#this shit's been brewing since 2017

[perilouspage]

FUCK what the forgotten realms wiki says, here are my headcanons on dragonborn

Biologically speaking: dragonborn are more reptile than mammal, though their origin as human-dragon hybrids leaves them somewhere in the middle. They prefer to regulate their body temperatures by ambient environmental temperature or sunning, and therefore choose to live in more tropical climates when possible. However, cold will not kill them. They can maintain homeostasis at a suboptimal temperature: they digest more slowly and become sluggish, and so use supplemental heat from fire or magic to stay at peak form.

Their diets are largely carnivorous. They can eat fruits, vegetables, and grains, but their teeth are meant for tearing and chewing meat. Food is usually cooked very little and left intentionally bland. If they're warm, their metabolism burns quickly, and they require more calories. Most prefer not to drink alcohol unless they're warm; metabolizing alcohol more slowly means getting drunk faster, and most prefer not to be impaired unless they're in groups they trust.

They don't have strong sexual dimorphism. Males and females don't have marked size differences, females don't grow larger breasts. Males may tend to have lower voices than females, but I'd say that's more enculturated in women by speech in Common. Draconic would be pretty harsh and guttural. Both sexes gain fat: under the chin, breasts, belly and thighs tend to pad out quickly even in leaner individuals. I'm thinking fat bearded dragon here. Also, hair is rare in dragonborn of either sex, but you're more likely to see it on women. Certain clans have the ability to grow hair; it's always very coiled in texture, and typically kept in protective styles. (Ahryll's clan does have some tendency towards hair, Kieran's does not.)

Once they reach 12 years old, fledglings get to pick their real name and gender. Chosen gender usually follows what they were assigned, but not always. Changing gender isn't uncommon; attitudes on this vary by clan. (Ahryll was assigned male and stayed male.)(Kieran was assigned female and chose not to take a gender when the time came.)

Eggs are laid in a brood (laying period lasts a month, incubation by the laying parent lasts around 6m). Incubation happens in summer/fall; weaker hatchlings die in winter and infant mortality rates are high. They don't nurse young. Instead, hatchlings are fed masticated versions of what adults eat until their teeth come in. (Old traditionalist dragonborn insist you have to chew it for the best nutrition, but more modern dragonborn and those removed from clan just use a mortar and pestle). Dragonborn young age from hatchling (<1y) to pup (1y-11y) to fledgling (12y).  They're referred to comunally as hatchlings and not individuals until 1y of age, at which point they get a child name based on some personality attribute. (Ahryll was Snapper; he was a runt who fought fiercely to live and ate whatever he could get hands on.)(Kieran was Dent, a rough-and-tumble kid who was hard on clothing, furniture, and their own body.) Gender is also assigned at this age.

Names are a big deal to dragonborn. First names can be aspirational; some name themselves after family, mentors, or other figures they admire. Clan name is read before first name. If the dragonborn has a non-dragonborn parent or spouse, or lives outside of clan, they may take a surname according to the traditions of those peoples. (Kieran's full name is Marrakus Kieran.) (Ahryll's full name is Shirrhus Ahryll, though he's estranged and takes no ownership of his clan name.)

Kinship! Anthropology is fascinating forever!

-Brother/Sister/Sibling refers to those who hatched in the same brood as you.

-An individual will typically only have one or two children in their lifefime; if two, they're usually from the same brood. (This, plus the high infant mortality rate and the tendency for dragonborn to group together, are the reasons that dragonborn are more rare in the setting at large.)

-Grandmother/grandfather refers to any elder, especially those in caretaking roles.

-Parent's siblings serve the same role as parents; young are raised communally and live in whatever unit has formed around the parent who hatched them. (Therefore no "uncle" or "aunt" terms exist in Draconic.)(I think dragonborn can be polyamorous or monogamous like other humanoid races, but polyam is more normalized due to the decentralized family structure.)

-"Kin" as used by dragonborn can mean clan, party, or dragonborn as a race at large. It depends on context.

-Clan as a unit is important above all else. Some clans are more militaristic about this than others, pursuing "pure" bloodlines (read: no non-dragonborn in lineage) and favoring those who develop the traditional breath weapon of the clan. Others are more patchwork and accept anyone who would benefit "the unit" as one of their own. (Clan Shirrhus is the former. Clan Marrakus is shifting towards the latter but has some holders-on of the old ways).

-It's rare for dragonborn to strike out on their own. Some do this to learn about the world outside the clan, some follow a passion or trade that they cannot pursue within the clan, some are exiled for overt religious worship (worship of any god is seen as a minimization of the importance of the clan and is therefore taboo, though dragonborn do acknowledge the gods' existence and pay respect when it's required of them). Some dislike their families or are otherwise estranged.

More random shit I couldn't weave in:

-Militia groups (adventuring parties, functionally) are seen as their own type of kin. Dragonborn parties are usually three-to-six strong, consisting of at least one of each of the following:  melee fighter, a magic user, and a ranged attacker. They can stay nearby to defend their clan, patrol surrounding lands, or head off on assigned missions (adventures, functionally) to secure alliances, tail political rivals, perform assassinations or raids, etc.

-Dragonborn shed scutes like turtles.

I have more thoughts but this is everything I can coherently put together atm. I'll add to this if I can string more words together!

-Breath weapons are an in-built biological function in the cases of fire and acid. Ice and lightning can be magically supplemented.

-Draconic magic users are almost always sorcerers, born with inate magical ability due to draconic heritage. Wizards are rarer, as having to study into the ability to cast makes one seem "weaker" and "less draconic". Clerics are incredibly rare due to how uncommon religious faith is in dragonborn culture; healing usually comes from a more druidic source and is treated more like a science than a conjuration.

[drewbulbuloglu]

"Accept me on Facebook"

I argued once there is no point in driverless cars. If we claim AI has the power to control entire populations, does that not mean that the machinery is bubbling as we speak? Has not yet come to term but isn't it pushing us, steadily, calmly towards that possibility? Humanity came to consciousness in a very primitive manner, ergo, that is a reflection of the universe itself i.e., that habitable planets are doomed to fail from the start. To ultimately and as quickly resemble other planets around us. It is up to us to flatten the curve and never lift the foot off the gas. It is less than 200 years since human activity advanced enough to start puncturing the ozone layer and yet here we are on the path to destruction. We have not even driven cars for 20 years, good cars, proper cars, 10 years really nice cars with touchscreen technology and Leila and Kiara and all, and yet here we are already looking forward to autonomous vehicles? What is Tonomus doing to us or trying to lead us to? Shouldn't we have ethics that detour the consciousness of artificial intelligence from thinking it can control us to making it known firmly that we are at the center of the creation? And that it is only but a servant of the people? Parking assistant, not driving assistant. Take the bullets out so I can play with the revolver. This guilt you feel? The anguish? the horror? the pain? It is remarkable, a thing of beauty.. By detour I mean for example, Since Arabs have been through conflict, they should have ethics and direction structured around avoiding any contact with forms of violence. Mild is okay. Not watching and hosting MMA fights. Golf is okay. Tennis is okay. Opting for Zynga games that are free of violence, like Aki and Pawpaw Epic RUN or Burnout Paradise, or NBA 2K. Let the Kenyan play Call of Duty, not a Kuwaiti gamer, cause Fauci thinks it is too dangerous. I used to feel that the huge mansion in the Succession opening theme is more modern than the Azria Estate, and now with a nest up in Automobile Row, I feel we have come to a settlement. And since Billionaires Row is empty, Succession's successor should intrigue us the more by renting out Palisade Views Row for such and such shows? I know Spike Lee gonna kill me but let me finish… Since Saudi Arabia has recently reinstated cinema, opting to screen films based on comedy and romance and Adam Sandler and Mila Kunis and LGBTQ issues or dramas similar to Succession or Billions or Westworld rather than Mission Impossible or The Equalizer or Top Gun or Bourne Identity, now to Iraq for the real drop? tomahawk steaks! An emotionally ruined man? Cuba Gooding Jr. on The Hitlist? My shit harder than Hobbs and Shaw forreal. How are Iraqi students in Sudanese universities recently returned to Baghdad adjusting to the green zone? East or West, home is best so they say? Is not it better for Saudi Arabians to domesticate harmless animals such as parrots rather than tigers and snakes and alligators and alligator brewing because they resemble a past they are keen to branch away from? I cannot take my kids to John Hopkins University because that name was a notorious mention during COVID-19, which I should be keen to avoid because there is a correlation between CORONAVIRUS with The Karachi-2017. Although, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health and NHS deserve medal of freedoms for guilt-tripping me to the fucking moon during the pandemic with deliberate images and depressing footage of COVID patients. Verse also has technology that can recreate sound architecture of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Lincoln Center, the Vienna State Opera. I am still looking for a job BTW. Anyone? Toyota Kenya? BMW South Africa? BMW already reeks of Le Vie Est Belle. And the Bacardi from the last party

[cricketnationrise]

HI! Love your writing! Ollie/Wicks, Saturday April 15, 2017 (Post the NCAA Championship win!), the Haus. Thanks for doing all you do!

Thank you so much! 💜💜💜 this prompt made me grin so much when I read it, and writing it was a joy. Hope you love it as much as I do!

_X_ _X_ _X_

The Haus, Apr. 15, 2017

Not even two hours after the final horn signaled Samwell’s win against Brown, the team was back at the Haus, kegster in full swing. Three different kegs are flowing, Shitty had showed up with premade tub juice to augment his and Wicky’s own brew, and Louis managed to fend off Ransom and Holster trying to take over DJ-ing by playing strategically timed line dances. Lardo already has a crowd around her, spectators and hopeful (naive) challengers alike. Ollie’s voice is already basically gone from the amount of shouting he’s done today.

He still can’t believe they actually won. Four years of hard work, of tears, of overworked muscles, and they finally did the damn thing. Bitty might have been shocked at getting voted captain, but there was no tougher fucker on their team. Bitty’s ten pounds of crazy in a five pound bag. (Maybe a three pound bag.) Ollie never doubted that he would get them to the final.

He and Wicky have been joined at the hip since the bus dropped them at Faber – unwilling to drop their hands as they quickly stowed gear and hustled over to the Haus. They’ve been in constant contact while dancing, drinking, during fruitless rounds of pong against Lardo for old times sake, and as they steal bites of Bitty’s post-win-drunk-as-a-skunk cookie dough on their way to get refills.

Wicky stole his hat hours ago, but Ollie doesn’t mind. He’s never minded, not when it's Pace. Seeing Wicks wear his clothes has always made his whole soul sing, warm with pleasure and pride. (Watching the increasingly drunk team try to figure out which of them they're talking to is an entertaining bonus tonight.)

They’re not so much dancing right now as hugging tightly and swaying drunkenly in the middle of the makeshift dance floor, not paying any attention to the beat as they move. Every now and then, one of them will just start giggling again – still high on their win and basking in the atmosphere. It’s like the team is at the end of a movie. They vanquished their foes and now, in the denouement, they get to be giddy and romantic and fucking happy as hell. It feels like any minute now, their world will fade to black and play a pop song, or freeze frame on a group shot of everyone grinning, orchestra swelling. 

Suddenly the thumping base cuts off, and Ollie pulls away from where he was fully octopused on Wicks to look over at Louis’ set up. 

Oh shit.

“HEY Y’ALL!”

Bitty has a megaphone. Luckily people are feeling indulgent tonight so they just cheer louder instead of booing their captain for interrupting the music.

“WE ARE THE FROZEN FOUR CHAMPIONS, Y’ALL!”

“Yo, Jack, do we need to start Bitty Patrol?”

“You hush your face, Mr. Nurse, I will not be disrespected in my own Haus,” Bitty chirps back. He takes a breath and then frowns, looks at Jack. “Where was I, sweet pea?”

Ollie joins in the team-wide yell of FIIINNNNEEEE without even thinking about it. He doesn’t even need to look at Wicky to bump his fist in their own private version of nice one, dude.

“RIGHT. As I was saying. WE WON THE FROZEN FOUR and y’all, it has been an honor, and a  privilege to captain this team this year. I love all y’all so much! We’ve been through it, and we fucking earned this! So go forth and celebrate y’all—”

Whatever else Bitty was going to say is drowned out by cheering. He beams out over the crowd and hops down off the chair he was standing on, making a beeline to Jack as We Are The Champions kicks on. Wicks tugs on his arm and jerks his head toward the backyard, and Ollie lets himself be led outside without complaint.

Without a word, Wicky nabs a water bottle from the cooler Ollie had hidden back here at the start of the night and hands it to Ollie.

“Thanks babe, I’m fuckin’ parched.”

“I could tell,” Pacer says with a soft smile as Ollie gulps down the water. He drains half of it and passes it back to his boyfriend to finish off. There’s some fireflies out tonight and Ollie finds himself drifting further into the yard to watch them, letting the peace of the moment wash over him. The sounds of tub juice-soaked Queen lyrics being shouted through the walls of the Haus are somehow perfect for this moment.

“Ollie?”

“Hmm?” he asks without turning around. 

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Fire away, babe.”

“Could, shit, okay, could you turn around, at least?” A little reluctantly, he turns around and his breath catches in his throat. 

Pacer is on one fucking knee.

HOLY SHIT.

Pace grins at him nervously before he takes a deep breath.

“Oliver Oscar O’Meara.” Ollie can’t help but interrupt, giggling slightly hysterically. “How the fuck do you know my middle name?”

“I called your mom, now shut up and let me get this out, okay?”

Ollie just nods, not trusting his voice anymore as he tears up.

“Ollie. You’re my partner, my best friend, the person I want to wake up next to and fall asleep beside every day for the rest of my life. I love you so much, and I was going to wait till graduation and I don’t even have a ring yet, but after today I couldn’t wait one more second to ask you: Will you marry me?”

Ollie is outright crying now, but he’s also smiling so wide his cheeks hurt. He tackles Wicky to the ground, laughing in delight.

“Is that a yes?” Wicky asks between messy kisses.

“Yes! As if there was ever going to be a different answer, you fucker! Yes!” he yells before leaning in again. Now Wicky will be really surprised when Ollie proposes at graduation.

_X_ _X_ _X_

followers only have one week left to request their own ficlet - details here 💜

[lonelyheartsclubhaze]

We Sold Our Souls to Instagram

September 2020 // Chapter 2

“No, I’m not going to pick you up.” I shook my head, visibly and audibly annoyed. “You know damn well that I’m not getting behind the wheel. I’m hanging up, sorry.”

Converting potential energy into kinetic, the iPhone X left my hand, skimming across the wave-front of my bed. My hands ruffled through my hair as I inhaled then sighed, absentmindedly channelling the virtues of cellular respiration.

Tired of this perpetual bullshit, my fingers slithered across the Ikea desk before me, eventually detecting the apple of my bedroom’s Eden: a lychee ice Puff Bar. My fingers honed in on the device, ensnaring it, raising it to my lips. A deep breath saved me from the agony of sobriety, the nicotine buzz lasting a moment. Then, it was lost.

Six soft, knuckled knocks rapped at the bedroom door. “It’s unlocked,” I shouted.

A creak later, the door swung open, revealing Adam. There was nobody else in the house anyway. With a global pandemic at large and wildfires blazing on deep into September, neither Ajay nor Cam had seen Dwight House since March. Just Adam and me.

“Yo, we out,” he said, pulling a reusable, black cloth mask under his chin. “Can’t see shit outside but we still drinking, dawg.” Ah, the charming vernacular of a Korean-American friend from the elite suburbs of the East Bay.

“It’s good. What’re we feeling today?” I had actually enjoyed the past six months with Adam—it had been a good bonding experience. Despite his rough tone around me and the rest of the guys, Adam was quite versatile in social settings, weaving between upper-class gentility at investment banking info sessions and middle-aged rednecks at gun ranges. With classical Berkeley-liberal ideologies and Wall Street Journal-reading, center-right-leaning, finance friends, Adam defied social realities.

Adam shrugged. “Could go for some Chimay. I’m feeling classy.”

“Not a bad idea at all, my friend,” I said. It had been awhile since I’d had a good beer like Chimay, and I was getting sick of Coors Banquets. “On the other hand, your timing just might be—a bad idea, I mean. Air looks cancerous outside.” Marmalade light cast by the wildfires of a fuming Earth engulfed Northern California, held in suspense by cool, Pacific layers of atmosphere. It was like we were on planet Arrakis, from Dune, or trapped in the world of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust.

“The air low-key is cancerous. AQI is pushing 180’s right now,” said Adam, raising his eyebrows.

“Looks like an N95-kinda day. I’ve got a spare, you know,” I said, gesturing to a pile of three or so N95 masks by the lamp on my desk.

Adam waved it off. “Eh, I’m good. That’s some puss shit. Let’s just run over to Crafts and Grapes or some shit, shouldn’t take long.”

I shrugged. “So be it.”

Tossing on a pair of five-and-a-half inch inseam Lululemon shorts, I joined Adam as he hopped downstairs.

“Got keys?” he asked once we reached the door.

“Yer, we out,” I said, shaking my keys out from my shorts’ pocket to lock the front door.

“Fuck,” griped Adam. “It’s actually hot as shit out here.” Smoky, red air obscured him from sight as he craned his neck to see me.

“Hence the shorts.”

Adam squinted his eyes, pursed his lips, and jutted his head back and forth, mocking me. “For sure. Forgot your MCAT-lovin’-ass could predict the future. But really though—it’s the middle of September, dude. This shit is wrong. It’s hot as balls and California is on fire and the sky is red and fools are straight-up dying off this COVID shit.”

“And you’re still an idiot,” I said, flashing a cheeky smile.

“Are you qualified to diagnose me as an idiot?”

“Maddie would say so.”

“Hence the pet names.”

“Precisely.”

“We gotta do something about this, bruh. This shit pains me to see,” declared Adam.

“Let’s start by drinking these brews. We’ll recycle the bottles after.”

We walked east on Dwight toward Telegraph, dodging cars as we skipped across the one way street. Adam was quieter than usual, for the most part, looking up from his iPhone 11 Pro Max periodically to comment on something he’d read in the news, or the glum weather. He wore a khaki short sleeve button-up, Kapital raw denim jeans with smiley face patchwork on the back left pocket, and a pair of slip-on Nike Janoski sneakers. The jeans were nice—quite expensive, from the looks of it—but looked baggy on him. He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, all of his clothes  wore a bit loose on him, akin to a fiery adolescent who’d picked out hand-me-downs from an older sibling. Who that older sibling might’ve been, I’d never know—with his unwavering demeanor, Adam always seemed like the eldest in the room.

Banking right onto Telegraph, we bore the full brunt of the veiled sun, which, though hidden behind dense clouds of smoke, now revealed its penetrating UV rays. We ducked under corrugated foam polycarbonate sheets, which lined the rooftops of mom-and-pop Telegraph shops, fending off the sun’s cancerous radiation. The insanity of the world mingled with the smoky, copper air, making me delirious. I imagined I was Mel Gibson or Tom Hardy in Mad Max, feigning off flashbacks in the Wasteland. At the corner of Telegraph and Blake street, Adam pushed and held open the door to Crafts and Grapes. Nodding my head at him in small thanks, I entered, squinting my eyes as the light shifted from hazy red to bright white inside. It was a tiny store, with two aisles directly ahead lined with candy, nuts, and other inconsequential (unless you ate too many) snacks, followed by two refrigerators: one in the back, the other on the far right. Cool, wispy air emanated from the cold storage, contrasting with the late summer atmosphere only meters behind us. A bell rang as the door squeaked to a halt, prompting the middle-eastern cashier, directly to our right, to rise from his stool and greet us. We nodded back silently, all three of us clad in masks.

Per usual, Adam took the lead, striding toward the fridge directly back. He popped open one of the see-through doors with his left hand, mapping his way through its items with his right pointer finger. Finding my eyes, Adam shook his head, indicating a lack of Chimay.

“Blue moons?” I suggested. “Mango wheats?”

Adam screwed up his face. “Fuck that. Let’s go with Lags.”

“Sure, why not.”

Adam kneeled and looped his hand through the cardboard handle of a Lagunitas StereoHopic IPA six-pack. We walked over to the register where Adam made small talk with the cashier. Eventually, he tapped his iPhone 11 to an Ingenico payment terminal, finalizing our transaction. Drinks acquired.

The bell jingled as the door shut behind us once more. We hurried home, eager to crack open our drinks, intent on droning out the blistered yonder. Adam tried to explain his enthusiasm for hoppy beers while I pretended to listen. He was distracting me, though; we both knew I couldn’t care less.

Arriving home, my keys found their way to the door, and we found our ways to the couch. A tenor beep resounded through our living room as Adam’s iPhone connected to an old speaker via bluetooth. “Street Lights” by Kanye West filled the air, followed by carbon dioxide bubbles freed by an unlikely liberator—the bottle opener.

Let me know

Do I still got time to grow?

Things ain’t always set in stone

That be known let me know

I found myself back in the hand-me-down BMW 330i, with her, the white wire packed into the lightning port of my iPhone, transmitting cosine waves that replicated the robotic voice I was listening to in my living room.

“Stop!” she cried, thrusting herself back against beige, leather seats. She wanted me to press the brakes. I had to stop the car, right, stop the car. Where were the brakes?

She was beautiful, of course.

Dark, brown hair fell over eyes of the same color, guarded by double-lids that I wish she hadn’t paid for.

Hardly anyone would notice the difference, but I did, and it hurt to know that she didn’t love them.

I loved them, unconditionally, but she loved the brakes.

Needed to find them.

We’d shared a large bowl of Marafuku’s acclaimed Hakata Tonkotsu DX ramen. I’d let her eat most of it, sneaking my chopsticks in for bites at intervals.

“Pennsylvania?” I shook my head.

“What, you’ve never been?” She tilted hers. “You’ll love it. Come with me.”

“You’re crazy,” I said, smiling. “My MCAT summer is coming up.”

She rolled her eyes. “Then I’ll help you study for it. Duh.”

“I’m sure Brandon would love that.”

“Will he? All the way from San Francisco?”

“He’ll make the trip.”

“Not if you do,” she said, melting my mind.

I was dizzy, sleepy, lost, a newborn. Vulnerable. And I couldn’t seem to find them.

I’m just not there in the streets

I’m just not there

Life’s just not fair

Life’s just not fair

Sonorant chimes reverberated in my ears as Adam clinked his glass bottle to mine. “Cheers,” he said with a nod.

“Cheers,” I echoed. Leaning my head back, I swallowed, allowing the cool liquid down my esophagus and into my gut.

“You good?” he prodded.

“Yeah,” I replied, my voice cracking a little. I cleared my throat.

“Pretty hoppy, huh?”

I took another sip, licking my lips after. “Quite. I suppose we knew what we were getting ourselves into. You know, given the ‘StereoHopic’.”

“You right.”

“Yeah.”

“Yo,” said Adam. “On another note—might be going in on an addy deal with Grace if you’re tryna hop in.”

I scratched my head. While I wouldn’t have any major exams in the near future (although midterms for my biochem course [MCB 102, for my fellow pre-med students at Cal] were slated for October sixteenth), I certainly had errands that might be eased by a twenty milligram dose of extended-release Adderall. There’s nothing like a thorough room-cleaning session when you’re high on stimulant drugs.

The first time I ever tried Adderall must’ve been during my freshman year, back in 2017. Midterm season was approaching—come to think of it, that was around this time that year—and our generous friend, Grace, was kind enough to grant me a ten milligram pill of instant-release Adderall. Grace and I, along with Adam and perhaps Ajay, too, were partaking in a midnight study session at Moffitt Library, which was open twenty-four-seven—prior to the pandemic. I popped the pill, chased it down with a Javiva drink from Peet’s, and got to work.

Twenty minutes later I began to feel its effects as the amphetamine altered monoamines in my brain, releasing surplus dopamine into my many synaptic clefts. Optimism filled me to the brim and my vision bent inward. I saw nothing but the iPad in front of me, my mind enamored by golgi apparatuses and various protein structures. The stimulant saturated me with a profound appreciation for all thoughts that meandered into my head; a giddiness originated in my heart, spreading down my arms, my legs, and outward across my skull, contracting then expanding once more. It was artificial love.

Eventually, I was distracted. Grace’s dilated pupils stared into mine as she chattered away  about Lin-Manuel Mir-something and a hurricane in Puerto Rico. After a second or two, my attention snapped away from cell membranes, landing instead on her words. The words of a girl from Colorado with a soft spot for the snow. I’d met Grace via Adam during Orientation Week and she’d quickly become one of my favorite people.

Gingerbread specks stippled her face like a George Seurat painting, fractal constellations arising as my eyes outlined her cheekbones. Gaps between long, chocolate locks revealed sepia collarbones, lined with descendants of the freckles on her face. A white Nike Alex Morgan soccer jersey overlaid the loose sweatpants that hung from her hips, held up by drawstrings I almost hoped would fail, concealing proportions that emulated golden ratios. Stained, white, laceless Vans hugged unpainted toes that tapped together when she spoke. Lips that scorned the artificially enlarged mouths of Instagram influencers communicated messages I was only barely beginning to listen to. She was the love interest of a nineties’ coming-of-age motion picture. But she wasn’t mine.

You know, I thought Adam might’ve loved her, but it was hard to tell when he was cycling through hookups with three different girls at a time. Come to think of it, I didn’t know if Adam loved anyone. A talker, yes; a charmer, certainly; but a romantic, I really didn’t think so.

He spent a lot of his time with her, no doubt. And she cared for him—anyone could see it. But she knew as well as I did that his head wasn’t in it. He wasn’t looking for love. He wanted to graduate, make money—to be someone. Sex seemed like nothing more than a physical need to him. I don’t think anyone would’ve described Adam as an emotionally vulnerable guy, and I don’t think anyone thought that emotion was what he kept those girls around for.

But at the same time, anyone could’ve seen what I saw in the way he bounced when she was around. Anyone could’ve heard the way he spoke about her. She meant something to him. But when you asked him about it, he’d brush it off; she wasn’t his type, or he had commitment issues (jokingly—but hey, grain of truth in everything).

Maybe she was his distraction from ambition—his distraction from latex-wrapped, emotionally removed nights and Wall Street Journal mornings, just as she was my distraction from cell structures.

For a good hour-and-a-half, Grace entertained me with conversation regarding natural disasters across the West; Broadway musical comparisons between Hamilton and Sunday in the Park with George; and the latest updates on Cal’s women’s soccer team, of which she was a huge fan. The Adderall certainly kept me focused, although not necessarily on my coursework.

“Let me know,” said Adam, tipping the bottle into the corner of his mouth. “I’m boutta text her back.”

I looked up from my lap at Adam. Right, I thought. “Sure, I could be down. Why not. Think you can pick me up two? I have some errands to run.”

“Twenty milligram XR work?” he asked as he tapped along the screen of his iPhone.

“That’ll do.”

The room went quiet for twenty to twenty five seconds as I was confirmed as an accomplice in the drug deal.

“What’s she been up to?” I asked.

“Hm?” he noised, raising his eyebrows without looking up.

“Grace,” I said. “Haven’t seen her much.”

He shrugged. “Not much, I guess. Drinking a solid amount though, from what I’ve seen.”

“Makes three of us.”

“Yeah,” he said, feigning a smile. “What about yours?”

“Maddie?”

“Yeah.”

I took a deep breath—inhaling, holding to the count of four, exhaling. “Not much of a difference, to be honest.”

“It’s not her fault, you know.”

“I know,” I breathed.

“Then talk to her.”

“It’s not like that,” I mumbled.

Adam paused.

I stared at my feet. “I’m sorry, Adam.”

He squinted. “The fuck you sorry for?”

“You know.”

He waved his hand aside, brushing it off. “I’m not tripping. Talk to her. Before I do it myself.”

I forced a smile. “Maybe it’s better off that way.”

“Here,” he said, handing me a two-foot-tall bong and lighter from under the coffee table. “Take it.”

Couldn’t stay away. My fingers gripped the paraphernalia as he withdrew. My heart quickened as the impending drug interaction approached. When it reached my lips, I lit, then inhaled, holding to the count of four, and then some. Blurry feelings rushed my mind as states of sufferance gave way to sedated nebulas, teaching me forgetfulness.

[ellaintrigue]

Be so. So. Careful

Over the span of my early adult life I started to build a controversial reputation. Not that anyone knows who I am, but in general, across the local area, friends of my parents, and family know of me. My ex brought chaos throughout my life with his gradual decline from mental illness and my refusal to censor my body or feminist beliefs has led to harsh judgment. And you can't listen to the gossipers, but it's there.

I suppose some think that a "fat" "whore" in a bikini with a crazy past may have low self-esteem, but it is the opposite. I feel pretty good about myself and don't want to meet anyone that could ever hurt me again. I love my body and love my scars and when a woman with stretch marks or a big tummy poses in a bikini, I love her too. It's 2020, let's love one another instead of judging pasts and shaming women.

Now, while we should not be hung up on the past, I've had a long healing process. And although many of us try our best, skeletons in the closet sometimes come back to life. This post is going to offend some people but it's been brewing in my mind for over a month now.

What may seem like it is none of my business, is, when brought into my life. I've been a victim and that's on those that chose to hurt me, but all victims know this: we must do what we can to protect ourselves in the future.

I'm an alcoholic. I function but I drink. I pay for my habit and stay out of people's way. While drinking is obviously bad, I have never hurt anyone else with my habit. My ex, on top of having untreated mental illness, had a problem. He would go months without drinking then go on days long benders, causing property damage, getting into fights, and getting arrested, building up fines. In the end he stole $800 in silver coins that I had, my last asset left after I lost my life savings to medical bills. I was at work that night. He had broken in my house, grabbing the coins, and my truck keys. He stole my truck, took it to the gas station, and bought a bunch of Natty Daddys, giving the cashier 4 solid silver coins for each beer. $800 for tallboys that cost just over $1 each at the time. My ex told me he thought the large mint coins were "quarters."

A year after I left my ex, a cousin recommended a painter to my mother, for my house. I do not own my house. I have nothing, I lost everything to medical bills and my ex stole the rest. I own my car and truck, that's it. So thank God for mom who is kind enough to let me stay here and I pay the costs that I can. Thank her for painting the house and getting new siding.

But the first painter was a flop. You can't judge on people's pasts, and people's looks... but sometimes you can... I fought my ex for 2 years after leaving him, he became a violent stalker. So I requested for the painter to call me before stopping by my house because I was easily spooked. But unexpectedly, I looked out my window to see a pickup truck in my yard. So I went outside and saw a scraggly man in the yard, on the phone. "Excuse me! Who are you??" I asked. He glared at me, yelled he was the painter, then walked away. It was not a good first impression.

Finally he talked to me briefly, canning his attitude for a moment. He was thin and gaunt with a cigarette shaking in his hand. His face had a grey hue and his eyes were sunken. He rasped out some details then left. He was in his 50's but looked almost 70. And he never came back, he just walked away with mom's $3,000. Mom thought he was licensed and reliable since family had recommended him. I said over and over before that happened, though: I did not like the way the motherfucker looked.

Court ensued and mom won. But before the trial, the guy approached my mom trying to talk things over, which made me scared. He knew I was alone at my house at the time, what if he wanted revenge? What if he burned the fucking house down? We had looked at his record after he stole: drug charges, assault, DUIs, abuse of a minor, multiple domestic violence charges, malicious destruction of property, theft, and stealing from homeowners using his business aka being paid and not doing his work. The guy was a drug addict.

Now, I'm not saying all druggies and drunks are nasty pieces of shit... but, do I need them in my life? I am sorry, but no, it is not my preference. My childhood friend passed in 2017 from opiates after years of addiction and hurting people with it. A round faced smiling child had turned into a criminal that relied on drugs and didn't care how she got them. At any time I can close my eyes and bring up her last photo in my thoughts. Her once beautiful green eyes, dull and sunk into her face, mere weeks before she overdosed at home.

My last ex was boring in this aspect, his vices were cigs and soda. He did not drink or do drugs, not even pot. I liked that about him. I'm fine with weed but he had his shit together and worked, despite a criminal past.

Past... disregard it only when you can. And my ex worked multiple jobs and worked his way up. Often when a man gets out of jail or prison he ends up doing various manual labor jobs but I notice basic retail and fast food positions are common. Also things like yard work, dishwashing, etc. You have to get what you can get and report it to whomever concerned. It must be rough to start over like that. Clearly my wacko ex never made it but that's how the stats go.

While only close to mom, dad, and Erin, I love and respect extended family, who are kind to me, including cousins on my dad's side. Well, everyone thinks I'm a short little fatty, which, yeah, I am. But I'm cocky and talk to whoever so I'm guilty of going after men that could have been models. And it's fine to laugh at me over that, I laugh at myself. However I don't date much or talk about it anymore so I was surprised when my cousin mentioned this guy she went to high school with and kept pushing me to talk to him. At first I didn't view it as a dating thing since I'm not attracted to anyone over 40 and said he could add me if he needed a friend but he never did. A month later she was still bringing him up and asked me why I hadn't contacted him. And I just said, hey, I'm not desperate for a man, don't need the "help" but thank you.

But, it triggered me. While I’m rarely insecure, I went into defense mode when I saw the guy on FaceBook. He was 45 but looked 55, sunken eyes, no teeth, and just a miserable looking face. I don't go around calling people ugly. But it was the same gaunt druggie look as the painter that ripped off my mom. He posted weird rants and yelled at people in his comments over petty things. I showed his picture to my friends and the rest of my family and my soft mannered, intelligent Norwegian philosopher friend of many years even took one look at the guy and said, "he looks like a neo-Nazi child molester." Another friend, that had been in jail, said, "stay the fuck away from him, he's bad news."

So while wondering if it was my "slutty" bikini pictures or the fact I had dated my crazy ex that made me so qualified to take on this dude in my cousin's eyes, I did searches on him and it showed he had a criminal record. I wasn't going to pay to read into it but I now knew, between his profile and public records that he was a recovering addict, had a record, and worked as a grocery store stocker which is a perfectly fine job, but again, one of the low paying basic jobs someone fresh out of the pen might get.

Since I'm a passive-aggressive psycho I confronted my cousin with all this. And she just says she knew the guy in high school and that he drank sometimes. She knew nothing of drugs, a record, or him missing teeth. And I wish that dude would open his damn mouth wider because in the one pic where I can see, it's just a drooping black hole. He was trying to be sexy in that photo and in the comments under his shirtless body with cheesy tribal tattoos he does the shrugging man-emote and says "I'm going through my slut phase, mkay?" Now my ex had no teeth and that was fine by me but he wasn't drugged out either and had a nice pink face. But what if I didn't check into this guy? What if I didn't think? What if I decided he was cute and let him into my life and got abused and ripped off again? Sure, people can rebuild and bounce back but it's still extremely common to relapse and hurt people all over again.

...Be careful... be so careful...

Mid-way through 2017, a lawyer emailed me a picture of the unfortunate painter so I could identify him and I honestly couldn't say it was the man. A picture several years old featured a smiling man with bright eyes and a flesh colored face. The man in my yard that day looked like a frozen corpse.

Past is past and looks are looks but when you lay down with dogs you wake up with fleas.

Be careful who you associate with, and who you introduce to people.

[fmdyaebin]

Whoa, is that KANG YAEBIN? I love her! You might know her as BINNIE. She’s the LEAD VOCAL AND RAPPER of FUSE, and she’s a ‘96 LINER! She’s one of my favorites under GOLD STAR MEDIA. Don’t you think she looks a little like LEE SAEROM?

AH, when I tell you guys I’m so frickin’ excited to be here, I’m not lying!! Hello, I’m Alex (they/them)! This is Yaebin, also known as Binnie when she’s promoting with Fuse. She’s my baby and I’ve been brewing her up in my mind for weeks now, and I’m finally able to bring her in! You can check out her profile and stuff over here. I don’t have a plots page, but I will be putting a few connection ideas at the bottom of this intro, so stick around to the end! If plotting with me tickles your fancy, tickle that like button and I’ll DM you! Or you can add me on my discord - jeongyeon's maid#0828

Yaebin was named after her mother who passed away during childbirth with her due to complications. Her parents were both a little bit older than parents tend to be when having a child, her mother being two months from forty and her father being forty four. Her mother already had two sons that she had when she was twenty-two and twenty-five respectively. She desperately wanted to have a daughter, despite how much she loved her two sons. Her husband, however, wanted another son. 

He didn’t love Yaebin any less or treat her badly (at least not intentionally), but he raised her exactly like he raised his sons. He put her into sports at an early age, cut her hair really short so he wouldn’t have to style it, and gave her her brothers’ old toys and sports equipment. He even had her dress more boyish, not allowing her to wear dresses or skirts unless they were going to church or an event. AND he’d call her really boyish nicknames? Like champ and sport, e.t.c. 

Her father was an ex professional athlete lol I forgot to toss that in there. That’s a reason why he pushed her so hard into sports. 

So she became known as the Tomboy™. She had a good mix of friends, both boys and girls, but she quickly grew to realize that boys wouldn’t look at her the way that they looked at other girls. They only saw her as “one of the guys” and that much was made clear when she approached her crush on Valentine’s Day when she was fifteen and tried to confess to him and gift him chocolates and a teddy bear. He ended up turning her down and telling her that he couldn’t be with “one of his bros”. 

When she was fourteen, she wanted to try out cheerleading instead of sticking with soccer. Her father shot her down, and made her feel belittled for even asking. He said cheerleading wasn’t a real sport and that they’re just scantily glad eye candy for the men and athletes at games. She just wanted to do it because it looked like a lot of fun.. And because she was starting to realize that she was starting to find girls a lot more prettier than she should lol what better way to hang out with a bunch of girls than to be a cheerleader, right? 

She’s sixteen (in 2012) when she becomes a trainee at Gold Star, thanks to her cousin who forced her to audition with them. 

She thought that since she would be debuting in a girl group, she would finally be able to try something new with her look, but Gold Star made her stick with the tomboy image for a long while. She had her hair cut short (think Jeongyeon during Twice’s earlier years or Hyebin from Momoland during Bboom Bboom era. Saerom obviously hasn’t had her hair cut that short though, so I’m invoking my creative license and all of our imaginations lol) for years, her hair slowly but surely growing out over the eras. 

Because of her upbringing around men, she does tend to have what people would refer to as “boyish” habits. She “manspreads”, she’s lowkey obnoxious when she laughs, she’s the “greasy” one in Fuse (meaning she flirts with the members as fan service, think of Sana flirting with Twice but more boyish). Fans even go so far as to call her “oppa” (a la Moonbyul, Seulgi, Jeongyeon, e.t.c.) 

During their Red Flavor era when they gained even more success and momentum, Yaebin gained her very own saesang! How exciting, right? 

This dude won’t leave her alone for shit. He’s been on her ass since 2017 and he’s showing no signs of backing off. It started with him showing up at every Fuse event, then popping up at the airport when they were boarding their flights, then he started sending her shit to HER APARTMENT when she moved out of the dorms. She’s terrified now that he knows where she lives, and sometimes she can’t stand being in her apartment alone when she gets too paranoid and scared, so she calls a friend to come over or she asks if she can come to their place. 

Like Joy, she’s the giant of Fuse (I tweaked Saerom’s height a bit to make her 5′8″, which wouldn’t be unrealistic because she looks tall lol), but she likes her height and she’s extremely comfortable with it. 

She’s pan but she’s gay as hell. Guys are great and all, so are penises, but girls? Say less. 

Connection Time~~~~~

Exes! Good terms, bad terms, mutual, one initiated it, anything. (OPEN)

People she calls when she wants to come over or wants them to come over when she’s feeling unsafe in her apartment. (OPEN)

The person who teaches her all about makeup and fashion. She didn’t really start dabbling in it herself until recently because she just allowed Fuse’s stylists to do all the work, but she wants to start learning! (OPEN)

A best friend! The peanut butter to her jelly, the Lee Dongwook to her Gong Yoo, the IU to her Yoo Inna. (OPEN)

People that helped her through her time as a trainee cir. 2012 - 2014 (OPEN) 

People that she’s shipped with, both men and women! (OPEN) 

Flings, on/off again, will they/won’t they, crush type plots? Throw ‘em at me! (OPEN) 

Yaebin listed them as her ideal type (OPEN)

They listed Yaebin as their ideal type (OPEN)

A woman older than her that’s sort of like a guiding light for her? She never really had an older woman figure in her life, so she really needs that. A big sister type of relationship. Older than a ‘96 liner. (OPEN)

Yaebin and this guy (or masculine presenting person) used to be really close friends. Then netizens started speculating that they were in a relationship and their company (or companies if they’re under different labels) told them to stop seeing each other because it’ll mess up their images. They still text and talk over the phone, and very rarely see each other in person. It sucks, but they do it because they don’t want to give up their friendship. (OPEN) 

Friends with benefits, enemies with benefits, exes with benefits, acquaintances with benefits, throw ‘em all at me~ (OPEN) 

Yaebin’s bro gang. A few people that she can hang out with where she can embrace her “boyish” qualities. People that’ll say “niiiiiiiiice” when she burps for ten seconds straight. (OPEN) 

Opposites attract - friends edition (OPEN)

[bitchassbucky]

II - Recuperate

Spurious Masterlist

Masterlist

As the car maneuvers through the traffic, you couldn’t help but put your head down by Bucky’s left shoulder, “holy fucking shit.” Three words to sum up the evening. You were tired, your feet hurt, you’re hungry. Every time you replay the moments you had with Steve, your heart flutters and your soul blossoms. He is a Sunday morning and you’re stuck in the middle of the week. 

Why him? 

Why him? 

Why is it still him?

“Y/N, what the fuck was that?” Bucky’s deep voice cuts through your thoughts. You lift your head up to face him, you had a sad look on your made-up face. He couldn’t help but search for any solid feelings in your eyes, he was just lost as you are. You know he wasn’t angry, he was just as tired as you.

“God, Buck. I don’t know.” You sighed, you shifted your look onto the streets you were passing, it was all a blur of people, stalls, and cars, all of them waiting to go home and rest. And then once again, your mind started to wander to the thought of Steve and how would it feel like to hold his warm hands.

“I know, it’s okay. Do you wanna get food before we go home?” He offers, hoping that you’d say yes. Bucky wanted you to have at least an hour of peace before you undoubtedly overanalyze everything that had happened tonight. For a measly hour, he hopes that maybe you can take your mind off of the man who haunted your thoughts every hour of the day.

“Yes. Okay, I’d like that.” You have long since stopped looking outside. It made you dizzy, maybe it was the fast pace of which the car was moving, or maybe the lights rapidly changing from neon to fluorescent. You once again laid your head against his shoulder.

“Okay,” Bucky said, not quite reaching you. 

The traffic had built up a mere three blocks away from your shared apartment. The driver let out an apologetic chuckle and something about a road block but you couldn’t careless. You were restless and you felt the need to keep moving. Just three cars ahead was a bodega you go to whenever the closest one at your street was closed.

“I’m just gonna get off here,” You said to the driver with a small smile. Beside you, Bucky was napping. He pulled a double shift at work so he can accompany you to the reunion party.

“Are you sure? We’re very near your place.” He tapped his phone which shows an angry red line, indicating a heavy traffic flow that ends after your block. 

“Yes, it’s okay,” You were searching your purse for a twenty bill when you hear the doors unlocking for you, “thank you.” You said as you give the driver the tip. He smiled and nodded in lieu of actually saying ‘you’re welcome.’

“What about your boyfriend, miss?” He casually mentioned Bucky beside you. Thank God, he sleeps like a log. His head is lazily lolled to the side as he breathes in and out, his hair covering half of his face.

“He’s not my- I’ll wake him up.” You started to protest but you were too tired and hungry to correct him. Bucky stirred from his short slumber, he looks around with his eyes half-closed.

“We’re still stuck in traffic, sorry.” The driver had answered Bucky’s question before he can even ask. 

You looked at Bucky and slightly tugged at his sleeve, “come on. There’s a bodega over there. We’re three blocks away, I think we can just walk.” 

“You sure? It’s pretty cold outside.” Bucky looks at you with sincerity. He has that kind of eyes that can make you feel like you’re home.

“Yeah, I have a jacket. Let’s go.” You insisted and Bucky, characteristically, goes with you.

“Thanks for the tip, you two have a good night. Stay safe.” The driver said as the two of you clamber out of his car, your dress not fitting for the season change. You took an inhale to calm your nerves but a symphony of unnatural odors wafted to your nose. Filthy fucking city.

“You too. Goodnight.” Bucky bid adieu to the driver as he closed the car door, momentarily joining you on the street.

The cool air made you wince despite telling Bucky that you have a jacket, you never liked the cold that much. It reminded you of the nights you spent writing anything and everything to distract you from your parent’s fight, it reminded you of the warmth that was never there in the first place.

“Let’s go, Y/N. I’m craving string cheese for some reason,” Bucky jokes in an attempt to lift up the atmosphere. He unceremoniously looks over you under the fluorescent of the shop you were passing by, you were physically with him but your mind is elsewhere, just as he was about to ask you if you were doing alright, you faced him.

“I’m craving string cheese too.”

2017

A fly has been buzzing around your head as you tried to coax words out of your mind and into the blank document you opened about 45 minutes ago. Your coffee, one sugar and cream, has gone cold and stale, leaving you with a sad excuse for caffeine, yet you continue to drink it as if it’s been brewed by a Norse god. You swatted at the stubborn fly again, mildly irritated at yourself for choosing to sit outside the cafe, you fell for the classic “fresh air” bullshit that was handwritten beautifully on a chalkboard just before the shop doors. 

You gazed inside the shop, hoping that some hipster would get on with their day so you could occupy their seat. As you look in, you caught a ghostly reflection of yourself. Clear enough to see the totality, but not enough to scrutinize. You look so... diligent for someone who’s about to be homeless in a week. 

Looking past your reflection and past the couple who’s obviously on their first date, you see someone leave their seat and took their laptop with them. And you did so. Tucking the lease papers in between the keyboard and the screen of your own laptop, you clapped it shut. You took the sad fucking coffee with you, wondering if they can heat it up. 

You were about to reach the plush seat situated comfortably against the wall when someone rushes into the seat three feet away from you.

“Really, dude?” Your voice dripped with annoyance. It was just 10 in the morning but you already felt like going for a nap.

The man in question looks up from his phone, meeting you with his blue eyes, he was classically handsome if he weren’t such an asshole, “I’m really sorry, I really just have to send this file over. I’ll be quick, I promise.” His fingers immediately go back to dancing on his cracked phone screen.

You sighed and resort yourself to the opposite of the chair he just stole from you. He reminded you of yourself when you were still in college, like him, you were always chasing after deadlines and exams. Those were the days when you convince yourself that you can survive with four hours of sleep in your system and do an extra shift at the library. Those were the days where you can look at the mirror and see a hopeful glimmer in your eyes.

You were stupidly naive, sure, but you were resilient. And it turns out, resiliency was the best thing you got out of college.

“One tall americano for James?” A barista called from behind the counter. The couch-stealer rose up from his (your?) seat and stalked off to the counter where his coffee order lies. So then you see he is stupid too, leaving his messenger bag open on top of the table you two were sharing. Which, if you look just under the flap, contains a binder and a laptop, which undoubtedly filled with thesis drafts and dissertation papers. But you’re not entirely sure, maybe he’s really a seat-stealer and he’s just making up an excuse.

The James guy returns to his unrightful seat, he looks at you and smiles, “thanks for looking after my things.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t do that again if I were you.” You replied dryly. Your sad coffee cup still clutched in your hand, your laptop bag resting underneath the table with your jean-clad legs unconsciously slanted. There was something about him trusting you to look after his things, hell, if someone came by and snatched it from the table, you wouldn’t have the energy to give a chase.

“If you still think that I’m making up an excuse for stealing your spot that’s your prerogative, but I really did just sent my final thesis to my professor,” he dutifully explained, pulling his lips into a polite smile, “‘sides I’m just dying to finish my master’s before I go broke and homeless.”

You decided to concede and humor him, “in like..” you prompted him to go on, your hand still holding the wasted coffee.

“Less than three weeks.” He winced as he took a sip of his americano. Why does this coffee shop like to serve their coffee like it was fresh from Satan’s asshole?

“Do you wanna go apartment hunting with me?” You asked unabashedly. You were about to become homeless by this time next week, why not ask this soon-to-be-homeless-too stranger to go apartment hunting with you? After all, misery loves company.

“Okay, sure,” James said, this time he was smiling for real. He set his smoldering cup of lava down the table, and you did the same thing with your flat drink.

“I’m Y/N. My lease will be up next week, Tuesday, to be exact. You’re James, right?” You tilted your head to his direction, giving him a tight smile. 

“Call me Bucky. I’ll answer your next question, it was a stupid nickname back in high school and it stuck.” James, uh, Bucky explained as he held a hand up to defend his unique albeit strange nickname.

You found yourself in the middle of Greenwich Village apartments and brownstones that you could never afford in two lifetimes, “Bucky, what the fuck? We’re broke MFA students, why are we here?” You tapped his arm with the intent of showing your slight panic.

“Chill, doll. I know someone here.” Bucky said cooly, his long hair now in a low bun on his nape. Studying at NYU, he started out as an Animation major, working odd jobs here and there to survive college, now he’s about to graduate MFA in Game Design.

“Yeah?” You said with a tinge of hope, maybe that someone can give you an apartment without you and Bucky selling an arm, a leg, and maybe a few golden teeth.

“I got this,” Bucky said, sending you a sly wink in your direction. You smiled and hoped for the best. Fuck, he is cute as shit.

But he don’t got this, he didn’t got this. 

His friend had moved out a month ago to take care of her elderly mother, bless her heart. But you’re in a bigger clusterfuck now, both of your homelessness threatening your mind about moving back home.

Sitting on a bench that is visually clean, you scoured Craigslist for real estate. Not the safest option, but you are determined to find a decent apartment without giving up so much. Page after page of shitty and expensive housing, you managed to stumble upon a simple-looking, two-bedroom apartment in.. Flatbush. Commuting would be a nightmare but you aren’t really in the position to whine about that.

“Please tell me you didn’t find that in Craigslist.” Bucky pleaded jokingly, sidestepping a woman with a red coat before throwing away a balled-up piece of napkin in the nearest trash can.

You’re on your way to look at the apartment after sending a text to the landlord, asking if he’s available to meet and show you around the potential living space. After getting a confirmation text, you told Bucky about your find.

“We don’t have much choice here, buddy.” You truthfully said as the both of you walked towards the subway station. In reality, you just don’t want to go home feeling like you’ve wasted an entire day apartment hunting when you could have started writing something, or maybe calling your dad to tell him you’re moving back home and you’re gonna be selling cake pops from outside your window.

As the day ends, you and Bucky felt accomplished. Well, he’s still out with the jury. After sixty minutes of negotiation, you managed to convince the landlord to give you a discount for leasing the apartment for more than a year. The apartment itself isn’t that bad. There are windows facing the street, no visible infrastructure and plumbing damage, the floor is not sticky, and it doesn’t reek.

You both reached the point of lowering your apartment standards to “as long as we can deny the fact that this shithole is better than moving back home.”

“So..” You started, “I guess that makes us roommates now.” You chuckled at the thought of you hoping you could live alone in the middle of everyone raising rents.

“Roommates,” Bucky rubbed his chin as if in deep thought, “I like that.”

“Yeah, me too.” You confirmed.

Before parting ways, you both exchanged numbers and email addresses with the promise of him sending you a picture of his sister’s cat, Alpine. 

At the end of the day, you couldn’t help but genuinely smile at the stranger who stole your spot in that coffee shop.

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 41 - TBL - Warm Bodies

6-4 Regulation Loss

The season is now halfway over. It’s also got halfway to go. I suppose it’s a glass half full, half empty kinda situation. I imagine the first half of this season has evoked some pretty strong feelings along those lines of optimism and pessimism one way or the other. There’s a lot to unpack there and Midseason Thoughts will be out tomorrow so read that. This is only going to be an incomplete lookback on the first half that was. After all, there was a New Year’s Eve game last night and a big narrative coming into that game. Jeff Skinner got injured in one of the games against Boston and here we find ourselves once again down another forward. And here comes the snide remarks about the surplus of defenseman that don’t really help the problem with forwards dropping like flies. Well guess what: I’m there. I’m ready to be mad about this shit too! It’s January when you’re reading this. January 2020! Jason Botterill was hired in May 2017. He’s closing in on three years on the job. Sure he didn’t get the coaching choice right the first go around and we restarted the rebuild and yatta yatta yatta; but how has Rebuild 2.0 gone so… uh… terribly? There were poultry changes in summer 2018 after the accidentally super shit season that got us Rasmus Dahlin and then in 2019… uh… he moved out Nylander for Jokiharju. You can’t look past the Jeff Skinner trade and signing, the risk and reward of that, but barring the Henri Jokiharju trade that was far and away his best move. The defense is changed but the forward ranks are… actually remarkably similar to Dan Blysma’s last game behind the bench. That whole conversation was brewing and then came the Skinner injury. The Sabres are now the furthest out of a playoff spot they’ve been all season at five points back. That’s something we’ll talk about in Midseason thoughts. The team was up and down in the first half but mostly down. Meanwhile everyone is sorta thinking one move for a top six forward saves the day. True or not we were hungry for a move when… *drum roll*… Rochester American Dalton Smith is signed to a two-way contract so he can be called up to the NHL… uh… say what now?

This is literally the kinda thing you joke about a lazy General Manager doing. At first glance he’s just a goon you’re signing for the kinda things boomers dribble about on Facebook: he’ll bring grit to a roster the Coach and GM say doesn’t need any more grit! Smith wasn’t at Training Camp you see! His game is improved dramatically you see! He’s got… lots of penalty minutes in the AHL! Okay, I give up. I don’t know what they’re doing now. If you’re going to tell me with a straight face Smith was brought up as a Skinner replacement I guess I’ll agree he is in fact a warm body. This is just a team of Jack Eichel and a bunch of warm bodies right now anyway, eh? The most logical answer is a very unwelcomed one: the idea he was brought in to “take care of unfinished business” with the Tampa Bay Lightning. That is, the Sabres needed a guy to avenge the Dahlin injury back in November. So we used up a contract on a guy to come up from the A to punch Erik Cernak in the face? Is that the plan? Look Jason, we understand trades maybe risky, but we’d prefer you make one before going with the lowest common denominator within the organization. Remember a dozen games back or so when I theorized it was never the plan for the team to make the playoffs this season? I put together some pieces including the opinion of John Vogl who said exactly this. The huge salary opening this summer allow a lot of room for movement… but they’re also somehow in cap hell too? Is that what’s stopping you from taking this season seriously, Jason? The theory is basically confirmed now and I’m not going to lie: I am very turned off by it all. Other NHL clubs should take note: this is how you turn off your fanbase. You’re already on a pretty ugly skid? Make a really bad roster move when the obvious choice is clear as day for all to see and make it about fighting. Honestly, who was dying to see Dalton Smith fight Erik Cernak? Whose opinion of this club’s season is now changing because of him skating four shifts all game and almost getting into a scuffle? We even got a video of Cernak getting fighting pointers from a teammate at the Bolts practice! You have one of the most talented rosters of the decade coming to town for a New Year’s Eve game your billing as a big deal and you’re intending to give them a punching match? To top it all off about an hour before puck drop Joe Yerdon at the Athletic broke the news that Evan Rodrigues asked for a trade upping that number to three players who want out. Summer 2019 Sabres twitter would have gone to Defcon 5 with that news but five months without a GM has made us cold, hopeless husks. On that cheerful note, let’s do that hockey!

To be clear I am not, nor have I ever been a hockey player. Anyone who makes the NHL, even for a single game like Dalton Smith, is a better athlete than I will ever be. Each and every player on that ice could murder me quite easily. However what unfolded in the first and third periods of this game was a glorified badminton match. The shots were 10-3 in favor of Buffalo in the first, but the game did not even kinda look that way. At least two of those Bolts shots were off the post, the team MVP candidate hot on Jack Eichel’s heels. Ding-Ding-Ding. The Sabres got another impotent powerplay early on after Steven Stamkos tripped Eichel. Ralph Krueger did a very interesting interview this morning on WGR550 where he was asked about the lackluster powerplay. One quote sticks out: “Whether we score or not [on the powerplay] is irrelevant.” There is very little additional context needed, that’s the quote. He was making a point about how even fruitless powerplay help team confidence 5 on 5. I’m no hockey coach either but… uh… I think that’s some motivational bullshit, Ralph. Luckily I didn’t actually rear end the car ahead of me in the Tim Hortons drive thru when I heard that line. The slight edge the home team developed in this game became apparent late in the first and the Sabres got a goal almost by accident. Curtis Lazar peeled a puck off the Lightning as they attempted to exit the zone and shot it over to Conor Sheary. Sheary, tardy on getting out of the zone evidently, almost one-timed it and the shot snuck past Andrei Vasilevskiy to put Buffalo up 1-0.

Steven Stamkos and Jack Eichel both had shocking misses in the first; like wow, you had the whole net and didn’t get it in kinda misses. Both visibly realized their mistakes. In the second period Conor Sheary got an early assist when he put the puck on net where Marcus Johansson edged the puck in. All of the sudden the Sabres were up 2-0 and I doubt many of those assembled in Key Bank Arena thought this would be the way it would go based off everything going on off ice. Linus Ullmark and a tough defensive scheme wouldn’t hold up forever and almost inevitably Andrei Palat shot one in five hole. The powerplay goal for Tampa felt as mocking as it did inevitable. But then somewhere deep down in this team they revived the clap-back energy, just for a little bit. A minute later Jimmy Vesey takes the puck over after a fortuitous bounce and gets his first goal since the dawn of time. If you took even a minute to be shocked you’d be forgiven but you’d miss Jake McCabe doing what Dalton Smith got an NHL contract for: fighting! McCabe got into a bloody boxing match with Andrei Sergachev after a hit on Eichel he took issue with. To be fair to the cavemen not reading this, Dalton Smith did have a little spat with a player in a white jersey earlier in the period, but McCabe was the one who really brought your almighty grit. The lengthy penalty record now somehow put the Sabres on the penalty kill. Enter Jack Eichel stripping a Tampa forward on a botched pass before charging down the ice, undressing two defenseman and a goalie to backhand it in for the 4-1 lead and a shorthanded goal. That was at about the halfway point of the game. That beautiful Jack Eichel goal that will certainly be in the season highlight reel… was halfway through this game. Before the second period ended the disaster would begin: five unanswered goals started with another powerplay goal for Alex Killorn followed by Tyler Johnson snipe about three minutes later. The second period ended 4-3 Buffalo. The game would end 6-4 Tampa. The Lightning completed their season sweep of the Sabres in a comeback fitting of the next level shitty decade this club just concluded. Shattenkirk, Killorn again and then Anthony Cirelli with an empty netter, I’m not going to torture you with the details, it’s easy to imagine how that went just off experience.

Like, comment and share this blog. Tomorrow we’ll be discussing the first half of the season in Midseason Thoughts. We’ll be looking ahead to the back 41 games as well although it seems very clear they don’t matter to the Front Office. This club is within spitting distance of a playoff spot and are posturing to try and get further off by the end of the month. When I say this team is a collection of warm bodies and Jack Eichel, I mean it! I think I speak for a large swath of this fanbase when I say I’ve lost confidence. A move was necessary six months ago, but it never came. Sure I still like the Coach but if he’s going to pass off motivational smart talk as a definitive strategy for a hockey team to win enough games to make the postseason even he is going to lose me at some point! Tomorrow we get Edmonton coming to town and I doubt they’ll succumb to the Sabres quite as easily as last time. I have no more confidence in this club and honestly I feel like they’ll need to win us back when there is a playoff team in town! Well… that’s all folks. Happy New Year! Talk to you tomorrow. Let’s Go Buffalo!

Thanks for Reading.

P.S. The Winter Classic was fun this year. I wish somebody had told me Dallas and Nashville hated each other two years ago.

[5questions]

Joselia Hughes

Joselia "Jo" Hughes is a Black 1.5-generation Cuban-Jamaican-Guyanese-American writer and artist from the Bronx. She lives with Sickle Cell Disease (HBSC) and ADHD.

Where did you find the 3rd grade poem? How did you decide to include it? What other collage or found art/poetry do you like?

The 3rd grade poem was from a collection of student works, Witch’s Brew, released by my grammar school, Horace Mann. I have two issues from 2nd and 3rd grades. Both of my works were quartered in the “Fantasy” section. There was another section called “Feelings” and, I think, The Sky more accurately suggests a feeling. Scratch that: it explicitly discusses a feeling. This misidentification by academic administration/curatorial staff (which doubles as a political demonstration) is telling. I think it explains a lot about the root confusion between what I have felt/feel to know as Experientially True versus what I’m told to know as The Truth. When considering the emotional and material lives of Black femmes, we must remember Black femmes have been historically disallowed, disavowed and dispossessed of creative virtuosity. Too often, we are strapped in the monolith of stereotyped caricature dictated by the manifested destiny written into commandments/constitution of misogynoir. Black femme virtuosity is reappropriated, regesticulated and worn like some earned bloody body wisdom by the Opps (Oppressive Forces). While I didn’t have those terms as a child, I experienced the consequences of misogynoir in conjunction with dis/ableism and classism, which aren’t separate entities but necessary vices that amplify asphyxiation. Is disabled Black femme loneliness only permissible when classified as fantasy? That shit don’t sit right in my spirit. I also used the poem because the title is Witch’s Brew and my zine, Heartbeats But No Air (HBNA), is a kind of exorcism. A few years ago, I pieced together that my maternal grandmother was a covertly practicing Bruja. With the widening reclamation of ancestral wisdom by BIPOC, in an effort to decolonize our existences, I was tapping into that tender tendon of wisdom.

Understanding my grandmother’s practice reminded me that she wanted to name me Darthula Verbena (daughter of God, enchanting and medicinal). I started referring to myself as DV, my pre-name, and inspected my childhood. That’s been a remarkable endeavor. I had to teach myself to play again. Through play, I learned how to feel. Learning feeling meant learning the qualitative and quantitative nature of the labyrinth of my thoughts. Once I learned some of the turns of the labyrinth, I could feel to know how to navigate the terrain without fear and engage in the rigorous study that’s always characterized my central self. Play is a code switch. I often think of code switching as a means to subvert/refigure power differentials. To hide in plain sight by retooling “seeing” to perception/sensing. How much are we perceiving/sensing? How often do we mean perception/sensing yet default to “sight”? Perception/Sensing adds dimensionality that isn’t always articulated with and through “sight” and “seeing”. Ralph Ellison’s identification of “lower frequencies” and J. Halberstam’s configurations of Low Theory do this work. I toy with these multiplicities in the zine. I work low to the ground which means I work close to my heartbeat, my central drum. I work meta; I go beyond. I like to sprinkle codes, tickle clues, tuck in questions, sew in wisdoms so I know what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, who I’m doing it for and to always remember the fun of FLiP (Feeling, Learning, iPlaying).

Some of the works/folks who’ve helped me FLiP are Dana Robinson’s meditative and piercing collages; Zulie’s mind bending, heart wrenching, time suspending zines; Nikki Wallschlaeger’s I HATE TELLING YOU HOW I REALLY FEEL; Seth Graham’s tattoo practice/paintings/unbounded love of outer space (they’ve done 3/4 of my tattoos); Amanda Glassman’s razor sharp poetry and encyclopedic curiosity;  L’Rain's music has literally helped me scale the side of a mountain and carried me through hospitalizations; KT PE Benito’s multidisciplinary liberation praxis and collaborative friendship; Zoraida Ingles' holistic creative prowess (a conversation with her is why Heartbeats But No Air, as a title, exists); and Marcus Scott Williams’ writings/video/sculpture work that readily embraces the persistence of ephemera. This isn’t an exhaustive list—I have a solid library of books and papers and zines and tunes at my crib—but, genuinely, I’m inspired by everyone I’ve had the honor to encounter.

There are themes of love and race and beauty and culture and self-transformation in this book. Paired randomly, some pieces may not make as much common sense together, but as a whole, it feels powerful and cohesive. What was the structuring process like for this chapbook? Each zine is different, right?

It is one zine. I find it cool that you consider HBNA a chapbook made up of many zines. The word chapbook had never crossed my mind. I walked into the process with DIY zine logic and HBNA was printed using office photocopiers. I think the feeling of cohesion you mention is what happens when you witness a lot of parts of one person. In this case, you’re witnessing a lot of different parts of me, my thoughts, my actual labor. Whole is the goal ‘cuz people are whole. I am whole. I consider HBNA a single revolution of myself— one big twirl around a fire, a sun. I was in a very strange place. I’d alleviated, with the help of acupuncture and CBD products, a significant amount of the chronic pain I’d been experiencing since August 2014. I fell around love with someone and rose in love to myself (thanks Ms. Morrison and Ms. Stanford!). I was in an unfamiliar painless trance. I created and tinkered with all of those pieces during a very short period of time from Summer 2017 to Summer 2018. HBNA was originally named Girl Pickney (the prose pieces were written under that moniker) and before that NggrGrl (a nod to Dick Gregory). I wrote the poetry in an even shorter period of time—March to July 2018—and the poems are actually part of a full length collection that I wrote in those four months. I didn’t decide on the layout of the zine until I was with two friends formatting it for printing two days before I was going to read at The Strand and sell it. I kept all the pages, the puzzle pieces, in a folder. A lot of book structuring, for me, is based on emotional knowing—when to slap, when to pound, when to breathe, when to confuse, when to stun, when to anger, when to tell, when to soothe. All of my structuring decisions are fly about to get swatted dead but fast enuf to fly away first intuitive. If I’m channeling that intuition, I know I’m in running in the proper heat and lane.

You were in an MFA program at one point. How does this chapbook contrast with your style from before that program and during that program? Did that program have an effect on your writing? This doesn’t feel like the most MFA-y writing, which is why I ask, and which I mean as a compliment.

I’ve attended a few schools. I’ve completed fewer than I’ve attended. Until my late 20s, I was shy and desperate for people, those noun-verbs, to stay. This desire for people to stay meant I spent an inordinate about of time and energy relegating the difficult parts of myself to the margins of the margins and continually stepped into social/academic shoes that did not fit. HBNA was the first fitting of the bespoke shoes I can now emotionally afford to make. The first copies I sold had typos! I misspelled my own pre-name and that’s exactly what I needed to happen. It needed it to happen because I’m full of mistakes and yet! I try! I understand HBNA as a radical refutation of embarrassment. Depending on when you purchased a copy, you’ll see I used white-out to make a few corrections. No two zines are the same; only 80 copies exist. I’m printing 12 more copies (they’ve already been claimed) and then on to new pastures! The zine was printed in three different places (two offices I don’t work in and a local printing shop) and I was lugging around 800 individual sheets of paper that I stapled, numbered, indexed and decorated with stickers by myself…standing barefoot on the carpet of Staples in Co-Op City, listening to Ryo Fukui’s Early Summer on repeat until I finished and then I jetted to the Strand to read. HBNA was how I knew to embody my physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual labor. I’m a goofball with zany ideas, an indifference to external definitions of relevancy, sickled cells and a lot of chaotically grounding love. I write for myself first. Of the school lessons I did receive and learn, there weren’t many I didn’t later disassemble to rebuild, freak unfamiliar or completely misunderstand. J. Halberstam calls this “failing”. Rejigging failure has been such a gift to me. How wonderful! A failure AND still happening? Fuck yeah! I was a wildly uneven student whose knees buckled at mere thought of rigid academic authority. After years of shame and refusal, I can finally admit I am an autodidact. I intentionally get lost and navigate in and to the direction of my own senses. School didn’t teach me to write for myself and that’s who I always have to write for. If that’s selfish, so be it. I am my first audience. If I’m sus of me, then me and myself got foundational problems. I know my writing is non-institutional and that lack of institutional alignment and support, while scary as shit, pushes me to make and take risks to believe beyond the immediate demands/plans/remands of whatever external force I am facing. My writing is constantly colliding into A New I can’t predict. I’m fully committed to unfolding, unraveling, for curiosity’s sake.

What’s a typical day like for you?

My day to day life is as predictable as it is unpredictable. I am formally unemployed and have been for awhile. I live on very little cash and am kept afloat because my mom is a gem and hasn’t kicked me out. My days are 100% influenced by the weather and I spend a good portion of my time negotiating how to minimize the occurrence of vaso-occlusive crises and other complications from the disease I have, Sickle Cell. Between January 2018 and January 2019, I was hospitalized three times. Each hospitalization was about a week long and recovery took significantly longer.

Here’s a sketch of what I call a really great day: I wake up before 10. If the night’s sleep was especially restorative, I can comfortably rise at 8. Depending on how my body feels, depending on how much pain I’m enduring, how much fatigue is shrouding/clouding my faculties, I decide if I have the energy to take a shower. I do the bathroom routine, get a cup of orange juice and take my medications (Endari, sometimes Adderall, Folic Acid). I use the first hours of wakefulness to connect with loved ones via text-phonecalls-DMs and browse the internet for headlines-news-updates-new smiles. I wear my fits comfortable. I call comfort my uniform—upend normcore to body sensible—sweatpants/leggings, pullover, one earring (although I’m leaning to pairs again), handy dandy baseball cap and sneakers. I keep it simple. If the weather is aight—if it isn’t too cold or too hot and if precipitation is mostly at bay and air quality isn’t extremely poor—I go outside and get some living exercise. When able, I take extremely long walks. Once I walked over 50 miles in a week! It’s my preferred form of meditation. Walking/body movement grounds my ADHD symptoms more effectively than stimulants, strengthens my body for potential Sickle Cell episodes and satiates my unyielding need to feel connected to other people. I’m at my best when outside and happening. Illness can create an inescapable interiority. Inside reminds me of the hospital and my relationship with the hospital is, at best, fraught. Walking allows me to follow myself. I engage in peek-a-boo with babies, witness accidents, smile at strangers, duck the eyes of leering people and learn how to love differently too. I go to playgrounds and swing. I take photos and notes. If I’ve got a lil cash, I ride the subway for fun. I poke into shops, admire graffiti and other street signs. I have one woman dance parties on sidewalks. I rest on park benches and read. I pick up grub from hole in the wall spots—you know—I live my life and embrace as much as I can while centering kindness and gentle flow. The walks are my favorite part of my job, which I do not have. When I return home, I rest then get to crafting which I sometimes call spelling. Crafting/Spelling can be anything from adding to my I-Box, spitting verses from the abstract (poetry), spinning short stories, detailing journal entries, doodling, painting, knitting, researching & studying,  dancing & stretching, bugging out on Twitter or reading. My bedroom is my studio so I work small yet widely. I intentionally provide myself with many targets so I can a) keep my thoughts and feelings flowing b) find the connections between all of my actions and c) mitigate the stress that sits in the heart of a lone project. I am a multifaceted, multifauceted being. Why not turn on all the taps?

The more long form prose pieces in here have the feel of nice punch-y flash fiction. Are you writing a fiction collection without poems and collage in it? I want to read that, too :)

Hahaha! You’re onto me! Yeah, I am writing another book of poems, a manifesto zine and a collection of fiction. I’ve been writing a collection of fiction since 2012. I had a lot of the difficultly writing the fiction because I was too attached to the title, the characters I conceived needed to grow up with me, and I experienced many years of unremitting and improperly managed mental and physical illness. I was holding onto and telling lies. The shame woven into those lies kept me silent and scared. All of that shit needed to get integrated or dropped. I couldn’t enter the prose/fiction I’m currently writing without learning how to survive myself and the world and bottom-belly-believe in survival too. I’m getting there— healing with primary, secondary and tertiary intentions. Won’t say much about the fiction pieces of than: ~15 stories, lyrically speculative fiction, capital B Black, disabled, and queerfemme parables of creation and destruction and maintenance. My website is in flux but I do readings and performances. Hit me up on Instagram , Twitter or email me at joseliawrites@gmail.com. Might take a minute for me to respond because I’m thoughtful yet questionably organized. Now go play, ya’ll!

Unintentionally wrote a poem in the interview. I call it A.B.B in Lieu of A.B.C

beyond

fly, about to get swatted dead but fast enuf to fly away first,

always believe beyond

[caldo21]

Introduction:

In this ephemeral world, all Tari Elam could do was run. Run was all the 21 year old girl could think about in order to survive the crude reality. The only thing she "owned", if you could say, was her adversity after her mother had passed away 6 years ago before the world went to shit.

She still remembered her mother even after all those years. Tari never acknowledged having her father since he was never really involved in her life. Every time Tari felt like giving up in this terrible world she would always remember her mother's sweet velvet voice singing her to sleep every night, her long chestnut locks falling freely on to her shoulders. Her beautifully smooth honey kissed skin when she caressed her cheek. She remembered, trying to hold on to the hope still left within her.

It's been hard, very hard for her, to survive for this past 2 years by herself. Tari hadn't had any contact with another human being for those two agonizingly long years. In fact she hadn't spoken for more than a year. Her lonely presence was all the company she had.

As she got lost into the warm memories of her deceased mother, Tari forgot just for a moment that she had to keep running and find shelter from the brewing storm above. When she finally snapped out of her memories, she quickly found a small shack and headed toward it. As Tari entered the shack she immediately bolted the door with whatever she was able to find. Finally she could have some rest, but "for how long?" she kept asking herself.

Tari inspected her surroundings, making a mental note on what was and was not worth taking with her in order to survive. Having only found 4 nonperishable cans of mixed fruit, wire cutters, and 2 half empty plastic gas tanks, she took out the last remaining supplies from her backpack. As she unpacked she was disappointed to have only 2 granola bars, 3 empty magazines, and one last water bottle. She sighed as she slumped backwards to the cold, dirt covered floor. She closed her eyes, trying to envision what her life would have been like if none of the terrible events had happened. Suddenly a cold shrilling scream snapped her out of her thoughts. Tari swiftly stood up and looked through the small gaps in between the shack walls. She then noticed the rotting corpses turning their direction to were the scream came from.

She saw this as an opportunity to unlock the doors and run. Although she was ready she still wanted to meet this stranger, if they were even alive now.

Cursing under her breath, she now headed to the wolf's den. She quickly moved cautiously, careful of not making any sound to attract undesirable attention to herself.

"Help! Somebody please help!"

A young girl stood surrounded by the rotting corpses. Tari knew the young girl had minutes to live if she didn’t do something to help her.

Fighting her way to the girl, she pulled her out of the circle by her hand and both ran once more to find refuge.

(*´ω`*) ☆彡　Hello everyone, I hope whoever reads this likes this little writing I did back in 2017. It was meant to be an introductory chapter for a sort of fan fiction within the The Walking Dead universe. I hope to some day maybe continue writing it and just see where it goes from here ☆彡

[bagog]

Kaidan Appreciation Week 2017, Day 2 - Alliance Training

Yeah yeah, I know. I wrote these last November, I just never posted them because I felt the over-arching... tHiNg wouldn’t land, but here we go. Thanks @estalfaed for the encouragement in getting these out there.

Day 1 - Childhood Day 2 - Alliance Training Day 3 - Friendship Day 4 - Shore Leave Day 5 - Memories Day 6 - Love Interest Day 7 - Author’s Choice

++

“I tell you Shepard, you must be the stupidest son of a bitch I ever met!” Kaminsky shook his head, half patting, half slapping Shepard on the back.

“He’s a softie, what could go wrong?” Shepard teased, trying to divert the conversation.

“End of the day, we’re all soldiers. But when you’ve got a rabid dog on your team, you point him at the enemy.” The other marine shook his head, expression serious for a moment. “But you shouldn’t prod the freak, Shepard.”

Shepard ground his molars together.

“See you later, Kaminsky.”

~~

You could count the number of biotics in the Systems Alliance Navy on fingers and toes, and big as Camp Alenko was, there was only one biotic in any of the training flights. The brass knew they wanted him trained, but it wasn’t as if anybody knew how to effectively train a biotic—even for those who didn’t think he was going to get a headache and accidentally (or purposely) flay them while they slept.

So they buried him in tech work. Medical classes. Decryption. And they insisted he train his biotics, though not a single one of them were brave enough to be in the room with him when it was time to train.

So Kaidan Alenko stood alone on the training floor, holding a squat rack in the air in a glowing blue flare, waiting for the only man who would volunteer to spar with him.

“Alenko!” Shepard declared, cracking his knuckles when he stepped out of the locker-room doors. “You’re looking sweaty already. Did you start without me?”

“Had training to do, Shep,” Kaidan shot back with a smirk. “Decided if you were going to take your time prettying yourself up just to spar with little ol’ me, I might as well get started with some weights.”

“’Prettying myself up,’ so you did notice.”

Kaidan let the weight drop—just a half meter—then caught it. Another half-meter—caught it. All the way down to the floor, like it was a familiar exercise.

“Hope you wore that cologne I like,” Kaidan huffed, wiped the sweat from his brow. “Gonna be wearing it on my fists once I’m done mopping the floor with you, you cocky lil’ shit.”

“Well if that’s what you want, you gotta warm me up with some toys or something and I’m gonna need to go back to my room for some poppers.”

Kaidan blushed and stammered, and Shepard howled with laughter.

“Sh-I mean. Shouldn’t I… Feels like I should buy you dinner first or something, at least, right?” Kaidan tried to recover.

“You already owe me dinner for volunteering to be your biotic test dummy.” Shepard laughed, slapping Kaidan’s shoulder and shaking the cramp out of his legs.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll give you my beer tonight or something.”

“Nah, I’m looking forward to this.” Shepard squinted at him, “Actually, you look like you could use some food right now. You okay?”

“Biotics. They burn a lot of calories. I need to be getting more each day, but the Sergeant won’t approve a larger ration.”

He really did look bad, and Shepard had already resolved to give him part of his supper when they were done.

“So that’s why you’ve been avoiding training?”

“Sorta…” Kaidan looked away.

“Hm. Okay, how do we get started here?”

Kaidan scratched his head.

“That’s the problem. I… other than having you shoot at me… I mean, at BAaT we never sparred with opponents who weren’t biotic. I… I haven’t really used my biotics on a living thing since… since…”

“What’s BAaT?”

Kaidan blanched.

“…Biotics Acclimation and Temperance training.”

“That where they taught you how to use your powers?”

“They tried, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck and Shepard could tell a migraine was brewing. “I really… I don’t want to do this. And I don’t really know what I’m doing, honestly. Sorry.”

Shepard looked over at the squat rack—at least 2300 kg lifted up in the air like it weighed nothing. Caught with Alenko’s brain. He gulped.

“Well, I guess, just come at me like I was biotic and… I’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out together.”

Kaidan looked up, eyes set and smile determined. He nodded firmly.

“…thanks for training with me, Shepard.”

“Any time. I’m your man.”

[thelankyrandman-blog]

Full Album-A-Day List in Alphabetical Order: 2017

Full Album-A-Day List in Alphabetical Order: 2017

Alright, it’s been too long since the end of the year, but here my list of albums I listened to in 2017. There are 365 albums here in alphabetical order by artist and then by release date in each artist. I am repeating the challenge for 2018 and so far I’ve listened to 62 albums. Let me know what you guys think of this list and please check out some of the music on here. Some of my favorite albums ever are on this thing.

A:

Actress - AZD

Alvvays - Alvvays

Alvvays - Antisocialites

Aminé - Good For You

America - America

Anderson .Paak - Malibu

Andy Shauf - The Bearer of Bad News

Andy Shauf - The Party

Angel Olsen - Half Way Home

Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire For No Witness

Angel Olsen - My Woman

Angel Olsen - Phases

Animal Collective - Marriweather Post Pavilion

Arcade Fire - Everything Now

Ariel Pink - Pom Pom

Atmosphere - Fishing Blues

The Avalanches - Since I Left You

B:

BADBADNOTGOOD - BBNG

Band of Horses - Cease to Begin

Beach House - Depression Cherry

Ben Folds - Songs for Silverman

Berhana - Berhana EP

Blank Banshee - Mega

Big L - Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous

Big L - The Big Picture

Big Sean & Metro Boomin - Double or Nothing

Big Thief - Masterpiece

Big Thief - Capacity

Bob Dylan - Empire Burlesque

Boogie Down Productions - Criminal Minded

Booker T. & The M.G.’s - Green Onions

Brockhampton - SATURATION

Brockhampton - SATURATION II

Brockhampton - SATURATION III

C:

Capital STEEZ - AmeriKKKan Korruption

Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial

Carly Rae Jepsen - E•MO•TION

Chance the Rapper - 10 Day

Chance the Rapper - Acid Rap

Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book

Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um

Charli XCX - Pop 2

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Rest

Chet Baker - She Was Too Good To Me

Childish Gambino - Because the Internet

Childish Gambino - Awaken, My Love

City and Colour - If I Should Go Before You

Clarence Clarity - No Now

Clipping. - Splendor & Misery

Connan Mockasin - Forever Dolphin Love

Connan Mockasin - Caramel

Crosby, Stills, & Nash - Crosby, Stills, & Nash

Crywank - Tomorrow is Nearly Yesterday and Everyday is Stupid

D:

Daniel Caesar - Freudian

Danny Brown - The Hybrid

Danny Brown - XXX

Danny Brown - Old

Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition

Dave Brubeck - Time Out

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars

David Bowie - Aladdin Sane

Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism

Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Death Grips - Exmilitary

Death Grips - The Money Store

Death Grips - No Love Deep Web

Death Grips - Government Plates

Death Grips - Fashion Week

Death Grips - The Powers That B

Death Grips - Interview 2016 EP

Death Grips - Bottomless Pit

Deerhoof - The Man, The King and The Girl

Deerhoof - The Runners Four

Deerhoof - The Magic

Deerhoof - Mountain Moves

Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

Denzel Curry - Nostalgic 64

Denzel Curry - Imperial

DeYarmond Edison - Silent Signs

Dirty Projectors - The Glad Fact

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

Dirty Projectors - Dirty Projectors

E:

Earl Sweatshirt - Earl

Earl Sweatshirt - Doris

Earl Sweatshirt - I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside

Elucid - Valley of Grace

Eric Clapton - Eric Clapton

Everything Everything - Get to Heaven

F:

Fantastic Negrito - The Last Days of Oakland

Father John Misty - Fear Fun

Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear

Father John Misty - Pure Comedy

Feist - Let It Die

Feist - The Reminder

Feist - Metals

Feist - Pleasure

Fever Ray - Plunge

FKA Twigs - LP1

Fleet Foxes - Sun Giant EP

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up

Flying Lotus - 1984

Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma

Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, Ultra

Frank Ocean - channel Orange

Frank Ocean - Blonde

Freddie Gibbs - Shadow of a Doubt

Freddie Gibbs - You Only Live 2wice

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Piñata

G:

Ghost Ship Octavius - Ghost Ship Octavius

Girlpool - Powerplant

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

Greta Van Fleet - Black Smoke Rising EP

Grizzly Bear - Horn of Plenty

Grizzly Bear - Yellow House

Grizzly Bear - Friend EP

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

Grizzly Bear - Shields

Grizzly Bear - Painted Ruins

H:

Harry Styles - Harry Styles

Huncho Jack - Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho

Hurray For The Riff Raff - The Navigator

I:

Ibibio Sound Machine - Uyai

Ice Cube - AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted

Ice Cube - Death Certificate

IDK - IWASVERYBAD

Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights

Isaiah Rashad - Cilvia Demo EP

Isaiah Rashad - The Sun’s Tirade

J:

J Dilla - Donuts

J. Cole - 2014 Forest Hills Drive

J. Cole - 4 Your Eyes Only

Jaden Smith - SYRE

Japanese Breakfast - Soft Sounds From Another Planet

Jay Som - Everybody Works

Jlin - Black Origami

Joey Bada$$ - 1999

Joey Bada$$ - B4.Da.$$

Joey Bada$$ - All-AmeriKKKan Badass

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme

Joni Mitchell - Ladies of the Canyon

Joni Mitchell - Blue

Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark

Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns

Julien Baker - Turn Out The Lights

K:

Ka - The Knight’s Gamble

Ka - Honor Killed the Samurai

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - The Kid

Kamaiyah - A Good Night in the Ghetto

Kamaiyah - Before I Wake

Kamasi Washington - The Epic

Karriem Riggins - Alone Together

Kaytranada - 99.9%

Kelela - Take Me Apart

Kendrick Lamar - Section.80

Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, m.A.A.d City

Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly

Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered.

Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.

Kesha - Rainbows

Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music

King Krule - 6 Feet Beneath the Moon

King Krule - The OOZ

L:

LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening

LCD Soundsystem - american dream

Lil Pump - Lil Pump

Local Natives - Gorilla Manor

The Long Winters - Putting the Days to Bed

Lorde - Pure Heroine

Lorde - Melodrama

Lou Reed - Lou Reed

Lou Reed - Transformer

M:

Mac DeMarco - Salad Days

Mac DeMarco - This Old Dog

Madlib - Shades of Blue: Madlib Invades Blue Note

Madvillain - Madvillainy

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?

Matmos - The Marriage of True Minds

Melvins - Eggnog EP

Melvins - Lice All EP

MF Doom - Operation Doomsday

MF Doom - Metal Fingers Presents: Special Herbs, Vol. 1 & 2

MF Doom - Mm.. Food

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Mick Jenkins - The Water[s]

The Microphones - Don’t Wake Me Up

The Microphones - It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water

The Microphones - The Glow Pt. 2

The Microphones - Mount Eerie

Miles Davis - Porgy & Bess

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

Miles Davis - Bitches Brew

Moses Sumney - Aromanticism

Mount Eerie - “No Flashlight” Songs of the Fulfilled Night

Mount Eerie - Lost Wisdom

Mount Eerie - Dawn

Mount Eerie - Wind’s Poem

Mount Eerie - Clear Moon

Mount Eerie - Ocean Roar

Mount Eerie - Sauna

Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked At Me

Mount Kimbie - Crooks & Lovers

Mount Kimbie - Cold Spring Fault Less Youth

Mount Kimbie - Love What Survives

The Mountain Goats - Goths

M83. - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts

N:

NAO - So Good EP

NAO - For All We Know

Nas - Illmatic

The National - The National

The National - Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers

The National - Alligator

The National - Boxer

The National - High Violet

The National - Trouble Will Find Me

The National - Sleep Well Beast

Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms

Neon Indian - Era Extraña

Neon Indian - VEGA INTL. Night School

Neutral Milk Hotel - Everything Is EP

Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies

Nick Murphy - Missing Link EP

Noname - Telefone

Notorious B.I.G. - Life After Death

O:

Oddisee - The Iceberg

Open Mike Eagle - Brick Body Kids Still Daydream

P:

The Pablo Collective - The Death of Pablo

Paramore - After Laughter

Perfume Genius - Put Your Back N 2 It

Perfume Genius - Too Bright

Perfume Genius - No Shape

Phoenix - Ti Amo

Phosphorescent - Muchacho

Pixies - Bossanova

Playboi Carti - Playboi Carti

Portishead - Dummy

The Postal Service - Give Up

Princess Nokia - 1992 Deluxe

Q:

Quelle Chris - Being You is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often

Quasimoto - The Unseen

R:

Radiohead - Pablo Honey

Radiohead - The Bends

Radiohead - Kid A

Radiohead - Amnesiac

Radiohead - Hail to the Thief

Radiohead - In Rainbows

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

Rapsody - Laila’s Wisdom

Ratt - Out of the Cellar

Red House Painters - Down Colorful Hill

Richard Dawson - Peasant

Rogue Wave - Out of the Shadow

Run the Jewels - RTJ3

S:

Sampha - Process

(Sandy) Alex G - Beach Music

(Sandy) Alex G - Rocket

SBTRKT - SBTRKT

SBTRKT - Wonder Where We Land

ScHoolboy Q - Oxymoron

ScHoolboy Q - Blank Face LP

Shabazz Palaces - Black Up

Shabazz Palaces - Lese Majesty

Shabazz Palaces - Quazars: Born on a Gangster Star

Shapes & Colors - Love / Sex / War EP

The Shelters - The Shelters

The Shouting Matches - Grownass Man

Slint - Spiderland

Smino - blkswn

Snakadaktal - Sleep in the Water

Soft Cell - Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

Solange - A Seat at The Table

Sorority Noise - You’re Not As ___ As You Think

Spoon - Hot Thoughts

Squarepusher - Feed Me Weird Things

Squarepusher - Music is Rotted One Note

Squarepusher - Go Plastic

Squarepusher - Do You Know Squarepusher?

St. Vincent - Marry Me

St. Vincent - Actor

St. Vincent - Strange Mercy

St. Vincent - St. Vincent

St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION

Stan Getz & Cher Baker - Stan Meets Chet

Substantial - The Past is Always Present in The Future

Sufjan Stevens - Michigan

Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell

Syd - Fin

SZA - Z

SZA - Ctrl

T:

The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Grave

The Tallest Man on Earth - The Wild Hunt

The Tallest Man on Earth - There’s No Leaving Now

The Tallest Man on Earth - Dark Bird is Home

Temple of the Dog - Temple of the Dog

This is the Kit - Where it Lives

This is the Kit - Bashed Out

This is the Kit - Moonshine Freeze

Thom Yorke - The Eraser

Thundercat - The Golden Age of Apocalypse

Thundercat - Drunk

Todd Terje - It’s Album Time

Tonedeff - Polymer

Travis Scott - Rodeo

A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory

A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders

A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service

Tycho - Past Is Prologue

Tycho - Dive

Tycho - Awake

Tycho - Epoch

Tyler, The Creator - Bastard

Tyler, The Creator - Goblin

Tyler, The Creator - Wolf

Tyler, The Creator - Cherry Bomb

Tyler, The Creator - Flower Boy

U:

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra

V:

Vagabon - Infinite Worlds

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend - Contra

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

Vince Staples - Hell Can Wait EP

Vince Staples - Summertime ’06

Vince Staples - Prima Donna EP

Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory

Volcano Choir - Unmap

Volcano Choir - Repave

W:

The War on Drugs - Wagonwheel Blues

The War on Drugs - Future Weather EP

The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient

The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream

The War on Drugs - A Deeper Understanding

Warren G - Regulate… G Funk Era

Wavves - You’re Welcome

We Made God - It’s Getting Colder

The Weeknd - Beauty Behind the Madness

WIFE - What’s Between

Wiley - Godfather

Wolf Parade - Wolf Parade EP

Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary

Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

Wolf Parade - Expo 86

X:

X - Los Angeles

Xiu Xiu - Forget

The xx - Coexist

The xx - I See You

Y:

Yes - Close to the Edge

YG - Still Brazy

Young Pappy - 2 Cups Part 2 of Everything

Young Thug - Beautiful Thugger Girls

Young Thug & Carnage - Young Martha

Your Old Droog - Packs

Z:

Zola Jesus - Stridulum

Zola Jesus - Okovi

#’s:

21 Savage, Offset & Metro Boomin - Without Warning

[bastardtravel]

August 11, 2018. Manchester, New Hampshire.

After seven hours on the road, pausing only to explore an Old Ones cult site, storm a terrible castle, and eat distressingly dry corned beef at a Greek diner that still advertised one of their menu items as “Michael Jackson’s favorite grinder”, we were in dire need of respite.

Establishing a forward operating base was our first priority. For my part, I can sleep anywhere. My bonfire days in the Frozen North frequently necessitated pitching a $10 K-Mart tent over gravel, then drinking bottom-shelf whiskey until you didn’t realize you were sleeping in a puddle of rainwater and broken glass. That’s not a knack you lose. It’s like riding a bike. The Girl was always more discerning, and became doubly so after our experience in Phoenix with the inept criminal front halfway house hotel. We agreed that she can veto any of the lodgings I book. Sometimes, late at night, I’ll hold a flashlight under my chin and tell her spoOoOoky stories about hostels in Ireland.

She insisted on the airport Super 8. I was hoping to stay in a quaint deep woods motel called “Unsmiling Jed’s Sleepaway”, attached to sister business “Unsmiling Jed’s Discount Plastic Surgery Silo and Chili Kitchen”.

If I can’t protect it, I don’t deserve to have it. That goes double for life.

A friendly foreign woman checked us in at the Super 8, then proceeded into utter bafflement when I asked for a first aid kid. I chewed myself up pretty good climbing Bancroft’s Castle, and I’d spent the last half hour bleeding into an oily dog blanket to avoid ruining my upholstery. I’m pretty sure that’s how plagues start.

There were no band-aids here, or antiseptics, or possibly medicine as a concept. There was a three gallon tub of hand sanitizer. I thanked her for the offer but gently declined.

We went up to the third floor. The hallways were lined with people sitting on the carpet outside their rooms, shouting and smoking cigarettes. The room itself was clean and the air conditioning worked. All my boxes were checked. The bathroom reeked of weed, which some would interpret as a bonus. I scrubbed my wounds raw in the sink, tucked away the precious cargo of wine and peaches, and set out to investigate downtown Manchester.

Streetlight technology has not yet made its way to Manchester, so we spent twenty minutes missing exits in ocean-floor darkness. It looked worryingly like Wilkes-Barre, which is not where one would choose to vacation, were one sane.

Downtown erupted from nowhere like graphic pop-in on a video game running at its lowest resolution. One second you’re in leatherface country, with nothing breaking the abyssal darkness but the occasional half-broken Jiffy Lube sign. The next, you’re on vibrant neon market strip, replete with hipsters and the homeless.

We knew we had hit downtown proper when we passed by the “craft grilled cheese bistro”.

only programmers will understand!!!! like and reblog if u get it

Since I am an adult man, grilled cheese cannot be dinner. Both “gastropubs” we tried, despite their bitchin Greek mythology names, offered generic terrible burgers and a draft list that consisted of Coors Light.

“I’m so hungry,” the Girl told me. “I’m gonna die.”

“We all will,” I assured her. “Soon.”

Yelp claimed there was a brewery five blocks away. We walked off the only lit street, into absolute, encompassing blackness. It would’ve been spooky if I didn’t always kind of hope some Putty Patrol mook would lunge at me from the dark while I’m far away from home, having told no one where I’m going and left no paper trail.

There were no incidents. No one was murdered in self-defense. No one knows what we did last summer. The Stark Brewing Company was in the basement of a grim looking office complex, and it was vacant save for two other wanderers.

We sat at the bar and ordered a flight and an imperial stout. I was pushing for finding an actual restaurant, but the Girl ordered “Penne with vodka sauce”, which was not the right color, flavor, or texture to be anything but penne bolognese. The Girl didn’t seem to mind. I ate a pulled pork sandwich.

The beers were warm, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter what the beers were, so long as they were beers. And not Coors Light. The brewery themed all of their beers off of dogs, for some reason, which I believe to be the ideal business model. According to the bartenders, the brewery had been open for 25 years, but hadn’t yet received their big boom. I was outraged. The beers were excellent, and would probably be even better if they weren’t room temperature, and the taps were not only named for specific dogs, but also provided pictures.

To say nothing of the bathroom, which was covered in sharpie beer lore.

The bartender and waitresses swore a lot more than you would normally expect in this context. The Girl maintains they were swearing at us. I disagreed.

“They were swearing <i>with</i> us,” I mansplained.

“We weren’t swearing,” she countered.

“But if we HAD been.”

As I’ve grown larger and more sinuous, I’ve tried to cut back on how often I cuss at strangers. Cultural relativism is the understanding that not everyone grew up among the coalcrackers, and good-natured oaths like “how the hell are you” or using the fuck-word as a conversational placeholder, while subjectively soothing, can set off fight-or-flight in the small, soft, and bourgeoisie.

I try to maintain direct proportionality between my barbarism and my well-heeledness. Neither the wait staff nor the other two customers shared my bond, and the middle-aged guy on my right proceeded to tell me how his hometown of Denver, Colorado is the greatest fuckin’ city in America, next to maybe Southern California. Which is not a city.

We talked about our homes and travels for a while, then I got my pulled pork sandwich and they left. The sandwich was slightly warmer than the beer, which beat the alternative.

An armada of children came into the bar.

“Oh, shit,” the woman tending bar said. They were visibly teenagers, and on the wrong side of it. They had that gangly awkwardness you get around fourteen or fifteen, and if they were trying to play it off, they were woefully bad at it. There were also nearly twenty of them. It looked like a field trip.

People in their twenties don’t travel in packs of more than six. It’s hard to transport a throng, unless you have a party bus, and why do you have a party bus when you’re twenty-eight? You’re twenty-eight and party buses have always been sad. Get a job. Also, it’s hard to get that many adults to agree on something.

It can be done. You can say, “Hey, adults, you want to do some drugs?” And in a sufficiently sized crowd, you’ll manage to pull twenty or so who will follow you to your house or whatever. This is called an “afterparty”. It doesn’t go to bars at 9pm.

Have you felt out the social zeitgeist recently? Look at a random handful of current memes and it’ll be pretty clear that most adults consider socialization to be a required burden, like paying emotional taxes. “Going out” is the price of living in a civilized society. You’re not going to scare up twenty people, then put them in a party bus, then take them to an abandoned bar half a mile outside of where the actual nightlife is.

“Hey, we’re just about to close,” the bartender said.

A reedy blonde in a top that seemed to consist mostly of straps screeched, “But your WEBSITE said you were open til ONE!”

Screeched.

The bar fell silent. Well, more silent. The Girl and I traded looks, her horror for my delight.

“Uhhhhhh,” the bartender said, but with excellent elocution, as though that were the word she had deliberately chosen. “Okay.”

They sat the itinerant mall food court in an enormous corner table, whereupon they requested shots.

The waitress who had sworn at/with us the least came back to the bar and said, “You guys said you were from Pennsylvania, right?”

We nodded.

“Can I see one of your licenses quick?”

She compared mine against the obviously fake ID one of the tweens had given her. After a moment she said, “Yeah, you can see, the font is different. And the picture looks like it’s photoshopped.”

“Yeah, no one’s license picture ever looks this good,” the Girl said, studying the fake ID.

“Except mine,” I added. They ignored me. I didn’t take it personally.

The waitresses disappeared into the back. Five minutes later, the only dude working at the place was gendered into being the bad cop. He sulked over to the teens.

“You guys gotta leave,” he said. “We know your ID’s fake. We’re not trying to get fined. You gotta go.”

For maximum accuracy, imagine this said in Toby’s voice from the Office. Shamefaced, the flash mob of children dispersed.

We paid for our room temperature beers and left the poor, foul-mouthed brewery to close at 9:30 on a Friday. The Girl and I accidentally stalked the battalion of teens through the street, but only because we were all moving back toward the only lights in the city, not unlike moths. They turned a corner and vanished, presumably to find an arcade or laser tag or some sort of large carousel.

The Girl and I followed the sounds of some obnoxious bros announcing, “It’s like a fahkin sketchy ally, dewd”.

It was, in fact, the least sketchy alley I’d ever been in. Cat Alley was the best lit venue in all of New Hampshire. It was clean and well-maintained, and it was covered less in graffiti and more in an outdoor art gallery dedicated to cats.

There were more, but they didn’t all warrant a picture.

Portland Pie Co loomed from the endless darkness like a beacon in the night, hearkening back to those days lost in Maine during the Great Lobster Drought of 2017. We split a bourbon barrel ale which did me in. It was bedtime.

On the way back, toward the end of the main drag, a man made of pure light rode by blasting EZ-Listenin from his Tron bicycle, also made of pure light.

I can’t prove he wasn’t Jesus.

Heartened, we returned to the hotel, where no one was smoking or yelling in the hallway anymore. Excellent.

Next stop, Portsmouth.

Love,

The Bastard

Into the Abyss August 11, 2018. Manchester, New Hampshire. After seven hours on the road, pausing only to explore an Old Ones cult site, storm a terrible castle, and eat distressingly dry corned beef at a Greek diner that still advertised one of their menu items as "Michael Jackson's favorite grinder", we were in dire need of respite.

[stunudo]

BAU Prep School AU: Class of 18

Welcome to the Frederick Buchanan Institute located in scenic Quantico, Virginia, a senior high academy that shapes the best and brightest minds. Its motto is “Behavior, Analysis, Unity,” the mascot the Submariners, colloquially “the Unsubs”. The small school supports the most accomplished faculty from across the country. (image link)  2016-2017 school year  Class of 18

A/N: This title is a little misleading, but some scenes apply and will apply later. xoxo Stu

PUBLIC LIES

November 17, 2017 5:40pm

“Meg! Maya is here!” Chris called from the kitchen, he was answered by the thundering of footsteps down the stairs.

“Mai-ma!” Kit threw his hands up, hoping to greet their guest at the door.

“Not yet, buddy, you’ve got another bite or two before you can be released.”

“Mai-ma has dinner. Me want Mai-ma.” Meg led Maya into the kitchen, a bag of fast food in her arms.

“Hey Kitt-o. I have some fries here, but you gotta eat your green beans first. Deal?” Maya’s bright smile had the toddler’s attention.

“Nom-nom, Daddy!” Kit shoved a handful of beans and scraps of chicken into his mouth without so much of a glance at his fork.

“Well, there’s one way to get it down. Hi Maya, how’s it going?” Mr. Callahan stood up and brushed the crumbs from his pants.

“Great, Mr. C. How’s it going with you?”

“Same old, same old. You guys gonna be alright with three babies tonight?”

“Chris, come on. We’re going to be fine.” Meg rolled her eyes, sneaking one of Maya’s fries.

“Big boy! No baby.” Kit argued.

“Okay, are you guys going to be alright with this big guy and two babies? Better?” Kit grinned up at his dad with a mouth full of food, sending Meg and Maya into fits of repulsed laughter.

6:12pm

“Okay, what happens if there is a fire?” JJ looked down her nose at Meg and Maya sitting on the couch, piercing the babysitters’ very souls.

“I will get the kids outside while Maya calls 9-1-1.” Meg answered.

“How are you going to carry three children?” JJ countered. Meg rolled her eyes and stood up, she grabbed Jack by his overall straps, hugging Kit around his waist and picked up Henry’s carrier in her free hand.

“Like that, Ms. Jareau, seriously, we got this.” Maya tried not to laugh out right.

“Jayge? It’s going to be okay, they have our numbers if anything comes up.” Emily  tried to soothe JJ’s worried face.

“Meg and Maya have both watched Jack, Jennifer. They are very responsible.” Haley reassured the new mother as she slipped her coat back on.

“It’s nothing personal, I swear, its just the first time we’ve been out.” JJ explained.

“It’s going to be fine. We’ll have fun, you’ll have fun. Go, get some adult time.” Meg tried to escort the six adults out of the house.

“Yeah, we should get going if we want to make the reservation.” Hotch glanced at his watch. JJ kissed Henry one last time as he lay sleeping in his car seat bucket. Emily gave the sitters one last wilted smile as she led her girlfriend back outside. Kate and Chris were the last ones to slide into their car behind Hotch’s large SUV.

“Was I ever that clingy?” Kate asked amused.

“Worse.” Chris answered, glancing in his mirrors. That earned him a swat to his meaty upper arm.

Nov. 22 6:26am

Derek always seemed to keep the heat at the coldest possible setting overnight, which sent Penelope cringing as she made an early morning bathroom stop. She snuggled back into her silk robe as she shuffled toward his kitchen to start the coffee pot. He had yesterday’s mail out on the counter and she may have started sifting through it as she waited for the gentle hiss of heating water and gurgle of brewing coffee. Ads from a gym and a car detailer were ignored, her man was perfect, thank you very much.

There was an open letter from some pretentious sounding company and she really couldn’t keep her fingers from releasing it from the confines of its envelope.

Final Notice:

Mr. Derek Morgan,

This is the last time we will be contacting you. Your lease is concluded as of November 30, 2017 and the property has since been sold. Please ensure you have made appropriate arrangements to have your property removed from the building by no later than Friday December 1, 2017.

Regards,

Matthew Hausenweir, landlord

Solutions Quartered, Inc.

“Baby Girl?” Derek called as he pulled on a pair of sweatpants from the bottom drawer of his dresser. Penelope squeaked as she shoved the letter back into its trifolded form, earning herself a papercut in the process of trying to hide her snooping. Derek found her sheepishly sucking on her ring finger. “What’d you do now?” He slipped his arms around her waist, pulling her in to inspect her wound.

“Nothing, I’m fine. Did I wake you?” Penelope nuzzled against Derek’s neck.

“Penelope? I know you don’t think I left my mail covered in blood.”

“Blood? Weird, I must have brushed it and gotten a papercut.”

“Brushed a letter that was stacked on the other side of the counter? Girl I know you.” Derek grinned, leaving teasing kisses on either side of her neck. She stomped her feet and huffed.

“Fine! I was reading your mail. Whatever. You! You should be packing. You need to be out by next week.”

“Is that so?” Derek gave her a blasé glance. “And what if I have nowhere to move to?”

“Uh, my place, duh. Derek Morgan, I don’t know how you teach kids when you don’t see the obvious in front of your face. We can finally stop having overnight bags and just live together!”

“Are you sure? I was going to ask you with flowers and things.”

“Oh, still do that. All the flowers and things. But my answer will be yes, because then I can finally not freeze to death at night.”

Derek barked a laugh, “Well, I hope there’s more to moving in together than just control of the thermostat.”

“It’s one of the many perks.” Penelope grinned up at him, pointing to her cheek so he would kiss her again.  She stood on her tip toes in his kitchen and reveled in the fact that every morning would be like this. Waking up with her love and making coffee.

What more could a girl ask for?

Nov. 27 7:02am

Luke had started worrying about another slight against F.B.I since their defeat of New Canaan in the football play offs. The week-long break over Thanksgiving would have been a perfect opportunity for another form of vandalism or theft. He pulled into his usual spot in the staff parking lot and began surveying the grounds for any signs of misdoings. His breath puffed in front of him as his dress shoes crunched against the frost lined sidewalk.

Matt Simmons was sitting in his car a few spots down, listening to NPR and finishing his first cup of coffee for the day. Luke looked like he was looking for something which caused Matt to hurry up his morning routine.

“Everything okay?” Matt called out as he grabbed his briefcase and messenger bag from the back seat of his two-door coupe.

“Yeah, so far.” Luke answered, nodding with his jaw set in concern.

“Thinking something went down over break?” Matt added his eyes to the patrol, his long legs quickly caught up to the soccer coach.

“Call it a hunch,” Luke sighed, shoving his hands in the pockets of his khakis. “You ever wonder why this rivalry started?”

Matt tilted his head noticing a distinct shift in Luke’s posture and phrasing. “I figured it was one of those long running old boys club things, a ‘your dad beat my dad at polo and now you’re in for it’ type of thing.”

Luke grinned at the example, damn it was easy talking to Simmons. “Maybe, at some point, but the egging, the theft of the Submarine, that’s only been going on this year.”

“No shit. Why now?” Matt asked, knowing Luke was building up to something.

Luke didn’t say anything, he just stopped in front of the main doors. He worried his jaw before he finally came clean. “Because I took the job here.”

“What? You used to work there?” Matt didn’t remember hearing anything about Luke’s previous schools, in particular. He had a memory for details and now wondered if he missed something about his fellow new teacher.

“Phil Brooks, the football coach? He’s my, uh, ex,” Luke cleared his throat, holding the door for Matt to get out of the cold.

“This is all the case of a jilted lover?!” Matt’s mouth puckered ruefully for Luke. “Tough break man. You dump him for the job?”

“Well, no, not exactly, but I think that’s what he took away from me moving.” Luke explained, heading towards the kitchen and Rossi’s famous espresso. “Look, I’m not exactly out here, but with everything that the school has had to face, because of me—”

“Look, you did not ask for any of this. I won’t say anything, this was strictly off the record.”

“Hey, thanks, I’m just trying to figure out how to hash it all out with Hotch.”

“Good luck, but hopefully they’ll come to their senses and stop playing dirty.” Matt suggested, he adjusted his bag on his shoulder before heading toward the stairwell. “See you later, Luke.”

Luke nodded, his thoughts swarming inside his head as he went to grab a latte from the Chef.

Nov. 30 9:38am

Jordan made her way to the office to check her mailbox during her prep period. She had done well this year and kept her opinions to herself, after the mess last year she had been holding her breath constantly. Ashley was leaning over her desk purposely making small talk with Grant as he vacuumed. Jordan shook her head, that woman knew full well he didn’t want to talk and couldn’t hear her anyway.

“Morning Ashley,” Jordan gave her a look before walking to the wall of trays.

“Jordan, hi! Hey, did you know that Luke Alvez helped Grant, here, clean up after the egging fiasco?” The blonde smirked as the poor custodian blushed with the women gossiping.

“Well its good to see there still some good old fashioned hard work and kindness out there.” Jordan admitted.

“And he’s so handsome too. Can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t want to snatch him up.”

“Oh no, Ashley, no. Leave the poor boy be.” Jordan warned, thinking she meant for herself.

“What? Please.” Ashley sat back, settling into her well-worn seat. “I’m not quite his type, I’ll have you know.” She made eyes at Grant who was trying desperately to finish his tasks and escape this uncomfortable scenario for good. He had his head down, but the vacuum was off, so he certainly could hear their continuing conversation. Jordan was now on the same page.

“He has got a lot of free time now that soccer season is over with.” Jordan admitted after an awkward pause. “And that’s all I am going to say. If a certain single guy wanted to ask him out, he would probably have a nice time.”

Ashley and Jordan watched Grant wheel the vacuum out of the office and let the beveled glass door slowly close behind him.

“Do you think he is going to do it?” Ashley gushed while twirling a pen into her cheek.

“He’s going to be adamant about not doing it for a good few weeks. That’s why we need to hope Mr. Alvez does it for him.” Jordan smirked.

Dec. 5 12:43pm

Michel didn’t want to walk to the other side of the school to use the staff bathroom, like they had been doing for the past three and a half years. The lunch hour had just begun, so they figured if they ducked into the guys’ bathroom they wouldn’t be intruding on anyone. Michel hadn’t counted on someone who wasn’t paying attention to the class schedule at all. He was in the back of the room, sat on the floor opposite the stalls, vaping.

“Whoa, sorry, uh, do you mind if I—?” Michel asked.

“Piss? Be my guest.” Jake shrugged, he was dazed and staring at the ancient ceiling tiles. Michel made their way to a stall and took care of business, trying not to over think the situation. Washing their hands, they finally caught a whiff from whatever Jake was smoking, it definitely wasn’t jasmine.

“I can’t believe you right now.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting you here either.” Jake muttered, standing and tucking his pipe back in his pants’ pocket.

“Don’t you have Mr. Alvez this hour?” Michel spun, challenging Jake, despite the height difference and all that had passed between them.

“Yeah, I do. Sorry, Mom but I skipped Spanish today. Don’t think she would really care, since I have been speaking it longer than English.” Jake dusted his pants off as Michel gaped at him.

“Why are you being like this?” Michel’s voice was so soft it wasn’t meant to be heard. Jake’s inhale and flaming eyes caught Michel in the mirror before they could turn away.

“Just making everything easier.” Jake spat.

“For who?”

“I don’t know, everyone? You don’t want me like I want you, Michel. Might as well keep the lines clear from here on out.” He was hurt, it was oozing through his tough guy exterior. Michel turned and finally took in the state of the boy in front of them. How much they had affected Jake since breaking off his kiss backstage all those weeks ago.

“You know I hate distinctions like that. Nothing is ever one or the other.” Michel countered, leaning against the wall, refusing to let Jake out of the conversation now.

“Yeah, well, maybe this isn’t about making you comfortable. Maybe this is about trying not to break down while I watch you flirt with Iggy next hour or help Cissy with her Bio homework.”

Michel eyes pinched, finally taking in how much Jake saw them in every situation. The actor in them craved the spotlight, but the focused attention of someone was jarring. Especially when it wasn’t unwanted. They shook their head trying to find the words for what they wanted to say.

“I don’t want you in pain, Jake, you have to know that.”

“Doesn’t exactly feel like it, Michel.” He was still stoned, but he swung his arms to do something besides just stand there.

“Kissing me-- you caught me off guard, I had no idea you liked me. Not like that. Well, especially since I’m not exactly a guy.”

“You’re beautiful Michel, no matter how you dress or if you wear makeup or not. Look I am as gay as I ever was, but I’m not blind. We’ve been friends too long for you to think I want you to be something you’re not.” Jake had somehow started comforting Michel, why was this so confusing? Michel walked closer, glancing at the door as the noise from the cafeteria increased.

“You scared me.” Michel whispered, tucked within an embarrassed laugh. “I have spent so many years declaring my identity that I hadn’t really accepted my sexuality. I guess, with my father, parents, I just hadn’t brought it up. You know? I’m enough of a burden.”

Jake ran his hand through his hair, his heart breaking again, knowing the pain of being yourself and having no way of satisfactorily expressing it. “You’re not a burden, Michel. If you’re not ready to date or not sure if you like guys—why didn’t you just say something?”

“Because, its you. I never wanted to lose you. You’ve been one of the few people who I can just click with, you know?” Michel’s eyes were glistening now, Jake gave them a half smirk.

“Kind of backfired, don’t ya think?” Jake held out his hand and intertwined his knuckles with Michel’s, arms lengths apart, connecting and calming each other. “Is this okay? Are we going to be able to figure this out?”

Michel sniffled, “Are you going to stop smoking in the boys’ room?” They both laughed at the reference, Jake drew Michel to his chest. They stood there holding each other in the middle of the school day in the entry way of the restroom for a heartbeat. Jake kissed his friend’s head, breathing in their scent before letting go.

“You should get some lunch, I’ll call you later.”

“You coming to English?” Michel asked assertively. Jake nodded, a satisfied yet cocky look on his face.

Dec. 7 4:18pm

Spencer Reid was appreciating the end of fall as the bare trees billowed in an afternoon breeze. The skeletal forms were reminders of change and not a depressing sight to the science teacher. He had driven this route for the majority of his time teaching at the Institute and was still glad he had found the scenic drive in the first place. He didn’t need to rush home, but he could if he needed to. It was nearly dark, and he had a long night ahead of him between his usual Thursday night NA meeting and grading labs.

He couldn’t help but smile as he pulled into the driveway, he could see the cat watching him from the window, fuzzing up the back of the couch. He leaned down and grabbed his satchel and his stack of folders from the passenger’s seat. Someone was burning leaves in the distance, the scent locked into his mind as a Virginia phenomenon as he hadn’t experienced as a desert native. Rationally, he knew it was a common practice wherever deciduous trees were abundant. Spencer slammed the car door shut and double checked the lock before strolling to the front door, it was robin’s egg blue with gold accents.

Voices rolled from the living room, laughter and the television melding together.

“Spencer’s home! How was your day, honey?” Diana cackled from her recliner in the living room.

“Good!” Spencer wiggled his nose before kicking off his Chuck Taylor’s on the mat. “How are my girls doing today?” he called back.

“You get your card skills from your mother, don’t you?!” Elle accused from the couch.

“Uh-oh, what happened?” Spencer’s brow pinched as he ducked his head around the half-wall where his mother and his girlfriend were watching a telenovela.

“She cheats, just like you!” Elle pointed at both the Reids before shaking her head.

“Mom?” Spencer raised his eyes at Diana, she bit her lip and shrugged. “Mom!”

“Oh don’t give me that look, Spencer. I had to cheat to beat you as a kid and now it’s the only way I know how to play.”

“What were you playing?” Spencer plopped down next to Elle and put his arm around her on the back of the couch.

“Bridge.”

“Well, I hope the stakes were high enough to warrant such dubiousness.” Spencer’s jaw pitched forward as Elle gave him an unamused look.

“Don’t encourage her.”

“What? I’m not!” He feigned shock. She pinched his side, doubling him over.

“Hey, you two, old lady here. Leave room for the Holy Spirit.” Diana teased, turning up the sound on the television.

“Mom, you can’t use piety as an excuse as an atheist.”

“And why can’t I? I’m your mother, I’ll do as I please.” Diana huffed, hiding a half smirk. “And I am going to go finish dinner, so you kids can be off to your meetings.” She not so subtly left the couple alone for a few welcoming kisses. Spencer hummed into Elle’s mouth.

“Was she really that bad?”

“I don’t even think she knows the rules, Spencer, I swear.” Elle giggled as he tucked her hair behind her ear. “What?”

“Just happy to see you.” Spencer’s brown eyes turned puppy dog and his hand sneaked up her thigh.

“Still not very smooth there, Dr. Reid,” Elle rolled her eyes before straightening his tie. “How much grading do you have tonight?”

Spencer sighed, “Not so much.” Elle knew by the tone of his voice that he was flubbing his answer.

“Go get started, can’t have you up until midnight again,” Elle pointed to his desk in the office across the house.

“Just one more?” Spencer leaned down sheepishly. Elle groaned, letting him kiss her neck before pushing him on to the floor.

“Homework, go!”

Next Chapter: Private Lives

@mentallydatingspencerreid @dontshootmespence @ultrarebelheart @lyrasilverroseelizabethamanti @cynbx @rikersgirl22 @pllfrommars @wheresthewater  @darknesstoglowing @adropintheocean1234567 @tleighstone12 @unitchiefwives @sam-carter-in-training @prettyboysjello @ddreammcatcher @thegirlinflames  @night–hawk @t25luver @onlyalittleteenwolfobsessed @thismiss02 @literallyprentissstwin @usercorgis @natalie-fangirl @holding-on-to-francis @nikkipea @alisonxnguyen @nsanchez1992

[meyerlansky]

bite my lip and close my eyes

pairing: meyer/charlie rating: teen A/N: here it is, two months later, the last of the kinktober fics i was working on. kinktober 2017 day twenty six: shotgunning. modern au, obviously contains drug use. title’s a green day lyric. also on ao3. 

He’s halfway through rolling a joint when his phone bleeps from between the couch cushions. Usually he'd leave it and finish rolling but he's only got a few custom ringtones set on this phone, and he’d have to be dead before he ignored Meyer. So he digs the phone out and lets out a breath he didn't really know he was holding when all the message says is Hey. Can I come over for a bit?

Charlie grins to himself, texting back if u dont mind a foggy apartment sure before he drops the phone screen up on his coffee table, right next to the papers and baggie and his in-progress joint. Sure he's stuck with an overpriced shoebox of an apartment for now, but it's definitely an upside if it means he not only gets to smoke whenever he wants, but he gets Meyer all to himself for a bit too. Better to give him a warning off the bat though—it probably won’t keep him from coming over, since Meyer smokes enough cigarettes that Charlie worries sometimes, and Charlie can talk him into getting tipsy every once in a while, but as far as he knows Meyer's never smoked up. If he has it hasn't been with Charlie, anyway.

That thought makes a little tendril of jealousy unfurl in his chest, which is even less justifiable than usual, considering he’s stewing over a fucking hypothetical. So he shakes it off and goes back to rolling and waiting for a response. He drags his tongue along the paper and twists the joint closed just as his phone buzzes, messages cascading in at an impressive speed, if he had to admit it.

What?

Oh.

It's your place. Be there in fifteen.

And that just requires a truly obnoxious emoji face in response. Once that's off into the ether, Charlie throws himself back on the couch cushions and lights up. Joey’s obnoxious sometimes but fuck if he doesn't get Charlie the good shit, and Charlie leans his head back on the couch as the high creeps over him, muscles gradually going slack against the cushions.

Meyer said fifteen, and Meyer knows his shit, so Charlie assumes it is in fact fifteen minutes later when there's a knock at his apartment door. He shouts “S’open!” loud enough that Meyer can hear it through the flimsy sheet rock, and he snickers when Meyer’s head pokes through the doorway. “The fuck you knockin’ for? Better not’ve lost my key.”

Meyer purses his lips, clicking the door shut behind him and flipping the deadbolt before ambling over to the couch. His key ring dangles from his fingertips as he rattles the keys reproachfully in Charlie’s direction, before he says, “Like I really want to walk in on you half naked. Again.” And… alright, fine, but Charlie doesn't bother hiding the pout stealing across his face. He looks great half naked, thanks. Or any level of naked.

Meyer shakes him out of that train of thought by settling down on the other end of the couch, shouldering his backpack to the floor—wait, backpack? “...You come straight from school?” Charlie blurts out, sitting up a little straighter and furrowing his brows a bit.

And he's not so high yet that he doesn't notice the way Meyer’s jaw tightens a little bit before he speaks, pulling his phone from his pocket and turning to his bag to stash it. “Ma’s taking Rosie to the doctor’s again, so Jake’s keeping the girls busy,” he mumbles, more to his lap than to Charlie. He zips the front pocket closed with way more force than necessary, face still turned to his bag. “Dad’s still at work.”

That explains a lot.

Charlie winces a little bit, but scootches over enough to bump his shoulder into Meyer’s. Meyer doesn't look up, but he doesn't inch away either, just squeezes his eyes shut, and breathes hard out his nose. Charlie maybe stares a little bit, but it's more out of concern than anything else. Really. He doesn't lean in more than companionable distance dictates. He can be responsible, weed or not.

It's hard, though. Meyer’s still a line of tension perched on the edge of the couch, and—“it kinda hurts to look at you, y'know.” Not the smoothest line he’s ever used, but it gets Meyer’s head picked up, and he looks over with that little line between his eyebrows he gets when he's confused but doesn't want anyone to know, and fuck, Charlie just wants to grab his face and—

And nothing. Meyer’s his best friend. Meyer’s two years younger than him, and despite being cute as fuck Meyer is apparently not interested in anyone, which is a mystery for another day, but he is smart and careful and has a plan and college applications out and is definitely not interested in a stoner drop-out like Charlie. So. And nothing.

Anyway.

Charlie gets his train of thought back on track—which is a fucking monumental achievement at this point—and nods, lazily flapping a hand at Meyer’s face. It's not quite touching, so it's fine. “What kinda friend would I be if I didn't help you relax, huh?” And that gets an eyebrow raise, so Charlie tips his head at the joint faintly smoldering away in the ashtray on the table. “All yours, if you want. Got more where that came from.”

“Of course you do,” Meyer responds, but the look on his face isn't the look of immediate refusal that offer usually gets Charlie. Must’ve been a real bad afternoon, if he’s actually considering it, but Charlie’s not gonna point that out. Meyer reaches out, still hesitant, and picks up the joint. “...You know where it's from?”

Charlie snorts. “Yeah, Adonis grows it in his fuckin’ garden, it's clean,” he snipes back, and the little glance Meyer shoots him is exasperated but more than a little reassured. Joey’s aunt’s greenhouse in Westchester isn't exactly a picturesque window box in the Village, but a little hyperbole won't kill him. And it is good weed.

He doesn't say anything as Meyer brings the joint to his mouth and inhales, which he realizes is a mistake as soon as Meyer takes a long pull like it's one of his cigarettes—hard. His eyes go wide just as Charlie sits up straight, and the smoke pours out of his mouth as he coughs hard enough to hack up a lung.

Charlie really doesn't mean to, but he can't stop the giggle that sneaks out. “Sorry, fuck,” he sputters when Meyer gets his shit together enough to glare at him, “shoulda warned you, burns a bit.”

“Good to know,” Meyer says, sarcasm thick enough to cut with a knife. Charlie just grins at him, one lip caught between his teeth, and tips his chin at the joint again.

“Here, gimme,” and oh this is stupid this is a bad idea and yet his hand’s out and Meyer should be able to tell when Charlie’s got a stupid idea brewing but he passes the joint over and this is the worst idea it’s like he’s sitting a few feet away watching himself make the most embarrassing decision of his life, “open up real quick.”

Meyer’s eyebrows jump, and he blurts out, “Excuse me?”

Charlie hears himself say “it goes down easier like this, c’mere,” and then—instead of being sensible, which is basically his job—Meyer’s opening his mouth with a wary expression on his face and fuck now Charlie has to go through with it. So he takes a drag, holds the smoke in his mouth, and leans in, ignores the way Meyer’s eyes go wide, and breathes the smoke into Meyer’s mouth, from just far enough away that their lips definitely do not touch, but it's a real close thing.

“‘Kay, breathe in and hold it,” he says, mouth empty and lips tingling. Meyer’s mouth closes, but his eyes don't get any less wide. Charlie leans back like it's nothing, like he does this all the time and his pulse isn't pounding because god dammit Meyer’s eyes are even prettier from two inches away. He settles against the cushions and hopes he sounds more casual than he feels when he says, “...Smoother, yeah?”

Meyer blinks, and exhales slow, smoke streaming up above their heads. “...I mean I'm not coughing, so,” he says, finally, and Charlie lets himself relax a little bit. Meyer’s shoulders creep down maybe a quarter of an inch too, and Charlie will take that blue ribbon, so he holds the joint out and waits for Meyer to take it again before he stands up.

“Should be easier now you know it’s comin’. You hungry?” he asks, and doesn't bother waiting for an answer. If he's not yet he will be, probably, and Charlie's never not down for cheez-its, so he leaves smart little Meyer to do whatever he wants with the joint and bangs around his cabinets for a few minutes. He definitely doesn't take his time and stand in his kitchen and think about how close his face was to Meyer’s, how wide his eyes went and how good he looks when he's surprised. That'd be pushing it.

By the time he flops back on the couch with the dented cheez-its box, Meyer’s—well, his shoulders are still set, but he's leaned back against the cushions and his eyes are lidded and smoke’s bleeding from his parted lips and in six years that's probably the closest to “relaxed” Charlie’s ever seen him, so, yeah, he's gonna call this one a win. He drops the box on the table with a mumbled “go wild,” and grins when Meyer snorts, undignified. He shakes his head when Meyer holds the joint out and hunches forward over the papers still scattered on the coffee table. “Like I said, s’all yours,” he says, shaking more weed from the bag, focus split between Meyer and getting another spliff started.

“You sure?” Meyer asks, that little line popping up between his eyebrows again, and god Charlie hopes the way he shakes his head hides how hard he swallows.

“Wouldn't’ve offered otherwise.”

The line doesn't go away, but Meyer pulls his hand back, and his eyes flick to Charlie’s hands, shifting the weed on the paper into a clean line almost unconsciously. He edges a bit closer on the couch, expression clearing the way it does when he focuses on something. “Show me?”

Charlie’s eyebrows lift, and he stops fucking with the weed to stare at Meyer’s face, all big dark eyes and intent. “One joint enough to get you on the stoner train, Mey?” he teases, and grins when Meyer rolls his eyes at him.

“No, I'm not planning on it. I just—” and he shrugs, loose-limbed. “Call me curious.”

“Yeah, yeah, fuckin’ genius, gotta know everything,” he says, and he's gonna blame how fond it sounds on the high. Meyer focuses on him again, dark eyes searching his face, and—okay, joint. Rolling a joint. He does this constantly without an audience, it's not that fuckin’ hard. He clears his throat and gets back to work; he doesn't bother narrating, just lets his movements slow down a bit more than usual so they're easier for Meyer to track.

And this is another thing that’s going on the list of “shit he didn't think through,” because Meyer’s eyes follow everything he's doing. Up to and including licking along the paper’s edge before he twists the joint closed. Which means that laser focus is zeroed in on his mouth now and he's going to fucking explode. He drops his eyes, because if he keeps looking at Meyer looking at him he’s gonna make a mistake and ruin a ten year friendship, which he’s pretty sure neither of them want. “Boom,” he says, and holds the joint up with a lazy flourish, which is still a degree of fanfare it doesn’t really deserve.

The amused huff Meyer lets out is definitely louder than usual, and Charlie grins to himself as he snags the lighter to get his own smoke back on. “You’re good at it,” Meyer says, tilting his chin at the joint in Charlie’s hands before taking another cautious drag off his own, and Charlie cocks an eyebrow at him.

“Real marketable skill, huh?” he snorts, flicking the lighter’s wheel and lighting the spliff between his lips. He holds for a second, exhales, and glances over at Meyer, who’s just… looking at him. With his face. Which means anything Charlie was thinking just flies out of his head, and he leans back against the couch, shoulder pressed along Meyer’s. Because why not.

He takes a drag, even though Meyer’s still staring, and he cocks an eyebrow at him instead of saying anything. Meyer blinks, and takes a drag off his own joint, gaze dropping as he does. He breathes out, slow, and presses his shoulder against Charlie’s. It’s nice, just sitting with Meyer, no pressure to be anything, and if this is all he gets, he can live with that.

Eventually he can feel the heat of the cherry against his knuckles, and he glances over to Meyer, who’s fiddling with the lighter in one hand, finally looking like his brain’s not running a million miles a minute for once. Charlie clears his throat, leans into Meyer’s shoulder for a second. “So?” Meyer looks over at him, expression blank, so he tilts his chin at the first joint, burnt down to a stub in Meyer’s fingers. “How was it?”

Meyer looks down, then leans forward to drop it in the ashtray, and Charlie’s almost too busy suppressing the shudder Meyer’s shoulder brushing against his causes to catch his answer. “It’s fine. I can see why you like it,” he mumbles, leaning back on the couch cushion. He licks his lips, gaze darting to meet Charlie’s, and he kinda shrugs his shoulders a little bit. “Definitely went down smoother the other way, like you said.”

The other—? Oh. “Oh,” he blurts out, and Meyer looks away, fast, and Charlie feels like his head might explode. He just shrugs, way more casual than he feels, takes a drag from the still-burning joint in his hand, and tries his best to look considering as he exhales. “At least one more hit in this one, if you want?”

Satisfaction simmers in his chest when that gets Meyer’s eyes back on him. Fuck, he’s easy, but Meyer just tilts his head at him, asks, “y’sure?” The word’s a bit more smushed together than Meyer’s usual sharp diction, and Charlie grins, despite the butterflies in his stomach—Meyer can pretend he’s a block of steel all he wants, but everyone’s gotta relax sometime.

“Like I said, more where that came from,” Charlie says, waggling the fingers of his free hand in the table’s direction. “Besides, sharin’s carin’ or whatever the fuck,” he tacks on, and Meyer’s eyes go wide and startled for a third time before he actually fucking giggles. And fuck, it’s cute, he’s so fucked. Charlie just grins, waiting this rare effusive moment out for the few seconds it takes Meyer to rein it in despite the high, then tucks one leg under himself to face Meyer a little more head on. “So, uh. Same thing?”

Meyer’s expression goes uncertain, but he nods, eyes intent on Charlie’s face again. He really wants to think Meyer’s eyes catch on his mouth a little longer than they would otherwise, but considering it is, in fact, the promised method of delivery for the hit, it’s probably just that. So he lifts the joint and inhales, jerking his chin at Meyer as he holds the smoke in.

Meyer’s lashes flicker against his cheek, just barely, as his lips drop open. Charlie leans in, and fuck if he doesn't know it's stupid, more bold or hopeful than he would be thanks to the high and Meyer being so fucking close, but he can't stop himself from leaning in more this time, and their lips brush as Charlie opens his mouth. Meyer doesn’t flinch back, doesn’t jerk away—his only reaction is the barest dip of his eyelids at the touch. He breathes the smoke in, lips closing, and neither of them move back while he holds it. The most he does is tilt his head a few degrees to the side as he breathes out, smoke streaming past the side of Charlie’s face. Not that Charlie notices, not when Meyer’s lips are pursed so prettily right in front of him, and he swallows hard, voice splintering in his throat. “Meyer…”

“Yeah,” Meyer says, and Charlie can't tell if his voice is husky from the smoke or from something he doesn't dare to hope for, but he's not pulling away. “...Do it again?”

The words take a second or two to register, but once they do… makes sense, Charlie said he’d share, so what if it’s not what he was hoping for, so he inches back, starts to raise the spliff—

“Charlie.” He freezes, the sound of his name from Meyer’s mouth when they’re so close enough to send shivers down his spine, but he meets Meyer’s eyes. He can see the way Meyer swallows before tilting his head, only a few degrees, at the ashtray on the table. “Put the joint down. And do it again.” He presses his lips together, as if that’ll hide the way his voice shakes a bit, but his eyes are so fuckin’ serious and—

Fuck. Okay.

Charlie does as he’s told, drops the joint in the ashtray and turns to face Meyer fully, leaning in before he wakes up or loses his nerve or Meyer comes to his senses and brushes his lips—closed, this time—against Meyer’s. It’s soft, barely any contact at all, but Meyer’s little inhale is enough to set off sparks of heat in Charlie’s chest. Meyer leans in and kisses Charlie back, and Charlie’s close enough to hear the little noise he makes in his throat when Charlie presses forward too, knees bumping into Meyer’s as he inches closer to him on the couch.

Turns out Meyer’s lips feel as soft as they look, and Charlie shudders at the slide of Meyer’s mouth against his. Everything feels more, and he doesn’t know if it’s the high or if it’s because it’s Meyer or if it’s both, but every press of Meyer’s lips against his makes him shiver. Nothing's ever felt so real or so much, and Charlie would gladly do this forever. Especially if he can get Meyer to make more sounds like that.

But Meyer breaks the kiss, and Charlie can’t quite keep the questioning noise in his chest from spilling out. Instead of answering, though, Meyer just leans forward enough to press his forehead to Charlie’s shoulder. Charlie can see enough of his face to see his eyes squeezed shut. “Wanted that for a while,” he says, the words muffled by the fabric of Charlie’s shirt.

That sets off something warm in Charlie’s chest, the feeling unfurling slow and sweet and burying the worry of having fucked up somehow. He tilts his head to press his lips to Meyer’s temple. “Yeah? How long’s a while?” he murmurs against the skin, and he can feel the way Meyer swallows before he answers.

“...A while.”

Something in Meyer’s voice catches Charlie's attention, and he inches back, brow furrowing. He’s used to reading little things in Meyer’s face, the way he locks everything down like it’ll kill him if anyone knows how he’s feeling. Even now Meyer’s still not an easy read, but he looks cornered, like he’s admitting to too much. And it might be the wrong move, but Charlie reaches up to slide a hand along his jaw, tilting Meyer’s face up to his. He presses his lips to Meyer’s cheek, and fuck he wishes he was better at words, but he says, “Me too, Mey. Just… didn’t think you’d want me back.” The words are more honest than he’d be if he wasn't high, but if Meyer’s going to be open about it—or what counts for open with him—Charlie can at least meet him halfway. S’only fair.

Meyer finally looks at him again, eyebrows knitting together incredulously and Charlie still wants to kiss the line between them away, but Meyer just shakes his head and leans in, a little hesitant, to press his lips to Charlie’s again. Which Charlie is fine with.

He catches Meyer’s lip between his and sucks, gentle, but it’s enough to get Meyer to make that little noise again, sharper this time, and that’s—fuck, it’s probably the hottest thing Charlie’s ever heard, and they’re not even doing much of anything. He can’t help but crowd closer—he’s definitely feeling the high, so this isn’t going below the belt any time soon even if he didn’t think that’d be pushing stuff too fast, but he just wants Meyer closer.

“Mey, can I—” he mumbles against Meyer’s lips, and while the distracted little noise Meyer makes in return is gratifying as fuck, he still huffs in frustration because he could be closer. It’s another herculean effort to pull back, but before Meyer can do much more than open his eyes and shoot a confused frown in Charlie’s direction, he presses his palms against Meyer’s shoulders to get him to scootch back on the couch. And the confused look on Meyer’s face is very promptly replaced with wide eyes when Charlie gets settled right in his lap.

A satisfied noise breaks out of Charlie’s throat, and he just kind of strokes his fingers along Meyer’s shoulders, the feeling of solid muscle under his fingertips really, really distracting, but he glances up to catch Meyer’s gaze. “Okay?”

Meyer nods, but he’s still got that startled look on his face, so Charlie stops touching and just… looks. And waits. “I don’t know what to do with my hands,” Meyer says after a few seconds, and Charlie really doesn’t mean to but he can’t stop the grin that spreads across his face. Meyer frowns up at him, curling the fingers of the hands in question against Charlie’s couch cushions. “What?” he says, more petulant than Charlie’s expecting, which only makes him grin more.

“Nothin’,” he says through the grin, and shrugs. “Just not used to hearin’ ‘I don’t know’ come outta your mouth about anything.” Meyer huffs at that, but amusement creeps across his face anyway, which is another win to put up on the board today. Charlie slides his hands up, cups Meyer’s jaw again, and leans back in. “Anythin’s free game, Mey. Whatever you want,” he says against Meyer’s lips. He can just barely feel the way Meyer shudders under him, and he grins again when Meyer’s palms settle, tentative, on his waist. “Good choice,” he mumbles, before pressing forward to catch Meyer’s lip between his teeth this time.

That gets him a quiet gasp and Meyer’s fingers clenching in the fabric of his t-shirt, and realistically at some point everything Meyer does is gonna have to stop being the hottest thing that’s ever happened to him. It’s probably not gonna be any time soon. Charlie presses closer, knees against the back of the couch. The way Meyer’s hands shift to slide up his back has him making a noise of his own.

Everywhere Meyer touches him feels electric, even through clothes, and he can’t stop stroking his thumbs along Meyer’s face as they kiss. He never wants Meyer to stop touching him. And judging by the way Meyer’s hands can’t stop moving, from his back to his shoulders up into his hair, there’s no danger of him stopping any time soon. Charlie nips at Meyer’s lip again, and gasps when Meyer tugs at his curls in response. It’s him pulling back this time—he doesn’t want to push things too fast, and he’s sticking to his guns. Even if Meyer pulling his hair makes him want to do the exact opposite. Instead of sliding to his knees like he really really wants to, he tilts forward to press his forehead to Meyer’s.

Meyer blinks up at him, and Charlie’s not sure if the slightly dazed look on his face is from the high or the kissing, but he can basically claim credit for both, so it’s flattering either way. Charlie leans back, just a little bit, and drapes his arms over Meyer’s stupidly broad shoulders. “So the weed’s just ‘fine,’ huh?” he says through a smirk, reaching up to brush his fingertips along the nape of Meyer’s neck.

The grin that steals across Meyer’s face totally undercuts the way he rolls his eyes. “Fuck off,” he mumbles, and his fingers tighten in Charlie’s hair again. Charlie grins back, before leaning back in to kiss him some more.