shocked they were at seeing him so grown and I don’t believe for a single second that it took Emma and Killian that long to have a baby)))). Emma wasn’t pregnant at the time but eventually as they all stay and help the resistance against Tremaine and Drizella (after finding a way to send word back home that everything and everyone is alright and that they’re staying to help… maybe Rumple being pushed by Belle to stay and help them too), she and Killian end up having twins, and barely a year later Henry has his own kid with Ella. When the curse comes and separates them all, the curse spans the whole state of Washington (Tremaine or Drizella wanting to separate as many of them as they could and not keep them all in the same place… especially the true love couples. But they didn’t bank on Lucy remembering or Rumple finding a loop hole so he didn’t get cursed along with everyone else), so HH is the main hive so to speak but the fairy-tale characters are scattered across other cities and towns. Emma is off in one city (maybe Walla Walla), their twin daughters are in a group home in another city, Henry lived somewhere in Olympia (which is close enough to Seattle and HH), Robin (because I need Regina to be happy damn it! And I figure maybe they found that his soul wasn’t destroyed but simply stuck in the crystal, even across all alternate versions of said crystal in any realm, so he ends up getting freed) is also scattered somewhere, and Rumple, Killian, Regina, Ella and Lucy remained in HH where Tremaine and/or Drizella could keep an eye on them and make their lives a living hell. When Lucy finds Henry, and Jacinda steals his car (much like in the show and what not), he decides to stay at a motel for a week, finding the place interesting (and spurring a bit of creativity that he hadn’t felt since his failed first book) and eventually that week turns into him finding an actual place to stay once he gets to know the people in the neighborhood (made hard by the outrageous prices being asked). When Detective Rogers hears about his search, he offers to turn his den/office into a spare room (the only reason Regina/Roni didn’t offer is because she lives in a small studio apartment above the bar with the only closed room being a bathroom)…. Eventually Rumple as Weaver manages to get everyone back into the neighborhood (((he was the one to give Lucy the book. He was the one to find and bring back the cursed versions of Robin—Kevin Adams, who is a struggling lawyer that ends up helping Jacinda, by Rumple/Weaver’s prompting, get custody of Lucy back—and Emma—Danielle “Dani” Stevens, who was a sketch artist for Walla Walla police department. He was also the one to find which group home the twins were staying in and try to adopt them, since he wasn’t sure how long it would take to break the curse, and he didn’t want them staying there… Rumple and Killian might be civil borderline grey area friends, but he likes the twins and it’ll get them back to their family that much quicker once the curse is broken if he does it like this…)))) and the curse gets broken the same as in season 1 with Henry and Lucy (cause I’m unoriginal and my brain can’t think of anything else right now) ((((That should be enough of a background right? I don’t know… I’m terrible at this… don’t question the plot holes too much okay? You might get sucked into its black hole…))))

(((I looked at apartment averages in Seattle as a guideline (got rid of link since it wasn’t working)… and even though almost 3000 is very high for a one-bedroom apartment that Henry was looking for; I figured that Tremaine and Drizella were trying to weed out the people in the neighborhood slowly so they could bulldoze and improve and bring forth a ‘richer’ environment and a “richer” culture of people to surround themselves with, therefore causing more suffering and separation for those cursed and gaining something else for themselves….))))

((also when it comes to ages, I’m probably way off from canon, but these are my head canon ages for them here so… Emma was 28 at the start of season 1; Killian was 29, Regina 32. Adding 9 years considering Henry left at 18 and only a year passed in Storybrooke whereas 7 years passed where Henry was, that would make them 37, 38, and 41. With another 11ish to 12ish years they are now 48, 49, and 52 with Henry being 37ish.

tagging @superchocovian since she kindly asked me to (hope you enjoy it!!!)

Anyway, without farther ado, i give you this Captain Cobra one-shot in all it’s (step)father/son bonding glory!

Well, You do have my chin

Word count: 4203

Rating: pg-13 for my potty mouth

The din of Roni’s bar was oddly relaxing to Henry as he searched on his laptop for available apartments to move into, but after another site herald the same results, he sighed, closed the screen, and dropped his head into the crook of his arm. Was it too much to ask for a place within his price range? Hell, he was sure he could find something cheaper in the heart of Seattle than he could here.

But no, he stubbornly wanted to stay in this part of the neighborhood. There was something about Hyperion Heights, something that spoke to him, and not just Lucy’s crazy theory that his book was real and they were all fairytale characters scattered across the state (never mind the even crazier theory that he was her father—there was no way he could ever forget meeting a beautiful girl like Jacinda or be stupid enough not to fight for more than a one night stand with said woman).

The scraping of a chair across from him brought Henry’s attention up to that of the arrival of Detective Logan Rogers. The cop’s eyebrow was raised at him in silent question and concern as he sat down and nabbed the untouched bear claw from his plate.

“Bad day?” he asked finally with a tilt of his head as Roni approached with his usual beer.

When Henry still didn’t move to answer, simply groaning and hiding his face back in the crook of his arm, Roni supplied. “He’s looking for places to stay… and failing by the looks of it.”

“The asking prices are outrageous! How do you guys survive here?” he griped into his arm.

Roni snorted and Henry peeked up at her with a perturbed eyebrow raised. “You’ve seen the state of the neighborhood and the state of my bar before I decided to fight back. Isn’t that answer enough for you?”

“What’s your budget?” Logan cut in with his query before Henry could snark back and start an argument with the ornery bartender.

“Well,” Henry’s eyes shifted to him just as the older man took a bite out of the pilfered pastry. “With Seattle, I kind of figured I’d be lucky to find something for twenty-two hundred, but there is no way I’m paying almost three thousand for a place that’s barely in the city’s limits.”

“Welcome to the land of Belfrey greed.” chimed Roni as she walked back to tend the bar and the new arrival of customers.

Henry scowled un-amusedly at her back as she went.

“I have space,”

Startled, Henry gazed, wide eyed, back at the Detective. “What?”

“Well, it’s not really a ‘room’, but the den can easily be turned into one.” Logan continued, his good hand going up to scratch nervously behind his ear.

“Wha—Why?” Tilting his head and narrowing his eyes, Henry pressed on. “I know the three of us are ‘kinda’ working together, but we barely know each other. Hell, for all you know I could be a serial killer.” at Logan’s snort and raised brow, Henry rolled his eyes and said defensively. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“I trust you.” Logan relented simply with a shrug of his shoulders. “Besides, I have a gun I’m not afraid to use, and you look to be out of options, mate.”

Still eyeing the older man with suspicion, not used to blatantly kind gestures from others, he asked. “Can I swing by to look at your place before I decide?”

“Of course.” taking a swig of his beer, Logan gestured with his head to the closed laptop. “Now, what was it you wanted to show me?”

(***)

Walking into the apartment after Logan, Henry took in the sparsely decorated living space with a familiar pang beating against his chest. It was neat and orderly, everything he considered the detective to be, even after a week of working covertly with him and Roni. But seeing it so bare, devoid of… well, devoid of life and personality; it all just resonated with him. There wasn’t even a single picture or photo on the walls or table tops (Henry knows there are photos of Logan out there. He’s seen the pictures Roni hangs proudly on the walls of her establishment, knows that the picture of Logan and Roni—two best friends, he’s come to learn, that grew up together in the neighborhood—has a special place right behind the bar where she works). There was nothing, other than the books neatly tucked into a shelf, to give Henry a glimpse into what made this man Logan Rogers.

Walking through the 900 square foot space, he knew it wasn’t just the home of a bachelor; it was the home of someone who was just as lost as Henry himself felt. A space made entirely out of necessity rather than be made to feel like an actual home. It reminded him of his years after the foster system, before he had met his late wife, where he had had nothing of that old life worth keeping. Anything he had gained afterwards had been destroyed by the fire that took his wife and daughter three years ago, and after that he had just never bothered to start over (it wouldn’t bring them back and honestly they were all Henry wanted, not materialistic things).

As Logan led him through the kitchen toward the open den, Henry wondered what kind of past the man must have had, wondered if he too was an orphan looking for a place to belong.

“Here it is.” Logan stated with a flourish of his hand and ultimately cutting Henry out of his thoughts.

His eyes roved over the small space, at the neat and tidy desk underneath the window and the wall lined with more bookshelves and books and a single three-drawer filing cabinet.

“Sorry, I know it’s not much… doesn’t even have a door.”

Henry’s eyes cut to the older man just as he saw his good hand go to scratch behind his ear (a nervous tick he’d come to realize early on in the week). “No, it’s perfect,” He reassured as he walked around the opened room; envisioning where his stuff would fit. “I don’t really need that much space anyway.” he moved back to the opened archway and gave the man a small smile. “And privacy can be fixed with a curtain,”

“Does that mean you accept my offer?”

“If you don’t mind me for a roommate, than yeah, I’ll take it.”

(***)

A little over one month since his move into the neighborhood, and not once did Henry regret his decision (well, maybe a little; after all, Victoria Belfrey and her daughter are a force to be reckoned with… and good god did those two give him a headache sometimes). He genuinely liked it here; he liked most of the quirky people and he could clearly see why the neighborhood was worth trying to save. He also found rooming with Logan to be better than he originally expected. Sure they had their moments (like the kitchen incident that nearly gave the detective an aneurysm, or how scarily grumpy Logan could get when he’s had a bad day at the station), but their camaraderie was easy going between them, and for once after three years, Henry felt like he had a true friend again.

It was because of this easy camaraderie that Henry and Logan, one Saturday morning, found themselves planning a Star Wars marathon and arguing over the order in which to watch it (“They’re my movies, Rogers!” “And it’s my TV, Mills.”).

Somehow Henry won the argument, which found Logan sitting on the couch with the large popcorn bowl settled on the middle cushion and a beer in his hand, while Henry squatted down in front of their combined movie collection to find the first disk.

As he skimmed the neatly ordered DVDs for the one he wanted, his finger froze on a particular title and could barely contain the Cheshire cat grin as he pulled it out and pivoted to face the detective.

“The Princess Bride: Special Edition.”

Logan scowled and pointed his finger at him as he defended. “Shove off, mate, it’s a good book and a good movie; leave it alone.”

The grin on Henry’s face turned impish as he pivoted back and added as he went, “As you wish.”

The couch pillow thrown at his back did nothing to curb his mirth.

(***)

It was almost three months after his move to Hyperion Heights, that Henry managed to work the nerve enough (more like getting the quadrant that was Roni, Logan, Sabine and Lucy to shut up, and to stop hounding him to try and move on and be happy) to ask Jacinda on a date.

Glancing at himself in the hallway mirror, and trying to ignore the grinning idiot leaning against the wall a few paces behind him; he felt the bubbling of nerves roiling in his stomach as he finally turned to face his roommate.

“You’ll be fine,” Logan soothed with the utmost confidence. “You didn’t have any problems when you were flirting with her, one date isn’t going to kill you, mate. Just be yourself.”

“Yeah, be myself.” Henry snorted and rubbed his sweating palms against his jean clad thighs. “Cause any girl would swoon at a failed writer, a widowed husband, and a nerd for all things 80’s, Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Tolkien related.”

“Henry,” Logan stepped forward than, placing his hand and prosthetic firmly on his shoulders as he earnestly stated. “You’ve told Jacinda all of this already and yet she still accepted to go to this concert with you. So cut yourself a little slack, give her a little more credit than that, and go out tonight and have fun.”

(***)

It was almost six months after his move, and during one of their covert meet ups at the bar, when Henry felt a little friendly revenge against Roni and Logan was in order (because dear god, if they didn’t stop and take their own damn advice, he was going to go crazy… or take Roni’s bat and beat himself or them with it… really, he wasn’t picky).

It hadn’t been long after his and Jacinda’s first—or even their second— date that Jacinda decided enough was enough and it was time to try and win custody of her daughter back from her step mother. Detective Weaver had recommended a Lawyer from Spokane, and ever since Kevin Adams stepped foot into Roni’s bar, the two had done nothing but snark at each other.

Within the same month, a missing person’s case had popped up that apparently Weaver thought required the work of a sketch artist from Walla Walla… or so Logan kept griping to him to no freaking end. Honestly, Henry thought Danielle (or Dani as she asked to be called) a rather nice woman, maybe a little too bubbly and Chatty Cathy at times, but if Logan was to be believed than she was the worst woman he had ever had the displeasure to work with.

Yeah… right…

Denial, she is a river, and both of them are currently drowning at the bottom of it.

“So,” He began innocently around a mouthful of pizza. “When are you both going to stop pussy-footing around and ask Dani and Kevin out?”

The soda Logan was drinking and the pizza Roni was currently chewing, both ended up spat out on the table and floor, and the word vomit that followed as they tried to deny it had Henry rolling his eyes so hard he was surprised that they didn’t just roll right out of his head.

“Uh-huh,” putting his slice back down on his plate, he folded his arms across his chest and stared them both down, feeling for all the world like the no nonsense father he should have been to the daughter that would have been thirteen now. “Guys, I’m not stupid… and the last I checked my vision was perfect, so not blind either.” He cut them off before they could rush to deny it any farther. “If I have to sit here and watch you two continue with this charade a moment longer, I will either be checking myself in somewhere or Detective Weaver will have not one but three missing person’s cases to contend with.”

They didn’t try to feed him any more bullshit after that, which he was grateful for, because seriously there was only so much a person can take.

And if he caught his roommate dressed (rather nicely) in a blue button up shirt, black iron pressed slacks, and trying to rush past him and out the door before Henry could say a word with a bouquet of pink and yellow roses in hand.

Well… he could only thank whatever deity listening for small miracles.

(***)

It’s at elven months since his move, that Henry felt for all the world a content man. Jacinda had won her battle against her step-mother, and Lucy had become a constant presence in the apartment, especially since he had offered to watch her after school while Jacinda worked. He loved Lucy and her precocious nature, found her imagination beyond incredible for an elven year old and even began to look forward to hearing her crazy theories about them being cursed.

Sometimes they would be alone, with him helping her with her homework and other times Logan would be there, smiling and humoring her and her theories like they all had agreed to do.

It was during one of these nights, after Jacinda and Lucy had eaten dinner with them and left, that Logan’s curiosity had gotten the better of him. They were in the kitchen, Henry washing the dishes while his roommate dried them, that Logan broke the comfortable silence.

“Who does she think I am?”

“Huh?” Henry glanced over with a brow raised.

“Lucy,” he elaborated. “With her theories, who does she think I am? She never tells me when I ask.”

Henry snorted out a chuckle as he handed over the plate and proceeded washing the next one while answering. “Captain Hook.”

“You’re kidding.” The dry look Henry gave him caused him to roll his eyes. “It’s the hand isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Henry shrugged. “Or it could be the fact that she thinks you’re my dad.”

“What?” Logan froze mid swipe with the towel and Henry could practically feel the man’s eyes burning his profile.

“Yeah, crazy, I know.”

“Mate, if she is to be believed and you are my son; I would have had you when I was 11…”

They both chuckled at that.

“Again, crazy, I know.”

They went back to the comfortable silence as they worked, but the occasional contemplative side eye he would catch Logan giving him in his peripheral as they cleaned up the rest of the kitchen, eventually had Henry turning to stare blatantly at the man’s profile with an eyebrow raised in question.

“Do I have barbeque sauce on my face or something?”

Startled, Logan shifted his attention away from the stove top he was wiping down, and met his eyes with that contemplative expression still in place.

“No, you’re fine.” He distractedly answered.

“Than what’s on your mind? And don’t tell me nothing; you’ve been staring at me off and on for the past five minutes?”

“I was just thinking.”

The other brow rose to meet its twin as he deadpanned. “Clearly,”

Logan rolled his eyes and elaborated. “I was thinking about what you said, about who Lucy thinks I am.”

“Logan, none of that is real.”

“No, I know that… but—now that it’s been said, I can’t help but see it. Hell, Henry you can’t tell me that you can’t see it, not even a little bit.”

Henry tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at him; his eyebrows practically at his hairline now.

“We do look a little alike, mate; long lost cousins or brothers or something. I mean you do kinda have my chin, our noses are almost similar and the brow structure too…” he trailed off.

With a snort, Henry joked. “You’ve been hanging out with Dani too much, you’re even starting to sound like a sketch artist.”

“Shut up,”

He dodged and caught the wet rag thrown at him, before tossing it back; both chuckling at the ridiculousness of it all as they finished up and moved to the couch to see what was on TV.

Expect, as the days and weeks progressed (and Weaver shockingly adopted two pre-teen girls from Aberdeen that looked eerily like Dani and Logan), Henry found that he couldn’t stop thinking about it too (no matter how hard he tried to shake the insane notion from his head each and every time it sprung back into the forefront of his thoughts).

He’d often catch himself staring at Logan when the older man was distracted and—illogically enough as it was—could practically see what the other man was talking about.

It was crazy.

It wasn’t conceivable.

But damn it all if Logan wasn’t right.

They did share the same freaking chin, and though his nose was a bit larger than Logan’s, it was the same freaking shape.

Maybe he needed to check himself in somewhere after all…

(***)

Sixteen months after moving to Hyperion Heights, the curse was broken.

It had been an emotionally exhausting week beforehand, with Lucy suddenly falling into a coma that the doctors couldn’t medically explain. Jacinda had rightfully been beside herself with worry, and all Henry could feel was the crushing feeling of losing another loved one… another child. It had been the very reason why he didn’t like opening up, didn’t like taking these leaps of faith when it came to his heart and feelings. Yet he had stupidly allowed himself to get close to all these people, and stupidly thought he could have a second chance at a family, but those dreams had gone up in flames the first time and now plummeted back down from the stars a second time with the flat lining of the heart monitor as Jacinda brokenly wailed her heartache.

He didn’t feel the hand of his roommate trying to console him as he numbly watched Jacinda break down in the waiting room they had been forcibly moved too when the doctors came swarming into the room. Didn’t hear the words being spoken as Jacinda fought and then bonelessly collapsed in Sabine and Roni’s arms; her wails gut wrenching and shredding his already scarred heart to pieces. The flood of his emotions and his own tears didn’t come until after the doctor told them that their precious, precocious little Lucy was truly and utterly gone, that the defibrillator failed to restart her heart.  

It was Logan who caught him when his legs refused to hold his weight any longer, when the world suddenly came crushing down around him and nothing felt right anymore. And it was Logan who helped him into the chair; the warm presence of his roommates hand at the back of his neck guiding his head to lean on his broad shoulder. And he took the comfort and sobbed for all he was worth. Sobbed for the loss of the wife and daughter he had had to bare losing and moving on from all on his own, sobbed for Jacinda and how much she didn’t deserve to know the gut wrenching pain that losing a child brought, sobbed for Lucy who had been robbed of her own dreams, who had been robbed the chance to live and grow.

His heart hurt as he followed Jacinda into the room to say goodbye, the tears blurring his vision at seeing the white sheet lying over Lucy’s little body; so final in its position that it made him want to collapse all over again. But he couldn’t, he had to be strong for Jacinda as he was the one to hold her upright as they moved toward the bed.

Her sobs as she pulled back the sheet to view her daughters pale face tore at him even more, her words a broken, jumbled mess as she climbed onto the bed and wept onto her daughters unmoving chest.

Running on autopilot, Henry’s feet moved of their own accord; one hand going to Jacinda’s shaking back and the other to card the bangs off of Lucy’s forehead.

“I’m sorry Lucy, I’m so, so sorry.” He whispered as he leaned down and pressed his lips to her crown.

The whoosh of wind startled him and before he could right himself to wonder where it came from, the overwhelming flood of memories came next; slamming everything back into place and causing the air to deflate right out of his lungs. The watery, startled gasp from Ella (his wife, his true love) told him she remembered too, but it was the choked rush of life from his daughter, his daughter (his beautiful and very much alive little girl, his other true love), that was bloody music to his ears and heart.

“Papa? Mama?” she wheezed out as her eyes foggily and confusedly took them and her surroundings in.

“Baby!”

Everything was alright.

Everything in the world was right again.

(***)

The moment Lucy was cleared to leave; the overdue reunion of their family came afterwards. The battle was far from over; not with Tremaine and Drizella currently in hiding and no one knowing where they had run off too, but they were together again, and at the moment that was enough for them all as they celebrated at the bar that had been his adoptive mother’s home for the last eighteen months.

Henry had his wife and daughter back, his half-sisters, both his mothers, both his step-fathers and his grandfather. To say he was over the moon would have been an understatement as the din of fairytale characters and his family filled the industrial styled establishment.

It was all so overwhelming still that he had to take a seat at one of the tables; simply content to watch as he sipped at his beer. Killian soon joined him with his own glass, rum he was sure now that the man remembered who he was, and the thought of step-fathers in general had his mind venturing to their conversation once again.

It must have been on Killian’s mind as well because before either knew what they were truly doing, they were starting at one another, eyes narrowed and the rim of their drinks to their lips as they tried to see what apparently their cursed selves had been able to see.

“Man, I hope this is the last curse we ever have to face. I’ve lost count at how many cursed memories we’ve had forced into our heads at this point.” Emma groaned, yet her arrival didn’t completely break their staring contest as she dropped into the chair next to Killian; her eyes not yet looking at either of them but at her daughters who were laughing along with Lucy near the corner of the bar. She blindly but efficiently snatched her husband’s glass out of his hand and downed the last shot of the dark amber that was left as she continued. “Seriously though, can you imagine the identity crisis we’ll have in our old age if we get Alzheimer’s?” Finally glancing over at them, and realizing she had neither her son nor her husband’s attention, she raised an eyebrow and asked with trepidation. “What’s up with you two? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah love,” Killian briefly met Emma’s eyes, before he was squinting back at Henry as he continued. “Apparently while cursed, and thanks to our lovely granddaughter, the two of us got it into our heads that we were blood related; something about seeing similarities in our features and what have you.”

Blinking once than twice, Emma’s eyes bounced from one to the other, before she was tilting her head and squinting at them as well. Satisfied with what she saw, she nodded to herself, shrugged, and stated. “I can see it, especially when you wear your hair like this and stop shaving.” She grinned and chuckled and leaned forward to ruffle her son’s gel slicked hair, which Henry swatted away with a scowl as he tried to fix it back into place.

However her statement only proceeded to have them squint even harder at each other, and Emma could do nothing more than laugh at her first two goofy true loves.

As the celebrations began to die down and people started heading home, Henry and Killian simply shrugged and let it go as they hugged each other goodbye for the night (each having every intention of spending this night with their loved ones).

“Well,” Killian began softly. “Blood related or not, you’re still my son Henry; always have been, my boy.”

The smile that stretched Henry’s face, nearly threatened to split his skin from ear to ear as he replied just as softly but no less sincerely. “Thanks, dad.”

And if they hugged each other just a little tighter and their eyes shone just a little brighter with emotion, no one that witnessed the moment commented on it.

[ct-1508]

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Continue stamped concrete on linking concrete. When planning your stamped concrete driveway, as an example. Look beyond just the drive. Certain your driveway can produce a great deal of impact with stamped concrete, however the entire look can be reversed if you don't continue the pattern on attaching walkways, paths, or turnabouts.

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These are the large, deep lines that are installed every 5 or 10 feet on every concrete work. They are mounted in an effort to avoid breaking or more especially, to give the concrete a certain location to crack. The trouble with control joints in stamped concrete is they absolutely destroy the exterior that the stamped concrete was attempting to accomplish.

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Facts Everyone Should Know About Stamped Concrete

Which is very important for any surface area yet especially guaranteeing for your driveway. Occasionally pavers can amount to a slightly greater cost tag. But Pavers are only a little greater valued, per square foot, as stamped concrete. Given that pavers are custom-made developed as well as each piece is set in by hand, the general value is a lot greater for pavers vs.

    You can walk or drive on pavers the immediate the job is completed. This is not true with concrete. There is typically a curing time of 3-5 days prior to you can utilize concrete after it's been set up. And also although you may not remain in that much of a thrill, troubles can arise throughout that treating time, such as severe climate, children or animals running across the concrete, vandals composing in the concrete before it cures, or dramatic adjustments in temperature level over night that can cause the concrete to heal at different prices throughout the work.

    They're dealt with and also all set to go from the minute the job is done! Any kind of concrete specialist worth his salt will mount rebar into the concrete throughout building and construction. The disadvantage of this is if the concrete is ever torn out and removed in the future, the recycling facilities will decline concrete with rebar inside of it.

Pavers are individual systems. As well as you can reuse them in two different means. First (hopefully) you would just find somebody that wants them. Yet if that's not an option somehow, you can fully recycle the pavers at any type of plant that accepts tidy used concrete. The average stamped concrete contractor will have possibly 5-15 different stamps available.

Facts About Stamped Concrete That Will Make You Feel Better

The options available in pavers greatly exceed those in the stamped concrete market. Stamped concrete, by nature, is an imitation of another thing. The stamp and coloring is generally attempting to imitate either ceramic tile, block, pavers, blue stone, or flagstone. Provided the resemblance in expense, why would not you just go with the genuine point? Concrete pavers been available in all type of sizes and shapes, from natural flagstone to big ceramic tile to actual cut stone to concrete interlacing pavers.

There is virtually no advantage to stamped concrete over pavers. The range offered in pavers nowadays is much better than anything offered in the stamped concrete market. Additionally, we guarantee every one of our benefit 5 years. Concrete is something we can not guarantee. We recognize it will probably fracture in the first 5 years and there's little we can do to protect against that.

And if you do, you'll possibly never discover one that will certainly provide a warranty that is more than 1 year. There's a reason for this. Stamped concrete looks great when contrasted to routine, standard concrete. However the far better alternative is pavers. Please assess our web page on interlocking concrete pavers . And also call today to see some examples of what we can provide for your building! Lewis Landscape Services-- Paver Patios & Driveways Portland Oregon Page .