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Bearable | A Reddie Fanfiction

Read it from the beginning

Chapter 7

"E-Eddie?" Bill's voice, loud and clear, echoed throughout the apartment just loud enough to be heard over the sounds from Eddie's Walkman, "Wuh-wanna come with me down to the p-puh-park?" Hastily, Eddie pulled his headphones from their place atop his head, leaning up on one elbow. His limps felt heavy, his eyes bleary with semi-sleep, a fog shrouding his brain. He was lying in bed, having never gotten out of it since he woke that morning- it was a Friday today, and his Fridays were always void of classes, so instead of getting up and starting his day with Stan and Bill at 7:00 am he had stayed in bed until, well, now- it was just past 5:00.

"Shit," Eddie hissed to himself, clicking 'pause' on his Walkman and setting both it and his headphones aside. He really hadn't meant to stay in bed so late. He hadn't eaten anything yet today, and silently cursed himself for it. He was afraid that he was developing a habit of missing meals; without his mother here to tell him what to do as she used to, he was forgetting all sorts of things. Sonia had been the very best at keeping Eddie on a set schedule, fitting meal times perfectly in between his medication times and getting him out of bed at 6:30 am sharp every morning, even weekends and holidays (which he had hated, but understood). Not having her here was strange- other than food, Eddie found himself forgetting to shower and do his laundry, too. He wouldn't have a single clean outfit if it weren't for his roommates.

"Eddie?" This time it was Stan who called, his voice just on the outside of Eddie's door, snapping him from his thoughts, "Are you dead in there or something?" With three knocks, Eddie called out 'come in!' and the door slipped open. At once, Stan frowned, already knowing that, so far, Eddie had spent his whole day in the same spot and had yet to do anything productive. One could tell by Eddie's disheveled hair and lack of shirt alone. "I'm making you something to eat and then you're coming down to the park with us," He said, his tone flat, leaving no room for argument. With a quick glance over his shoulder (towards where others were most likely waiting) Stan pushed into the room and shut the door behind him, "Come on, what do you want to wear?" As Stanley crossed the room to stop in front of the dresser, Eddie pushed his blankets aside. He felt a little weak, a little dizzy- most likely from the lack of nutrients- and silently cursed himself for losing track of time to such a degree yet again- he wondered how he had done it. With his trashy 12-hour mixtape playing in his ears he must have fallen into some sort of daze.

"Anything's fine," He shrugged, wiping at his eyes with the heels of his hands and then moving to stand at Stan's side so he could dig around his drawers on his own, "How'd your day go?" Stan was passing Eddie subtle, rapid glances, ones that clearly weren't meant to be noticed but were noticed anyways. You didn't have to be a genius to see that Stanley was nervous for Eddie, either his physical or his mental health- both of which were in decent enough places, by the way- and that he was probably desperate to go into some sort of mother mode. Instead of beginning to pester and maybe scold, he replied in a cool, collected voice,

"It was nice. Ben, Beverly and Richie caught me while leaving school," Stan's last Friday class ended at noon, so Ben, Bev and Richie must get out then as well, "and asked me to come down to the café with them." For a brief moment, almost unnoticeable, Eddie froze, and then forced his limbs to continue looking for suitable clothing.

"Ben, Beverly and Richie?" He asked, trying to keep his tone neutral and uncaring, "Are they here too then?" At once, Stan chuckled, shaking his he ad and bumping his elbow gently into Eddie's.

"No, Ed, Richie isn't here." Eddie gawked, startled as a rapid gone-and-then-gone thought shot through his head (how did you know Stan do you suspect that-), and was about to protest (yes, he had been curious about Bev and Ben too- but Richie had been his main curiosity, though he'd sooner die than admit it) but Stan continued before he could, "He and Bev had to work. Maybe we can stop by after the park. Ben's here, though," With a smile and another chuckle Stanley continued talking about his day. He had ordered a coffee, black, as usual, and chattered away with the three others before Beverly and Richie were swept behind the counter. Then, he and Ben had stuck around for a little while until Mike arrived, and then sooner or later Bill as well. Now, Ben, Bill and Stanley were here to gather up Eddie to go bird watching or sight seeing or whatever you called walking around and listening to Stan point and chatter about grackles or crows. Eddie had reached for a sweatshirt and Stan had rapidly shook his head, noting how hot it was outside today and that Eds would cook alive. Instead, he pulled out a short-sleeve button up tee laden with stripes of different colors, reds, yellows, dark blues and whites, along with dark grey jeans that were rolled up just above his ankles. "There," Stan said with a smile as Eddie finished slipping on a pair of white socks, "You look like you haven't been dead all day now." With careful hands, Stan leaned forwards to try and flatten down the mess of Eddie's hair. The shorter boy tried to flinch away with an exasperated groan, but gave in after a moment of fighting and let himself be pestered over. A small, tiny little part of him noted how nice it was to have Stan caring for him like this, how similar it was to the way his mother used to, but he pushed that thought away because he did not want to compare his mother to Stan.

"Thanks, idiot," Eddie grumbled after his hair was finally regulated, bashful and red in the face. The two boys, side by side, caught each other's eyes through the mirror. Stanley smiled, and one hand raised to rest on Eddie's shoulder.

"'Course, Eddie. Come on," He flicked his head, motioning for Eddie to follow, "Let's find you something to eat."

*****

Eddie had been greeted warmly by Ben and Bill, and then promptly fed leftover chicken caesar salad and the tallest glass of water he'd ever had. After he finished his food, a little embarrassed because Stan had been watching him like a hawk to make sure he ate every last bite, the group had left the apartment complex and made towards Back Cove Park, where they now walked side-by-side-by-side-by-side. Truth be told, the endless expanse that was the North Atlantic ocean was breathtaking, and the setting sun lit the rippling waves aflame. Though Back Cove Park was nothing like the Barrens, the footpaths did lead you towards a copse of trees about half the size of the jungle that was back in Derry. It was really nothing in comparison, but with the sound of the waves crashing against the shore no more than 100 feet away from the tree line, you could almost imagine that it was.

"You're going to break something Bill!" Eddie had his hands planted on his hips, face upturned to watch as Bill scaled a spindly pine tree, it's branches spiraling up and up and up and getting thinner with each, "You know the branches get weaker in the fall and winter, right? They could snap out from right under you and you wouldn't even be able to do anything!" Despite Eddie's worrying, Bill continued upwards with a haste that was almost inhuman- he was like a goddamn monkey for Christ's sake, taking his steps two branches at a time and giggling like a child each time something creaked underneath him. At last unable to continue watching (his anxiety was mounting steadily) Eddie spun on his heel and trekked away through the underbrush. Dried leaves crunched underfoot with each step thanks to the soft mulch covering the forest floor, and, if anything, that reminded him of the Barrens the most. In the fall the tangle of bushes and trees would turn orange and red, and then a deep brown, shedding their foliage and creating some sort of crackling sheet not unlike like some musical instrument. Stan and Ben were stood beside one another looking over a wide clearing and chattering about something Eddie couldn't quite piece together.

"But that raises another question," Stan mumbled, tapping his chin with one finger, "How would we get it down here? We don't have a car, and I guess we could bring it all down by hand but that would take a while," Ben straightened up, snapping his fingers as a grin split his face.

"I've got it! Mike's grandpa works at a farm, and I know he's got these big ATVs- Gators, I think they're called. I'm sure he wouldn't mind lending 'em to us for a day or two."

"Lending who what now?" Eddie stepped up on Ben's other side, his curiosity piqued. He glanced over the space before him where the trees thinned out for a good 50 feet and then grew dense once more. The break in the trees let slanted sunrays pass by to bathe the clearing in a golden glow.

"Eddie, perfect!" Ben turned to him with that same beaming smile, "What do you think-" He held out his hands, as if presenting a large project, a masterpiece he was very very proud of, "A clubhouse. No, wait- does that sound, like, lame? I... I don't know, but I've been eyeing this place for a while and I think it would be great to build in. Me and Stanley were talking about digging into the ground and making a sort of... underground hideaway so no, like, park rangers come by and report it. We could have a hidden trapdoor and everything. No one would even know it was there if we got it built fast enough!" Eddie took a brief moment to process, both Ben and Stan staring at him expectantly. Ben's words had come out in such a rush they put Eddie's chatter to shame, and despite his thoughts constantly racing a mile a minute he couldn't seem to comprehend what had been said. Slowly, he pieced together this plan, and then, his mouth dropped open as he fought to find the right words to express his outrage.

"Are you insane? Building a clubhouse in the ground?" A hand raised to pinch at the bridge of his nose, a sigh pressing out of his lungs, "With all the bugs and mold and fungus and shit? It's not safe to be digging around in that! And how would we even make it? As if we know anything about building a whole-ass clubhouse!" Stan's own smile overtook his face and he took a few steps closer.

"That's the thing! The cold will kill all of that gross stuff, and make the ground easy to dig without us getting all caked in mud! Before the snow falls we can have it built and winterized! We'll make it watertight, too! Ben knows how to do all of that!" The way both boys were smiling was reminiscent of two children who had just requested a puppy for Christmas- they were hopeful, pleading, almost- if Eddie said yes to this silly little idea then it would be decided. With Eddie's approval, Bill would think the idea as totally safe, and if Bill agreed then everyone else would too. If they could get Eddie to agree with them, then convincing the others would be easy. "Ben's in architecture, Eddie. He knows all about safety and building- he'll make sure everything goes okay." With a heaving sigh, Eddie let his shoulders sag, a frown on his face. He was reluctant to let this happen, but... well, if he supervised everyone to make sure no one did anything stupid then maybe it would be kind of cool. Maybe. And, if Ben really was in the architecture classes then he must know what he's doing.

"Fine," Two fists pumped into the air and a cheer rang out, "But, if anyone gets hurt, even once, I'm shutting it all down! I'm not letting you all get tetanus or aids from rusty nails and shit like that, okay?"

"We won't, don't worry! Come on," Ben punched Stan gently in the shoulder, "Let's go find Bill." At once, the two sped away, into the trees and in the direction of Bill. Following the crashing and crunching of fallen branches and leaves were their voices, loud and clear in the still, Autumn air, shouting up their crazy idea to Bill who must still be perched in the pine tree much like a bird Stan might find interesting and document in his bird book. With another heavy breath, Eddie turned back to the clearing, and really absorbed the details of the small place he was standing in. He missed the Barrens- the sad attempts at building dams, and even an attempt at building treehouse had been massive failures but they had still been lots of fun. Here in the small forest of Back Cove Park there was no bone-like bamboo to rattle eerily in the wind, calling silent warnings of fictional quick mud and tigers and creating the perfect environment to play jungle hunters. Here, there were no sewer drains spilling greywater into the Kenduskeag, which tumbled endlessly through the woods without restraint. Here, there were no paths trodden by children's feet, no trails flattened by generations and generations of walking and running and sneaking during a game of guns- but maybe, Eddie thinks, that will be okay. A clubhouse. A probably illegal underground clubhouse. It would give Eddie a new place to be, to spend his time. It will be a reason to return to these forests and to create new paths with new people, and maybe those paths will help them all one day just like the familiar ones back in Derry would have carried you away from the wrath of Henry Bowers. As Stan and Ben continued shouting their plan skywards, Eddie let the idea of a clubhouse grow on him just a tiny bit. A bud of excitement, even happiness, settled in the pit of his heart. It was warm and comforting, and he held to it tightly. Maybe this really was a good idea.

*****

By now the sun had set and cast the world into darkness. Though Eddie couldn't read his watch with the lack of light, he had to assume it was at least 9:00 pm and he was still in the forest with his friends; Bill, Ben, Stan and he had cleared some of the leaves from the clearing to expose the tough grass underneath, then Ben had found and rolled the smoothest stones he could find into the place to use as makeshift chairs. Now, the four were sat facing one another, a single flashlight in Bill's hand pointed upwards and casting an ominous too-white light over their faces that dragged shadows underneath their eyes and gave them the appearances of ghosts.

"Wait really? Like, full-on OCD? Not just... being a perfectionist or something? I know a lot of people say they have OCD when they actually don't," Ben was leaned forwards with his elbows on his knees, his steady gaze trained on Stan's who, in turn, had his hands clasped tidily in his lap.

"Yeah," He nodded, his curly hair a mess of bright browns and stark blacks thanks to the lighting, "If that's how you want to put it. I'm taking medication for it and stuff." Stan looked as if he were about to continue when Eddie cut in with a smile on his face,

"I remember one time Stan had come over to my house and I went to the bathroom for like- not even five fucking minutes. I left him in the kitchen and when I came out- oh my God," Eddie was already trying not to laugh, biting at his bottom lip to hold in the string of giggles that threatened to escape him, "He had organized everything. In five minutes! All the slats on my blinds had been straightened, all the dishes had been stacked big to small- the dishes!" Amusement grew in his chest, and he let it out in a sound one might imagine a coked-up chipmunk to make. He raised one hand to let it hover over his mouth, his eyes squinting, "I walked- I walked into the kitchen and caught him turning all my cans to face the front of the shelf!" Bill had cracked his own smile, a wide and toothy grin, and soon Ben had picked it up as well. Eddie wasn't certain why this was suddenly so funny. After being in bed all day his energy had shot through the roof. His laughter only grew and grew as he went on foretelling his story, his eyes beginning to glisten and his chest threatening to hurt. He didn't have his inhaler, but the slight concern he felt at that thought was quickly smothered by another wave of cackling, "I- I-I went hey! and he spun on his heel, his face all red- it- it was-" Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, his face hurting with his mirth, "He had a can of- of corn and- when he spun around he tip-" Through gasps for breath, wheezes that left him dizzy, he forced out, "He tipped over everything else on the shelf, too! All his hard work- like dominoes! Oh my God my mom was pissed! Stan was so- he looked like he was gonna die!" At last, Eddie couldn't hold himself together any longer. His amusement was contagious, and throughout the course of the story Bill and Ben had grown giddy all the same. Now, the three were howling, heads tipped back, rocking back and forth and fighting to get ahold of themselves while Stan on sat bashfully, a grin on his face. Briefly Eddie wondered why this felt so goddamn funny but found he didn't care.

"It was... I felt horrible," Stan had to raise his voice to be heard over the laughter of the three, his face visibly reddening even in the weak light, "Canned foods are expensive, and I didn't have the money to reimburse her or anything!" The howling laughter didn't cease, and, well, Stan decided that maybe this situation was funny enough to let himself laugh. His grin cracked wide and now he was giggling all the same, all flushed and breathless just like anyone else. Eddie was nearing physical pain but wow was that feeling fantastic. A good hard laugh was something rare to him and he always tried to soak in the moment when it arrived. His lungs burned, his head throbbed, and his eyes spat tears down his face. He glanced at Bill through bleary, slotted eyes and then at Stan and then at Ben, who were all laughing just the same, giddy off the feeling of being with one another. That feeling was just like when Eddie was with Stan and Bill, but amplified now that Ben was here too. That feeling was fantastic- That feeling was cut abruptly and Eddie shrieked like a madman as a sudden hand shot around his shoulders- all of a sudden, just like that, he was being pulled backwards into something, into someone- an arm around his throat in a chokehold threatening and dangerous and memories bad memories Henry Bowers and bullies and-

"Ooooooh looks like somebody Got Off A Good One!!" A fist was pressed into the top of his head and the sudden spurt of panic was gone again all at once- that giddy, light, precious hilarity returned and so did Eddie's grin as Richie trapped him in his arm and gave him a harsh noogie. It burned and Eddie didn't care as Richie continued off with that stupid MovieTone Newsreel Announcer voice, "Yowza, Eds, just YOW-za! You've got the stuff, kid, you've got the stuff for live theater! Sign right here on this dotted line and I'll get you on a stage! You'll make it big I know you will-!"

"Get off, Richie!! Beep fucking beep!" Eddie was giggling again, clawing at Richie's arms as tears streamed from his eyes, "Let me- Let me go!" He kicked and thrashed, writhing as a chorus of laughter continued on bright and bouncing. Somehow Eddie managed to wriggle free like a fish, and then he was rocketing up and bursting into a run as Richie reached to trap him again. He leaped from his seat on the rock, smiling from ear to ear- just as he had gained his freedom he saw Richie reaching to capture him once more but Eddie wouldn't let that happen. He glanced a single time over his shoulder to see Richie's own warm grin- that split second of time, no more than a heartbeat as Eddie's eyes locked with Richie's in a silent challenge, Eddie saw what was most likely the greatest thing he ever would. Richie's glasses were gently lit by the harsh LED from the flashlight- underneath the stupid coke bottles perched on his nose, Eddie could see the deep brown tone of his eyes and the way his smile pinched them gently in the corners. His teeth were miraculously straight, as if he'd had braces at some point in his life, and his cheeks wore a high flush. Eddie's head snapped forwards again and he set off into the forest, the darkness, hearing Richie's voice echoing behind him.

"I'll git ya Spaghetti! I'll git ya good 'n then I'll wrap y'up like a big 'ole presen', put ya undah my tree!" The New Yorker's accent rang through the trees with an almost surreal undertone, sending a shiver down Eddie's spine. Exhilaration ripped through him, lighting his veins aflame with a shaky happy-fear he didn't quite know how to explain. He was letting out little squeaky sounds, things like giggles of terror but he wasn't scared in the slightest. His chest was swelling with an almost-sick feeling, but it was a good kind of almost-sick. The emotion was confusing but reminded him strongly of childhood and he accepted it with open arms. As he crashed haphazardly through the undergrowth, eyes strained in the darkness, Eddie wasn't concerned in the slightest for what he might be pushing through- poison ivy, thorn bushes- shit, he could walk right over a corpse and he wouldn't be afraid for his health! Though certain he was not being too quiet, Richie was being even louder. Eddie had the upper hand here thanks to his significantly smaller, less gangly, more agile frame and also his ability not to be a big lumbering goofball every second of the day. Wyatt the Homicidal Bag-Boy was gone, and Richie was back in his place with his crooning, teasing, playful voice, "Eddie, my love! Come out come out wherever you are!"

Eddie's stomach did a weird little backflip, probably a symptom of his excitement as he decided that he was far enough away to start searching for a hiding spot. Years and years of hide-and-go-seek experience came flooding back to him, and he bit at his bottom lip to stop from making a single sound. He dropped into a crouch, scanning his surroundings in a flash; the darkness made it difficult to navigate, especially since everything was so unfamiliar as of now, but Eddie could work just fine with the silhouettes of trees and bushes. The beam from the flashlight danced through the trees, bobbing and waving around as Richie blundered closer by the second. Cheater, you shouldn't get a light, Eddie thought and then almost let out a bubble of laughter driven by his own delirium- he reached out a hand and brushed the brittle, hardened leaves of a bush, crawling immediately closer and trapping one between his fingers. Rubbing the surface rapidly, he deducted that it wasn't poison ivy (which had an oily feel, even when the leaves were dried) and used both hands to part the branches and skitter right through. He kept his head low, his shoulders and elbows tucked in with an expertise you could only get form having done this a billion times already. Hiding places like these were Eddie's specialty- this bush was small with tight-packed branches, but he was smaller and could fit just fine, whereas someone lankier like Bill or Stan would not stand a chance.

"Come ooooon Spaghetti-man!" Richie called out in a sing-song voice, only about 100 feet away, "If you don't come out right this instant I might just have to lure you, and trust me, you don't want that! My singing is just i-rre-sis-tible!" Eddie patted around him, finding a smooth, round stone about the size of a golf ball and clutching it tightly. Risking his spot just for a moment, he slid his front half out and pulled his arm back- then, with as much force as possible, he sent the rock flying. If everything had gone according to plan, the rock would have flown far and called Richie's attention away; that would have allowed Eddie to scurry back to the others with a smug smile to wait for the Trashmouth to give up and return to see him sitting proudly. Sadly, everything did not go according to plan, and the stone barely made it 10 feet. Eddie's throwing hand wasn't horrible- he considered himself rather strong for his size- but his vision sure was, and the rock collided with a thin, wiry tree and went clattering into the brittle leaves before making any great distance. At once, the beam of the flashlight went whipping towards the sound, and Eddie felt his heart leap into his throat. That almost-sick feeling went waving through him again as he shot back into the bushes and curled his knees into his chest, slapping a hand over his mouth. Through his mind ran the word shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit but he was grinning like an idiot and trembling lightly with stifled howling. The flashlight clicked off- now, total darkness ruled the world.

"Heeeeeeeeeere Eddie Eddie Eddie!" Richie's voice was like a breath of wind, far-off and terrifying. Eddie balled his hands into fists and bit down on the knuckles of his left, the right one wrapped tight around his knees to hold them as close, as out of sight, as possible, "Why are you hiding from me like this?" That was the last thing Richie said- the silence that followed was stifling. Far off, Eddie could hear the voices of his other friends, Bev's dancing titter was familiar now, as was the powerful tone of Mike's. All seven of them were here in the forest right now. Following that realization was another wave of childish glee, along with a swell of affection that was there and gone in an instant. Who knew Richie could move so silently? Not a single breeze stirred the branches, and not a leaf crunched under the sole of a sneaker. Eddie's own rapid breathing sounded much too loud, and he wouldn't be surprised if the thudding of his heart was as noisy as the beat of a drum. Anticipation, cold, crept up his spine and fed him a sudden alertness. It felt as if the world had brightened for a second, as if his eyes had sharpened and began to see crystal clear just for a blink. The outline of unruly hair, a mass of it, was suddenly discernable from the shape of the nature. Richie's head was bent, half-kneeling, and he was slinking around like a ninja. It was only for a brief moment that Eddie could see him before he was gone again, swallowed by the shadow, but he had been much, much closer than before- Eddie bit into his knuckle a little harder, afraid he would let out a squeak like a mouse.

The quiet seemed endless. Time lost all meaning. If it weren't for those far-off voices, Eddie would have been convinced that time might have frozen entirely. The air was cool and fresh, warmed to a pleasant bite and not the bitter iciness it would have been otherwise thanks to the days sunniness. Through the leaves blocking the sky Eddie could see faint glittering stars, but the pollution from the Portland lights almost smothered them entirely. It was fascinating to him- back in Derry, the stars had been crisp, clear, displaying their constellations with pride. Now, here, it was the polar opposite. Curious. Somewhere an owl hooted and Eddie jumped. Leaves crumbled beneath him- a twig snapped under one heel. He didn't even have time to register that he had made a noise.

"Eddie!!!" Eddie shrieked, a total screech, ear-splitting, blood-curdling, horrific enough to freeze the blood in your veins. Hands plunged through the foliage and then he was being dragged out by the arms, yanked to his feet and then swept right off of them as he was thrown over a shoulder. "Sure an' begorahh! I caught me-self a boyo, an' a foine one at that!"

"Richie! Richie!" Eddie was squealing as a hand wrapped tightly, securely around his waist, and then Richie was spinning, twirling Eddie with him in endless dizzying circles that brought out that bubbling fountain of laughter once more. "Richie no- no, put me down- Richie!!"

"I caught me-self a boyo! A foine, foine boyo!" Richie picked up a tune to his words, some improvised nothing-ness that was too, too funny. He began to dance, prancing around on light feet and rocking Eddie all around as he sang his words. "I caught me-self an Eddie!" Eddie's lungs were hurting again because of his lack of breath, tears rolling down his face in steady streams. Richie was laughing too and the sound of it made Eddie's stomach do it's little backflip yet again. His laughter was hearty, loud, the sound of someone who was entirely happy with life and all of it's wonders. The spinning didn't stop until Richie almost stumbled, stomping down on his shoelace and drawing out another cry from Eddie as he almost went to the ground. "Wooooah! Sorr-ee 'bout tha', Spaghe-i-man, rough rough wa-ers it be!" Richie took on the voice of a sea captain, dragging up the image of an old man with a peg-leg and a pipe hanging from a mouth full of golden teeth. Eddie was laughing only harder.

"Put me down you fucker! Let me- let me go!" Eddie began to pound on his back with his fists, and at last that flashlight clicked on again. The light was blinding after the absence of it, but Eddie couldn't care less. He was on cloud nine.

"Something tells me you wanna stay up there, Eds! Something tells me you- you wanna stay where you can see the whole world!" Richie took one more grand spin, a pirouette that would put a beginner ballerina to shame. It would have been impressive if Eddie hadn't had his eyes screwed shut to stop the flow of tears.

"Fuck you, Tozier! Let me down!" Alas, Tozier didn't comply. Instead, he began to hum the tune of 'Here Comes the Bride' as he took overdramatic, high-kneed steps towards the direction of the others- the hand that isn't wrapped tightly around Eddie's waist moves up to capture his legs, which had begun to kick and had almost knocked him right in the glasses.

"Watch the toes, Eds, you don't want to knock out these pearly whites, do you?"

"That's what I'm fucking going for you jackass!" Eddie brought his elbow back into the back of Richie's head, knocking it forwards with a dull thud and an 'oof!'.

"Oh-ho, you're in for it now, Eds! You asked for it!" And then, Richie began to tickle. Eddie felt his heart stop, and then begin to thud much too quickly. He could handle teasing and carrying and stupid singing but tickling- oh no, he didn't have the breath to deal with that. He was howling again, curling instinctively in on himself as much as he possibly could- which wasn't a lot, since he was tossed over Richie's shoulder and locked into place. Fingers jabbed and poked at his ribs, his sides, and he was in pure hysterics.

"No- No no no Richie Richie stop! Stop it stop it ohmygodRichieRichieRICHIE-" Eddie no longer had any breath. His screaming laughter had halted, now no more than painful wheezes. Tears soaked his face, soaked the back of Richie's shirt, and his cheeks were a bright beaming red. He wanted to scream at Richie to stop, to let him be, to please please spare him but oh my GOD he couldn't take it- Richie's hand pulled away and Eddie sucked in a heaving breath, his chest pulsing with each and every one as the lasts of his laughter forced it's way out. He felt like he was suffocating and for once it wasn't because he didn't have his inhaler.

"There," Richie said, the smug grin basically audible in his voice, "That'll teach you, Eds. No more elbowing!" Just to defy him, Eddie bumped him in the back of the head again- and then instantly regretted it as he felt Richie shift to tickle-attack him again.

"No! No no I'm sorry it was a joke-" Richie's own laughing burst out, and the hand dropped as he nearly doubled over. The tickling hand went to rest on his knee, and now he was the one howling away, that jovial sound echoing around the trees with a dream-like authenticity. It was bliss.

"Oh, Eddie, Christ you're just- you're a hoot!" Richie spoke as best he could through his growing breathlessness, and finally put Eddie down back onto solid ground, though the shorter boys knees wobbled as his own dizziness held strong. The two boys fell apart beside one another, grinning and sobbing and cackling like maniacs, fighting just to stay upright as their contentedness fed off of one another and radiated in warm, yellow rays. Minutes passed, more than 10, before either boy could regather themselves. Surprisingly, Richie was the first to go silent and manage to catch his breath- and then, just as Eddie did the same, the tone shifted, growing warmer yet. Eddie's eyes raised, locking with Richie's own. The Trashmouth wore his toothy smile, his eyes crinkled in the corners, bright as stars behind those coke-bottle glasses. Something heavy settled around them, something Eddie had never felt before and didn't recognize. Richie's head tilted, and the smile fell into something smaller, more serene, and yet almost ten times prettier. "I like the sound of your laugh, Eds." His voice was uncharacteristically sincere, and it took Eddie by surprise. The sudden flat tone was dripping with... affection? He wanted to answer, to say something back like 'Yours is nice too' or 'I like the sound of you shutting up' or anything at all, but before he could piece together a coherent phrase Richie was moving again. "Come on," He grabbed Eddie's hand- no, more like his wrist, and with no intent other than to guide him- and began to head back in the direction of the others, "I'm sure they'll want their light back."

Eddie's face was warm and red, and he had seemed to lose his voice. He felt like he was glowing with a soft light- and he felt like Richie was doing the same. He had never, ever laughed like that before. He had never, ever felt that free and normal and human. There was no voice of Sonia Kaspbrak, no warnings of broken necks or arms or noses, no shouting over bugs and thorns and rashes. For those last minutes, Eddie Kaspbrak had been just that- Eddie Kaspbrak. For once in his life he had not been Eddie Kaspbrak, son of Sonia Kaspbrak. He had just been himself. With Richie's hand around his wrist, dragging him, he wanted nothing more than to relive that moment forever and ever. If he died right now and went to heaven, he was certain that those moments alone with Richie would be what heaven was. The sound of his stupid, goofy laugh, the soft, almost manic dancing of those big, brown eyes, that lanky arm around his waist- that is what heaven was. Eddie found himself wanting to go back in time. The two arrived back with the others.

#reddie #reddie fanfiction #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #bill denbrough #stan uris #stanley uris #ben hanscom #beverly marsh #mike hanlon #the losers club #it #it movie #it chapter 1 #it chapter 2 #it 2017 #it 2019 #it chapter one #it chapter two

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multifandomhoodies · 3 years ago

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. Here’s a. bit of a write up on corps life.

my big number one? I wanna go back lmao. I’ve been home for a few days and I’m already to go back out there.

Anyways. I spent two months camping and working in the pacific northwest and. honestly it was the most incredible experience of my life. I was on a five person crew (four members and a lead) and of that group there were only two people that hadn’t already done a session of conservation corps either at this corps or a different one. This was my first time doing a corps! I was like. deadass shitting a brick before I left. I was so nervous to fly across the country (I’d never even flown before!) and go do something I’d never done for two months. I’ve been camping. I’ve been hiking. I’d worked outside for the last nine months and had two seasons of outdoor work in park maintenance. but this was living out of tent for TWO months. I was super excited but I was. so fucking nervous too. And god to fly? Airports seemed scary and busy and I was scared I was gonna miss a flight or not be able to find where to go. So the weeks leading up to my trip I was so goddamn nervous. But I did it lmao.

And then. corps life. We spent the first day doing orientation where I met my crew!! and then left to head to our campsite where we’d do saw training the next three days. We left the parking lot of headquarters to Colter Wall’s “The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie” and headed to an area in the Willamette National Forest. The drive there was incredible. I’d flown into Oregon the night before and really hadn’t seen much because it was 9:30 when I landed and had only taken a short lyft ride to headquarters p early in the morning so. This was kind of my first time getting to see more than the freeway of Oregon. It was so beautiful. The big ass trees and the river and the mountains were just. incredible. And then that night two of my crewmates made entirely too much spaghetti which we had for two nights. We then had to use the leftover sauce for another meal. Fun fact! We only had spaghetti once more after that. In two months. Spaghetti is usually a staple on corps. Not on Red Crew. We were scared. Also the crewmember who doled out the pasta portions for that very first dinner of too much spaghetti was banned by our crew contract from doling out grain portions. After that, we went into saw training. Three straight days of saw training and evaluations on the last day. We were starting at seven I think? Like, meeting a five minute walk away in full ppe with saws ready to go at 7am. I think I wrote that I woke up at 4:45 the one morning but honestly that may have been the jet lag. Saw training was exhausting but it was so much fun too. There was a lot of information to take in and I’d at least run a chainsaw before. There were people that hadn’t run saws before at all. On the third day of saw training, we loaded up into our rig (by the way! 2021 ford f250. super duty cab. extended bed with a truck cap. gigantic. massive. imposing. it also had no labelling. it was not marked with anything corps related. it did not even have license plates. it was probably a little intimidating when we were bass boosting driving around in that thing. but whiplash inducing bass boosting because like. notorious big to mumford and sons back to back. can you believe that we never got pulled over in driving almost 5,000 miles). anyways. we did saw evals in a burned zone. I got my bar pinched. I know what I’d do differently now but I have a lot more saw time. But I passed! My whole crew passed and are now USDA National Sawyer Certification A Class Sawyers. Or Feller 3s depending on how you wanna say it. I’m super happy because I got my first professional certification at 19. Although my card says I got it after my birthday but I did my eval before I turned 20 so I’m gonna take it.

After saw training, we went up to a suburb of Portland to. sigh. move sticks for Karens. The area we were in SCREAMED homeowners association. in the name of “fuels reduction” they had us pick up sticks and hike them down to the road. The sticks were down because the trees were dying from this shitty little park. The first week was cold and rainy and we moved sticks. We cleared out an area close to the road the first day and then the rest of the week we had to swamp (move/clear) sticks up a hill onto this narrow trail. Everyone had blisters because no one was used to walking up and down a hill all day. Carrying wet and occasionally rotting sticks. We’d hike it up the hill to the trail and then load sticks into shitty wheelbarrows and then take those down this narrow path on a steep hill when it was fully loaded with sticks. By the end of the week we were walking a good quarter/half mile to the the road with heavy wheelbarrows. It was miserable. NO one wanted to complain because it was our first project but. eventually we all came to the conclusion that it was bullshit. It had nice views tho. Still my least favorite project. Even thought it was miserable I still like. had fun??

After that we went into Washington and planted trees. We actually did this for two weeks but with another site in between. This site uh. did not have bathrooms. Learned how to use a cathole. It hailed the first time I used a cathole. That was exceptionally miserable. But we planted trees! I wasn’t a huge fan of the site our first time there but I warmed up to it. We planted over 3,000 trees in our two weeks. One of our project partners stayed out with us, which mad respect. He was so sweet. We all joked that we were a little in love with him. He wound up hanging out with us during a few of our campfires. He told us about this trip he’d taken back in college to Peru. At this site we coined the phrase “meat plate” which would stay with us until the end of session. Meat plate is dinner that is just, assorted meats that need to be gotten out of the coolers. Also on this site a crewmember got his hand in stinging nettle while taking a shit. The first week was cold. It was rainy and shitty, mostly on the weekend. We did check out the ocean though!! I’d never been to see the ocean and we took the 101 north from near the Willamette to where we were and stopped actually at Fort Stevens State Park and that’s where I got to see the ocean for the first time. In march! It was sunny but actually super nice. We all waded in and one of my crewmates jumped in. It was march. IT was cold. This is the Pacific Ocean. Anyways he’s built different. The second time at the site was a week later, and it was super pretty. It was much better weather. We planted more trees.

Third week was further in Washington like an hour drive from Olympia. This was my first time seeing snow covered mountains that were massive in the distance. We cleaned up 195 trashbags of plastic plant protectors. Also kind of a shitty project but hey. Wasn’t hiking stuff up hills so. Our partner for this had people come talk to us for educational stuff which was okay, bad, and fantastic in order lol. The partner sent people from their org to be with the speakers (who weren’t part of the org) and we told the one lady what we’d been doing and she started LAUGHING and she was like “I’m sorry they gave you that project it’s because no one else wanted to do it” thanks. it was a shitty task but our partners were so nice that it made up for it. they even got a portapotty on site for us. no but they were all super nice. oh god they’d told us not to yell/slam doors/make loud noises because there was an owl in the barn on the property. we all were loud people and kind of forgot but it was okay we didn’t scare the bird. the bird scared us. one of my crewmates got up to go pee in the middle of the night and it swooped at him. this place was great for birds. We had a very angery killdeer beep at us!! we pulled out scotchbroom from the corner of the property and every time we walked near where it must have had its nest it would very angrily beep at us. It was so cute. We all loved it. My crewlead would always yell back at it. “What!! What do you want!!” I love that lil bird. Pulling out scotchbroom was a trip. To pull out scotchbroom you should in theory be ale to use a weedwrench to pry it out. Right? No. This was old growth scotch broom. This stuff was two inches in diameter as the smallest. It wouldn’t always fit in the weedwrenches. At one point it took me, my crewlead, and a crewmate to pull a scotchbroom with as much force/bodyweight as we could put on it. A couple times my crewlead put his entire bodyweight on to it and wound up falling into blackberry lmao. There was so much blackberry there too my god. It was so painful. We all kept joking about letting our crewlead just burn the area in a prescribed burn to get rid of the invasives. In the parking lot of a different preserve from the same partner org I found a red dinosaur who became one of our crew mascots.

After our second week back planting trees, we headed back down to Oregon to work on a fuels reduction project. We were all so excited for this one. We’d gotten certed for saws at the beginning of the session and had been told that we were gonna be a saw crew doing mostly fuels reduction which our lead had specifically asked to do because he had experience with it. But this was our first real saw project with fuels reduction. The weather this week was amazing. It didn’t rain at all, which on the West side of the Cascades in Oregon in April is pretty weird. It was nice for us but Oregon was and maybe still is in a drought. yikes! anyways. this is when we went on a hike to Blue Pool in the Wilamette National Forest. We camped at a little municipal park with another crew! It was weird being around another crew again because we’d spent so long just on our own that we all starting to lose it a little. But the other crew was super nice and we played frisbee in the dark with them the first night we were in the area. The project? was amazing. We worked on private project with a conglomerate of partners in doing fuels reduction. This conglomerate of partners did a whole bunch of other stuff but we only did fuels reduction. That was a week of working in a burn zone moving sticks. Moving sticks and swamping and making sure piles were neat to be able to be chipped. We learned about dispersing and how to remove ladder fuels and where to leave small logs on the ground for ground fuel. My crewlead showed us hazard trees and took a few out. I really loved this project. I loved the “grab stick go” part of it. It was so much fun. I also got to run a lot of saw which was nice. And this property bordered a parcel of BLM land which wound up being the spot we went to go pee at. If you’ve never been West of the Mississippi river, which I hadn’t(!) you’ve never had the opportunity to be on BLM land. There is no BLM land in the East. I wanted to go on all five of big public land holders in the US and that’s the one I don’t have access to here at home. We actually wound up taking a “nature appreciation walk” because we finished our work early around this little nugget of land and it was so cool. It was right on the McKenzie river and it was beautiful. I found our second crew pet/mascot there, a large palm sized egg shaped rock named “Egg.” We were so filthy there. Four 10s in a burn zone makes ya pretty stinky when you dont get to shower. Actually, we weren’t as stinky here because we just smelled like ash. I had ash everywhere. We went out to eat after the last day and my crewlead hadn’t washed his face in four days and was completely covered in ash.

Our last project took us 8 hours back into Washington. It was a long fucking drive. We stopped at Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland tho which was incredible. We rolled into our spot in Washington at 12:40. We slept with our sleeping pads and sleeping bags under a pavilion and were woken up by a ranger the next morning who thought we were homeless or illegally camping. This last project was also kinda bullshit. We were working with the Feds who kept telling us to slow down. We were at this project site for three weeks. The first week we cleared trails of downed trees and brushcut. The second and third weeks we helped General Maintenance take down trees and did so many runs to the dumpsite. We moved a lot of sticks and logs and my arms still look super scratched from moving branches. This spot was in the high desert of Eastern Washington and it was actually super pretty. I didn’t think I’d like the desert all that much but there was definitely a beauty to it. There wasn’t shit out there other than the dam. From there tho we were able to go to Leavenworth, this funky little Bavarian themed village up near the Cascades. We also went to Lake Wenatchee, which wasn’t as fun because we had to go move a fridge for the office staff. We spent about seven and a half hours on our last weekend doing this. I’m not salty. But it was super beautiful so. It’s okay. And we passed a prescribed burn on the way back to our site.

There’s still so much more I want to write and talk about. I have to say I’m overall. just so glad I did this. I had the absolute time of my life. I have never had so much fun. I learned so much. I learned how to really put out a fire with a pulaski from my crewlead. He taught us how to use the Incident Response Pocket Guide to cross reference and look at the probability of ignition. I learned how to use a chainsaw decently well. I did a lot of things that were far beyond my comfort zone. To fly literally halfway across the country, from Ohio to Oregon, for two months and to live in a tent and work on a conservation corps, it was super beyond my comfort zone. I did things with a saw that were beyond my comfort zone and I had to trust in my ability to saw and trust in my crewlead to let me do something he felt comfortable with me doing and thought was in my capability. And it was it was so fucking cool. I really bonded with everyone on y crew too. I made some good friends. And just like. The things I was able to see and do were amazing. And it was so nice to spend so much time outside. I didn’t spend more than an hour or two at most in a building in two months. I worked in 50s and rain wearing rainpants and chainsaw chaps and I worked in the 80s and sun in chainsaw chaps. I was able to lift a full 5 gal of water (40lbs) onto my shoulder and I’m still super proud of it. I watched a ton of movies in the rig with my crewlead and one of my crewmates. I got to use my crewlead’s chainsaw which was a lot cooler, sharper, and bigger than our corps saws. I cried about trees a lot. I celebrated my 20th birthday in a state park with people I didn’t really know too well who surprised me with homemade rice crispie treats and snacks from the Chevron we were regulars for that week at. I hiked some really pretty trails. I gave a lot of hugs and got a lot of hugs. I became not as terrible at hacky sack. I realized that There Are People In My Life Who See Good Things In Me and I Just Want To Keep Making Them Proud. I realized that I’m incredibly hard on myself. This whole thing furthered my belief of goddammit if I wanna do it by god I’ll do it. It’s been a dream of mine since I was 15 to go be on a conservation corps. I got interested in corps life at 15 because of Youth Conservation Corps posting in Wayne National Forest in southern ohio and since then had just. Always wanted to do it. And that literally changed my life - because of just hearing about corps I got super into parks and researched it and was like “oh i wanna be a park ranger” and I started working at the park doing maintenance and went to school briefly for parks and rec management and then dropped out to work more in parks. but then this year, after five years of wanting to do it, I finally did a conservation corps. Not a youth corps but an adult corps. Five years! The biggest dream I had was to work on a conservation corps. I just wanted to use a pulaski on a trail once. And I did at our last project site, even just removing invasives. But just. This experience was something I’d wanted to do for so long and to finally do it and have it be as amazing as I thought was just amazing. My crewlead saw me taking pictures in Washington along the Willapa bay and was just like “corps is a slippery slope. You either hate it or you get addicted to it.” Tragically I’m addicted to it. I can’t wait until next January and March to get back out there. It was such an amazing experience and I feel like I learned a lot of really good soft skills and really good hard skills. I can’t possibly explain to anyone the full extent of what this meant to me and all the fun I had but. This is a long post and I have to go replace my phone so this will be it for now. In the off chance anyone made it this far, thanks.

#personal #ra ra rasputin #park posting

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quillreflections · 5 years ago

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Title: Strawberry Avalanche

Chapter: 7

Series: Yugioh Zexal

Pairing: Trey Arclight/reader

Disclaimer: I started this when I was younger so the early chapters are kinda shitty lmao

If you were a beautiful sound in the echoes all around, then I’d be your harmony.

You took a deep breath as you bounded up the front stairs, coming to a slow halt in front of the giant doors. Hopefully the Arclights were in a better mood today. A gruff voice echoed over your shoulder as you hesitated. "What are you waiting for? I've got much better stuff to be doing." You tensed up at the chilly tone of Kite's voice, quickly knocking loudly on the door. You didn't really wanna stand with these guys for much longer. . . As if on cue, the door swung open and Trey grinned brightly at you and the ragtag group you'd gathered. Standing behind you on the stairs were almost all your friends; Yuma, Bronk and Caswell had been ecstatic to join in, and with a few extra promises you'd looped Shark and Kite into the deal too. Tori'd come along and had been eyeing you the entire time, not too keen on the idea behind your entire project. Somehow Ray had caught wind of the ordeal, and he'd brought along Alito, with Dumon following out of curiosity and Mizar coming along to keep everyone out of trouble. (He was actually interested, though. You could see it in his eyes.) They hadn't agreed to help quite yet, but they were clearly interested in watching for awhile- hopefully they agreed, once they saw what was going on, because the more people you had, the better. Trey nodded, smiling brightly as he greeted you all. "Come on in! You can leave your stuff in the coatroom- right over there!" He waved in some general direction before grabbing you by the sleeve and pulling you away, down the hall and into the room he'd set up. He'd clearly gone all-out in getting everything ready, since the two of you wanted to finish most of the project today; it was one of the spare rooms, and all the furniture had been shoved to the side, the floor was covered in white sheets to protect the hardwood. Off in one corner, by the floor-length windows, another sheet had been set up as a backdrop, with several spotlights and a few cameras and tripods. On the floor in the center of the room was a multitude of colored paints and different brushes. Michael turned to you, still smiling. "Do you think we'll need anything else?" You shook your head as the rest of the group wandered in, accompanied by the other Arclight brothers. "I think we've got most everything we need, so. . ." you clapped your hands together, unable to stop the probably extremely thirsty smirk crossing your face as you turned to the others. ". . . boys, I'm gonna need you to remove your shirts." ☆☆☆ You. . . you were leaning awfully close to Thomas. And he was leaning awfully close to you. Michael's breath caught in his throat as his older brother smirked, leaning forward to whisper something in your ear as you dragged the paintbrush across his collarbone. Thomas' red eyes darted over to the youngest brother, absolutely relishing in the visible chill frosting over his face. "Trey, what's wrong? Are you done?" Trey blinked, bringing his attention back to what he'd been doing. Yuma was staring at him in confusion, wondering why he'd stopped working. Trey chuckled and shook his head quickly, dipping his brush back in the red paint and getting back to work. "S-sorry! I was just thinking about something." Yuma shifted a bit in order to keep his eyes on his friend as he worked. "Are you sure you don't wanna talk about it? You looked kinda mad." Trey shook his head again, quickly changing the subject. You picked up the finest-pointed brush, coating it in the purple paint and bringing your hand up to Quattro's face. It was incredibly difficult not to blush as he stared intently at you. You slowly traced the end of his duel gazer's design, carefully drawing it out into a jagged pattern that went down his jaw and crossed his neck to meet the lines you'd painted over his collar. Every few moments he'd let out a sigh, occasionally shifting forward and leaning into you even more. Eventually you couldn't take his advances, dropping the paintbrush with a heavy sigh. "Quattro. . . why don't you go take a seat under the lights, and let this dry a bit?" "Aww, I was enjoying that. I'd hate to have to share you." You just shrugged awkwardly, not really sure what kind of reaction he wanted. Clearly that wasn't it, and he frowned as he wandered to the edge of the room. You stretched your hand a bit, massaging it and rolling your wrist before motioning Shark over. You didn't notice, but Trey visibly relaxed as his older brother walked away from you- Yuma noticed, though. His eyes wandered between you and his friend, and he slowly realized what had been bothering the other boy. Usually he's not that good at keeping quiet, but thankfully his voice was low as he spoke.

"Hey. . . you do like her, don't you?"

Trey's brushstrokes faltered a bit, but he recovered quickly. Yuma's his friend, so he can be told the truth- there's a lot of resolve in his voice as he responds with a solid "Yes, I very much do." Yuma's satisfied with that answer, going back to humming as Michael reaches for a different paint color.

☆☆☆

You sighed heavily, slumping against the kitchen counter.

Today you'd finished painting the older Arclights- Quattro's design was sharp and took a lot of space on his skin, whereas Quinton's was a very methodical pattern- as well as Yuma and Shark; unfortunately you'd run out of paint, so you only planned the designs for the others. The Barians had also been roped into agreeing to help you, so you needed to work on designs for them too-

"So, {Name}, what do you want for dinner? I think we have some leftovers, but if you can wait for a bit, I can make something pretty quickly-" Michael glanced at the clock before peering into the fridge. You looked at your own watch, amazed that it had gotten so late. You'd been having a lot of fun working, but it had been exhausting, and then you'd taken more time to photograph the already-finished designs-

"Hey Michael, you remember when we were kids? We'd have breakfast for dinner?"

"Yeah, that was pretty fun, wasn't it? Do you wanna do that again?"

You nodded, and he got to work on scrambling some eggs. He knows exactly how you like them, so there's nothing to worry about. You'd always enjoyed watching him work in the kitchen; he seemed like some kind of wizard, or maybe an angel. His movements were smooth and very soothing, his eyes always focused but sparkling with enthusiasm- he was always so careful not to get anything dangerous near you, and he'd memorized your favorites and least favorites, so he always knew exactly what to whip up whenever you were over. As he worked, he glanced at you over his shoulder. "Hey, do you want to sleep over again tonight?"

You were exhausted, and although you knew the Arclights would drive you home so you didn't have to make that walk in the dark, you didn't really feel like getting up right now- you nodded and Michael grinned. "You can borrow some of my clothes to sleep in, and we've got plenty of spare rooms- but we can always set you up in my room too, if you want- ah, I'll find some old movies to watch before bed-"

You closed your eyes as he spoke, just enjoying the sound of his voice. This feeling- you'd missed him so much while he'd been gone, and were beyond overjoyed to finally have him back. Spending all this time with him was great, and made you happier than you'd been in awhile.

Before you opened your eyes and started helping with the cooking, you let yourself think for just a moment about how great it would be to come home to him one day, when the two of you were fully grown. It'd be really nice to stay with him forever, wouldn't it?

#strawberry avalanche #trey arclight #yugioh #Zexal

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mysticsparklewings · 5 years ago

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The Realm of Gouache

I did it! I finally got that gouache set I'd been eyeing down the way my cats watch their food containers! The gouache I'm referring to is this Miya/Himi Gouache set of 18 for anyone who's curious. It seems to have sort of taken the art community corner of Youtube by storm lately, and that combined with the way the set is designed, I've been really wanting to try gouache lately anyway, and it's pretty reasonably priced at around $20, depending on where you get it, it seemed like a good place to start with the medium. Gouache, to those that might not know, is a cousin to watercolor. (Well, traditional gouache is, anyway. There's also acrylic gouache, which is a closer cousin to acrylic paint, but that's a discussion for another day; I'm focusing on the typical kind of gouache here) It's made with the same binding agent--water-soluble gum arabic--but usually it's processed differently. Most companies use more pigment (the substance that gives any paint its color) and larger particles of it in their gouache compared to what you would find in watercolor, and there's usually some additional chalk-like additive to make the paint more opaque than watercolor. You'll sometimes even see gouache referred to as "opaque watercolor." For the same reasons, gouache is usually more expensive than watercolor or acrylics and while with a little patience you can make it into cakes/pans, it normally works much better fresh from the tube, and so it's much more often sold in tubes. What does all that mean, though? Well, gouache paint is more opaque and less transparent than watercolors without much water, giving it the color and covering power one might expect more from acrylic paints. But you can reactivate gouache with water, so you can also water it down and use it more like watercolors if you want to, and when you start layering it you can reactivate the layers underneath to aid with blending, which in my opinion is a trait that reminds me a little of how oil paints are praised for their slow-drying, "superior" blending capabilities. Based on that, personally, I continue to be surprised how little-known and how much of a niche painting option gouache seems to be. The only real "culprit" to me for why that is is the usually higher price tag, but even then...I don't know, it still doesn't make sense to me. The qualities it has that put it somewhere between acrylics and watercolors just make it seem like a really good beginner's choice to me, since you can learn some techniques for both and then if you branch out to one of the other two, it might make the transition easier. But I digress; we can debate on the finer points of gouache's place in the art world some other time. This was my first time using gouache at all, so I can't really give a proper review on this specific set of gouache (as I have nothing else to compare it to and I have no experience with the medium; it just wouldn't be fair), but I can give my thoughts on working with gouache in general and give a first-timer's perspective on it. Although I do have to say I found it interesting that there is pigment information available for the set online, even though the actual set doesn't have the pigment information or color names printed anywhere. (At least not in English.) Most lower/student-grade art supplies don't list that information anywhere. This specific set of gouache also stands out because the gouache isn't in tubes, but rather in little 30ml. cups that look like tiny jello or pudding containers. These cups all have their own slot in a very sturdy plastic case with a lid that snaps shut on both sides and a mixing plate that fits inside the lid. And I cannot stress enough that when this thing is listed as being about 2.5 lbs, they're not kidding! I was surprised by how heavy it actually was when it came in the mail, and after taking all the gouache cups out so I could peel off the little foil seals (most of which did try to take some paint with them, but I saved them short-term to try and make use of as much of it as possible before chucking them in the trash), I can confirm that most of the weight is coming from the paint itself. And it's really nice actually since most paint sets that come with a lot of individual containers of colors (usually tubes), the standard size is anywhere between 5 and 22 ml. By comparison, 30ml. seems pretty generous. The color choices in the set are pretty interesting, but also pretty well-rounded for a smaller, possibly more beginner-oriented set. You get both a warm and cool of the primaries (red, yellow, blue), a black, two whites (which we're going to talk about more in a moment), some earth tones in the form of a darker brown, a rust color, and an ochre color, and some "convenience" colors including a purple, magenta/hot pink/rose color, a teal, and some greens. Now about those whites... I'll try and spare you the nitty-gritty details of pigments and their uses, but in general most well-versed paint companies have more than one type of white paint on offer, and not all white paints and/or pigments are equal. Usually, you'll find a "Titanium White" and some other variation of White, possibly a "Zinc" or "Chinese" white. Normally, Titanium White is a specific pigment that's different from the other whites, but that same pigment can be processed differently in order to look and function more like the other white pigments (and other white pigments don't always have to be listed if they've been added to it). This matters because "Titanium White" is the most common type of white, and it's meant to be used primarily as white by itself because of its specific traits. The other whites are usually more transparent and work better for mixing with other colors. This is most likely why this set and others you'll find come with two whites; in this case, one specifically labeled as "Titanium White" and the other as just "White." One so you have a white color, and one for mixing. (Don't you just love how amazingly confusing pigment information can make things! ) This is fine and actually preferable to me, as it keeps you from using twice as much of just one white, so hopefully, you won't go through it quite so fast. The only problem I have with this is that I feel like my two whites might've gotten switched at some point since so far my "Titanium White" seems to act more like a white for mixing, and my "White" seems to act more like a traditional Titanium White. I did take all of the paint cups out at one point so I could open them and put them back in the palette/container, but I tried to make specifically sure I didn't get any of the colors mixed up. Still, accidents happen, and it could be they were switched before my set even arrived to me, if they are indeed switched. I intend to do some more testing to try and make sure if that's what happened or if it's some kind of user-error in using them. Anyway. After I did my swatching and a tiny bit of extra swatching/playing to get a taste of how the gouache worked beyond what my research beforehand had told me, it was time to play with it in a more proper art setting. I had a piece of Canson XL watercolor paper leftover from another project that I sliced in half to make it a more manageable size, and I used a circular cardstock insert that I saved from a roll of tape to give me a nice large circle to work with. I figured a planet out in space would provide a good opportunity to play with gouache's more watercolor-like properties and it's more opaque unique properties. And plus a cursory Pinterest search told me that when you're making fictional planets there's not much in the way of right or wrong, which was comforting since I barely knew what I was doing. So I masked off the circle and started out with a couple of coats of the beautiful Prussian Blue from the set (seriously, I don't know why but I was really enamored with this color) and varying amounts of water to do the sky. I had already found out that while you technically can use gouache without water, it feels a lot better to me if you add just a little to make it flow and spread more readily, and this was no different. I'm just not an expert yet at getting just enough to smooth it out without also thinning out the color. Still, I actually really like this stroked look for this piece, which is why I didn't try harder to layer it up to make it more solid. And I wish I could describe my process for the planet itself just as concisely, but I really just started going in with the colors I liked the most from the set--Ultramarine, Violet, Rose, Jade Green--and layering up thinner washes of color a little at a time in lines and curves to try and get a visual texture that makes sense for a planet. The most issues I had here were really my fault and not the paints', as I was trying to any color mixing pretty straight-on the paper and I had a tendency to put some color down and try a little too hard to blend it out, to the point it was just kinda mixed into what was already there. And I will note here that it seemed like the less watered-down the gouache was, the more quickly it dried. and the more water was added to it, it dried very noticeably more slowly. Now to be fair, that's usually how paint works anyway, but it just felt a lot more noticeable here for some reason. It could've been the paper, or the paint, or just me, or a combination of all of those things. I'm not sure. At that point it was getting late, I was getting tired, and I felt like the painting could probably benefit from being left to dry overnight before I played with it anymore. The next day I came back to it, starting with some spots of white since one of my whites did have a tiny circle in it where some of the binder had separated from the paint and it was bothering my brain to leave it unmixed, which naturally ended up in me having some white paint loaded on to my brush to use. I don't count that against the paint though since even some professional quality paints can settle out from the binder, especially if it's been sitting unused for a while. Usually, you just have to mix it back in and it's fine. The white was a wee bit too intense just sitting on top, so then I went back it with a little here and a little there of the colors I'd been using before and tried to fade out a bit of a curve shadow with the Prussian Blue. I even went as far as to try using a different, flat, brush and blending it a little bit differently, which created this effect that kind of reminds me of a waterfall in some areas. Then was that was dry, I decided that the planet itself was pretty much done. Which meant there was one more thing I needed to try... I masked off the circle again and went back to the "titanium white" and a little water, and starting tapping my brush against another brush to make splatter-stars. I was actually kind of surprised by how well this worked since I usually use my white ink, which seems to spend all of its usable splatters a lot faster than the gouache did. (For instance, I could usually get about 3 taps out of the ink before I'd have to dip back into it; the gouache I was able to get about 5+ good taps per dip.) And fortunately getting the water-to-gouache balance wasn't as hard as I thought it would be for effective splattering, and I managed to not get too much any one time so I didn't have any notable spots or problems from that. I did, of course, go back and add a few extra star details with my white gel pens, but that's standard practice even when I use the white ink. It may not be the most complex or thorough usage of the gouache, but for a first attempt, I felt pretty content with how it came out and to what ends I'd explored the properties of the gouache. That said, anyone who knows me knows I already have plans bubbling for some more involved tests/projects involving the gouache. Some of which I even decided on before the gouache got here in the mail. But either way, so far I really like the gouache and I'm looking forward to playing with it more and really seeing what it can do. Thanks to watercolors and alcohol markers, I've gotten pretty used to working from light to dark, but it is really nice to be able to add light back in a lot more easily if you need to. And I really love that the gouache reactivates the way that it does; Usually, I can get my watercolors to reactivate but I have to be exceedingly careful to keep from getting back runs or waterlines. I didn't seem to have that problem here at all, so I'm hoping this means I'll have an easier time trying to blend certain things when using gouache as opposed to watercolor going forward. Time will tell, I suppose. Now if you'll excuse me, Inktober is upon us and I have work to do! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

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wavewood · 7 years ago

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Cooking and Other Pleasures: A Zelink Modern AU

Cooking and Other Pleasures FFN AO3 Word count: 9,862 Warnings: cute drunken shenanigans Summary: While at college, Zelda and Link meet at a class about Hylian Food and History. A modern AU oneshot with lots of fluff and food. Zelink.

“The history of Hyrule’s cuisine is the history of Hyrule.”

Zelda tried not to roll her eyes at Professor Purah as she watched the old, petite woman speak with excessive grandiose for such an ordinary topic. She had heard many things about this class but she still hadn’t been prepared for the caricature that was Professor Purah. The woman’s hair was pulled back in a massive bun that wobbled whenever she moved, making her look top heavy. Her outfit was a mix of patterns and colors to match her eccentric personality, and she was taking this class way too seriously, even for being the professor.

Zelda knew she could only blame herself though for choosing a class called Hyrule, Food, and Culture. The course was famous at Castle Town University for being the easiest class to fulfill a humanities credit. She had figured that having some leftovers wouldn’t hurt either. Also, it would serve as a nice break from a very heavy science and math semester. With Vector Analysis, Organic Chemistry, Semiconductor Devices, and Multivariable Calculus, this class – which was really just a glorified bakeshop – would be a piece of cake.

As the professor continued on and on, Zelda glanced through the syllabus. It was a relatively light workload with only two classes a week and a few assessments. One of the classes was the lab on Thursdays, though she found it funny they called it “lab” when it was just cooking time. The class would, supposedly, analyze the changes in Hyrule’s cuisine to reflect the changes in the political climate, environment, and social structure. They would also cook a dish a week that was of some importance to the discussion so that the students would really taste what Hyrule was like back then. All in all the class seemed like it would be a breeze with maybe just a few too many cooking puns. The only issue was the fact that she had to have a lab partner. Zelda loathed working with others, whether it be school projects or organizing for clubs. She always found herself doing all the work because everybody else seemed fine with good enough but she wanted perfect.

She wasn’t too upset about it though. She would deal with the partner as she had with all other group projects: do it all herself.

School had started but technically it was still summer, and so CTU’s Commons was overflowing with students lounging on picnic blankets, tossing Frisbees, and reading under the shade of trees. Zelda had been enjoying the early afternoon on the grass, talking with her housemates Malon and Midna, but she grudgingly checked her phone again to see that it was nearly time for her cooking lab.

“Ugh, I have to get going,” Zelda grumbled as she tucked her things back into her bag.

“Time for bakeshop?” Midna asked with a playful smirk. Zelda tried to crush her jealousy as she watched her housemate sunbathe, but was unsuccessful.

“Yeah, time to bake cookies or whatever,” Zelda sighed.

“Sounds like a blast to me,” Malon cut in, always the optimist. The red head’s skin was already looking a little sunburned even though they had been out for less than two hours. “I’d love to make desserts over reading 100 pages of Ancient Hylian any day.”

“It’s not that, it’s just that I have to work with a lab partner,” Zelda grumbled like it was the worst fate in the world.

“Oh no, poor you,” Midna teased as she closed her eyes and looked so relaxed Zelda thought it was obscene.

“Maybe you’ll get somebody hot?” Malon added with a smirk.

Zelda rolled her eyes and began to walk away, annoyed that nobody seemed to share her despair over lab partners.

“Bring me some cookies later!” Midna called out.

“Not a chance!” Zelda shouted back, and then briskly walked towards the lab.

She arrived to class five minutes early, as always, and Professor Purah directed her to a lab station in the back of the room. This lab was different from all of the other spaces she had worked in before. Instead of burners and test tubes there were little kitchens at every table with a mini fridge, basic cooking supplies, and a stove. The wall was lined with extra counter spaces, sinks, ovens, and fridges. She had no idea such a room existed at her university.

Five minutes later and the rest of the class had arrived and met their partners, all except whoever was supposed to be with Zelda. As the professor began explaining the days’ assignment – a simple fragrant mushroom sauté – Zelda hoped that her partner dropped the class and she could work alone.

“This mushroom sauté was a favorite among the travelers of the New Kingdom because it was fast, nutritious, and delicious,” Professor Purah explained with a passion that only she possessed for the topic. “It was a staple of the New Kingdom cuisine because after a century of no civil growth, mushrooms were plentiful and travelers could always count on finding some shrooms wherever they went. Once Goron City was open again to travelers, Goron Spice was on the main market again and this dish rocketed in popularity. It is believed that the Hero especially enjoyed this dish – ,”

Right at that moment, the door burst open and a young man rushed in. His cheeks were flushed and some of his long, dark blond hair stuck to his glistening forehead.

“So sorry I’m late,” he huffed out, flashing the professor a charming grin that had her smiling despite his tardiness.

“Oh, no worries,” she said happily. “You’ll be in the back left table with Miss Zelda.”

Zelda’s heart dropped. She tried her best not to glare at her partner as he approached the table but doubted she succeeded. He was dressed in sneakers and running clothes, with a shirt that said “Climb Everything” that stretched very nicely across his chest. His dark blue eyes looked impossibly bright next to his golden, tan skin, and she couldn’t help thinking of what Malon had said earlier.

Still, he was her lab partner and for that she already detested him. And he was late.

He slid down into the seat next to her and his sweaty yet delicious scent washed over her.

“Hey,” he whispered, “I’m Link.”

“Zelda,” she replied with a polite smile.

“What’d I miss?” He asked.

“Something about mushrooms,” she answered, hoping to end the conversation but he chuckled lightly.

“Goddess, we’ve already spent a whole class on mushrooms, what else is there to talk about?”

She shrugged and ignored him. Though she did agree with his point, she did not appreciate him distracting her in the middle of class, even if he did have gorgeous eyes.

They listened to the professor talk some more about the ingredients, and then they were finally released to make the dish in their teams of two. Zelda and Link began to chop the mushrooms and herbs in silence, and Zelda finally felt a bit better about the situation. Cooking was simple. This would be fine.

Link chopped the mushrooms much faster than she did, but she tried to ignore her innate competitiveness and relax. Once everything was chopped, she followed the recipe and measured out a teaspoon of oil to pour over the skillet. She was about to drop it in when Link stopped her.

“Wait another minute, the pan isn’t hot yet.”

Zelda paused and glanced at the recipe. It didn’t say anything about waiting for the pan to be hot first, but she said nothing. Maybe this was something everybody did when cooking? She had done nearly zero cooking in her life, so she figured she might actually learn a few useful tips in this otherwise random class.

After a minute, Zelda poured in the oil and moved to toss the mushrooms in too. When she looked back at the pan though, Link was adding even more oil to the pan.

“What are you doing?” Zelda asked, perhaps a bit more intense than was warranted.

“Just needs a bit more oil,” he replied simply, unbothered by her tone.

Zelda regained her composure and stopped herself from snapping at him. Did he think she measured incorrectly? She almost wanted to tell him about all the chemistry labs she took last year, but she reined herself in.

Link took the mushrooms from her and added them into the pan. They emitted a satisfying sizzle upon coming into contact with the oil, and she could already begin to smell their delicious aroma.

After a moment, Link grabbed a handful of salt and tossed it into the mix.

Zelda gaped. “What are you doing? Salt isn’t in the recipe!” She snapped. He hadn’t even measured!

“Everything tastes better with salt,” he replied with a smile, looking very pleased with himself even while Zelda began to feel like strangling him.

“Okay, but it’s not in the recipe,” she stated again, a bit slower incase he didn’t get it the first time.

“Yeah, but it’s gonna taste better now,” he shrugged as he began to stir the vegetables around. He then carelessly tossed in some pepper, and Zelda wondered if it was to make it taste better or just to spite her.

“Are you just gonna keep screwing up the dish by adding in random ingredients? Because I’d rather not fail cooking of all things,” she sniped, crossing her arms indigently.

Link now looked affronted at her tone and finally turned to face her. “They’re not random ingredients,” he replied a bit defensively. “They’re seasonings.”

“I don’t care, it’s not in the recipe,” Zelda snapped. “I doubt the travelers of the New Kingdom used salt and pepper for their mushroom sautés.”

“If they were good cooks they did,” Link retorted as he tossed in the herbs.

Fuming and overwhelmed, Zelda rummaged through the drawers to find a teaspoon for the Goron Spice, unsure of what to say back to her partner. She then looked up to see him pouring in way too much Goron Spice, and without measuring anything!

She didn’t know what to say anymore, so she just started at him with her mouth gaping. He stirred the mix together and brought a spoonful to his mouth, tasting it and giving a satisfied hum. He looked at Zelda and smiled.

“You don’t cook much, do you?” He asked, shaking in a bit more salt to the dish.

Zelda crossed her arms and properly glared at him. She couldn’t believe how condescending he was being just because she would rather follow procedure. “What is that supposed to mean?” She snapped, and Link had the decency to look a little guilty.

“Sorry, I didn’t it mean it like that,” he rushed, and Zelda wondered if his face was red from embarrassment or from the heat of the stove. “I just meant that cooking is fun and artistic…and you don’t look like you’re having much fun…” he trailed off at the end awkwardly.

“I would have more fun if we followed the recipe like we are supposed to. You’ve never taken a lab before, have you?” She asked mockingly in the same way he had asked her.

He narrowed his eyes at her, no longer embarrassed or guilty. “Cooking isn’t a lab,” he corrected. “It’s an art. It’s called the culinary arts.”

Zelda opened her mouth to snap at him again, but then Professor Purah clapped her hands for silence and Zelda had to swallow her anger. The professor began walking around the room, taking a few bites from everyone’s dishes. The other teams all did well – this was a basic meal after all – except for the table next to them had burnt a bit of their food. Zelda was already starting to feel ashamed. It would be mortifying to know they failed on such a simple recipe all because her partner felt the need to be creative.

Professor Purah jumped in front of them and asked excitedly, “How is Team Last-but-not-least doing?”

“Fine,” Link and Zelda said tensely at the same time, avoiding eye contact with each other.

The professor eagerly took a bit of their dish, and she hummed with excitement in a way she hadn’t with the other dishes.

“Oh, this is very nice,” she praised, taking another bite. “Absolutely delicious. No need for me to deliberate, this is the best dish. Bonus points to Team Last-but-not-least!”

Zelda stared dumbly at her as she flounced back to the front of the room. This was not at all what she had expected, and beside her Link looked far too pleased with himself. Grudgingly, Zelda took a small bite of the dish as well.

Damn, it was good.

Once Purah announced the end of the class, they cleaned their dishes in silence and then Zelda bolted out of the room as soon as she could. Even the bonus points couldn’t make her feel any better.

The only thing Zelda hated more than lab partners was being wrong.

“Oh, he’s cute,” Malon gushed as she scrolled through Facebook photos of Link. Her, Zelda, and Midna lounged in their tiny living room, reconnecting after another long day of classes. They still had to unpack some boxes and hang some photos, but the couches were out and that was all that mattered to Zelda.

“He’s not cute,” she grumbled as Malon and Midna looked through many photos. “He’s condescending and arrogant. He totally ignored the recipe and ruined everything.”

“Sounds like he actually saved your dish,” Midna said with a teasing smirk.

Zelda rolled her eyes, “Yeah whatever, but he’s still a jerk.”

“A hot jerk,” Malon corrected. Zelda chucked a pillow at her, but it thumped harmlessly against her leg.

“Oh, he’s on the climbing team!” Midna announced, taking the computer from Malon and turning it towards Zelda. “You even have to admit that’s hot.”

Zelda peered suspiciously at the photo of Link, shirtless and sweaty, climbing a jagged cliff with a grin plastered on his handsome face. The setting sun outlined his defined muscles in his arms, back, and thighs. She wished he had been facing the camera more so they could see the front –

Nope, didn’t matter. He was still a horrible person.

“He’s fine,” She said, trying to seem disinterested, but she must have been unconvincing as the two other women laughed at her.

“You mean he’s fine,” Malon corrected.

“Whatever,” Zelda grumbled, trying to go back to focusing on her problem set.

“Oh no, poor Zelda has a hot lab partner who is also good at cooking,” Midna mocked, and the two of them giggled together.

Zelda couldn’t help but smile. She decided that once he apologized, she would loosen up a bit and then maybe they could be friends.

Link did not apologize.

At the beginning of the next lab neither of them said anything to each other. Zelda considered making conversation but swore she would wait for an apology before trying to start again. He, however, seemed to have had the same idea.

They began preparing for their simple meat and rice bowl in tense silence. Zelda could hear the other teams having amiable conversation with each other, but Team Last-but-not-least, as Professor Purah dubbed them, was quiet.

Link once again added copious amounts of salt and oil, but this time Zelda grudgingly remained silent. She still wasn’t sure if she would rather scold him or receive extra points.

She then remembered the special tool she had brought in for today. She rummaged through her bag and dug out what she was looking for, feeling a bit more confident in herself again for her foresight.

“You brought a thermometer?” Link asked incredulously, the first thing he had said that class.

“Yes,” Zelda replied tersely, unsure why he was so appalled by it. She was about to slip the end of the thermometer into the meat when Link cut in.

“It’s not done yet,” he stated simply.

“Well, I’ll just check that,” she retorted, a bit more snappish than she intended. They watched as the needle moved, only to stop short of the temperature they were aiming for.

Zelda didn’t mind though. She removed the thermometer and placed it aside, ready to check it again in a few minutes.

They sat in tense silence again as they chopped the vegetables and stirred the rice occasionally. Zelda got up to fetch another piece of garlic since their clove was rotten. She bitterly wondered if Link had some special way of salvaging rotten food since he seemed to think he was goddess’s gift to the cooking world.

She chopped her garlic and added it to the pan. After a few more minutes, she decided it was time to check the temperature of the meat again. She reached for the thermometer, but it wasn’t there anymore.

“Where’d you put my thermometer?” She asked, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

“I didn’t touch it,” Link replied defensively.

Zelda rummaged through the drawers and looked around on the floor but still couldn’t find it. “Are you sure?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

Link floundered a little bit, and then grumbled, “I think I would remember if I had moved it.”

Zelda sighed. She couldn’t believe he was so childish as to hide her thermometer from her. She spent the next few minutes searching through all the drawers, cups, and her backpack for the thermometer, but to no avail.

“It’s fine,” Link sighed after a bit. “The meat is done now.”

“How do you know?” She asked.

He used a knife to cut into the center of the meat, spreading the skin apart so they could peer in. It oozed a bit of liquid and was just barely pink. Zelda had to admit it looked delicious, but she wasn’t going to say that to him.

“Great,” she grumbled in a voice that said she really didn’t think it was great. “Can you give me my thermometer back now?”

“I don’t have it,” he snapped back.

“Well, where else would it be?”

He rolled his eyes and looked away from her. His mouth opened to reply, but nothing came out. His annoyed gaze turned into one of confusion and mild disgust as he stared at the table in front of them. Zelda followed his gaze to see the large man at the table in front of them using her thermometer as a back scratcher.

They stared in dumb shock for a moment, watching with horror as he slipped it under his shirt to better access his itch. The man must have felt them watching him, because he turned around and grinned as he continued to scratch his back.

“Sorry,” he said happily, oblivious to their horror. “Just really needed this. Thanks!”

He held the thermometer out to her but Zelda didn’t move to take it.

“That’s okay,” she mumbled. “You keep it.”

The oblivious man joyfully continued scratching his back as Zelda and Link sat together in silence. Zelda could feel her face heating up with embarrassment, and this time she genuinely felt guilty for harassing Link.

“Sorry,” she mumbled as he began combining the rice and meat together.

“It’s fine,” he replied, but it was clear to her that he was still annoyed with her.

Zelda held back a sigh. She hoped the next class would be better.

It wasn’t. Nor was the class after that, or the next one.

When they weren’t working in tense silence they were bickering. They always found something to argue about, and afterwards Zelda would hate herself for getting so worked up over pasta water or something equally unimportant, but then a few minutes later she would get frustrated all over again and snap at him.

What bothered her the most was that they kept winning the best dish and earning bonus points. It wasn’t that she was opposed to extra points or winning, but she was opposed to Link’s improvisation being what got them there and the fact that she had no idea how he did it. She knew her frustration was stemming from her pride, but she couldn’t let it go, especially when he corrected her way of cutting a hearty durian. She wasn’t so unfamiliar with a kitchen that she didn’t know how to cut a durian.

After a few classes of this unpleasant dynamic, she had decided that she loathed him. She no longer cared about his stunning bright blue eyes or deliciously tanned skin or defined muscles; he was the most annoying partner she had ever had the misfortune to work with.

And that’s why when she saw him at the party, she immediately wanted to leave.

“That’s him?” Midna asked, yelling over the sound of music and chatter as she passed Zelda a beer. They were huddled together in the corner of one of the many rooms in the house where university students were dancing, talking and drinking.

“Yes,” Zelda shouted over the noise. “Can we please go now?”

“Come on, Zelda,” Midna replied with a swig of her drink. “There are a hundred people in here, I’m sure you can avoid him. Don’t let him ruin your night.”

Zelda glared at Link again, even though he was oblivious to her presence. She watched him as he played another round of Flip Cup, laughing and looking frustratingly cute with the alcohol induced flush in his cheeks.

“Besides,” Midna continued with a grin. “You look amazing in my dress – you’re welcome, by the way – and we are gonna drink and dance until we forget all about today’s quizzes. Okay?”

Zelda smiled and nodded, feeling better again knowing that she would have a fun night with Midna by her side. She looked down at her black dress. Though a bit short, she had to admit it fit her perfectly and the intricate straps on the back made her feel strong and a bit sexy.

She took a large swig of her beer and grinned. “Okay, let’s go dance.”

Zelda promptly forgot about Link and stupid cooking classes as her and Midna passed the next two hours dancing and chatting up with friends, both new and old. The house was overcrowded and sticky from alcohol splashing everywhere, but they relished the escape even just for a little while. The fun ended though once Midna set her sights on a young woman from her seminar who she was hoping to talk to for the past few weeks.

“Oh, finally,” Midna said with relief, as she placed her empty drink down and flicked back her long hair. “Don't wait up for me, Zel, I’m gonna be busy tonight.”

She grinned wickedly at Zelda before strutting away towards the woman, her hips swinging seductively and her orange hair glistening in the light. Zelda smiled as she watched her begin chatting up the woman. She wished she had as much confidence as Midna did.

With Midna now thoroughly occupied, Zelda decided it was time to go home. The house was overcrowded and humid from all of the bodies, so she eagerly rushed for the exit. As soon as she opened the door she was met with a rush of cool night air that felt like heaven on her sticky skin. She was descending down the stairs when she nearly tripped over a man lying across the bottom step. He was slumped across the stairs with an arm slung over his face to cover his eyes. His cheeks were red and sweaty and his golden hair was an absolute mess. Despite his sickly appearance, Zelda recognized the man.

For a second she thought about leaving him, but she knew she couldn’t walk away when there was somebody looking so horrible on the street, even if she loathed him.

“Link?” She called tentatively as she kneeled beside him. He grumbled and tried to turn away from her, but the step was uncomfortable and he just bumped his head painfully against the stone.

“Link?” She called again, a bit louder, and this time he removed his arms and blearily opened his eyes to look at her.

“You?” He asked quietly, his eyebrows scrunching up in obvious confusion.

She smiled and tried to gently pull him up into sitting position. He moved to follow her but swayed dangerously to one side. “Are you here with anyone?” She asked as she held him steady.

“Dunno,” he mumbled. “I think they left.” He groaned and held his head in his hands. “I feel…ew,” he whined, and if Zelda didn’t hate him so much she would have thought it was cute.

“You look ew,” she replied and he giggled childishly.

“I want to sleep now,” He announced and moved to lie back down on the step. Zelda reached out and stopped him from going any farther.

“Oh no you don’t,” she said and stood up, pulling him with her by his hands. He tipped back and forth but was able to stand on his own two feet. Zelda looked around for anybody that seemed familiar with Link and capable of taking him home, but it looked like she would be the unfortunate soul to do it.

With a sigh, she asked, “Where do you live?”

“In a house!” He answered eagerly, grinning proudly.

“Great, but what is the address?”

“Oh, um…it’s on the…by the…” he fumbled as he waved his hand around as if searching for the answer somewhere in the air. “There’s a park? And pizza?”

Zelda held back a sigh. “Renado Park?”

“Yes!” he clapped his hands with excitement.

“By the School of Management?”

“Sure!”

She couldn’t help but smile and shake her head fondly at him. He was a cute, stupid drunk, that was for sure. Figuring that was the best answer she was going to get, she started leading him away from the house and towards the park at the end of the road. She estimated it would be about a ten-minute walk. She could handle that.

He stumbled along beside her, but overall seemed fine walking, though he could not walk in a straight line to save his life. After a few moments of silence, he asked, “Where are we going?”

Zelda barely held in her laughter. “Your house.”

“Oh, good,” he sighed with relief. Then, after a beat, “Why do you hate me?”

She was a bit shocked by his bold and random question, but more importantly she felt overwhelmed with guilt. Though she couldn't help but argue with him during class, no part of her could despise this cute, ditzy version of Link she had right now.

“I don’t hate you,” she replied but he didn’t seem to register her words.

“I’m sorry you hate me,” he whispered sadly. She had to reach out to hold him closer to her so that a biker had enough room to zoom pass them. He stumbled back and forth and tipped dangerously far to the left, but thankfully straightened himself out again.

“How much did you drink?” She asked, watching him warily.

“Too much,” he sighed and rubbed his head again.

“What did you drink?”

“Lots of Noble Pursuits.”

“More like Ignoble Pursuits,” She grumbled and Link giggled in such an adorable way that it was infectious. She smiled at him as he laughed with drunken giddy.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he rushed and held his hands out as if trying to slow everything down. They stopped in the middle of the sidewalk while he tried to organize his thoughts. “If I am an Ignoble Pursuit, then you would be a…Nutty Sour.”

“A Nutty Sour?” She asked incredulously as they began to walk again. “Why?”

“Because you are an acquired taste, but once acquired, you’re their favorite drink!”

Zelda was stumped. Was that an insult or a compliment? She glanced at him, but he just looked oblivious, giddy, and completely drunk.

They walked together for a few more minutes in silence, which was occasionally split by Zelda pulling Link away from the street and back onto the sidewalk. At one point he asked Zelda to dare him to climb the tree. Zelda did not but he started to climb it anyway. She had to practically drag him away from it, and thankfully he was drunk and uncoordinated because she doubted she could have done so if he had been sober. He then started singing a pop song that had been playing earlier at the party. He sang quietly, but Zelda was surprised to find that he actually had a very nice voice.

Finally, they made it to the front of the School of Management and Zelda asked, “Okay, see your house anywhere?”

He spun around and look frantically around him with comic urgency, and then he pointed towards a small townhouse down the road and shouted with triumph, “There!”

Zelda was relieved that he was able to remember where he lived. They made their way to the house, passing by a group of rowdy college students, and Zelda helped him up the steps to the front door. She knocked loudly while Link slumped against the railing, looking suddenly paler and sweatier than before. A few moments later, the door swung open to reveal a massive man in a CTU Football shirt.

“Package for you,” Zelda said, pointing to Link, and the man laughed heartily.

“Oh no, Little Guy, too much to drink?”

Link opened his mouth to reply, but then his body suddenly lurched forward and he slapped his hand over his mouth. A second later he spun around and puked over the railing into the grass below. Both Zelda and the man winced at the sound of his retching and Zelda began breathing in through her mouth to avoid smelling it.

“Aw, okay, I got it from here,” The man said with a tired smile as he began leading Link back into the house. “Thank you for bringing him home!”

“No problem,” Zelda sighed as she watched Link stumble inside. She felt better now that he was with a friend and at home.

“Bye, bye, Nutty Sour,” Link mumbled and waved at her with a dopey expression on his face.

She smiled at him as the door closed, leaving her alone on the doorstep. Releasing a relieved sigh, she began the walk home. So much for avoiding the man she hated.

When Link arrived to the next class, his face was flushed with embarrassment and he stared at his feet as he walked to the desk. Zelda just smiled and watched him sit beside her. There was something about practically carrying an adorable, drunk man down the street and watching him vomit in his yard that made it much harder to despise him.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat for a moment and then finally looked at Zelda. Rubbing the back of his neck and blushing, he said, “I think I need to thank you for the other night…”

Zelda giggled and replied, “You’re welcome. I hope you were okay the next morning.”

“Oh, definitely not,” he chuckled. “But nothing serious.”

“Do you remember everything?”

“Yeah…” he mumbled, now so embarrassed that even his ears turned red. “Just so you know, I don’t drink that much usually. I haven’t been that drunk since the beginning of First Year.”

“And how long ago was that?” She asked.

“Just a year ago,” he chuckled. He paused for a moment, perhaps wondering if he should push his luck and keep this conversation going. “What year are you in?”

“I’m also in second year.” She answered, and then they lapsed into silence, but it wasn’t as tense or awkward as their previous silences. Seconds later Professor Purah began to explain their meal today: fruitcake. As the professor talked, Zelda was surprised to find herself finally excited to be in lab. Not only were they cooking one of her favorite desserts (and also a favorite of the Princess of the New Kingdom), but maybe her and Link would be able to get along for once.

As they began cooking, Link tentatively asked, “So…do you like baking?”

“Haven’t really baked much, why?” She asked.

Link started whisking the flour, salt, and baking powder as he replied with a shrug, “I figured you would like baking better because it requires much more precision.”

Zelda smiled though felt rather discomfited at being reminded of their weeks-long feud. She pushed on though and replied with, “I just do a lot of labs.”

“Oh, yeah? What are you studying?”

Tossing in the dried fruit to the mix, Zelda answered, “Not quite sure yet, but either mechanical engineering or chemistry.”

Link emitted a low whistle. “Damn,” he said with a grin. “You must be a genius.”

She felt herself blush and she looked away so that Link couldn’t see her smile, glad she had impressed him. “What are you studying?” She asked.

“Environmental Science.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“What, why?” He asked curiously.

“You know,” she shrugged as she began to spread the butter across the bottom of the pan. “You like rock climbing and rocks are the environment…”

He chuckled and stopped what he was doing to properly look at her closely. “First of all, I don’t love rocks. Rocks are not the reason why I do either of these things. Secondly, how did you know I’m on the rock climbing team?”

Zelda suddenly felt very hot as he peered at her with a self-assured grin. She had only known this info by Facebook stalking him, which would be a very humiliating thing to admit.

“Oh, um…” she fumbled, busying her hands with straightening the forks in the drawer. “I, um…heard from a friend. She knew. Yep, she just knew. Told me, too. That’s how information travels. Yep…”

A terrible silence ensued where Zelda stared at the drawer, internally cursing herself, while Link tried not to laugh.

“Right…” he said after a moment, sounding very unconvinced.

“So,” he moved on after a moment. “Tell me what you were doing at that party.”

The rest of the class was the most fun lab Zelda had ever experienced, and the cake was delicious.

At the next lab, they cooked seafood paella. They talked about their summers, their hometowns, how ridiculous the class was, and how many puns they have found in Professor Purah’s lecture slides. They laughed so hard that they were distracted and burnt some of the ingredients. For that mistake they did not win the best dish award, but neither of them seemed to care.

The lab after that, Zelda asked the question she had always wondered but was too proud to ask. How did he know when to add salt, oil, water, and every other improvisation he ever did?

When she finally asked, she could tell he was trying to hold in his grin and act like it was no big deal, but he still looked a little smug. Even though he was far too pleased with himself, Zelda found she had no animosity towards him as he did his best to explain.

“Some things I just picked up from watching my mom cook,” he said as he unscrewed the cap off of the olive oil bottle. “For example, the recipe says just a tablespoon of olive oil, but really they want you to use enough to just cover the bottom of the pan. The amount will vary depending on the size you’re using, so a tablespoon may usually be enough but, you know, depends.”

He then poured the oil in until it nearly covered the bottom. Zelda then asked him about how much salt to use, how to tell when meat is cooked without a thermometer, what’s the fastest way to cut a clove of garlic, how do you cut an onion without crying, and much more to the point where Link was too exhausted to answer any more questions. It wasn’t the first time Zelda had been told she asked too many questions, but when she wanted to learn about something she was extensive.

When class ended she didn’t leave him like she usually did; instead, she waited for him to button up his coat and then they left the lab together. His army green coat extenuated his rich, tan complexion and the fur lining of his hood made him look adorable, though Zelda promptly stopped herself from thinking any more along these lines.

As they walked down the busy hallway, she asked loudly over the noise, “How’d you get so good at cooking?”

“Necessity, I guess,” he shrugged as they exited the building, only to be met by a bitter cold wind. Castle Town was well into Autumn now. Few leaves remained on the trees and the temperature was cold enough to make Link’s cheeks pink and his nose sweetly red –

Ugh, not again.

“My mom was always working late so I usually had to make dinner for my sister and me, and we got tired of frozen pizza pretty fast,” he explained as they walked down the street, their shoulders brushing as they maneuvered past the many other hurried students. “My dad was out of the picture so, you know, I kind of took up some of the responsibilities he abandoned.”

Zelda felt a twinge of sadness, and though her curiosity was begging her to ask for more, she respected him and didn’t pester him about the details. Instead, she inquired about his sister.

“How old is your sister?”

“Gee, 18 now?” He replied, looking bewildered. “I still consider her twelve though. Do you have any siblings?”

“No, though I always wanted a younger brother or sister,” she answered as they turned onto CTU’s main campus. The wind picked up more now, and Zelda pulled her coat tightly. “Just me and my dad.”

She could tell that he was curious about her mother just as she was curious about his father, but he didn’t ask her any questions. That’s okay, she thought, we can talk all about that another time.

She mentally scolded herself again. What was she picturing? Some kind of date? She needed to get it together.

“Well, I’m heading this way,” he said, pointing down the street, which was not at all in the direction of the engineering department where Zelda was headed. “I guess I’ll…see you at the next class?”

Zelda nodded, though she was disappointed that he didn’t want to see her any sooner. Though why would he? They were just classmates, nothing more.

Another bitter wind blew, ruffling their hair and making their eyes water. “Goddesses, it’s cold,” Link grumbled as he grabbed a hat from his pocket. He pulled it over his head, making his golden hair stick in random directions. It was a bright green woolen hat with a little white pom-pom on top, and he looked absolutely adorable in it. “See you later!” He said with a wave as he walked away.

Zelda watched the little pom-pom wobble with every step he took, and then she let out a deep sigh. It was no use denying it anymore. She had a crush on her lab partner.

Zelda fumbled with her keys, her mittens making it near impossible to pick out the right one, as she stomped the snow off of her boots. It had been a long day in the library, but after many hours she had finally finished her problem set for Multivariable Calculus and she was looking forward to crawling into bed and watching some dumb TV show.

She swung open the door and entered her home in the dark. She blindly pressed her hand against the wall, moving it up and down until finally she found the switch. She flicked it on, and then –

“SURPRISE!”

Zelda screamed and jumped back against the wall, dropping her bag and knocking over the umbrella stand. Many smiling heads popped out from behind the doorways as they laughed and cheered. They spilled out from the other rooms to fill up the foyer, all wishing her happy birthday and giving her hugs.

“Did we surprise you?” Malon asked, looking very pleased with herself as she tossed her scarlet hair behind her.

Zelda laughed, her heart still pounding, “Yeah, especially since my birthday isn’t until Monday!”

“Well, nobody wants to party on Monday, that’s why we’re doing it a whole two days earlier. Now come on, you need a drink,” she decided, grabbing Zelda’s hand and moving the party towards the common room where music started blaring and Midna was pouring out some shots and cracking open a few beers. Zelda opted for a Sneaky Sheikah IPA over the hard liquor. She then began chatting with her friends and guests, thanking them for coming and laughing over her complete horror. She was in the middle of chatting with Saria, her freshman year roommate, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She spun around and her heart fluttered at the sight of the man before her.

“Happy birthday!” Link cheered. He awkwardly reached his arms out as if to embrace her, but then seemed to have changed his mind and his arms went back to hang by his sides. Zelda didn’t even notice the weird moment since she was too busy trying to calm her panicking brain. She was wearing a baggy, sky blue sweater and black jeans and her hair was up in a messy bun, nothing at all appealing. As she smiled at him, she mentally cursed and thanked Midna and Malon for inviting him.

“Come to the kitchen, I’ve got a present for you,” He grinned as he began heading towards the doorway, and Zelda quickly followed.

“You got me a gift?” Zelda gaped while they strode into the kitchen. The music was a bit quieter here and she didn’t have to shout so much.

“It’s not much,” he admitted, reaching into the fridge. “But, well, I couldn't resist.”

He pulled out a small cake with “Happy B-Day” written sloppily in yellow frosting. “For your first gift,” he said, placing the cake on the counter. “A fruitcake, which, by the way, is the worst dessert and you are the only person I know who actually likes them.”

“As we learned in class, fruitcake was a Hylian delicacy for a long time,” Zelda quickly defended herself before exclaiming, “Wait, there’s more than one gift?” She was not at all expecting him to be so nice to her, especially after how she treated him at the beginning of the semester.

“It was a delicacy until they discovered chocolate and realized fruitcake is gross,” Link retorted before going back into the fridge and pulling out the second present, an amber liquid in a short glass.

He paused before her, waiting for her to say something.

“Is that…” she started suspiciously. “A Nutty Sour?”

“Yep,” he grinned, passing the drink to her. “Happy birthday.”

“Oh my goddesses…” She laughed hard and without restraint. “I cannot believe,” she gasped out between chuckles. “That you actually…made me this…or that you even remembered considering how drunk you were.”

“I wasn’t that drunk – ”

“Oh no, you were,” Zelda corrected. She then took a deep breath, finally stopping her laughter. “Thank you so much,” she said, unable to stop smiling. “It’s so nice of you.”

“No problem,” he answered. “Now, have you had a Nutty Sour before?”

Zelda thought for a moment, and then admitted, “I don’t think I actually have. Or at least, I don’t remember.”

“Give it a taste then,” he encouraged, and she took a sip. It was definitely sour, but with a tinge of nuttiness and spices. She couldn’t help making a face though; it was a bit strong for her.

“Yeah, it’s an acquired taste,” he chuckled. “I like them a lot though.”

There was a moment of silence between them. Was there more to his statement? Did he mean…

No, there was no way. Especially after she had accused him of stealing her thermometer.

“Don’t worry, I will love it by the time I finish this drink,” she replied happily. “But you’ll have to help me with this fruitcake.”

“Ugh, fine,” he groaned, but he was smiling as he grabbed two forks from the drawer.

“Damn, I was hoping to see Link this morning,” Midna grinned wickedly and wiggled her eyebrows as she sipped her breakfast tea.

Zelda walked slowly about the kitchen, pouring herself her own cup, and then plopped at the table next to her roommate.

“No, we kind of split up once we left the kitchen,” she admitted, remembering how she couldn’t stop looking at him even as she attempted to win a drinking game across the room.

“You should have invited him back to your room to watch a movie or look at your math homework or whatever other bullshit excuse you could think of,” Midna babbled, taking a bite of her toast.

Zelda curled up in the chair, resting her head on her knees. Even though it was a cold winter morning, her flannel PJs and sweater kept her cozy and warm.

“You know I don’t like hookups,” She replied. “Besides, he doesn’t like me like that…”

“Zelda,” Midna said seriously, placing her cup down. “I say this because I care: you are an absolute idiot.”

Zelda snorted with laughter, but Midna cut in again. “I am serious, Zel, you are deranged.”

“Am not,” she replied defensively.

“Zelda, the boy baked you a cake and made you some fancy drink,” she stated strongly. “You don’t do that for a girl you hate, or even one you mildly like. He likes you.”

Zelda felt her face heat up and she looked down at the table. “M-maybe,” she mumbled. “But, you know, it’s just hard to…like…tell him…”

“You don’t have to announce it in some grand gesture,” Midna stated confidently. “Just invite him out to dinner first, or go to a party together. Do you at least have his number?”

Zelda shook her head and Midna sighed.

“Okay, goal for the week, Zel, get the digits.”

Zelda did not get the digits that week.

She tried, really, but how could she do it in a way that was casual and smooth and not at all awkward and screaming I have a huge crush on you and you look adorable with snow in your hair?

The other issue was that the semester was nearly over, and if she didn’t get his number before then they would no longer have their weekly bakeshop. They would probably never see each other again. Okay, that was a bit extreme, but still, it was a dire situation.

However, she had a plan for their last class. Once they left, she would ask for his number in case she had any questions about the material for the final paper. It was a bit silly, since the class was as easy as a college class could be, but still excusable if he ended up uninterested.

Of course, the plan completely failed because he had to run to a review session with no time to chat, and so Zelda watched him dash out of the room in hopeless frustration. Their final was just a paper, which meant there was no reason for them to be in the same room together ever again.

The next two weeks were packed with studying for her finals, and so Zelda put him out of her mind the best she could, which really just meant that she thought about him once every chapter instead of once every paragraph. She spent her days cozying up in the corner of libraries, reviewing problem sets over and over again and throwing back an unhealthy amount of coffee. The days in the library were split up only by exams, which were extensive and took the whole three hours of testing.

With only two days left of the semester, Zelda was in the library once again but this time she felt much more relaxed. She had finished all of her exams, which – she hoped – weren’t horrible, and all she had left was the paper for Hyrule, Food, and Culture. Her final paper was going to be about the development and standardization of herbal remedies to manufactured medicine in the Post New Kingdom. She had finished the research component of her project, so all that was left was the writing. Not her strong suit but she’d get it done.

Zelda began typing away at a desk in the back corner of the library, curled up in a plush chair and in her comfiest knit sweater. The hours flew by without her noticing and before she knew it night had fallen and most of the students had left to grab dinner. In her concentration, she didn’t even notice her hunger, or the sounds of approaching footsteps.

Zelda jumped when the person tapped her on the shoulder, dropping the pen she had been absentmindedly chewing. She spun around to see Link standing behind her, looking a oddly uncomfortable but smiling nonetheless. He was wearing a simple outfit of jeans and a green long sleeve shirt with a V-neck that just showed a bit of his collarbone. She found it annoyingly sexy.

“Hey,” he whispered, leaning in a bit closer so that his delicious smell washed over her. She felt her stomach fluttering and tried to breath through her mouth so she wouldn’t get anymore overwhelmed.

“Hey,” she whispered back, maybe a bit too enthusiastically.

“Are you writing that food paper?” He asked after a pause, glancing at her screen. “Damn, you already have half of it done.”

“How far are you?” She asked.

He grinned and rubbed the back of his had. Looking away from her, he admitted, “Still need to do some research.”

“Seriously?” she balked. “It’s due in less than 48 hours.”

“I know, I know,” he babbled. “But I just had so many more important finals…you know how it is.”

She did. Food Class, as Link called it, wasn’t exactly on the top of her priority list.

“Where do you think I can find books about how Rushrooms and Stamella Shrooms were the first instance of doping?”

Zelda had to hold back a loud laugh. “Are you really writing about rock climbing?” She asked with a teasing grin.

“Shut up, it’s just the first thing that came to mind,” he replied defensively, smiling nevertheless.

“Right…”

“I don’t love rocks,” he stated, not for the first time since they had became friends.

“And yet everything you do is related to rocks,” she pointed out and he rolled his eyes.

“Seriously though, where in all of Hyrule am I gonna find a book on either of these things?”

Closing her laptop, Zelda stood and decided, “Don’t worry, I will help you. I know this library better than my own home.”

“That’s a little sad,” Link whispered with a grin.

“Do you want my help or not?” She retorted as she started walking down a long line of books.

“Yes, please,” Link said feebly from behind her.

She led him to the Hylian history section to start, where they spent over half an hour flipping through books that might have even a hint of relevance to his topic. Unsurprisingly, there was little written about either Rushrooms or rock climbing history.

She tried to stay focused on the task, but he was an even greater distraction now that she liked him than before when she had loathed him. She couldn’t tell if she was just being hyperaware of him, but if felt like he was standing unusually close to her, that their fingers would brush too frequently, and that his hand lingered on her shoulder a bit too long. Though winter, she was feeling flushed and had to roll her sleeves up to cool off a bit.

Finally, after an hour, they had found at least three books that would be relevant. Zelda plopped the third one on top of the pile in his hands. “There,” she said pleased. “Maybe now you won’t fail bakeshop.”

Link smiled warmly at her, his tan skin looking even more golden than usual in the dim light of the library. “Thanks, Zelda,” he said sincerely. “I really appreciate your help. I know you’re especially busy now so it means a lot.”

She was pleasantly shocked by his sincerity and couldn’t help but blush a bit. “No problem,” she replied, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Now was her chance, she knew it, just had to get the courage to ask for a phone number. Easy as that.

And yet Zelda didn’t know how to start, so they stared awkwardly at each other for a few seconds.

“Well…” Link started again as he began to turn away. “Guess I’ll get to writing this paper…only have, um, 36 hours now so…”

He was moving absurdly slowly in the other direction, but in Zelda’s internal panic she didn’t notice.

“Wait,” she called out, a bit too loud for a library, as she reached out to grab his hand. He immediately stopped and spun around. They both looked at their hands, hers now firmly clasped around his calloused fingers, and the heat radiating from them made Zelda’s heart tighten.

She opened her mouth to speak but didn’t know what to say. She was still holding onto his hand, and now they were standing so close that his scent was washing over her again. Without thinking, her gaze slid down to his lips that looked so pink and soft –

She realized what she had done and looked back up into his eyes, but it was too late. He had noticed.

They stared at each other, both unmoving, for a beat, and then Link just barely licked his lips. She watched his wet, pink tongue slip out for just a second, but it had made something in Zelda lurch and she abandoned all of her doubts and reason. Grabbing his stupidly sexy shirt by its collar, she pulled him forward and pressed her lips against his. He immediately responded by slipping his free arm around her slender waist and holding her tightly against him. The feeling of his lips moving with her made her head spin in the best way.

She stood up on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around his neck, but the books in his grasp dug uncomfortably into her ribs. He separated from her with a breathless chuckle, smiling brilliantly at her.

“I’ll just…put these down,” he fumbled, gently placing the books on the floor before standing before her again.

She laughed as well, and before she could ponder what she had just done, he was on her again. His hands slipped into her silky blonde hair and her body rose instinctively to press against his as he kissed her deeply. No longer as tentative as before, Zelda was bold enough to wrap her arms around him and gently slip her tongue against his lips. He gasped, allowing her to deepen the kiss.

His hands grabbed onto her hips and pushed her against the bookshelf, making some of the volumes rattle above her. They grabbed at each other, hands clinging to sleeves and tugging the other closer as their moves moved together in sync. His hands drifted down towards her thigh as her mind was losing all coherent thought –

“The library will be closing in fifteen minutes,” said a bored, nasally voice on the intercom, causing Link and Zelda to jump apart with shock. “I repeat, fifteen minutes.”

They stared at each other, breathing heavily and eyeing the other’s ruffled hair.

“Um, so…” Zelda started breathlessly. “Could I, um, get your number?”

“You can get that later,” Link grinned, equally short of breath. “Let’s go grab dinner.”

Zelda smiled, feeling so happy she thought her heart might fly away with joy. “Yes, that would be…but, wait, you need to finish your paper.”

“Oh,” Link replied, his smile dropping a bit. He then looked down at his shoes where he began rubbing his toe back and forth on the carpet. “Yeah, well, I actually already wrote that…”

“What?” Zelda asked, her eyebrows scrunching together in confusion.

“Yeah,” he babbled. “I just wanted a reason to talk to you and I wasn’t thinking and so I just lied and then I was in too deep so…”

Zelda laughed now, loud and unrestrained. “Oh my goddesses…” she mumbled to herself in amazement, shaking her head at him.

Link’s face was scarlet with embarrassment, but he persevered. “So, dinner?”

“Okay, but you owe me a Noble Pursuit after making me spend an hour looking up books for a paper you already wrote,” she decided and Link laughed.

“Worth it though, right?” He asked with a cheeky grin.

She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Yes.”

“See? It was the perfect plan,” he boasted as he put the books back on the shelf.

“Oldest trick in the book,” she agreed.

“Works on all the ladies,” he teased back and she laughed again.

“You do this every final’s period?” she asked and he spun around to give her a playful smile.

“This was just a test run, so now that I know it’s a success I am gonna go do it on somebody else.”

“Yeah, yeah, see you later, Playboy,” she joked, walking past him as if to leave him behind, but then he reached out to spin her around and kiss her again. She couldn’t help laughing against him out of pure joy and they broke apart smiling.

“So, dinner at Telma’s?” He offered.

#zelink #legend of zelda #loz #botw #loz botw #breath of the wild #link #fluff #fanfic #oneshot #zelink fanfiction #lots of food #food #zelda is a frazzled college student #give her a hug

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ursafilms · 6 years ago

Text

Jedi Knight and Homicide

In 1996, LucasArts and Steve Dauterman called again. Did I have any interest in producing Jedi Knight? A more complex videogame requiring a lot more actors and ones that would actually have to be able to act and not just ensconce themselves in a rib-crushing costume or rocket seat the size of basic coach as they had in Rebel Assault II, my previous effort for George Lucas.

Me: "Uh, yes?"

Steve: "How soon can you get here?"

I arrived at LucasArts, just as Dauterman hung up the phone.

He handed me the cut-scene storyboards. They showed Aliens requiring original design, set pieces needing original construction, and wardrobe not currently in the Lucasfilm Museum. We had cannibalized the company’s museum for its stock of costumes from the Star Wars canon for Rebel Assault II. That first game also needed no Aliens.

All these tasks in the previous paragraph translates to a real job. At Lucas this meant I’d have to be blessed by George since a lot of the art direction, costumes, and other visuals would be original and not stock. This would entail me meeting George . . . at Skywalker Ranch . . . in his office.

And more than the time I’d spent in the business being embarrassed in public by the topflight commercial directors of the 80’s, or my own personal Nightmare Before Christmas with Tim Burton and the coffee maker, or even having to ‘handle’ the likes of Carol Channing, Sammy Davis Jr., and Bill Cosby (Jell-O pudding. Mmm. Mmm. Good.) nothing could have prepared me for actually sitting down to get vetted by George Lucas.

The closest experience to professional fear I could remember was being cut right away, more than once, by Michael Bennett during auditions for Chorus Line. Or, having to sing ‘Blue Skies’ acapella for Bob Fosse. Or, maybe it was the time one of the ensemble dancers in Hello Dolly picked up a napkin as opposed to a tablecloth during the waiter’s ballet. But that’s another book.

After a coin flip, I’d have to say the knee-knocking of my illustrious dance career came closest.And like most things in life, the anticipation exceeded the actual event. Not the part about meeting the man who changed filmmaking forever, but the fear factor. George Lucas could not have been nicer. I don’t recall a lot of the conversation. He did ask me about my work on Nightmare and, of course, on Rebel Assault II.

George impressed upon me the same things he probably imparted to everyone who worked on Star Wars franchise projects. Consistency with the mythology (For lack of a better term) was most important. The archetypes of bad guys. Wardrobe choices for good guys, particularly those of the Rebellion. Color palettes for certain planets depending on their ‘role’ in the video. Found him to be soft-spoken and genuine. And, again, though I don’t remember much, I will never, ever forget that meeting, which took place at Skywalker Ranch in West Marin. I walked into the antebellum house that served as his office and sat with him and looked out over the beautifully manicured landscape through the bay window in front of the house.If not for the fact that he looked like an Ewok during this Heavy-Facial-Hair-Period of his life, I’d have passed out. I just kept imagining him as a little furball, per Harrison Ford. It made me exhale enough to not hyperventilate.

****

Jedi Knight inflicted one of the most dreaded departments in the history of filmmaking on me.Wardrobe, which is part of the Vanities Department. If I could have dressed and made up actors all by myself, I would have. Nothing gave me more understanding of serial killers than having to deal with the collection of Macy’s make-up floor rejects that passed themselves off as hair stylists, two-legged cosmetic applicators, and the worst of them, costume or wardrobe designers.

I’d much rather deal with Directors of Photography on their overloading of lens orders than have to discuss fabric textures with these recent escapees from the Lord & Taylor couture department.

We cast a very trim and beautiful woman for the female bad guy on Jedi Knight. As I sat in the costume shop at Lucas, cleaning my .38, I was subjected to the following from some Coco Chanel wannabe as she did her level best to hide the actress’ well-toned figure.

Coco: “I think it should have a soft drape. Perhaps tulle?

Me: “Something used for ballerinas ain’t a great idea for an evil FEMALE Sith Lord.”

Coco: “Really? And what did you have in mind, Mister Producer?”

Me: “Given her figure and her role, how about Vampire chic?”

At this time the use of the bloodsuckers for reference in films and TV shows was not a microwaved concept. True Blood hadn’t arrived to tantalize us with its brilliant dialogue and ridiculous concept of somewhat benign predators purchasing a house in a quiet suburban neighborhood.

Dimbulb Neighbor Wife: “Honey, look there’s a new family of vampires moving in next door. I should take something over.”

Dimbulb Neighbor Husband: “That’s nice. There’s still some type O in the freezer from the last vampire family. Where did they move to by the way?”

Dimbulb Neighbor Wife: “The Arteri clan? I think they went back to Italy.”

Dimbulb Neighbor Husband: “Okay. Take the leftovers, and if you never come back, I’ll wait for your metamorphosis and then you can come home and feed off me for an eternity.”

Dimbulb Neighbor Wife: “Oh that would be lovely.”

As an aside, when my good friend, Dan Ogawa, got hitched I attended the wedding. He put me at a table of production professionals, but since they all worked for public television, it put me in the difficult position of carrying on a conversation, especially after the wife of one of the guests postulated DIVERSITY as the overarching concept of True Blood.

Me: “Is that right? From what I can tell, the cast had just finished a series of L’Oreal commercials. So does the diversity of True Blood lay in the difference between a nine and a ten?”

If not for the presence of a justice of the peace and Dan’s elderly parents, a wedding cake food fight might have ensued. After Lee kicked me under the table several hundred times, I relegated my comments to oohing and aahing over the DIVERSITY of True Blood.

However, had I known that Dan would be divorced within two years I’d have stood on my chair and castigated the politically correct twit for daring to virtue signal at my table.

****

But back to the Coco Clone, the head of the Vanities Department for Jedi Knight. She had drawn a line in the sand over her wardrobe choice for evil female Sith Lord.

Coco: “I think the actress playing Sariss will be able to perform admirably in tulle.”

Me: “I’m sure, but I’ve got a market of teenage boys whose hormone levels are in the red zone 24 hours a day. If I put her in tulle, sales will drop by millions. I guarantee it.”

Coco: “I don’t think we should get hung up on stereotypes.”

Me: “No one is stereotyping Sariss. The actress is a workout freak. She’s cultivated that body for jobs like this. So, let’s get to work on spray-painting some black spandex on her shapely behind and move onto one of the guys.”

Coco was about to accuse me of some heinously stupid crime of sexism, but before she could the marketing department of LucasArts lined up behind me, as did the director, and Steve Dauterman. The marketing department and Steve had financial success and hormone clanging male customers motivating them. The director would have preferred that Sariss perform the entire game naked, but spandex provided the next best glimpse.

All I wanted to do was move onto the rest of the 14 leads that required specialty wardrobe, which we did after agreeing that Sariss needed to having nothing between her and her catsuit.The other attractive female in the cast played the Princess Leia knockoff role, so that limited the controversy to what shade of white battle ensemble we needed to squeeze her into. The male parts, a collection of good and bad guys occupied the rest of the meeting.

Coco, however, kept gravitating towards her Marin County roots, which consisted of channeling ideas germinated from Woodstock. If she hadn’t been a Lucas employee, I’d have bounced her right off of Skywalker Ranch.

Me: “No. Tie-dye is a bad fit, unless we’re in Mos Eisley, which we are not.”

Coco: “Mos’ what?”

Me: “Are you f$#king kidding me? How did you get his job?”

Coco: “I’ll have you know—”

Me: “Don’t want to hear about it. It probably involves a wet—”

Dauterman: “Okay, let’s move on.”

So I did.

Me: “Colors in a darker palette for the bad guys. Lighter palette for the good guys. Don’t know how much clearer I can be. I can’t put Sariss’ consort in hippie-wear. This game is about a war between these two factions. The concept is military. I need form-fitting outfits that are just loose enough to allow for quick movements. The fight choreographer is on this job for every shoot day for good reason.”

I got my way, but discussions like this, now a regular occurrence on any job with a Vanities Department exhausted me. More than most, I appreciated a well-developed POV on creative matters. Missing the concept, or letting your ego sidetrack a project is crippling.

****

Jedi Knight needed so many stellar resources that I opted to shoot in Los Angeles. Kooktown, USA (That’s San Francisco, for those of you reading this as your first excerpt.) just doesn’t have the talent level to pull it off. On many levels, a great call on my part. On just a handful, a stomach acid producing one.

First up for indigestion, studio space. While an abundance of it occupied much of southern California, stage owners and managers have a tendency to look at out of town productions as a way of boosting their profit margins from 1% to 50%.

The local production manager, Beth, toured dozens of stages before taking me out to look at three prime candidates, and after a negotiation that consisted of lowering expectations of the rapacious owners, we settled on Hayvenhurst Studios, a home to early TV and film westerns. It still had the sheriff’s office building, replete with hitching post and horse trough, which it used as an office. Beth and I moseyed on inside the office. First order of business? Getting the deal in writing to avoid any surprises on the back end. Guaranteed, if a stage contract doesn’t include everything down to paper products, the invoice will have a charge for toilet paper higher than the entire Lighting and Grip cost.

Beth: “$1200 for load-in. $1500 for Pre-Light and Shoot. $1200 for strike.”

Sheriff Hayvenhurst: “Rate card is $1750 for—”

Beth: “Don’t care what rate card is. $1200 for load-in. $1500 for Pre-Light and Shoot. $1200 for strike.”

Deputy Hayvenhurst: “Next item.”

Beth: “Grip and Electric package as listed in the stage’s package is $500/Day flat. Items not listed are a la carte, but must be approved prior to use by me or George.”

Sheriff: “Rate card is $800—”

Beth: “Don’t care what rate card is. Grip and Electric package as listed in the stage’s package is $500/Day flat. Items not listed are a la carte, but must be approved prior to use by me or George.”

This went on for another hour. By the time we had moseyed out of the Sheriff’s office, Beth had a signed contract that fit within the confines of our budget. Eternal vigilance would be required for the duration of the job, since any crack of fiscal daylight a vendor in the film industry can find would be exploited to the point of financial ruin for producers.

We moved into the studio on a Monday for the build and pre-light day.

This is what greeted us on the main wall of the cyc. (See Below)

Here’s the view of the left and right side walls of the cyc. (See Below)

And here’s the floor. (See Below)

Beth George stopped everyone just inside the studio. She had a look on her face that would have scared the Gestapo out of Poland.

Beth: “Nobody f$%king move.”

We all froze, including Jason Chin, the game supervisor from Lucas, who had a thousand pound desktop computer under each arm. Nick No Last Name, the prop department intern who talked me into working on the project, started giggling like a fourteen-year-old at a Jon Bon Jovi concert, didn’t stop walking and found himself face down on the floor. Beth had him in a hammer lock.

Beth: “No one walks on that floor without these.”

She stuffed a pair of the dreaded clean room booties into Nick’s mouth. The poor guy, so traumatized by his first encounter with an experienced P.M., did not wear regular shoes for a month after the job finished. I went back to visit him at his regular job at Kinko’s and when I heard the shuffling noise emanating from the supply closet, I knew he still wore the accursed footwear.

I hate booties. I also hate clean room masks, coats, gloves, and pants. Add hardhats to the list, along with steel-toed boots. Over the years the enthusiastic Safety Overlords, have trussed film crews up in every capability killer imaginable. It only took one job in one high-tech chip manufacturing facility to make me swear off entering any similar business.

Oh, I’d take the job, but only at the point of gun would I ever slide one of those dopey white jumpsuits over my clothes. Not after seeing the employees walk in to these supposed sterile environments carrying a Sloppy Joe lunch and smoking black cigarettes.

But Beth would not be denied. We all changed our shoes. Oddly, production and folks on flat rates put them on so quickly we went back in time. The hourly hires took most of the morning to do the same thing which neutralized any positive use of the clock.

And there we stood, surrounded by . . . (See Below)

Me: “I really like what we’ve done with the place.”

****

For two weeks, I lived at the Van Nuys Best Western. I endured about a dozen shooting days of one way conversations with my deaf DP, but the absolute soul-crushing interactions continued with the, ahem, Vanities Department. See the short list to follow.

1. Coco and her colleague, Igor, both of whom were forced hires because they were Lucas employees, delivered a grand total of Zero of the 14 principal wardrobe pieces on time, which was the aforementioned Monday build and pre-light. We were supposed to do the fitting that day as well. More on that to come.

Early on I clearly told them I would NOT be taking them to southern California for the shoot and was assured everything would be finished in time for me to ship and/or drive said wardrobe for the first shoot day. The first people that greeted me at the hotel? Coco and Igor. They had just finished dinner and wanted to know about per diem. Me: “F$%K off.” 2. The efficiencies of Coco and Igor necessitated the hiring of a full-time seamstress to both finish and adjust the wardrobe. I had just added a seamstress and her assistant to my Vanities Department, in addition to the two incompetent Lucas employees who decided NOT to deliver the wardrobe when they said they would. With Prosthetics, I now had ten people in Vanities.

And I needed two fittings. Not one. Two. And in the interest of elucidation, I had ONE WARDROBE PER ACTOR. Not two. ONE.

And why did I need more than one fitting?

I’ll tell ya.

Despite the theoretical calculus employed by the Vanities Department our lead bad guy looked like someone had taken half of Siegfried’s costume and half of Roy’s and sewn them together in an ugly Yin/Yang combination the size of Totie Fields. His henchman, a part-time bouncer for the southern California mob, took a gander at his getup in the mirror after his fitting. He called Billy Barty and joined The Lollipop Guild. Coco and Igor looked the two actors over.

Coco: “Looks like we were slightly off in our measurements.”

Me: “If you try and put Sariss in tulle, you’re leaving Southern California in a body bag.”

The last time I heard someone say they were slightly off in their measurements, an actor took a joy ride through Central Park while tethered to a medieval catapult launcher, also called a flying rig. Images of Coco and Igor landing in the Loeb Boathouse Lake, as the aforementioned performer had, drifted delightfully through my head. Also, holding them underwater for several hours made me giddy.

Me: “Would you like another fitting? My current record is two unnecessary fittings per outfit, and there is a personal best is in my future. I can feel it.”

Coco: “I don’t see any other way.”

In order to avoid raiding petty cash for bail money, Beth and the director carried me out of the fitting room while I screamed, if memory serves, “I’ll tell you what else we could do. I could go back in time, and abso-f$&king-lutely refuse to hire any of the slugs that draw a paycheck signed by George Lucas.”

The job finished on-time, only $10,000 over budget, and without homicide.

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endlessarchite · 7 years ago

Text

DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining

This post is sponsored by Krazy Glue. All opinions are — for better or worse — 100% my own.

For years now, I’ve been dreaming of using my back yard for lots of outdoor entertaining. While some plans might take a little longer to come to fruition, in this case, all it took was a little challenge and voilà: a DIY outdoor drink station made for a crowd.

Prepare for photo overload, folks: this project took a little scheming!

First things first: this project was sponsored by Krazy Glue. I say that not because (well, not only because) I’m legally required to disclose that fact by the FTC, but also it’s precisely because of them that this project came together the way it did. They emailed me a few months ago and basically hinted that I might just be crazy enough undeterred enough to take on their challenge: to try to put together something large, heavy, and using only Krazy Glue to do it.

And of course I did. Krazy Glue says that their ultra-fast drying adhesive can hold up to 2,000 pounds and I’ve only ever really seen people us it for crafts and repairs — so of course I’m the person that wants to test out their claims. And then I might accidentally glue my fingers together a few times, but something cool like this happens:

I know, right? Don’t worry; I didn’t glue myself to my project (um… except maybe get a little in my hair).

Now, I should add that as far as woodworking goes, I consider myself really only at a beginner’s skill level (DIY home renovation has taught me plenty of things, but making a piece of furniture seems to exhaust a different part of my brain… the part that gets cross-eyed when discussing structural engineering). I own a few basic tools like a miter saw and drill, and because of things like pocket holes, I haven’t really forced myself to learn much beyond that. But because Krazy Glue wanted me to really test out the performance of their product, I wasn’t going to rely on any of those familiar tricks.

While that may sound at first like a complaint, it actually led me down the mind-melting rabbit hole that is woodworking joinery. I tried a few new types of joints and learned a little more vocabulary (and at times, used some of the ol’ standbys when I got frustrated at myself). I kind of want to hug Krazy Glue for forcing me to challenge my typical thought process on something like this; it turned out to be so much better than I thought!

Charlie agrees and can’t sit still from all the excitement (or because dog).

DIY Outdoor Drink Station

Ok, so let’s jump right in to the basics: what I wanted, in general, was a drink buffet setup for when I have friends come over. I plan on doing more entertaining this fall, so it seemed like a great opportunity to build something I could use as frequently as I like. But I also wanted it to not be a permanent structure, or else I’d have maintain it outside. Ideally, it would be something I could build in parts and assemble/disassemble as needed. That meant needing a solid base with enough distributed weight on top to hold ice and drinks, but not tip over (or worse, bow in the middle and become a major party foul).

I got started with a simple inspiration idea from this post about a wedding rehearsal in 2012 (the image is all over Pinterest so I’m betting there’s a 99% chance you’ve seen it before, but I didn’t feel comfortable using the photo on this site unless I got the original wedding photographer’s permission to feature it). I’d seen it around the web for a long time but figured it was a DIY up until I started trying to build one myself. So, since I couldn’t find a DIY equivalent, I made plans for you guys as well (they’re below as you scroll through). I’ll make a downloadable version soon!

Building the wood tray

This project was made almost entirely by using scrap wood, and just like my coffee table, assembly began in my living room while watching TV. Using a couple of pine 1×6’s, I cut the sides (5 feet) and ends (2 feet) and mitered each corner to fit into a box. I glued and clamped things together, but I noticed that the mitered corners were still pretty weak after waiting a few minutes to let the bond set up (immediately thinking that I maybe should have just left it as simple squared cuts instead… my experience with glue in general is that it does best when it has a nice surface to hold on to). I taped up the edges with some painter’s tape to give it a little extra hold. I also went ahead and cut 3 bottom supports using some scrap poplar and glued that, too.

Assembling the concrete block base

While all of that was going on, I moved outside to assemble the cinder block bases. The inspiration photo looked like they used a standard 8-inch width, but I wanted something sleeker using three 4-inch blocks per side (making the entire structure a little lower than waist-high for me). This narrower block risked that my project could be top-heavy, so I needed to make sure these were nice and solidly glued together.

This was the part that I was genuinely concerned that my project would fall apart before I even got the chance to put it all together, so I took my time here and used a good amount of my glue supply. I found that one side stuck really well immediately, while the second side needed to be filled, cure, and then re-glued in the same spots (essentially gluing the product to itself to help fill in the rough surface of the cinder block). It definitely needed plenty of opportunity to cure, so I just let it be overnight and let the weight of each block keep the stack together. But the most important part: my diligence paid off, and I could pick up the stack from the top like one solid piece!

Supporting the bottom of the drink tray

After the basic frame of the top tray was finishing curing, I moved everything outside and flipped it upside down to work on the bottom. The scrap plywood I cut for the base would make the tray much heavier (not to mention the waterproofing I’d be adding too), so I decided to add some additional support to the bottom in the way of gluing in 1/4″ dowels. Using larger and larger drill bits (start with a narrower bit and then re-drill the same hole with a larger bit until you can dry fit the dowel into the hole), I created two dowel spots for each end of the supporting cross pieces along the bottom (which again, looks like the top in the below pic because it’s flipped).

Then, I dry fit a 1/4″ dowel through the hole and marked a line to cut it to the right length. I noticed that by sanding the dowels on the end first, it made for less friction and made the gluing process easier.

With the dowels all in place, I could remove the clamps and flip things over for the final steps.

Since I had a little bit more scrap wood, I also glued in triangular pieces to sit in the bottom of each corner of the tray (you can see these below and in the build plans). Since the scrap plywood I used wasn’t perfectly flat, I figured a little extra support can’t hurt.

Finishing the plywood base

Tape off, clamps off, and ready to drop the plywood in!

I’ll admit right away: the plywood wound up not being a perfectly square cut. It worked out in my favor in the end though, since it meant I didn’t need to drill holes into the bottom to account for melting ice (it instead dripped out of these gaps… love a happy accident, right?).

I weighted down the plywood to help to glue it to the bottom supports, but it just didn’t work out in my favor enough and I had to use a few screws to secure the bottom (#scrapwoodproblems).

Finally, I glued in another small corner cut on top of the plywood to sort of sandwich the plywood between the two corner pieces. And the best part? According to this woodworking chart, this is called a BUTT RUB JOINT. Because of course, when I decide to finally learn more about joinery, the first thing I try (unbeknownst to me) is a butt rub joint. I am not mature enough not to find that hilarious.

Still need the plans? Here they are!

Outdoor Drink Station Plans

(closeup version of that little corner “M” above)

Full assembly

And here it is in a quick little assembly GIF:

Protect, Stain and Paint

Once the assembly of the tray was complete, it was time to add in waterproofing, stain, and finishing touches. I had a bunch of the paint-on waterproofing membrane I used in my bathroom renovation left over, so that made a convenient option for the interior (especially because it dries fast enough to paint on two coats in just a few hours). I just love finding alternative uses for leftover home renovation products!

It goes on pink and then dries bright red, but I’ll cover over that soon enough!

For added color, I stained the outside with a mixture of Minwax Ipswich Pine and Early American stain colors (I like to wash on multiple colors if I’m not quite achieving the hue I want; it usually produces a small mixture of the first color with a hint of the second). I also sprayed on three coats of Indoor/Outdoor spar urethane (to help protect from UV damage, rain, etc.). As you can see in the photo above, I used the corners to test out stain colors with the intention of covering over them with decorative corners that matched the concrete block base.

I taped off a small lip of the inside of the tray and sprayed it, along with the corners (made from simple wooden lath) and the concrete block base with a nearly-black spray paint (Valspar Outdoor Spray Paint in Dark Knight). I’ll have a video for you guys soon where I tried out a few different spray paints and there is a clear different in cheap versus quality paint when it comes to these kinds of surfaces!

Just for fun, I positioned everything over near the new hedge line along the fence in the back yard (can you imagine how awesome it’s going to look when the hedges grow in??). For added greenery (because it’s fall and everything beginning to turn brown), I added some potted gardenias, clipped off a few hydrangeas for a bouquet, an olive leaf wreath, and a few decorative outdoor lights to my setup.

Small tip on the cinder blocks: because I wanted to keep this easy for disassembling, I chose to reinforce each piece of the base with rebar I just hammered into the dirt just in case it got too top-heavy. I think it probably would have been fine without it, but I didn’t want to leave things to chance. The upside to that is that I can just remove the rebar and store all the pieces much more conveniently than if it were all attached together, not to mention this lets me move it in and out of the garage without assistance (it rained earlier this week and I actually already moved it into the garage for the next use). If it lasts a good while, I may add a few more small pieces of scrap to the underside of the wooden tray so that it has an exact space to interlock over the top of each cinder block.

But once I was done with assembly, it was time for a party!

This thing really does hold a lot of drinks! The ice drains out nicely as it melts, and the waterproofing worked like a champ! The all-purpose formula of the Krazy Glue held nicely throughout the evening, so I can definitely say I think it’s well suited for outdoor use.

I plan to bring out the drink station again for the next get-together, but until then, it is being stored in separate sections (tray + two cinder block legs) in the garage so I can more easily fit it into my narrow storage space. Win-win.

So, that’s it! At least, for now. I’m planning on adding a new video to my Youtube channel about what I learned on this build, as well as more info about the spray paint. This project really piqued my curiosity on other woodworking ideas, so I may have found yet another hobby I’m going to buy way too many toys for.

Have you used Krazy Glue for anything lately?

This post was sponsored by Krazy Glue, the all-purpose formula instant adhesive available in a wide assortment for multiple applications and bonds to a variety of surfaces. Thanks so much to their team for making this a fun challenge to do!

The post DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

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DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j

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homefixsite · 7 years ago

Text

DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining

This post is sponsored by Krazy Glue. All opinions are — for better or worse — 100% my own.

Prepare for photo overload, folks: this project took a little scheming!

I know, right? Don’t worry; I didn’t glue myself to my project (um… except maybe get a little in my hair).

Charlie agrees and can’t sit still from all the excitement (or because dog).

DIY Outdoor Drink Station

Building the wood tray

Assembling the concrete block base

Supporting the bottom of the drink tray

With the dowels all in place, I could remove the clamps and flip things over for the final steps.

Finishing the plywood base

Tape off, clamps off, and ready to drop the plywood in!

I weighted down the plywood to help to glue it to the bottom supports, but it just didn’t work out in my favor enough and I had to use a few screws to secure the bottom (#scrapwoodproblems).

Still need the plans? Here they are!

Outdoor Drink Station Plans

(closeup version of that little corner “M” above)

Full assembly

And here it is in a quick little assembly GIF:

Protect, Stain and Paint

It goes on pink and then dries bright red, but I’ll cover over that soon enough!

But once I was done with assembly, it was time for a party!

Have you used Krazy Glue for anything lately?

The post DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

Read more http://ift.tt/2g6qkHr Areas served: Winston-Salem, High Point, Yadkinville, Mocksville, Advance, Clemmons, Kernersville, Greensboro, Walnut Cove, Statesville, NC, North Carolina Services: House painting, roofing, deck building, landscaping, Carpentry, Flooring, tile, hardwood, remodeling, home improvement, interior, exterior

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sherlocklexa · 7 years ago

Text

DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining

This post is sponsored by Krazy Glue. All opinions are — for better or worse — 100% my own.

Prepare for photo overload, folks: this project took a little scheming!

I know, right? Don’t worry; I didn’t glue myself to my project (um… except maybe get a little in my hair).

Charlie agrees and can’t sit still from all the excitement (or because dog).

DIY Outdoor Drink Station

Building the wood tray

Assembling the concrete block base

Supporting the bottom of the drink tray

With the dowels all in place, I could remove the clamps and flip things over for the final steps.

Finishing the plywood base

Tape off, clamps off, and ready to drop the plywood in!

I weighted down the plywood to help to glue it to the bottom supports, but it just didn’t work out in my favor enough and I had to use a few screws to secure the bottom (#scrapwoodproblems).

Still need the plans? Here they are!

Outdoor Drink Station Plans

(closeup version of that little corner “M” above)

Full assembly

And here it is in a quick little assembly GIF:

Protect, Stain and Paint

It goes on pink and then dries bright red, but I’ll cover over that soon enough!

But once I was done with assembly, it was time for a party!

Have you used Krazy Glue for anything lately?

The post DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

from car2 http://ift.tt/2g6qkHr via as shown a lot

#car2

0 notes

darwinbigelow · 7 years ago

Text

DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining

This post is sponsored by Krazy Glue. All opinions are — for better or worse — 100% my own.

Prepare for photo overload, folks: this project took a little scheming!

I know, right? Don’t worry; I didn’t glue myself to my project (um… except maybe get a little in my hair).

Charlie agrees and can’t sit still from all the excitement (or because dog).

DIY Outdoor Drink Station

Building the wood tray

Assembling the concrete block base

Supporting the bottom of the drink tray

With the dowels all in place, I could remove the clamps and flip things over for the final steps.

Finishing the plywood base

Tape off, clamps off, and ready to drop the plywood in!

I weighted down the plywood to help to glue it to the bottom supports, but it just didn’t work out in my favor enough and I had to use a few screws to secure the bottom (#scrapwoodproblems).

Still need the plans? Here they are!

Outdoor Drink Station Plans

(closeup version of that little corner “M” above)

Full assembly

And here it is in a quick little assembly GIF:

Protect, Stain and Paint

It goes on pink and then dries bright red, but I’ll cover over that soon enough!

But once I was done with assembly, it was time for a party!

Have you used Krazy Glue for anything lately?

The post DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

from Home Improvement https://www.uglyducklinghouse.com/diy-outdoor-drink-station/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#home improvement

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chocdono · 7 years ago

Text

DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining

This post is sponsored by Krazy Glue. All opinions are — for better or worse — 100% my own.

Prepare for photo overload, folks: this project took a little scheming!

And of course I did. Because when a brand wants to brag about how strong and fast-drying their product is and I’ve only ever really seen people use it for repairing things, I’m exactly the person that wants to see if they’re full of it. And then I might accidentally glue my fingers together a few times, but something cool like this happens:

I know, right? Don’t worry; I didn’t glue myself to my project (um… except maybe get a little in my hair).

Charlie agrees and can’t sit still from all the excitement (or because dog).

DIY Outdoor Drink Station

Building the wood tray

Assembling the concrete block base

Supporting the bottom of the drink tray

With the dowels all in place, I could remove the clamps and flip things over for the final steps.

Finishing the plywood base

Tape off, clamps off, and ready to drop the plywood in!

I’ll admit right away: the plywood wound up not being a perfectly square cut. It wound up working out in my favor in the end though, since it meant I didn’t need to drill holes into the bottom to account for melting ice (it instead dripped out of these gaps… love a happy accident, right?).

I weighted down the plywood to help to glue it to the bottom supports, but it just didn’t work out in my favor enough and I had to use a few screws to secure the bottom (#scrapwoodproblems).

Still need the plans? Here they are!

Outdoor Drink Station Plans

(closeup version of that little corner “M” above)

Full assembly

And here it is in a quick little assembly GIF:

Protect, Stain and Paint

It goes on pink and then dries bright red, but I’ll cover over that soon enough!

But once I was done with assembly, it was time for a party!

This thing really does hold a lot of drinks! The ice drains out nicely as it melts, and the waterproofing worked like a champ! Krazy Glue is meant for outdoor use too, so it basically all added up to a nice drink station I can use many times over.

Have you used Krazy Glue for anything lately?

The post DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

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from mix1 http://ift.tt/2g6qkHr via with this info

#mix1

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homejacksite · 7 years ago

Text

DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining

This post is sponsored by Krazy Glue. All opinions are — for better or worse — 100% my own.

Prepare for photo overload, folks: this project took a little scheming!

I know, right? Don’t worry; I didn’t glue myself to my project (um… except maybe get a little in my hair).

Charlie agrees and can’t sit still from all the excitement (or because dog).

DIY Outdoor Drink Station

Building the wood tray

Assembling the concrete block base

Supporting the bottom of the drink tray

With the dowels all in place, I could remove the clamps and flip things over for the final steps.

Finishing the plywood base

Tape off, clamps off, and ready to drop the plywood in!

I weighted down the plywood to help to glue it to the bottom supports, but it just didn’t work out in my favor enough and I had to use a few screws to secure the bottom (#scrapwoodproblems).

Still need the plans? Here they are!

Outdoor Drink Station Plans

(closeup version of that little corner “M” above)

Full assembly

And here it is in a quick little assembly GIF:

Protect, Stain and Paint

It goes on pink and then dries bright red, but I’ll cover over that soon enough!

But once I was done with assembly, it was time for a party!

Have you used Krazy Glue for anything lately?

The post DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

Read more http://ift.tt/2ycxHHM Areas served: Winston-Salem, High Point, Yadkinville, Mocksville, Advance, Clemmons, Kernersville, Greensboro, Walnut Cove, Statesville, NC, North Carolina Services: House painting, roofing, deck building, landscaping, Carpentry, Flooring, tile, hardwood, remodeling, home improvement, interior, exterior

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bespokekitchesldn · 7 years ago

Text

DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining

This post is sponsored by Krazy Glue. All opinions are — for better or worse — 100% my own.

Prepare for photo overload, folks: this project took a little scheming!

I know, right? Don’t worry; I didn’t glue myself to my project (um… except maybe get a little in my hair).

Charlie agrees and can’t sit still from all the excitement (or because dog).

DIY Outdoor Drink Station

Building the wood tray

Assembling the concrete block base

Supporting the bottom of the drink tray

With the dowels all in place, I could remove the clamps and flip things over for the final steps.

Finishing the plywood base

Tape off, clamps off, and ready to drop the plywood in!

I weighted down the plywood to help to glue it to the bottom supports, but it just didn’t work out in my favor enough and I had to use a few screws to secure the bottom (#scrapwoodproblems).

Still need the plans? Here they are!

Outdoor Drink Station Plans

(closeup version of that little corner “M” above)

Full assembly

And here it is in a quick little assembly GIF:

Protect, Stain and Paint

It goes on pink and then dries bright red, but I’ll cover over that soon enough!

But once I was done with assembly, it was time for a party!

Have you used Krazy Glue for anything lately?

The post DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

from The Ugly Duckling House https://www.uglyducklinghouse.com/diy-outdoor-drink-station/

#The Ugly Duckling House

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darensmurray · 7 years ago

Text

DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining

This post is sponsored by Krazy Glue. All opinions are — for better or worse — 100% my own.

Prepare for photo overload, folks: this project took a little scheming!

I know, right? Don’t worry; I didn’t glue myself to my project (um… except maybe get a little in my hair).

Charlie agrees and can’t sit still from all the excitement (or because dog).

DIY Outdoor Drink Station

Building the wood tray

Assembling the concrete block base

Supporting the bottom of the drink tray

With the dowels all in place, I could remove the clamps and flip things over for the final steps.

Finishing the plywood base

Tape off, clamps off, and ready to drop the plywood in!

I weighted down the plywood to help to glue it to the bottom supports, but it just didn’t work out in my favor enough and I had to use a few screws to secure the bottom (#scrapwoodproblems).

Still need the plans? Here they are!

Outdoor Drink Station Plans

(closeup version of that little corner “M” above)

Full assembly

And here it is in a quick little assembly GIF:

Protect, Stain and Paint

It goes on pink and then dries bright red, but I’ll cover over that soon enough!

But once I was done with assembly, it was time for a party!

Have you used Krazy Glue for anything lately?

The post DIY Outdoor Drink Station for Backyard Entertaining appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

0 notes