#time to just bottle it up until i almost kms like last time

[b0n3s-b1tch]

boooooo confessed i wasnt 100% safe rn and i made my friend worry

i hate myself fuck i didnt want them to worry, hes my best friend and i dont want him losing sleep over me

[frostedfaves]

Repercussions (14)

Masterlist 

Pairing: dark!Natasha Romanoff x dark!Wanda Maximoff x fem!reader

Summary: The day to escape has come, and you push your feelings aside to get the job done.

Warnings: dark themes, brief injury mention

A/N: I’m planning on making part 15 the ending (which feels crazy to say!!), but if it turns out to be outrageously long, I’ll split it into two parts. also the book I mentioned is by Aleatha Romig, and I think I may order it to read! it seems like it’s much darker than this story, so please be warned of that if you also decide to give it a chance! anyway, can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

Previous part

-

You blinked slowly as you were unwillingly brought to consciousness by the sound of your iPad ringing again. For a moment you sat there, surprising yourself when tears filled your eyes. Sure, you’d had some good moments with your girlfriends despite all the manipulation, but were you really going to miss being held captive?

Deciding not to debate the subject with yourself, you quickly wiped your eyes before rolling over to answer the Facetime call. You were met with the connecting screen and then their beaming faces replaced yours, and a sleepy smile was painted on your features as you realized they were also lying in bed.

“You sure don’t let a girl sleep in, huh?” you teased in a raspy tone, clearing your throat immediately.

“Sorry!” Wanda laughed. “We just wanted to see you before we went to sleep.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Natasha interjected with a frown. “You sound different.”

“I’m fine, just need some water.” You stood with the iPad in your hand, placing it on the bed for a moment while you slipped your robe on. “I don’t know if you remember, but the two of you had me screaming last night.”

“No, we remember very well.”

“Hi, Wesley!” Wanda called as he came into view after pulling the sheets up higher over herself and Natasha.

“Oh, hey guys!”

You handed the device over to him as you walked around him to get water from the fridge, smiling as you overheard his question about the trip and your girlfriends’ enthusiastic responses. Part of you wished this was normal, that your cousin was just visiting while they were out of town and not playing the double role of babysitter for them and partner in crime for you, but you shook the thought away as you were handed the iPad again.

“Good news, printsessa. We should be home in three days instead of five,” Natasha told you with a grin and you gasped.

“Wow, really? That’s amazing! Although I wouldn’t mind if you could come sooner, because I’m getting kind of bored with Wes.” Your sigh turned into laughter as he playfully shoved you.

“Be nice, baby,” Wanda teased with a giggle that was quickly followed by a yawn. “Alright, get some breakfast and we’ll get some sleep.”

“Okay! Text me when you wake up.”

“Of course, printsessa. We love you.”

“Love you too,” you offered with a smile and wave, releasing a deep breath when the call ended.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” you answered through another sigh. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You’re actually falling in love with them, aren’t you?”

“Probably.” You dropped the iPad on the table and stepped back to lean against the sink. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not backing out.”

“As long as you’re sure.” He hands you a plate of pancakes with a sympathetic smile. “I talked to Kendall and the safe house is all set up, just waiting for our arrival. Also wrote down all my contacts and erased everything from my phone and trashed it.”

“We can pack the food after I have a shower,” you added after swallowing a bite of food. “That’ll give them time to fall asleep. Then we can put everything in the car and get the security system disarmed.”

“I’m surprised you’re able to eat right now. I know how nervous you are about this going well.”

You paused with another forkful of pancakes held to your lips, simply shrugging in response. “Turns out I’m a pretty good actress.”

-

As soon as you were dressed you ducked into a camera free zone, checking your device and sighing in relief when you heard their light snores. You wasted no time in making sure you weren’t missing anything in your bag and tucked your burner phone in your pocket as you made your way downstairs.

“They’re asleep,” you announced as you entered the kitchen, stepping over to the counter where Wesley was sorting food into another bag.

“Okay, I’m almost done. I’m only packing snacks from the pantry. We’ll just have to wait until we’re done driving to have a meal. I have bottled water in the car.”

The two of you worked quickly to grab what you could and placed the food and your own personal bags into the backseat before coming back inside and heading to the basement. Wesley picked the lock of the security room and led you inside, and your mouths fell open at the sight. It was bigger than expected, one area of the room dedicated to surveillance of the house and surrounding land, and the other part more of an office area used for mission related things.

Once you’d gotten into the security system, a password protected screen popped up and you took a moment to really think about what it could possibly be. Your mind raced back to the first meeting, first date and any other first that followed, trying not to linger too long on the happier moments.

“What do you think it is?” Wesley finally questioned after a minute of silence.

“Try ‘consequences’.”

A mixture of pride and nausea stirred inside you when you were immediately granted access, but you focused on disabling the security system, jumping to your feet when the two minute timer started. You dropped the tracker on the table before you ran out and got into the car, driving through the gate mere seconds before it began to close. Wesley pulled over to change the license plates once you were a safe enough distance away from the house, and then you were on your way to your new safe home, deep in the middle of Nebraska.

“I have a question,” Wesley broke the silence an hour later, and you turned away from the road to give him your attention. “How did you know the password?”

“It’s the name of the book Natasha was holding when she asked me out. The main character meets a man after work that takes her out to dinner and then kidnaps her, and I don’t know if she knew that when she picked it up or if the summary alone gave her the idea but…It’s just so fucking similar to what they put me through and I just--”

A shiver rippled through you as you allowed your anxiety to take over for a moment, and Wesley was quick to grab your trembling hand in his.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s over now,” he assured you calmly and you exhaled a shuddering breath as you closed your eyes.

“I really hope you’re right.”

-

On the other side of the world, Natasha and Wanda were just waking up from their night of slumber, and Wanda was quick to grab her phone and text you while the woman beside her stretched and yawned.

“What are you up to?”

“Just letting printsessa know we’re awake now.” Wanda put the phone down with a sigh. “Is it bad that I want to retire soon just so I can go back to waking up next to her everyday?”

“Not at all,” Natasha chuckled lightly, running her palm along her bare spine. “The last mission I went on alone, I could barely sleep. It felt like a piece of me was missing.”

“Heading out in half an hour!”

The two women faced each other as Steve’s voice came through the door, playfully rolling their eyes and sharing knowing smiles as they begrudgingly climbed out of bed.

Unfortunately for them, they didn’t return to their room again until nearly midnight, midafternoon for you, after just barely escaping the base they infiltrated and making tons of detours to ensure they weren’t followed to the safe house. Once everyone’s injuries were tended to, Natasha and Wanda broke away to shower and collapse onto the bed once they were done.

“Tash,” Wanda began, lifting her head to reveal a concerned expression. “Printsessa didn’t text back. She didn’t even open the message.”

“What?” 

Natasha comes closer to take the phone, checking for herself and feeling a panic rise in her chest immediately. She quickly switched over the check the live camera footage, and a mix between fear and anger swirled around inside her when she didn’t spot you or Wesley in any of the rooms.

“Fuck!”

“Nat, what’s going on?” Clint questions as he stops in the doorway, noticing the tears beginning to spill down Wanda’s cheeks.

“Get in here and close the door. We have a problem.”

-

Tags: @littlegasps @natasha-danvers @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @nat-km-mh @buckmesidewaysandcallmesteve @cherrieloco @seventeen0 @creepingwolfberry @emilyprentisswife @bebe404 @becka107 @fayhar @messuhp @mjaudrey @sxphiaswitch @muted-stoneheart @its-a-long-way-to-ba-sing-se @wannabe-fic-reader @trikruismybitch @beforeoursecrets @cosmicbrownies7 @just-a-normalpersons @multi-images @want-to-watch-it-burn @stop-drop-and-drumroll @witchxaf @natashadeservedmore @haiiiloooe2 @darkangelxoxo @sakurat123 

[consumedkings-archive]

THE LAND OF GODS AND DEVILS, a sequel.

—part i.

word count: 6k

rating: m for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop, tags will be updated accordingly.

warnings: naughty language, massively canon-divergent, roman gets his own tag because he's a fucking nutso, canon-typical violence, established relationship that might not be the healthiest, age gap, domestic murder family. for this chapter in specific, roman likes to take things to the Extreme (i.e., "i'm going to fucking kms if you say this word one more time") but if you're here i imagine you know exactly what he's about.

notes: it's here! i know that most of my followers and friends on here are my friends through my far cry 5 content, but my return to the fic-writing world was inspired by my first longfic in a decade after watching birds of prey. you could say, perhaps, that i have a Type(TM), given that roman sionis lives rent free in my head forever and always. this is the sequel to my work carry your throne, though i like to think it's fairy user-friendly, especially once we really get into the thick of it.

special thank you goes to my beta and the loml, @starcrier; the first person to ever truly recognize varya for the wretched little beast that she is and love her anyway. thank you for being my beta and for loving my girl!

and, of course, another special thanks goes to @shallow-gravy, @vasiktomis, @faithchel, @tomexraider, and @belorage for being so supportive of my foray out of the far cry fandom and back into one that, in a way, brought me here in the first place!

summary: —by dread things, compelled.

roman sionis is the closest he has ever been to having everything that he wants; a perfect wife, a perfect family, a perfect international black-market arms dealing business signed over to him in its entirety. unfortunately for him, there are people in the world who would prefer to see him without, and that has never been a thing that roman has accepted for himself: being without.

(or: a fic wherein the devil spends his time rebuking sin.)

“If one more person says the word ‘chandelier’ in my presence,” Roman announced, drawing all eyes to him, “I'm going to blow my fucking brains out. Got it?”

There was a brief moment of silence that lapsed before the murmured acquiescence of the workers marked their return to their work. Blowing hot air from his mouth, Roman raked his fingers through his hair and turned back around to where Zsasz was watching him expectantly.

“What?” He demanded. “It’s my wife’s birthday.” Emphasis on the my, not the wife; it was not a favor Roman was doing for Varya, it was something he was doing for himself.

“V told them she wanted it.” Zsasz gestured to the offensive piece of lighting, which continued to haunt Roman’s waking and dreaming hours with its garish crystalline drippings and expensive bulbs. Ever since Varya had found out his fluctuating approval of the chandelier, it had been in and out of the Black Mask Club more times than he could count. Not that he needed to; he could very well put in or rip out a stupid fucking light fixture as many times as he wanted.

“Well.” Roman pulled a glass out from behind the bar, setting it on the top and dropping an ice cube into it. “She does so love to torture me.”

“It's just a—”

“Do you want my fucking guts on the floor, Zsasz? I mean it. Say the word and I’ll do it.”

The blonde regarded him drily. “No, boss.”

“Blood and guts everywhere.” Roman gestured widely with his free hand. “All over the floor. The bar top. You’ll have to clean it up. Maybe wipe down some of the bottles.”

“I won’t say it.”

“I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to get blood out of the carpet.”

Zsasz’s mouth quirked up in a smile. It said, without saying anything at all, no, you don’t. More agreeably, and with the flash of pearly whites and the capped tooth: “Sure.”

Roman poured well over what would have been considered the polite amount of expensive scotch into his glass, capping the bottle and setting it aside. It had been exactly twenty-four hours of making sure the club was perfectly polished and styled for Varya's birthday; though she was shrewd, she was so preoccupied with the twins and the lawyers and overseas business associates that she barely seemed to notice whatever was coming in and out of the Black Mask Club. He didn’t think she’d had a baby nor a phone out of her hands in over two days, and truthfully, it was starting to become tedious. Now that the twins were a little over a year old, they were supposed to be scheduling their honeymoon.

The delay of it hadn’t been a big deal, at the start. But everyday with you feels like my honeymoon, Varya had demurred months before the twins’ arrival, fluttering her lashes and gliding her fingers along the lapel of his jacket—and not even an hour after she’d curtly informed him that any more chatter, while she was nursing a headache, would be met with a swift and efficient extraction of his vocal cords by her own hands. Motherhood was supposed to have domesticated her, Roman thought, and had done the exact opposite; now, she was more assured of her status and power than ever.

So, yes; Varya had been busy, and he was almost certain she’d forgotten her own birthday. Never mind that everything had to be perfect. Never mind that it had to be immaculate. Never mind that Varya had deigned to order a brand new fucking chandelier from the same place they’d gotten one last time, knowing full well that he had made the executive decision to gut the fucking thing and get it out of his club.

“Tell you what, Zsasz,” Roman muttered, taking a swallow of the amber liquid in his glass, “don’t ever get fucking married. You want someone knowing all the shit that pushes your buttons all the time?”

“Maybe you just got a button pusher for a wife.”

Roman grimaced and took another swallow. It was true. “Fuck off.”

The blonde opened his mouth to say something else—and hadn’t he gotten confident in himself too, since Varya had become such a permanent fixture in their life, constantly goading and coercing him to voice his opinion on things, things that normally he would just defer to Roman on—when the doors to the stairwell and the elevator opened.

Eclipsing the doorway was Armazd, Varya’s hand-picked-from-the-batch-of-Russians-left-over-guard. Armazd had to be easily cresting six-foot-five, his dark beard neatly trimmed and peppered with silver, a scar breaking the color of his top lip. Roman had only ever seen the man swathed in dark clothes, like a fucking mourner on parade. His wife had been the one picked to be the twins' nanny, despite the fact that Roman felt like she barely did anything.

Also hand-picked. Thoroughly vetted. Interrogated for hours. No stone left unturned, when it came to Yuli and Ro.

“What are you doing down here?” Roman barked, coming around the side of the bar to make his way across the room. “You’re supposed to be going up and keeping—”

“She is coming down,” Armazd clarified. “In the elevator. Irina called to tell me.”

“Instead of stopping her?”

“She was—”

The elevator dinged in the hallway, and Roman quickly ducked around Armazd and closed the door into the club behind him. As soon as the doors slid open, he planted a smile on his face and closed the distance between himself and his wife.

Nobody would know, looking at Varya, that she not only barely utilized the nanny that they had furiously vetted and now paid handsomely, but that on top of juggling their twins she was actively in the process of getting a massive, international gun-running business signed over in his name. There was not a single hair out of place, not a single crease or rumple in the sapphire-blue silk of her blouse or skirt; the scent of her preferred jasmine perfume followed her like a cloud. She looked as put-together as the day he’d first seen her standing in his club.

And now, he desperately needed her to stay out of it.

“Kitten,” he greeted warmly, his hands—though gloved—immediately scratching the itch by reaching for her; they captured hers to carefully still her procession to the club’s main room. “What are you doing down here? I thought you’d be busy for hours.”

“Yuliana has been fussing nonstop,” Varya replied, her voice light despite what could only have been an expression of frustration quickly following, “all while I listen to grown men fussing nonstop at me on the phone.”

Roman feigned a sympathetic noise, bringing her hands up to his mouth to kiss them. “We have a nanny, V.”

“You know better than anyone else,” the brunette murmured, brushing her nose against his as their hands dropped, “that she is inconsolable without you.”

He tried not to look too pleased. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Don’t be modest, Romy.”

“Well, I’ll come up, of course.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “And console our princess.” Another kiss, to the other corner. “So that you can continue letting grown men fuss at you.”

She beamed at him prettily, and finally they met in the middle for a real kiss—nothing coy, nothing demure, but lingering warm and just between the two of them.

“I love you,” she purred. “Go on, then.”

And then Varya pulled away, as though to go around him and into the club, and Roman blinked rapidly. He had only just caught her around the waist before she could walk in and pulled her in a full one-eighty until she was facing the elevator again.

“What are you doing?” she asked, a laugh bubbling out of her. “I was just going to make myself a drink.”

“Encouraging productivity,” Roman replied, hitting the button for the elevator doors to open again. “Ready for all this paperwork to be done, aren’t you? It’s been over a year.”

A year of wading through mafia-esque bureaucracy. A year of listening to Varya say, these things take time. A busy year, to be sure, jam-packed full of things—the biggest wedding in Gotham since its founding, the twins.

A funeral.

Roman tried more and more every day not to think about his (now) brother-in-law’s funeral, the double burial of the only man that might have stood a chance at being loved by Varya more than Roman himself and the only man who had ever been anything like a father figure to her. Family is tedious, he’d wanted to say, brothers and fathers and mothers, the whole lot of them, cut them loose why don’t you? Why should anyone matter to you outside of the twins and I?

Varya glanced at him over her shoulder. “These things take time.”

He rolled his eyes. “Mhm.”

“Not to mention, we were a little busy,” she added, eyes narrowing playfully as he nudged her into the elevator, “you know—having children.”

“And what beautiful children they are.” Roman hit the button without looking, the doors sliding shut behind him.

“Well, how am I supposed to suffer through those phone calls without a stiff drink?”

He quirked a brow upward. “I’ll make you a stiff drink, Mrs. Sionis.”

The brunette propped herself up against the back rail of the elevator as it whirred into motion. The corner of her mouth, painted ruby, curved and her head tilted inquisitively. “Oh?”

“Of course,” he demurred, sidling forward and boxing her in against the wall. “I’ll make you a stiff drink—”

He dropped his head to the slope of her jaw to plant a kiss there.

“—you’ll finish up with the lawyers, and put on the dress I bought you—”

Varya hummed and sighed sweetly.

“—we’ll go out to dinner for your birthday—”

He dropped his hands to her hips, planting a kiss on her temple so that he could rumble, “And we can get to work on baby number three, hm?”

A sweet laugh billowed out of her just as the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open to bring to Roman the oh-so-sweet sounds of a caterwauling infant. Over the distressed crying was Irina’s voice, shushing and cooing dulcet words in Russian; he could see her swaying to and fro with a swathe of fabric bundled in her arms.

“I almost forgot about my birthday,” Varya said thoughtfully, completely unrattled by the sound of their daughter’s distress. She stepped out from between him and the elevator wall; Roman fell into step beside her easily, the sound of her heels clipping against the floor enough to draw Irina’s eyes to them.

Roman said, “I know you did,” and did not bother to hide his smugness as he held out his arms for the shrieking baby in Irina’s arms. The redhead regarded him with a sort of weary amusement before she acquiesced; with Yuliana safely in his arms, he watched Varya cross the room to turn the automatic rocker that held their son back on to a slow, lulling pace. The freckled infant babbled happily—ever the quieter of the twins—and as Varya said something to Irina in Russian that inspired the woman to depart to the kitchen, she absently picked up a baby blanket from the couch and wandered over to him.

“Yuli,” she murmured, waving her finger at the already-content infant, tucking the blanket around her “is that all you wanted, hm? Just for your papa to hold you?”

“What else could she want for?” he replied confidently. Soothing Yuliana’s fury had become old-hat for him at this point. And, certainly, it pleased him to know that sometimes, the only thing that would make his daughter stop screaming was being held by him. Not even Varya—who had taken to motherhood like a fish to water—bothered when she was in a fit.

Still, the brunette sighed dreamily, her finger captured by their daughter’s tiny hand before she said, “What a perfect little gem.”

Roman hummed his agreement. “Finishing that call with the lawyers?”

“Perhaps tomorrow,” Varya replied. “They’re in a mood today.”

“They’re in a mood every day.” Russians, he thought venomously.

“Yes.” She smiled, flashing pearly teeth at him. “But only today is my birthday.”

She had him there. Still, he was itching for the whole thing to be done—Ilarion had dragged his feet through the process of even drawing up the original contract, which had only been a spit in his face (“You are the only person who gets to fuck Varya Astakhova, that is as exclusive as it gets”) and by the time all of that nasty business had been wrapped up, Ilarion was dead.

Ilarion, and Nikita—leaving only a single living soul to be in charge of the Astakhov empire: Varya herself.

Which, she had expressed time and time again, she had no desire for; not in the public way that her father had done it, and Ilarion after them. She much preferred the clerical work of it all. Paperwork and public relations. Let the men do men’s work, she’d demurred one night, tangled up in their sheets, when he’d asked her what she was going to do with it. I don’t mind. They like me better as their madonna, anyway.

“You know,” she continued, breaking him out of his thoughts as she made her way to the bar cart, pouring herself a drink, “they will like you more if it’s you they’re talking to.”

“I don’t give a fuck if they like me or not,” Roman replied, lifting Yuliana with both of his hands so that he could look at her. “Isn’t that right, princess? Mommy gets to do all the paperwork so that your papa can spend all of his time with you, instead of listening to some dumbfucks bitch and moan on the phone.” He glanced at her. “Well, anyway, since it’s your birthday we can let it slide.”

“Very generous of you.”

“Get dressed, won’t you?” he prompted, depositing his now-content daughter in the mobile swing with her brother. “The table’s been ready for us since noon.”

Varya watched him, dark eyes glittering amusedly. “And why, my darling, did you make the reservation for noon? It’s nearly six now.”

“Because,” he replied, “I wanted to make sure they held it, regardless of how long it took us to get there.”

“Ah.” She lifted her chin a little, lashes fluttering with contentment when he reached up and brushed the hair from her face. “Or else?”

Roman flashed her a grin.

“Or else.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

They held the table.

“Good for them,” Roman said as they followed the server out onto the balcony. The table had clearly been refreshed—a new candle, a new vase, a new bucket of ice and bottle of champagne. He’d heard the waitstaff whispering furiously among themselves as they idled in the lobby to be taken to their table; now, settled across from the birthday girl, Roman was content with the way they had squirmed.

“Quicker than the two-hour wait last time,” Varya noted by way of agreement, smoothing her hand along the edge of the tablecloth.

He scoffed. The only reason they had waited in the lobby for two hours was because Varya had asked him to stay for the table she wanted. If it had been his way, they would have left with a bloody warning and gone somewhere else. “I can’t believe I finally convinced you to leave the twins home for a night and we got stuck sitting in that fucking lobby because they gave our table away.”

“In my defense, they are good babies, Romy. Hardly ever cry. Certainly not too much trouble.”

“But there’s two of them,” he replied, “and toting two babies around is a lot of work. All I’m saying is, what’s the point of paying her that much fucking money if we’re just going to—”

The waiter came by the table, clearly a little stressed; the lines of concern on his face were clear as he cleared his throat and said, “Should I come back?”

Varya, perusing the menu: “No, my darling, you may stay. You were saying, Romy?”

“I just don’t know why we’re shoveling money into her bank account for her to be a glorified accent chair in our house rather than a nanny.” Roman gestured to the champagne bottle expectantly. “Open it.”

The waiter did as he asked, having been standing there uncomfortably for a moment during their exchange. As he worked to carefully open the champagne bottle, Roman turned his attention back to Varya; her eyes remained on the menu, absently twisting the engagement and wedding band on her finger back and forth.

There was no way, he thought, that she was putting off getting the business signed over to him on purpose. Surely, there was no way; even when Ilarion was alive, even when she had anticipated no further problems, it had always been, if you’re going to be my romantic partner, it seems only right you’d be my partner in business too, don’t you think? And yet—

And yet, Roman could not push down the strange, hazy doubt that occasionally flickered through his mind. He had always wanted Varya, had always found himself wanting and wanting and wanting more and more often, and Varya had always seemed content to indulge him. There was, it seemed, nothing she enjoyed more than indulging him. One more kiss, one more minute in bed, one more lingering glance across the room. She was the absolute pinacle of his hedonism, in every sense of the word, and had proven time and time again that she would give him anything that he wanted.

The business had always been for her and Ilarion. He wanted it, and told her he did, and she said, you can have it, if you like, but like in all things, there was a slyness about his wife—a cruelty—that he found endearing and dangerous. Dangerous, because it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d been on the other end of her cruel nature, playfully poking and unwinding and tugging the thread loose until she had pushed him to the limit.

Something echoed in his head, and he realized that the waiter was asking him what he wanted to eat. Varya had handed the menu over and steepled her fingers, watching him with dark, curious eyes and red painted lips, sooty lashes fluttering. A pretty, painted little snake.

“I’ll take whatever she’s having,” Roman said after a moment, setting his menu aside and returning his attention to the brunette across from him. “Something interesting, kitten?”

“Can I not just appreciate my husband?” Varya demurred. “You’re wearing the suit I like best, after all.”

“It is your birthday. What greater gift is there than me?”

She laughed, delighted by him—as she always was—and took a sip of her champagne. “You were away from me, for a moment.”

He watched her, gauging her carefully. Even I know not to drop my pants when a viper opens its mouth, Bianchi had said, just before Varya had unloaded six rounds into his face and chest less than two feet away from him.

“Just thinking,” is what Roman said finally.

“Hm. A dangerous past time.”

His expression flattened, deadpan. “It’s taken a significant chunk of time to secure your father’s business in my name.”

Something flickered across Varya’s expression. at the word father. “To secure my business,” Varya replied, her voice abrupt and cutting, her eyes narrowed, “in your name.” Absently, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She looked to be composing herself, like she’d spoken on a knee-jerk reaction rather than with thinking.

Then, glossy and silken again: “You know your patience means the world to me, Romy.”

There was nothing that he loved more than watching her pull back her venom for him. Drumming his fingers against the top of the table, Roman bridled his own irritation to say, mildly, “I’d do anything for you. Even wait...” He made a thoughtful noise. “Over a year to finally take on the responsiblities you wanted handed over to me.”

“Of course.” Varya smiled prettily, absently straightening out her silverware. “And we will speak no more of my father on my birthday, or any day after this.”

He knew what that meant. She phrased it pretty, wrapped it up in silk and velvet and presented it to him as unassuming as a doe, but he knew what that meant. There is my button, she was saying, there is my trip wire. Don’t push it, Roman. The name Nikita had all but been banned in their household, even when funeral arrangements were being made; any time he’d heard one of the lawyers mention her father’s name, there had been a sharp rebuke. Not in my presence, she would tell him later, I do not want to hear that fucking name in my presence.

“At any rate, there is nothing that I want more than for this whole process to be done,” she continued lightly, reaching across the table to take his hand. “It was always what I wanted, you know. Ilya was better suited to be a functional piece of the business; he was the face because he had to be, not because he wanted to be, and I am better suited for the nitpicking and the details. Being the overseer is much more in your circle of talents, Romy.”

Her words assauged something unsettled and prickly in him, the sweep of the pad of her thumb across the back of his hand returning that doubtful monster in his mind back to its slumber. He sighed.

“You’re right,” he acquiesced after a moment, “it is more in my circle of talents.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“I always got the impression Ilarion wasn’t happy with it,” he added. “Though you two certainly enjoyed making work of me that first night, didn’t you?”

Varya smiled demurely. “It was never meant to make work of you, only to make a good impression.”

“Hm,” he replied, eyes narrowing playfully, “but you enjoy pushing me, V.”

She looked pleased. She always did, when he remarked on something that felt like he was really seeing her, beneath the glossy veneer. His girl did so love being seen.

“Only,” V demurred, “because you so enjoy reining me in.”

“Guilty as charged.”

Roman brought her hand to his mouth, kissing the back of it before relinquishing it and glancing around. He would just have to exercise patience, of which he had the most; patience, modesty, and humility, all excellent qualities that he could participate in at will, at any given time. Without any restraint.

“Did the men get the chandelier installed?” Varya idled, snapping his attention back to her. He narrowed his eyes.

“I told you I didn’t want a chandelier anymore.”

She looked at him across the table, dark doe eyes wide and innocent. “I thought you liked how polished they make the club.”

“No, you little viper,” Roman replied, clicking his tongue, “Paolo has a chandelier in his club, and there’s no fucking way I’m going to have people comparing it.”

“Ah,” she murmured, “the drama of the chandelier goes on.”

“And while we’re at it, might as well gut that one from the estate, too.”

“There’s more than one chandelier in there.”

“Then the men will be busy, won’t they?” He tsked his tongue. “I know you dream about watching me blow my top, V, but I’m making an executive decision on gaudy light fixtures.”

A smile flashed across her expression, pearly teeth and delighted eyes. She sighed, almost dreamily, like there was nothing more that she liked than to be doing this exact thing, and with him.

“Oh, Romy,” the brunette said sweetly, “you are the only thing I dream about.” And then, almost as an after thought: “Gaudy light fixture terrorism included.” She waved her hand to dismiss any protest or rebuttal he might have given her and said, “Now, since it’s my birthday, tell me all of the things you love the most about me.”

Roman sucked his teeth, eyeing her for a moment as he leaned back in the chair. Wicked little thing, waiting to preen and glow under his attention, a feline seeking him out. Her little bout of cruelty before was already forgiven. He said, “We’re going to be here for a while, if I do that.”

“They held the table for over six hours,” Varya demurred, “I’m sure they’ll hold it for as many more as you need.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

By the time they got to the club, Varya was acting as though nothing had happened.

Truthfully, Roman preferred it that way. It just also left a lot of room to wonder—his wife was a talented actress, adept at smoothing his ruffled feathers out and not divulging her own feelings on the matter. And he wouldn’t ask, of course. If Varya wanted to express herself, she would, and had, quite openly in the past.

“I am so happy to be home,” she announced, gliding past the door to the club once Roman had opened it for her. “Do you think the babies are asleep, yet? I always miss putting them...”

Her voice trailed off, pausing a little as she seemed to realize that the club was cloaked in inky darkness, freezing just a few steps past the threshold. Roman let the door swing shut behind him, nudging her forward with a hand at the small of her back. He was met with some resistance; she steeled, stiffening against his insistence, before taking a few steps forward.

He said, barely keeping the delight out of his voice, “You’re holding up the line, V.”

“Roman,” Varya said, her voice pitched oddly soft and tight, “why—?”

The lights flashed on to a loud, unified cheer of Happy Birthday!; the club had been packed with vases of flowers, the tables donned with food and drink, and everyone worth their salt within a fifty-mile radius had made their way there. Not a single thing was out of place—everything exactly where he had instructed it be placed, and not a fucking chandelier in sight.

Roman came around in front of the brunette, grinning. “Happy—”

He stopped. Varya’s expression was not happy, or even surprised; it was something else, something that he couldn’t read, the pupils of her hot-whiskey eyes blown wide and the normally Renaissance-soft lines of her face sharpened and hardened into an expression that was more vicious.

“V?” he asked. Her eyes snapped to him, and for a second she looked the same way she had that night in the loft, her hands drenched in blood and the kitchen knife clutched in her fist with bodies at her feet: like she didn’t recognize him.

It took a heartbeat, but her expression smoothed out and she smiled, almost sheepish—like she’d been caught doing something naughty, instead of being caught being somewhere else. Someone else, more the wolf than the girl.

“The lights,” she explained, hands resting on his chest, “they startled me, is all.”

A frown creased his expression. He brought his hands up to hold her wrists, thumb pressed against her pulse point. It fluttered unsteadily. Unconvinced, Roman pressed, “The lights?”

“Just the lights,” Varya assured him. She tilted her head up and kissed him, one hand departing his jacket to go to the back of his neck—and when she kissed him, he could feel that strange little flicker of energy, like she’d been stamping something out before it could catch, but it still vibrated under her skin.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but she disentangled from him and swept around to the crowd of people waiting, beaming prettily and playing at bashfulness, as though she did not enjoy their eyes on her and did not soak their attention up like a flower did sunlight. Whatever had been plaguing her in that moment was now gone, and she was awash with attention and love, thanking people profusely and accepting each hug and cheek-kiss directed her way.

Roman brushed off the odd feeling that she wasn’t being as forthcoming with him as he would have preferred—no secrets anymore, isn’t that what they’d agreed on?—and instead waded into the crowd. Music kicked on overhead; chatter picked up to a warm humming around them; there was nothing else to think about except letting his girl enjoy her birthday celebration.

By the time Varya had made a suitable number of rounds (which tended to verge much higher than one, much to Roman’s chagrin—what tedious work, to share her with everyone else), she had barely sipped the glass of champagne someone had planted in her hand. She circled back to him eventually; like always, there was that pinprick tugging in the cavity of his chest, like they were bound by a single thread that kept them from parting too much and too quickly, and when she drew closer to him again it oozed relief, warm and vibrant, through his ribs.

“Sufficiently loved on?” he asked as she neared, hand reaching up to slide around her waist.

“By them? Certainly.” The brunette’s hand smoothed along his shoulder, the pad of her thumb gliding across the velvet of his jacket. “By you, though, not hardly. Not ever.”

“You are insatiable,” Roman agreed in a rumble. He splayed his fingers against the small of her back, tugging her in closer and brushing their noses together.

“Just for you,” Varya murmured, and the words brushed their lips together just a little—but everything with Varya, like this, felt like almost-kissing, enough to push him to some kind of edge where his stomach twisted and wrenched with want when she added, “And only for you.”

“You know I can’t resist you when you talk like that.”

She laughed, leaning in to set her glass to the side and curl her fingers into his shirt for a kiss; everything for a second felt normal, and good, and right again, the strange way she’d gone-away back in the doorway having disappeared, the dark cloud over her having cleared, her wretchedness from dinner dissipated.

And Roman kissed her, with the sound of the party chatter ringing in his ears, and kissed her with the faint taste of champagne flooding his senses when she parted her lips against his, and kissed her while his hand fisted the fabric of her dress and he managed out in a voice rough with want, “So you’re trying to rile me up.”

“I always,” Varya murmured against his mouth silkily, “want you riled, Romy.”

“Varya?”

A stranger’s voice filtered through the haze—the rose-colored one that usually accompanied Varya saying anything like she wanted him riled up—and Roman felt the irritation spike straight through it. He turned to look at the interruption at the same time that Varya did, only to find a young, handsome blonde standing just a foot away.

Varya said, sounding faint, “Maxim?”

“It has been a while,” the blonde said, and he sounded sheepish. “I called Armazd, asking after you—”

“Sorry,” Roman interjected briskly, fingers still curled—now possessively—into the fabric of Varya’s dress against the dip of her spine, “but who are you?”

His wife started to say, “Romy, this is—” at the same time that the man began, “I am sorry, my name—” and they both stopped at the same time, a strange little silence stretching between them.

“Maxim,” Varya said after a second, turning to look at Roman now. “This is Maxim. He is Artyem’s son.”

Roman stared at her, more to buy himself time than anything; she said the name like he was supposed to know who that was. Artyem, but it didn’t sound familiar. Almost any Russian name sounded like gibberish to him, and if Varya had said it to him, it had been in passing, an afterthought, nothing but a whisper of information passed between them before it was gone again.

Until it did. Until he remembered that the person Varya had thought was her father had actually been Artyem, that she’d poisoned him, let him bleed to death on the carpet while she had mentally checked out of the moment. That she had watched him die, but she had been somewhere else—someplace else, the way Ilarion had described it, very far away where she couldn’t even enjoy what she’d done fully.

And Maxim—golden, and polished, and clean-shaven—looked awfully pleasant for someone whose farther had choked to death on his own blood because of Varya.

“I see,” Roman said, even though he didn’t. His gaze turned to Maxim. “And you’ve—shown up without calling ahead?”

“I have been in Turkey,” Maxim explained, “finishing up some business, and I did not know how to get in touch—”

“Well, you spoke with Armazd, didn’t you?” Roman’s head tilted. “The man practically sleeps in our bed, I imagine he would have been happy to get you in contact with us.”

“Admittedly,” Maxim said, “I wanted it to be a surprise—”

No, Roman thought absently, venomously, that won’t do at all.

“—Varya’s birthday—”

“So you slunk in,” Roman elaborated tartly, “like a little street dog, hm?”

“Maxi,” Varya interjected, fingers absently tracing the stitching on Roman’s jacket, “why don’t you go get a drink and acquaint yourself with our friends? Armazd is just there—you see?”

Maxim’s eyes darted between her and Roman for a minute. He shifted on his feet, tilting and giving a little smile that might have liked abashed if Roman didn’t think he saw a little squirm of self-satisfaction in his gaze. Fucker.

“Of course,” the blonde replied after a moment. “C dnyom razhdyenyem, Varushka.” He took a step forward, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

Varya’s thumbnail dug into the lapel of Roman’s jacket. “Thank you, Maxi.”

Once the blonde had departed, linking up with Armazd in the crowd to get introduced, Roman straightened up from the bar. It was impossible not to stare at this newcomer—he glowed with an easy charisma, flashed bright smiles that were all teeth. Roman hated him already.

“Maxi?” he asked her, eyes narrowed, and Varya sighed. He waited for her to elaborate. Perhaps she’d say they had dated once, perhaps they were literally nothing. That would be ideal, after all. Ships passing in the night.

She said, “We grew up together.”

Even worse. Roman twisted a loose, dark curl of hers around his finger. “And you killed his father.”

“Well—” She paused, mouth pressing into a thin line. “He does not know.”

“He doesn’t—” The notion that she was keeping secrets, and not from him, coiled high and happy in his throat. He tried not to sound too delighted when he said, “V, surely he knows.”

“Surely he does not, that I did it. Only that it happened. And I will keep it that way,” she added firmly, picking up her champagne glass from the bar top. “Maxim was incredibly loyal to my father because Artyem was, but more than that—he was mine and Ilya’s friend. I’m sure he is missing Ilya almost as much as I am.”

“As we all are,” Roman agreed sagely, planting a kiss on her temple in spite of the dry look she gave him. It was hard to tell, to get a read on this Maxim. What was it he’d dragged himself out of the trenches for? Just to fly halfway across the world to wish Varya a happy birthday? Above all things, Roman understood that his wife was a desirable thing, and knowing that he kept her out of the reach of others was part of her appeal—but that much? Could someone who was just a friend want that much?

He continued, “So what is it that Maxim offers to the business, hm?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Varya demurred, which didn’t sound at all like the truth. “Artyem was the one who sent him out on jobs. My father kept things tight around the top, you know. If anyone would know what it was Maxim was up to in Turkey who wasn’t my father or Artyem, it would have been Ilarion.”

“I find it hard to believe you have no idea what your father was using someone for.”

The sound of delighted commentary drew both of their eyes away; Irina had come down, both dark-haired infants in her arms, and was walking them toward Varya and Roman. Murmured remarks on what could only be their cuteness passed throughout the crowd of party-goers.

“I am putting them down for bed,” Irina announced as she approached, “and I know you like to say goodnight.”

“Oh, you are an angel,” Varya murmured, glass set aside once again. She leaned in, pressing a kiss to baby Ro’s cheek. Yuliana babbled, and she sighed dreamily, “Have you ever seen more perfect babies, Roman?”

Perfect babies, a perfect wife; soon, he would even have the perfect grip on Gotham’s neck, throttling it until it was nothing but dust and ash. Soon, but not soon enough; he’d be content when it was just done and settled, when there was nothing else standing between him and everything that he wanted. Varya, and the guns—what an odd thing, to know that a year ago he’d set out for this and it was just falling into his lap.

“Romy?”

“Never,” Roman replied, smiling and glancing back at his wife, reaching and cradling the back of Yuli’s head. “I’ve never seen more perfect babies, V.”

Across the room, Maxim watched them. There was something about it that Roman didn’t like—the way his eyes flickered, the way he looked between the children and Varya, the way their eyes met and he didn’t deflect away. Like he didn’t mind getting caught. Where had he come from? What little shithole had he crawled out of, over a year after Nikita’s death and Ilarion’s death—longer, still, since his father’s death? Hadn’t he wondered what had happened to his father?

What are you doing here, he thought venomously, that you think you can just come in here like nothing? Like I won’t root you out like the little rat you are?

Maxim smiled. It was a polite smile, unassuming kind of smile.

Roman picked up his drink from the counter, taking a heavy swallow. Suddenly, the evening seemed to stretch out endlessly in front of him, no finish line in sight.

Nothing else standing between me and everything I want.

And he was going to keep it that way.

[karasimpno]

Karasimpno Does FluffVember Day 1 - Akaashi

Karasimpno FluffVember Masterlist Sick Day (gn reader) 2.6k words | Warnings: a liiiitle spicy, sick reader, painkillers, so much fluff I can’t. This is so self-indulgent I’m so sorry

The first thing you became aware of was the sunlight streaming through the curtains in your bedroom. You inhaled deeply, sensation crawling into your fingers and toes as you turned your head on the pillow, breathing in the morning. You exhaled with a smile as your eyes landed on the beautiful man propped up against the headboard, brow furrowed over his sleek reading glasses as he typed sporadically at the computer on his lap. Too focused on his work, he hadn’t registered your movement as more than restless sleep, unaware that your eyes were raking over his relaxed form.

You took advantage of the opportunity just to watch him work. This was what you had always dreamed of - waking up on bright Sunday mornings to roll over and find your childhood-best-friend-turned-boyfriend in bed beside you. You unconsciously bit your lip, wondering how you got so lucky. This was bliss, you thought.

“Hey sexy,” your not-so-sexy morning voice croaked out - deeper than usual. Akaashi’s eyebrows shifted upwards in slight surprise as he inhaled, taking in your eyes on his. The corners of his lips barely tipped upwards and you recognized the beautiful smile for what it was, returning it in full force with one of your own. His hand, slender and angular, slipped off the keyboard and found its way into yours under the blanket. Just watching the ocean of his eyes was all the joy you ever needed. You leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to the back of his hand.

“Good morning,” he breathed, that barely-there smile still on his lips. You fluttered your tired eyes to clear the sleep from them and wormed your head onto his lap so you could see what he was working on. Wordlessly skimming your eyes over the document, the time in the corner of the screen caught your eye - 11:37. You sat bolt upright, which you instantly regretted as a splitting pain shot through your head, causing you to hunch over, fingertips pressing to your forehead.

Light fingers found your back. “Hey...” Akaashi started, the unvoiced question clear. 

“Yeah, no, just...headache,” you explained disjointedly. “I didn’t realize how late it was.”

“Yeah it was later than you usually sleep but you hardly ever get to rest so I didn’t want to wake you,” Akaashi said in an even tone - though the deep care in his words wasn’t lost on you. He pulled a few fingers through your hair. “Maybe too much wine last night?” he teased, the slightest hint of a glimmer in his eye. You groaned. “Maybe,” you admitted. You laid back down on the pillows.

“Can we just watch Netflix today?” you asked, a little pitifully. That familiar twitch of the corner of his lips. “Sure,” he said, leaning over to press a kiss to your forehead. “Do you want me to make breakfast or anything?” Akaashi asked. You frowned, the thought of food, for once, not very appetizing.

“Nah, I’m not really that hungry,” you answered, fumbling in the drawer of your bedside table for some painkillers. “Where did I...” you muttered, then felt a touch on your arm. You looked over. Akaashi had the pills you sought cupped in his fingers as he held them out to you. You shot him a playfully annoyed smirk. You were always looking for things that he happened to produce in the blink of an eye. “Stop being so perfect,” you teased, grabbing the water bottle from your night stand as you took the pills from him.

“I can’t help it, I love you too much,” he said, giving your thigh a gentle squeeze. You couldn’t help your smile either and pecked him quickly on the lips after swallowing the pills. “I love you too, Keiji.” His deep eyes were dark with warmth. You grabbed the remote and flicked on Netflix, sinking further into the pillows as Keiji’s light keystrokes filled the silence before you picked something to watch.

It was a perfect Sunday afternoon, not even leaving the bed yet as show after show began and ended, your quiet lover’s presence all you needed. Before you knew it, it was a little after 2pm and you were stretching your limbs after having been in the same position for so long. Your left toes accidentally brushed against Akaashi’s calf and you didn’t miss the flick of teal that darted to your face. Your eyebrows raised a bit, meeting the glance. His right hand came up and affectionately moved through your hair a few times, making your scalp tingle. You felt yourself melting a little under his touch, your eyelids fighting a flutter as you bit gingerly on your lower lip. 

Without looking, Keiji used his other hand to shift his laptop to his bedside table, moving forward to plant a tender kiss to your expectant lips. You would never get tired of those lips, soft and gentle between yours. You sighed into him, raising your hand to cup his cheek and letting it rest there as he deepened the kiss, his nose lovingly nudging against yours. For lack of a better expression, your eyes felt like they were floating in your skull. There was an enticing rustle of sheets as Akaashi shifted his weight until he was over you, beginning to suck at your lower lip. You inhaled deeply through your nose and your breath caught at the back of your throat, tickling a bit. You cleared your throat but otherwise ignored the feeling and focused your attentions on the deft tongue beginning to lightly taste you, making your brain a little fuzzy.  You reveled in the deliciously soft sounds of your lips dancing with each other, sighing again in contentment. 

Abruptly, you’re forced to flex the hand resting on Akaashi’s cheek to push him off your lips and past your shoulder as an involuntary cough escapes your throat. You barely heard his exhale of surprise at parting with you but he hovers and waits carefully as you cough once, twice, wait a moment, then cough again. You clear you throat and shake your head a little, blinking. “Sorry,” you whisper, the sound getting caught in your chest. It’s okay he assures you with the way his lips find yours. 

He is gentle again, and you wrap your other hand around the back of his neck, encouraging him to keep touching you. Answering your unspoken desires, you find his careful tongue caressing the insides of your mouth. You tilt your head, needing more, more of him. The hand on his cheek makes its way slowly down his toned chest, finding the hem of his pajama shirt and landing on his hip, just beneath the shirt. You are grateful for every brush of skin you share with him, relishing the beautiful, smooth skin of the muscles taut at his waist where he presses against your pelvis. He pulls an inch away from you, looking down into your eyes, his dark teal orbs your entire world.

“Akaashi...” you whisper, and in a fluid motion he pulls his shirt over his head, kissing with more fervor - your lips, under your chin, at your collarbone, then taking his time to plant a loving kiss at the center of your clothed chest. He crawls back, his lips tracing lower down your torso. Your diaphragm contracts as he does so and you successfully stifle another cough. He pushes your shirt up ever so slowly, eyes not leaving your face. The care in his eyes - the way he wants to watch you as he cherishes you - is enough to leave you breathless, and it nearly does as you tangle your fingers in his gorgeous locks. You lick your lips as he uses his nose to trace sweet swirls up your exposed stomach until his tongue grazes past your bare nipple, almost light enough to seem accidental - though you knew better than that. Your head falls to the side and you allow yourself an audible sigh of pleasure as his soft lips close around one of the buds. Your chest rises and falls a little faster at his attentions, feeling your sensitive peak growing wetter at a swipe of his tongue. You know it’s coming and yet a sudden flash of his teeth across the tender flesh elicits a sharp inhale of pleasure from you. 

The quick work of your diaphragm from your gasp sends your esophagus spluttering and seizing and you hack out a few chesty coughs. Akaashi swiftly shifts away from your chest, giving you room to breathe and stroking your hand to let you know he was still there - as if you’d ever forget.

You smile weakly at him and apologize. You find comfort in his lips again, but this time only from their half-smile as he lovingly looks down at you. He pushes forward and pulls your shirt back down over your chest.

“Ah, babe - ” you begin to protest, down but not out for this round. He’s moving in to plant a kiss to your forehead. “It’s okay, love,” he breathes, a whisper above your skin, your pulse still racing. His lips are so gentle against your forehead and you close your eyes at the feeling in spite of yourself. You hear him inhale and feel him pull back. When you open your eyes, he’s sitting back on his heels, looking at you.

“You’re burning up,” he states simply. You half-laugh and begin sitting up, handing his shirt back to him.

“Well I’m sure I have you to thank for that,” you say with a wink.

“No, sweetheart, I mean I think you’re running a fever. I’ll be back,” and before you can even say anything, he’s off the bed and rummaging through a drawer in the bathroom. You exhale dramatically and pull yourself up to rest against the headboard before he comes back. You pout a little like a sick kid when his featherlight fingertips hold your chin to press a thermometer under your tongue.

“No talking for a minute,” he orders, a playful smirk playing at his features. You miss his touch as he throws his shirt back on and reaches across you to grab your water bottle.

“Km-mhi!” you protest, keeping your mouth clamped around the thermometer, but he’s already gone and filling the bottle with fresh water from the kitchen. When he comes back, he takes the thermometer from your mouth and checks the gauge. You realize begrudgingly that you are in fact a bit cold and pull the covers closer around you. You rest your head on his shoulder, peering over at the thermometer. He instinctually rubs your back. 100.4, the thermometer reads. Akaashi sweeps a hand through your hair and down the side of your face. “I’m gonna take care of you, okay?” Pulling away from him, you smile lightly, knowing there’s no arguing with Nurse Keiji. You love him so damn much but you do feel a little puny. 

“You need to eat,” is all he says. He looks a little reluctant to leave you, but squeezes your hand and presses a kiss to your hairline before pushing off the bed and walking back to the kitchen. 

Sighing, you sink back down into the pillows and hit play on the TV again. Your head doesn’t hurt so much anymore but you can feel your pulse in your skull. You gratefully drink some of the water Akaashi brought you and let your eyes rest a bit. The noise of the TV and the distant sound of chopping begins to get far-away, as though you’re sinking beneath water. At some point, without opening your eyes, you feel a warm cloth pressed to your forehead and behind your ears a few times. You smile lightly, still letting your body rest. Akaashi is being overly helpful but you have to admit it’s nice to know someone’s taking care of you.

Eventually, the smell of your favorite soup wafts into the room. You take a deep inhale, which results in a small cough leaving your chest. Clearing your throat, you groggily gather the covers around you and pull them off the bed as you wander into the kitchen.

“Hey,” you say with a smile, feeling like a walking burrito. Akaashi’s eyes are on your face, and you can practically see him fighting the urge to hold you.

“Go back to bed,” he says softly. “Drink some water and lie down.” You pout a little. “Do you need more water?” he asks. You reach out from the draped covers and squeeze his hand. “No, baby. Thank you for doing this for me.” You’re not sure whether it’s the pressure in your head or how your body just seems to stay tired today, but you suddenly feel a wave of strong emotion wash over you as you think about how grateful you are for this man in your life. You blink at wetness in your eyes and, Akaashi, always keyed in to your heart, has his arms around you in an instant, gently rocking you. 

“You’re okay, I love you,” he whispers. A few moments in his arms and you’re slightly surprised as you feel one of his hands lower and grab you behind the knees, sweeping you off your feet and pulling you into his chest. You always forget how well his strength is hidden in his lithe figure, but you give in and let yourself be completely supported by him as he carries you back to your bedroom where he carefully re-settles you onto the bed, kissing your forehead before he stands back up.

“Drink some water, okay? Soup’s almost ready,” his voice is firm, but you know he’s only worried about you. He returns to the kitchen. Your breath catches in your chest a bit and you cough it out for a minute, reaching for your water bottle again.

Soon enough, Akaashi’s standing in the doorway and your heart nearly melts all over again. He’s holding a tray which he brings to your lap, holding your favorite soup, napkins, and a spoon. You sigh with gratitude and you share a look with him, no words necessary. You can still feel your pulse thrumming through your body, but with the first few sips of the soup, the warm liquid settles your chest a bit. Akaashi has crawled into bed beside you and turned the tv back on. 

“Should I sleep on the couch or something tonight?” you ask weakly, looking at him and playing up the pathetic-ness a bit. His eyebrows draw together in confusion.

“What? Of course not, why?”

“I’ll get you sick if-” He shushes you almost immediately.

“No, no, no, don’t worry about that. Besides if you were going to, you probably did already,” he teased with one of his signature small smiles. When the soup was finished and the tray taken from you, he pulled you in close to him and spent the rest of the day by your side, hands running through your hair, or grabbing you anything you needed.

He did, in fact, come down with the exact same cold days later as you were getting over your own. While you hated seeing him all groggy and miserable, you did enjoy the tables flipping and chance to take care of him for once.

[tuscanwalker]

September 2, 2021 - The Wisdom of my Wife

Today is the day when an imaginary version of my wife sat on my shoulder and repeated whispered sage advice in my ear. While I might once have considered it subconscious nagging, I have to ask: Is it really nagging when she is almost always right and it usually prevents me from making huge mistakes?

If you have been following the blog, you are aware the Deutsche Bahn (the national railway) went on strike at midnight and will not return to work until next Wednesday. While I had done my best to make alternate arrangements, this is the kind of thing that usually raises my stress level to Defcon 4, with collateral damage to all around me. However, when I got up this morning I just kept hearing Lu-Anne’s voice in my head, “slow down for a minute and take a deep breath, it will all work out somehow.” She was right as usual. I managed to make it to Frankfurt where I exchanged my second DB ticket for one on a private railway that was not on strike. While it would not take me to Bingen, it would let me gaze longingly across the Rhine from the Rudesheim Bahnhof and I understood there was likely a ferry somewhere nearby. On arrival, my GPS informed me that the “personenfahre” was right below the station at riverside (20m). After waiting half an hour for a ferry that likely never came, I realized that the “autofahre” was crossing every 10 minutes only 200m further down the riverbank. After dragging my suitcase a little over 2km on both sides of the river, I walked into Cafe Hotel Koppel with a smile on my face. To make a long story short, throughout this I remained uncharacteristically calm and relaxed thanks to my wife’s ethereal advice.

After checking in and getting organized I went back along the River for lunch at about 15:00. I stopped at a ridiculously expensive restaurant with loads of character on the riverbank. I decided to treat myself and once again my wife’s wisdom echoed in my one good ear. “Too many $10,000 vacations have been ruined by spending all your time trying to save $20.” (Or words to that effect). While I recognize that, even on a public service pension, one needs to be careful and not waste money, my wife has taught me that $20 here and there can literally shove thousands of dollars of enjoyment down the toilet.

I perused the menu and spotted something called a flame cake. I saw one go by and it seemed to be a pizza. When my waiter came I asked him what it was. He said it was hard to describe, but it was kinda like a pide (Turkish pizza) but with no cheese of tomato sauce. I asked “is it good”. His response was “some people like it” all the while shaking his head from side to side. I asked if he liked it and his response was “I always have something else”. My wife’s advice again kicked in “always ask your waiter and always listen to (his/her/their) advice”. Cheeseburger and fries were ordered ($21) and he broke into a huge smile, “you will like that a lot”. I did, and, after all, Hamburg is in Germany so this is still local food😊.

One caution though, I have had three hamburgers in Germany and all three have been about a 1/2 a pound on a 5” bun. Germans seem to love their meat. My schnitzel last night (with large salad) was roughly the size of a frisbee, but nonetheless I somehow managed to choke it down. At lunch yesterday on the market square in Wurzburg, I joined a line to a kiosk that stretched about 150 m around the square uncertain of what they were selling, only convinced that it was likely very good. When I eventually got to the front, it was only for a “simple” bratwurst on a bun with mustard. Nonetheless, when I finished that one, I would have two more (as many did) if I had had time to brave the lineup again.

Oh yes, I should also probably mention the wine. In Canada a standard glass is 5 ounces or about 150 ml. Here, a standard glass is 200 ml and almost everyone that I have had has been closer to 250ml (glasses are marked) or about a third of a bottle. Depending on the situation I have switched between everyday Silvaner ($5.50 a glass) and some lovely Rieslings (up to $8 a glass). Basically 2/3 the price we are use to paying for a glass in Edmonton restaurants for 30-60% more wine. Little wonder I spent another two hours after my meal savouring a couple of glasses while I watched the barges and tour boats pass by while a huge statue of Germanic looked down from across the river.

Will take another walk down by the river, but will make it an early night as I walk to Kalb tomorrow 20+ km and 2,000+ ft gross vertical climb. The good news is the breakfast should be good as many Europeans serve sweet baked goods with breakfast, and my hotel is also a cafe/pastry shop👍🏻.

[shedobewritingtho]

BTS's Jungkook - With you I feel no pain (Soulmates au!)

Hello! I found this idea while scrolling through social media and couldn't keep myself from writing it. This soulmates au sums up the idea of soulmates that can heal each other's injuries. I hope you will enjoy!

Be careful with the soup! Don't eat it if it's too hot. Let me check its temperature." you hear your mother say as she takes spoonful from your bowl. "You can eat." she says, then goes back to the living room to watch TV.

"Thank you!" you scream, making sure that she heard you.

You finished eating soon and went to wash your bowl, but dropped it by mistake. You had to move your right foot to avoid getting hit, enough already that the kitchen was full of little pieces of your broken bowl.

"What happened? Y/n are you hurt somewhere?" you heard your father ask after storming into the kitchen.

"No, I'm not hurt. I just don't know how to get out of here, there are sharp bits everywhere."

"Wait, let me clean this up."

You watched your father collect all the bits of your broken bowl witnessing how he accidentally cut his finger in a piece, but it did not seem to be a problem. He just put his finger under some cold water like nothing ever happened. You were fascinated. What was he feeling? How does that pain feel? You are not allowed to know, not yet.

This was your life since you were born. Everyone is born with a soulmate whose identity is to be discovered. The only thing you know is that only soulmates can heal each other's injuries, so as long as you don't know who your soulmate is, you'd better not get hurt.

Living like this was both hard and easy. You were not allowed to do anything risky; even tasting hot food and accidentally burning yourself could be a burden that will last God knows how long. At the same time, you were not allowed to do much, and when you did anything, your parents had to make sure it was safe. Your life was boring when you looked at your parents having fun and not caring about any type of injury, but you didn't know any other way to live yet.

It's not like you didn't experience any type of pain either. On the contrary, it was exactly because you fell from your bed when you were two years old and since then you have been feeling pain in your left hand. Experiencing this pain for eighteen years was really bad, but you got used to it. You cried a lot while growing up but now it was part of the normal. It bothered you only when you let yourself think of it.

"We've told you before. Do not wash the dishes, we will wash yours too when we wash ours." your mother scolded you as soon as she finished helping your father clean up.

"I know, but I wanted to try. Sorry, I won't do it again."

"Ok, good. Now you can go, it's clean here."

Back into your room, everything you could do was boring and repetitive. You couldn't even cry for too long because your head would hurt from dehydration. You had no escape. Except, your parents let you try and find your soulmate, as it was necessary. You were allowed to go to any place you chose only once a month. You started this process at the age of eighteen and now it is a big part of your life.

So you opened your laptop and went through your list of places to visit. You had to admit it was a little bit weird, you don't know exactly who you are looking for, and you can't afford getting hurt whenever you saw a guy that seemed to be your type, so you would spend those days being happy for your freedom while hoping not to get hurt and maybe meet your soulmate.

You left the house on every 17th of each month. Today is the 15th of August. Two days until you were free to try your luck again. Your destination was planned, only aprox. 100 km away from home, still in your country. You wrote down the address of every place you could visit in 24 hours. Every single place that could have an important number of visitators.

You sighed as you layed in bed, admitting that your optimism was the only thing that kept you sane at this point. The majority of your friends were living their best life, affording to experience any type of pain because their soulmate was right next to them, ready to be their saviours. The thought of meeting someone who practically gave you life was more than beautiful, it was your ultimate goal in life.

Days went by and the day of freedom has come. You double-checked everything and said goodbye to your parents. You could be located anytime by them so if you got hurt and couldn't return until the next day, they knew where they can pick you up from.

More than half of your day went by and almost all the museums, cafeterias, librarias and malls were cut from your list. You were tired and not so optimistic anymore, so you decided that a break would be the best.

You enter a 24-hour store, looking for a big bottle of water. The store was pretty empty, there were no customers except from you and a guy that was about to pay and leave. The cashier looked very bored not taking his eyes off of the TV, except for the times when someone came to pay. You soon found a bottle of water and went to pay. It seemed like the cashier was very cute looking so you were very happy when he slightly hit his hand while scanning your product. Who knows? He might be lucky today. You made sure to touch his hand while taking your change and waited for any kind of reaction. Unfortunately, there wasn't any reaction.. Another guy who wasn't your soulmate, what a shame.

You left the store with a ruined mood, especially because it was almost time for you to return home, which meant another month of this boring and dangerous life. The plan was easy, you had to drink some water and go before your parents went crazy or worse, you went crazy.

You placed the bottle of water between your legs in order to have both of yours hands free to put your wallet back in your backpack. In a second of poor coordination between your members, the big bottle of water fell on your left leg, causing you to fall down in pain. This was a situation without escape, because the impact with the sidewalk brought pain in many other places in your body.

The sharp and pulsing pain was not stopping in any way, so you had been crying for a good few minutes, without anyone noticing you. It was hell, the night was slowly falling all over the city, a sign that everyone will go to sleep and you were going to be left alone and in pain.

You were laying on the sidewalk with your eyes closed and your body crouched, not being able to move or think, when suddenly all the pain dissapeared.

"Hey, sorry. Are you okay?" a stranger's voice and face quickly drove away the thought that you might have died. He took your hand off of you and asked again. "You can hear me, right? Do you remember what happened to you?"

You couldn't answer and not because of any pain. You were in a shock, it was finally happening, you finally met your soulmate. Your eyes scanned him and a big smile showed on your face.

"Are you hurt anywere?" you ask, waiting for him to realize everything.

"What? I'm not." he said raising a brow. "I should be the one asking that, what is hap-"

"Well I'm not hurt anymore so thank you. What's your name?"

"I'm Jungkook and why thank me?" "Oh wait." his eyes widened. "Wait, I don't feel any pain, you're right!" he said while rolling up his right hand's sleeve. You watched him take off a bandage soaked in blood and reveal his skin, completely unharmed. "You.. what's your name?"

"I'm Y/N, nice to meet you." you smiled while reaching out for his hand to do a handshake. "I'm so happy to finally meet you, Jungkook."

"Thank you for finally appearing, Y/N. I needed you."

[lindoig8]

Alice Springs & preparing for our Camel Trek

Thursday, 22 April

We drove the last 150 km into Marla on the Stuart Highway, the first sealed road for almost 700 clicks. We refuelled, although we probably still had enough to get us to Alice Springs. And we had lowered our tyre pressure on the gravel roads so this was the time to bring them up to pressure again because we would now be on bitumen right through to Alice Springs. We also ate our lunch there before setting off on the final section of our trip to the Alice.

We had expected to be stopped at the Northern Territory border for quarantine and Covid documentation checks, but there was absolutely nothing so we just kept driving through to Kulgera and thence on to Erldunda where we stopped for the night. There were a few more birds around the caravan park than at our previous stops, including a pair of Major Mitchells, a few vivid Australian Ringnecks and some Mulga Parrots.

We had another superb dinner at night, using our double-sided frying pan to cook a hearty roast chicken and vegetables meal to celebrate our arrival in the Northern Territory. Interestingly, we still haven’t turned on our TV to watch any DVDs since we left home. We have just read or done puzzles and turned in quite early each night. That will probably change once we are back in ‘civilisation’ again.

Friday, 23 April

We saw a couple of camels over the fence from our caravan after breakfast so took a few photos of them and told them that we would be walking in the desert with some of their brothers within the week – but that didn’t seem to impress them much. And then it was on the road again for the final 199 kilometres to Alice Springs.

We arrived at the G’Day Mate Caravan Park where we have stayed a couple of times before at about 12.45pm – a mere 3065 kilometres from home. We set ourselves up quite comfortably here and despite our resolve to leave all the cleaning and reorganising until after our Camel Trek, we did quite a bit of it during the afternoon. We have plenty still to do, but at least the main surfaces are now clean and most of our gear is accessible and usable if and when we want it. We noted a few more very minor damages to the van, but one important thing I saw when I disconnected the car from the van was that one of the two bolts in the trailer hitch had come loose and fallen out during the trip, leaving only a single bolt holding the van and the (fairly loose) towball hanging at an angle of about 45 degrees from where it should be.

We cooked another excellent meal for dinner and washed it down with a bottle of bubbles to celebrate our arrival at our first formal destination of this trip.

Saturday, 24 April

We had a huge fry-up for breakfast, using up lots of delicious leftovers before we started work for the day.

We had heaps of cleaning and rearranging to do as well as two giant loads of accumulated dust to wash out of our bedding and clothing. Everything was/is smothered in dust. I tried to get some out of our carpets and Heather did a lot of cleaning too, but it even coated everything in the fridge - how it infiltrated the fridge-seals beats me, but every cupboard, every drawer, every surface was reddish grey from its thick coating of dust. We had sealed boxes inside a closed cupboard under the bed and even they were full of dust. We will live with most of it until after our camel trek and do a more comprehensive clean after that. Of course, we will be travelling on lots more dusty roads over the next few months so I am quite sure it is all going to happen again, probably several times.

While the washing was on the line drying, we caught up with the scores of emails that had arrived while we were off the grid, with bills to pay and transactions to post, etc. There is no rest for the wicked and I had quite a bit of reading to do and correspondence to finalise for our next Owners Corporation Committee meeting the day after we get back from our Camel Expedition.

We also needed to restock some of our cupboards so went to the Supermarket during the afternoon too. It was a busy day even if we didn’t seem to have a lot to show for it. But we made a delicious paella for dinner - absolutely delightful! Man, can we do paella!

Sunday, 25 April

ANZAC Day, but apart from recognising it on Facebook, we didn’t make much of it this year. We both had things to do and I am still finding it exhausting to do much without gasping for breath with the lingering dregs of my cold - and a further 10 days later, I still haven't shaken it completely.

I wanted to check out under both car and van for any previously undetected damages and spent an hour or so crawling around inspecting the respective undercarriages. There is no indication of even the smallest damage under the car - what a mighty wagon we have! And perhaps surprisingly, the van is pretty good too. We have invested in a good deal of protective shielding over the years and although the metal guards are bent and ripped in places, it is still doing a pretty good job. It is just the odd stone that misses the shielding and hits something vulnerable (like a plastic water tap or unprotected hose) that does the occasional damage. But I guess a few million stones have hit the protection and it is not all that surprising that the occasional one gets through.

I had to tighten the towball that had become a little loose and retrieve the remaining bolt from the unit so I can buy an identical one and both tasks proved challenging, but I eventually succeeded with both. And we had to cut the padlock off the other gas cylinder so we replaced both cylinders with identically keyed locks. Accessing tools from both car and van and repacking the caravan boot also took time so with several rests to gird my loins again, it was almost lunchtime before that was all completed.

While I was doing this, Heather was reworking a draft I had prepared to nominate one of our Clubs for an award. We actually nominated them for two somewhat similar awards and it would be great if they got one. They really deserve it after their fantastic work supporting their members and growing the Club through the darkest days of the Covid lockdown.

We spent a good deal of the afternoon looking at our photos and writing stuff for our blogs but we went out for a 3-4 km walk in the arvo, just around the local area - basically along both sides of the very dry Todd River.

Monday/Tuesday, 26-27 April

In anticipation of our upcoming trek, we didn’t do a lot on these days. We had a couple of long walks in the area around the caravan park (one with our back-packs on to satisfy ourselves that we could carry the weight) and mainly just did more cleaning and maintenance around the van. We took quite some time packing for our Camel Trek to ensure we had everything we might need, that everything was fully charged and we were ready to take on the challenge ahead of us.

[silentauroriamthereal]

Man, today was a shitshow. 

It started with getting nearly run over THREE times by drivers turning left on my way to world. Then the rest of the day was filled with irritating coworkers not doing their jobs and preventing me from being able to deliver fully on doing mine, general incompetence, irritating visitors (I work in a museum), poopy weather, and I’m probably PMS-y. Instead of coming over weepy or just vaguely irritated, today was pretty much full-on this all day: 

This got rambly, but read on, if you like... 

I literally can’t even count how many times I’ve said the word “fuck” today, both out loud and just in my head or to myself. It’s in the thousands. There was a point when I was in an enclosed elevator alcove and jumping up and down and screaming silently in pure frustration. At other times, the rage would subside into general apathy (idly checking my phone (which I’m not even supposed to have with me on the floor)) and wholly ignoring the visitors altogether, etc), but eventually the bloody day finally ended. I usually fast every other day, including most Saturdays, but today I decided that the (mentally) healthier choice would be to end my fast early in favour of buying a grocery store rotisserie chicken and a bottle of shiraz and promised myself that I would take it good and easy this evening. I still resent having to work on Saturdays, though I’ve had to since July. Like, this isn’t new, but I still hate it. My “weekend” is Sunday/Monday, though I work on Sunday mornings and Monday evenings, so... yeah. That’s my life these days. 

I also had a full-on John Watson-level rage at the self-service check-out machine, which refused to scan half my items, and many more fucks were said to the hapless attendant-man who came to do battle on my behalf, which also made me angry. Lol. I hate it when men help me... but he also had the admin password, so there’s that.

Anyway, I finally bore my chicken and wine home, made a batch of my own coleslaw (side note: I’ve always hated coleslaw, until I just reinvented the recipe myself and now I love it. But only mine. Lol!) So I finished rewatching Batman Begins, which I had forgotten I’d started watching like 5 weeks ago. Somehow I ended up getting manic-productive once I ate dinner. I’ve been so bloody busy that I actually had to go and buy more underwear the other night after choir because the laundry room in my awful building shuts down at 9pm and I’ve had stuff every evening for the last two weeks. So tonight I finally managed to do laundry (which is on the 2nd floor, and I live on the 17th, which means going down there once to put it in, once to transfer it, and then once to collect it), and then I just sort of... kept going, lol. I did the dishes, cleaned the stove, somehow ended up cleaning the kitchen walls, cabinets, the inside of the cupboard under the sink where the garbage goes, took out the trash (easy; it’s on the same floor), went all the way downstairs and out to the super sketchy parking garage where the recycling bins are to take out my overflowing recycling, then decided to clean the bathroom, vacuum the entire apartment, dust all the tables, finally dispose of my dead geranium, and... yeah, it was a bit manic. And that was on two glasses of shiraz, too! Maybe a bit not good, but what can you do.... I also recharged my laundry card, sent an angry email to the scammers who sold me the wrong product and refuse to reimburse me or send the right one, sent some other emails, and finally sat down and answered some fic comments. 

I’ve been sick for the past week and a half, and I finally realized yesterday that I’ve also been experiencing a UTI which is probably why I’ve had a bit of a fever and felt so shitty in general. I didn’t have time to get to a doctor, so I self-medicated that one with cranberry extract (bought on the same trip as the new underwear, lol) and lots of water, some probiotics, and hoping for the best. It’s already much better, but that’s been another reason to take it a bit easy. I normally work out almost every day, but have only been to the gym (which is in my shitty building and one of the only reasons why I re-signed my current lease) twice this week. I mean, I also clock over 10 km of walking every day I’m at the museum, but still. Anyway, I’m fully rambling at this point, and that’s fine. It is what it is and all. 

I just also wanted to say that I’m currently in the stage of pre-plotting my next fic. Pre-plotting, as I dub it, is essentially me making some important strategic decisions about how I want the fic to go in general - major plot points, overall arc, POV, etc. Once I’ve decided that, then I can start plotting, which is also a strictly mental process (no writing), and then once that’s basically good to go, I start writing. That said, I’ve also already written what’s essentially the prologue scene, the first 2,200 words. I wrote it before I wrote The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, then decided that, coming hard on the heels of Rebuilding Rome, it was too dark and I wanted to write something a bit lighter for a change of pace, which was this past story. So now I’m back to the dark one, and it will be a bit of a dark one. I don’t want to give too much away, but it starts with Mycroft grimly rewatching the footage of John beating Sherlock in the morgue at Culverton Smith’s hospital for about the 60th time. The story won’t be exclusively in his POV - it may actually have up to three POV characters, including him. How long it will be, whether or not it gets divided into chapters, etc, is all still being worked out in the aforementioned pre-plotting stage. So that’s where that’s at. :) 

Anyway, feel free to comment via the reply function, but if you wouldn’t mind not reblogging this, that would be great. <3

[lindoig7]

Monday-Wednesday 17-19 August

Monday

We set off to do some more of the walks around Wilson’s Prom but we were close to needing fuel so detoured via Traralgon – an extra 5 km but it saved us about $12 on the cost of fuel.  Notably, the prices at the cheaper servos in Traralgon have increased considerably, but we still found one that was at least 5 c/l cheaper than anywhere else.  With our long-range tank though, it still costs us at least $250 every time we refuel.

We have now clocked up more than 5000 clicks in the car since leaving home and at least 300 km walking.  We don’t always wear our Fitbits when we are out, but with only a minimal addition to the actual recording, I figure it must be quite a bit more than 300.  Fortunately, it was not all in a single walk or we would be quite buggered!

When we arrived at the Prom, there was a sign advising that it was closed. Bummer, but at least, there were alternatives just outside the National Park.  We found a road off to the east that took us to Corner Inlet: a beautifully peaceful area, and calm as could be in the lee of the howling wind on the western side of the peninsula.  We ate our lunch in the car and then walked the Duck Point Loop that wasn’t really a loop at all, although we made it into one.  We walked out to the point along the beach, then around to the other side of the point, also on the beach, as far as we could before cutting across the mini-dunes and back along the last section of the first beach and thence to the car.  We saw a few birds, including a cheeky little Red-capped Plover, but the most interesting part was probably the walk across the point.  There were lots of interesting plants and fungi and ample evidence of large numbers of wallabies – thousands of their small footprints everywhere! The whole walk was only about 4 km but quite interesting and harder than we imagined walking on the sharply angled beach.  I wasn’t wearing my walking shoes either so that added somewhat to the challenge.  We really appreciated our hiking sticks though or we have had to walk with one leg longer than the other.

We decided to look at the Alberton West Forest so we drove almost all the way to Port Albert before cutting north into the forest.  It was a quite open woodland with little groundcover or understorey, but I enjoyed the drive.  Without my excellent navigator, I could easily have become lost in there with forestry tracks running in all directions, indistinguishable from the rough official road marked on the map.  By the time we meandered through the forest and backtracked around the eastern side of the area, it was getting late so we elected to head for home and a delicious dinner.

Before we left Melbourne, Heather had ordered a number of items online – almost all of which had delayed deliveries.  In fact, the last two have not been delivered yet although we now believe they will be within a day or two.  One item that added to the weight of our mail package last Friday was a double-sided frying pan.  It is a bit hard to describe but it is like two rectangular frying pans that fit together so you can use the enclosed space as a sealed baking dish.  We marinated some Chicken Maryland pieces and cooked them in our new pan.  The marinade caramelised wonderfully and became crispy and they were just superb.  We just had savoury rice and green beans with them, but they made a really outstanding meal – absolutely delicious.

Tuesday

We started the day with a huge cleaning job. We took the carpets out of the van and washed and dried the floors and beat a lot of the red dust out of the carpets. We did quite a bit of other cleaning too – there always seems to be a list of minor jobs to do and they each take 4 times as long as estimated, but at least it keeps us away from a life of crime (and leisure/pleasure?).

We needed to swap the gas bottles over so we exchanged the empty one for a full one at Bunnings and then went for a walk in Brooker Park – the place we had a long walk a couple of weeks ago.  We didn’t make such a big production of it this time. We drove to the northern end of the park and just walked a big loop around the lake – probably about 4-5 km at a guess. It was getting cold and threatening rain by the time we finished so we just came home again and had a shower before dinner.

Wednesday

Got more rain during the night and it is raining on and off today, but we have plenty to keep us busy.  It is a very wintry day so we are staying inside as much as possible.  We had been unable to find the key for the padlock on one of the gas cylinders so I had to use our bolt-cutters to cut the lock off.  We have dozens of locks and heaps of keys, many of them duplicated, triplicated and more – both the locks and the keys.  Some are for the car, some for the van, some for things at home, and we have quite a few spares.  We reckoned a major review was required so we collected everything we had and checked what fitted each of our locks and compiled a couple of complete sets and labelled and listed everything.  It took at least a couple of hours but at least we should now be able to find the right key in the right place whenever we need to do something in or around the car and van.

In the afternoon, we did a little more cooking, but finding a place to store the finished products until such time as we are able to consume them is limiting our culinary adventures.

[red-moskito]

24. April. 2020

Málaga, Spain

For many of us, the last time it felt like the whole world was having the same conversation was on September 11th, 2001. For me, it was also the day I left London for Faedis, Italy. A few people around me on the train were murmuring about some kind an attack. When I got the airport, it was so quiet. People stood frozen in front of televisions watching two plumes of black smoke rise into a blue sky.

I’d met Marco while he was in London for a couple days to sell some wine. We both quoted Biggie Smalls and the Big Lebowski. He was just getting the family vineyard going as a proper business. I had no plans beyond the next weekend. I said I liked the idea of working on a vineyard. He said, cool. 

The house was a kitchen and a bedroom above the cantina. Almost everything inside was older than me. The roof in the bedroom sloped down to the floor. We opened a few bottles and ate dinner. 

While insects buzzed and chirped outside the windows, we watched our world reorganize itself towards endless war on television. It was cold that night. We slept under scratchy blankets on little beds made during times of less abundance. 

I stayed until the end of October. We often ate lunch in Orsaria with his parents, Paolo and Miriam. I liked them. They acted as if Marco had just found a younger brother they had somehow misplaced. I also liked their house. It was big, beautiful and warm. They had comfortable sofas and a computer for sending sentimental emails and downloading mp3s. 

I did my best to match their enthusiasm for every course. E buona la pasta, Tito? Si, si... buonissimo! Marco, perché non mangia di più? When I got sick, they had a doctor come to the house. He brought a stethoscope in a leather bag. Nonna introduced me to grappa as medicine. The first glass felt like hot wax going down my throat.  

I annoyed Marco with my plans to marry his sister Barbara, even though she thought I was a sfigato. We drove down gravel roads to parties in little bars where his friends played reggae like some of mine did back home.

No matter how late we stayed out, or how many bottles we left empty on the table, Marco was up with the sun and ready to work. He’d drink flat Coca-Cola before his coffee. Some fuel to get the engine started, man. Good for the stomach. 

Winemaking is agriculture, science, art, design, engineering, sales, marketing, gambling, guessing…. When there aren’t vines to trim, there are tanks to check, fertilizers to buy, grapes to take to the laboratory, grass to cut, cases to deliver, bottles to label, fill, cork... People we’d meet throughout the day said, buon lavoro as goodbye. 

Whenever something could go wrong, it often did. Marco’s momentary frustration would quickly just become something else to laugh about. Stay calm. Piano, piano. We have to be the Tom Cruise of the situation, man. 

Sometimes he would sketch out the plans for our day on scrap paper. Little cartoons of machines, grapes, tanks and tubes with arrows between them. Numbers and notes floating around the edges. He never drew us. We were always moving anyway. 

During the vendemmia a crowd arrived to help. Friends, traveling workers and his family, of course. Nonno laughed and shook his head at me and my allergies. I never really got the hang of the tractor, but I loved cutting the grapes free. We stacked crates and tipped them into presses. They all knew far more about my country than I did about theirs. We debated the merits of Sublime, compared Berlusconi to Bush and retold our favorite Simpsons episodes. Every day we all ate lunch together on the patio beneath a sunshade of interwoven vines. 

The wine we made went to tables all around Friuli-Venezia-Giulia and parts of Europe. I brought a few bottles with me when I left for Torino. Some went to rest on shelves in the cantina.   

The last time I was in Faedis was in August 2016. Marco still sings while he’s walking between the rows of vines. 'Biggie Biggie Biggie can’t you see…’ I mean come on. man. He was really the best. You know it. The best... ‘It was all a dream. I used to read Word-Up Magazine…’ 

The TV in the kitchen is gone. There’s a wood stove there now. They watch movies projected on the wall of the room we used to sleep in. A futon for guests has replaced the little beds. Marco had remodeled the house to make room for another proper bedroom. 

He dug out some grimy bottles of our wine. It was six years younger than I was when we made it. I didn’t get to see Barbara. Paulo and Miriam’s house is now a bed and breakfast. Go there if you’re ever near Orsaria. It’s even more beautiful now. 

Friuili is 300 km from Lombardia. In February, Marco and I started talking and texting about the virus. I’d already started veering away from people on the sidewalk. There was a movie I wanted to see in the cinema, but I didn’t go. I avoided the port full of cruise ship passengers. But I still went out. 

On March 6, I’d had an internal debate about going to the botanical gardens on my day off. It’s outdoors. It’s low season. It’ll be empty. It’s windy and warm. And anyway, Málaga isn’t Bergamo. I rode my bike there, and while I was locking it, I reconsidered again. I saw a couple walking down from the mountains across the road. Should I just hike up this trail instead? Instead I went inside. I’d only been in summer before. I wanted to see what it looked like at the beginning of spring. 

While I was having my coffee, a woman sat at the other end of the picnic table. When she started blowing her nose, I told myself it would be silly and rude to get up. Then she started coughing. I looked at the unwrapped sandwich I had brought from home. My open water thermos. Mentally measuring metres and wind speed. Still feeling like I was being ridiculous. Her daughter brought the drinks and sat down. Ecco la tua mamma... I picked up my things and moved to another table.

I spent the next half hour telling myself I was being paranoid while trying to focus on the plants in the sunshine. Doing impossible math in my head. There are 60 million Italians.... they could have been traveling for weeks... maybe they live here... anyone could have it... there are so many old people here... I heard that man couch under is hat... it could have been on the coffee cup anyway… the bartender washes them in the sink... how hot is that water?

I walked to the end of the gardens where a gazebo was built for the view of the cathedral and the sea. I watched turtles swimming around the little pond. Marco texted me. Stay at home. I called him to tell him about the Italian women and my paranoia. They walked by while I was on the phone, and I moved upwind. Still feeling ridiculous. 

He was calm as always. The main problem is there aren’t enough beds for the, how do you say... the reanimation. The people they are just fucking dying in the corridors. They don’t know for sure who is the patient zero, but the patient one or two. He’s a 38 years old guy. He’s been on the fucking respirator for weeks. In Cividale there are three cases. It’s crazy, man. What we have to do is just fucking close everything like they did in China. But that will never happen you know man, because this is Europe. 

Two days later the Italian government locked down Lombardia and fourteen other provinces. The following day they extended to it include the entire country. Within a week, most of Europe followed suit.

Seven weeks later the Italian government agrees with many of you about the essential nature of wine. So Marco is still working. Since the lockdown started, he’s been in the hospital twice. He was in a car accident in March, and then something more serious happened in April. 

He sent me a selfie from the hospital bed. I called him and he answered laughing. His wife had thought he was faking a stroke to play a trick on her. Fucking unbelievable, man. I tried to drink the juice. You know in the morning, the orange juice, and I put it all over my t-shirt. I couldn’t put it to my mouth. I couldn’t say nothing. I was like blah, blah, blah. My brain was no good. Anyway, how are you, are you good?  

The hospitals in Udine aren’t overwhelmed, but he was only allowed one visitor per day. He asked his mother to bring his laptop, so he could get some work done. Everybody say rest. Rest, rest, rest. Okay, I’m in the bed. 

When he was discharged he sent me a photo with his wife and baby walking between the vines. Their daughter, Emilia, has unruly red hair. In every photo she looks overjoyed and a little surprised to have found herself inside her new body. Are you ok? Super ok, man. Super ok. They were all smiles. Glowing in the green grass. Paola looks far too smart to have fallen for either of us back when we would try to out-charm each other every time a woman arrived at the vineyard. 

Marco’s still getting up with the sun. But fewer and fewer Italians have money for wine. He’s not loading pallets with boxes bound for dinner parties in Oslo or Chicago. No American tourists will be giggling at his accent this summer. The local restaurants are dark and full of stale air. 

For almost twenty years, whenever I’ve called Marco to talk about moving or just getting away, he reminds me of my house in Faedis. 

Next to the front door there are photographs of family and friends working together since long before the days of color. Behind the house, up on top of the hill, there is a little shack with the year 1867 written above the door. It will still be there once our world has reorganized itself yet again. 

So will we. 

https://www.cecchinimarco.com/

http://www.dorsariabedandbreakfast.it/index.php/it/

[habitversary]

geologess

Okay, let's see. Past year. April-September contains the Things I Do Not Like To Talk About, but I will mention the couple good things. So, these are my big shining moments from the past year:

~In July I ran my first mountain Spartan race (a Beast no less!), and in September I did a second mountain Spartan (a Super)(for anyone wondering it goes Sprint, which is 5 km, Super, which is 12 km, and Beast, which is...24 km, I think? And Spartan races are obstacle course races, which I looooove). I also did 4 other runs over 2019, of varying distances (did a Sprint to get my Spartan Trifecta, which is where you run one of each distance race!)

  ~Finally finished my ridiculous English course that I kind of hated

~Collaborated with my (favorite) hair stylist to create jewelry pieces for her model to wear to the OMC Hairworld competition in Paris~Participated in my first craft fair (selling my wire-wrapped creations, sold 7 over 2 days! It was a lot of fun)  

~Passed my first 3 diploma exams in January (big step for me!! They were mildly terrifying haha)  

~Finally applied to university (two, have been accepted to one, still waiting to hear from the other!)  

~Have almost finished highschool (two subjects left, soooo close!) (yes I'm counting this, it's big for me)

Gosh, it really doesn't feel like it's been a year since last April... but apparently it has been! And boy, was that year an absolute rollercoaster!... But, I learned SO much from that rollercoaster. I've definitely grown and even matured a bit. It may not have been the greatest year I've had (quite the opposite...), but it definitely taught me a lot, so I am grateful for that! And I've picked up many positive habits because of it, like gratitude journaling (and journaling in general!), making my bed in the morning (had no idea it was such a good habit until then), and opening up about my feelings instead of bottling them up! I've also learned that some people are not worth sneaking around for, staying up til 3 am just so you can talk to them, or being your number one priority above everything else in your life. And I just learned a lot about, well, myself! And now, even with all the setbacks of the past year, and the stuff I'm dealing with to this day, I'm on track to finish highschool and finally pursue my dream of being a geologist! (not tearing up a little while writing this, not at all)

I may not have been on Habitica for all of the year, but for the time I've been back I've regained my favorite, wonderfully supportive, wonderfully wholesome community of awesome people!!! I'm still trying to settle on a system, but I've been able to keep track of the many habits I have been building/want to build lately, so I'm quite happy about that! So, overall, I'd say it's been a relatively not-half-bad year. 

[contemplatingoutlander]

So the Fandom Battle of the Spain Social Media 📱 Innuendo is on! 😳😉

Social media photos, likes, follows and hashtags are the bread and butter of fandom speculation. It is interesting to watch as folks on both “sides” of the SamCait fandom feud read the tea leaves of social media activity to try to figure out if Sam and Cait or Sam and Cristina (depending on the “side”) are together in Mallorca.

Since I personally have no horse in this race and I’m not invested in anything other than common sense, I thought I’d take a look at the latest speculation.

SAMCAIT SPAIN SPECULATION 

Once again it appears that the SamCait conspiracy theorists (CTs) have led themselves on--this time because they didn’t know about a certain hashtag generating app. Granted, I didn’t know about it either until an NST wrote about it in a different post. 

You see there is an app that will generate a list of hashtags based on what hashtag you type into it. Those hashtags are touted by the app to up one’s prospects of getting likes, views, and comments on on IG posts.

This is what happens when “voyager” it typed into the app:

As you can see, the app generates a number of hashtags, some of which are related to Outlander (because of the Voyager book/ season), including #caitrionabalfe and #samheughan. You can tell that best-hashtags.com was used to generate the list because of the final hashtag #bhtyp. 

The hashtag words are identical for anyone who types #voyager into the app (as is evident in the posts on these two IG accounts above).  Consequently, all the recent IG postings that start with the hashtag #voyager, will generate Sam and Cait hashtags.

Seriously, CTs should have been suspicious that none of these folks mentioned seeing Sam or Cait in their posts.

BTW, the woman who posted the IG photo above left was on Paxos Island, which is in Greece, not Spain. So unless Sam and Cait were in Greece, I don’t think she saw them. 🤷

There was also a fan (probably a shipper) who lives on the Costa Blanca in Spain who was so excited that Sam was in Spain, she assumed that Cait must be with him. She wrote a post with the hashtag #welcometospainsam&cait and posted IG Stories of a party that featured a bottle of Laphroaig.

Clearly she didn’t see Sam or Cait or she would have mentioned them in her post. She also lives on the mainland, over 365 km (or 227 miles) away from where Sam has been staying.

The fan was inundated with people asking her questions, including someone who sent her hate (why do fans do this to their fellow fans?) and so she shut down her comments. Undoubtedly the CTs will think she is “hiding” something. You would think that they would have figured out by now that this is just the response that almost every fan makes when they get inundated with questions--and hate--by other fans. At least she didn’t go private.

So basically there is no basis to the assumptions that the CTs are making that Cait is with Sam in Spain.

SAM AND CHRISTINA SPAIN SPECULATION

As far as I can tell, there isn’t much to go on from social media regarding Christina being with Sam in Spain.

Last we knew, Christina was in London. Maybe that was a stopover to Spain but why would she go to Mallorca when Sam was working? I could see her going to join him after he finished working but while he was working? No--unless she has some friends who live there.

Anyway, this is the evidence:

1) An old follow by Christina of the Hotel Cap Rocat in Mallorca.

2) A like today by Christina of an IG post by the Hotel Cap Rocat.

3) A recent like by Christina of an IG post that appears to have featured a photo taken at the Hotel Cap Rocat.

And that’s it as far as I know. It could be that Christina is there with Sam but I would think for their privacy she wouldn’t be liking posts associated with the resort where they are staying.

More likely she knows Sam is in Mallorca and this reminded her of the hotel she had stayed at before when she was there (since her hotel follow is an old one, I’m assuming she stayed there in the past). While reminiscing, she looked at the hotel’s IG tag and liked a couple of photos. Heck, that last photo is stunning. No wonder she liked it!

Regardless, from my perspective, Christina’s recent likes of IG posts related to the Hotel Cap Rocat don’t really tell us anything much about whether or not she is with Sam. Certainly people can disagree. This is just my opinion.

[edited]

[punkscowardschampions]

Ava & Grace

Ava: Please tell me you're free this weekend and if not please tell me you can make yourself available Grace: I obvs can be, why though?? Ava: Because Buster and Rio have imposed themselves on me Ava: or been imposed by my mum, anyway Ava: I was planning a party and they'll be way more chill if you come 'cos it's evidently not a rager Ava: but then we can still have a party and I don't have to kms/them 🙄 Grace: excuse you I can hang! but duh I will come cos you so wanna see your 💍👰 man, I see you babes Ava: You know what I mean though Ava: there's an assumption if fam is invited there's not also dealers and roadmen on the guestlist Ava: My brother is in an annoying mood and I cannot with that Ava: He won't be there, obviously 💍👰 Grace: 🙄 yeah Grace: UM tbh when is Buster not Grace: but I'll do the babysitting so you don't have to 👌👌 get you time to be 😍💖😘 Ava: Obvs it'll be good to see you too Ava: even if it clearly seems that shameless Grace: idc I'm that shameless at the prospect of hot london boys sooo Ava: 😂 Ava: I'll make sure there's plenty Grace: I'm not sorry that the accent is like !!! Ava: 😏 It's a fine line Grace: I'm walking a fine line here babes Grace: we don't even need to get into it Grace: get me on a ✈ literally Ava: Fair enough Ava: We can get into it when we've got into enough bottles Ava: They're coming over Friday at some point, ask 'em for the deets Grace: mhmm can't 🤐😶 me after the 🍾🍾 pops Grace: ugh Grace: texting Ri rn though Ava: Your accent is pretty !!! too so it's chill Ava: 🙌🙏 You're a lifesaver Grace: oh honey, you know boys love to hook up with me cos of my mouth but it's also what sends them running like Ava: Good thing it's just a weekend Ava: no time for running Grace: it's my turn ⏲🏃 Ava: Just not too soon, eh Grace: I got you, girl 💜 Grace: but we literally do need to get into what's going on with you & 👰💍 Grace: I'm so not waiting for you to make a 🍾 toast about him before I get any goss! Ava: I'm not planning on getting that wasted Ava: I don't even know where to start Ava: it's really gone 0-100 since we last spoke Grace: 😱😱😱 OMG! 👌 did you hit him up or did he hit you up?? Ava: Well Ava: Speaking of shameless Ava: I did legitimately lose a bracelet that night but I didn't really need to ask him if he'd seen it/could check for me Grace: your [expensive brand 1 that idk] or the [expensive bracelet 2]? Ava: My [expensive brand 3 plot twist] Ava: I got it for my birthday, actually Ava: Anyway, he rang everywhere up but obviously it was long gone, who isn't taking that if they can but I didn't even care 'cos it got us talking again and it was Ava: he wanted to see me the next day, so we arranged to meet at lunch Ava: but before I went to school, I got a delivery and he'd replaced the bracelet Ava: I was like...what Grace: OMG AVA! Grace: that's so cute Grace: he's so Grace: LITERALLY OMG Ava: He really is Ava: and he says the most amazing things and it doesn't just feel like talk but Ava: obviously, it's always going to be complicated, there's no way it can't be, he's said that too and I know it Grace: I'm totally shook Grace: like I thought this would be a one off, obvs no shade Grace: I'm definitely babysitting for you now! Ava: Me too Ava: it's ridiculous but somehow not Ava: not when we're talking like we've always known each other or when he's here Grace: how are you even living a 💖📽🎞 rn like ???!! Ava: I know like fully someone is gonna yell cut or jump out on me and tell me it's just a prank Grace: you literally have to get him over at yours before your parents come back Ava: Hopefully Ava: He can definitely do Monday, so I need Buster and Rio fully distracted then Ava: Friday is up in the air so I'll just let you know when it's safe for you to all head over, yeah? Grace: 💜🤞 Grace: I'll have the freakout that's SO overdue about my own love life Grace: once I start 😭😭😭💔 I can go for hours duh Ava: 🏆 to Miss Grace Cavante Grace: like it's not a lie 💜🙏 there IS a boy & I AM freaking out, I just don't need their advice about any of it 🙄🙄 Ava: Hint taken, no advice but I'm all ears 😶👂 Grace: it's fine you're not really old & 💖😍 smug & just GROSS Ava: Cheers, babe 😏 Ava: Lay it on me then Grace: ugh I can't even Grace: he's just not Grace: he's not any kind of boy I know how to deal with Ava: What's he like then? Grace: like he wants to talk to me?? but actually not just 😏😘!? Ava: Like you're a human? Ava: Where'd you meet him? Grace: at the gym so I was LITERALLY blindsided cos every lad in there is so 💪🤳🏻 Ava: + 1 for not being that kinda douche Grace: but if he was I wouldn't have to leave every 🗨 like ✔ Ava: You don't know what to say Grace: duh what can I even Ava: Well, if you have nothing in common, not a lot Ava: but you gotta do some talking before you can find out if it's worth doing any more, like Grace: ive gotta run away so thanks for the party invite, babes Grace: v well timed tbh Ava: You can do that too Grace: yeah Ava: Why not give it a shot though Ava: you clearly wanna, even with the freaking out Grace: UM hello?? do you not remember the cringefest that was my life not that long ago?! Ava: We've all made questionable choices Grace: & now I'm doing this thing™ where I like don't make a total fool of myself 24 7 Ava: Can't relate, clearly 😂 Grace: well you're in a rom com sooo Ava: Yeah and we could be about to see me 💔💀 eating my weight in ice cream Grace: that would barely be a 🍦🍨 binge 👌👌👌 Grace: & boys don't just buy bracelets cos they're lost Grace: this bitch can't get a boy to do the clasp on her necklace Ava: They do regret in almost instantly though Ava: maybe he thought I was guilting him or some shit Grace: if he thought that he wouldn't still be 😍😍😍 Grace: which he obvs is Ava: It's a headfuck but hey Ava: what ain't Grace: mhmmm Grace: you're about it though Ava: He's a really good guy Ava: I'm aware how naive that sounds given but still Grace: he can be a good guy & bad for his 👰💍 Grace: or she's bad for him Grace: some couples don't work, can't even Ava: She's Ava: a whole other story Grace: how well do you know her? Ava: Her reputation preceeds her in a lot of ways Ava: and I know some of it as fact, basically so Grace: Ew Grace: she sounds so #goals honestly 🙄 Ava: You have no idea Ava: but there's nothing I can do about it Grace: it's the worst Ava: yeah Grace: anything else I can do I totally will Ava: Thanks, babe 💙 Ava: all you need to do is distract, and we'll have a good time to celebrate Grace: 💜 Grace: seriously looking forward to it Ava: Me too Ava: I'll invite every hot boy I know Grace: ILY you know Ava: Duh 😏 Ava: ily too but save it for the 🥂 Grace: 🙏 that's all I say Grace: I don't 💕 gym boy Ava: Just chatting about your 😍 Ava: stop me mentioning mine, please 🙄 Grace: shh no Grace: I wanna hear everything about yours Grace: & your lunch date, thanks Ava: Okay, that was pretty cute Ava: so he picked me up from school in an uber so we got to make the most of the limited time we had Ava: then we went to get coffee and tried like everything on the menu Ava: and we watched a kinda dumb kinda everything film and you know Grace: it's SO rude that he's already married & you can't 💍 him cos that's such a MOOD Grace: like okay never tell Jimmy about the whole menu cos he'll khs but whatever Ava: I know, had to tip the baristas and the uber driver so handsomely Ava: but it was worth it Grace: I can relate, mine have definitely 👀 some shit 😂😂 Grace: less worth it though & obvs not as recently 🙏😇 Ava: I'm sure they found it entertaining Ava: miss it, if anything Grace: 🤷💅 Grace: but for real, I don't Grace: not my reputation & everything Grace: though if your bf's wife can get a 💍 there's obvs hope still Ava: Good Ava: for real Ava: you don't need any of that bullshit Ava: oh girl please 🙄 Ava: you ain't about to force a marriage Ava: or even more shaming, have your parents come together to force a marriage Grace: declaring myself a no fuckboy zone has been good Grace: even if that does mean staying single cos duh Ava: There's far worse things in life to be 🤷 Grace: yeah like I thought it would be the WORST but Ava: Can't be worse than fuckboys Grace: true Ava: even the ones that ain't Ava: or seem like more Ava: total headfuck Grace: preach! literally living my BEST life until gym boy got on my radar and got me like !!?? Grace: 🙄🙄 Ava: yeah Ava: tell me about it Grace: gonna have to put my phone under 🔐 somewhere when we're 🥂💃 Ava: Confiscated at the door, naturally Grace: yours too so you don't call up a divorce lawyer for your boyfriend 😂 Ava: not even funny Ava: 😏 Grace: sorry babes Ava: it would be funny if it weren't true Ava: not for my sake though Grace: I know Grace: I can't even imagine how tragic he's living Grace: ugh Ava: It's genuinely fucked Ava: and like, not in a 'he's told me to get in my pants' vibe Ava: you can tell, even without the full story Grace: & like there's little kids involved it's so 💔 Ava: I don't even know how to feel about them Ava: or if I should think about them Grace: I don't know if you'll be able to not Grace: think about them Grace: & not just cos like he has to Grace: cos you're you Ava: They'll never know Ava: so I don't have to feel bad Grace: 💜🤞 Ava: It sounds like their mum's whole vibe Ava: and their relationship Ava: is like, Ava: enough trouble Ava: I'm not gonna bring anything else to the table for any of them Grace: well yeah she sounds like an evil 👑!!! Ava: She is Ava: was Ava: Ugh, idk Grace: you're not gonna tell me who they are like EVER, are you?! Ava: I can't Grace: it's okay Grace: like it's soo not but I'm not gonna be that bitch about it Grace: or any of your secrets Ava: You can fill in the blanks Ava: it's not as if anyone is gonna know so put whatever hot face suits Grace: I'm here, just like tell me what you wanna tell me, yeah? Grace: no drama Ava: 😘 Ava: I know its so frustrating though, I'd feel it too no doubt Grace: it's this fam & our track record with secrets getting me worried Ava: I know Ava: it's Ava: nothing to worry about Ava: I've got it Grace: just keep hitting me up whenever you need to 👌👌 cos that's something else none of us obvs ever do Grace: & everything's such a mess literally always Ava: I know Ava: I bet Edie would have some advice Ava: super dubious Grace: 🙄🙄 Grace: she'd have taken the bracelet & ✌ out Ava: Honestly Ava: is that not the right thing to do tbh Grace: duh depends how hot he is Ava: I doubt he'd be much her type Grace: I'd totally have to hook up with him though Grace: sorry not sorry Ava: 🙄 Grace: 😂 Ava: Ugh, I need to start drinking now Grace: what's he doing? invite him out Ava: He's with his family Grace: then he'll definitely wanna come Ava: Stop Grace: okay sorry 🤐😶 Ava: It's fine Ava: I am gonna go though, gotta get ready Grace: I should totally pick & pack a party outfit or I'll never be able to decide on a make up look Ava: Get busy, babe Grace: mhmmm Grace: you too hun Ava: 💙

[bites-kms]

Kalimera! Something to eat?

Greek hospitality means food. It taste like kalamata olives, fresh, sweet figs and strong, delicious olive oil, not to forget the soft grapes that torn you between harvesting them for the next delicious sip of House White versus indulging yourself in them straight out from the vine.

There are certain musts you should try in Greece (if you haven’t done so in Turkey or in Georgia) like Tomatokeftedes or sun dried tomato croquettes, Greek Fava Dip, that delicious yellow split pea puree, feta cheese in one of their multiple, exquisite special preparations, meat filled zucchinis and tons, tons of wine to pair with all of it. 

I gained almost 2 kilos in 2 weeks, - thank god I was prepared and I lost weight before traveling - but no regrets nor harm feelings: those were the best 2 kilos I gained in a while. All the beauty and history surrounding you deserve a proper celebration, and when it comes to commemorate something, Greeks know exactly how to do it. A little bit of cheese, some home made pies or veggie croquettes, you name it. And that is just for starters.

We took this hospitality really seriously, and as my friend Mau would say, we knew our “priorities”, so FOOD became a crucial part of our experience and tour. The heat also made it easier for us to stop every 2 hours for a soul refill- since when we ate, we were happy. Here’s the recap of our favorites places went in Athens:

Diongenes  Lisikratous, Athina, 105 58

It was our first dinner and we were both starving: Mau from flying 10+ hours from the future and myself flying almost another 10 from the past. Luckily, this restaurant which we researched before and was recommended to us, was around our place. It was a gorgeous taverna. Exactly as you would imagine a mild night in Greece might be like. We ordered some zucchini, tomato croquettes and an octopus, which seemed to be more tasty than what they usually and actually were given our flight famine. But still, the place is worth giving it a shot since the ambience and the service is very, very good.  Kayak  Durrachiou 30 & Amvrakias  Athina, 10443

It wasn’t a brilliant idea, to be honest, to have a kick-in-the-butt-awaken Ellinikos or Greek Coffee that night instead of a regular espresso. Same as in Turkish culture, their coffee is extremely strong, heavy and with the grounded bean in it so it has this dusty and dry taste. Strong. Killer. Not at all jet-lag helpful. Worth it, though? Absolutely!  Everest  various locations Bites&Kms Fav: Syndagma Square, Athina, 105 63

photo courtesy of polyarch.com We found this place by chance and, oh, odds are in our favor! Since that moment, each time we needed a refilled, we stoped by the closest Everest we could find in seek for an orange juice or a cappuccino. Cheap, delicious, great service. Tons of food and snack options to go along, even at this store on Syndagma Square, freshly made pizzas, sandwiches and croque monsieur were available!  Klepsydra Tavern  Klepsidras, Athina 105 56

Finding this secret gem was pure coincidence but once again, we ended up in the most wonderful corner in between Plaka and Anafiotika. There was only one table left, with a “reserved” sign on it, and as soon as we mentioned we were there for lunch, they remove it, reverse their glasses and brought the bread. It was meant to be. The view, the service and the food was all perfect. We ordered some of our favorites: spanikopita, tzaziki and greek salad. Spanikopita or otherwise known as Greek spinach pie is a traditional yet delicious recipe. With its versatility the dish matches with every time of the day. Feta cheese, butter, olive oil all are mixed and baked until golden crispy perfection.

Greek salad is a must have for Greeks with almost every meal. Choriatiki, as they called them in Greek, are made of tomatoes, olives, cucumber and a large piece of feta cheese and served undressed. Dressing is left at person’s choice hence all restaurants serve vinegar, salt, pepper and olive oil with the salad - although, in our experience, most of the times, it came already prepared. With the tradition of being a starter, Greek salad can also be a great side dish. Look at this beauty! We were definitely in food heaven!

Stamatopulos Tavern Lisiou 26, Athina 105 58

At night, we had a reservation on this place a Greek friend recommended. A little bit touristy yet fun, the only regret was that a couple came in after us and sat super close to our table, and started smoking non-stop, which became really annoying. Yet, there was nothing left to do, since it was an al fresco dinner place. Regardless, it was a lovely evening. They had live music with the traditional guitar and two guys with the typical voice you expect from the Greek coasts. The highlight of the night, aside from the great Moussaka, a lemon dressed lamb and some more croquettes, it was the time the musicians start playing the amazing Zorba Song! I couldn’t help myself and stood up, went to the front, and tried to learn that beautiful dance. After a while, right next to a two-left-legged old guy, I managed to do something, but the highlight of the night was when Mau joined and we killed the dance floor, throwing shame to all the other not-so-gifted people with our grace and moves! Coming back to the food, the moussaka is a legendary, traditional dish that is creamy and juicy. Moussaka is served in almost all tavernas in Greece. In the big family gathering this dish is prepared by Greek homemakers. In Moussaka, tomato sauce is used to cook minced beef which is subsequently layered with sweet eggplants and creamy béchamel sauce. This irresistible cuisine is filling so you don’t need too many side dishes. I was a little bit skeptical about moussaka at first since the ones I had before weren’t that good, but this one, OMG, completely changed my mind about them! Brettos  Kidathineon 41, Athina 105 58

Brettos is Athens’ oldest bar and distillery, established by Michail Brettos in 1909. Most of the alcohol served there such as ouzo, mastiha, liqueurs and other beverages, are home made and they still respect the old recipe from Mr. Brettos. You can taste them are feel the fermentation happened in the old oak barrels placed inside. As soon as you step inside Brettos, you will be amazed by the wall adorned with colorful glass liqueur bottles and impressive original wooden barrels.  Its unique décor is probably one of the reasons why Brettos is one of the most photographed locations in Athens, behind the Acropolis, Syntagma Square and other ancient monuments and sites in the city. We had two strong and delicious drinks: Aphrodite, which was ouzo gold, raspberry liquor, pink grapefruit soda and mint leaves and the one called Sea Breeze, made with Gin, fresh lime, fresh orange cubes and soda. Guess who got what ;) 

Acropolis Museum Café Dionysiou Areopagitou 15, Athina, 117 42

When researching about the Acropolis, when to go, how to get tickets, etc, etc, the obvious question of “is the Acropolils museum worth a visit?” pops up. It is if you are super into history. Its greatly display showcases all the valuable stuff they removed from the Acropolis seeking for preservation. But, if you are like me and decide to go just for the real ruins per se avoiding an overflow of information, then the Acropolis and the other monuments spread out around Athens should do the trick. Although, there’s one thing not so many sites mention, and is that the Acropolis museum has a terrific terrace where to contemplate the Parthenon and a delicious seasonal menu to go with the view. We had some eggs, two delicious cappuccinos and the fantastic feta me meli - another Greek food dish that can be tasted as dessert or an entrée. Feta is wrapped in filo pastry before oven baked and honey is drizzled over it. The optimum balance between salty feta and sweet honey creates a mesmerizing taste. They served it with a tomato jam on the side instead of the honey and was absolutely delicious.  Da Vinci Ice-cream  various locations Bites&Kms Fav: 4 Selley Street, Athina, 10558 

Play it safe, avoid a heat stroke: have an ice-cream! And if it’s a gelato, even better. The creative cone flavors at Da Vinci match the delicious and unique ones from the gelatos so be sure to pick wisely, or come again and again to try them all!

Thea Terrace  Rooftop of Central Hotel Apollonos 23, Athina, 105 57

This was another fantastic, last minute Mau finding. It was so great, we ended up going twice. Close to Plaka but far enough from the crowd, this boutique hotel counts with a privilege terrace and rooftop bar from where we could see the sunset. It wasnt happy hour, but the drinks were so cheap and the prosecco was so good, we had two!

Nolan  33, Voulis 31, Athina 105 57

This place is definitely unique within the fusion restaurants I’ve been to. This is truly a delicious blend in between Greek, Asian and German cuisine, all the influences its owner has ingrained. As a Michelin recommendation, we left it aside pursuing Greek traditional tavernas, but it happens that after a while, you’re craving for something different like a burger or some pasta. What you don’t actually know is that what you need is a stop by Nolan. Once again, wondering in what we thought was a new, orthodox neighborhood, we ended up by its corner and its name rang a bell. We went in during a sunny Greek noon and we were lucky they were able to sit us regardless of not having a reservation. Minutes after, the restaurant got full, local artists started playing music on the streets and we were having a true fusion feast. We had some marinated tuna, a delicious octopus salad and some lamb dumplings. It was amazing, a must stop during your stayed in Athens. 

Taf Coffee Shop Emmanouil Benaki 7, Athina 106 78

This is one of the top coffee places I’ve ever been to. Not because its price, look or location, but because of the love and passion they put on each brew. This is how they described their daily special - hence, the coffee of my choice: “Rosebud double shot cap creaming feeling, smooth body caramel chocolate and nutmeg aroma. Taste of cherry and caramel with apricot tangerine and almond nuts.”  

Mind the Cup  Emiliou Veaki 29, Peristeri 121 34

I took the train to Peristeri, just outside Athens, to check out what according to Buzzfeed “one of the coffee shops around the world you must check out before you die” Happily, it didnt disappoint. Not only the little town is super cozy, where I got a pair of amazing leather boots, but also, took the morning to write and to enjoy this wonderful plaza where Mind you Cup is located. It reminded me of old Montevideo, the city where I was raised when I was younger. I keep specifying this time and space issue since nowadays it’s quite different. It also reminded me of an out-side the tourist epicenter mini towns around the north of Spain or outside Porto, in Portugal. Even a “ciudad del interior” or countryside town from Uruguay.  Even the tree to which shadow I was sitting and enjoying, was the same Willow tree I had at my school. It was a beautiful time travel adventure, on top of the delicious European house white wine, the home made pizza and the great service from the place. The menu looks like an old and corky newspaper and is not in English, which makes the adventure even more authentic, but the gentle waitress will assist you with all your questions. People were selling their crafts and some plants, and I couldn’t resist to get an envy eye anklet. On my way back, I found this delicious and traditional dessert Greek people have for Christmas, but I could have them every day with a glass of milk. They are called Kourabiedes, a shortbread-type biscuit usually made with ground almonds, flavored with either brandy, vanilla, mastika or rose water and they are shaped into little cute balls. In the end, they are sprinkled with icing sugar and they are just to die for!

Avli - Agiou Dimitriou Agiou Dimitriou 12, Athina 105 54

In the historic triangle of Athens there is a small tavern in a backyard called Avli which means ‘backyard’. This place is kinda secret: more and more people are accessing to its charms due to TripAdvisor’s fantastic reviews - although it still is easy to miss if you don’t go specifically looking for it. Within a small alley, behind a not so charming door, you can hear loud voices, laughs and some Greek music in the background. If you dare to go inside, disregarding your first thought of “oh, this is a private house, I shouldn't trespass it”, the scenery you will see is like it came from the ’60s. Checkered tablecloths, traditional chairs, old photos and a makeshift kitchen create an authentic feeling reminiscent of old Athens.

The always smiling owner, Takis, has operated this tavern since 1985. He pretended to know me, and after a nice “Kalimera, I remember you, please sit”, I sat down on one of the last free tables of the alley. I sat down right next to Stellios, this wonderful old man who greet me with yellow prunes, peanuts and come other spicy snack while we both waited to be served. He ordered some cheese and tomato, while I ordered the delicious feta with olive oil and some grilled peppers which were outstanding. I was so excited that I decided to copy Stellios and ordered a beer, the first Greek beer during by whole trip was waiting for me on my last day, and I ordered a Manos. It was good - that’s how far my beer knowledge and palate goes: good, not good :D To thank him for the company and the snacks, I invited him two more rounds of beer, which of course I’m not sure what happened since my Greek wasn’t that fluid so I made the best I could with Takis, so let’s hope at least some of the cash went for another Manos and the rest as tip! The whole experience was amazing, Stellios told me about his family, his lovely wife and two kids, as well as about his dog in very broken English. I showed a picture of my parents and told him I lived in New York, but that I was from Uruguay, land of football and meat. Yeap... some have Aristotles, others have Benedetti, and both of us share a Manos. Yamas, Athens!

[celestinaruns]

The river valley exacted its revenge--and it was definitely angry

At 4 am on Sunday morning, the sun was already rising in Edmonton. I had kept my curtains open, partly not expecting the light to be streaming in so soon, partly hoping for it because I thought I would sleep in. Silly, really, because I was tossing and turning all night.

I had packed everything I needed the night before. Correction: everything I thought I would need to take on the 50 km course at the Canadian River Valley Revenge, Summer Edition. I had done some research, fully expecting a 50 km trail race to be a whole other monster in comparison to the road marathons I was used to. This wouldn’t be some marked course I could breeze through, after all, and that extra 7.8 km was going to hit me hard.

Of course, even with my own nerves, I hardly knew what I was in for.

The race debrief at RVR was friendly and realistic. It actually calmed me down to hear the race directors tell us that, honestly, this course was no joke. It would be tough--but we would be fine. My favourite part of the debrief was when they discussed how much they wanted their race to be as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible. No plastic markers on the course--just ground spray and sparing use of ribbon markers in the trees. No cups at aid stations. No single-use material. After spending the last month thinking on how to make my hobby of running less impactful on the environment, it almost felt like I was right where I was supposed to be. But that’s a topic for another blog post. (Spoiler alert?)

Just standing at the start line, I could tell that this was a race unlike any other I had run before. Fellow runners were friendly and conversational, despite the fact that it was 6 am and this was a race. It was very clear to me before we even started running that there was a sense of humility you can’t quite find at big city road races.

And then we were off.

The course started out fine. It was hilly and narrow and very technical, but I was feeling good. And even when I hit my first massive hill and found myself breathless, I reached the top and just stopped for a moment. The sun was still rising and there was a fog settling on the water. After that, with every view I got to see and every step I took, I started to care less and less about my time and my pace. I was having fun, despite the burning in every muscle in my body.

The fog, of course, came to bite me in the ass later in the day. The moisture turned a very narrow cliffside trail into something like a slanted wall of mud that I had to scale, stretching for 2 miles. That alone took me 50 minutes. By the time I got to the end, though, I stopped again, looked out onto the water and down at myself, covered in mud from my thighs down, with a realization finally setting in.

Today wouldn’t be about speed and pace records and other road race jargon. It was about surviving the adventurous trails of the river valley and enjoying my surroundings.

The course didn’t suddenly get easy just because I had decided to run for myself and not for anyone else, of course, but it did become a lot more enjoyable. For those that have never experienced the Edmonton river valley, it’s something else. Almost entirely undeveloped, the terrain is anything but kind. The trails have been shaped by adventurous mountain bikers, trail runners, and cross-country skiers that came before, and a lot of them have their own little quirks. I found myself smiling as I was ducking and leaping over logs, and I didn’t hesitate to use my hands whenever I reached a hill that was so steep it may as well have been vertical.

I paid big time, physically speaking. Aside from the muddy wetness in my shoes and socks, I also had splinters all over my palms and cuts on my legs and arms. I ran out of water a couple of miles before the first aid station, underestimating the heat and the exhaustion my body was enduring. But I made it there, I chugged back some cola like I had never tasted it before in my life, and I took a breather.

I hadn’t opted to drop off a box of extra things at the aid station the day before because... well, I had underestimated the course, despite all of my planning. “Just 50 km, why would I need a change of anything?” had been my thought process. As I stood under that tent, though, my wet socks squelching under my weight, I resolved that I wouldn’t be making that mistake at my next ultra.

Just over halfway through, and there it was! Already, the words “my next ultra” were passing through my mind. I must’ve been going crazy.

As I left the aid station, I realized that I felt... really good. In pain, yes, but I wasn’t nauseous or anything--and that was a big deal. Nausea while running intensely has been a huge issue for me in the past, but something about that race sat well with me. Maybe it was the solid food, or maybe it was the perfect combination of sugar, caffeine, and carbonation from the cola that settled my stomach. Either way, I was bouncing happily along Old Tramp on my way to get a poker chip to prove that I had been to the mysterious trampoline in the middle of Edmonton’s river valley. 

I loved that, too. Not the trampoline, specifically, but the hidden gems of Edmonton trail running, which includes the trampoline-- as well as Golfball Alley, with its audience of golf balls spectating your run, and Six Shooter, with its hidden plastic revolver that I have yet to find (one day). All trash, in anyone else’s eyes, but quirks and traditions that remain untouched and unmoved by everyone that makes their way through the treacherous terrain.

It was when I doubled back on Old Tramp that I missed a marker that cost me an extra 4 km. Not something I gave much thought, though. In a road race, I would have been frustrated at myself for the time loss. I remember being delayed a couple of minutes at Red Deer and muttering angrily to myself for the next few kilometres. Now, though, I simply shrugged it off. “Just part of the adventure, we live, we learn,” I told myself easily.

The race hit a lot of exposed areas after that, just as the hot sun started shining its brightest. I had just gotten my second poker chip on the other side of the river when I found that my water was already starting to run quite low, and it would be a while until the next aid station. Next time, I would get the 2 L hydration bladder, I had resolved. Next time!

In a miraculous turn of events, an unmanned water station had been set up along the route passing EPCOR, by some of its employees. It had been at the perfect time, just when my water was completely out, and that was enough to get me to the next and final manned aid station.

In a moment of inspiration, I filled one of my bottles with half cola half water, and the other entirely with water. For whatever the reason, the cola had sat well with me once before, so I thought it would help me get through the rest of the day. Only another 12 km, after all. Hardly anything in comparison to what I had just run.

Once I had my fill of some fruit and got some of my more painful splinters out, I was off once more. Again, there was an unmanned aid station along the trail where I filled up on my cola and water. It was set up by a man and a woman living in the area, both of them ultra runners, both content with spending the day helping us out. The only other time I had seen something like that had been at Boston, but this was different. I felt like I had the time to stop, take a breather, and actually chat with them. The atmosphere wasn’t filled with the same frenzy and madness one finds at packed road races. I could hear the crickets in the tall grass and had a beautiful view of the river. 

That was easily one of my favourite stops, not only because of how kind the people had been, but also because my stomach and I discovered that rice, apparently, sits very well with me in the middle of a race.

After that, the route wasn’t quite as bad. It wasn’t until I finished the race that I found out I ran another extra 4 km by taking a loop that had been intended only for the 50 and 100 mile racers. It was a mistake that many of the 50 km runners had made, though, and in the moment of racing it hadn’t clicked in my mind at all--I just couldn’t understand why the last 12 km was definitely not 12 km.

The route was fine, though, and almost too easy--which should have been the dead giveaway. The last 2 miles of the course brought me into the deep woods once more, traversing creeks and roots and fallen logs with an ironic combination of carefulness and hurriedness. Every once in a while the trail would get closer to the city and I could hear the cheers from the finish line, and then it would dive back down into stubborn and aggressive ravine. My quads were starting to give out and my feet dragging. At this point, my knees were doing most of the work and I’m convinced it was that last kilometre that gave me most of my scratches.

A brutal last kilometre, one we had been warned about that morning. The fastest finish time for it had been 15 minutes. I had taken about 21 minutes, and that alone had actually made me very proud of myself. As soon as I realized that I was near the top, I was scrambling up and running as fast as I could to cross the finish line.

And then it was over, just like that. I received my medal and my free beer. I walked around aimlessly for a bit, too scared of sitting down in case I wouldn’t be able to stand up again. Honestly, I don’t even remember if I got my burger before or after I changed into dry clothes, but I did get it at one point. I also remember defending salt & vinegar chips as the best chip flavour to a skeptic across the table from me. The rest is a bit hazy.

Even at the end, the words at my next ultra were still running through my head. Yeah, I was destroyed. Still am. My legs and arms are covered in scratches. My ankles are bruised. My fingers are still sore from the splinters that were stuck in there for hours. I have a tan line that I’m 99% sure could be turned into a meme, and so much chafing that I had to resort to wiping my body with wet wipes instead of having a full shower. But it was fun.

In the end, my wrong turns cost me an extra 8.2 km. I finished my 58.2 km in 9:21:23 on a course that was intended to be 50 km with a 10 hour time limit. I was far from speedy and definitely nowhere near the top, but I hadn’t trained on most of that terrain. I hadn’t even thought that it could get that intense, so I had mostly, and naively, kept to well-groomed trails. Once during my training, I reached a somewhat scary trail and simply turned around, thinking that it couldn’t be that bad. That trail ended up being one of the easiest singletracks on the whole course. I hadn’t known what to expect in terms of my nutrition and hydration needs. I hadn’t thought to leave changes of clothes and shoes at the aid stations. There was simply so much I wouldn’t have considered until actually running the race.

Despite the fact that I was far from my usual speedy, confident self that people see in a road race, and despite everything I hadn’t thought to do, I still just felt so happy to be there and to have been able to accomplish this amazing, insane feat. My body had done that. And yeah, my time needs work--but then I thought about how slow I had been when I first started running cross country in high school. Really slow. I didn’t quit, though, and simply just kept running whenever I could. Each step made me a little better, and the same thing applies to ultra trail races.

I feel like I’m on the cusp of a new chapter of my life, but not quite ready to leave the last one. I still want to make it to Boston in 2021 and I still have that need for speed that only road races can really satisfy. At the same time, though, I have found something I never knew I needed or wanted in ultra marathons and trail races--or adventure races, as the brutal terrain is affectionately dubbed. I think, for now, the one thing I truly want is to find a healthy, sustainable way to keep both of these in my life.

Most of all, though, I need a damn massage.

[torontothoughts]

I’m one of those people who keeps a bucket list. It changes, grows and adapts as I get older, as I cross some things out and yes, as I outgrow some. But there’s always a few “someday I want to…” things that I never seem to get around to doing. And this year, I decided to stop waiting for someday and just did one of them. I was going to hike, or rather walk, the West Highland Way (WHW), solo. Or at least about half of it.

A couple of things happened to force the “you only live once” epiphany on me and one was a random article I read online at lunch about hiking solo in Scotland. It lead me to a bit of research and reading, and by the end of the day, I had decided not to wait any longer on finding someone who wanted to walk it with me. You see, one of the major things that was holding me back from doing the West Highland Way – pretty much the only thing – was I didn’t have anyone to walk it with me.

And walking the West Highland Way was on my bucket list. The West Highland Way, a 154 km (96 mile) trail from Milngavie (a suburb of Glasgow) to Fort William is one of the most popular and iconic hikes/walks in Scotland. Most people complete it in 5-8 days, but others do it in sections or only a part of it as I did. You’ll pass beautiful natural scenery including Loch Lomond, Rannoch Moor, Glencoe, Devil’s Staircase, and Ben Nevis. While you can wild camp (or camp at many of the accommodations along the way), if you want to stay at a hostel, B&B or hotel, book in advance (depending on the time of year, you may need to book months in advance) as it’s quite a popular route, especially from May to September. I booked mine in late February (for early May) and many places were already full.

So how did I prepare?

Two ways. First, as I knew I’d be walking 15-25 km each day, I wanted to up my walking game. I regularly walk 5-10 most days so I wasn’t overly worried but it was a long, icy winter here in Toronto so I hadn’t been walking as much as normal. Once the spring thaw got rid of most of the snow and ice, I used my old marathon training plan to increase my walking distance gradually over about 8 weeks. I also used it as an excuse to explore Toronto’s trails more and found a couple of new favourites (we do have some great outdoor spaces for a major city). But as someone who loves walking and who walks everywhere, I wasn’t overly worried about the distances, especially after getting in some trail time here.

The other way I got ready was to read and research. I’m a big believer in researching my travels, especially when going solo as I often do, and as this would be my first long distance solo hike/walk, I wanted to be prepared. I bought Walking The West Highland Way by Terry Marsh, read dozens of blog posts, visited different tour websites and of course, read everything on the official West Highland Way website.

This allowed me to understand where I wanted to start (Tyndrum), where I’d be walking each day and where I should stop each night. The research also let me know that I needed to book my accommodation in advance and gave some great recommendations on where to stay. I booked everything about two months in advance (late February/early March for early May) and while I ended up with my first choice in three of the five places, I had to go with my second choice in the other two stops (still great hostels though).

It also helped me refine my normal travel packing list (I have one I simply adjust based on the destination and time of year) to include the needs of a multi-day walk/hike. You can see what I packed here.

How was the West Highland Way?

Amazing! I am so very glad that I went. I’m also very glad that I went solo. Sure, I would have loved to have gone with friends, in which case I would have done the entire walk not just basically the latter half, but doing it solo gave me such a sense of accomplishment and allowed me to connect with the environment around me in a way I wouldn’t have been able to if I had others with me. I enjoy spending time alone and I enjoy traveling alone so there was no issue with loneliness. Walking it solo meant I could walk at my own pace, stop where I wanted (I took so many photos), and enjoy the solitude.

For those worried about safety, I was never truly alone and Scotland is safe for women traveling alone (just take the same precautions you would at home). Walking the West Highland Way in May meant there were lots of others walking it as well. While there were times, especially when I was on Rannoch Moor, that I couldn’t see another person, I knew that all I had to do was wait for 5 minutes, 10 tops, and another walker would appear. And most of the time, there were others in sight, if not right around me. I met some lovely fellow walkers, both on the trail and at the hostels I stayed at. One day, a group of walkers and I played leap frog (unintentionally) and we ended up meeting again at the Kingshouse Hotel.

The West Highland Way is also well marked and the trail is easy to follow. That being said, you should still have a map (and know how to read it), as well as a basic first aid kit, just in case. Tell others where you’ll be, where you’re staying, check in – the same things you’d do traveling solo anywhere.

Keep reading for a day by day accounting of my fabulous time walking the West Highland Way…

May 6 – Travel day to Tyndrum

I hopped on a train from Glasgow to Tydrum and it was a beautiful ride. The stop before mine, the train split in two trains, with one half heading to Oban and the other to Mallaig. Because of an out-of-order washroom, they had the people from the front two cars switch with those in the back two. One of the train staff told me I could stay where I was (I was in one of the cars switching) which meant I ended up at Tyndrum Upper rather than Lower, but that just meant I walked about 1/2 km further so no big deal. Plus, the view of the valley made up for it. I checked into my hobbit house (so cute but it would be tight with more than two people, great for one person) and went into the village to get some food – fish & chips (yummy) for dinner, a sandwich for tomorrow’s lunch and a small bottle of whisky so I can have a dram each night. Off to bed early so I’m rested for my first day of walking. Okay, that didn’t work as the temp plummeted and there was a bit of a storm overnight but thankfully there was heating as it was needed.

May 7 (day 1) – Tyndrum to Bridge of Orchy

(6 ½ miles/10.5 km)

A simple, fairly easy hike, that even with my many, many stops for photos took under 3 hours. It was a beautiful start to my West Highland Way experience, especially with the new snow on the tops of the mountains from last night, if a bit wet for the first hour. Mostly flat, with gorgeous views. The snow from the storm the night before was lovely, and a reminder that the weather in Scotland is all over the place as I was in a t-shirt the day before.

I stayed at the West Highland Sleeper, a small hostel on the Bridge of Orchy train station (the station is still a stop but isn’t manned anymore so someone converted the building into a 10 bed hostel). After checking in and grabbing my bag, I had a lovely risotto at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel (just down the street) for dinner with another girl staying in the hostel before getting an early night’s sleep.

May 8 – Bridge of Orchy to Kingshouse

(12 miles/19.5 km) – my phone said I walked 20 km

I got an early start, well, early for me, as everyone in the hostel, all 10 of us, left early. I started out with five others but three quickly outpaced me and two fell behind. The view at the top of the hilltop outside Bridge of Orchy of Loch Tulla was amazing (northern hillside of Ben Inverveigh). After a brief pitstop at Inveronan Hotel, I continued on past a mossy forest (it looked creepy, like it would be a good place to film a horror film but it was all fenced off) up to Rannoch Moor. 

Luckily the weather was mostly good, just a bit windy (okay, it was pretty much always windy), the sun even came out! Briefly but I have photos. Rannoch Moor is haunting. Beautiful but haunting. My only bitch were the large stones/rocks on the path (which turned out to be my only problem with the WHW) – they varied in size from gravel (fine to walk on) to the size of my fist to almost the size of my head. Which meant not only did you have to pay attention to your feet but it did make for slightly sore feet and very un-even walking. But if that’s the worst, I can’t really complain. I played leap frog with a group walking together pretty much all the way across Rannoch Moor which was cute – I’d pass them when they took a break, they’d pass me when I took a break…

I arrived at the Kingshouse Hotel a little before 2:00 pm (I made good time across the Moor, even with my breaks) so I ordered a pot of tea, which was becoming my ritual each day, to enjoy while I killed time until check-in at 3:00 pm. It’s a super friendly and helpful place, the front desk staff person actually walked me to the luggage room. Other than not being able to access wifi in the Kingshouse bunkhouse, I’d totally recommend it. Actually, I’d totally recommend the place anyways.

After checking in and showering, I went and had an early dinner (5:00 pm, almost unheard of for me) of a delicious venison pie (flaky crust, meat filled, one of my best meals of the trip) and a pint before heading back to the bunkhouse to chill. It was going to be an early night. On the way back to the bunkhouse, I saw the resident buck which was a bit disconcerting given what I just ate for dinner.

May 9 – Kingshouse to Kinlochleven

8 ¾ miles/14 km (my phone said I walked 15 km)

I started the day about 8:30 am and it was a lovely, sunny morning. Still a bit chilly from the wind but I was coming to expect that. It was an up & down day that started with a small climb and descent before a short trek alongside the road for a bit. Then the real climb started, which meant more breaks to catch my breath as I’m not really used to ascents. But the views! The views more than made up for it – absolutely stunning! In every direction, mountains, hills, valleys, lakes… just gorgeous. A bit of up and down as the WHW followed along the side (most of the way up but not along the ridge) of a hillside for quite a way before a rather steep descent into Kinlochleven. The descent was a bit hard on the knees and required attention as the road was rocks, not gravel. Overall, once I was down though, I felt fine. 

I was glad to have a private, if pricy (it would have been a normal price if split three ways as there were three beds but one of the only downsides of traveling solo is there’s no one to split the costs with), room for the night at Blackwater Hostel, as tomorrow was my long day. Good place to stay though. After checking in, I headed into the village to explore, eat (mac & cheese and the obligatory pot of tea) and grab some food supplies at the store (fruit, milk, chocolate, and juice). The pub had a lovely view of the river so I chilled there for a while drinking my pot of tea.

May 10 – Kinlochleven to Fort William

16 miles/24 km – my phone said I walked 24.7 km

Warning: girl problems mentioned in this segment…

Wow! 24.7 km. Other than my two marathons, that’s a record for me. The weather was a bit challenging at the end – there was even hail for about a minute and rain for about 4 km (45 minutes to an hour) – but the real challenge was it was unexpectedly the first day of my period (3 days early, wtf) which meant I was crampy and the Advil wore off about halfway in the 7 hour hike. Otherwise, it was good. Well, except for the last 3-4 km when my feet were screaming at me (pavement after a long hike isn’t your friend). But no blisters! So glad I splurged on good Merino wool blend hiking socks.

Okay, let’s backtrack. The day started off lovely, sunny and warm, with a short if steep climb out of Kinlochleven to lovely views of the town/village and Loch Leven. A bit more of a climb and then I entered the “lost valley” (sorry, that’s how I thought of it after reading the descriptions) came into view. Absolutely stunning! Some of my favourite photos of my trip are from this segment. And it was sunny at the start but the rains were coming by the end (although I didn’t actually get hit by rain until later). Despite the now hated rocks in the path, it was a gorgeous walk. The weather started to turn as I entered Nevis forest but only briefly as there was more sun – it was one of those days when at different times I was in a t-shirt; a t-shirt and fleece; a t-shirt and rain jacket; and a t-shirt, fleece and rain jacket… in no particular order. I think I would have lingered more if I wasn’t in a race to a toilet at the end (knowing the walk would take about 7 hours and it would be close). Sure, I was prepared (if necessary) but I really, really didn’t want to change my tampon in the wild as it’s not like Canadian wilderness, there weren’t a lot of trees to duck behind to grab a chance for privacy.

As Ben Nevis came into view (briefly because of the weather) what would have been a lovely walk along a ridge (the views) if not for the weather that had been threatening for the past hour, finally arriving. First by obscuring Ben Nevis, and then with hail. Hail! Luckily it didn’t last long and I was wearing a baseball hat. The hail turned into rain for the next 40 minutes or so of walking in pretty hard, although not pouring, rain. My hiking shoes held up beautifully. 

But it meant I didn’t go off the trail to the fort as I was planning – well, because of both the rain and the need for a bathroom sooner rather than later.

As the WHW merged with a logging road, the rain slowly let up and by the bottom, the sun had come out again (and I was back to a t-shirt). The descent was much more gradual than the one into Kinlochleven, and the road smoother, which both my feet and knees appreciated. And once I hit the road, there was public bathrooms at the Ben Nevis Visitor’s Center which meant I could stop stressing about washrooms. So for the last portion of the WHW, on pavement, the only issue was the increasing soreness in my feet (which went away after a couple of hours of rest).

I cheated a bit as I stopped at my hostel (Fort William Backpackers, a friendly hostel), checked in and showered before hitting the “new” end of the WHW before dinner. I’d already passed the original end though. Dinner was a fish & chips and a pint of beer, appropriately called “West Highland Way”.

Final Thoughts

I’m so glad I solo walked a part of the West Highland Way. It was an amazing, beautiful experience. My whole Scotland trip (more on that in a later article) was fabulous but the walk was something else, something rewarding. For those worried about doing it solo, with proper preparation, it’s completely doable. And of course, there’s no reason you can’t walk it with friends or family. I highly recommend it and can’t wait for my next walk in Scotland… maybe the Malt Whisky Trail or I’ll just explore Orkney on foot.

Have you walked the West Highland Way? What was your experience like?

Walking the West Highland Way, Another Bucket List Checkmark I’m one of those people who keeps a bucket list. It changes, grows and adapts as I get older, as I cross some things out and yes, as I outgrow some.