#under brushing services houston

[texasacelandclearing01]

How Underbrushing Helps Improve Drainage and Soil Quality in Houston

Maintaining the health and usability of your property is essential, especially in Houston's dynamic environment. Underbrush clearing is a vital process that removes dense vegetation, such as shrubs and weeds, to improve land conditions. Beyond enhancing the aesthetics of your property, underbrushing plays a significant role in improving drainage and soil quality. This article explores how under brushing services in Houston can help transform your property, the science behind its benefits, and why hiring a professional underbrush clearing company is key to achieving optimal results.

The Importance of Underbrush Clearing

What Is Underbrushing?

Underbrushing refers to the removal of dense, low-lying vegetation, such as small trees, shrubs, and weeds, that can choke a landscape. Unlike full-scale land clearing, underbrushing focuses on selective clearing, leaving desirable trees and vegetation intact.

This process is particularly beneficial in areas like Houston, where heavy rainfall and humid conditions encourage rapid undergrowth. Left unchecked, thick underbrush can lead to poor drainage, pest infestations, and degraded soil quality.

Benefits of Underbrushing

Enhanced Land Usability: Clearing underbrush opens up space for development or landscaping projects.

Improved Aesthetics: A well-maintained property is visually appealing and increases property value.

Environmental Health: Removing invasive plants promotes the growth of native species and restores balance to the ecosystem.

How Underbrushing Improves Drainage

Clearing Obstacles to Water Flow

Dense underbrush can block natural water flow across your property, causing water to pool in low-lying areas. This pooling can lead to flooding, erosion, and damage to the surrounding landscape. Underbrush clearing removes these obstructions, allowing rainwater to drain efficiently and preventing waterlogging.

In Houston, where heavy rains are common, maintaining clear drainage paths is essential for protecting both property and infrastructure.

Reducing Soil Compaction

Excessive undergrowth often leads to soil compaction, as plant roots compete for space and resources. Compacted soil reduces water infiltration and increases surface runoff, exacerbating drainage issues. By clearing underbrush, the soil is given a chance to decompress and absorb water more effectively.

How Underbrushing Enhances Soil Quality

Eliminating Competing Vegetation

Overgrown underbrush competes with desirable plants and trees for nutrients, water, and sunlight. By removing this excess vegetation, under brushing services in Houston help preserve the health of your soil and promote the growth of native flora.

This balance is essential for maintaining soil fertility, as healthy vegetation contributes to the natural recycling of nutrients.

Promoting Aeration

Dense underbrush can suffocate the soil, reducing the amount of oxygen available for beneficial microorganisms. These microorganisms play a crucial role in breaking down organic matter and enriching the soil. Clearing underbrush improves soil aeration, supporting a thriving ecosystem of microbes and healthy plant growth.

Reducing Erosion

Thick underbrush often leads to uneven terrain, which can increase soil erosion during heavy rains. Removing underbrush allows for proper grading of the land, reducing runoff and preserving topsoil. Professional underbrush clearing companies often incorporate erosion control measures to ensure long-term soil stability.

The Role of Professional Underbrushing Services

Expertise in Houston’s Unique Landscape

Houston’s climate and terrain present unique challenges, from heavy rainfall to dense vegetation growth. Professional under brushing services in Houston understand these challenges and use specialized techniques to address them effectively.

By assessing the property and identifying problem areas, professionals ensure the clearing process is tailored to improve drainage and soil quality without harming the surrounding environment.

Advanced Equipment

Professional companies use advanced equipment, such as brush cutters, mulchers, and forestry mowers, to handle dense undergrowth efficiently. These tools ensure precise clearing, preserving desirable vegetation while removing unwanted plants.

Modern machinery also minimizes soil disruption, a crucial factor in maintaining soil health and preventing erosion.

Sustainable Practices

A reputable underbrush clearing company employs environmentally friendly practices, such as mulching cleared vegetation into nutrient-rich material. This mulch can be redistributed across the property to enrich the soil, improve moisture retention, and prevent weed regrowth.

Benefits of Regular Underbrush Clearing

Preventing Pest Infestations

Thick underbrush provides a breeding ground for pests, including rodents, snakes, and insects. Regular underbrushing eliminates these habitats, reducing the risk of infestations and promoting a safer environment for humans and animals alike.

Supporting Native Plants

Clearing invasive species through underbrushing allows native plants to thrive. These plants are better suited to Houston’s climate and soil conditions, contributing to a healthier ecosystem and improving the overall quality of the land.

Increasing Property Value

Well-maintained properties with clear drainage and healthy soil are more attractive to potential buyers or investors. Regular underbrush clearing services in Houston ensure your property remains in top condition, enhancing its value and usability.

Choosing the Right Underbrush Clearing Company

Experience and Expertise

Select a company with extensive experience in underbrushing and a deep understanding of Houston's environmental conditions. An experienced team will know how to balance clearing with preserving the land’s natural health.

Use of Advanced Equipment

Ensure the company uses modern equipment for efficient and precise clearing. Specialized tools help achieve optimal results without causing unnecessary damage to the land.

Commitment to Sustainability

Choose a company that employs sustainable practices, such as mulching and erosion control, to ensure long-term benefits for your property and the environment.

Conclusion

Underbrushing is a powerful tool for improving drainage and soil quality on Houston properties. By removing dense undergrowth, underbrushing prevents water pooling, reduces erosion, and enhances soil health through better aeration and nutrient balance.

Hiring professional under brushing services in Houston ensures the process is carried out efficiently, using advanced equipment and sustainable practices. A reputable underbrush clearing company not only enhances the usability and aesthetics of your property but also ensures its environmental health for years to come.

Investing in regular underbrushing is a proactive step toward preserving the value and functionality of your land while maintaining its natural beauty and resilience.

[texasacelandclearing02]

The Environmental Benefits of Regular Under brushing in Houston

Houston’s lush climate supports a rich, diverse ecosystem, but it also encourages dense underbrush, which, if left unchecked, can have detrimental effects on both private properties and the local environment. Regular underbrush clearing, or the removal of low-lying vegetation and invasive plant species, is an effective solution for maintaining a healthy landscape. For property owners, enlisting under brushing services in Houston can help mitigate fire hazards, control invasive plants, and support native biodiversity, providing broad environmental benefits. Here’s an in-depth look at the ways regular underbrushing contributes to a healthier, more sustainable environment.

Understanding Underbrushing and Its Importance

Underbrushing refers to the removal of thick vegetation, including shrubs, vines, and invasive plant species, while preserving valuable trees and native plants. In Houston’s warm and often humid climate, underbrush can accumulate rapidly, making regular clearing essential for property maintenance and ecosystem health. By reducing excessive growth, underbrushing not only benefits the landscape’s appearance but also enhances the safety and ecological integrity of the area.

What Does Underbrushing Involve?

A professional underbrush clearing company uses specialized equipment to selectively remove unwanted vegetation. This equipment can include brush cutters, mulchers, and chainsaws, allowing technicians to carefully target specific plants without damaging the surrounding landscape. Additionally, under brushing services in Houston typically offer sustainable clearing methods, such as mulching, which repurposes the removed vegetation as natural ground cover to prevent soil erosion.

Benefits of Underbrushing for Ecosystem Health

Promoting Native Biodiversity

Excessive underbrush can stifle native plant species, reducing their access to essential resources like sunlight, water, and nutrients. Over time, this crowding effect can alter the natural balance of local ecosystems, limiting biodiversity. Regular underbrushing addresses this issue by removing invasive and low-lying vegetation, giving native plants the space they need to thrive. This restoration of native flora helps support local wildlife that relies on indigenous plants for food and habitat.

In Houston, where a variety of plant and animal species coexist, underbrushing plays a vital role in conserving biodiversity. When native plants flourish, pollinators like bees and butterflies benefit, leading to healthier ecosystems. Furthermore, a well-balanced landscape is more resilient, better able to withstand environmental stresses such as droughts or pest outbreaks.

Reducing Invasive Species Spread

Invasive species are a common problem in Houston, where rapid plant growth provides fertile ground for non-native species. These invasive plants often spread aggressively, outcompeting native vegetation and disrupting local ecosystems. Professional underbrush clearing companies specialize in identifying and removing invasive plants, helping to control their spread and prevent further ecological damage.

By controlling invasive species, underbrushing contributes to a more balanced environment where native plants can thrive without competition from non-native species. This creates a stable ecosystem that supports diverse plant and animal life, promoting a healthy landscape for the entire Houston region.

Environmental Safety and Fire Risk Reduction

Reducing Fire Hazards with Underbrushing

In dense, unmaintained areas, underbrush often includes dead leaves, dry twigs, and other flammable materials. This accumulated undergrowth increases the risk of wildfires, especially during Houston’s dry seasons. By removing this potential fuel, underbrushing helps lower the risk of fires spreading, protecting both the environment and nearby structures.

In areas prone to vegetation overgrowth, property owners are encouraged to invest in regular underbrushing services in Houston. These services create defensible spaces around properties, making them less vulnerable to wildfire hazards. Additionally, fire-resistant landscapes contribute to the overall health of the surrounding ecosystem by preventing destructive fires that can disrupt plant and animal life.

Improving Air Quality

One of the lesser-known benefits of underbrushing is its positive impact on air quality. When dead vegetation and plant debris decompose, they release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. By regularly clearing underbrush, these emissions are minimized, helping to maintain better air quality. Furthermore, the healthier vegetation that remains after underbrushing can continue absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, benefiting air quality for the Houston area.

Soil Health and Water Management Benefits

Preventing Soil Erosion

Underbrushing can contribute to better soil stability, as cleared vegetation can be turned into mulch, which acts as a natural ground cover. Mulching helps prevent soil erosion by shielding the soil from heavy rains and minimizing surface runoff. This is especially important in Houston’s often rainy climate, where erosion can lead to soil degradation and the loss of essential nutrients.

In addition, underbrushing improves water absorption, allowing rainwater to seep into the ground rather than washing away valuable topsoil. Healthy soil supports robust plant growth and contributes to a balanced ecosystem, further highlighting the environmental benefits of regular underbrush clearing.

Enhancing Water Quality

Dense underbrush often contributes to water runoff, carrying pollutants into nearby streams and rivers. By reducing excessive vegetation, underbrushing helps control runoff, enabling more water to be absorbed into the soil and naturally filtered. Cleaner runoff reduces the likelihood of pollutants entering Houston’s waterways, protecting water quality and aquatic habitats.

Healthy, well-maintained landscapes absorb more rainwater, which can replenish local groundwater supplies, reducing the risk of drought conditions. For Houston’s environment, this means more sustainable water resources and healthier ecosystems that rely on clean water.

Supporting Sustainable Land Management

Creating Healthier Landscapes

One of the main objectives of regular underbrushing is to create a healthier, more manageable landscape. By removing overgrowth and selectively preserving native plants, underbrush clearing helps maintain an attractive, functional landscape that requires less maintenance in the long run. This approach supports sustainable land management by preventing vegetation from growing out of control, reducing the need for extensive intervention later on.

Professional under brushing services in Houston can tailor their methods to each property, ensuring that only necessary vegetation is removed. This customized approach minimizes environmental disruption and promotes sustainable landscape maintenance practices, benefiting both property owners and the surrounding ecosystem.

Recycling and Reusing Cleared Vegetation

Another environmental advantage of professional underbrushing is the recycling of cleared vegetation. Many underbrush clearing companies turn removed vegetation into mulch or compost, which can be applied back onto the landscape. This practice not only prevents waste but also provides natural fertilization for the soil, enhancing soil health and reducing the need for chemical fertilizers.

By recycling plant material, underbrush clearing supports a circular approach to landscaping that promotes sustainability and environmental responsibility. Using organic mulch improves soil fertility and helps retain moisture, creating optimal conditions for native plants to thrive.

Conclusion

Regular underbrushing provides significant environmental benefits for properties in Houston. By controlling invasive species, promoting native plant growth, and reducing fire hazards, underbrush clearing creates a safer and healthier environment. The ecological advantages of underbrushing also extend to improved air and water quality, enhanced soil health, and sustainable land management.

For property owners, hiring a professional underbrush clearing company is an investment in long-term environmental health. These companies bring expertise, specialized equipment, and sustainable practices to ensure that underbrushing is done effectively and responsibly. Regular maintenance through under brushing services in Houston supports biodiversity, conserves natural resources, and contributes to a balanced ecosystem that benefits the entire community.

[bonezone44]

'Get a Grip' (18+)

Watch Model!Joel Miller x Manicurist!Reader

Word Count: 3,8k

Summary: Joel Miller comes to your salon for a manicure, then he invites you to assist him during a photoshoot.

Tags: afab!Reader, hand kink, glove kink, finger sucking, fingering, p-in-v, creampie

a/n: this story came about during a brief discussion of Pedro’s watch modeling era a few weeks ago. Thank you to @xdaddysprincessxx and @iamasaddie for the inspo!

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Hands. Fingers.

They’re your job.

Every once in a while someone will walk in with a nice set of digits and you admire them while they’re in front of you. While you push back their cuticles and clean beneath the nail. Add the acrylic and the polish. Then they’re out of your mind again as you wait for the next client to plop into the chair and request a full set or a simple repair. 

Your repeat clients usually want the nail art. That’s where you shine, to be honest. Delicately painted swirls. Boxes like Mondrian. Gold leaf. Rhinestones. Each nail a tiny little canvas for you to create something unique.

The male customers are different. The masculine ones, anyway.

They want simple hygienic maintenance. Maybe a massage. Maybe they just wanna flirt with a woman while she provides a service. And you appease them. It’s no bother to you.

It’s your job.

It’s just your job.

It’s the thing you do all the time every day and have done for years.

And yet no matter how many times you try to repeat those words in your head, you find yourself salivating over the man sitting across from you–with his playful baritone Texan voice and the beautiful steel and gold Cartier watch on his wrist. Not that you’re one to dig for gold. You simply admire fine craftsmanship.

Just like you admire the fineness of his hands.

The veins that rise on the top of his right hand, over his fingerbones, look like wandering rivers and you really wanna admire them with the tip of your tongue, tracing along their edges. His fingers themselves are long, thick rectangles that you wanna slip into your mouth one at a time.

In simple …admiration. 

“Not too smooth,” he says when you pull out your buffer. “They don’t want me lookin’ too clean.”

“Who’s that?” you ask, keeping your voice nice and even while your cheeks feel hot and your thoughts are a million miles away from ‘appropriate’.

“The… oh, whaddya call ‘em.” He hums. “The brand specialists, I guess.” He chuckles. “They hit me up about a month ago. Got a new line coming out that’s–get this–” he says with a flash of his eyebrows. “--’safari’ inspired.” He scoffs.

“Safari, huh?” You roll your eyes.  You can imagine the Cartier boardroom of pompous old Frenchmen glorifying the art and tales created during the French expansion of the 1800s—easily brushing past the eugenics-based mission of the violent nationalists. “Colonizers,” you mumble under your breath.

Joel laughs. “My daughter said the same thing.” He shrugs. “‘S no matter. I don’t mind takin’ their money if all I gotta do is have pretty hands.”

Your face burns immediately and keep your eyes and face focusing on the small nail at the end of his middle finger. “So, how’d you get started anyway?” You swallow thickly, trying to ignore the heat building between your legs. “No offense, I guess, but you don’t seem like the pretty boy-type.” Besides the watch on his wrist, he’s wearing plain Levi’s blue jeans and a black t-shirt that you can almost guarantee came from Target. You can tell his brown and grey curls don’t have any product in them and he’s got about two or three-week-old scruff on his face. 

He chuckles again and you glance up, watching the deep creases in his forehead soften. “Daughter’s the one to blame for it.” He shakes his head with a smile. “We were visiting Houston and she wanted to go shopping, so I let her pick the mall.” His brows go high. “This little 12 year-old picked a luxury mall and I didn’t realize it til we got outta the truck.” 

Your lips go between your teeth, imagining his embarrassment. 

“She was so excited, too. She hopped down out the truck and–fyoo!--took right off runnin.” He grins. “I had to chase her down and tell her not to touch anythin. I woulda had to take out a second mortgage to pay for it if she broke somethin.”

“I bet,” you smile. You finish buffing his nails and pull out the moisturizing oil. You begin to massage each of his fingers, one-by-one, rolling the flesh between your thumb and index finger, marveling at how long it takes you to get from base to tip. You were admiring the mathematics of it. 

The proportions. 

The number of fingers he might could get inside you.

“Next thing I know, she goes runnin into a Cartier store sayin that they can fix my watch ‘cause they got watches in the window.” He shrugs and rolls his eyes. “I was tryin to politely escort her back out, when some big wig saw me and started talkin to me.” He shrugs again. “They took a couple polaroids and got my info. And now every once in a while, they’ll call me up for somethin.”

You stop massaging and stare at him with your eyes big and wide. “I know women who would literally murder to have that happen to them.”

He chuckles and it gets your body even warmer. “Yeeaahh, that’s what I hear.”

You shake your head in disbelief, returning to your task. You can believe his story, too. You’ve only been staring at his hands for a few minutes and you are enraptured by them. Is it the hands? Or is it him?

Or is it all of it together?

You’re not sure. You’re just enjoying the muscle you feel beneath the surface of his nearly square palm, the thick round meat between the web of his thumb and the end of his wrist. You can’t help but admire the basin in the center where the heart and head line lie parallel. Not that you were a palm reader. But you couldn’t help but know a thing or two about the intuitive art.

Hands. Fingers.

They’re your job, afterall.

“What do you do for work?” you ask, because hands like his were used. Too thick not to be. They couldn’t just sit pretty all day.

“I’m a contractor.”

You blink. You look up at him with your brows high into your forehead. “These are not contractor hands,” you say, stroking along his palm. You don’t see a single cut or abrasion. The few calluses he had could barely be considered calluses at all. More like small rough spots.

“I wear special gloves,” he says with a smirk. “It’s a special kind of leather that fits around ‘em real tight.”

“Oh,” you answer, heat fully overtaking your chest and face. You imagine how nice his fingers must look wrapped in a second skin, smoothing over all his contours and lines, making each appendage even thicker and his hands even broader. You imagine what they would feel like, sliding up your bare calves and pulling you apart at the knees. You imagine the soft, conditioned leather moving back and forth across your clit, driving you mad ‘cause your aching for his skin and his touch and his heat.

“You know, I uhh… got a shoot coming up in a couple weeks. I’d love to see you again.”

Your heart races in your chest.

He smirks, his eyes soft and hazy. “You know, since you’re doin’ such a good job takin care o’ my hands right now.”

“Absolutely,” you try to temper your excitement. “Just give me the date, time, and place.” You shrug in a way that you’re sure is very nonchalant. “I mean, I-I-I can come to you if you need me to.” The Pope himself could have an appointment scheduled, and you would cancel it without regret if this man is implying what you are desperately hoping he is implying.

“Well, alright then.” He grins.

—------------

You’re pressed into the door of the hotel room–the one right next to where Joel just finished his photoshoot. He’s got one arm wrapped around the back of your neck, pulling your face into his. His kisses are heavy and fervent. His tongue licks into you in a way that makes you want it even deeper��makes you wanna swallow him whole and keep him inside you. One of his hands is gloved–in one of the ‘special gloves’ he told you about. It’s a camel-colored leather, hand-stitched and form-fitting. And it is definitely not one he uses for work. They fit tight around the heel of his palm, like driving gloves. Must have gotten a new pair from Cartier themselves. 

His gloved hand is under your shirt, sliding up your mid-section and grasping your breast. You gasp and moan into his mouth when he starts pinching and plucking your nipple. 

“Open up for me,” he says after pulling away from you. 

And when you do, he shoves two fingers between your lips, the rest of his hand resting on your cheek, your head still cradled by his arm.

“Good girl,” he coos with a smirk. “Good girl.” He grinds his hardness into your side.

You’re melting into the door behind you, into him, into your own body. You close your lips and suck, not quite sure what to do or how to turn him on. You curl your lips beneath your teeth and slowly bob your head back and forth.

“No no no. Not like that,” he chides you. “This ain’t no cock in your mouth.” He shakes his head. “They’re my fingers.” His eyes are wide and serious. “And I don’t want you thinkin ‘bout anythin else but that. Alright, darlin?” He’s nodding up and down, waiting for you to mirror him.

You nod back the best you can and adapt.  You press the two fingers into the roof of your mouth and suck hard, scraping them along your teeth as you pull your head back. Your lips are wrapped tight around them. You rub your tongue back and forth between them as you engulf them again. You watch him as he watches you through heavy eyelids.

“Good girl,” he says again and licks his lips. His gloved hand moves to your other breast, squeezing it with a rough grip. “Good fuckin girl. Suck those fingers,” he says and you can feel him wiggle them in your mouth. 

You go weak in the knees and you’re not sure how you’re able to stay upright. By the grace of god, you’re able to reach up and grab his hand. You pull his fingers out and then take only one finger back inside. 

He watches you, curious, twisting your nipple in his hand.

Then you add the second finger back in, sucking it. Wetting it. Drool pooling around the edges of your mouth.

You pull those two out and then you suck three fingers in–not as deep and they’re scraping against your teeth more, but you try to give that third finger some extra attention, tracing along the bottom of it with the tip of your tongue.

“You want it bad, huh?” He looks like he’s scowling, but he’s still grinding against you–hard as ever.

You nod.

“You want my hands all over you, baby?” He applies the smallest amount of pressure to his bare, wet fingers in your mouth, causing you to gag. 

Tears tumble out the edges of your eyes as you nod.

He pulls his hands away from you and steps back. “I need you on that bed. Naked. Now."

You rush to do as he says, removing all your clothes in a flurry. You barely register the low hum of the A/C and the cool temperature of the room. You’re too focused on the towering man walking towards you, your legs spreading of their own accord.

His lips are tight and he sucks in a deep breath. "That is one good lookin pussy." He unbuckles his belt and rips it from the loops of his jeans. His eyes roam over your body as he tosses it to the side, the buckle thudding against the carpet. He tugs his t-shirt up his stomach and over his head. "Can't wait to make it mine."

Once his jeans are off and he's just as bare as you (except for the glove on his hand), he waves for you to scoot back before joining you. 

Joel settles himself on his side, propped up on his elbow. He makes no move toward his hardened cock. Instead, the hand you were sucking on before finds your face again–cradling it. And this time, his thumb tucks itself between your lips. 

You suck on it like a straw. 

"How many o’ these you think you can fit in there?" He says. But he’s not referring to your mouth. His gloved hand has found its way between your legs and folds. One lone finger is prodding at your wet entrance. He squints and looks down as he pulls it back out–only having gone in an inch or two. The tip of his glove glistens in the warm glow of the room's lamps. He looks back at you with a grin, sliding his finger in deeper. "Wonder if I can fit em all." He bites his lip as he stares at yours, plunging his finger in and out. "Fuck you with my whole hand."

You close your eyes and moan.

"Yeah? That sound good to you?" He adds a second finger, pushing both into you slowly.

You open your eyes and nod eagerly–humming in agreement. His thumb tugs at your cheek from inside your mouth. 

Joel chuckles. "Nah, not this time." He licks his lips. His eyelids are heavy. “My cock’s too hungry for it.”

 You pull his thumb out of your mouth. You lick his palm, tracing the deep creases with your tongue. "Whatever you want."

He curses under his breath.

His two gloved fingers curl and stroke your inner walls and while the sensation is high-pitched and pleasing, you're more focused on properly worshiping his bare hand. 

Your tongue leaves his palm and you turn his hand over so you can suck the knuckles. Fulfilling one of the many fantasies you've had about Joel since first meeting him. You swirl your tongue around the hill of bone beneath the skin before lowering your mouth and suckling. 

Joel groans. "You love it that much, huh?" He curls his fingers, scraping against your inner clitoris muscle. "Love sucking on me?"

"Yeah," you whimper as your hips jump. 

"Fuck, that’s what I like to hear." Joel removes the two gloved fingers from inside you. He glides them up and around your folds, spreading your slick and teasing your clit. 

It feels …different–how the hard and thin seams of the glove create an added sensation. A starker tease alongside the languid movement of his hand. 

You look down in time to see Joel adding a third finger inside you, the pressure growing too slowly for your taste. But again, you have another task to attend to. 

You suck Joel's pinky in your mouth and bob your head a few times before releasing it.  You suck it right back in with his ring finger alongside it.

He grunts and moans, his three fingers jerking inside you. Your pussy is wet and squelching. His lips go tight as he watches his glove shine more and more with your slick. 

He pulls his fingers out of your mouth and holds your head in place as he kisses you, biting and tugging on your lips. His tongue pushing in so deep, it feels like he's trying to drink you. 

"Fuck, that wet pussy sounds fuckin good. You gonna let me put my cock in there?" He speaks into your mouth. 

Your stomach swoops and your body is on fire. "Yes, please, Joel," you moan. "Please fill me up with your cock." 

He pulls his gloved fingers out of you. His eyes are big and wide. "You think you deserve it?"

"What?!" After everything? After all the sucking and fawning and–how? How could he deny you? You panic. 

"Please, Joel," you whine. You wrap your arms around him and kiss him up and down his neck. "I sucked your fingers so good. I sucked you so good." You're desperate. "I'm so wet for you." You kiss him down his chest. "Never been this wet."  You grab his cock, aiming to put it in your mouth. "Please-please-please!"

His gloved hand, covered in slick, wraps around your chin and jawbone, stopping you. "That's not the wet hole I want," he says and pushes you back, flat on the mattress. He quickly settles between your legs. There's no need for him to spit on his cock or glide it through your folds–your leaking arousal on the sheets. He uses his bare hand to guide it to your entrance. 

He groans and curses as he pushes in. 

"Thank you thank you thank you, Joel," you whisper and whimper as he sparks all your aching nerve endings. 

His forearms are on either side of you–his broad shoulders and body cage you in. “Fuck, this pussy is heaven, baby.”

The slow moving roll of his hips is the opposite of your panicked desperation, but it feels delicious. Turning all the glowing embers into full-blown fire. “So good, so good,” you mumble.

“Yeah? You like that cock, baby?” he asks with a smirk.

“Cock’s so good, Joel.”

He thrusts harder, his speed only slightly increased. Each heavy, steady flick of his hips sends a shock wave of pleasure through you. His bare thumb finds its way back into your mouth. “Suck on this ‘til you cum, baby.”

You nod. You can’t imagine what you look like. The lower half of your face feels wet with your spit. Your eyes are barely open, but you can’t stop staring at the beautiful man above you. His furrowed brows. His tight lips. His flared nostrils as he pounds into you faster and faster.

“Good girl,” he says as he tucks his head down and presses his cheek into yours. “Good girl, suckin me so good.” His arm wraps around your shoulder and pulls your body closer. “Knew you’d take good care o’ me. Knew this pussy’d be so wet.”

The heat inside you is building faster than you expected. You’re meeting his thrusts with your own–your thighs slapping into his hips. 

“Love suckin my fingers, don’t you, baby? Don’t you?” His lips find yours again and he kisses you with his thumb still in your mouth. 

His hips slow down and a desperate groan escapes your lungs, punched out by your diaphragm. You plead, but your words are intelligible.

He pulls his thumb from between your lips. “Whatchu need, baby?” He's rolling into you again, languid and rhythmic. 

“Make me come, Joel. Please make me come.”

“You need to come, baby?”

“Please, please,” you whine. 

“Alright, alright.” He leans back, his bare thumb back in your mouth and his gloved fingers on your clit. He doesn’t thrust any faster and it drives you crazy.

You try to shift his pace, fuck yourself on him til he gets the point–but instead he stops thrusting altogether.

“You got this, baby, come on,” he says with a smirk, making you do all the work. “Come on.”

Well, except for his hand rubbing circles on your clit. You writhe and squirm on his cock, chasing chasing chasing that fiery, burning heat. It’s there. It’s so close.

“Good girl, good li’l thumb-sucker,” he says and something twists inside your gut so hard you immediately come with a loud whimper. Body pulsing and pussy contracting around him. He grunts and curls his hips–as if he didn’t have a choice but to push himself deeper into your orgasm. He pulls his thumb from your mouth and strokes your chin with it. “Good fuckin girl, comin all over me.”

He falls back on top of you and wraps you up in his arms.

Your vision is blurry and you’re trying to catch your breath when he starts thrusting again–hard and fast.

“Knew you’d be good for me. Knew you’d be so fuckin wet.” 

Your body jerks and trembles from the stimulation, and you’re too blissed out to do anything but take it. 

“Knew you’d love suckin me.” He speaks through panting breaths. “Knew this pussy’d be so fuckin good.” He pushes himself up onto his hands. “You wanna come one more time, baby?” he asks.

You’re not sure, but you think the noise that comes out of you is one of agreement. You nod your head, whole body bouncing from his thrusts.

“‘M gonna fill you up,” he grunts with his brows pulled tight. “Come with me while I fill you up.” 

You want to, you really want to come one more time. And he’s pounding into you so hard, your bodies are slapping again. And his eyes and his voice and the determination on his face.

“Come with me, baby, come on,” he chokes out. Then he groans, heavy and low, and you can feel it–you can feel his milky release spurting out and filling you up. He stays above you, trying to catch his breath. “Didja come again?”

You smile. “No, but that’s okay,” you say. God, he’s beautiful. The way his eyes crinkle at the edges and how his beard frames his face.

“Like hell it is,” he murmurs and pulls out of you. He falls to your side again and two gloved fingers dip inside of you, his come spilling out. “You want my thumb again, baby?”

You nod and he gives it to you. You suck on it, pressing the pad of skin against your teeth. He pulls his fingers out and spreads his seed around your clit in circles, making a big mess of your folds.

You’re still dizzy and still over-stimulated, but his eyes are so big and sweet.

“I’ll stay here as long as it takes,” he says as he alternates between thrusting his fingers inside you and rubbing your clit. His brand-new gloves likely ruined.

You grab his wrist when you feel yourself getting close. When the heat hotter than fire starts to build inside of you again. You pant through your nose, your mouth glued to his thumb.

“Took such good care o’ me, baby.” He leans over you and presses his cheek to yours. His voice echoing through you. “Lemme take care o’ you. Lemme make you come, beautiful. Lemme make you come. Wantchu comin on my fingers every day with this pretty li’l pussy. So good for lettin me fill you up. You sucked me so good. Lemme take care o’ you, baby. Lemme make you come.”

It’s less powerful than your first, but the pulse of pleasure your orgasm sends through you is strong and satisfying. You moan and tug Joel’s hand away now that you're starkly overstimulated. “Oh my god,” you sigh, barely able to open your eyes.

Joel chuckles as his hand slides up your body. “Knew you’d be good for me.”

++++++

a/n: It’s been so long since I’ve written just-smut that I really don’t know how to end it. ‘And then they showered and took a nap!’ lol!

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Connection: Virgil

Read on Ao3 Part 1 Janus

Warnings: panic attack

Pairings: prinxiety

Word Count: 2471

Virgil glances up as the door to the coffee shop dings and grins when he sees the cute boy again.

Virgil glances up as the door to the coffee shop dings and grins when he sees the cute boy again. He's gotten pretty good at predicting when certain students are going to come in and Princey's about as firm a schedule as it gets. He leans against the counter and props his hand on his chin, waiting for Roman to look up and see him.

"Hey there, Princey."

"What? Oh. Uh, hey."

Virgil frowns. "You okay?"

"Oh, aren't we all."

That…wasn't an answer. Roman's still patting his pockets like he's lost something. After a few moments, he lets out a noise of triumph as he produces a piece of paper and smooths it over his knee. He reads it once or twice, mouthing a few of the words, before he sighs and folds it up again, still holding it in his hand. Only then does he seem to realize he has, in fact, made it to where he was trying to go and his face flips through several expressions before landing on one that any of Virgil's coworkers would be proud to have.

"Virgil! Hello, yes, hi. Sorry, I'm a bit out of it right now."

"No problem, I've been there." He moves to the register. "You want your massive pile of sugar?"

"Ah, no."

Now this is a problem. Never once in all the months that he's been coming here has Roman ever deviated from his normal order. Thankfully—or rather, thanks to having to work a customer service job—Virgil recovers in a split second and just nods. "Sure, bud. What do you want instead?"

"What's the cheapest thing on the menu?"

"…technically we have to give out free cups of water, so that's the cheapest thing, but I think some of the roasts are only, like fifty cents—"

"I'll have a cup of water, thanks."

Problem. Problem central. Houston, we are having so many problems right now.

"Hey, Princey?"

"Mm?"

"Are you—wellness check. Not a bit, not customer service, are you okay?"

For a moment, he thinks Roman's just going to brush it off. Say that he's fine or another equal non-answer and Virgil will just have to sneak a cookie into his bag again to make sure he's doing alright, but then the whole man just deflates. It's almost impressive, the way he loses about two inches of height and just manages to look small—though the man's an actor, so it makes sense that he knows how to change his appearance with just body language—but more importantly, this is Roman beginning to admit he's not okay.

Oh, fuck, Roman's not okay.

"Hey, hey," Virgil's saying softly before he even realizes it, reaching across the counter, "stay with me, bud, it's gonna be alright. I'm right here, there's no one else here—" quick check to make sure that's really true— "it's just us. You're safe here."

The piece of paper crinkles ominously in Roman's hand. Slowly, telegraphing his movements so Roman can stop him, Virgil reaches up and carefully takes his hand in his. Roman jerks, glaring hard at Virgil's expression for a moment, before he softens and lets himself be led to lean against the counter.

"I'm gonna get you that cup of water," Virgil says, still speaking softly, "and then you and I are gonna go sit in the back, yeah?"

"You're working," Roman mumbles.

"You see anyone else here?"

"…no."

"Then it's okay. Come on, Princey, you can do it. I believe in you."

It makes a little hysterical snort come out of Roman but he looks steady enough to let go while Virgil shoves a cup under a sink—lid, straw on instinct—and carries it back over. He nudges it gently into Roman's free hand and scoots around the counter, offering a shoulder to lean on while they walk to the back. He nudges the door open with his foot and carefully deposits the Roman-pile onto a beanbag chair.

"Hey," he murmurs once they're sitting, still talking a bit like Roman's a feral cat about to swipe at him, "hey, Princey. Drink some of that water, yeah?"

Roman sticks the straw in his mouth and takes a few gulps. The water does the trick; he gives himself a bit of a shake and sets it down, leaning back against the wall and covering his face with his hands. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, we've all been there." He leans back too, shoulder to shoulder. "You wanna talk about it?"

"It's dumb."

"Princey, a lot of things in this world are dumb. Not selling both shoes in a pair for the same price, upcharging people for an extra straw—"

Roman snorts again and Virgil grins.

"—but whatever's making you upset probably isn't that. Unless you tell me you're upset 'cause the school voted not to host that alt-right speaker, then we're gonna have questions."

"Listen here, you absolute jackwagon—"

Virgil laughs and after a moment, Roman joins in. And then, well, Virgil's gotta take a moment just to stare at him because goddamnit, Roman Prince is adorable when he laughs and Virgil is here to appreciate it. He's got this smile that—okay, no, Virgil knows it's cliche to wax on about someone's smile but Roman's is perfect. He's got that slightly crooked one where one side of his mouth curls up a little higher than the other and then his eyes get all wrinkly at the corners and his nose scrunches up right in the middle…he's so gosh darn cute.

Then he stops laughing and starts to look like a sad puppy again and Virgil shifts closer, pressing their sides together.

"I'm not going anywhere, Princey," he says quietly, "you can tell me if you want."

Roman takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "They're changing how they're doing financial aid scholarships."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mhm." His fingers toy with the paper. "They—they want higher grades now and they've capped how much they're going to give out."

Virgil sits up a little more. There's a wrinkle in between Roman's brows now.

"I—so I just came from a meeting with my academic advisor, right, and I was like—I told her that I really need this scholarship money, like I don't think I can be here without it and she said—she said she'd take it up with the Dean and I could come and present my case in person, but I just—"

He lets out a shuddering breath, leaning his head back against the wall again.

"I don't know if I can do this."

Virgil's quiet for another moment, just in case Roman isn't done. When he doesn't say anything else, he gently taps Roman's arm. He gets the hit and starts to drink more of the water.

"I can't imagine how scary that must be," he starts off, "and I'm so sorry you're going through this right now. That's really shitty of them to do to you and I really wish it weren't happening."

"You and me both."

"But when it comes to you not being able to do it? Princey, look at me." Roman turns and he's got this sad little pouty face and Virgil can feel himself getting softer by the second. "You are one of the strongest people I know, okay? You will get through this, 'cause I know you and I know you'll kick the ass of any problem that thinks it can fuck with you."

"What? How am I one of the strongest people you know?"

"Raising your brother like you are? Being in the amount of extracurriculars you are? Roman, you work a part-time job as an independent contractor in college. Do you know how many people wish that would be their first job after college? I know the website you write for fucking loves you, the coach of the school's team fucking loves you, and your professors think you're hot shit."

"No, they don't."

"Yeah, they do. Bud, from what it sounds like, you're a hop, skip, and a jump away from TA-ing about half of your literature classes and I know your theatre professor wants to steal you away and make you a full-time theatre major. And your academic advisor just went to the Dean to go to bat for you."

"My math professor doesn't like me."

"From what it sounds like, he doesn't like anybody."

"There's at least one person he likes."

"You're not gonna get everyone, Princey, you know that. I mean, hey, most of the people that come in here think I'm pretty great—"

"That's 'cause you are."

Don't fucking say shit like that, Princey, you'll make me blush— "but then there's that tiny percentage that think I'm poisoning their drinks with my queerness, you feel?"

In hindsight, he could've timed that better so as not to say it when Roman's taking another sip of his water. He pats his back apologetically as Roman coughs, shooting him a mock look of betrayal that's undercut by the grin he can see taking shape under there.

"The point I was trying to make," he says once Roman's got control of his lungs back, "is that you're not alone in this. I'm sure you're not the only student who's gonna be fucked over by this and you've got friends. I know for sure your professors would be willing to fight for you and you've got friends. Right? You got me."

"I know I do."

Fuck. Shit. Abort mission. He's too cute. He's too cute and too earnest and he's looking at me like that. Shit. Fuck. Why is he so cute?

"Thank you, Virgil," Roman says softly, apparently oblivious to the havoc he's wreaking on Virgil's insides, "that means a lot. You're right, I know it's probably gonna be okay, I just…you know, it can be overwhelming."

You're telling me. "Yeah, I get that. It's okay to be overwhelmed, Princey, just take a sec before you start bouncing off walls."

Roman chuckles. "Sure."

"Can I ask…?"

"Yeah?"

Virgil nods to the piece of paper. "What's that?"

"Oh. The, uh, they're the new requirements and the scholarship caps." He unfolds it. "See? They're not gonna give out these ones anymore and you need to have these grades just to make it by. The—well. I won't go on and on. I've taken you away from the front for too long."

Virgil hits his arm affectionately. "You're a delight, is what you are, so you explain all you want."

"But the others—"

Stop being so adorably considerate or I'll have to kiss you about it. "Deal: we go back out to the front, you let me make you your ungodly amount of sugar while you explain this to me, and then you drink it and chill for five minutes before you go dash off again."

"Are you gonna refund it again?"

"No." Virgil smirks as he gets up. "I'm not even gonna charge you for it."

"Virgil, you could get in trouble for—"

"For buying a cute boy a drink? Not on my boss's life." He winks and wiggles his fingers as Roman splutters. "C'mon, Princey, what were you saying about the scholarships?"

Roman narrows his eyes at him but takes his hand, letting Virgil pull him up as they leave the back room. Virgil pats the counter right next to where the drinks station is, waiting for Roman to come over and stand before getting back to work.

"So the new grade requirements actually aren't that different from what you need to be on the team or in the theatre department, so it shouldn't be that much harder to keep them up, but that does mean that there's no longer that safety net, you know? 'Cause if my grades start slipping I could drop the team or the acting and then just focus on school, but now it's kind of an all-or-nothing situation and—I dunno. It makes it more stressful."

"Well, yeah, that makes sense. Mocha syrup?"

"Uh, sure."

"Is it at all a relief that you just have to keep your grades where they are right now? You don't suddenly have to aim for a whole grade higher?"

"A bit? I don't know, it's—it's really annoying that they've decided to do this this year, 'cause now I'm kinda stuck. Not that I could really afford to apply to a different school and move and everything anyway, but…still. Sucks."

"I bet. How much ice?"

"That's good. The good thing is that when I talked it over with my advisor, I asked if we could push for having this apply to incoming students instead of the ones that are already here and she said that might work, so…that's what I'm hoping for."

"Reasonable. And yeah, I know the Board's made individual exceptions in the past, if you make your case you could be one of them."

"But then that's not fair to everyone else who's gonna get screwed over by this."

"They can go in front of the Board too, I'm sure. And it might be the case of if the Board sees how many students they're actually going to be affecting—and good students at that, maybe they'll think twice about being—what did you call it? 'Jackwagons?'"

Roman snorts. "Yeah. Jackwagons."

"Maybe they'll think twice about being absolute motherfuckers."

He grins when Roman doubles over laughing, putting the lid on and sliding his drink over with a flourish. Then he has to just take a moment to bask in the glory that is Roman laughing, his chin on his hands as he feels himself smiling too.

"Thank you, Virgil," Roman manages when he gets himself together, "I really, really appreciate this. I can pay you back—"

"No, you cannot. Ah—" he holds up his finger when Roman goes to protest—"none of that. You don't owe me anything. You're my friend, I'm happy to do stuff for you."

"You sure?"

"Well, if you really wanna pay me back, you can let me take you out to dinner."

A little blush forms on the top of Roman's cheeks—criminally adorable, this man—and he shakes his head. "You know, you're not the only person who's asked me that recently."

"Of course I'm not, you're too cute for that."

"Virgil!"

"Answer me this, though." He leans over the counter. "Any of these people know your favorite drink by heart?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Just a little something to keep in mind."

"You're the worst."

"Mhm. You gonna do something about it?"

"Is that a thinly-veiled 'are you saying yes?'"

"Maybe."

Roman sighs. "Could we do a lunch instead? Remus needs to be home and studying for his test and I don't wanna leave him all by himself if he needs support."

"Yeah, of course. We can even do that sandwich shop around the corner that does the free half-sandwich if you buy two."

"Deal."

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[petmonster-furfur]

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[hoodcl4ssic]

🍵Kojiro Nanjo Headcanons

I'm making these because projection is what I do best and I love him <3

----

His Momma is Black and was born in Italy (Afroitaliani), the reason why he wanted to go to Italy for schooling, and his Dad is Asian.

He is a total Momma's Boy. He clung around his Momma so much as a kid and always loved to watch her cook.

He has an older sister that he loves and clung onto so much as a child. He goes to her for advice when he needs it.

To this day, this man does not know what to do with his hair at all. He can buy all the right products for it, all the brushes and combs, watch every video and still not know what to do with it.

He usually goes to his Momma if he wants his hair done correctly.

He does not like ice cream and everyone that knows him thinks he is absolutely weird for it.

His Momma heart shattered when she found out he didn't like red beans.

He loves kids so much and would love to have some of his own someday.

The fan service this man has provided at S is horrendous. The man will basically strip tease his fans.

He does not like sad or somber sounding music. He prefers really upbeat music. (I like to think he likes Whitney Houston)

He will belt songs so early in the morning while he's getting ready for work or just cooking breakfast and Kaoru absolutely despises it.

He is bilingual. He can speak Japanese, English, Italian, and French. He would want to learn more, but he doesn't have a lot of time to.

He bakes under stress. Stress baking. He has made 3 cakes due to him being under stress before. Kaoru had to pry the utensils out of his hands.

[ckret2]

first of all - i really love your characterization of alastor! i saw ur post on 'how alastor would react to a buzzfeed unsolved-type video on his crimes' a while ago and id like to ask - do you think he was ever considered as a suspect? would there even be any real suspects? thank you for all ur writing and ideas :D

tl;dr, my personal headcanon is that he was never considered as a suspect, but have an extremely detailed explanation!

So, until we learn more from canon, here's my overall headcanon of Alastor as a serial killer. Read more (if tumblr cooperates) for a long headcanon post and for brief mentions of the gory things serial killers do.

- His preferred target was hunters and his weapon of choice was a standard hunting rifle. This means that, for a while, individual killings could be brushed off as "some irresponsible hunter accidentally shot another hunter, and either it was a wild shot and the shooter never saw where the bullet went, or he realized he'd accidentally shot somebody and fled like a coward." Unlike more obvious serial killer strategies—example, the Axeman of New Orleans' "people found axed to death inside their own homes" deal—it would take a while for Alastor's killings to be recognized as deliberate murder probably committed by one person.

- Most serial killers have a pretty small hunting ground, somewhere near where they live that's familiar/comfortable to them, and they don't stray far outside it. Compared to the Axeman again—the Axeman primarily attacked people in Italian-American immigrant communities in New Orleans, which made it easy to identify a pattern after only a few attacks. Since the Axeman was never identified, there's no way for us to know whether he lived in the neighborhoods where he killed—but like, he probably wasn't driving in from Houston.

Alastor, on the other hand, broke that pattern by killing at various hunting grounds around Louisiana—and maybe even neighboring states, I haven't decided yet—so it was harder to pinpoint where the killer lived and start searching that area for suspects.

- Many serial killers are identified by the rituals they tend to perform with their victims. Example: Jack the Ripper, who liked to disembowel his victims in a way that made police think he had experience as a surgeon. Desecrating/mutilating bodies in consistent ways is common, as are particular/identifiable body disposal methods. These rituals are typically things that have nothing to do with committing the murder itself, which means the killer just did them for fun. Alastor didn't have these. Shooting was where it started and ended for him. No undressing the body, no mutilating it, no moving it, no stealing trophies—he left them as they fell, sometimes leaving the scene before his victim was dead.

Oftentimes serial killers kill to try to enact some fantasy, and often their kills get more elaborate over time as they find that whatever high they're trying to get from their kill doesn't last. Alastor's fantasies revolved around hunting/killing his equals like game animals—hence his choice of victim, weapon, and crime scene. So I think Alastor's kills would have gotten more elaborate (and thus easier to identify) over time—starting with field dressing the corpse as if it was a deer, and eventually progressing to taking home cuts of "meat" from the victims to eat. (In a recent stream, it was revealed that Alastor wasn't a cannibal while he was alive, only after death; so I've been headcanoning him as having fantasized about cannibalism while he was a serial killer but never having worked up the nerve to perform it.) But Alastor died before he got that far, so his crime scenes were fairly nondescript until his death.

- Because he was killing on hunting grounds, the areas were sparsely populated, which means fewer potential witnesses would ever see him. And if they did, because of how far he was from home, they probably wouldn't recognize him and could only include a vague physical description of him in their list of all the strangers they saw in the area that day.

- Because he'd just kill someone and leave the body there in the woods, it would often be several days before the corpse was found—depending on how long, it might be difficult to identify how long it'd been dead. (Especially if the victim had been camping out there several days so family members couldn't just say "yeah he went hunting on Tuesday and didn't come back," a camping trip means a window of several days the murder could occur.) Oftentimes he'd be back home several days before the murder was discovered and reported, making it even harder to track down who'd been in the area at the time.

- Alastor was killing complete strangers—people he'd never met before, didn't know the names of, didn't even know what towns they were from—which would make it impossible for anyone to find the killer by cross-referencing the victims' acquaintances.

- From early on he started prioritizing coming up with alibis that would put him away from the scene of the crime; because people would rightly become suspicious if they realized that every time he talked about going on a hunting trip and gee wiz he didn't get any game how sad, there was a mention in the papers of another hunter being shot. (Although originally, he started making up cover stories not to hide his crimes but to comfort his mother. "Yes Ma, I know you're worried about all the hunters getting shot lately. No Ma, I'm not going on a hunting trip this weekend, I'm uhhh going to visit Pa's family.")

Initially his cover stories were as simple as just "don't tell people I'm going hunting this weekend." Sometimes he'd make up a story about what he did yesterday in town so that when another kill hit the papers nobody would even think to wonder whether Alastor had been there at the time.

As he got deeper into his murder hobby, sometimes he'd prerecord a radio show and wheedle someone at the studio into playing it for him at his usual hour—which, in the early days of broadcasting, was actually illegal. Radio stations were under an obligation to primarily broadcast live content—otherwise, the radio station wasn't providing a service you couldn't get from a phonograph —with only a few exceptions like playing a rerun of a special broadcast a few days later for people who missed it the first time. As a daily radio host, Alastor's programming would be the sort least likely to be permitted one of those exceptions. Which meant he was gonna get the station in a bit of trouble if anyone outside the couple of sympathetic producers who let him do this found out that he was occasionally broadcasting prerecorded segments; but it also meant that nobody would ever imagine that the guy on the air at 9 am was halfway across the state at 10 am when another hunter was shot.

All these cover stories woulda fallen apart pretty quickly if somebody ever looked into them—but since he never made it onto anybody's list of suspects, nobody ever came around the station to ask where was Alastor on the morning of Monday the 14th, was he really here broadcasting?

- I also headcanon that Alastor started making deals with demons long before he died—I mean, it's not like he arrived in Hell instantly knowing how to make predatory soul bargains without prior practice, right?—so he was probably using them to help cover his trail. Things like "help me not get caught for this murder, and in exchange the murder victim's soul is yours."

So! That's how he killed, and how he avoided being identified as a suspect.

It probably woulda happened eventually. He'd gradually started killing more often, partially because he increasingly craved that violent fix (particularly because he never quite perfected it to his satisfaction, it never quite fully scratched his itch), and partially because he had more demons to pay off with blood; and authorities and hunters in Louisiana were getting wise to the threat in their midst, trying to increase monitoring of people moving in and out of hunting sites, and watching each other more warily if they crossed paths in the woods, thus increasing his chances of witnesses or even of being caught in the act.

But he got shot.

While Alastor was stalking one of his soon-to-be victims, the almost-victim spotted Alastor, mistook him for a deer, and set his dog on him. (Or maybe he shot first and then the dog went charging in, haven't decided yet.) When he realized that this wasn't a deer but An Actual Human Person And Fellow Hunter who was now mangled and bleeding to death, he panicked, his brain went "DESTROY THE WITNESS," and he shot Alastor point blank, and then he panicked again. He was caught trying to hide the body.

There were a few farfetched suspects investigated as potentially being the serial killer based on circumstantial evidence, but to this day the one person repeatedly identified as the most probable suspect is, ironically, the man who killed the real serial killer—because after he was arrested, the killings stopped. He was found not guilty for bullshit reasons (it was a fraught case) but even when the killings didn't resume, the believers think it's because he got spooked after nearly being convicted and decided to stop murdering.

Which also means, in a lot of cold case documentaries/books about the serial killer, Alastor himself is identified as the serial killer's probable last victim—which he finds hysterical.

[goldeneyedgirl]

Jaliceweek20 Day 1

Against a Wall Part 2

Jaliceweek20 Day 1: Human/Vampire

Words: 6264

Notes: It is DONE. JALICEWEEK IS DONE. I am tired, so I’ll do a wrap up tomorrow. I’m honestly not sure how happy I am with this ending - I’ll write more notes tomorrow once sleep had been acquired but there still might be a third enormous rewrite.

I’m just so excited I finished EVERY SINGLE PROMPT.

Warnings for: suicidal ideation.

—

Nineteen.

There was a shoebox under his bed with a bunch of stuff in it, that he’s collected over his life. Stuff that was special - Sorates’ collar, a rock shaped like a dog, the rubber spider his grandfather bought him from the dime store. And the last thing he put in it was an unopened back of Skittles.

He wonders where that box is now.

—

Things are hard to remember. The doctors say his memory should return, with time, and everything will stop feeling like someone scooped them all out of his brain and threw them up in the air like confetti.

He remembers… Ava. No, not Ava. Yes, Ava, his sister.

She did something.

Ava lit the fuse that had been dangling over the family for six years. Wasn’t Ava’s fault. Never blamed her. He hurt for her.

Louise found the bit of paper and freaked out, yes. It was Ava’s paper. Evidence. And Louise was shrieking. And Jerry heard.

Everybody heard. He remembers making Flo and Hettie stay in the kitchen, hide under the table if you need to (the screen door is banging, Lydia is gone like a puff of air at the first sign of trouble; wish she’d taken Flo and Hettie this time). Hettie had already been sniffling, and he’d left the kitchen.

Bang.

He’d gotten between Ava and their father.

He would have killed them both; that look in his eye. There wasn’t love or affection in that gaze. There wasn’t recognition of his children. There was just rage. That’s a look he wished he could forget; of all the things lost in the confetti, he wants to know why that moment that Jerry looked at him and Ava (Ava was bleeding, can’t remember why) is still there?

Then it’s a blur. Then there’s nothing.

Then he joins the military. He walks away entirely, with only what he can carry and doesn’t leave any parting words because there’s nothing to be said.

No. Something happens before that.

Ava packed her car, yes, packed in Hettie and Flo, suitcases and boxes, and at the last minute Lydia materialises into the passenger seat, whilst their mother tries to … beg? Yell? Ava’s face is black and blue and bandaged, and there was someone he knew who could fix that, with Mary Poppins’ bag…

Then Ava drives off, and their mom is crying, and he walks straight to the nearest recruitment office even though he doesn’t graduate for another three months because once the bomb has gone off, there’s no taking it back.

—

What was the bomb again?

Bomb. Which bomb?

Ava’s, not the one that… not the other one.

Paperwork from Planned Parenthood. There was a baby, but Ava’s already raising her sisters, so she sucked it up, stole $500 from their father’s study, and took care of it. She’d thrown the money back in their father’s face, money she got from her own account, and their father had punched her so hard he broke her nose and her orbital bone, and then it gets blurry again.

His body stings and aches and itches. He recites all the swears he knows in his head, and a few he doesn’t, and he wishes everything would put itself right again.

Bang.

—

The other bomb. That’s why he’s here, in the VA hospital. The one that was strapped to a little boy who ran up to one of the guys in his unit, grinning and clutching a soccer ball to hide the shape obscuring his torso.

Bang.

Bombs don’t sound like ‘bang’ either. They are a vacuum of noise and pain and detritus and fire and he now knows the sound-taste-smell of roasted human fresh.  They are wiping out all but two members of a unit and a little boy who didn’t have a choice or an idea of what he was getting into.

The images are burnt onto his brain forever; when he closes his eyes, all he sees is a face roast black and splitting open to reveal the ruby red of the blood and muscle underneath, leaking clear and yellow fluid.

Empty, black eye sockets staring, just sticky blackened holes.

Bodies arched and twisted in pain, looking like blacked trees and burnt bark until you remember where you are and what you’re looking at and some of that burnt bark flesh is your own.

He wishes those memories would disappear.

Less than a year in the army, and already medically discharged. So much for an escape plan. Has to be a record, shortest army career in Whitlock family history. Shorter even than Uncle Wyatt’s, but Wyatt was smart enough to die outright, so it’s just a damn tragedy instead of a humiliation. He knows how the game is played.

Fuckin’ Whitlock curse comes for all of them eventually.

The skin graft hurts like hell, and the medication is still scrambling him, and even when the doctors have pulled out every last stitch, he still looks like some kind of monster pieced together from leftovers. There are still scars, dozens of scars. He asks when they’ll go, but the doctors just brush over his question - plastic surgery is the most solid of answers, but nobody wants to commit to an answer, so he guess he has it. This is how he looks now.

They fill his pockets with pills and send him on his way with their gratitude for his service, as if he has somewhere to be, someone to go to. He’s got nearly ten months of army pay just sitting there - minus a chunk that confuses him until he remembers he’s been sending money to Ava, a neat row of transactions he’s simply labelled ‘miss you’.

Should’ve sent her more.

He stays in Houston, doesn’t bother going home. There’s nothing there for him - his sisters are gone; Ava’s in Austin for college with the girls. Ava, who is somehow juggling three sisters, a college degree, probably a part-time job, and all her own pain.

Maybe he should go to Ava. But the idea of dragging himself all the way to Austin, to sleep on a couch or something, and have his sisters see this ruined version of him makes him want to hide.

The idea of his shaking hands, and the crisscross of scars, and limp being seen by sweet Hettie, dear Flo, sharp Lydia, and tired Ava; knowing they’ll hear his uneven pacing, his wild panic, his endless nightmares makes him stay away - he can’t even pick up the phone. He failed them so many times, and he can’t expect them to put him back together now. Ava’s got nothing left for herself, the others are too young; Lydia’d be graduating this year, she doesn’t need a fuckin’ ghoul of a brother hovering in the background after everything she went through. Better they remember him as he was, as the name on a receipt, that whatever he is now.

His mother is probably still there; working too many hours at the VA hospital and burning toast and being tired. She wrote to him once or twice after he left, and he hated how those letters made him feel. They were all messy apologies and excuses and blame and misery framed in the day-to-day monotony of her life. He felt her hollowness at being left, the mother of five with no children in her home. She should have been helping Lydia pick a prom dress, arranging her graduation party and college tours; driving up to visit Ava at college; sending him inedible cookies; dropping Flo off on her first date, and spoiling baby Hettie even though she’s almost in middle school. But she couldn’t. Because they’d all walked away.

He didn’t write back. He was too angry then, and now he’s … nothing. She feels like a ghost to him, like she died the first day Jerry hit him, and she slowly faded away every Tuesday after that.

And Ava’s the only name on his paperwork, for next of kin and power of attorney shit; and that’s only so she could have his money when he was gone.

His father’s still in Sheldon, he has no doubt of that. He hopes Jerry dies in that empty old house, abandoned by everyone he should have loved better, cared for better and surrounded only by the bottles that he let salt the earth and poison his family.

His uncles are still there, as reliable as the rising and setting of the sun, most likely ready and waiting to jeer at Jasper for his wasted attempt as a soldier, for his patchwork of skin and scars, for his limp and his confetti memory; to fail so fantastically after ten lousy months. No diploma, no future, no plan.

Not even old enough for a fuckin’ drink.

Still a better shot than Bo, though. Sometimes he wants to ask them, though, to look ‘em in the eye and demand to know what they expected from him - the sole Whitlock boy, the heir to a name that meant sweet fuck-all these days - when all they did was punch him when he was down? That letting a kid get beat up, then get insulted and demeaned and mocked and yelled at… that didn’t create a good man, that didn’t create a happy, successful person. They did everything they damn well could to see him gone, failed, erased and that was before he joined the goddamn army. There was no brotherhood in the Whitlock name. Even if he had gotten out unscathed, he would have run til no one knew him, and he wouldn’t have gone home again.

But he didn’t, and here he is having bitter arguments with old men who aren’t even there.

He sits in his motel room, takes his pills with water from the bathroom, and occasionally remembers to find food. He doesn’t sleep well on the hard, musty motel bed; the nightmares come in waves even when his brain is like mush from the medications. A car door slamming, a yell from the street, the smell of cooking meat - it all sends him skittering, panicking, pacing. He can’t stop moving, and his bad knee swells up and finally he gets his hand on some liquor and he ends up slung into the stained bathtub barely able to think. Definitely not able to stand.

He just wants it to stop.

The mostly-empty bottle hits the grimy tiles and smashes, but he thinks of a girl with amber eyes and a magic bag and a watch that she gave him - hurled at him. He remembers sleeping on a cold, bony shoulder in an alley, her voice sweet and warm.

She was so mad with him that last night. He did end up back behind Dewey’s again, on more than one Tuesday, but he didn’t see her again. And it wasn’t long after that when everything went to hell, so he never got to say goodbye. Say sorry for being a dick.

He can’t quite remember what they were arguing about that last night. Whiskey and valium have chased that memory away, and his head slumps over as he sleeps. Or looses consciousness. Either way, he doesn’t have to exist for awhile, and it suits him just fine.

—

Time passes. He finds a cheaper motel, because there’s a corner of his brain that is somehow still functional and practical, and he knows what money he has has to be stretched. Someone from the VA calls his cellphone and he ignores it. He takes his pills - less than usual, because they’re running out.

His knee hurts.

He breaks a lamp and the mirror after a nightmare, and ends up at urgent care getting his knuckles stitched up by some intern who asks him too many questions.  Tries to give him pamphlets, and he resists the urge to punch the doctor in the face.

The doctor does write him new prescriptions though. That’s helpful. And he gets something to eat at the cafeteria. It starts out as a bad night and ends up being one of those mornings he almost feels human, as long as he doesn’t look in the mirror.

That’s why he picks up the phone when the VA call again.

That’s how he finds himself sitting outside the VA hospital with a paper bag of the shit he left behind. His mother’s letters, his dog-tags, and an extremely broken watch.

“Happy freakin’ birthday.”

He looks at it closely now, more closely than he did when he was given it - even if it was thrown at his head, it was a gift in his mind. The brown leather strap is stained and nearly torn through, and the brass buckle bent. The face is cracked in an almost perfect spiral. The face is mottled cream, with neat gold Roman numerals; several have come loose and rattle along the bottom, along with the minute hand. It no works, and he hopes that the internal gears are still functional.

The watch will need to be repaired professionally, to be taken apart and pieced back together. A new glass face and band, the numerals and hands put back in the rightful place.

He doesn’t even remember wearing it, that last day. He knew he had it with him the entire time, through basic training and everything, but he didn’t remember wearing it. He’d had some chunky digital thing that told him the weather and GPS and shit that had been responsible for the mutilation of his left wrist.

Carefully it into his jacket, Jasper stands and begins the walk back to the motel.

Nineteen, still.

Sometimes, he thinks about going back to Dewey’s, just to see if she ever turns up again, on a Tuesday. For some reason, when he thinks of her - Miss Alice, in her funny clothes, and her lilting voice - he thinks of her exactly how he remembers her, that she is fixed in time and will never change. That he could return to that alley a week, a year, a decade from now, and she will still be there with her bag of tricks and big golden eyes.

He thinks about her a lot. He never knew where she came from, how old she was, why she spent Tuesday nights in an alley with him. He hopes she’s safe, comfortable, and happy.

He hopes she still thinks of him.

Time marches on, and he can see his twentieth birthday rushing up to greet him. He’s done nothing to change his circumstances - the cheapest hotel room, a fistful of pills on an empty stomach, patchwork sleep haunted by corpses. The PTSD special.

He finds a bar that respects his service more than his age, and they’re happy to let him drink himself numb in the corner as long as he doesn’t make trouble, and slips out the back if the cops come round. But even when they do, and get a good look at the scars, at his jacket, at the look in his eyes, they usually just nod and move along. No one asks questions, just counts out his crumpled money and then slides his drink along the bar.

Life doesn’t feel worth much on those nights.

Stumbling back to the motel, drunk and dull, he never notices the footsteps. He just goes to his room, his home, and passes out on a stained bedcover fulling clothed, waiting for the nightmares to kick in.

—

When the nightmares press in on him, and he’s lying on the bed staring at the discoloured popcorn ceiling, all he really wants is to go home again.

Not to Sheldon.

To the ranch.

Before Hettie, before Tuesdays, before everything. Where they buried Socrates under the tree with the treehouse, where he learned to ride, and would catch rabbits, and everything was easy. He still got told off by his father for being such a disappointment, but back then, they still had the family property, so his father wasn’t so angry.

He’s stone cold sober - aside from the Vicodin and Valium rattling around in his stomach - when he decides to go home again. He even stops in at a grimy diner and shovels in a plate of eggs and some coffee before he buys the bus ticket.

He knows the old place never sold; bank couldn’t shift it. Sold some of the land, but the old farmhouse just sits there, rotting. The Whitlock curse strikes again and again, into the heart of everything.

It’s a long trip; only way out there by bus is to go via San Antonio, and then down towards the old farm on another rural bus that only runs a few times a day. And he didn’t think much about how to get from the last bus stop to the old house proper, but some old guy in a truck takes a good hard look at him - his stained jacket, his limp, the scars twisting around his limbs and under his clothes, and offers to take him wherever he’s going.

He’s stiff and sore and hungry, but he doesn’t worry about any of that. The driver’s polite, amicable, doesn’t ask too many questions but gives him the number of the only cab in town for his return trip. He nods his thanks, and begins limping up the old driveway, towards home.

The house is… sad. Not like his memories, of blood red geraniums in the window boxes, and a pile of sneakers and boots in a jumble by the front door. There aren’t any bikes leaning up against the porch railings, either. Hell, the porch has a hole in it, the wooden rotten through. The yard is an overgrown tangle - probably concealing a few snakes.

The treehouse has long since collapsed, the wooden remains jutting out from the overgrown grass like a shipwreck. Socrates’ little grave is probably still there, under it all, with the brick he and Lydia painted his name on. He was a good cat.

He’s not going to go into the house, and now that he’s here, he’s not sure why he came at all. It’s just a house he once lived in, like Sheldon. But there is something peaceful about being back here, sitting on the - thankfully brick - front steps and staring out at the road. No cars come by, neighbours are too far away to matter. It’s just him.

He lets his thoughts float. More than once, he’s wished he’d been able to keep his service weapon, finish the job the bomb started. He thought about other ways - swallowing all his pills till there’s nothing left in the bottle; buying some razor blades and cutting along his seams; finding a motel with rafters he can loop a belt around. But he doesn’t. He hasn’t. He doesn’t know why - the thought is like a mischievous cat looming over his shoulder. The cat with a too-big smile, from Hettie’s books. Sinister yet convincing and trustworthy. But the thought lingers, and right now, he wishes he’d come prepared because … it’s quiet here. It’s quiet and he associates it with good things, and he’s really, really tired.

His VA shrink said that disassociation was a common symptom of PTSD. There were methods of dealing with it, techniques he could use, but he didn’t bother remembering them. Sometimes it was nice not to feel things, to be entirely seperate from himself for awhile.

When he comes back to himself, the afternoon has turned to night, and he’s an idiot sitting outside an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, in a town with one cab. He swears under his breath, and the two braincells that are still desperately trying to keep him alive blaze into action, as he fumbles for his cellphone.

At least it isn’t dead.

He doesn’t even notice the sound as he dials, but as the phone rings he looks up in confusion, as a woman walks up the drive. She’s small enough for his heart to jump in misguided hope, waiting for that smile, those eyes, and that stupid bag that he placed so much faith in.

Her eyes are red, and her hair is long and brown. Her lips stretch too far like that stupid cat, and she takes the phone from him so gently and crushes it into a find powder. And he wishes he’d stayed drunk and high instead of staying sober and coming back to his childhood home like some kind of fucking book character.

She calls him ‘mi amor’ and apologises for what comes next.

He tries to back away, but stumbles on his bad knee, and when she hurls him back up effortlessly, she dislocates his shoulder and probably breaks his arm, and for a moment his vision swims and he yells, and that is only the very beginning of the pain.

—

In his few lucid moments over the next seventy-two hours, he wonders when he gets to stop suffering. When he finds the end of the tunnel of pain, from Tuesdays behind Dewey’s, to being half-burned alive, to be put back together and drugged senseless to function, to whatever this woman has done to him.

It feels kind of like the bomb did, except like it is taking him slowly. If he could open his eyes, he’d expected himself to be blackened and splitting, like the crust of a volcano.

If he could be sick, he would.

He thinks he screams himself hoarse. He might just think about doing it.

Red eyes watch him the entire time, with the ruby-coloured too-big smile, and if he still believed in god or fate or family curses or anything aside from the slow drip of pain in this veins, he would think she was the devil incarnate.

—

Time passes. He doesn’t know how much, since he woke up in the rotting remains of his family’s home with a burn in his throat, and Maria waiting for him. She’s quick to reassure him of his new status as a god, quick to find him something to quench the burn (the boy is young but strong and bulky; probably a high school football player. Healthy and full of blood and cries for his momma when Jasper half-rips his throat out. She is quick to caress his cheek and to kiss him long and deep and to fuck him in the wreckage of the house.  

Maria’s clan is small - only nine of them counting him. They are suspicious of him, of the way he stares and stays quiet. But Maria is quick to ease any of his own misgivings - newborns are entirely unpredictable, volatile. He is her new pet, her treasure, her mijo.

He loves what he is, truly. He leaves the pill bottles rattling in his pockets in the dirt of the farmhouse floor, and strides confidently after his new mistress. His leg is strong again, and all the scars have melted away into smooth, hard stone. He came to the farm looking for something, and he found it - himself, the way he was always supposed to be. If life had been kinder.

He’s found himself a soldier in another war, but war is a lot easier when you aren’t weighed down with equipment or fear or stupid fucking rules. When winning a battle means glutting yourself on blood, and losing means instant death, and there’s nothing in-between.

They are so fast now, hunting grounds stretch from Monterrey to Corpus Christie to San Antonio.

He refuses to go to Austin but sometimes its hard to remember why. He nearly kills Lucy when she tries to take the others to Austin, and Maria’s lips purse but she says nothing and they go to Laredo instead. They create a few more newborns, but he notices Maria’s attention to him never wavers; they are like pets, whilst he is her devoted prince.

(Later, he’ll find out it was only six god-damned months he lost. That he turned twenty and Lydia graduated somewhere in an Austin high school, and a bunch of people - mostly social workers and VA employees - were looking for him with the fear of the worst. He’d tell them that whatever ‘worse’ was, they weren’t even close.)

They figure out his gift during one furious early battle that leaves his arms and neck littered with bite marks, and they don’t go away. The venom works too fast, the bites are too deep, and he is once again a mess. A monster. His rage ripples around the camp, and everyone huddles in on themselves, and even Maria cowers a little, cooing and trying to settle him.

He makes them afraid, he makes them tremble, he tries to force them into fixing the unfixable.

Maria is so pleased with his gift, he is never punished for his tantrum. And more bite marks layer upon his skin; when he frets over them, with a sneer on his face, she laughs and promises he’ll have many, many more before they are done.

—

Nineteen, always.

Reconnaissance in the back of Houston is required, and Jasper and Maria take a small group with them. Maria is insistent there are others on their lands, and that is a crime of the highest order. They will destroy the newcomers, feed, and return to Monterrey. They each pick a point of Houston, and agree to meet in the centre.

He is ordered to the northeast, and he goes without resistance; he knows soldiering is following orders, and Maria lets his resistance to Austin go unremarked upon.

Most of his human memories are hazy, like they are so very much older than they really are. The streets he stalks are almost familiar, and he keeps his head low - more because of the blazing red of his eyes than any fear of being recognised.

There’s an aged but enticing aroma that he follows, that smells of nice, soft things; not fresh enough to guarantee a confrontation (or execution), but one that is a regular in this part of town.

It’s late enough there are few people in the street, in this working-class part of town. Even the dive bar has gone dark, and only the drunks and shift workers are left stumbling around. It’s not even hard to snag one of the less aware drunks around the wrist and vanish around into the alley with him.

His blood is nothing memorable, and it’s not hard to make the drunk look like he tripped and slashed his neck on a smashed bottle in the alley. He’s good at staging these scenes; at making things look like terrible, despicable accidents.

“Oh, Jasper.”

The words are soft and murmured, and he can’t decide whether they are sad or relieved or something in between. All he knows is that there is a sweet-smelling threat behind him, and he spins around with a snarl.

She’s only as tall as a child, with uneven black hair curling around her cheeks. She’s one of the prettiest girls he has ever seen, with huge amber-coloured eyes that remind him of porcelain dolls. She’s wearing a sky blue sweater a size too big over jeans with stars on the knees, and staring at him with hope and regret.

In the back of his brain, that little bit that is not quite human and not quite animals looks at her hard and breathes in her roses-and-rainwater scent and simply thinks, “Yes. Good.”

But the louder part recognises her as the trail he has been following, the one that Maria wants destroyed. A growl rumbles from within him, and the girl just looks sad.

“I’m so, so sorry Jasper,” she says, still standing there, not the least be defensive. “Carlisle and Edward forced me to stay away once you left, and then I tried to watch you but I lost track of where you were…” Her eyes are shiny, as if she wants to cry. “Do you remember who I am?”

The question hangs in the air between them, his growl fading away as he stares at her.

She steps closer, and he glares at her. The animal brain is getting louder - “Yes-good-yes-good-yes-good.” Her emotions are threatening, mostly sad, and she’s tiny. Nothing bad could be so dainty and pretty.

She’s right in front of him, standing on her toes as she presses her hand to his face. “I’m Alice,” she says simply, and his mind folds itself over and over again in an instant to provide him with an answer to this riddle, to this girl that is so clearly something good and known to him.

And he remembers.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s a stupid fucking decision you’re about to make.”

“At least I didn’t break it worse.”

“Happy freakin’ birthday.”

"They just looked nice. Happy.”

“I’ve come too far to watch you die in this disgusting place,”

“Alice,” he says hoarsely, and his memories of her are clear, sharp. He can remember that one strand of hair that always fell into her face; her ice cold hands roughly patching him up; the constant, lilting companionship of her voice, even when he slept. She is so clear in his mind he wonders how he forgot her in the first place.

Her smile and emotions bloom with joy all at once, and it warms him all the way through. It’s the kind of happiness that eluded him during his human life, and one he has not felt, waking up with this gift that feels like everyone’s emotions are constantly crawling on him. It’s something he wants to wrap himself in like armour.

“I’m so, so sorry,” her fingers brush a scar on his neck so gently, he wants to shudder.

“What for?” he asks, wanting to know if he can touch her. She’s so pretty and clean and is a good thing, a precious thing.

“I see things. Things that are going to happen,” Alice says, as she inspects his arm with a frown. “And when I saw what was going to happen to you in the army, I got mad that I couldn’t protect you anymore. And when you came home, I didn’t realise she was following you until it was too late and I couldn’t work out where you’d ended up. I would have come sooner if I’d known, I swear.” She turns his arm over to reveal a bite mark on his wrist and impulsively kisses it.

He flinches; the contact magnifies her emotions - and his - and it skitters pleasantly along his body.

“I don’t…” he begins, his voice still gravelly from lack of use. “I don’t blame you.”

“I do,” she replies softly, and then she backs away and that is disappointing enough that he takes a step closer to her. She giggles and smiles at him again, and he will follow her anywhere.

“You have to make a choice now,” she says, and he nods hypnotically.

“You can go back to Maria,” her voice wavers again, and he doesn’t like the coldness that sweeps through her at that statement. “And fight and kill until she’s bored with you. She creates war and destruction and monsters, Jasper, and I don’t want you to go with her. She will destroy you, and I couldn’t bear it if…” She stops, turning her head away and stays silent for a moment.

“Or,” her voice is steady again, “you can come with me.”

She holds out her hand.

“My brothers and sisters are distracting Maria and her friends for now, you and I can get away, and go somewhere safe,” she continues. “Just you and me together. I can…”

He never knows what she was going to say because his choice is made, his hand taking hers without a second thought, and she stares up at him with wide eyes, her mouth a perfect ‘o’.

“Are you sure?” she manages, and he nods. He thinks of pain, human and immortal. He thinks of rage and regret. He thinks of his lowest point as a human, of the permanent bite marks on his arms, and the weight that has only shifted now that he’s immortal, not lifted away.

He thinks of being happy and safe and clean and peaceful. He thinks of a girl sitting next to him in an alley, with her throat burning, but her only worry about his bruises.

The girl who can back for him.

Everything is still muddled, from his human life, but he knows that lot of people took him apart and remade him in both his lives. She’s the only one who tried to heal him.

“Let’s go,” he says, and she laughs sweetly, and then they are running faster than anyone can see as they disappear into the night.

—

‘Home’ is a cabin in the middle of the forest, somewhere towards the north east, he thinks. No people around, just wild animals for him to glut himself on. There is the constant running of the river beside them, covering their scent against nomads. It is quiet here - a good place to figure out the edges of his gift, to learn resistance and control, to try and heal and reconcile all that happened to him in such a short space of time.

Alice tells him Maria was indescribably desperate after his disappearance; their exit covered by a well-time rainstorm that washed all the scents away. She had torn apart Houston in her fury, and now she was in more trouble than she knew.

Meaning that Maria wouldn’t come hunting for him any time soon. And, he supposes, when she does, Alice will know. Alice knows everything.

She knows that he likes to sit on their front steps and just stare out at the forest without being disturbed. That the scent of smoke and fire sends him twitching worse than any vampire she’s ever met. That the scars that mark his arms, neck, and face are simply placeholders for the ones he gained as a human, and his disgust over them lingers from the injuries he suffered in war. That he misses his sisters, and they are one of the reasons he is so resolute in his control training. That, if nothing else, he will say good bye and fake his death to give them closure. Alice promises him that she knows someone who can help them figure all those kinds of details out, but she wants him to see his sisters one last time almost as badly.

He knows that Alice loves him, as truly as anyone has loved before. That feeling never wavers, not through his rages, his depressions, his disassociation. That just watching him read a book on their (broken) couch has joy blooming inside her. He knows that Alice will never pressure him, never ask him for more than he is ready to give - and because of that, he is willing to give her anything she asks.

Some days are harder than others, especially when Alice talks to him about her family - the one she walked away from for him - and he knows that she wants the both of them to return to the Cullens sometime in the future. And he feels obliged to do it, eventually, since her jumble of siblings were a part of his escape plan - the most dangerous part, if it involved aggravating Maria. But she never asks, just talks to him about them.

But mostly, he’s okay. Good, even. Animal blood is disappointing, and sometimes he’s so agitated he can’t sit still and wishes for … a battle, to run, to do something other than sit, and read, and hunt animals, and talk. Alice blames it on his newborn year, and he tries so hard to contain it, but it’s hard.

She tries to make it better, and on days that he can stand to be touched, she teaches him all the old-fashioned dances she knows, and he spins her around and sometimes it does make it better.

He’s got regrets, a laundry list of them, but Alice says that isn’t unusual; it takes very specific circumstances to be changed - especially young - and be satisfied with the final outcome. When he asks her regrets, she shrugs and admits that she doesn’t even remember being human. Leaving him unprotected is her biggest regret, and that makes her sad, which he doesn’t like the feeling of.

So he puts his arm around her, and she curls against him, and that makes the sadness evaporate, and she beams up at him with golden eyes he could drown in, and one thing he will admit is - that despite the pain and unhappiness that followed him from human to immortal - that he will never, even regret taking her hand.

[hms-chill]

Everything’s Bigger

@angelvies-blog requested angst, so I dug this out of my drafts. Merry Christmas?

Summary: Everything's bigger in Texas: Alex's smiles, pride parades, and gunshot wounds included

Trigger warnings for homophobia and gun violence

Chapter 1

When Henry steps off the plane, he's met with a wave of heat and a massive hug. He grins, breathing in Alex’s smell and enjoying being back together. When Alex pulls away, his grin stretches from ear to ear.

"Hello, love. I don't think I've seen you smile like this since we beat the girls at Chicken at the lake house."

"What can I say? It's Texas, baby. Everything's bigger." Henry just rolls his eyes and drags a suitcase toward the van that will take them downtown. They're on a float for Austin pride, and Alex is nearly vibrating with happiness. He loves bringing Henry to Texas no matter what the circumstance, but bringing Henry to Texas for pride feels even more special. They'd had to pull a puppet’s worth of strings for this to work, but he's here now, and they're together in Alex's hometown, stopping at his childhood home to get ready for the parade. At the house, Henry drops off his bags and unearths a t-shirt covered in photos of queer folks from Sappho to Tesla and beyond, a rainbow "History, huh?" in the middle, and Alex can barely believe they're actually dating. He's got a "Texas Proud" shirt, one with a bi pride Texas in the middle, and he's so excited he can hardly stand still. He's home, and Henry is with him, and they're going to pride.

Luckily, the energy downtown matches his. When they find their float, the people already there are buzzing, a mess of rainbows and sequins and celebration. Amy and Cash herd them into place, and the parade starts moving, carrying them past block after block of people overjoyed to celebrate who they are. They've got candy to throw and pride flags to wave, and Alex can't imagine anything better than the rainbow Austin lining the streets.

He's scanning the crowd, trying to smile and wave at everyone he can, when he sees it. He's moving and shouting immediately.

"Amy, green sweatshirt by the killer drag queen. Henry, get down!"

He's diving in front of Henry when he hears the gun go off. Once. Twice. Three times. Pain explodes across his shoulder as they tumble to the base of the float. It's only from two points. The third bullet went somewhere else.

Please don't have hit anyone else. Please don't fire into the crowd. Please don't let anyone else be hurt. Please let Amy get to him in time. Please let Henry be alright.

"Alex, Henry. This way." It's Cash, and Alex only has a moment to take stock of how Henry might be doing before they're both army crawling, careful to stay below the edges of the float. Cash hands them both caps, sunglasses, and dark shirts. Alex's shoulder screams as he pulls it over his head, but he doesn't have time to do anything more than wince before he's climbing off the float after Henry and Cash. It's still moving, but it's slow enough that they can climb off relatively easily, and Cash leads the way through the crowd.

It's chaos on the ground. The few people who see them get off the float seem to realize what's happening and try to hide them, but there's so many other things happening. If Henry wasn't holding his hand like their lives depend on it, Alex isn't sure they'd still be together. He'd probably have lost track of Henry and Cash. People around them are screaming, some trying to get out of the crowd and away. Alex tries his best to see if anyone is hurt, but he can't tell. They're moving too quickly, and the cocktail of panic and pain clouding his brain doesn't make it any easier. Henry is pulling him forward, and though he knows it's for the best, his shoulder hates it. Cash isn't running, but he is going quickly, leading them down back streets and to a dark van. They're all but shoved inside. Cash takes the wheel, and for the first time, Alex can really look atHenry.

"Are you okay? He... he was aiming for you; did he..."

"No; I'm fine. I'm not hurt; you... you protected me. What about you?"

"I'm fine. I'm..." the adrenaline wears off in a moment, leaving Alex with barely enough cognitive energy to gasp, "I'm not fine. Shoulder hurts. Can't... can't think. Head hurts; need... tired." He slumps into Henry's lap, and Henry has to slap a hand over his mouth to hide a scream.

"Cash? Cash, Alex... something's wrong. Alex, can you hear me? It's going to be okay. Oh god, Alex, you're bleeding. Cash, there's so much blood, what do I do?"

Cash swears. "Put pressure on it. We transfer vehicles and pick Amy up in one minute; she's got field medical knowledge."

Henry pulls off his extra shirt, balls it up, and presses it to the growing dark spot on Alex's shoulder as hard as he can. Alex groans.

"It's okay. It's... it's going... it's all going to be okay, Alex. It... it has to be okay. You're so brave. I love you so much. It's... you... you'll be okay."

The van stops, and Cash opens the door. Together, he and Henry get Alex out of the van. There's no room to lay him down inside the van they're moving to, so they lay Alex on a cot between the vehicles, secret service making a rough ring around them. Henry kneels down beside him while Amy takes over first aid.

"You did great, Henry. You did great. Alex, I'm sorry, but this is probably going to hurt."

"Henry? Where's... is Henry okay?"

"Alex, honey, I'm right here. I'm fine. You saved me," Henry says softly, pressing a kiss to Alex's cheek. He hears fabric tearing, then says, "Amy's getting your shirt off so she can see what's happening. She's going to fix you up; you're going to be okay. You're so brave."

His voice almost doesn't shake that time. Alex's eyes are mostly unfocused, but he seems a bit more relaxed.

"Do something to keep him quiet; this is going to hurt and he can't scream," Amy orders. She's switched into Navy SEAL mode, and that's somehow more comforting than any other mode could be. Henry presses a kiss to Alex's lips, trying not to think about how cold and clumsy they are as Alex tries to kiss him back.

He feels the exact moment Amy starts her operation, because Alex's face tenses under his hands, and the sloppy kiss turns into a scream. It tears out of him, so full of pain that it makes Henry want to cry. It's something so big and monstrous that Henry can only imagine that if it were allowed to escape, this scream would echo through his memory forever. More than that, it would echo through the streets forever, joining Sam Houston and the Lady in Red and the rest of Austin's ghosts in haunting the city until it atoned for its crimes.

But what comes next is worse. If Henry hadn't been kissing Alex, he would have heard the scream, but he wouldn't have felt the exact moment Alex goes limp. It happens in a split second. One moment, Alex is alive as anything, screaming in agony while tears run down his face. The next, his whole face has gone slack. Henry pulls away slowly to find glassy eyes and a vacant expression, tears slowly drying on Alex's cheeks. He's paler than he should be, and he's breathing, but it's ragged.

"Amy? Amy, he... he's..." Henry can barely get the words out past the Texas-sized lump in his throat. Maybe everything is bigger here after all.

"He passed out. That's good. Means this isn't hurting him; he won't feel it when I get the second one out."

"The second one?"

"He's got two bullet wounds. One bullet's out; working on the other. Then I'll sew him up, and that'll hurt like hell. It's best for everyone this way."

Henry nods, taking Alex's good hand. "Can... can I shut his eyes?"

"That would probably be best."

He leans forward to close Alex's eyes, pressing a kiss to his cheek and trying to keep it together. There's a hand on his shoulder, and he jumps, but turns to see that Shaan's appeared behind him. He almost cries in relief.

"I came as soon as I could. I'll be driving the second van, and Zahra's going to meet us at the safe house. We'll make sure everything is okay."

Henry just nods again, not trusting himself to speak. Amy drops the second bullet onto the ground next to the first, then says, "If the buckets are down, I can sew on the road."

Cash confirms that the bucket seats are down, leaving them with a flat surface in the back of the van for the cot. He comes to help lift it, and Henry absently picks up the bullets and puts them in a pocket. Alex might want them as a memorial when he wakes up. Shaan gives Henry's shoulder another squeeze, then climbs into the driver's seat while Henry sits on the floor beside Alex's head. He brushes back some of the hair that's fallen into Alex's face and tries not to panic.

"He seems normal. I'm going to start sewing him up; if he wakes up we can't have him scream."

Henry nods, trying not to watch as Amy sinks a needle into Alex's skin. There's not much else to look at, but he can see the sky moving along outside the van windows, so he focuses on that and tries not to panic. It feels like eons later that Amy announces, "I'm done; now it's a waiting game. We'll be at the safe house soon, and we... we can make a plan from there." She lets out a breath with the slightest shake to it, and for her, that feels like the equivalent of Henry's shaking hands and racing mind.

"I... thank you," Henry says. "I don't know what I would have done without you, I... I really don't. You saved his life."

"Not yet. I'm just worried... the guy said he wasn't alone. And it might have just been a stupid empty threat, but until we've looked into it, we... we can't take him to a hospital."

"It's... it'll be okay. They'll have whatever we need at the safe house, right?"

Amy nods, then sits up just enough to look out the window before announcing, "We should be there soon. I don't know how long it'll be, but we'll get word to your family that you're safe."

"I... I hadn't even thought of them. Bea will be so worried, and June... Will we be able to talk to them? I know it would help Bea, at least, and... and me, if I could just let her know I'm okay from me."

"We'll see what we can do."

Henry nods. There doesn't seem to be much else to do. The van moves on. The clouds outside still pass, and Alex still doesn't move. Henry alternates between brushing the hair out of his face and watching clouds pass, never letting go of his hand and trying desperately to stay calm. He wants to believe Alex is breathing more evenly now, that his skin is less clammy and he's getting better, but he's not sure. He's not sure about anything anymore.

On AO3

Notes: Sorry?

[tamiacharity-blog]

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[screen-printing-houston]

Screen Printing: Kinds, Advancement of Display as well as the Printing Procedure

Screen printing is a means of printing photos by forcing printing ink or paste with the aid of a squeegee via a particularly ready screen block to sign up a print on a substrate such as fabric, paper, leather, T-shirt and so on. It is additionally described as Serigraphy or Mitography. This printing strategy is extensively used by several artists and also a lot of printing homes for the execution of their projects because it can be used in printing on practically all surface areas such as documents, plastics, fabrics, natural leather, glass, timber, rubber etc

. There are 2 major kinds of screens that are utilized for display printing. Temporal Screens last for a much shorter amount of time. They appropriate for registering solitary or limited prints on clothing and papers. They are very simple to prepare as well as does not need a great deal of money or initiative. Instances of temporal screens are paper pattern screens and candle wax screens.

Nevertheless, irreversible Screens have a very long time span and also if correctly looked after, can last for life. They can be made use of in printing multiples, hundreds and also countless prints. Their preparation in comparison with the temporal displays demands considerable effort and also money. Examples of permanent screens consist of photo displays, lacquer displays as well as shellac displays.

There are different methods of developing screens for printing. Some of these have been outlined in conversation listed below.

1. Paper Pattern Display Prep Work- This paper pattern display is very similar to the pattern preparation though this is an expansion of it. It involves the transfer of the finished design onto the paper to be utilized, while eliminating the favorable locations (the picture to be published) of the paper. The prepared stencil is after that affixed to the stretched display block with the aid of a covering up tape. Sufficient allowances are entrusted to function as ink storage tanks. The screen is ready for printing.

2. Candle Wax screen/Shellac Screen/ Lacquer display prep work- The primary processes in these approaches of screen prep work coincide. The only distinction is the product used in finish the negative locations of the display which may either be liquified wax, shellac or lacquer. The completed style is transferred onto the stretched screen block. With the help of a brush, use the molten wax or thinned shellac or lacquer to block the adverse areas of the design. Examination screen for pinholes by doing a test print. Block pinholes if there are any kind of. The prepared screen awaits printing. Lacquered screens are very durable as well as extra cost-effective in regards to high quality and quantity. They are excellent for straightforward, strong layouts.

3. Photographic Display Prep Work- The photo display prep work involves the use of light in establishing or drawing out layouts onto the display. The resources of the light can be all-natural or artificial. Therefore, there are two major ways of making photo displays hence the use of the solar energy (sunlight) throughout the day as well as making use of the solid fluorescent bulbs in the subjecting or shooting box. In all these two ways, the screens need to be coated in the darkroom with a service of image solution mixed with a sensitizer. The display is put at night space to dry. Find out here screen printing Houston

In the solar power method, the within or hollow part of the coated screen is loaded with a sack of great sand on a flat wood board and also shook up. The positive part of the paper (where the styles are) is positioned on the frontal part of the display and covered with a piece of cloth. The entire point is subjected to the solar energy (sunlight) for some few minutes. The duration depends on the intensity of the sunlight. The screen is then gotten rid of and washed under running water. The design locations will be exposed with the adverse areas obstructed.

Being used the establishing or firing box in the dark area, after the screen is coated with the image emulsion as well as sensitizer solution, it is entrusted to dry. The layout is after that put with face up on the glass of the shooting box. The frontal part of the dried out layered display is positioned on the style with the within or hollow component up. A sack loaded with fine sand or hefty clothing hinged with stones are positioned in the hollow part of the display simply to guarantee strong contact in between the glass plate, the paper with the style and the display. The lights in the shooting box are turned on for around five minutes. The duration can be more or less depending upon the number as well as watts of the fluorescent bulbs in the shooting box. The screen is removed and also cleaned under running water. Afterwards, it is dried out and also ready for printing.

The following actions are complied with when publishing with ready displays.

1. Prepare the printing table. 2. Place Substrate (tee, hanky etc.) on the printing table. 3. Position the screen (hollow side up) on the substrate. 4. Fetch little printing paste right into the non-image area (ink reservoir). 5. Attract draw paste across the photo area of the screen with the squeegee tilted at a reasonable angle to sign up a print. 6. Go over the print if deeper print is needed. 7. Delicately get rid of, wash and also dry display for future usage. 8. Enable print to dry as well as iron style to take care of.

There are some important tips that need to be kept in mind when printing. These are:

-Correct placement of screens- The musician needs to pay close attention to exactly how he/she placements the display on the substratum or material to be published. If screens are incorrectly positioned on the substratum it would certainly result in incorrect enrollment of styles at assigned areas of the substrate. If the prints are duplicated on the fabric in a special pattern or plan, there will be spaces or disorderliness in the setup.

-Suitable stress on the squeegee- The stress put in on the squeegee ought to be modest and well thought of. This is because if the pressure put in is less, some locations of the display will certainly not be registered in print. On the other hand, if a lot of stress is exerted on the display, it will lead to the obscuring of designs on the substrate. This indicates that the printing ink or paste will extend past the borders or sides of the layout. Consequently, the pressure applied on the squeegee ought to not be also light neither must it be too much.

-Instant cleaning of displays- The screens used for printing must be washed instantly after printing to prevent the blockage of screens. This is due to the fact that when the printing ink residue is allowed to remain on the screen for at some point it stops to be cleaned off from the screen causing its obstruction. It is appropriate after that to wash the screen right after the printing with soapy or cozy water as well as foam to get rid of all ink residues. Nevertheless, it should be cleaned gently otherwise it will certainly cause the production of pinholes which are tiny areas of the coated screen which are without the finish option or the tearing or reduction of stress in the taut extended display.

Developing printing screens by hand or mechanically is the selection of the artist based on the sources at his disposal and the time s/he has to deliver. Each of the display development processes and also its printing procedure needs fantastic perseverance and determination so regarding create accurate duplication of styles.

[yourewelcomeforbeingmyfriend]

Dear Friend - Part 3

Dean x Reader

Summary: Dean meets a girl on a new hunter website and begins an online romance. The only problem is, they don’t know who the other person is. Could their love for one another last only in the confines of the computer screen or will their desire for something more lead them to finally meet?

Warnings: Language. A bit more of a slow burn

A/N: This is part 3 of my little series based on “You’ve Got Mail” and “She Loves Me.” I hope you guys are enjoying it as much as I am. A big thank you to the wonderful @hannahindie for betaing this for me. I’d love to know what y’all think of this, so please feel free to let me know. Enjoy!

Series Masterlist

“Y/N, what are you thinking about?” the young woman named Christina laughed and waved a hand in front of her friend’s face to try to pull her from her trance. 

Y/N gave a laugh of her own and shook her head. “Nothing. Just turkey sandwiches with lettuce and tomato.” 

“Turkey sandwiches with…” Christina’s words trailed off as she continued eyeing her friend. “You’re a strange bird sometimes Y/N/N. Anyways, thanks for your help with this hunt.” She lifted her beer bottle for a toast. 

Y/N lifted hers and clinked the necks. “Anytime, girl. Besides, you know I love a good werewolf hunt.” She gave an innocent wink. 

“What’s on your mind that’s got you so distant? And don’t tell me it’s just sandwiches. I mean, they’re great and all, but not that great.” 

Y/N gave a sigh and set her bottle down in front of her. She took a moment to fiddle with its placement as she thought about what she was going to say. “Have you heard of that new hunter website?” her friend nodded. “Well, I go on there from time to time and I sort of met someone on there. A guy,” she clarified. 

“Oh really now? What’s his name? I’m sure I’ve heard of him.” Christina knew all sorts of hunters, both socially and biblically. She took no shame in it. 

“That’s the thing, I don’t know his name.” Christina started to give a look but Y/N continued anyway. “I said I didn’t want to know names. Keep a sort of mystery about things. I thought it was just playful and harmless until we started talking more. Now I want to know his name because he’s a really nice guy, but I feel like I can’t turn back on my rule. He could be anyone.” She picked a little at the label on her beer. 

“It could be Garth,” Christina said with a laugh, to which Y/N threw her bottle cap in response. 

Later that night Y/N sat at her computer biting her nail as she waited for her favorite website to load. She held her breath as she waited to see if there was a little number hanging above the envelope icon. Sadly there was nothing. It had only been a day since she last wrote to BabyDriver67, so she wasn’t very disappointed. But still part of her was disappointed there was nothing new to read. She looked away from the computer screen and to the photo of her and her niece sitting framed on her desk. She thought for a moment of the cute little girl, then turned back to the computer to click on “New Message.” 

I sometimes wonder about my place in this world. Does that make any sense? Like how there are people sleeping right now who have no idea of what we do for a living, and probably never will. They just live their lives going to work or school and go along their merry way. I feel like I can’t remember a time before I heard of werewolves and ghouls and all those other things that go bump in the night. What a strange life I lead. I’m not really looking for an answer on this. I went out tonight with a friend and had a little too much to drink, I think. I like to throw questions into the Void when I’m drunk. Goodnight, dear Void. 

“Goodnight, dear Void.” The words glowed from Dean’s computer screen. He was falling more and more in love with her with each new message. But his heart also ached for her. He knew that even drunk words had a bit of truth to them, so somewhere deep down she was feeling this insignificance. If only he could meet her and tell her she was’t insignificant. Not to him. 

“Hey, I think I found a haunting in Texas,” Sam said as he joined his brother in the library.

Dean shook himself from his thoughts and looked up from his laptop. “Texas, huh?” 

“Yeah, a hotel in Galveston.”

Dean frowned in thought. “Well, I have been wanting to see the beach lately.” Sam only then seemed to take notice of what his brother was doing. “Any new messages from her?” he hammed up the question a little to Dean’s annoyance. 

“Bite me,” was all Dean could think to say as he closed the laptop and got up. “We’ll leave in twenty!” he shouted as he walked down the hall towards his room. 

The case, on paper, was fairly run of the mill by Winchester standards. The hotel had long had legends of being haunted – harmless cold spots and creaks in the night – but now guests and staff were getting seriously injured. It was only a matter of time before it escalated to someone’s death. 

HellsBelle25 was still on Dean’s mind as they checked into their room at the hotel. He was so deep in thought he didn’t even hear what Sam was saying to him. He was brought back to reality with a pillow hitting his face.

“Dean?” Sam scoffed from his seat on the bed. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” 

Dean threw the pillow back at his brother as a reply. “I’m going to go talk to some locals. How ‘bout you get to work on the research. We’ll meet back up again later tonight to do some poking around.” 

He put on his cheap suit and grabbed his FBI badge as he headed out the door. Up the street he saw a sign for a seafood restaurant, which gave him a sudden craving for shrimp. When he walked through the door, he was greeted with the usual nautical scene that came with beachfront locales. He made his way to an empty booth and took a seat. 

“What can I do for ya?” the waitress, identified by a name tag as Judy, asked. She was an older woman who seemed to have seen her share of sailors and tourists pass through town. She looked like she would have her finger on the pulse of what was going on at the hotel. 

Dean ordered the shrimp and introduced himself as Agent Tyler. “I’m here looking into all the nonsense happening over at the hotel.” 

Judy twisted her face into a frown as she looked over his badge. “That hotel sure is drawing a lot of attention. First that reporter and now the FBI. What’s next, Secret Service?” 

That caught Dean’s attention. “Reporter?”

“Yeah, she’s sitting over there.” She pointed her pen towards a booth a little ways down from Dean’s. All he could see was the top of a ponytail that popped out from a downturned head. 

Dean nodded his thanks at Judy as she walked back to put in his order. He slid out of the booth and made his way over to the young woman. He found her hunched over a notebook scribbling away in a purposeful manner. “Excuse me,” he cleared his throat. 

The woman looked up from her work but kept writing as she slowly began to comprehend who was speaking to her. A half second too late, it seemed, she gave a warm smile. “Hello.”

“I’m, uh, Agent Tyler,” he flashed his badge again. “I hear you’re a reporter here to look into the hotel?”

She kept her eyes on his badge for a few seconds. “Uh, yes, I am.” She set her pen on top of her notebook. “I’m Y/N Y/L/N.” She held out her hand.

Dean took it in his and gave a shake, impressed by the firmness of it. He stood in silence for a beat longer. “Do you mind if I join you for a moment?” he finally asked. 

“Not at all, please,” she motioned for the seat opposite her and he took it. She brushed her Y/H/C hair away from her face, “How can I help you, Agent Tyler?”  

“Well, how about you fill me in on what you’ve found out so far about the hotel?” 

She eyed him for a moment as if searching for something. She must not have found it, or maybe she did, because she shrugged and began to share what she knew. “The hotel used to be an orphanage, back around the time of the hurricane. Kids from the city and even as far as Houston would be bussed in to live there. Guests and staff have talked about hearing things or feeling cold spots for years. Basic urban legend stuff. But over the past few weeks, people have been getting hurt. Staff members and guests with slashes and knife wounds on the arms and chest. Really interesting escalation.” 

Dean jotted down notes in his notebook and nodded, “Anything else?”

“Well, I’m still working on it,” her eyes narrowed on him. “So what brings the FBI out here?” 

“We go where the weird goes, and this is weird.” 

“Maybe I should start calling you agent Mulder instead,” she said with a lift of her eyebrows. 

Dean laughed off the idea and thanked Y/N for her time, returning back to his booth and his shrimp. 

“There’s an attractive reporter here looking into the case,” Dean casually mentioned back at the hotel later that evening as he swept the EMF reader in front of him. The device chirped and flashed red. “There’s definitely some ghosts here, too.” 

“Leave it to you to find an attractive reporter while doing recon,” Sam sighed. “And what about mystery girl?” He poked his brother’s side with the flashlight. 

“Oh come off it, man.”

They made their way down to the ballroom floor. All was still and quiet, the guests having gone to bed long ago. Dean’s EMF reader chirped back to life as the lights in the hall flickered. The brothers noticed their breath fog up in the cold air. 

Suddenly they heard a thump coming from the ballroom ahead of them. They ran over to fling open the doors and found a familiar Y/H/C young woman shooting a sawed-off shotgun into the ghost of a young child. 

“Fuck!” she cursed under her breath. 

“Y/N?” Dean asked incredulously. 

The young woman swung her head around to the brothers and her brows knit together. “Agent Tyler?” 

Before Dean could answer, the child reappeared behind Y/N and made his way quickly towards her. He held a knife and flashed a menacing smile. “Hey! Behind you!” Dean yelled as he shot his own shotgun at it again and it disappeared once more. He walked over to her and poured a circle of salt around her. “Reporter, huh?” He gave her a long look. 

“Agent, huh?” she returned the look. “Who are you guys, anyways? And why are you invading my turf?” 

Sam walked over and joined them. “I’m Sam Winchester, and this –” he pointed to his brother – “is my brother, Dean.” 

“The Winchesters?” Y/N scoffed. 

“Your turf?” Dean scoffed back. 

Y/N rolled her eyes. “Yes, my turf. I’m from Texas and this is a job in Texas. You’re invading my turf. Since when do you guys travel south of Oklahoma?” She stepped over the line of salt and walked towards the doors, her gun falling to her side, “I can handle this myself.” 

“Maybe we can help you,” Sam called after her. She turned to look back at him and he shrank a little under her glare. “It, uh… it would go faster,” he added. 

She rolled her eyes at them, “Fine. We’re looking for a teddy bear. It’s somewhere in the basement, I’m pretty sure.” 

“How do you know?” Dean asked. 

“Because I’ve been here for a week and I’ve done my research.” 

They made their way down to the basement. Every question Dean had for Y/N was met with curt responses; she seemed inconvenienced to be with them. When they got to the basement, they found it filled wall to wall with boxes. One of them contained the teddy bear they were looking for. 

“I guess we just pick a box and get started,” Sam shrugged. 

The three split up taking different sections. After about a half hour of searching, Dean was becoming irritated. 

“Find anything yet?” he asked. 

Y/N gave a loud huff. “No, Dean. I think I would’ve said something if I had.”

Dean stood up from the box he was searching. “You know what, Y/N, what’s your problem?” 

She looked up at him. “You are, Dean Winchester.” Dean was taken aback, but she pressed on, “You think you’re God’s gift to hunters. Swooping in and saving the day for a frail little hunter like me.” Her last sentence was dripping with sarcasm. 

Dean gave a wry laugh and licked his lips. “Me? God’s gift? Yeah, you’re right, sweetheart. Abso-fucking-lutely. We came all the way down to the fucking coast to help some inconsequential hunter I’ve never heard of with a simple haunting because she’s too weak but full of herself to handle it on her own. Woe is me, because this girl is going to come in and steal my thunder.” His words dripped with disdain. “Get over yourself,” he scoffed. 

Y/N stopped rummaging through the box in front of her and stared at Dean in shock. She was at a loss for words. 

The room grew cold again and the ghost appeared in front of Sam. It slowly made its way towards him, still brandishing the knife and a menacing smile. “Uh, guys? Can you hurry up with the search?” he swiped his iron pipe at the ghost and it dissolved once more. 

“We’re working on it!” Dean yelled over to him as he turned back to his search. Y/N still stood dumbstruck for a few seconds more before shaking herself back into action. She finished searching the box in front of her before moving on to a trunk in the corner. It was old and worn, and seemed like a good bet. 

“Guys?” Sam questioned. The ghost was back and getting closer than before. It seemed to grow stronger and more deliberate each time he appeared.  

Y/N and Dean continued rifling through their boxes and trunks. Her hand brushed against something fuzzy and she grabbed the paw of a tattered old teddy bear. She clumsily pulled out her phone to double check the picture she had and confirmed it was the one they had been searching for. “Got it!” she exclaimed. 

Dean stood up and joined her in an open space of floor. She dropped the bear to the ground and poured salt and lighter fluid over it. She looked up at Dean as he flicked open his Zippo and dropped it on the bear. They turned to look in Sam’s direction as the ghost began to catch fire and burn into nothing once more. 

“Aren’t you glad you had our help?” Dean cockily asked Y/N.

“So glad,” she bit back with a roll of her eyes.

The next morning the brothers caught sight of Y/N as she was packing up her car. 

“Heading out?” Sam asked as he walked over to her. Dean reluctantly followed behind. 

She closed the trunk and squinted up at him. “Yeah,” she shrugged, “the ghost is gone, and I’m not really one for the beach.” 

Sam gave a weak chuckle. “Yeah, we never get to see it, so we thought we’d stick around for a little bit.” 

“Thanks for your help, Sam,” she reached out to shake his hand. “Dean,” she turned to shake his. 

He looked at it for a moment before taking it. Once again, he was impressed with the firmness of it. 

“No offense, but I hope I never see you again,” she said.

“Likewise,” was all he managed to say in return.

Tags: @pinknerdpanda @hannahindie @wheresthekillswitch @emilywritesaboutdean @trexrambling @narisjournal-blog @jensen-jarpad @notnaturalanahi @simplydaisys @keepcalmandcarryondean @mrswhozeewhatsis @katymacsupernatural @boxywrites @ellen-reincarnated1967 @ravengirl94 @amanda-teaches @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @masksandtruths @just-another-busy-fangirl @sis-tafics @eyes-of-a-disney-princess @not-so-natural-spn @feelmyroarrrr @sherlock44 @jobean12-blog @diariesofthebeautyobsessed @akshi8278 @wonderstruckbyfandoms @wildfirewinchester @mogaruke @whimsicalrobots @winchesternco

[ajstanton8]

I think it's important to understand what happened last week, putting all differences aside which effectively takes out all the blaming.. Historically , since forever, we just run with the blaming and hide or brush under carpet the errors and mistakes, failure. Everything we need to understand so we can learn something and actually more forward. So we don't keep repeating the same mistakes over and over agian, driven by a thousand forms of fear even with today's fast communication it's still the same cycle or loop And we assume it's ok and doing during our.life here with such littimated understanding. I named Acceptance 101 and it's starts with what one doesn't accept not with what one has already acceptrd that's just a make of defonse and foundation for wall of drnial .

The weather lady and folks gave us a week and half notice at least with reminders if not daily. No one in south Texas gave us indication of outages planned or otherwise. Not even the planners in Washington. I guess they figured we'd find out when we call in to power company and listen to that dumb message after the power has been disconnected, and on the same day of our worst cold front AND same day of happy presidents (and people's) day. How brilliant. The Washington planners either new all of this and figured the governer would be the one to spread the word. But he found out like I did after power was disconnected And I'm sure his phones started ringing of the hook. That's another. Definition for crazy doing the same thing over and over agian maybe expecting different or none at all except your money. And to top that off, planned or otherwise, plants got disconnected by directive or not shut down by the freeze. Thats two barrel and maybe 3 iif you think in your mind that you have the eeather. So what's the problem you ask ? Well it's the same problem, that we have had a problem with over and over agian for about 9,000 years. We cant learn past our basics. Re-phrase, we can,... that's the hope. It's not about finding fault and blaming anybody, that's basics to get what want and so we war with each other over and over agian with complete oblivious awareness to the damage we are doing and producing all around . At 58 or 59 I was just made aware. The ones that are in the worst denial, discover their awareness the last, The ones that think they have control, power and money are the last ones to become aware, in this life or emmediatly after death.

For the record:

Monday. My electricity at noon is off, I thought I was late paying my bill which has happened a couple of times since the bigginings of 2020.. I call my power compamy after not being able to make a payment online and I didn't get my usuall great AI service that recognizes my calling number. Instead I get this prerecorded message to provide my zip code to report the outage. I'm still thinking wtf ? I just need to pay my bill, I'm not calling to report an outage but that's the only option on the phone unless you have people's numbere. So I hung up because to Just report an outage, provide Zip code, so that the automated could tell me the elect. & Gas comp, Center-Point and give they're number. I already new all that. Nothing has been communicated and I'm already frustrated and upset. I just keep anger in check and Might as well call center-point. I call, get an answer and hear the same voice of of the prerecorded from earlier with TEXAS U- Energy (that always provided excellent customer service) The message said that due to conditions there will be a series planned disconnects in an effort to conserve Energy..to me conserve energy is derective from Washington and so was planned in Washington. This not about Blambing it's sbout. I know the Planniners in Houston, Dallas and by Phone in Austin.Neither the Houston Mayor and folks or the Governor of Texas in Austion gave me any indication that this was coming down the pike. By tweets all day into the night.

[stephenmccull]

Amid Covid Health Worker Shortage, Foreign-Trained Professionals Sit on Sidelines

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As hospitals nationwide struggle with the latest covid-19 surge, it’s not so much beds or ventilators in short supply. It’s the people to care for the sick.

Yet a large, highly skilled workforce of foreign-educated doctors, nurses and other health practitioners is going largely untapped due to licensing and credentialing barriers. According to the Migration Policy Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., some 165,000 foreign-trained immigrants in the U.S. hold degrees in health-related fields but are unemployed or underemployed in the midst of the health crisis.

Many of these workers have invaluable experience dealing with infectious disease epidemics such as SARS, Ebola or HIV in other countries yet must sit out the covid pandemic.

The pandemic highlights licensing barriers that predate covid, but many believe it can serve as a wake-up call for state legislatures to address the issue for this crisis and beyond. Already, five states — Colorado, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey and New York — have adapted their licensing guidelines to allow foreign-trained health care workers to lend their lifesaving skills amid pandemic-induced staff shortages.

“These really are the cabdrivers, the clerks, the people who walk your dog,” said Jina Krause-Vilmar, CEO of Upwardly Global, a nonprofit that helps immigrant professionals enter the U.S. workforce. “They also happen to be doctors and nurses in their home countries, and they’re just not able to plug and play into the system as it’s set up.”

That’s left doctors such as Sussy Obando, a 29-year-old from Colombia, jumping through hoops to become physicians in the U.S. In 2013, she graduated after six years of medical school in Colombia, then spent a year treating patients in underserved communities. But when Obando arrived in the U.S., her credentials and experience weren’t enough.

While licensure guidelines vary by state, foreign-trained doctors typically must pass a medical licensing exam costing more than $3,500, and then complete at least a year of on-the-job training, known as a residency, in the U.S. For many, including Obando, that means brushing up on their English and learning the relevant medical terminology. She also needed U.S. clinical experience to qualify for a residency, something U.S.-trained doctors achieve through rotations during medical school.

“If you don’t know anyone in this field, you have to go door to door to find somebody to give you the opportunity to rotate,” Obando said.

She tried emailing Hispanic doctors she found online to ask if she could complete a rotation with one of them. She ended up paying $750 to enter a psychiatry rotation at the University of Texas McGovern Medical School in Houston.

“I tried to go into internal medicine,” Obando said. “But because psychiatry was less expensive, I have to go for that.”

She also worked for almost a year as a volunteer at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center, and is now assisting with clinical trials for covid vaccines at the Texas Center for Drug Development. She’s applied for a residency through a national program that matches medical school graduates with residency slots. But it’s difficult for foreign-trained physicians to secure a spot, because many are earmarked for U.S. med school graduates. And many residency programs are open only to recent graduates, not those who finished medical school years ago.

“It’s competitive for people who trained in the United States to get into a residency program. If you’re trained outside the United States, it’s even harder,” said Jacki Esposito, director of U.S. policy and advocacy for World Education Services, a nonprofit that helps immigrants find jobs in the U.S. and Canada.

That’s why states such as Colorado have eased the requirement for a residency during the pandemic. Early on, Colorado officials realized they couldn’t license doctors and other health workers because covid lockdowns had canceled required licensing exams. Under an executive order from Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in April, state officials created a temporary licensing program allowing medical school graduates to begin practicing under supervision for six months, and then extended it through June 2021.

Officials created a similar pathway to temporary licensure for foreign medical school graduates who lacked the minimum year of residency.

Colorado also created temporary licenses for foreign-trained nurses, certified nurse’s aides, physician assistants and many other health professionals. All of those licenses require supervision from a licensed professional and are valid only as long as the governor’s public health emergency declaration remains in effect.

The state relaxed the scope-of-practice rules for those health workers, too, allowing them to perform any task their supervisors assign to them.

“So if you’re an occupational therapist, you can give vaccinations as long as they are delegating to you and they’re confident you have the skill and knowledge,” said Karen McGovern, deputy director of legal affairs for the professions and occupations division at the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. “You can exceed your statutory skill and practice to what needs to be done during the pandemic.”

Through mid-December, the state had received 36 applications from foreign-trained doctors seeking temporary licenses, although only one applicant met all the criteria. New Jersey, on the other hand, received more than 1,100 applications for temporary medical licenses last year. (Michigan also issued an executive order allowing temporary licenses, but it was later rescinded.)

Many of the medical professionals stuck on the sidelines have unique skills and experience that would be invaluable during the pandemic. Victor Ladele, 44, finished medical school in Nigeria and treated patients during a drought in Niger in 2005, in the midst of the Darfur genocide in Sudan in 2007 and after a civil war in Liberia in 2010. His family moved to the U.S. a few years later, but Ladele was recruited to help with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014. What he thought would be a three-month stay turned into a two-year mission.

Now back in Edmond, Oklahoma, working with a U.N. program that helps new business ventures get off the ground, Ladele has found that the challenges of the covid pandemic parallel many of his past experiences. He saw how a program for Ebola contact tracing told people with a cough or fever to call a hotline, which would direct them to a care center. But as soon as the initiative went live, rumors began to spread on social media that European doctors at the care centers were harvesting organs. It took months of outreach to tribal and religious leaders to instill confidence in the system.

He’s seen similar misinformation spread about covid and masks.

“If, in Oklahoma, the public health officials had done outreach to all the pastors in the churches and gained their support for masking, would there be more people using masks?” Ladele said.

Ideally, he said, he would like to spend about half his time seeing patients, but the licensing process remains a challenge.

“It’s not unsurmountable,” he said. But “when I think of all the hurdles to credentialing here, I’m not really sure it’s worth the effort.”

Upwardly Global helps health professionals navigate that unfamiliar application and credentialing system. Many foreign-trained health workers have never had to write résumés or interview for jobs.

While the pandemic has temporarily eased entry in five states, Krause-Vilmar and others believe it could be a model to address workforce shortages in underserved areas across the country. As of September, the federal Health Resources and Services Administration had designated more than 7,300 health care shortage areas, requiring an additional 15,000 health care practitioners.

“We’ve had a crisis in access to health care, especially in rural areas, in this country for a long time,” she said. “How do we start imagining what that would look like in terms of more permanent licenses for these folks who are helping us recover and rebuild?”

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Amid Covid Health Worker Shortage, Foreign-Trained Professionals Sit on Sidelines published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[samjeetsam]

Metal Roof Repair

The material the business has been growing and alongside it the fixed business. Do you have a broken metal rooftop? On the off chance that you might want to realize how to fix it yourself, it takes fundamental devices and the essential information to complete it. Peruse on here in this short article about metal roof repair in houston.

In the event that you need to do it without anyone else's help, there are barely any instruments you should carry out the responsibility. A genuinely complete rundown is; tin cuts, pincers, binding weapon or iron, weld, transition, sandpaper, wire brushes, cleaners, soot square, and to wrap things up the metal material concrete. When you have all the things you need, your activity can start.

Clean the zone altogether that you know is spilling and afterward distinguishes the kind of metal that your rooftop is made of. On the off chance that you know, get a bit of a similar sort and shape, however one that is sufficiently large to be two inches bigger than the region that requirements fix. After the rooftop is totally dry from your cleaning, likewise utilize the wire brush to truly get at any extreme garbage that the cleanser will be unable to dispose of. You can begin neatly to make the entire cycle cooperate. Roof Replacement Service in houston with Warranty.

The following stage is to compromise the new metal piece you are utilizing to fix the defective region. Next, overlay the external edges of this new piece under with a half-inch lip. Sand this lip until it is shinier or more brilliant than the remainder of the new piece. Put a portion of the motion on the region you are fixing and furthermore on the lip of the new fix. Presently, put the new piece over the zone you are fixing and overload it with the soot square or block or whatever is advantageous. Your fix work is well en route to being finished. Presently get the weld and fastening weapon you will utilize.

One tip is to utilize noncorrosive transition on steel rooftops. You should utilize the corrosive motion with copper material. For aluminum rooftops, you will require a fiberglass fix, as there is no patch for this kind of rooftop. To make it simpler to recall whether there is the next season of metal roof repair in houston, basically, ensure you utilize similar sorts of metals for the bind to hold.

[bensgaragedoor894-blog]

Tips to Help With Garage Door Repairs

Garage door repairs can sometimes be prevented with the proper level of maintenance. If not prevented completely, then at least somewhat and to the point where less money needs to be spent to restore the door to its normal level of functioning. If you maintain and clean the door of your garage faithfully then it will reward you with a longer life. To get the most out of the door and to not require garage door repairs on a regular basis you need to make sure that you do not get lazy with the maintenance you do. When a problem does arise then you need to do something about it immediately in order to prevent further damage from taking place. What then should you do to keep garage door repairs at bay? Clean the doors approximately four times a year with a mild detergent. To do this simple task, use a soft car brush. By washing the doors regularly the build up of corrosive elements will be cut down. Make sure though that you refrain from using any harsh chemicals or abrasive cleaners on or near the doors to your garage. If the doors on your garage are wooden then the cleaning and maintenance of them should be according to the recommendations of the manufacturer. In most instances you will be encouraged to first paint the doors on both the interior and the exterior and then to repaint the surface of the exterior every one to two years. If you paint only the outside of the door initially then over time it may warp because of moisture. Take a close look at the area under the door. You want that part to be as free of obstructions as possible. Where the door meets the ground is a spot that can easily accumulate leaves, dirt, cobwebs and debris. It can also build up ice and snow during the winter months. When anything clogs the bottom section of the door it will prevent a solid seal with the ground to be maintained. By so doing this can cause problems with the alignment and weight distribution of the door. This will mean that a garage door repair is required! To prevent this from taking place check the bottom of the door often and rid it of any problematic issues.

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