#were talking the top is straight dust level rust

[embersofstardust]

so it turns out the hardest part of installing a new toilet, is getting rid of the OLD one

[cajunquandary]

A Beacon to Beasts

A Beacon to Beasts

AO3 Link (in the works, check back later)

Summary: While Dean is in Purgatory, he comes across some interesting monsters who help him through.

Created for @spndarkbingo​

Square Filled: Fornication

Rating: R (18+ ONLY)

Pairing: Dean x Reader x Benny

Warnings: Dark Fic. Canon level violence, SMUT (p in v, biting, anal, oral, dp, unprotected sex *dont be silly wrap the willy,* all the smut, also I might be developing a praise!kink here??), angst, traumatic memories. If you squint: suicide, Destiel, Denny

Word Count: 7600

A/N: Originally published in early 2017, this is a total rewrite with the tremendous help of @thinkinghardhardlythinking​ and @wonder-cole​. You talented bitches. I love you.

Lightning spider-webbed across the sky, for a brief moment illuminating every shadow across Purgatory. The forest practically hissed in the unwelcome brightness as the trees whispered amongst themselves. A crack of thunder caused a quake larger than you’d felt in the god forsaken land ever before. It cracked the sound barrier, bent the hellscape reality at all of its slithering edges, and sent a shockwave so powerful it nearly tore apart every cell in your body. With an eerie silence, darkness fell again, and as your eyes adjusted, you could see that the beast attacking you was fleeing the other direction from whence it’d come—no, not fleeing. It was chasing the impact. 

Something pulled in your chest like a red-hot meat hook, something that sent sparks of electricity straight into your brain and signaling an overwhelming raw need. You were familiar with such will-crushing lust. Your fangs were proof. But this… this was stronger than anything you’d ever felt before. It nearly drove you mad. You could feel your mind slipping, until you took a step forward, then another, and another. The more you walked towards the source of the prior disturbance, the more sated you felt. The more whole. 

It took weeks of fighting others like you and endless backtracking to find the source—a vampire and another beast. It was a bit like a human, but no humans could be in Purgatory. Whatever it was, it was intoxicating. 

Your body shuddered at the proximity of the delicious flesh. The warmth. You were merely a moth, drawn to a flame of your own destruction. Your head swam and you reached towards the man, but another fang sped from the shadows opposite you first. This was just enough of a distraction to pull you back from the brink. 

You crouched behind a half-rotten tree, only one eye peeking from behind your cover. The human barely had time to react before the fiend had him forced into the well-trodden packed earth. His fall was hard. Your mouth watered as his pulse quickened and echoed through your soul. 

The vampire accompanying the human sent the attacker’s head flying so closely that spattered monster blood landed on your hand. The foul stench drove you deeper into the safety of the trunk. You didn’t want to be next. 

In this land, the best way to survive was to stay hidden, quiet, so you decided to follow them for the first few weeks, being careful to keep to the shadows. The thirst for the human ebbed and swelled unpredictably. At times, it was all you could do to resist the pulse exposed on his neck, especially when the man slept. 

For days you tried to figure out what the other one was, who he was, but damn, was he a monster magnet. You’d been in pretty thick shit before, but never like this. Your cover was nearly blown a few times a day, but you were thankful the two were too busy fighting their own to notice you.

“Damn, man. You’re humanity is gon get us kilt.” The vampire wiped the rancid blood from his blade on the latest dead monster’s shirt.

“Yeah well, as soon as we find Cas, we’re getting the hell out of hell.” A human in Purgatory? How? No wonder there had been such a disturbance. He must have been pulled here by a great force--one that very nearly ripped the entire existence apart. 

“Hey brother, I’m startin to think the angel don’t wanna be found. Dean, think about it. Every time we get close, he disappears again.”

“Benny—don’t.” The human stormed away from the vampire. What was going on? A human and an angel? Things must be getting really messy up top.

The vampire, Benny, turned suddenly in your direction, and you closed your eyes, hoping the thick layer of leaves and thorny bushes camouflaged you well enough. It must have, because he merely shrugged and walked after Dean.

This night was the quietest it had been since The Event. It had been hours since the last monster attack and you were almost as exhausted as they looked. It wasn’t long before the men settled down into the dust and a pile of dry brush and began to lightly snore. Usually one stood guard as the other slept, but on this occasion, both must have been too far gone to care. 

You crept slowly forward, focused completely on the human. He was so beautiful. The creases of his forehead were reduced to fine lines as he slumbered, slow, tender breath fluttering across weary-pale swollen lips, freckles and mud mixed on his cheeks, hair tousled and bloodied, yet still so soft and shiny. His lashes twitched as he dreamed. You were only a few feet away now, beginning to feel lost in the warmth radiating from him, drunk in the light from his soul.

A sharp pain through your side interrupted your trance and you collapsed into a prickly shrub. Between gulps of agony, you could just make out that you were pinned to the ground with a rough makeshift javelin, reminiscent of a butterfly pinned to a shadow box as you’d owned as a human. You screamed in pain, and if you weren’t already twice dead, you’d worry about losing too much blood.

A pair of boots came into your view. “I smelled you days ago. I know you’ve been followin’ us. Why haven’t you attacked? You workin for someone?”

You looked from under your brows, straining to see if Dean was still where he had been, but found nothing. All you could do was gasp shallowly against the burning splinters. It had been years since anyone had gotten the jump on you like this. The bit of human that was left within you prayed that this was a bad dream, that you would wake in a moment in the gently swaying safety of the treetops.

The javelin was ripped from your aching side, and you screamed again as your organs smacked back together in the loss of pressure. The vampire threw you against the nearest tree. Through the pain that overwhelmed your ability to flee, you watched in utter captivation as the human secured you with heavy, rusted chains.

The latter bent close to your face, piercing green eyes a stark contrast to the caked mud and blood spattered across pale cheeks. “Now look, you piece of shit. I’m gonna waste you like I’ve wasted every damn thing in this place. But first, you’re gonna tell me where the angel is, and why you’ve been following us. If I like your answer, I’ll make it quick. If not… well, I don’t normally like the answers.” He smirked, tilting his head just slightly as if he was considering just how he was going to end you. 

You gulped hard knowing the human meant business. You’d seen him firsthand, the violence, the rage. All this man left behind him were wide trails of blood.

You were shaking now, feverish and confused. When had your fangs come out? You retracted them in an attempt to look less intimidating and more cooperative. Between gritted teeth and a gradual tunneling of vision, you managed to respond. “I’ve been tracking you since you arrived. There was this storm, and I’ve felt a pull towards you the whole time. I-I don’t work for anyone, I swear.” His gnarly blade pressed into the soft flesh of your throat now and panic was rising  and threatening to close off your throat if the blade didn’t do it first. “I didn’t even know about the angel until earlier today when I overheard you.”

“Well. I don’t think I like your answer.” Dean sliced deeply into your arm, which produced a guttural scream from deep within your core. The blade itself didn’t hurt that bad, but whatever was on it sure did. Benny walked away, knowing what was coming. Benny was a monster—Dean was worse.

“P-please I don’t know, I just know the light—your soul is like a candle in this endless darkness. I’ve been here for so, so long and you feel like home, like safety. I crave your closeness and I don’t know the details of why, but I couldn’t hurt you.”

Benny looked over his shoulder as Dean paused. Something struck a chord. Benny walked back over and pulled Dean slightly off to the side, almost out of earshot.

“Brother, I think she’s tellin’ the truth. We should give this one a chance to talk.”

“Why? She doesn’t know anything about Cas. She’s just another monster in my way.”

“And so was I. We were both human once. Let’s hear her out. She hasn’t even fought back.”

The fatigue and injuries caught up with you. Focusing on the thick red-black ooze streaming from your wounds, sleep was finding you swiftly with your head falling forward, blood-soaked hair in your eyes and chest pulled tight against the restraints.

Dean lifted your chin with the end of his blade, remnants of your internals still glistening on the edge. Your eyes followed the length of his arm to his face where he held you in an unwavering gaze. Those eyes were greener than anything in this world—more than the trees you hid in, the brush around you, or the sparse grass beneath your feet. 

You seized your breath and relaxed your tense muscles. If this was finally what wiped you into oblivion, it would be okay, as long as you could stare into those eyes. After all, you were tired of fighting. Your mortal soul had been tired in life, grown wearier after you were turned, another century had passed before you’d been sent here after a hunter took you out. The memory flashed by: how you sat there on your knees, glad to be facing the barrel of the gun after so long that you didn’t even fight. Had you known you’d end up here, you may have fought more to stay topside. But now, you faced oblivion, or so you hoped. This would finally be the end of the suffering, the fighting.

Dean must have read the all-too-familiar look of defeat and acceptance in your face. He lowered the knife, letting your head fall forward again, and caught you in his arms as the chains broke and clattered to the dust.

He leaned you against the base of the tree. You weakly gazed upward through hooded eyes, wanting to see past the leaves to the empty sky, but couldn’t. It was all grisly branches for a hundred feet up.

“Why were you creeping up on me?” Dean pulled your attention back to them.

Battling the unconsciousness that nipped unwaveringly at the corners of your mind, you whispered, “The ache in my chest… the closer I get to you, the easier it is to handle. I wasn’t going to hurt you, I just needed to be... closer.”

“And is this better?” He motioned to the foot’s distance between you.

“Yeah,” You half-smiled through gritted teeth, the pain from your side still throbbing. It wouldn’t kill you. Nothing in Purgatory killed a monster except another monster—usually by beheading. It still hurt like a bitch, though, and left you exposed and vulnerable like a wounded animal.

He pursed his lips and shared a look with Benny, who shrugged. “I’ll stay up and watch, Dean. You get more rest before it starts again. And I’ll watch you, specifically.” The other vampire motioned at you, an intensity behind his blue eyes you could identify with. This human was meant to be protected, no matter the personal cost.

Dean was soon asleep again, his back turned to you.

The earth supporting your broken form was anything but forgiving. But still, you weren’t going to waste time whimpering to yourself now that you were a part of the misfit group. “Benny, where are you from? How long have you been here?” You wondered aloud.

He eyed you suspiciously, pausing before he answered. “I ran with a crew out of Louisiana, but we sailed all over the Americas. Been here a long time.”

You adjusted your position with a grunt. Benny’s hand was already on his weapon. “Calm down, sailor, just tryin to get comfortable... I’m from Shreveport. Been here a long time, too. Only did about two centuries up top, though.”

“Well, I’ve got a few on you then, sister. Shreveport was nice. Rolled through there a few times.” The vampire chuckled at the memory.

Even still, your body had different plans for the evening, and if anything else was said afterwards, you wouldn’t remember. Rest was in the cards that evening, even if your mind protested. Between stretches of sweet nothing, nightmarish memories flashed by in haphazard, non-chronological snippets. 

There you stood, on the bridge above deep, twisting waters. Though the wind whipped your hair wildly, you could feel nothing. Not since the day you were bit.

Then you were in the shed on your grandfather’s land, centuries before, when you were young but still so old. Had you ever had a chance? And there were fires and anthills, guns and chains. 

Before that one could go where you knew it would, you shot awake. Benny raised a concerned brow in your direction, but you couldn’t face him. Not after that. Within moments, sleep took you once again. 

The butterfly pinned in the box. Such a stark contrast was that orange and red and blue against the green felt and the glint of silver pins. You would chuckle at the sight if you could. Tiny fingers traced the outline of the glass. 

Then you were on your knees. You didn’t even fight. This? This was the day you died… the second time. By the hands of an inexperienced young hunter who was too focused on fighting with his dad to even notice you there. I mean, he practically tripped over you. The boy looked tall for his age, hazel eyes partially obscured by choppy bangs and mouth pressed into a thin line. He hesitated too long. You’d cocked your head to the side, wondering if he even had it in him to off you, and you almost felt sorry for the kid. Especially when his dad saw. The old black-haired ass berated him, belittled him. Compared him to his older brother. A disgrace, he’d said. Nothing like him, nothing like Mary. When the boy could look you in the eyes, you gave a slight nod as if to say, “It’s okay, I forgive you.” Those bright hazel eyes morphed into the moon cast over a monster wasteland. 

By morning’s light, you felt better, somewhat healed, but mostly sore. You and Benny spoke all the while, learned your ins and outs, and caught up on the situation with Dean, the toothy leviathans, the apocalypse (again), the dick angels, and everything else Dean had filled him in on weeks ago. If you weren’t in Purgatory yourself, you never would’ve believed all this. I mean, angels? C’mon. 

Sure enough, Benny was right. Beasts continued to attack in waves. There were a few close calls, and not one would speak of the whereabouts of the angel Castiel, though a few tried to save themselves by spouting lies. Dean would see right through them. It only ever took one question. “What color are the angel’s eyes?” A few had gotten lucky and guessed blue, but Dean didn’t even accept that answer. You asked once, what answer he was hoping for. He only shook his head in response. 

There were times, though, when he would describe Cas to you in the quiet of night, and it was like listening to a lost lover. Dean gave in after some months and described the angel’s eyes as full of grace, blue, but slightly glowing. And not just any blue, no. The bluest blue you could ever imagine. The purest blue. He spoke longingly about things they’d done, things he wanted to do, wanted to say. Needed to say. You would close your eyes and drift off to him mumbling stories of Cas, the fondness softening his voice.

It was dark again and the almost empty end of a particularly difficult day. You’d all sustained serious injuries from the violent fray that only seemed to become more dense as of late. You and Benny would heal quickly, but Dean wouldn’t… and you worried for him, lingering protectively close.

The weary hunter screamed in time with the monster as he thrust his knife through its eye, his voice echoing long after the lifeless body crumpled in front of him. In a rage, he threw his weapon down, stalking over to a nearby tree. He punched, kicked and threw himself against the bark until he was nearly bloodied beyond recognition. Benny could only look down, powerless to help his friend. Unable to watch any longer, you forced yourself between Dean and the tree. His eyes were closed until his bruised fists struck soft skin stretched over bone, the unexpected change in texture catching him off guard. You winced against it but grabbed his jacket in both hands, balling your own fists into it to hold him firmly in place. Jerking him forward until you were nose to nose, breath and blood mixing, you growled, “We will find him, Dean. But not if you kill yourself first.”

“Y-you sound like him,” His voice cracked and his head fell to your shoulder. You could feel his tears, hot on your frozen skin. This world was so cold and it never ceased to amaze you how he kept his warmth. You held him tightly, even as his knees buckled and swayed. By the state of those green eyes, you could see resignation and defeat creeping up on him. 

You shared a look with Benny, and he knew, too. “I’ll keep watch. You make him rest, cher.” You’d come to learn that Benny preferred to keep watch from all the years he’d had to watch his own backside here. You’d survived in hiding, while he’d made a name for himself—a killer, like Dean (not that either of them ever wanted to be.) You had to give it to him, though. After all, you’d tried to fight off everything in the beginning, but it was too tiring, like living was. So instead, you learned to thrive in shadows and whispers, moving like a ghost through whispers of the trees.

You were grateful for the moment alone with the warm beacon of a man, though. If the electricity across your skin anytime you touched the human indicated anything, it was a confirmation of your heart’s longing. You kept him pulled flush against your chest, his heartbeat so strong that it reverberated through your body. You focused on the feeling. How many centuries had it been since you felt your own beating? Dean’s was so strong it could surely support you both, you thought.

With a groan, Dean pulled the two of you down into a horizontal heap. You couldn’t make out the details of his face in the dark abyss of night, but his heart rate had shifted notably, along with his breathing. His anguish was palpable and you couldn’t help but to take some of it on as your own. He exuded it, it leaked from every pore. 

Supple lips brushed against yours, and you closed your eyes, slowly guiding one hand to his back above you and the other through his hair. It was as soft and silky as you’d hoped it was. You pulled just slightly, allowing your nails to gently spread and retract in circular motions. Dean clenched, the softest sounds carrying on the thick night air. Smiling at the reaction, you carded through the messy spikes and repeated the measure for several moments before Dean crashed into you, with his sudden need matching yours. Every kiss grew deeper, longer, and your tongues began to wrestle gently but urgently between locked lips. He grabbed at you hungrily with a certain ease, unable to hold back anymore, with palms stroking openly up and down your torso, until they slipped below your core.

You both pushed and pulled, wallowed and rolled, careful of injuries but powerless to pull away, fighting to get closer. You helped him slip from his leather jacket, and he groaned into your mouth with a tantalising mixture of pain and pleasure. The sound made you shiver, and you hastily removed yourselves from worn and tattered pants, breaking only for a moment. 

“Shh, Dean,” you whispered next to his ear. He nodded, understanding that even in this embrace, you were exposed and hunted. But with skin on skin, it was difficult to keep logic and sanity at the forefront of your mind. 

Dean slowed his pace and shifted until you were straddling him. With a touch so light it tickled, he let his hands trace every angle of your body, until he felt the latest wound and drew back suddenly. 

“It’s okay,”  you breathed into his gaping mouth. 

“No, I-- I’m sorry.” His voice was feeble, desperate. 

Taking his hand in yours, you placed it back where it’d been. It was a small gesture, but the effect it had on Dean was profound. With both hands now, he clutched your sides so tightly, it sent swells of something delicious straight to your center, before rippling out to every nerve ending exposed to the cool air, and then some. 

Just as you began to give in, a rustle from only several feet away snapped you back to reality. You shot up upon bare feet, weapon already in your hand as you scanned the malevolent shadows for the source, listening and feeling for any shift in the air. Dean lay frozen by your feet, head still spinning in weakness and lust.

In a swift turn on the balls of your feet, you faced the intruder, ready for war. 

“It’s just me, cher. I heard something and wanted to make sure you two were okay.” As Benny took in the situation, he laughed softly. “Sorry to interrupt. I’ll be over there…”

With an annoyed frown, you allowed your stance to go slack. “Thanks.”

Dean touched your leg, leaning in to kiss it lightly before planting a little nibble at your ankle. You slipped back down next to him, gasping when he quickly found your neck and nipped along your clavicle to the sweet spot in the hollow of your neck.

He was shaking slightly under the strain, but lifted himself atop you. To help keep him steady, you placed your hands on his shoulders and wrapped your legs around his torso. With a grateful kiss, he traced his tongue across your bottom lips as he lined himself at your entrance. 

His tip sank into your soaked folds and his resulting keen made you tremble beneath him, itching for more. “Dean, p-please…”

“What do you want?”

You rotated your hips against his, fighting to make him move. “Please, fuck… Dean I need you. Need more.”

Your begging tore his resolve to shreds and he sunk into you, stretching and filling you like nothing ever before. Your back arched at the sensations as they nearly overwhelmed you, drowning out the hell around you and leaving only Dean. Your heavy breathing barely registered as you whined his name. A shallow shriek betrayed you. Dean placed a calloused hand over your mouth, and it only drove you more mad. 

As he bottomed out and began short but powerful thrusts, tears gathered at the edges of your eyes. Everytime, he hit that sweet spot. Everytime, you whimpered into his hand and dug your fingers into his flesh tighter. Everytime, he moaned in response. 

It wasn’t long before those slow, drawn out jolts coiled you so tight you could barely contain yourself. Dean could sense the change as you began to rub against him, allowing the friction to take you over the edge. Right as you fell off into a fierce and roiling sea of ecstasy, Dean replaced his hand over your mouth with his own, swallowing your choppy breaths as you twitched and spasmed beneath him. 

Still lost in the swell, you felt the hunter release and fall, spent, onto your chest. You managed to wrap your arms around him and held him steadfastly, not ready to let go. It was incredible to watch Dean unravel and relax for the first time. In fact, it’d just become your favorite drug. 

Unknown to the broken lovers, a pair of “gorilla-wolves” attempted to interrupt throughout the steamy romp in the leaves, but Benny quickly took care of them. The nasty things wouldn’t have gotten as close as they had, but the vampire had been distracted by the sinfully delicious sounds coming from the far side of the tree. He’d tried to ignore it at first but found his mind wandering. It’d been ages since he’d felt the touch of another being, and the want rose up in him, a fire in his stomach.

You panted next to Dean when he rolled to the side, your injuries far from mind in the lasting rapture from being one with the human. His breathing was still ragged, but slowing. The wound on the back of his shoulder had reopened. Begrudgingly , he let you patch it again. Once dressed, you fell back to the sorry bed of leaves. Dean nuzzled into your side and let out a pained sigh as sleep found him. You could’ve sworn you heard the faintest “Don’t let me die here…” fall from his lips. Your grip on him tightened. You’d get him out if it killed you. But first, you had to find that elusive angel.

It was another month of the same routine. Days and nights ran together. The closer you got to the angel, the denser the swarm of monsters was. Even Benny seemed to be on his last leg. You offered to keep watch this time. At first Benny protested, but you shut him down.

“It’s broad daylight out here. I can see them coming from far enough off, I can give you plenty of time to wake up and fight if I can’t handle it. Don’t worry.”

He didn’t feel like protesting too much, and finally nodded, sad blue eyes locking on yours in a silent promise of trust in comradery.

A few hours passed, and you stood to stretch. A twig snapped behind you, and you twirled quickly, your knife to Benny’s throat. His hands raised. “Sorry cher, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Nearly lost your fool head. Why aren’t you resting?” You dropped your arms and stood next to the vampire, staring out through the forest again, scanning. Listening.

“I rested enough.”

“Right, that’s why you have to use that tree to support yourself.” His lips pressed into a hard smile, electric eyes dropping to the ground. When he looked back up, something in them had changed. He reached towards you, hesitant, and brushed the wavy mess of hair from your face behind your ear, hand gently gliding across your jaw until his thumb rested on your lip.

You closed your eyes and shuddered under the vampire’s touch. It was more familiar than Dean’s. You leaned into it, following as it guided you into his embrace. He was larger than Dean and still smelled of the swamp and sea. The scent was intoxicating, dragging all of your attention to Benny. 

He pulled back for a moment and cradled your face in the large, thick hands of a sailor. “You okay with this? Don’t want you to feel pressured, darlin’.”

“Mm not pressured,” you smiled up into those spirited sharp blue eyes. You lost yourself in them, completely ensnared. You could see past them, to cerulean glittering waters, could feel the lapping of them against your old boat, hear the seagulls and crows chattering as they glided on heatwaves, taste the salt on your tongue. 

You stretched up on your tiptoes, craning to taste the salt on his lips, feel the waves in the way his tongue twists. Benny must have felt the same, as he met your parted lips in a feverish kiss, maneuvering you effortlessly between himself and the tree for support until he was rutting into you.

The touch was bittersweet and starved, driving both of you as you stripped away layers. Benny pressed into you until the bark bit into your back and arms. You knocked the hat from atop his head to get closer, to guide him in, and he responded by taking the thin flesh of your neck into his mouth. Fangs drug thin scratch lines over your chest and shoulders, followed by sucking kisses. Benny grunted as he settled next to your ear, the growing bulge in his remaining trousers becoming almost painful in the restriction. 

Sensing this, you moved to loosen the last piece of his clothing until it slumped to his ankles, all the while raw, needy noises spilled from your mouth. If only you’d found each other topside, things would have been better. You wouldn’t have let that young, long-haired hunter boy and his grumpy father kill you.

In one smooth move, Benny hooked his fingers into your jeans and slid them off, until you were completely free of them. With lust in your eyes, you found his full lips once more. You bit and sucked at his bottom lip until he was throbbing against you and whispering your name in short breaths in desperation. 

With a slight adjustment in position, he grabbed your ribcage and lifted you just enough to line himself at your entrance. Hungrily, you raised your knees and rested them on his sides. You dug your nails into his shoulders in anticipation, but he didn’t keep you waiting long. With a final shift of his angle, Benny slid into you unrestrained.

His pace was unforgiving. He was rougher, more desperate, yet somehow more controlled than Dean. Pain was something you both knew too well, and found pleasure in at this moment. Neither of you had to hold back in fear of hurting the other. 

Benny muttered a long string of praises as he placed his cheek on yours and relished in the fragmented breaths and mewls leaking from your gaping mouth.

Between the friction to your front and the sharp ache in your back, the intense set of his pace brought unwanted tears to the corners of your eyes. Before you knew it, he had you biting back a scream as you came in his arms, your back digging into the tree as he held you through it. You sank your teeth into his neck, drawing blood and pushing back the sharper set as they threatened to emerge. He snarled into your ear and released, standing for a moment, relishing in your closeness.

For a time, you just remained in that position as he softened inside you, foreheads resting fondly on each other.

Dean stirred, grumbling as he woke. With a silently shared promise to continue the embrace another day, the two of you straightened yourselves back out and rounded the tree to greet the sleep-starved human.

Over the next two weeks, the three of you grew much closer. Sometimes in between attacks, you took solace in each other. Most times it was talk, but when words were too difficult and your bodies needed to feel something… else, something primal and good and pure, they would pass you between them, never straying too far.

Benny's eyes would always drift and land upon Deans. It intoxicated him, pulled at his heart in ways that tore him apart. Deep green eyes, full of hope and goodness and humanity… something fragile yet unbreakable, much like what he once saw in Andrea’s. Just like Andrea’s. As much as he tried to put her memory to rest, Dean’s gaze would always take his breath, whether they were fighting or fucking, and the feelings that washed over Benny were wild and raw.

You ventured off to scout ahead one day, leaving Benny to help Dean walk after a surprise run in with a gorilla wolf didn’t fare so well. Those things sure liked Dean. Could you blame them? As you cleared the spaces ahead, you reminisced on the first time it happened. 

It’d started innocently enough, some kissing and tender touches traded between you and Dean. You craved comfort, and his touch never disappointed. The fading daylight illuminated something… different, something new in his eyes. There was a spark of acceptance? Resignation? You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but for some reason the usually tightly wound hunter was relaxed. His movements were delicate and slow, a stark contrast to the usual quickie on the run. 

You nearly lost your balance when he stripped your pants away and traced deliberate sucking kisses down to your sweet spot. You’d had to catch yourself from falling over at the heady sensations, threading your hands into his hair and holding on for dear life (or death.) Within moments, Benny swooped in to support you from behind, snaking a strong arm around your stomach as Dean began to lick and hum and stroke you in ways you’d never felt. Your blood burned like fire, causing every inch of your skin to become more sensitive. 

Benny brushed the hair from your shoulder with his free hand, then took a fistful of it and guided your head back. With a contented sigh, he took your exposed neck into his mouth and you twitched violently between the shivers running down and the heat rising up. The contrast of Dean’s soft lips to the burn of his stubble mirrored that of the rough, blood soaked fabric of Benny’s jacket against the smooth of your skin… and it drove you mad. Your vision swelled with every wave and the sounds of the cursed world around you faded as if cotton had been shoved in your ears. 

Your legs gave way and you fell into Dean’s lap as he chuckled, watching you come undone. The orgasm hit you somewhere along the way down, untouched but wound so tightly that you couldn’t hold out another moment.

While you writhed against him, Dean held you securely to his chest with arms that crushed into your ribs and pinned your arms to your sides. Your head finally came to rest upon his shoulder, and as your senses eased back into focus, you realized that you were completely laid down upon his bare chest. Still buzzing from the high, you nuzzled into the crook of his neck and laid a small peck. Dean’s resulting smile stretched wide, and you could feel it there without even needing to see it. 

“You okay, baby?” Dean gently stroked your back up and down with one hand, and moved to tangle strong fingers in your hair to hold the base of your head tenderly with the other. 

When you found your voice, you muttered a small, “yeah, thank you.”

Benny kneeled beside you and lowered his face until your foreheads met, the three of you so impossibly close. “You up for some more, sugar?”

You smiled wryly and closed your eyes. “Yeah, I’m all yours.”

Though your limbs were but heavy gelatin, you managed to lift out of your shirt as the men undressed. Pulling Dean’s discarded coat over you like a blanket, you rested against a fallen tree and admired them. Dean was more slender, but faster and stronger. The way his muscles rippled and creased beneath pale, freckled skin reminded you of a swimmer--all lean and mean. He was graceful in every movement, like a dancer. Benny was a little more solid, built like a tank. Maybe he wasn’t as fast, but there was no going through him. You’d seen beasts hit him straight on with full power, and the vampire had barely flinched. Those fists could break anything, but his face was always… soft. Kind. Dean’s was hardened, but you couldn’t blame him. And yes, there were moments, like this, where the lines of his face smoothed, and some color returned to his cheeks. 

How you’d ever found Heaven in this Hell, you’d never come to understand. But you were ever grateful. Hopeful for a future with them topside, however it may go. 

Dean’s outstretched hand pulled you from your daydream. You took it, letting the jacket go as he helped you stand. As you stood, he continued to pull you forward until you were flush with him. He pressed a firm kiss to your scalp and rubbed his palms up and down your body. His cock twitched against your belly, and you wrapped your arms around him, squeezing just a little tighter at the new flood of arousal. 

Benny snaked his arms around you from behind, until his hands rested on your neck, not gripping, but just *there.* The weight of them naturally guided your head to fall back against his chest. He growled into your ear, “You’re so fucking beautiful. So good for us, cher.”

Your mouth fell agape and released a strangled moan as Dean kissed along your exposed neck and mumbled a steady stream of “You’re such a good girl for us, such a good fighter, a great companion.” 

With every word, a new fire raged through your veins. Your face burned hot. Dean’s hands wandered south, caressing every inch passionately. One hand found its home grasping your thigh right under your ass, and the other came to rest in your dripping folds. You bucked against the touch and right into Benny’s length resting between your cheeks. 

You whimpered, needing more, needing release. “D-Dean please, fuck. I need you. I want you inside me, please--unnghh.”

Dean teased your entrance for a moment more before the wrecked look on your face and the subtle, high pitched sounds spilling from you completely enraptured him. Benny nodded, moving his hands to steady your sides as you squirmed uncontrollably. With a swift movement, you were raised up with both of Dean’s hands cupping and spreading your ass until he lined up at your folds and let you sink down much too slowly. 

Pathetic cries filled the air as you struggled to maintain control, the stretch of him almost too much to handle and not nearly enough all at once. You shook and grabbed at anything you could hold with a flutter in your chest that threatened to make you implode. And yet, the intense feelings only grew. Benny planted himself and anchored with a strong arm outstretched and clutching to Dean’s shoulder. 

Dean bit his lip fiercely and let out a pained groan at the other man’s unyielding hold on him. His cock twitched again as he bottomed out deep inside you. The depth burned and ached, and with it your eyes came to focus on Dean’s. 

The emerald green was more prominent now, outlined by the hot blush beneath a spray of freckles. His brows were drawn tightly and jaw slack, full, pink lips parted in bliss. His breathing was erratic, and with every intake of cool evening air, Dean trembled. 

You mewled and whined, shifted against them, desperate for friction. The slightest broken smile graced the hunter’s face and he nodded, knowing but not yet ready. 

Tears already began to gather as you fought the urge to physically fight the men into submission, to finally scratch that itch. Benny didn’t leave you waiting much longer though, before he was slipping and pushing into place in your ass. The deliberate burn of him spreading you open opposite Dean left you thrashing between them. 

Dean took a deep breath in as a reminder for you to do the same. If it weren’t for him grounding you and helping you through, the black void would’ve already sucked you in as another victim. You did your best to relax and bore down, allowing Benny to fill your other hole completely to his base. 

The vampire grimaced through his own keening, the tightness of you nearly sending him over the edge right there and then. You stilled between them, already on the verge of destruction as the three of you adjusted to the new feelings washing over you in waves. 

Dean’s lips found yours, open and wanting. Taking his tongue hungrily into your mouth, you sucked and fell absolutely limp as he sucked your lower lip between his. The scent of him was utterly intoxicating, and you were ready once more. 

Benny began to move in tandem with Dean. With every movement of the both of them against your thin membrane, a wailing cry seeped between your clenched teeth. Benny was now clutching both of Dean’s shoulders so tightly that were white bloodless patches beneath each of his fingertips. This made Dean buck harder until the hunter’s eyes shut tightly and left his head bobbing backwards in lust. 

The symphony of your cries was lost beneath those of the two men, who shuddered and swayed. The sweet, sinful music flooded your mind and sent you reeling over the edge once more, clenching and swearing and falling against Benny’s outstretched arm. 

Dean’s thrusts faltered as his stuttered, “I’m.. I’m about to--”

“Just let go, brother,” Benny encouraged. 

It was the only confirmation Dean needed before his load spilled into you, sending renewed longing to your stomach as he pulsed inside you. “Fuck Dean,.. You feel so good,” you managed.

Benny came seconds later, and you relished in the full warmth of them. 

You smiled to yourself as the familiar electricity flooded your veins and leaked to your core. It may have been the first time, but every time since had only been… better. Impossibly, incredibly better. 

Upon your return, you noticed that Dean had found new strength.

“We’re closer than ever to Cas, he’s three days away by the river. We’re almost done! We can go home!” Dean was grinning widely, a spark finally back in his tired eyes.

You smiled, scooping him into a rough embrace. If Dean was happy, you were happy. Benny joined you in the bear hug. You were so ready to be topside again, and now, it was so close you could just taste it.

Your second chance.

With a start, Benny hollered and let go, leaving Dean tense and alert in your arms. Then, he threw you to the side as a beast attacked. Its whole face morphed into a shark-tooth ringed mouth, and you grimaced.

Leviathan. You must’ve been really close to that angel.

You drew your weapon as one engaged you, swung and lopped its head off easily after years of practice, until something glinting and sharp emerged where it should not have been.

You looked down, the blade bloodied and protruding through your chest, through your lungs. Unable to draw a breath, you fell to your knees.

“No!” Both Benny and Dean were yelling, voices echoing through the hostile forest. Black ooze covered them from the slain monsters. You looked up as your assailant withdrew the sizable knife from your back and placed it against your neck. It was another vampire. You looked back to the boys.

“You killed our sister, so now we’re gonna kill yours,” the voice behind you teased in a sing-songy tone. More boots shuffled into your line of view.

Benny looked absolutely broken as he charged, extra teeth bared sharply in defiance. Dean bounded to you, holding your gaze with those emerald green eyes as he expertly dodged the advances of his adversaries.

Once again, your breath was seized and you relaxed your tense muscles. If this was finally what wiped you into oblivion, it would be okay, as long as you could stare into the comforting depths of that hunter’s eyes. After all, you were tired of fighting…This would finally be the end of the suffering. To oblivion. The warmth from Dean’s soul flooded over you as he got closer, but it was too late.

Your head rolled from your body. 

Dean decimated the group of vampires in record time, the rage fully restored and urging his body forward against all odds. Once again, the hunter had become more vicious than any monster in the land. In two days, he would limp to the river and find his angel.

You, however, woke on the other side of Purgatory. Oblivion was not something that would ever come for you. There would never be a release. Despair, overcoming any hope you ever had, creeped its dark tendrils through your entire being and swiped your feet from underneath you. So that’s what happens to monsters who die in monster heaven… they get respawned and zapped to another part. Great. You were stuck in hell, too far away now to reach them in time. One day you would find a way out. You had to. But first, you would have to find the strength. Strength you may never have again. You curled into a ball, mind silent as you gave into the feeling, a single, small tear streaking a thin line from your eye into the dust. 

You were alone. Again. 

Your second chance gone along with the human and his friends.

 This was my second attempt at writing smut and maybe I got carried away??

WAYWARD PEEPS:

@carryonmywaywardcaptain​ @manawhaat @supernatural-jackles​ @jensen-jarpad @wheresthekillswitch​ @bummblebeeblue @nothin-after-79-blog​ @docharleythegeekqueen @fangirl-writing-fiction @inmysparetime0​ @impala-dreamer​ @arryn-nyxx​ @idk-life01 @attorneyl​ @deathtonormalcy56​ @xwing-baby​ @wonder-cole​ @itsangelpie-supports​ @thinkinghardhardlythinkingogblog​@icecream-and-gadreel

ANGST BABES:

@trexrambling​ @abbessolute @emptywithout​

ALL ABOUT THAT DEAN:

@akshi8278​ @will-winchester

[stillness-in-green]

Spinaraki Week Level 2, Day Five: Rain | Steampunk

I don’t know anything about steampunk but take this anyway and I hope it’s not TOO obvious that I’m a huge poseur.  I promise I did at least some research.

———–      ———–      ———–      ———–

The brass city fell.  It didn’t even take Gigantomachia, in the end, just Shigaraki and the change in his disyncrasy: steel to rust, bone to dust. Anyone within half a kilometer of the epicenter had gone up like so much ash, give or take some lightning-fast limb-cutting, and that had been that.  Case closed, except for the evacuations to somewhere the Hero Corps wouldn’t be sticking their noses while Shigaraki’s new army figured out the new status quo.

The Liberation Army had airships on hand—it was the easiest way to get into Deika’s isolated mountains—so that was where the League wound up after the initial flurry of medical care, piled into the nicest cabin of the nicest airship Spinner had ever set foot in.

Not that there was a lot of competition on that front.  Spinner had been in exactly one airship in his life, and that was the one he’d taken to get to Hosu.  He’d shared with two others a third-class berth that had reeked of sulfur emissions the entire trip.  Blankets had been request-only, for a surcharge.

This place was huge, an apartment of rooms in the upper galleys, all mirror-polished oak floors and white linen sheets in the beds.  Every room had a glass door that lead out to a railed deck you could walk all the way around the stern, as long as you were the kind of person who had no fear of heights whatsoever.  Shigaraki’s was at the very back, a sitting room with the standard door and a ridiculously well-appointed bedroom with its portion of the deck walled off from the rest, turning it into something more like a private box.  Spinner had seen whole kitchens smaller than the bed.

Shigaraki—who’d rolled his eyes at Spinner’s hovering, but Spinner didn’t trust that automaton of Skeptic’s enough to let Shigaraki walk around alone with it—looked around, ambivalence in every line of his face, then turned back to Spinner and grinned.

“Want to break the bed in?”

They didn’t manage it, not for lack of intention or for absence of Spinner’s sputtering, but just because Shigaraki was asleep two minutes after he hit the mattress, and Spinner, despite his best intentions, wasn’t far behind.

-

He woke hours later to a shift in the sound of the engines’ dull rumbling.  Nearby warmth confirmed that Shigaraki was still with him, but dead to the world, unresponsive to Spinner’s tentative nudge or careful edging out of the bed (once he found the edge of it, anyway).

The only light in the room came from a yellow glow seeping in from the door to the balcony.  When Spinner crept over and tilted his head way back, he could just make out the bottom edge of the huge lantern hung above the deck, lit up so bright he had to blink away spots when he averted his eyes. Outside, any sign of the land below was obscured by the balcony railing; above it, a ribbon of sky tumbled behind them endlessly, empty but brilliant with stars.

The future looked a bit like that for all of them now.

Spinner shook off the half-formed thought, heat in his cheeks at the naked romanticism of it, and turned back towards the bed.

He didn’t know enough about airship engines to know what the change in sound meant.  Maybe they were changing directions, maybe they’d hit a headwind, maybe they needed to refuel; he had no idea, and he wasn’t going to leave Shigaraki to go find out.

He pulled a chair over to the side of the bed and arranged himself in it, the last of his knives recovered from the pile of their gear on the floor and resting over his lap. Resolved to stay awake in case someone came, he fixed his stare on the door and waited.

-

He woke up again, this time to gray light and the sound of rain on the window.  The bed stood empty, and the cane the medics had given Shigaraki (that on top of a leg plaster, an arm brace and a jar of laudanum the size of Spinner’s fist) was gone.

Hissing a curse under his breath, Spinner stumbled to his feet and swept the room.  The balcony was obviously empty, and there was no answer to his knock on the bathroom door, nor was Shigaraki passed out in the wood-paneled bathtub.

Just as he lay a hand on the door to the sitting room, he heard the laugh from inside—Toga.  Spinner sighed in relief, giving himself long enough to pick out Shigaraki’s voice before he doubled back to the bed to throw on his coat and loop his sword belt over his shoulder.

When he pushed into the other room, it was to find Shigaraki and Toga perched in the pair of chairs positioned in front of the doors to the outside deck.  Toga was wrapped up in Shigaraki’s tattered greatcoat (which definitely looked like it was sporting a few new patches), her legs drawn up into the seat and her skirt tucked close enough around her feet that it was obvious she wasn’t wearing shoes.  Shigaraki, lacking a table to kick his legs up on, sprawled sideways in his chair, bare feet dangling in the air over the arm nearer the doors.  Both of them looked over at his approach, Shigaraki craning his neck back over the other chair arm and Toga shooting him a suspiciously satisfied grin.

Unlit and gloomy, the room was bitingly cool, and Spinner levelled a reproachful look at the both of them.

“There is a radiator in here.  We don’t have to sit around being cold anymore.”

“It’s a nice atmosphere!” was all Toga had to say in response to that.  She’d upgraded to an eyepatch from the gauze packing of the infirmary, a dark swath of leather over her right eye that made her skin look almost white. Given the amount of blood she’d apparently lost, she was probably supposed to still be in bed just like Shigaraki, but the gods knew the two of them didn’t exactly have the best self-preservation instincts in the League.

“We’re supposed to get to the new hideout in a few hours,” Shigaraki weighed in.  “You can go sleep some more if you want.”

“Everyone else is,” Toga added, in the tones of one who’d checked.

“It’s fine.”  I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep right now anyway, he didn’t finish, instead just arranging himself in a cross-armed lean on the wall.

Shigaraki and Toga looked at each other, silent for a beat, then went right back to the conversation they’d presumably been having when he came in.

“So?” she prompted.  “How’d it feel?”

“Terrible,” came Shigaraki’s answer, flatly candid, but then a snide grin teased its way over his face as he went on.  “At first. Felt pretty good by the end, though. Real liberating.”

“Mine didn’t feel bad at all,” Toga replied, drawing out the last word in a dreamy gratification.  Something seemed to strike her, sharpening her previously unfocused stare.  Her wide smile drained away for just a moment before twisting itself back up into a smirk, taut with a spite he hadn’t seen on her face since the whole thing with the Shie Hassaikai.   “I can’t wait to try it on someone I actually like.”

“What are you talking about?” Spinner asked, bewildered.

“She unlocked it,” Shigaraki said shortly, then his lips hooked up into an anticipatory little smile as he watched Spinner’s jaw drop.  “Her disyncrasy.”

“I can change shapes!” Toga announced, her expression melting back into eagerness.  “Not right now—that’s what I need blood for—but that’s what I’ve always wanted it for!  I figured it out when that reporter lady wouldn’t leave me alone.”

Spinner’s mind reeled with the possibilities.  They’d been out of contact with their supposed spy since Shigaraki’s master was taken, but with that kind of infiltration capacity on the table, on top of Shigaraki’s rust now affecting everything, not just metal…

“You too, right, Spinner?”

Toga’s coy voice clipped off the unspooling ends of his thoughts and he looked up into barn-owl yellow eyes that saw straight through him.  “Wh-what?”

“You changed too.  I can smell it.”  The assertion made no sense, but her smug certainty drove heat up into his cheeks anyway, because damn, she was right, even if there was no way for her to have known about it.

“It’s really nothing,” he muttered, not daring to look at Shigaraki, though he could feel the stare without even needing to.  “Not compared to—”

“You an’ me’ve read a bunch of the same serials, Spinner,” Shigaraki interrupted him dryly.  “If you unlocked something, there’ll be a way to use it.  What’d you get?”

Spinner closed his eyes and bit back a groan.  Rubbing at his face did absolutely nothing to alleviate the weight of their attention, though, so he gripped his hair and pulled his own head up enough to glare back at Shigaraki, hollowness chewing at his stomach.

“Climbing on walls.  Like a—” and he broke off to gesture at himself with his free hand.

“That’s fun!” Toga chimed; Shigaraki just looked thoughtful, which was—well, it was a better response than Spinner’s gnawing anxiety had been expecting, anyway.

“Yeah,” he said at length. “I can come up with ways to use that. Who looks up at ceilings, anyway?”

“What were you thinking about when you figured it out?” Toga asked, and grinned completely unrepentantly when Spinner moved his glare over to her instead.  “I bet I can guess.”

“Leave him alone, Toga,” Shigaraki said, an off-handed defense that still filled the emptiness in Spinner’s guts with sudden butterflies, the blush now for a wholly different reason. “That’s five of us.  Just one more to go.”

Toga moved her fingers for a moment, frowning down at them.  “…Five?”

“Dabi’s holding out. He’ll tell us when he wants to.” A beat, then a huff.  “Hell, Compress might be, too.”

They went on talking, and Spinner let them, watching Shigaraki with a tingle in his mouth that felt like a promise trying to make itself known.

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Never Alone

The yard sale spread out like a little girl shook her dollhouse and the contents sprawled into messy piles across the grass. There was a box of second-hand shoes that you had to find the mate for yourself and rickety card tables with rusting legs holding knick-knacks ranging from toy trains with gunk in the wheels to stained cloth napkins the color of one of the seven deadly sins. 

Two neighborhood houses on Chestnut Hill had decided to get together and sell the insides of their attics to the unsuspecting masses. I wrinkled my nose at an old toy chest with a yellow finish and long scrapes across the top.

I glanced over to where a tall brunette was inspecting a plastic tea-cup with flower designs on the side. “How long do you want to be Ollie?” I asked sourly as the sun licked over my brow. It was barely even eleven and I could already feel the heat of the day sinking its teeth in.

Olivia barely looked up as I addressed her, she was in “shopping mode” which was a space I couldn’t personally penetrate with either manners or an industrial-sized hammer. “A couple minutes. Ten tops.” She lied and I wrinkled my nose.

I shook my hair back in irritation, “you promised you’d try that new brunch place with me.” I stuck my bottom lip out, “Derick and I were gonna do it… but you know.” Olivia looked up long enough to flash me a sympathetic look and held up two fingers, “just a couple of minutes.” She gave a long pause and tried to wave me off, “Go find something you like. It’s a big sale there’ll probably be something.” I rolled my eyes and turned back to the messy zig-zags of junk. “Ugh.” I walked away with my shoulders hunched.

Olivia Henderson was my roommate and best friend and had a thing for yard sales, second hand stores, people’s closets, junk piles, and anything that smelled a little funky from the lost and found. Her tastes were as inexplicable as the fact she worked in banking. She collected shoddy 18th century reprints and people’s old key chains with anime characters on them and weird bomber jackets covered in patches.

To say the least, she was going to be awhile.

I rounded an burnt ironing board and watched an old couple inspect a bright green bike parked up against a table. I glanced down at my phone and saw a healthy number of notifications which I immediately flicked away out of habit.

The old couple laughed at something as the owners of the house rounded on them and asked something probably included lines like “lovely couple” and “this will be perfect for you…” I rolled my eyes and went around a box with old roller blades and worn jackets for sale inside.

I checked my phone again and there was a new text.

Mariene: I heard about you and Derick :(

Mariene: Want to talk about it? :)

I shook my head like there was something I was trying to dislodge and jammed my phone in my back pocket. The sun simmered above and I kicked a box of board games lightly before weaving back and forth toward the back of the house.

It was a two-story carbon-copy kind of house that was painted grey and felt grey and oozed that bland grey choke hold sensation of suburbia. The houses around it were beige and cream and off-white and had families in them that were working on holding down decent jobs, having 2.5 kids, and then dying. The whole thing made my stomach churn.

I eyed an old rocking chair that at least looked reupholstered recently and heard the last of the old couples voices: our grandson just turned eight…

Their grandson just turned eight. I felt my phone buzz from my back pocket and glanced over my shoulder to check that Olivia was still collecting slightly bent silver forks and drapes with bowling alley designs.

I was ready to leave. I was ready to get brunch and bitch about Derick and Serina and the fact they were now “Derick and Serina.” How the last thing he said was “I love you,” before cheating on me. I took another meandering step toward the house when my eyes landed on a doorway. There was a series of concrete steps laid into the ground itself, tucked away right behind some bushes and at the back of the house.

I eyed it for a second. The door itself was brown and faceless and the only thing interesting about it was that it was open. I cocked my head to the side as a little basement entrance was fully exposed. It reminded me of a scab begging to be itched.

I looked one more time over my shoulder to check that the owners were still talking to the old couple and Olivia was still in love with her oddities. I skipped down the garden level steps toward the door.

Snooping and boredom usually went hand in hand and I justified it in the back of my head with a quick “maybe they have better junk they’re selling down here.”

A few steps down and the light seemed to shift above my head. It became honeyed and slightly cloudy-- like looking through colored glass. The voices of the yard became more distant and I poked my head inside a very cramped looking room.

It was a finished basement that unlike my parents house wasn’t just concrete floors and water damage. I stood up straight as a blast of AC hit me in the face and I took a few more steps into the room to feel that sweet cold air across my skin.

It seemed to be another storage room which was impressive since they already seemed to have an entire universe of junk on their lawn outside. There were brown boxes stacked high and a wooden dresser alongside a big classic baby crib with wooden bars. The cool air inside the room was heavenly, but there seemed to be a sheen of dust through it. The late summer light streamed down  through floating bits of something and my nose began to tickle.

I glanced around the boxes and curiously made my way to the baby crib because I hadn’t seen one like that outside of movies and museums. It looked like it was made of real wood and whittled by hand with a certain amount of care.

My parents had bought plastic industrial-made cribs and quickly got rid of them the second me and my sister were old enough for bunk beds. They weren’t the type of couple to hold onto sentimental keepsakes or make anything by hand.

I delicately touched the railing of the crib and it was warm and the wood was soft like smoothed stones you find near lakes. My eyes glazed over for a moment and some part of me wanted to take the crib home with me. It was handsome and strong and I didn’t own a lot of things with history behind them.

I shook the thought out of my head after a moment because I never planned on having kids. I never wanted to live in a beige neighborhood where people settled for their jobs and settled for each other and settled for raising bratty kids they didn’t even want. Kids that in turn grew up to settle for shitty governments and shitty societal systems and stop dreaming and start focusing on collecting piles of junk and dying on top of them.

I turned around quickly as if to bundle myself up and run away from the whole vision of it. I pivoted and stumbled into a vanity that I hadn’t noticed was right beside the crib. I hit it hard with my whole body. “Oof!” I yelped.

It was a big solid vanity with four drawers and spindly legs and a round clear mirror in the very center of the wooden body. It looked like the same wood as the crib. I had a moment to catch my own panicked eyes in the mirror before the thing teetered backyard.

“No!” I reached to stop it from thundering backward, but it happened quickly. The vanity toppled backward and crushed two small boxes behind it that sent up an entire storm of dust into the air.

I sneezed rapid-fire as the dust exploded and my head rocked back and forth.

“What’s going on?” A sharp voice barked and someone was at the side door. “What are you doing in here?!” I sneezed again and turned around to find one of the owners-- the woman in a pink cardigan, staring daggers at me. Her mouth went round in perfect horror as she saw the vanity toppled backward and me standing in the very center of the dust plumes.

“Sorry,” I said quickly, “I didn’t mean to, but it’s not broken or anything, promise.” I said before sneezing again and wiping at my nose.

“Get out!” Her voice was strained and barely a pitch below hysterical. “Get out of here!”

My brow furrowed and I plodded back toward the door, “It was open--” She pushed me physically from the room and into the stairwell, “you fool.” She spat, “don’t ever come back here and pray to God it didn’t--” She paused, “just pray.” “What?” I backed away from her. “Anika?” Olivia poked her head around the corner as the light beat me over my head. Olivia eyed the owner looking like a bull with red paint in front of her, “Uh?” “We gotta go.” I said flatly. Personally, I thought the woman was overreacting since nothing was actually harmed.

The owner turned to me. “Leave.” I didn’t need to be told twice. I hurried up the stairs and grabbed Olivia’s wrist, “Come on.” I tugged on her.

“Wait, I found this weird map I want to buy.” “I think we just sorta got banned.” I clarified and tried not to wince. I reminded myself it wasn’t my fault the woman completely lost it.

“What?!” 

“I’ll make it up to you.” I said quickly, “lunch is on me.”

I glanced over my shoulder and the last thing I saw was the woman hurriedly locking the door with a huge old-fashioned key and muttering to herself. Something cold dropped into the pit of my stomach and I ignored it.

------------

“I can’t believe you guys are going out without me.” I pouted as I watched my roommates finish gathering their bags and checking their makeup and phones for updates on their Uber.

I lived with three roommates because it was New York City and I wasn’t a billionaire. Olivia was a strange artsy girl who worked in accounting, Carmen was an outgoing career girl with a type-A personality, and Molly was a soft, quiet girl who was getting her PhD in something useless. They were all my type of people, but it didn’t help when they all just stared blankly at me as I moped on the green armchair by our windows.

Carmen puckered her lips, “Hey, we told you to come with us.” She said with an arched eyebrow, “it’ll help get over your bastard ex.” I gave a dramatic sigh, “I’m not ready for a rebound guy yet.” I said tersely and shifted in place. “And I’ve got a headache.” I lied mostly for the effect. 

Molly shot me a sympathetic look. “We don’t have to talk to boys--” “Speak for yourself.” Olivia joked.

“It’s our girls night. We've been planning it for weeks now.” Molly simpered.

I stuck my chin out stubbornly. “Can’t we just stay home and watch TV? I have a breakup ritual to get through.”

Carmen clicked her tongue, “I bet Derick would be so jealous if he saw you already hot and ready to trot right now.” I made a face at them. “I don’t want to make him jealous. I don’t care about that cheating asshole anymore,” I lied again and turned away, “but you guys have fun.” I knew I was mostly refusing out of spite, didn’t they care that I was going through something right now? It didn’t matter either way though as Carmen cheered, “Our Uber’s here! Come on ladies.” “Be good, Anika,” Olivia waved, “don’t get banned from anything else while we’re gone.” She said with a twinkle in her eye and a reference to our outing that morning.

I flipped her off, “Go enjoy getting yourself gonorrhea in a club bathroom.” “We will.” And just like that they were out the door and to their “girls night” without a care in the world.

I groaned and hung my head back. I heard my phone buzz probably with yet another text from my sister. She never got the hint when I didn’t want to talk to her or listen to another one of her lectures beginning with “start growing up already, Anika, you’re almost thirty.”

I closed my eyes and wanted something to scream into.

The apartment was a clean space with dark carpets and low ceilings. It was decorated by Olivia with misshapen nautical lamps in the corners and heavy curtains that Carmen put up so she could Skype with her international colleagues early in the morning.

I stared at the ceiling as I listened to my roommates reach the elevator and the doors dinged. I frowned as the noise faded and something else took its place. It was a faint sound.

I perked up and looked over to the apartment hallway. It was almost so distant I couldn’t make it out, but there was unmistakable shuffling coming from the narrow space. “Hello?” I said and narrowed my eyes.

More sounds of scuffing came from the soft carpets. I stood up. Some animal-instinct sent off alarms in my head and I peered around the corner. I swept my eyes across the closed doors and a dying houseplant by the bathroom.

I looked to the ceiling to check if maybe rats were in the vents, but I heard the noise again: pat pat pat. 

I looked right in front of me where the sound was coming from. Nothing was there.

Pat, pat, pat

I looked down. There were two dark indents in the carpet that seemed to be moving. I backed up until I reached the opposite wall. 

Pat, pat, pat

Something was padding across the floor in front of me, slowly and deliberately. But I couldn’t see anything there.

Some sort of dread settled in my stomach that I couldn’t place, cold and hard and tying knots in my guts. I stared for another moment at empty space, and then ran for the door. I shoved my feet into my shoes, looked at my phone, and then booked it into the hall and down to the stairwell.

“Hey!” I waved as my friends were nearing a blue Mazda. “I changed my mind. I want to come.” I didn’t think I was actually that torn up about Derick, but the mind is a terrible thing, and I didn’t need it playing tricks on me all by myself in my apartment.

--------

My fingers clacked on the keyboard with a certain satisfying fury. The deadline was the day after tomorrow, but that meant it was even more important to get most of the leg work out of the way that night. 

The shine of the fluorescent lights was almost feverish and angry above me and my right wrist ached from typing. It was past midnight by then and it was only me and a lowly intern finishing up work for the night. The building was always “on” in the way that the city itself was always “on,” but I had an article on current campaign finance reform failures that I needed to finish.

It was almost 1am by the time I blinked and Kenny the intern was turning off his desk lamp. I looked up and he looked right back at me. “Um,” he was a sweaty kind of kid with a round face and freckles that popped like pock marks on his cheeks. “Did you, uh, want that on?” He asked nervously as he pointed to his desk lamp for some reason.

I shook my head, “I’m basically done.” I looked at my article. It would need a lot of cleanup tomorrow morning before it went to the presses the next day, “I’ll be right behind you.” I let Kenny get to the elevator first and head downstairs so we wouldn’t have to share any awkward small talk when all we really wanted to do was head home. I was revising the last paragraph-- the one with the real “punch” to it when I heard something.

I looked up just as a soft shuffling sound came from across the room. My neck prickled and I closed my laptop.

Pat, pat, pat.

It had a slow pace and strange rhythm to it, but I was certain this time that it was footsteps. I hunched over, finished closing my bag up, and stood.

Pat, pat, pat

It sounded a little quicker this time, but still slow and steady. I jogged to the elevator and was grateful that it didn’t seem able to run itself. I clenched my jaw and looked over my shoulder. Nothing was there again, and some rational part of me felt ridiculous.

I glared, “I know you’re there.” Pat, pat, pat

It was getting closer now. Closer than it was before.

I bared my teeth, “I don’t know what you want--”

Ding

The elevator arrived and I threw a withering look over my shoulder. “But you’re not going to fucking scare me. Go away.” Pat, pat

It was almost right in front of me now. I darted quickly into the elevator and pushed the button a dozen times to get the doors to close faster. I exhaled when they finally gently clanked shut just as the steps arrived right where I had just been.

I was massaging my neck and thinking about going to shrink when I heard the creature really arrive at the door.

Sccrrrtchhh

I sucked in a quick breath and that same cold dread shook through my nerves. The elevator started descending to the street level, but all I could hear was that same sound over and over again: sccrrtchhh

It sounded like claws on metal.

I spent the whole walk home looking over my shoulder and listening for invisible things and slow footsteps. I waited for its claws to finally arrive and slit my throat. However, nothing seemed to pursue me in the crowded streets or the subway.

It was probably all in my head. Or it was just trying to scare me a little and would go away-- maybe it enjoyed the hunt and not the kill. But something told me that wasn’t the case.

---------------

“So,” I said and a long drawn-out silence passed between us over the phone. “How’s Josh? How’re the kids?” I asked casually and waited for the other shoe to drop.

My sister cleared her throat on the other end of the line, “He’s fine. They’re fine.” She sounded prim and measured as always, “You’re the one we’ve been worried about.” I scowled off into nothing as I sat in a large park with pigeons pecking at the ground nearby. The weather had been turning and the sky was readying itself for the first snow, “Why?” I said without meaning to.

“Because of Derick. You guys had been dating for ages,” she said slowly, “Plus… you know.” “What?” “You only call when you need something.” She said with both a hint of humor as well as accusation in her tone.

“Well it’s not about Derick.” I grumbled, “I was actually calling about…” I drew a deep steadying breath. “I’ve just been straining myself at work a little too much.” I stared at the ground with a hard look. “And maybe gotten a little over stressed.” “Oh?” Mariene waited.

“So,” I forced the words out. “I know you got a good doctor after Liam was born.”

“You mean a therapist?” She said and it sounded triumphant. “Because he handles mostly postpartum depression, but I could find you someone really good. What do you think the problem is?” “There’s no problem.” I said quickly between clenched teeth, “I just need a better way to unwind or someone to… I don’t know. A second opinion.” “On what?” Mariene sounded truly concerned now.

I looked up at the slate-grey sky and sighed, “it’s nothing.” My shoulders drooped, “it was nice talking to you.” I said in a tone that didn’t really convey the sentiment at all.

“Wait,” Mariene said quickly, “Anika, don’t hang up. If it’s really bad, you can stay with me. Or maybe get an apartment of your own! You’re almost 30 and living with 3 other people is--” “Goodbye Marienne.” I hung up. I looked over my shoulder as I had been doing for weeks now ever since a that first panic pumping night. That first feeling of something, something I couldn’t see approaching.

I checked the park one more time but only saw the squirrels in a trash bin and an old man sleeping on a bench nearby. I got up and told myself that I hadn’t heard from it in awhile now. “I’ll just go back to my apartment,” I rubbed my face. “And sleep.”

“And sleep” was mostly wishful thinking at that point. I hadn’t slept well in awhile. Soft bits of snow started to fall and catch in my hair and eyelashes. I took a deep chilly breath that prickled in my lungs and grounded me. I started walking. I had taken to wondering at night and going in random directions. 

I had to use google maps to get home on these nights. I followed the little blue line on my phone down a dark narrow street that directed me toward home. That’s when I heard the distinct echoing.

“Oh.” I said.

Clack, clack, clack

It’s steps reverberated through the dank street and I looked around me. Belatedly, I realized that I had chosen the one street in all of New York that was empty. “Do you only come,” I looked behind me and it seemed even quicker than the last time we met. “When I’m alone?”

Clack, clack, clack

Did it keep getting faster, closer, better at this each time? I couldn’t tell. I started hurrying down the long dark street with empty buildings on either side of me. I needed to find people. I just needed to find some other living breathing person.

Clack-clack-clack-clack

I looked behind me and in the soft fallen snow I saw it’s footsteps. They weren’t shoes or toes or even paws. It was something much worse.

I let out a scream and turned a corner. I ran straight into an old woman with her hair falling out and a sallow look to her skin. “Oh thank God,” I grabbed her and turned, “do you see that?!”

I pointed to the place where the steps were misshapen and lumpy in the snowfall. 

“See what, dear?” She asked with her eyes squinted and I remembered to breath again.

“Nothing.” I collapsed onto the ground next to her, “nothing at all.”

----------------

Things were different after that. I went out more. I went dancing so much the blisters on my toes had blisters. I stayed in crowds. I never stayed home. I considered getting a cat, but then what if it hurt the cat when we were finally alone? I knew I  had started to bother my friends. They gave me irritated looks when I third-wheeled on nights out with their boyfriends. I knew I was getting annoying when I clung to them and looked over my shoulder wherever we went. I knew I was distracted and not much fun.

It didn’t help that Molly saw me sliding a giant knife into my purse. It didn’t help when Olivia asked me what was in my pocket jokingly and reached in to find handfuls of sand. I couldn’t give her the proper explanation. I couldn’t tell her that I needed to see if it was coming.

It stayed at bay though, as long as I was never alone.

I went back to the house on Chestnut Hill. I suspected that’s where it started-- with the dust and the baby crib. However, when I finally found the address that Olivia gave me the place was completely empty with a “for sale” sign out front.

I couldn’t find the owner’s new address and when I tried to find the basement I couldn’t find that either. 

It was midwinter when my friends finally had an intervention. 

“We think you need some me-time.” Carmen said factually as we sat in the middle of the living room. “Why don’t you stay home tonight and give yourself a spa night?” She smiled tightly.

They all stared at me from places on the couch and I didn’t even care that we hadn’t had fun together in months. I just needed them to be in the room.

“Sure.” I said with an absent nod. “We can do a spa night tonight.” “Well, babe,” Olivia said slowly, “I’m going to do some me-time tonight in my studio. By myself. Carmen is going on a date with her boyfriend. And Molly is going to visit her parents tonight.” I turned to Molly. “I’d love to see your folks. It’s been too long.” I gave a strained smile.

Molly shook her head. “They saw you last week.” She said with an equally strained smile. “And I was thinking… it would be nice to be only me and them. You know, with my dad being sick and all.” I clenched my teeth, “Of course.” I went on, “but I’d love to give him some get-well presents.” “And you can!” She said, “but not tonight.”

She got up to leave and I turned to Carmen. I opened my mouth and she put her hand up. “No.” She said, “I let you come out with me and Isiah last time and you wouldn’t even leave us alone on the pier. Just, no.” My face fell as she got up to leave as well, “this isn’t healthy.”

I got up as well, “fine.” I said, “I’ll go out by myself.” I could certainly spend a night in the park or at yet another club again.

I heard a collective sigh and Olivia took my shoulder, “do what you need to do.” She kissed my cheek, “but you need to get some rest.” 

Rest? It sounded like a joke at this point.

I shook my head. “Let me just get my bag and I’ll go downstairs with you all.” I said and hurried to my room. I expected them to wait. They always waited before. Olivia was my best friend and she would never leave me.

I came back to the empty living room.

Pat-pat-pat

It was so fast now. I let out a small cry before dashing out into the hallway. I barely made it out where I banged on every single one of my neighbors doors. “Please,” I hit 603 with my bare hands and tried the door knob, “please, please come out.” Pat-pat-pat-pat

I ran from door to door banging and yelling and running as the thing’s enormous weight bore down. I felt a hot breath on my neck.

“What is it?” A family-man with a beard burst out of room 610. “Are you alright?” I exhaled as the heat from the things mouth disappeared. The tears were streaming down my face then and I reached for my phone, “I’m sorry.” I said and then I made a phone call to the one person I thought might still want to see me.

-------------------

Derick walked in the door with his slouchy jeans and tousled brown hair. He wore a sheepish look on his face and hung back the second he entered the apartment. He was just in time after the guy from 610 left. Derick rubbed the back of his neck as we exchanged looks, “Uh, I guess you heard me and Serina broke up.” I shook my head. “I heard.” Derick seemed to see me for the first time, “babe, why are you holding a baseball bat?” He frowned, “And why did you call me here? Last time we talked you said you’d like to see me dead.” “It doesn’t matter.” I said blankly. Robotically. “None of it matters. You still want me. Yes?” “I mean,” he shifted from foot to foot. “We had fun together. We dated for five years, that wasn’t nothing.” “It wasn’t.” I agreed. “And we could be together again.” His face emptied, “You said we wanted different things though, like, kids and a house. I still want those things, Anika.” I was so tired. I dropped the baseball bat and walked over to him. I wrapped my arms around him so he wouldn’t escape and buried my face in his chest. “Let’s have kids.” I said blankly, “lets have as many kids as we possibly can.” “Alright?”

“But you have to promise me,” I squeezed him tightly around the middle and he grunted as I dug my nails in. “Never,” I seethed between my teeth. I was still shaking somehow and maybe I would never stop shaking. “Never ever leave me alone.”

[shesawriter39049]

|TROUBLE| M|1 OF (?)

PAIRING:  OC XJimin/Namjoon/Yoongi ....Now how that happens..you’ll just have to wait and see…

High school/Drift racer AU

Running Back Jimin-

Point Guard Yoongi-

Not soo “Mr. Perfect” School President Namjoon-

Wild child Cheerleader OC...

***They all drift on the weekends *****

SMUT/Humor..ish.../mentions of drugs/alcohol

**Written all in good fun, for purely nostalgic reasons...the men in question are grown as all hell IRL and that’s all that matters lol! So for this particular AU yes... strap yourself in and take yourself back on a ride for a NEW highschool experience! ****

4.5K

Based off my headcanons I made for this threesum..it will play on those “characters” IE...my version of an Americanized..non art school BTS!

***I paint a very detailed picture...aesthetic wise for all three of the boys and the OC…(STYLE wise) I never get into physical looks with my OC’s***

It was 7:25 in the morning, I.E too damn early as three cars eased in one after the other to the already full parking lot, yet for some reason there normal spots remained untouched. The school itself was a “school of choice” and often attracted people of all walks of life due to its exceptional sports program. Everything from a Range Rover to a rusted out beater filled the lot, the students just as diverse as the cars. A white BMW 430i, led the pack, followed by a sublime green challenger scat pack, and ending the brigade was a very well taken care of satin black 70 Chevelle, two white pinstripes lying along the hood! The threesum almost making a untentional triangel, ironically enough the BMW eased into the spot that read “Reserved for class president”. Not even giving it a second thought before doing so, yet, it’s the first day of school and elections havent even taken place yet. Presumptions for him to assume for the third year in a row he’d reclaim his title!

Black loafers graced the gravel, lying beneath a pair of light gray slacks, which were tucked into a loosely fitted cotton polka dot dress shirt which sat slightly unbuttoned. A thin black Gucci belt laced around his waist. Hair currently ash blonde, messly waived out of his face, while cat eye glasses framed his button nose. Was Namjoon Kim a TA...or a Junior in high school!? Were still trying to figure that out too, the tiny bud of a joint pinched between his fingers kinda answered that question though. Leaning down to rub the end against the concrete to halt the remaining smoke, giving himself a couple sprays of cologne before throwing it into his black leather backpack. Placing his ice capp on top of his car before popping his trunk..removing 4 bright orange cones...placing them on either side of his car..

“This motherfucker!!” The playful scoff, in combination with the most dramatic eye roll you’d ever seen in your life came from the one in the scat pack as he sipped on his Bahama Mama. A pair of Puma RS-X TRACKS laid on his feet,accompanied by a pair of extremely tight,distressed, dark wash “Copper 9” skinnies. With the way your school's star running backs thighs were set up you’d swear these bitches were painted on. Ya know... the amount of rips that laid along his thighs mixed with how low the white Calvin Klein V-neck sat..the combo would definitely be a write up if worn on a female student! Well... actually…. nah, your school was very laxed on dress code just due to everyone constantly breaking it and your principle basically giving up! Jimin's caramelized complexion glowing under the sun.. his dark wavy locks locks sat tucked behind a backwards red Supreme snapback! A set of rhinestone 2G plugs sat in his ears while an array of other piercing traced of the outer frame of his lobes. Arms and fingers, also coated in a menagerie of gold and silver accessories.

Lounging casually against the hood of his car, a smug smirk tugged on his pouty lips observing the way his best friend gave his car one more one over before grabbing his coffee, dropping his gaze down to his watch. The diamonds visible from across the lot... strutting his way through the brigade of cars as if he owned the entire school.

“Is he aware that when he does that dumbshit...it just makes me wanna fuck his shit up!? I've never been so tempted to kick a car in my damn life!” and last but not least..that growl came from the proud owner of “The Creeper” AKA the Chevy Chevelle… lazily making his way in the running backs direction. A fitted black and white “DGK” baseball jersey draped his frame,paired with black skinnies to offset the primarily white jersey. His burgundy locks tucked under a matching black “DGK” bucket hat, all white Jordan 11’s dusted his feet. Of course the look wouldn't be complete without a “Tropical” Red Bull and his earpods wedged in both lobes..which essentially let you know he really didn't wanna be bothered. A helpful hint with Yoongi, wait for HIM to approach you...

Still trying to figure out why school couldn’t just start in November..or in layman's terms...during basketball season. Since that’s the only reason he comes anyway...just needing to keep his grades up so he can continue leading the school to their third consecutive championship. One of if not the best point guards in the state...you didn’t have to necessarily be the tallest to succeed in basketball you just gotta know your angles!

Sharing an all knowing smirk with the fellow athlete as the two of them coly strolled towards Namjoons car, casually kicking the cones one by one away from the premierter in the process. A gritty chuckle leaving their lips as they did so… before nonchalantly making their way towards the building, “Well, aren't you sexy…” The words purred from Yoongi’s lips making Jimin’s head snap around, but the minute it did he already knew the point guard wasn’t talking about a girl per say. But a car, a royal purple Camaro that clearly had drag tires on it….

“Fuck yeah she is….” The level of arousal that dripped from there lips ...at the site of a car was almost comical, yet not at all surprising. Incase you havent noticed they all have a thing for cars..even Namjoon’s BMW. It may look like the car of a businessman but thanks to Yoongi and Jimin under his hood was straight fire! The car itself peaking interest as neither of them had seen it before, and considering the fact that they raced every Sunday night...they’d know if there was another drift car in town! Shrugging it off for now, already well aware they’d see the owner at some point in the day….

The minute they entered the building it was just utter chaos, the school itself was huge, spread along three floors. Typically hovering a little under 2k kids a year between all four grades, it was clear as day who fresh meat was. The building clearly more than overwhelming as they ran frantically  through the halls, a combination of excitement and fear dancing along their faces! The pair smirking in amusement as they maneuvered through the crowd, unbothered wasn’t even a strong enough word to describe the two of them.

“Hey Park over here!!!” Jimin didn't recognize the voice, that shot through the air, yet he still adjusted his direction to follow the sound anyway. Not too surprised to see it was a couple underclassmen with cameras in hand. Probably on the school newspaper, or the yearbook committee...Jimin didn't care either way. You put a camera in that boys face and the charm goes on full blast! Quickly tossing the remainder of his drink in the garbage so he had freedom to ...I guess pose, suddenly this must've became a photoshoot in Jimin’s mind!  Eyes turning into tiny crestins as he smiled in the youngers direction, not hesitating to switch up his angles, poses, the stairs somehow became a prop...suddenly he was taking his hat off.......all he was missing was a damn fan!

“Yoongi you tooo….” Words slowly dying off his tongue at the glare the point guard gave him in response. Though he ultimately ended up complying due to a sharp nudge to the ribs from Jimin.

“Stop being a little shit!” Growled through clenched teeth as he continued smiling and posing for the camera.

“How about you stop telling me what the fuck to do?!” Reaching up to give Jimin one hell of a purple nurple ripping a low growl from his throat. Triggering the first genuine smile and chuckle to leave Yoongi’s chest all morning, as he glanced over in his direction.

“You said you wanted me to smile…” An almost menacing tenor rang through his throat as he spoke, still grinning ear to ear, gums on full display .

“You fuckin sadist!!” Nudging him in the shoulder before both randomly deciding they were done with this little importue photoshoot. Heading back to their initial mission..Tv production ...or as Yoongi called it..an extra hour of sleep before school starts!

“OH! So what your saying is you didn't enjoy that? “ Brow arched at the implied question cutting him off with another one before he even had a chance to respond.

“So now the rumors about our star running back #81 being into BDSM suddenly aren't true!? You suddenly lost your pain kink!? How about a little breath play action? Choking? Would you care to confirm or deny this accusation Mr. Park!?” Shoving his Iphone in Jimin’s face as if it were a mic..a shit eating grin playing on his lips…

The smirk that crawled up Jimin’s face at the sound of that should’ve already told Yoongi he was going to wanna kick his ass “Oh yeah, I fuckin love it ..in fact..your mom sounds soo damn good calling me daddy I just-” Insitnally cut off by Yoongi shoving him into the nearest locker, ripping a loud cackle from Jimins throat..laughing until he was almost weezing eyes completely dissapered into his face!

“Cool, I’m glad we decided moms are fair game this year..especially because your father travels a lot..I’m sure mama Park gets lonely...” Playfully wagging his tongue in Jimin’s direction earning a well deserved dual middle finger from the running back!

Stumbling their way down the hall as they, kicked, nudged and shoved each other in the process if people didn't know any better they’d really question the terms of their friendship! The pair finally danced upon there missing link, a combination of fondness and embarrassment laced along there face as they watched Namjoon network..or flirt..or both depends on perspective!

“Yes, of course I’m very confident in that and I think I did a very good job last year, and the student body will remember that..and hopefully vote accordingly when the time arises…”  Flashing the girl to his right his award winning dimply smile...nothing subtle about the way she damn near melted at the sound of his voice alone. Namjoon knew what he was doing though as his hand soothed over her shoulder. Eyes burning into hers, as he awaited her to remember how to breathe and close out her podcast recording.

“KIM NAMJOON!!!!” Squawked from Jimin’s lips..he didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was..just the simple stylization of his name alone let him know it was probably only one of few people!!

Glancing over his shoulder in there direction, ya know it’s funny..if you saw the three of them separately..you probably wouldn't assume they’d be friends. Unless your basing it solely on ethnicity, even there styles screamed different ‘Cliques” if you will. First you got Jimin who dresses like a...tendy, slightly boujee skater, Yoonig, who leans more towards “High end” urban street/lounge wear..and finally Namjoon. This boy either looks like he’s heading to a corporate meeting, or like he just got a Champs endorsement..there’s NO inbetween. Yet this threesum have been best friends since the 6th grade and wouldn't have it any other way!

“Yeah...were actually gonna make shirts that say “Daddy Joon for president…” so ugh look out for that merch coming real soon, I’ll slide the link on my Instagram..make sure you're all following me, it’s “ParkJimin81” in case your not…”

Tongue playing at the corner of his mouth as he casually draped his arm over the brunettes shoulder after shamelessly plugging himself .Now it was his turn to make this poor girl's knees go even weaker. Dropping his gaze down to meet hers not missing the way her body shuddered slightly at the contact. Or how her eyes zoned in on his cherry stained lips, a smug smirk tugging on his cheeks, as he slid his hat off, ruffling his figures through his hair. “Aeygo” left his tongue in response to how blatantly flushed the underclassmen’s face was before abruptly moving in Namjoon direction. “Alright playtimes over baby boy we gotta go!!” Tugging him down the hallway...

“Andddddd THAT ladies and gentlemen, was a free lesson on how to clout chase and be a hoe  with Jimin Park..he’s here 5 days a week..for at least 4 of the 7 hours of the day! But if you wanna learn how to do that thing where he looks like he’s going to rip every hair follicle out of his head...we can probably set up some private facetime sessions for like 20 a pop! Lemme know..Yoongi Min, manager and the only functioning brain cell for those two! Thank you!! ”  Extending his hand dramatically, dropping down to a sad excuse for a curtsey, bowing a couple times before tailing after his friends!

~~~~~~~

The boys managed to make it to the halfway point...they all had fourth hour together which meant they had the same lunch period. Which was ironically enough B lunch..none of them were actually signed out by there parents as they casually walked out the back doors. Not even remembering the last time they actually properly got signed out for lunch. The parking lot buzzing with students, during the summer months a lot of the time lunch was actually spent in the parking lot. Hints why there was one school security guard outside.. he wasn't doing much, though. Hell Larry actually looked like he was smoking a damn cigarette!

“Whoes car are we -fuck I knew it! I fuckin knew it” Swatting at Namjoon’s chest, smiling ear from ear compaly obviouslious to the current abuse. While Yoongi and Namjoon glared in his direction...

“Could you not abuse your president…I’m fragile...” Gently dusting his fingers over his pecks..

“Man! First off your the biggest motherfucker here! And if you don't shut the hell up about this damn election, you havent even won yet!” The phrase left Yoongi’s tongue with more bite than Namjoon expected, faltering back in surprise. Eyes blown out as he dramatically clutched his chest

“Alright FIRST off, RUDE!” Pausing to make sure there was enough emphasis on the fact that he was clearly offended! “ And are you doubting my skills Min Yoongi!? Listen I don't need this type of negativity in my political-”

“Oh for fucks sake!! Nobody cares about your damn election right now Namjoon!! Look!” Physically grabbing the taller of the threes head between his palms...turning it to the far left.

“On top of the hood of the Camaro..I told you little shits I saw her at the scrimmage!” Nothing subtle about the way Jimin pointed you out in the sea of cars as you reclined against your hood. Posing for a couple pics for Instagram with some friends, long story short 2 years ago your dad took a different job and you guys moved an hour and a half away. Due to the size of the school you transferred to you guys were still in the same division. So you saw each other occasionally on game nights or on the weekends and during summer break!. But nothing compared to bullshittiing and gossping all day in class with them, or actually being on the same team again! No surprise to anyone that you made varsity cheer for the third year in a row…

“Troubles backkkkk….” The words left Jimins lips sing song like as he gazed over in your direction, a cheeky little grin starting on his lips, before seamlessly shifting down the line.

“Well boys, I think Y/N deserves a formal welcome back..and who better to do so... then your class president, and two of the schools top athletes?” The grin on Namjoon's lips quickly changed from innocent to pure mischief as he glanced in his buddies direction!

Your LBD was without a doubt breaking every centimeter of the dress code, it looked like a standard cotton bodycon dress for the most part. But the very bottom flared out slightly almost like a skater skirt...which was currently playing “Chicken or go” with the wind! The leather chunky heeled booties didn't do much for that either. Only making your legs look longer and your dress look shorter, an oversized distressed denim jacket hung loosely off your shoulders. Finishing the look off with a pair of extremely tiny sunglasses so much so that they were actually useless..nothing more than an aesthetic! Hoops damn near the size of your head hung from your ears, hair half up, half down. A messy top knot sat in the middle of your head while the rest laid in loose curls..the sun catching your overly glossed lips and highlight perfectly as you posed along the hood.

Eyes zoning in on the pack making there way in your direction, you'd be lying if you said you hadn't already scopped them out prior to. The four of you followed each other on social media so you were well aware of how good purbirty was to the three of them over the past couple years! In addition to the fact that you guys weren’t necessarily super close but you were..comfortable if that makes sense! Naturally running within the same circle...so when you’d come down for the weekend, or summer break you’d still hang out or at least run into each other at parties!

You were always known for being a little bit of a wild child, the girl that was always down to cause a little trouble, and so where they..soooo it worked out! Only this time around, you got the opportunity to spend the majority of your summer abroad, so it was a bit of a surprise to most that you were coming back to finish out your junior and senior year!

“Well, well, why am I not surprised your all still connected at the hip?” A playful smirk tugged on the corners of your lips as the pack swarmed you, Jimin closing in first. Not hesitating to scoop you off the hood and into his arms for a hug, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“Hiii..” slipped past your lips and into his hair, as the sweet musky scent of his cologne filled your nose in the process. A slight squeal leaving your lips as he twirled you around before placing you back on the ground.

“Hii, welcome back...” He naturally carried a very warm tenor to his voice,not the deepest but it was effective, calm..inviting...intimate.You could damn near feel every muscle in his body when he picked you up. Puberty hit Jimin damn near perfectly..even though you’d never tell him that!

He was always a little..’thick” I guess you'd say,nice ass, thighs..and the cutest chubby cheeks even though he hated them! Now..he turned all that into muscle..still thick just toned..Jawline chiseled to the GODS, you could damn near cut glass! Like I said, you saw them damn near evrry sumemr, but it seems you miss one and now it’s like..FUCK!!!

“You missed us that much you had to move back aye? Or was Brighton a little too...boring for you?” A smile that was almost too damn smooth played on his lips as he glanced down at you. Tongue slowly grazing against his teeth,reclining against the light post adjacent to your car. Funny how it was a question yet his tone indicated as if he was telling you, you missed them and you moved back because you got bored...

“Meh, I don't know about all that, but the three of you aren’t the worst ammently this town has to offer so I won't complain. Also you already know..lifes far from boring if I’m involved...”  Casually flipping your hair over your shoulder as you shifted back along the hood of your car, eyes now zoning in on the other making there way in your direction.

“Princesssssss..” Namjoon sauntered over to you..moving past some random that appears to just be observing or taking notes...it hard to tell. Fuck, did his voice get even deeper!!!??? How many times is this boy going through puberty shit!

Taking in his frame from head to toe, a slight snort  leaving your lips at his attire, hopping off the hood swaying in his direction. Letting your hands play with the collar of his dress shirt…”You do know you don't actually work here right? And like this whole student body president gig means nothing when you drive off the lot?” Brow arched at the implied smart arsed question, a smirk playing on the corners of your lips as you watched him roll his eyes. Ripping a cackle from both of his best friends lips in the process.

“I’m soooo glad someone else gets it!!!”

Instantly whipping a middle finger in Yoongi’s direction without breaking eye contact with you.

“Aww Joon! I’m glad you finally pulled that thing outta your ass!”

“Yeah, yeah, fuck the both of you! Now give me a damn hug girl!!” A playful growl ripped from his throat,as it was his turn to scoop you into his arms. Giggling into the side of his neck in the process, eyes fluttering open in enough time to see  Yoongi damn near salivating over your car. Palm coming over to caress the curve in your hood, yes, there was something extremely sexy about how delicately he stroked the frame of your car.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to touch something that doesn't belong to you without permission Min? ” Lashes fluttering in his direction, your tone of voice let him know you really weren't bothered

A smirk playing on the corner of his lips as he gazed over at you, still not removing his hand from your car though. “I mean ..yeah they have..but to be honest I don't really wanna touch...I wanna ride her..” Eyes locked with yours as he said it, you knew what he meant, he was a car guy, and right now he had a car boner! But he also knew what he was doing in the obvious change in tenor as he spoke…

“Oh yeah?” Brow quirked in amusement as you sauntered over in his direction, Namjoon and Jimin overseeing in silence.

“Mmmmhmm...she’s sexy..what can I say...I’m a man..I like sexy…” Kneeling down slightly trying to see if there;s anything under the frame of the hood.

“Is he stock..or a tease?” This time the question came from Jimin, as he slowly started to circle the perimeter of the car

“Hmm..why don’t you find out yourself? Reve her up a little..she’s a big girl..she can take…” Wiggling your key fob in Yoongi’s direction. A cheeky grin spreading across his lips, which looked extremely wet right now....

“Shit, you don’t have to tell me twice, get it baby girl!!” Extending his hand to catch the keys

“You two are more than welcome..I’m riding shotty though, my whip, my rules…”

The pair didn't even have to think about it before hopping into the back seat.

The minute Yoongi revved up the engine and they heard how sweet your baby girl purred, a literal moan swept through the car. Triggering a gritty cackle to leave your chest “I told you she's no bitch!!!!”

Easing out of the parking lot, and making his way down the main road, which was essentially all rural, your city itself was initially a resort town. Downtown itself was huge but for the most part there's just a lot of trails, backroads, lakes,and land, a lot of land..beware of mounds of horse shit in the road during the warm months!

“Do you mind if I smoke in here?”

Eyes whipping back in Namjoons direction dramatically as if you hadn't seen him hit a bong at a party “Oh my god our future class prez smokes!? Shit, I might actually vote for you instead of actually running my damn self!”

The look on Namjoon’s face was utterly priceless, while Jimin and Yoongi damn near weezed…

“Ohhhh shittttt…” Jimin’s entire body slouched into itself as he laughed until he was practically in tears!

“You would not….” Tone blatantly daring taking on a more dominant effect that your use too! But you didn't care shrugging nochanaly in his direction.

“Aww what’s wrong Joonie? Worried because for once you might have some actual competition, or because you may actually lose!? But don't worry I’d make sure you were like my treasure or something ...”

Reaching over to grab the joint from between his fingers positioning it between your lips, if you didn't know any better you’d swear he damn near growled in response. Turning your head in Jimin’s direction who leaned down to light the joint for you. Taking a long slowly drag before pulling it back from your lips, coating the tip in the leftover residue from your lipgloss.

“Nah, not even, phased honestly go for it baby ! To be real I’ve been craving a little competition anyway...and don’t worry there will be no hard feelings on my end. I’ll still invite you to my celebration party at my lake house because I gotta respect you for at least trying!” Smiling down at you before snatching the Joint out of your mouth with zero warning, placing it between your lips. Causing you to blow the cloud of smoke dead in his face, eyes shifting into tiny slits as you glared back at him.

“Don’t fuckin’ tempt me Namjoon…” Tone taking a sassy turn as he was now testing your patience.

“Oh no I’m not tempting I’m begging..and I don’t do that often..please..please be a good girl for me and do as I say...and run for class president!” Intentionally taunting you as there was now an almost whiny condescending tinge to his voice. shooting you a quick wink before reclining in his seat.

A short scoff leaving your lips in response, hating how quickly he could get under your skin “ Oh don’t worry..I’ll be damn good for you!! Game fucking...on..Joonie...you wanna play we can play...speaking of…” Brining your attention to the driver's seat

“Min, what the fuck are you doing? I thought you wanted to ride her not babysit her...I know you don’t baby stroke the gears on your Chevelle like this. Show me what you got..put in work, I bought these tires for a reason sir!

Adding a purposely taunting tone to your voice as you glance in his direction, knowing damn well you were pushing his buttons. Observing the way his eyes glanced up into the rearview mirror, catching Jimin’s, the pair sharing a smirk before a deep slow breath left his body. Adjusting the grip his handheld on the gear shift, lowering your steering wheel and reclining his seat back even further.

“Alright kids buckle the fuck up, you heard her, she want’s it fast and loud....well.. daddy’s about to have a little fun….”  Eyes shifting in your direction briefly..

“I’m waaaiiitingggg….”

You could see Namjoon in your peripheral pulling out his phone, aiming it at the additional speed gauge you bought for the car since nothing under the hood, including the engine was stock. It legitimately felt like your body melted into the seat as he seamlessly alleviated for 45 to 60 to 75-to 90....before you knew it he had her purring at a solid 150 and it barely even felt like it!

“ FUCKKKKKKK YEAH!!!” Ripped from your throat once you felt him flour it, feet hammering straight into the floor! Going a good 4 miles, at full blast before actually approaching a more…”Civilized” part of town.

A loud howl ripped from Jimin’s chest as Yoongi drifted down a slide street that was actually a dead in...which lead to the parking lot of a roller rink. Purposely easing in sideways as your tires rutted along the concrete, cradling the wheel until he completed 3 seamlessly donuts. Still, hovering at close to 100mph before slowly bringing her down, gear shift by gear shift, all four of you starting at each other breathless in complete silence as your car finally came to a halt….

“Holy shit I have to fucking PEE!!” Swatting at the back of your seat until you scooted over, almost onto Yoongi’s lap so Namjoon could hop out of the car. Passing Yoongi the joint in the process so he could finally hit it too now that he was parked.

“She’s fucking NASTY!!!!” Yoongi glanced over at you between puffs..placing the joint in front of your lips which you welcomed. Leaning down to take two more puffs, slowly inhaling a cloud of smoke releasing the remainderer through your nostrils.

‘Oh...” Leaning down again, causing you to lean forward thinking he was going to offer you the joint again ...but instead  “Welcome back by the way..you were missed..” Taking another slow drag before releasing a cloud of smoke from his lungs, concentrating the smoke in the direction of your lips. Reclining your jaw slightly, sucking in, recouping the remaining cloud of smoke . Fuck, when did Yoongi get so damn smooth!?

“Thanks, I’m glad to be back honestly” Clearing out your lungs a little before continuing “And thank you! I told youuuu..she’s  my little baby...a straight beast!” Chest swelling with pride, even though this wasn't close to half to what she could do.

“There’s a race...this weekend...Either after the first game on Friday orrrr sunday night...that parts still undecided!I think it’s too late for a buy in but...you definitely need to come...it’s at the trail down by Marine city.”

Nose scrunching into your face at the location...not too fond...at all..you hated the drive even on the bus for games !

You reaction caused Jimin to smile over at you , already well aware of your issue, as he ruffled his fingers through his hair. Slowly tailing his way down to caress his neck “You could always ride with one of us if you want-”

“Shit!!” Namjoon hopped back into the car slamming the door behind him, luckily you still hadn't fully shifted off of Yoongi’s thigh or else he would have crushed your ass! “I think I saw a -”

Before he even had time to finish his thought...a blacked out charger pulled in..unmarked but the sirens said it all….

“Everybody out of the car!!”

THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE FOR THE INTRO CHAPTER!!! If you like it and you want me to continue with this fourseume..then “Like” this..leave some feedback and come hit up my ask box!

NOTE- IF I continue this..it will be a one shot series..as in it won’t go into EVERY detail of day to day life but have a main focus. I.E the first game, the drift race, the election, Namjoon /Jimin’s birthday ETC…I’m also still undecided on how the smut is going to work between the 4 of them. There could be an array of scenarios that take place as “smut” means any type of sexual activity, so that’s not to say she’ll go the full 9 with all three of them...or maybe she will...IDK!!!! LOL

NOTE- I know realistically they would be staggered year wise, but to make it easier I’m making them all juniors (If I add in the other boys in another series, Hoseok would be a Junior while Tae, and Kook would be Sophomores and Jin would be a senior)

ALSO- The boys are all going to graduate at 18 or In Yoongi’s case he turns 19 right after!

Love you guys as always,

Rocki!

[dr-gloom]

The Makings of Greatness: Chapter 11

Fandom: Sanders’ Sides

Pairing: platonic logince, platonic moxiety, platonic anxeit, familial ThVi

Tags/Warnings (for this chapter): 

Ko-fi

AO3

Masterlist

Prologue  Ch 1  Ch 2  Ch 3  Ch 4  Ch 5  Ch 6  Ch 7  Ch 8  Ch 9  Ch 10  Ch 11  Ch 12  Ch 13 Ch 14  Ch 15  Ch 16  Ch 17

The mushroom trees provide a dense cover from the light, bathing the atmosphere in shadow. The ground is covered in a soft moss, with the occasional rock, though a metal surface peeks out where the moss has been removed in some patches. The metal of the planet’s surface has grooves in it; lines and circles that seem to follow a nonsense pattern. Particles can be seen floating in the scarce streams of light that break through the mushroom trees’ canopy, the entire scene calm and still, the only thing offsetting the undisturbed natural scenery being the smoking, overturned skiff.

Virgil is the first to regain consciousness, looking around in the dim lighting to see Logan and Roman still disoriented. He grips the lip of the skiff, grunting as he lifts it just enough to slip out, then he positions himself so he’s standing with his back to it, feet braced on the metal surface of the planet, and grips the lip of the skiff again, pushing. He manages to lift it more, turning around to fully push it over and free the two older adults, then sits back down heavily on a moss patch and lets out a tired puff of air.

Logan is the next to fully wake, groaning softly and rubbing the back of his head. He sits up, looking around, his eyes widening as he becomes more aware of his surroundings. He shifts, his hand brushing along the grooves of the exposed metal, and glances down. “Curious….”

Roman wakes up next, shifting to sit up and then standing, looking around. “Well… That wasn’t one of my finer landings.” His face pinches with pain and he clutches his side, gasping softly and dropping into a kneel. Logan rushes to his side. “Captain!” Logan starts to help him up and Roman brushes him off. “It’s nothing, just bruising. I’ll be fine.” He turns to Virgil. “Mr. Shae, the map?”

Virgil reaches into his pocket, pulling out the gold orb and sighing with relief, a smile curling his lips. “Ah, good.” He starts to hand it over and it levitates out of his hand, making a few whirring and clicking sounds, the bits and pieces coming apart-

Only to turn into Morph.

Morph laughs and sticks his tongue out, and Virgil groans. “Morph!” Morph flies around his head, still laughing. “Morph, where’s the map?!” Morph stops in front of Virgil, then turns into a much smaller version of the map and the coil of rope from earlier, then the map tucks itself into the coil of rope.

“Are you serious?! It’s back on the ship?” If Morph had shoulders to shrug apologetically, he no doubt would be doing so. As it is, he looks regretful enough. Virgil grabs at Morph in frustration, the blob slipping between his fingers again and again.

Roman looks up when sounds of an engine catch his ears, muttering to Virgil. “Silence the blob and get low. We have company.”

Virgil looks up in time to see the second skiff sailing slowly overhead; no doubt Declan and his men trying to find them. The three of them duck behind the overturned skiff and watch Declan’s skiff sail by. Roman turns to Virgil. “We need a more defensible position. Scout ahead.” He hands Virgil a solar gun, which the teen hesitantly takes, his expression turning serious. “Right.” Virgil stands, looking around and heading off in a random direction. As he’s leaving, he hears Roman gasp in pain again and what’s most likely Logan helping him to the ground.

“Steady, now. Let’s have a look at that, shall we?”

 As Virgil wanders farther into the forest, it grows darker. The cover becomes thicker, the light more scarce, and the ground slopes downward. He walks hesitantly down a rather large root before just sitting on it and sliding the rest of the way down, finding his feet at the bottom and looking around as he walks. In this part of the forest, it seems like there are more ground-level organisms. They look almost like very large brussels sprouts, though it’s hard to tell if they’re some sort of shrubbery or just infantile trees. The canopy here is much denser; that, coupled with the lower ground, provides a much darker environment, and Virgil finds himself looking around a lot more, wary of any possible threats.

Just because they haven’t come across any native animals, doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

The large stalks of the mushroom trees loom ominously from all directions, stretching into the sky. With as little light as there is, the shadows make the stalks look almost like decaying wood, covered in some sort of slime. Virgil casts his eyes to the ground, his imagination getting the best of him; at least the moss looks the same.

A large root stretches out in front of him, blocking his path, and he has to hop up to sit on it, then pivot himself to get to the other side before hopping down. Unbeknownst to him, someone watches from the shadows, carefully monitoring his every movement.

A rustling comes from a patch of foliage behind Virgil and to his right. He spins around, but there’s nothing there except for the swaying stalks of some strange, tube-shaped plants. Morph titters anxiously and Virgil quietly shushes him, reaching for his solar gun. He turns it on, creeping closer to the stalks as the gun warms up, and peeks into the opening of the biggest one, his heart hammering in his chest. What kind of animal is it? Is it harmless? Does it have fangs? Claws? Does it eat meat?

Something jumps out of the stalk and screams, moving too fast for his brain to process. Virgil lets out a startled cry and falls on his back, the thing jumping on top of him, still screaming. Thin, hard, metal hands clamp down on his shoulders. Thick metallic joints press into his sides and shins. Large, glowing green eyes stare down at him and his first thought is I’m going to die and my dad will never know what happened.

“Oh, this is fantastic!”

What?

The thing sits up, and now Virgil can tell that it’s a very thin, worn-down robot. Its body looked like it’s made of copper, the minimal build of gears and thin limbs covered in dark patches where the shine was worn down with age, or dirt, or rust. Wires stuck out from the back of his head, wiggling around with his movements. His eyes were in a sort of binocular-like setting, the “eyes” themselves screens that lit up bright green, narrowing and widening like actual eyes and with small black pupils that moved around to indicate what the robot was looking at, along with small metal eyebrows that moved just like real ones.

“A carbon-based lifeform has come to rescue me at last! Oh, I just wanna hug you, and squeeze you, and never let you go!” The robot scoops Virgil up mid-crawl in his attempt to get away, hugging him tightly from behind. Virgil lets out a quiet “oof” as the breath is squeezed out of him, extremely confused. He glances at Morph.

Are you seeing what I’m seeing?

Morph looks just as confused, if not a little excited at the new possible friend.

Virgil pries the robot off him, taking a step back. “Alright, wh-” The robot hugs him again, and Virgil once again pries him off. “Jus-” The robot clings to him with his arms and legs like a koala, smiling happily. Virgil pries him off again. “Would you just- stop it.”

The robot takes a step back. “Ah, sorry. Sorry sorry sorry. It’s just,” he puts an arm around Virgil’s shoulders. Virgil leans away, grimacing. “I’ve been marooned for… so long. I mean, don’t get me wrong, solitude is fine! It’s just that, after 100 years, you go a little nuts!” His voice picks up on the last part, practically screaming. Virgil winces at the volume as the robot chuckles nervously. “I-I’m sorry, eh,” He removes his arm from around Virgil, dusting him off and taking a step back. “I’m, uh… My name, is….” He scratches at his head, groaning a little in exasperation.

Morph pops up at Virgil’s shoulder and turns into a miniature of the robot, a cuckoo bird popping out of his head and making the “cuckoo, cuckoo” sound the clock makes. Virgil rolls his eyes and pushes him down, Morph turning back into his pink self with a giggle.

“BEN!” The robot suddenly shouts, grinning. “Of course, I’m B.E.N.! Bio-electronic navigator. But uhm….” He scratches his chin. “I don’t think I like that very much. Oh! Call me Patton!” He slaps his chest proudly, the compass attached to it popping off, only attached by a spring. “Oops.” He pushes it back into place. “And you are?”

“Virgil.”

Patton takes his hand, shaking it excitedly. “Nice to meet you, Virge!”

“It’s Virgil.” Virgil pries his hand off, hunching down to slip past Patton.

“Anyway!” Patton giggles, resting his elbow on Virgil’s head. Virgil huffs and pushes him off, standing straight.

“Look, I’m kind of in the middle of something, okay?” He maneuvers around the robot, walking backwards as he continues talking. “I gotta find a place to hide, and there’s pirates cha-”

“Oh, pirates!” Patton laments, stepping in front of Virgil as he turns to face forwards. He puts a hand on Virgil’s shoulder, the other to his forehead. “Don’t get me started on pirates! I don’t like them.” Virgil shrugs his hand off and keeps walking, and Patton sits on a nearby rock. “I remember Captain Flint- this guy had such a temper!”

Virgil whips around at the name, walking back over to Patton. “Wait, wait. You knew Captain Flint?”

“I think he suffered from mood swings, personally - I’m not a therapist - anyways.” Virgil groans, raking a hand down his face. “Oh, but you let me know when I’m rambling!” Virgil’s eyes widen. Wait, this robot knew Flint. That was good, right? That means…

“That means… you gotta know about the treasure, right?”

Patton grimaces. “Treasure?” He asks hesitantly.

“Yeah, Flint’s Trove? You know… Loot of a Thousand Worlds?” Virgil smiles, gesturing as if the treasure was around them. Morph turns into a treasure chest, opening to show a chest of gold coins.

“I-it-it’s-it’s all a l-li-little-” Patton stutters as he stands, his movements jerky. Virgil frowns, almost concerned. Was there something wrong with him? “Little fuzzy. Wait. I re-re-remember.” His eyes glitch, the green fuzzing out before returning to normal. “I do! Uh… Treasure!” His pupils are replaced by treasure chests. “Lots of treasure!” His eyes turn red. “Buried in the centroid centroid centroid of the mechanism!”

Virgil bites his lip, eyes wide and heart fluttering anxiously. Should he like… stop this? It was freaking him out…

“And there was this… big door.” Patton mimes a doorway, reaching as high as he can. “Opening and closing and opening and closing!” The green of his eyes changes into a triangle, turning green, then black, then back to green, the color shifting like curtains being pulled back. The compass on his chest springs forward, then goes back, repeating the action with Patton’s words.

“And Captain Flint wanted to make sure nobody could ever get to his treasure, so I helped him-“ Patton glitches, the graphics on his eyes going haywire and his body jerking, sparks flying from the gap in the back of his head where the wires stick out. “Ng-aAH! Data inaccessible! And- reboot!Reboot! Reboot!” Where the green would be if he was squinting had turned into a black screen with green text, his whole upper body jerking back and forth like he was the bird in a cuckoo clock. Virgil flinches back, his hands instinctively flying up. More sparks fly from Patton’s head, and Virgil panics and slaps him.

Patton settles, blinks, then squints at Virgil. “…And, you are?”

Taglist: @the5thcoy @dailysandersidesaudoodles @hungry-red-panda @neonb-fly @chemically-imbalanced-romance @punsterterry @dead4sevenyears @metaphoricalpluto2 @tanyatoloni1334

[fanfic-from-a-67-impala]

Locked Away

Characters: Dean x reader, Sam

Word Count: 2247

Summary: Requested by @jesssuperwholock03: I request a imagine about a badass short reader where she loves Dean and she thinks that she isn’t good enough for him, but he secretly feels the same way and is too scared to admit it, and Dean locks himself in his room and she finally breaks in and he admits everything and she sings “Locked Away” by R. City and she admits that she feels like she isn’t good enough for him and they admit their feelings and get together?

Warnings: a little angst, not a lot of plot outside the slightly cliché romantic storyline

A/N: I didn't do the song thing because (I'm sorry, but) I think it's kind of cheesy. It's cute, just not the kind of thing I personally like reading or writing. I used the title, though.

Sam sits at the kitchen table when you stumble into the room.

“We got something,” he says over his computer screen.

“Good morning to you, too,” you sigh, sloshing liquid from the half-full coffee pot into your mug. “I slept well, thanks for asking. And yes, the weather is looking lovely today.”

“We live in a windowless bunker,” he says.

You blink at him. “Sam, you’re my best friend in the world, but I haven’t had enough coffee to deal with you yet.”

The two of you chuckle at each other as you raise the cup to your lips.

Dean ambles through the doorway, and you glance in his direction before you can stop yourself.

“Morning,” he mumbles.

“Hey,” Sam greets, eyes drifting back to his laptop.

Dean watches you glance away too quickly for him to catch your eye. It doesn’t surprise him, though.

“Uh, hey,” you mutter.

He shuffles toward where you stand near the coffee pot, but you practically leap out of the way, heading to the table to sit across from Sam.

He can’t remember when he first noticed you’d been distancing yourself from him. It’s been long enough for him to know he hates it. Long enough to know you’re not just having a bad morning. You were laughing with Sam when he came in, after all.

Dean rubs a hand over his sleep-strained eyes and pours his coffee.

“You said you got something?” you say to Sam.

The words light a spark in Sam’s eyes, and he turns his computer so the screen faces you and Dean. “We’ve got three accidental deaths in a town in Idaho in the past two weeks.”

Dean roams to the table and sips his coffee, burning his throat. “And you think it’s our kind of thing?”

Sam smirks at him. “They were all accidentally decapitated.”

“Sounds like us,” you say, sliding out of your chair. “I’ll go pack.”

You leave your mug on the tabletop, still full, tendrils of steam floating above it.

Dean watches your back, feeling like he scared you away, before turning back to Sam.

“What’s up with her?”

Sam raises his eyebrows, eyes grazing the end of the sentence he was reading, Dean imagines, before glancing up at him. “Huh?”

Dean tilts the screen backward so he can glimpse the monitor, but it only displays an email account and a couple news articles – not even ones with pictures.

“Come on, man,” he says. “It’s not even porn.”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“Dude, seriously. Something’s going on with (Y/N),” Dean says.

Sam’s gaze drifts back to his screen. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Or it’s something,” Dean counters. “She’s been dodging me for weeks.”

“Are you sure you’re not being paranoid because you’ve got a thing for her?”

Dean opens his mouth to speak, to argue, but shock swallows his words. Not so much at what his brother stated, but how casually he did. As if Dean’s “thing” for you isn’t what his mind drifts to in its spare time, or even when he’s had a bad day. As if it doesn’t keep him up at night.

All he can do is give his brother a hard stare and gulp down another swig of coffee. “Shut up, Sam.”

A hand rattles your shoulder, shaking you awake. Your head throbs, and the ache jabs at the back of your eyes when you pry them open. When did you fall asleep?

You recoil from the cold concrete beneath you, panic flooding in with unanswered questions.

“…(Y/N). Hey, take it easy.”

The pounding in your ears fades enough to hear a familiar voice urging you back to consciousness.

Dean.

You relax slightly when you hear him, feeling safer with the company. Or maybe you know nothing truly bad can happen as long as Dean is with you.

A light bulb hangs over your head, casting a dim yellow light on the nearer parts of the room – a bare concrete wall, a small table, and the first few steps of a wooden staircase. And Dean.

“Where are we?” you mumble, voice still slurred.

“I think we're in the wicked witch’s basement.”

“Oh.” You take the hand up he offers. “Lovely.”

You reach for your phone, but your fingers only meet the fabric of your jacket pocket.

“She took mine, too,” Dean says.

He has moved to the bottom of the staircase and begins to climb.

“She probably had us pegged the minute we drove into town.” You follow him up the stairs. “And if we’re here…”

He throws his shoulder into the panel of the steel door with a grunt, but it remains planted in the frame.

“Dean, don’t.”

He rams into the door again, to no avail.

You grasp his shoulder, jerking it to the side. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Sam’s still out there,” he says. “He’s got no idea what he’s dealing with here. We’ve got to warn him.”

He shrugs out of your grip and moves to crash into the door again, but you stand in front of it.

“Dean, there’s magic on this door. We can’t knock it down.”

He balls his hand into a fist, and you hear the thump as he leans it against the door behind your shoulder.

Slowly, the angry lines on his face uncrease, the fire in his eyes fades. You feel his rigid breaths against your chest even out. Before you can step backward, he blinks away.

“Come on,” you hum, leading him down the staircase. “Let’s think about this. What do we know about this place?”

He rubs his temples with his fingertips. “Okay, uh… it’s one of those old-style houses – the kind with the red brick and the ivy, right?”

“Well, kind of,” you say. “Same smell. Which means we’re in some kind of storage vault.”

“That thing looks pretty airtight, doesn’t it?” He nods to the door at the top of the steps.

“These places were supposed to be bomb shelters, meant to house people for weeks,” you note.

“And people need air.”

“Which would come from…” You run your hands and eyes along the brick wall.

Dean starts on the other side, but when you’ve almost met in the middle, you start to doubt your theory.

“Hey,” he calls, inspecting a bookshelf mounted to the wall, around your eye level. He grabs the books, handful at a time, and sets them on the nearby table.

Above the empty shelf is an air vent, a reddish brown rusted through the cast iron.

You both slide your fingers through the grates, grasping the criss-crossed bars. You brace your feet against the wall and pull at the vent. When it has still not budged and you begin to lose hope, the metal creaks.

“Aah!” you exclaim as the iron clangs to the ground.

Dusting your hands on your jeans, you peer into the darkened expanse behind the vent.

“It’s too narrow,” Dean says. “We’ll never make it through.”

“Speak for yourself,” you remark, gripping the edges of the shelf.

“You can’t go alone.” He catches your arm with his hand.

You glance down at the confirmation of what you already knew – that he doesn’t think you’re good enough to do this one thing. It shouldn’t hurt so much, really, because you know he’s right. You’ve always known it.

Maybe that’s why you could never admit why you’d rather hear it from anyone but him.

It doesn’t quell your frustration. You yank your arm out of his hold. “I can, and I will.”

“(Y/N), it’s too dangerous,” he pleads.

“And staying here isn’t? I can handle it, Dean.”

“I’m not saying you can’t–”

“That’s exactly what you’re saying!” you shout. “You don’t think I can do it.”

“No, I…” he begins to say, but cuts himself off, drawing back. Instead of continuing, he links his fingers and angles his palms upward.

You raise your eyebrows in question.

“Unless you want to scale the damn wall,” he says, not meeting your eyes.

You bite your lip, regretting your tone, but you step into his hands and latch onto the shelf. You can apologize later, when the danger has passed.

With his help, you hoist yourself into the dark, musty air shaft. You climb out into a storm cellar and break into the house, where you find Sam, who fights the witch with you. By the time you unlock the basement door, he’s put a witch-killing bullet through her brain.

Instead of the collective breath of relief that usually follows the slamming of the bunker door once you have all returned from a hunt, the air between you and Dean hangs heavy with tension.

While he plows straight down the hallway, you trudge more heavily through the war room. Sam gives you a questioning glance, but you dismiss it with a shrug before moving on.

You hear Dean's door closing before you round the corner, the soft thump of wood hitting wood, panel hitting frame. You pause at his door, but only for a moment, not long enough to turn and knock.

The thump echoes in your mind as you drop your bag on the ground and shrug off your jacket.

Wood hitting wood, panel hitting frame, mocking your cowardice now that the danger has passed and you don't have the nerve to talk to him.

It's no wonder he thinks you're incompetent.

The wood-hitting-wood thump echoes one too many times. You march out of your room and down the hall.

The wood-paneled Everest greets you again. You knock.

“Dean?”

More tense silence meets your call, though you can practically feel him behind the door, an answer on the tip of his tongue.

“Dean, can we talk?” you try again.

You hear shuffling, feet padding, but he doesn’t answer. Every fiber of your being longs to turn back, to cut your losses and concede to live through the night without making this right.

But Dean’s a loss you can’t cut.

“Come on. Don’t make me break the door down,” you say, your words joking but your tone heavy.

You crouch to sit on the floor, your back against his wall.

“All right, then, I’ll talk,” you mutter. “I didn’t mean to go off on you like that earlier. You didn’t deserve it.”

You thumb the hem of your jeans, a wave of uncertainty washing over you. “You definitely don’t deserve me and my psychoses. I know it’s been rough lately – the two of us.”

You wait for some kind of nod or noise of confirmation, but the door doesn’t give you one, and if he does, you can’t hear it.

“I don’t know how to do this,” you admit. “I’m not used to being the weak link, you know? The one who can’t hold her crap together like everyone else.”

The admissions come pouring out of you when you can pretend only a slab of wood hears you.

“I’ve always known my place here, and I know I’m good. I’m just not God-defeating, devil-killing Winchester good. I’m okay with it, usually. But lately, with you, it’s been a harder pill to swallow because…”

You run a hand through your hair, your energy draining with your hope. “It just is.”

When he doesn’t respond, you sigh. So much for that.

You pull yourself off the ground and pause to wonder if you should wait a few moments longer. After deciding you couldn’t take another minute of rejection, you turn to leave.

The doorknob creaks, and the door swings open.

“You’re not,” Dean says.

You peer into the room, where he waits, half behind the door.

“I mean, you’re not the weak link,” he clarifies. “I don’t think that.”

You lean against the wall. “I appreciate you saying that, but you don’t have to. I know where I stand here.”

“No, you don’t.” He steps outside to meet you.

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you don’t think I’m good enough to do the job,” you say.

“That’s not what I think.”

“Then, why do you–”

“Because I care about you,” he says. “Because I don’t want to see you get hurt, and if trying to keep you from that is selfish, then fine! But that’s what you do for the people you love.”

“What about the people I love?” you demand. “Am I supposed to let you go and hunt these things and get into trouble because I wasn’t there to back you up?”

The last exchange of words hangs in the air between you two, waiting patiently for the realization to pass over your eyes as it does his.

He takes a step closer, then another, until you can feel his breath skating softly across the top of your head.

“Do you…?” he begins.

You want to look away, but his eyes, the captivating green, won’t let you. “Love you?”

He nods.

“Yeah.” The pounding of your heart shakes the word, and your throat closes in terror. “But, um, you don’t have to,” you add. “I know you were just saying it to make a point.”

You step backward, but he catches your arm with his hand.

“I’m not saying it,” he whispers, bringing his other hand to your cheek.

Your eyes drift back to him. “Really?”

He nods again and pulls you closer by the small of your back, angling his neck so your noses brush. His eyes graze over your lips.

You lean in eagerly.

[thehikingviking]

Virginia & Twin Peaks via Green Lakes, Northern Yosemite

With the Sierra Challenge only a month away, I outlined a training regimen. The goal was to get some good mileage underneath my feet and spend some time at altitude. I sent a few emails out to various hikers and Sean King accepted my proposal for each weekend leading up to the challenge. A combination hike of Virginia Peak and Twin Peaks in Northern Yosemite was my proposal for the first weekend. We expected a 19 mile day and some interesting scrambling between Virginia Peak and Twin Peaks. Some previous climbers reported class 3 and others class 4, which led me to believe that the difficulty probably depended on the exact route taken. I was confident we would find a class 3 route if we took our time looking for the easiest route, all while accepting the reality that we may need to drop in elevation in certain places if it meant easier passage. Asaka agreed to come along for the ride, planning to do a short hike with Leif and Scott towards Green Lake instead. We slept in the car at the trailhead, planning for a 6am start the next morning. While we didn’t quite meet our departure time the next morning, we got an early enough start to get the job done.

We started off by following the trail behind the bathroom, as opposed to the road along the creek. This was my first time up this canyon, and I was surprised to find residences up there.

After passing the cabins, we entered the Hoover Wilderness.

We thought the easiest way to get where we needed to go was to follow the signs to Green Lake.

After taking a left at the second sign, we found ourselves heading towards the southern shore of the lake, however our intended route circled the northern edge of the lake. We should have paid less attention to the signs and more attention to our GPS tracks. We corrected our error by walking cross country back towards the correct fork, passing several nice campsites along the way.

The trail didn’t go all the way around the lake like I expected, and instead climbed towards West Lake. We found a use trail that continued in the direction that we wanted to go. This use trail climbed back down to lake level, then back up again. It was overgrown and hard to follow in places.

Once we reached the western side of the lake, the vegetation cleared, and while the use trail remained inconspicuous, the terrains was easier to cross.

We unexpectedly stumbled upon Glines Canyon Historic Mine. The remains of a stamp mill and a boiler were left out to rust.

The use trail became more defined as we entered the upper reaches of the canyon.

Sean and I talked about music as we approached the pass. As a millennial, I am no longer considered young anymore, so my music interest is not what zoomers would call cool, but I was surprised to learn that Sean was not that familiar with Bad Bunny. I played him some songs, but perhaps the disconnect was more due to language than generation. This was the second Virginia Pass I had hiked to over the past 3 weeks; the previous one being on the way to Excelsior Mountain.

Half Dome was visible from the pass.

From here we left the trail and began sidehilling down to the basin below. Our first objective of Virginia Peak stood impressively in front of us. Our route would go straight up the face.

We dropped down to the valley below and topped off our waters at the creek.

We attacked the peak straight on, taking the first chute in front of us.

After a good bit of climbing, we realized that the correct chute was to climber's left. We did some precarious climbing to get to a safe enough transition point to access the correct chute. Some of what we did may have been considered class 4, and it was all unnecessary.

Finally dropping into the correct chute gave us some peace of mind.

The last few hundred feet to the top was extremely steep. The rock was incredibly loose, but it was also very fun. Sean and I chose different lines to minimize rock fall danger. What I was doing felt right on the upper edge of class 3. The scrambling was sustained and very fun. We definitely made the right choice to climb up Virginia Peak first because I would not want to climb down this section.

If the photos make the route look extremely steep, that’s because it was.

I carefully and methodically found ledge after ledge, and at some point we just deposited ourselves on the summit. To the southwest were Stanton Peak and Tuolumne Meadows.

Further in the distance were Half Dome and Yosemite Valley. It’s amazing how you can see Half Dome from so many summits in the Sierra Nevada.

To the west was Whorl Mountain. It looked so close. I suggested to Sean that it wouldn't take us too much time to drop down to the canyon below and climb it as a bonus peak.

To the north were Matterhorn Peak and Twin Peaks. The initial section of the ridge towards Twin Peaks looked inviting, but I knew challenges remained ahead.

To the east were Dunderberg Peak and Virginia Pass.

To the south were Excelsior Mountain, Mt Dana, North Peak and Mt Conness.

I was hungry so I had an early lunch on the peak. There was a 20% chance of thunderstorms, and clouds had begun to form, so we kept our summit break short and continued down the talus ridge.

Once at the saddle, the ridge run was as easy as it gets.

We covered most of the distance to Twin Peaks, but it got tricky towards the end. At the first obstacle, I wanted to drop down to the left, but Sean wanted to stay on the right side of the ridge. Sean’s option didn’t require us to lose as much elevation as my alternative, so we went with his request.

There were some exposed sections on the traverse. I would again describe this as the upper edge of class 3, but not quite class 4.

Once around the first obstacle, we continued snaking our way through the crumbly ridge. Just when it looked like there was a dead end ahead, we would find a way to continue.

After some tricky sections, the ridge slowly became easier, and we could see that the obstacles ahead of us were minor in comparison. All the while I was watching the clouds, which had now become my biggest concern.

The ridge devolved from class 3 to class 2. The last few tenths of a mile was a walk up.

There were high points contenting for the true summit, so I visited the north point first. To the north were Eagle Peak and Robinson Peak.

To the northeast were Mt Patterson and Mt Grant. 

To the east was the lower twin and the tip of Dunderberg Peak.

To the south was the summit challenger.

To the southwest were Spiller Canyon and Whorl Mountain.

To the northwest was Matterhorn Peak.

We then hiked back to the southern summit where we enjoyed our official summit rest.

I studied the clouds and estimated that the storm would hit in about an hour. This was enough time for us to get down to, or at least close to, the treeline. We ran over to the lower twin as this was on the way.

We then continued across easy terrain, looking for the chute that would take us down to Par Value Lakes.

A thunderstorm was now undoubtedly on its way.

The chute looked really loose, so I sent Sean ahead and decided to wait for 10 minutes before heading down myself.

The chute wasn’t as bad as I expected, but it was tedious. I stopped a couple times to remove the rocks from my shoes. As we approached Par Value Lakes, the storm abruptly hit us. Our walk turned to a jog as we raced for the treeline.

A combination of thunder and hail was enough to get the adrenaline racing.

A layer of hail coated the ground as we approached West Lake. We were both soaking wet, but I didn’t stop to put on a jacket. Once the storm finally passed, or rather once we hiked beyond the storm area, we found a place to sit down in the sun. We dried off very quickly.

At the outlet of the lake there was some sort of contraption. Perhaps it was once used to control the water level of the lake.

We had some trouble finding the trail, but once it was found, we made quick work down to Green Lake.

The hike back to the car was uneventful. Sean had to use the restroom, so he left me in his dust. I did a little jogging and a group referred to me as a “trail runner” which was a first. The last mile dragged on for quite a while, but I eventually reached the parking lot where the others were waiting. I was happy to see Leif and was excited to hear that he pooped. Asaka seemed to have a nice day without me, and I was happy everything worked out.

[itbeatsbookmarks]

(Via: Hacker News)

Metaprogramming, or the ability to inspect, modify and generate code at compile-time (as opposed to reflection, which is runtime introspection of code), has slowly been gaining momentum. Programmers are finally admitting that, after accidentally inventing turing complete template systems, maybe we should just have proper first-class support for generating code. Rust has macros, Zig has built-in compile time expressions, Nim lets you rewrite the AST however you please, and dependent types have been cropping up all over the place. However, with great power comes great responsibility undecidable type systems, whose undefined behavior may involve summoning eldritch abominations from the Black Abyss of Rěgne Ūt.

One particular place where metaprogramming is particularly useful is low-level, high-performance code, which is what Terra was created for. The idea behind Terra is that, instead of crafting ancient runes inscribed with infinitely nested variadic templates, just replace the whole thing with an actual turing-complete language, like say, Lua (technically including LuaJIT extensions for FFI). This all sounds nice, and no longer requires a circle of salt to ward off demonic syntax, which Terra is quick to point out. They espouse the magical wonders of replacing your metaprogramming system with an actual scripting language:

In Terra, we just gave in to the trend of making the meta-language of C/C++ more powerful and replaced it with a real programming language, Lua.

The combination of a low-level language meta-programmed by a high-level scripting language allows many behaviors that are not possible in other systems. Unlike C/C++, Terra code can be JIT-compiled and run interleaved with Lua evaluation, making it easy to write software libraries that depend on runtime code generation.

Features of other languages such as conditional compilation and templating simply fall out of the combination of using Lua to meta-program Terra

Terra even claims you can implement Java-like OOP inheritance models as libraries and drop them into your program. It may also cure cancer (the instructions were unclear).

As shown in the templating example, Terra allows you to define methods on struct types but does not provide any built-in mechanism for inheritance or polymorphism. Instead, normal class systems can be written as libraries. More information is available in our PLDI Paper.

The file lib/javalike.t has one possible implementation of a Java-like class system, while the file lib/golike.t is more similar to Google’s Go language.

I am here to warn you, traveler, that Terra sits on a throne of lies. I was foolish. I was taken in by their audacious claims and fake jewels. It is only when I finally sat down to dine with them that I realized I was surrounded by nothing but cheap plastic and slightly burnt toast.

The Bracket Syntax Problem

Terra exists as a syntax extension to Lua. This means it adds additional keywords on top of Lua’s existing grammar. Most languages, when extending a syntax, would go to great lengths to ensure the new grammar does not create any ambiguities or otherwise interfere with the original syntax, treating it like a delicate flower that mustn’t be disturbed, lest it lose a single petal.

Terra takes the flower, gently places it on the ground, and then stomps on it, repeatedly, until the flower is nothing but a pile of rubbish, as dead as the dirt it grew from. Then it sets the remains of the flower on fire, collects the ashes that once knew beauty, drives to a nearby cliffside, and throws them into the uncaring ocean. It probably took a piss too, but I can’t prove that.

To understand why, one must understand what the escape operator is. It allows you to splice an abstract AST generated from a Lua expression directly into Terra code. Here is an example from Terra’s website:

function get5() return 5 end terra foobar() return [ get5() + 1 ] end foobar:printpretty() > output: > foobar0 = terra() : {int32} > return 6 > end

But, wait, that means it’s… the same as the array indexing operator? You don’t mean you just put it inside like–

local rest = {symbol(int),symbol(int)} terra doit(first : int, [rest]) return first + [rest[1]] + [rest[2]] end

What.

WHAT?!

You were supposed to banish the syntax demons, not join them! This abomination is an insult to Nine Kingdoms of Asgard! It is the very foundation that Satan himself would use to unleash Evil upon the world. Behold, mortals, for I come as the harbinger of despair:

function idx(x) return `x end function gen(a, b) return `array(a, b) end terra test() -- Intended to evaluate to array(1, 2) 0 return [gen(1, 2)][idx(0)] end

For those of you joining us (probably because you heard a blood-curdling scream from down the hall), this syntax is exactly as ambiguous as you might think. Is it two splice statements put next to each other, or is a splice statement with an array index? You no longer know if a splice operator is supposed to index the array or act as a splice operator, as mentioned in this issue. Terra “resolves this” by just assuming that any two bracketed expressions put next to each other are always an array indexing operation, which is a lot like fixing your server overheating issue by running the fire suppression system all day. However, because this is Lua, whose syntax is very much like a delicate flower that cannot be disturbed, a much worse ambiguity comes up when we try to fix this.

function idx(x) return `x end function gen(a, b) return `array(a, b) end terra test() -- This is required to make it evaluate to array(1,2)[0] -- return [gen(1, 2)][ [idx(0)] ] -- This doesn't work: return [gen(1, 2)][[idx(0)]] -- This is equivalent to: -- return [gen(1, 2)] "idx(0)" end

We want to use a spliced Lua expression as the array index, but if we don’t use any spaces, it turns into a string because [[string]] is the Lua syntax for an unescaped string! Now, those of you who still possess functioning brains may believe that this would always result in a syntax error, as we have now placed a string next to a variable. Not so! Lua, in it’s infinite wisdom, converts anything of the form symbol"string" or symbol[[string]] into a function call with the string as the only parameter. That means that, in certain circumstances, we literally attempt to call our variable as a function with our expression as a string:

local lookups = {x = 0, y = 1, z = 2, w = 3 }; vec.metamethods.__entrymissing = macro(function(entryname, expr) if lookups[entryname] then -- This doesn't work return `expr.v[[lookups[entryname]]] -- This is equivalent to -- return `expr.v "lookups[entryname]" -- But it doesn't result in a syntax error, becase it's equivalent to: -- return `extr.v("lookups[entryname]") else error "That is not a valid field." end end)

As a result, you get a type error, not a syntax error, and a very bizarre one too, because it’s going to complain that v isn’t a function. This is like trying to bake pancakes for breakfast and accidentally going scuba diving instead. It’s not a sequence of events that should ever be related in any universe that obeys causality.

It should be noted that, after a friend of mine heard my screams of agony, an issue was raised to change the syntax to a summoning ritual that involves less self-mutilation. Unfortunately, this is a breaking change, and will probably require an exorcism.

The Documentation Is Wrong

Terra’s documentation is so wrong that it somehow manages to be wrong in both directions. That is, some of the documentation is out-of-date, while some of it refers to concepts that never made it into master. I can only assume that a time-traveling gremlin was hired to write the documentation, who promptly got lost amidst the diverging timelines. It is a quantum document, both right and wrong at the same time, yet somehow always useless, a puzzle beyond the grasp of modern physics.

The first thing talked about in the API Reference is a List object. It does not actually exist. A primitive incarnation of it does exist, but it only implements map() and insertall(). Almost the entire section is completely wrong for the 1.0.0-beta1 release. The actual List object being described sits alone and forgotten in the develop branch, dust already beginning to collect on it’s API calls, despite those API calls being the ones in the documentation… somehow.

:printpretty() is a function that prints out a pretty string representation of a given piece of Terra code, by parsing the AST representation. On it’s face, it does do exactly what is advertised: it prints a string. However, one might assume that it returns the string, or otherwise allows you to do something with it. This doesn’t happen. It literally calls the print() function, throwing the string out the window and straight into the stdout buffer without a care in the world. If you want the actual string, you must call either layoutstring() (for types) or prettystring() (for quotes). Neither function is documented, anywhere.

Macros can only be called from inside Terra code. Unless you give the constructor two parameters, where the second parameter is a function called from inside a Lua context. This behavior is not mentioned in any documentation, anywhere, which makes it even more confusing when someone defines a macro as macro(myfunction, myfunction) and then calls it from a Lua context, which, according to the documentation, should be impossible.

Struct fields are not specified by their name, but rather just held in a numbered list of {name, type} pairs. This is documented, but a consequence of this system is not: Struct field names do not have to be unique. They can all be the same thing. Terra doesn’t actually care. You can’t actually be sure that any given field name lookup will result in, y’know, one field. Nothing mentions this.

The documentation for saveobj is a special kind of infuriating, because everything is technically correct, yet it does not give you any examples and instead simply lists a function with 2 arguments and 4 interwoven optional arguments. In reality it’s absolutely trivial to use because you can ignore almost all the parameters. Just write terralib.saveobj("blah", {main = main}) and you’re done. But there isn’t a single example of this anywhere on the entire website. Only a paragraph and two sentences explaining in the briefest way possible how to use the function, followed by a highly technical example of how to initialize a custom target parameter, which doesn’t actually compile because it has errant semicolons. This is literally the most important function in the entire language, because it’s what actually compiles an executable!

The defer keyword is critical to being able to do proper error cleanup, because it functions similar to Go’s defer by performing a function call at the end of a lexical scope. It is not documented, anywhere, or even mentioned at all on the website. How Terra manages to implement new functionality it forgets to document while, at the same time, documenting functionality that doesn’t exist yet is a 4-dimensional puzzle fit for an extra-dimensional hyperintelligent race of aliens particularly fond of BDSM.

You’d think that compiling Terra on Linux would be a lot simpler, but you’d be wrong. Not only are the makefiles unreliable, but cmake itself doesn’t seem to work with LLVM 7 unless you pass in a very specific set of flags, none of which are documented, because compiling via cmake isn’t documented at all, and this is the only way to compile with LLVM 7 or above on the latest Ubuntu release!

Perhaps there are more tragedies hidden inside this baleful document, but I cannot know, as I have yet to unearth the true depths of the madness lurking within. I am, at most, on the third or fourth circle of hell.

Terra Doesn’t Actually Work On Windows

Saying that Terra supports Windows is a statement fraught with danger. It is a statement so full of holes that an entire screen door could try to sell you car insurance and it’d still be a safer bet than running Terra on Windows. Attempting to use Terra on Windows will work if you have Visual Studio 2015 installed. It might work if you have Visual Studio 2013 installed. No other scenarios are supported, especially not ones that involve being productive. Actually compiling Terra on Windows is a hellish endeavor comparable to climbing Mount Everest in a bathing suit, which requires either having Visual Studio 2015 installed to the default location, or manually modifying a Makefile with the exact absolute paths of all the relevant dependencies. At least up until last week, when I submitted a pull request to minimize the amount of mountain climbing required.

The problem Terra runs into is that it tries to use a registry value to find the location of Visual Studio and then work out where link.exe is from there, then finds the include directories for the C runtime. This hasn’t worked since Visual Studio 2017 and also requires custom handling for each version because compiling an iteration of Visual Studio apparently involves throwing the directory structure into the air, watching it land on the floor in a disorganized mess, and drawing lines between vaguely related concepts. Good for divining the true nature of the C library, bad for building directory structures. Unfortunately, should you somehow manage to compile Terra, it will abruptly stop working the moment you try to call printf, claiming that printf does not actually exist, even after importing stdio.h.

Many Terra tests assume that printf actually resolves to a concrete symbol. This is not true and hasn’t been true since Visual Studio 2015, which turned several stdio.h functions into inline-only implementations. In general, the C standard library is under no obligation to produce an actual concrete symbol for any function - or to make sense to a mere mortal, for that matter. In fact, it might be more productive to assume that the C standard was wrought from the unholy, broiling chaos of the void by Cthulhu himself, who saw fit to punish any being foolish enough to make reasonable assumptions about how C works.

Unfortunately, importing stdio.h does not fix this problem, for two reasons. One, Terra did not understand inline functions on Windows. They were ephemeral wisps, vanishing like a mote of dust on the wind the moment a C module was optimized. A pull request fixed this, but it can’t fix the fact that the Windows SDK was wrought from the innocent blood of a thousand vivisected COMDAT objects. Microsoft’s version of stdio.h can only be described as an extra-dimensional object, a meta-stable fragment of a past universe that can only be seen in brief slivers, never all at once.

Luckily for the Terra project, I am the demonic presence they need, for I was once a Microsoftie. Long ago, I walked the halls of the Operating Systems Group and helped craft black magic to sate the monster’s unending hunger. I saw True Evil blossom in those dark rooms, like having only three flavors of sparkling water and a pasta station only open on Tuesdays.

I know the words of Black Speech that must be spoken to reveal the true nature of Windows. I know how to bend the rules of our prison, to craft a mighty workspace from the bowels within. After fixing the cmake implementation to function correctly on Windows, I intend to perform the unholy incantations required to invoke the almighty powers of COM, so that it may find on which fifth-dimensional hyperplane Visual Studio exists. Only then can I disassociate myself from the mortal plane for long enough to tackle the stdio.h problem. You see, children, programming for Windows is easy! All you have to do is s͏̷E͏l͏̢҉l̷ ̸̕͡Y͏o҉u͝R̨͘ ̶͝sơ̷͟Ul̴

For those of you who actually wish to try Terra, but don’t want to wait for me to fix everything a new release, you can embed the following code at the top of your root Terra script:

if os.getenv("VCINSTALLDIR") ~= nil then terralib.vshome = os.getenv("VCToolsInstallDir") if not terralib.vshome then terralib.vshome = os.getenv("VCINSTALLDIR") terralib.vclinker = terralib.vshome..[[BIN\x86_amd64\link.exe]] else terralib.vclinker = ([[%sbin\Host%s\%s\link.exe]]):format(terralib.vshome, os.getenv("VSCMD_ARG_HOST_ARCH"), os.getenv("VSCMD_ARG_TGT_ARCH")) end terralib.includepath = os.getenv("INCLUDE") function terralib.getvclinker() local vclib = os.getenv("LIB") local vcpath = terralib.vcpath or os.getenv("Path") vclib,vcpath = "LIB="..vclib,"Path="..vcpath return terralib.vclinker,vclib,vcpath end end

Yes, we are literally overwriting parts of the compiler itself, at runtime, from our script. Welcome to Lua! Enjoy your stay, and don’t let the fact that any script you run could completely rewrite the compiler keep you up at night!

The Existential Horror of Terra Symbols

Symbols are one of the most slippery concepts introduced in Terra, despite their relative simplicity. When encountering a Terra Symbol, one usually finds it in a function that looks like this:

TkImpl.generate = function(skip, finish) return quote if [TkImpl.selfsym].count == 0 then goto [finish] end [TkImpl.selfsym].count = [TkImpl.selfsym].count - 1 [stype.generate(skip, finish)] end end

Where selfsym is a symbol that was set elsewhere.

“Aha!” says our observant student, “a reference to a variable from an outside context!” This construct does let you access a variable from another area of the same function, and using it to accomplish that will generally work as you expect, but what it’s actually doing is much worse more subtle. You see, grasshopper, a symbol is not a reference to a variable node in the AST, it is a reference to an identifier.

local sym = symbol(int) local inc = quote [sym] = [sym] + 1 end terra foo() var [sym] = 0 inc inc return [sym] end terra bar() var[sym] = 0 inc inc inc return [sym] end

Yes, that is valid Terra, and yes, the people who built this language did this on purpose. Why any human being still capable of love would ever design such a catastrophe is simply beyond me. Each symbol literally represents not a reference to a variable, but a unique variable name that will refer to any variable that has been initialized in the current Terra scope with that particular identifier. You aren’t passing around variable references, you’re passing around variable names.

These aren’t just symbols, they’re typed preprocessor macros. They are literally C preprocessor macros, capable of causing just as much woe and suffering as one, except that they are typed and they can’t redefine existing terms. This is, admittedly, slightly better than a normal C macro. However, seeing as there have been entire books written about humanity’s collective hatred of C macros, this is equivalent to being a slightly more usable programming language than Brainfuck. This is such a low bar it’s probably buried somewhere in the Mariana Trench.

Terra is C but the Preprocessor is Lua

You realize now, the monstrosity we have unleashed upon the world? The sin Terra has committed now lies naked before us.

Terra is C if you replaced the preprocessor with Lua.

Remember how Terra says you can implement Java-like and Go-like class systems? You can’t. Or rather, you will end up with a pathetic imitation, a facsimile of a real class system, striped down to the bone and bereft of any useful mechanisms. It is nothing more than an implementation of vtables, just like you would make in C. Because Terra is C. It’s metaprogrammable C.

There can be no constructors, or destructors, or automatic initialization, or any sort of borrow checking analysis, because Terra has no scoping mechanisms. The only thing it provides is defer, which only operates inside Lua lexical blocks (do and end)… sometimes, if you get lucky. The exact behavior is a bit confusing, and of course can only be divined by random experimentation because it isn’t documented anywhere! Terra’s only saving grace, the singular keyword that allows you to attempt to build some sort of pretend object system, isn’t actually mentioned anywhere.

Of course, Terra’s metaprogramming is turing complete, and it is technically possible to implement some of these mechanisms, but only if you either wrap absolutely every single variable declaration in a function, or you introspect the AST and annotate every single variable with initialization statuses and then run a metaprogram over it to figure out when constructors or destructors or assignment operators need to be called. Except, this might not work, because the (undocumented, of course) __update metamethod that is supposed to trigger when you assign something to a variable has a bug where it’s not always called in all situations. This turns catching assignments and finding the l-value or r-value status from a mind-bogglingly difficult, herculean task, to a near-impossible trial of cosmic proportions that probably requires the help of at least two Avengers.

There Is No Type System

If Terra was actually trying to build a metaprogramming equivalent to templates, it would have an actual type system. These languages already exist - Idris, Omega, F*, Ada, Sage, etc. but none of them are interested in using their dependent type systems to actually metaprogram low-level code (although F* can produce it). The problem is that building a recursively metaprogrammable type system requires building a proof assistant, and everyone is so proud of the fact they built a proof assistant they forget that dependent type systems can do other things too, like build really fast memcpy implementations.

Terra, on the other hand, provides only the briefest glimpse of a type system. Terra functions enjoy what is essentially a slightly more complex C type system. However, the higher-level Lua context is, well, Lua, which has five basic types: Tables, Functions, Strings, Booleans and Numbers (it also has Thread, Nil, Userdata and CData for certain edge cases). That’s it. Also, it’s dynamic, not static, so everything is a syntax or a runtime error, because it’s a scripting language. This means all your metaprogramming is sprinkled with type-verification calls like :istype() or :isstruct(), except the top came off the shaker and now the entire program is just sprinkles, everywhere. This is fine for when your metaprograms are, themselves, relatively simple. It is not fine when you are returning meta-programs out of meta-meta-functions.

This is the impasse I find myself at, and it is the answer to the question I know everyone wants to know the answer to. For the love of heaven and earth and all that lies between, why am I still using Terra?

The truth is that the project I’m working on requires highly complex metaprogramming techniques in order to properly generate type-safe mappings for arbitrary data structures. Explaining why would be an entire blog post on it’s own, but suffice to say, it’s a complex user interface library that’s intended to run on tiny embedded devices, which means I can’t simply give up and use Idris, or indeed anything that involves garbage collection.

What I really want is a low-level, recursively metaprogrammable language that is also recursively type-safe, in that any type strata can safely manipulate the code of any layer beneath it, preferably via algebriac subtyping that ensures all types are recursively a subset of types that contain them, ad nauseam. This would then allow you to move from a “low-level” language to a “high-level” language by simply walking up the tower of abstraction, building meta-meta-programs that manipulate meta-programs that generate low-level programs.

Alas, such beauty can only exist in the minds of mathematicians and small kittens. While I may one day attempt to build such a language, it will be nothing more than a poor imitation, forever striving for an ideal it cannot reach, cursed with a vision from the gods of a pristine language no mortal can ever possess.

I wish to forge galaxies, to wield the power of computation and sail the cosmos upon an infinite wave of creativity. Instead, I spend untold hours toiling inside LLVM, wondering why it won’t print “Hello World”.

In conclusion, everything is terrible and the universe is on fire.

[daughter-of-war]

Fruk Day Six: Just Like Clockwork AU

----Your little metal heart is just as fragile as mine, isn’t it?----

For @frukheaven‘s #FrukSpringFestival2k17

Pairing: FrUk (Aph France/Aph England)

Pairing Type: M/M

Words: 2,466

Rating: General Audiences (My first PG fic so far okay wow)

He looked upward, sleepy eyes going a bit wide as he saw the time. 10:38 pm. He'd been working late again without knowing. A tiny paw began to poke at his pant leg, and he looked down to see Skippie's tail waging back and forth as her pendulum kept time. Her head shook in a quick spasm that caused her to halt her pausing momentarily as the little glitch passed and she reset. He felt the tapping start up again.

"Fine, I'm getting up," he said, his voice dragged out by a yawn. He pushed back his chair from his workbench, and stood up, his back emitting a loud cracking as he moved. "I should really stop sitting in the same position for so long." He began to walk toward the door, with Skippie following along in a trot. Occasionally one of her legs would give out and she'd topple, but she never stayed down for long. She rebooted fast.

"Good evening, Mister Kirkland!" A young voice yelled out, awake despite the late hour.

"Good evening to you, too, Alfred," Arthur Kirkland greeted. "Sorry I've been so busy today, I didn't have any time to talk," he apologized, beeing down a little bit to be on Alfred's eye level.

"It's okay," He responded with a bright smile. "We know you're busy."

Arthur sighed, standing up straight again. "Speaking of 'we,' where's your brother?" He looked around the shop, until a mop of blond hair popped out from behind the shelving in the half-length loft.

"Here, sir!" Mathew responded, voice just loud enough to be heard, but still holding its whisper-like tone. He climbed down the ladder as fast as his sleepy body could, rubbing his eyes as he walked over to greet Arthur. "You need something?"

"No, no-" he shook his head. "-I came down mainly to tell you two to go to bed." He straightened out his long brown coat. "You have to get up again tomorrow morning, and it's best to sleep at a proper hour to get up on time." Alfred looked at the ceiling with his cheeks puffed up. "As some," he gave a joking little tap to Alfred's forehead, "seem to forget this fact every night."

"Alright, sir," he pouted. "We're going  sir!" He grabbed his brother's hand and headed toward the loft.

"Goodnight, Mister Kirkland!" Mathew waved back with his free hand. They climbed the ladder up, and settling into their thin little bed, they fell quiet as the candle on the floor next to them flickered out.

"Goodnight, boys," Arthur whispered. They couldn't hear him, but he always said it anyway. He headed back to the back of the room, climbing the old bronze-coloured stairs to his workshop. They creaked and groaned under even his light weight, even if he was trying to stay quiet as to not wake up the twins sleeping in the loft twenty feet away.

As he returned to his work, permanently bent fingers gingerly folding and fixing fragile copper wiring and metal gears, he thought about the boys. They were both eight years old, and he'd picked them up from the orphanage about two years ago to work for him. They seemed to enjoy being in his workshop, and doing the tasks he asked of them. They weren't old or skilled enough to build yet, but they cleaned and kept Skippie entertained during the day, making sure she was calibrated and functional. They also helped clean up, and both Mathew and Alfred enjoyed making simple foods, and honestly, those sandwiches were probably the only reason Arthur hadn't died of accidental starvation brought on by never leaving his workbench. They kept his record player from rusting, too, often playing the swing music he never listened to anymore, even if he still loved it. The muffled sound of bass and smooth voices that came through the floor from the warehouse-type area below seemed to make the hours flow together, only interrupted by the knocking of a tiny hand on the door, a smile and tray of sandwiches interrupting his work.

But now, with only the ticking of gears and the pendulum of the bronze clock making a sound, he could hardly focus. Skippie was powered down, her metal heart bumping along with the clock. Her metal gears rising and falling as the little engines of her leather lungs pumped out smoke like a lady's cigarette left a sweet scent of oil and ash in the air that clung to Arthur wherever he went. His long brown coat was in a heap on the floor, becoming a most comfortable cat bed for Skippie. His dark grey suspenders hung loosely on hunched over shoulders, as his brows creased in concentration. He played with the bronze gears of a pelvis, trying to figure out how to fix the ball-and-socket joint that had begun to rust. He used a thin toothbrush soaked in weak acid, trying to shine up the bronze.

After another hour go work, the clock began to sing again, calling out the hour in a baritone chime. After the twelfth calling out, he decided to retire for the night, putting down his tools and blowing out the candle on his workbench. It was due for a replacement, as it was all but a puddle of cooling wax on the wood, with only a low island of wick left. The low light of moon from the skylight in the roof was obscured by thin clouds of smog over the city. He slipped off his worn leather shoes, and unclipped his suspenders, letting them fall to the floor with a little noise as metal clips hit worn wooden floorboards. He laid on top of old covers and thin blankets, as the night was too warm to properly get into bed.

"G'Night, love," he whispered to the body on his workbench, stationary bronze gears giving back the same reply they had for years: silence. Arthur just sighed and rolled over to face the wall like every night previous to this one.

¤

As the boys got older, they began to help out more, and the two twelve year old twins got involved in more of Arthur's work. Such a large and important project was eased with more hands, even if they were inexperienced. They worked on little things like arms, straightening out wires and polishing gears. Simple enough for the skills they had, but considerably making Arthur's life easier. They asked question like who the metal man was, and Arthur was happy to answer.

He was my most beautiful creation, he'd tell the boys as they sat on his bed, watching Arthur work. I had named him Francis as a bit of a joke, since his voice-box was poorly tuned, so his voice ended up nasally but smoother than intended, like a Frenchman! He'd laugh at this, and even if Mathew and Alfred didn't really get it, they'd smile too. They'd never heard a Frenchman before, so they didn't know what a proper one sounded like. It took me about five years to build him, as I started when I was twenty-five as a side project, to tinker with when I wasn't busy, he'd add at the end as an afterthought, screwing in a gear on a mechanical neck. He ended up being a proper gentleman, but what can I say? I built him after all! The boys didn't doubt that. As nice as Arthur was toward them, he didn't hesitate to scold them whenever they weren't acting like proper Englishmen. Even though they weren't born English, they were certainly raised like it in the workshop. As all do, Arthur'd add on, he eventually became more self-aware, but he did so in about a year, pretty fast, eh? The twins listened to every word. They wanted nothing more than to continue Mister Kirkland's work when they got older. So we ended up becoming friends, and eventually he started to fancy me! Arthur laughed a bit at this, like a father recounting to his children how he met their mother. So I reinstalled his heart, figuring it was glitching or somethin', but nope, poor bloke actually liked me! So naturally, I let him, figuring there wasn't any harm in it, but lo and behold, I ended up returning the sentiments! Alfred wasn't as sure what he was talking about, but Mathew certainly enjoyed the story. He liked novels, so he had an idea or what 'fancying' was. It was hard to believe that Mister Kirkland ever fancied someone, but most people fancied someone at some point or another so he could believe it. Ended up lasting ten years until he decided to break his heart from overuse, and he hasn't worked since, he'd add with a sigh. Ten years I've been trying to fix this idiot, he'd laugh without much humor. So you see boys, try not to fall in love with anyone, especially not one so bloody fragile! He'd push the hay-blond and silver hair behind his ears, and give a sad smile. Mathew'd usually lead his brother back to the kitchen to make a couple sandwiches, Skippie bumping along behind them.

He told this story on about ten occasions, with only the year of time passed changing, each time the boys listening with the same attentiveness as the first. Even though they'd been with his for six years at this point, he felt as if they'd been there forever. And he honestly didn't want to imagine life without them. And despite not being his children, he felt the urge to treat them as such, even if he was supposed to have them as only apprentices as according to papers from the orphanage. He was supposed to be teaching them how to put their skills to work to get a job, but Arthur thought it'd be simpler and better to just have them take over his workshop when they got older. Repairing things and building little machines people requested took skills that could only be learned through a master, and Arthur was proud of the fact that he was one.

He set back to work, finishing up a request for a sweep-er and tidy-er. He had added a little metal dress to the robot, and a bonnet, to protect her from dust ruining her mechanics. Her little steam engine fluttered in her chest as she set to work, testing out her ability to sweep. She stood about a foot and a half tall, and her puffy little bronze dress was adorned with nickel buttons and thin aluminum lace. She looked like a proper little maid. He made her for a poor woman, who requested that she have a little maid to clean up the house, as she had to work all day to support her seven children. She'd asked for nothing fancy, 'the bare bones if necessary' she had said. Arthur decided to make the little maid look nice, and if she did gain consciousness, the tiny bronze lady wouldn't be ashamed of her nakedness. It was worth almost twice what she had paid for, but Arthur truly didn't mind. Making robots was is favorite thing to do, and he hasn't gotten a request for one in a while. As he looked back, he saw her begin to fold his coat, Skippie watching her move with intense curiosity. When she finished, Skippie went back to her now folded bed, resuming her sleep. Doing a little curtsy to Arthur, she sat down, her knees folded beneath her dress, making her look like a roosting hen.

Arthur watched her go to sleep, then resuming his work again, back aching and eyes sleepy. The clock called out again in it's baritone chime, telling him the twelfth hour had begun and it was time to sleep.

"G'Night love," he whispered, yawning, and falling asleep the the sound of only two other beating hearts.

¤

Mathew had decided to take up the project a year after it had been left. The large doll's thin bronze eyelids were still shut over its copper and bronze eyes. Being now eighteen, he had decided to finish up Arthur's project. Alfred called him for dinner, but Mathew simply asked him to come upstairs to help, as he was so close.

"Yeah?" Alfred asked as he popped his head into Arthur's old workshop. "What's more important than sandwiches?"

"I need you to hold this piece in place while I screw something in," he responded, finger pressed on a valve and free hand motioning to his brother to hurry up.

"Here?"

"Yeah, so as soon as I move my finger, you put yours down," he instructed, Alfred following diligently. Alfred ran the shop now, since he was better with finances and management, while Mathew did most of the projects. That's not to say Alfred couldn't, he just wasn't as good as Mathew, so he didn't handle anything that needed an expert's hand.

Mathew placed the final screw in, tiny, smaller than his pinky nail was wide.

"Done," he exhaled, marveling at how the mechanics of the body began to move. Skippie hopped up into his lap as he scooted away from the bench, giving the doll time to boot up. The metal heart began to move, steam rising as the mechanism started. Leather lungs full of water pumped the liquid through veins of bronze piping, the chest rising and falling in rhythm. It's copper and bronze eyes fluttered open, once brown, now bright green in the center.

"Arthur?" He whispered, arms extending shakily. He looked at the twins, his metal eyebrows twisting in confusion. "Arthur?"

"No, not Arthur," Alfred said, a bit awkwardly. "But we were, are, sort of like his kids," he explained, like that made any sense.

"Where's Arthur?" Francis asked, leaning forward on the workbench, his legs now off as he sat on the edge. "Please tell me where Arthur is."

"He," Mathew paused. "He passed away last year." He swallowed hard. "I- I wanted to revive you for his sake, but now I suppose it was cruel of me." Francis' lips quirked downward, his eyebrows scrunched up. Alfred and Mathew were surprised a man made of metal could have such a pained expression.

"Why did he die?" He asked, voice-box choked up.

"His heart gave out," Alfred grimaced, the painful memory of his pseudo father's passing still fresh in his mind.

Francis raised a hand to his chest. He didn't need to say anything. Boiling water droplets fell from his eyes, hissing as they fell onto his bronze legs.

"Alright," he whispered, his voice-box still full of too much water, making his voice warbled. "Things are fragile."

Alfred and Mathew agreed.

They were sure Arthur would, too.

[pawlikautomotive]

2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee, 5.7L V8 Maintenance Service Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive Vancouver, BC http://pawlikautomotive.com  (604) 327-7112

Mark: Hi, it's Mark from Top Local. We're here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, 18-time winners of Best Auto Repair in Vancouver as voted by their customers. How are you doing Bernie?

Bernie: Doing very well.

Mark: We're talking about is 2005 Grand Cherokee. What was going on with this off-road vehicle?

Bernie: Well the vehicle was towed to our shop with a no start condition and the engine wouldn't crank over, which we determined to be the starter motor and we replaced. It was also brought to us ... It was overdue for a maintenance service so we did our B service, which is an oil change, this includes an oil and filter change and a full vehicle comprehensive inspection.

Mark: And what did the inspection find?

Bernie: A few interesting things, but the one thing that I wanted to share and that is an air filter that is dirtier than any air filter I'd ever seen in my life. We'll just get straight to pictures here because this I pretty cool to look at. Actually I'm going to start with ... this is the air filter in the vehicle after it was cleaned. This is a K&N air filter. It's a reusable filter, supposedly a lower air restriction than a regular paper filter, and it's reusable. After a while, it gets dirty. You clean it with a special cleaner and you can apply a special oil film to it, and that does all your filtering. It basically lasts ... It's a lifetime type of filter.

You can see, that's what the new clean filter looks like. Let's have a look at what we found, and that was this. Absolutely covered with a huge, thick layer of dirt. That's a close-up view of it. It's so thick, I honestly don't even know this engine was running with a filter this dirty, but somehow, it was. That's our air filter.

Mark: Were there any other pressing services on this vehicle?

Bernie: There was a couple other things. Ball joints were worn out. We replaced those. Also, the engine coolant, which actually I'll just re-share another photo while I'm at it here. The radiator cap, you can see there's a lot of rust and corrosion around this cap, so the cooling system was well overdue for a flush. Fortunately for the owner ... There was a lot of rust on the cap, which looked very concerning, but fortunately, the rest of the cooling system wasn't ... The coolant wasn't so badly rusted. But once it gets really badly rusted, it's impossible to get rid of, so it's a condition you want to avoid by making sure you have proper antifreeze concentrations and you do flush your cooling system.

It doesn't happen as much as it used to in the past, but we do see it now and again. Any engine that has a metal steel block or cast block will be prone to rusting. We did a cooling system flush as well.

Mark: How is the 5.7 litre engine in this vehicle?

Bernie: They're pretty good. I think they're one of the better choices in these vehicles. We do talk a lot ... We've done a lot of these hang-outs on Grand Cherokees with diesels. We do work on a lot of them, but the 4.7s and 3.7s are also popular. In the older generations, the 4 litre straight six, but the 5.7 is a good option. The only thing is it's a pretty large engine. It's got lots of power, but it's large, so you're going to use a lot of fuel. That's probably the downside to this engine. Other than that, it's pretty reliable and powerful.

Mark: With that engine being that dirty, do you think that was a factor of being off-road a lot, or was it just not serviced often enough?

Bernie: It was entirely off-road. This vehicle had a lot of dirt on it, which is great to see, because so many people buy these vehicles and they only ever see pavement, but that's the nice thing about owning a Jeep or a Grand Cherokee. It's a really good off-road vehicle. Yeah, no, this thing was used very well off-road and that's exactly ... You'd never get that kind of dirt. You'd have to drive maybe a million kilometres in the city to ever see that level of dirt. That's all off-road. Very dusty roads. The interesting thing is it's actually, right now, it's fall and winter time in Vancouver. It's been raining and wet for quite a long time, so that kind of dust ... It must have been on there, since summertime when the roads were ... There was a lot of dust on ... I imagine he drove on a lot of logging roads where he was getting a lot of dust. That filter's probably been dirty for quite a while. I'm not even sure how the engine ran. It's probably got another 50 horsepower after we cleaned the filter.

Mark: So, there you go. If you're looking for service for your Jeep Grand Cherokee or any model of Jeep, the guys to see in Vancouver are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them at (604)327-7112 or check out their website, pawlikautomotive.com, or our YouTube channel, Pawlik Auto Repair. Thanks, Bernie.

Bernie: Thanks, Mark.

https://www.youtube.com/user/pawlikautorepair https://plus.google.com/u/0/104437348234668995906/about

2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee, 5.7L V8 Maintenance Service 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee, 5.7L V8 Maintenance Service

[endlessarchite]

How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub

We’ve gotten A LOT of questions about how we’ve rescued the clawfoot tub at our beach house, so let’s just dive right into what worked (and what didn’t) and how we nursed this baby back to life.

The tub existed in the house when we bought it last October (Saturday will be our 1-year house-iversary!). But it was a pretty sad existence, as evidenced by the bathroom literally falling apart around it. Yes, this is what that bathroom looked like when we bought the house. You’ll remember we later had to fully remove and rebuild that entire side of the house because it was sinking into the ground due to a completely failing foundation (!!!). You can read more about that process here.

During demo, our contractor moved it out into the bedroom, which is where it lived for over half a year as destruction and reconstruction went on around it.

Once that side of the house was all rebuilt, it was pretty exciting to picture the tub going back in there – this time on stable footing. Here I am back in January standing where the bathtub now sits. Remember John’s best Boomerang capture of all time?

We pretty much ignored the tub during the entire gutting/rebuilding process of the house. We did keep it covered with a piece of plywood so it didn’t get dinged up, but we put off making a plan to resuscitate it until we actually had a bathroom to put it into again.

And then came that exciting day when the bathroom tile was in, the grout was done, and we needed to think about getting this tub back into the bathroom. It was finally time to assess the tub situation to see if it was something we’d have to pay someone to refinish, or something we could tackle ourselves. The first thing I did was wipe everything down (with a spare grout sponge) just to see how stained the inside of the tub really was. A remarkable amount of grime came off, so it gave us hope that we could save it without having to hire someone to professionally paint the inside (we hear that can flake and peel off down the line, so getting it back to its original finish would beat a rental with a peeling/flaking tub in 5-10 years).

We originally worried there were rust stains (which wouldn’t be something we could scrub off – rust literally pits the glazing and creates a hole that needs to be filled and sanded and typically calls for a pro to fix) but upon further inspection we realized that some of this “rust” was actually rubbing off! See the white speckles on those brown streaks below? Turns out nothing was pitted, but there were just some really really bad hard water deposits on top of the tub… which meant if we could scrub them off, we’d find more of that original white finish under them!

So a few weeks later, once the plumber had moved the tub back into the bathroom, we arrived in Cape Charles armed with an array of cleaners – ready to show the tub who’s boss. This is what it looked like when we started:

First, we wanted to evaluate what was just surface grime and what was a legit stain. So we sprayed the whole thing down with 1-part white vinegar, 1-part water and used a little elbow grease (and a green scouring pad) to get all of the superficial gunk off.

It made a HUGE difference, although not enough that I would be willing to actually take a bath in there yet.

The next tool in our arsenal was a bottle of Bar Keeper’s Friend Soft Cleanser, which a few people had recommended to us for old tubs (I just happened to find it for like $1.50 at Ross). We followed the instructions of applying it to a damp surface, letting it sit, and then scrubbing it off. Results were not very good. Confidence levels majorly wavered at this point.

Undeterred, we decided to try a more generous application of BKF (is that what the kids are calling it these days?) and let it sit for much longer (like 15-20 minutes). In the meantime, we also used a heavy duty Magic Eraser on some of the other spots, which is another tip you guys shared for trying to clean up an old tub. It certainly helped, but was a bit slow-going. We burned through a couple of them pretty quickly, but things were starting to look better…

After the scrub had sat for about 20 minutes, we tackled it with a piece of fine grade steel wool (along with hearing that magic erasers and fine steel wool can work, we also have heard that a pumice stone can buff out small stains too – so that’s something else to try if you have the same job ahead of you – we just didn’t have one with us). I’m not sure if it was the cleanser or the steel wool, but we finally started to see some noticeable progress.

It still required A LOT of elbow grease, but it was insanely satisfying to see those rust streaks dissipating. We also very gently scraped it in some parts with the dulled tip of our multi-tool. I didn’t take a picture because I didn’t want to necessarily recommend it since it can etch/scratch your tub which is NOT GOOD, but we checked frequently to make sure we weren’t scratching ours, and it was helpful in chipping off some large chunks of rust-covered hard water stains.

The final results are not flawless, but we are more than satisfied with how it looks. All the rusty looking rings you see below will be covered by a new drain, faucet and spigot once they’re installed, so aside from a few slight imperfections in the white interior finish, she’s gonna look pretty dang good. I’m officially more than willing to plop my bod down in there for a good soak. Just picture me in there wearing a black turtleneck for modesty reasons.

This feels like a good moment for a before and after. Again, this is all from just cleaning – no actual refinishing or reglazing went on with the inside. So we’re glad that there should be no issues with bubbling or peeling paint since we were able to restore the original finish of the tub. Those few sentences don’t adequately capture how elated I am, so I’ll add this: ALL THE JAZZ HANDS!

Now let’s talk about restoring the outside, because what good is a tidy interior if the exterior looks ready for a horror movie?

Our first step was to sand it down, mostly just to get all of the already flaking paint off so we could have a relatively smooth surface to paint. NOTE: always test old tubs for lead paint! Many have it, which is extremely dangerous, especially if kids will be bathing in them. We were thrilled to find out ours was clean- most likely since the outside was painted sometime after lead was phased out and since the inside had never been reglazed.

First we used some coarse sanding blocks to scrub all of the exterior by hand, which was slow going, but definitely knocked a bunch of old dry paint flakes to the ground. John had also bought this rust-removing drill attachment while we were at the store and it turned out to be the perfect tool for the job. It knocked off even more of the loosest parts of the old finish in no time. NOTE NUMBER TWO: we were both wearing heavy-duty lead paint removal masks during all this sanding just to be safe because tons of dust flies and even though it checked out to be lead free, we didn’t want to be inhaling a ton of tiny dust particles anyway, so you’ll catch a glimpse of those later in the post.

After a pass with the drill, we went over by hand with medium and then fine-grit sanding blocks to smooth it out a bit more. It would’ve taken us hours to get everything down to the original finish, but in about 20 minutes we got it down to a smooth-to-the-touch finish which is good enough. You just want a nice flake-free base for some rust-blocking primer and paint to adhere to without worrying it’ll flake and pop off down the line (primer & paint are generally only as secure as their base – so make sure that’s not crumbling).

After a wipe down with a clean towel, we were ready to prime. Based on a deep and meaningful conversation with the pro at our local paint desk, we chose this oil-based Clean Metal Primer to do the job. We obviously wanted something that not only covered the existing rust but helped prevent more – plus it would make the whole thing ready for paint that would last.

It’s very thin (read: drippy) so make sure your floors are well protected! We used small foam rollers to cover most of the large surfaces, and then a cheap chip brush to get under the lip and around the actual clawfeet. It’s also pretty stinky, so we opened every window, put on all the fans, and kept our masks on for this step too.

There was a moment when we were watching the primer dry where we considered just painting it white. It was so refreshing to see it all clean and “new” looking that we were very tempted. However, the room itself is very white (white floor tiles, white trim, white ceilings, white shower tile, and white inside the tub), so we thought a darker accent in the space would actually be really nice to break things up. Plus, the interior finish is a tiny bit off-white (you can sort of tell in the photo below), so matching the outside exactly would’ve made the whole thing a bit creamier than we wanted (which might have clashed with the bright white floor tiles). With all of those factors urging us to go deeper and more dramatic with the outside of this tub, we considered 45,731 paint swatches (just kidding, it was only 45,721).

You probably spotted some of our contenders a few photos up. We considered a whole range of colors for the outside of the tub, but we landed on Riverway by Sherwin-Williams because it was a pretty deep blue with a heavy dose of gray and a hint of green. All of the straight taupes or grays felt a little too boring for a room with such a playful floor pattern, and we wanted to go noticeably darker than the little accent tiles in the floor so it didn’t look like we were trying to match it or skew too “baby blue” everywhere. Also, ignore how dirty these tiles look. They have since been scrubbed within an inch of their life.

After choosing that color, we actually had to have it color matched at Lowe’s in this Anti-Rust Armor paint since it came so highly recommended from the paint pro we chatted with (it’s moisture and stain resistant and has some additional rust prevention built into it – so they thought it was the best bet for our tub holding up longterm). The literal description online says its great for “appliances, playground equipment, mailboxes, and tanks.” I know they probably mean things like propane tanks, but I got a good laugh imagining someone painting a giant military tank by hand with this stuff.

Oh and this paint was also pretty stinky (hence the masks we donned again for this step) but it went on much thicker than the primer did. Once again we used small foam rollers for most of it, and then we used a brush meant specifically for oil-based paints to get between the toes. Basically we gave our tub a pedicure.

A few people have asked why we chose to make the feet the same color, rather than accenting them with a white, silver, or gold finish. We just looked at all of our inspiration photos of clawfoot tubs (because you know I’ve pinned like ten million since we bought this house) and we liked the two-tone look better than a three-tone effect. That’s definitely something you can go for if you like that extra foot-bling though! It can look really cool too.

You can tell in these photos that the outside isn’t perfectly smooth – you can still see the subtle topography of the old finishes beneath the fresh coat of blue. We’re actually kinda happy that it will feel like a tub that has been in this house for decades instead of some new replica that we brought in, so we’re totally cool with that dappled texture – and the glossy shine from the fresh paint is a nice counterpart.

Dappled dots or not, it’s certainly a huge improvement! So for around $50 and a fair amount of sweat, we got something that looks pretty darn close to this Rejuvenation clawfoot tub that retails for $3,300!

I’m gonna hold off on sharing any more “afters” for now, mainly because we haven’t taken any. But late last week our plumber came back to install the faucet and connect the tub (and remove the cardboard!) so word from him is that it’s ready for use! We have to skip our weekly visit since the floors are being sealed and need time to cure before anyone walks on them, so we’re just over here holding our breath until we can go back over to the house and see the tub all hooked up (and the floors all refinished). You know I’ll take like ten million pictures for you guys, so stay tuned!

Psst – Wanna read more about this beach house rehab project of ours? Click here to see everything we’ve done for the past year to get it to this point!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub appeared first on Young House Love.

How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub published first on http://ift.tt/2qxZz2j

[statusreview]

How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub

We’ve gotten A LOT of questions about how we’ve rescued the clawfoot tub at our beach house, so let’s just dive right into what worked (and what didn’t) and how we nursed this baby back to life.

The tub existed in the house when we bought it last October (Saturday will be our 1-year house-iversary!). But it was a pretty sad existence, as evidenced by the bathroom literally falling apart around it. Yes, this is what that bathroom looked like when we bought the house. You’ll remember we later had to fully remove and rebuild that entire side of the house because it was sinking into the ground due to a completely failing foundation (!!!). You can read more about that process here.

During demo, our contractor moved it out into the bedroom, which is where it lived for over half a year as destruction and reconstruction went on around it.

Once that side of the house was all rebuilt, it was pretty exciting to picture the tub going back in there – this time on stable footing. Here I am back in January standing where the bathtub now sits. Remember John’s best Boomerang capture of all time?

We pretty much ignored the tub during the entire gutting/rebuilding process of the house. We did keep it covered with a piece of plywood so it didn’t get dinged up, but we put off making a plan to resuscitate it until we actually had a bathroom to put it into again.

And then came that exciting day when the bathroom tile was in, the grout was done, and we needed to think about getting this tub back into the bathroom. It was finally time to assess the tub situation to see if it was something we’d have to pay someone to refinish, or something we could tackle ourselves. The first thing I did was wipe everything down (with a spare grout sponge) just to see how stained the inside of the tub really was. A remarkable amount of grime came off, so it gave us hope that we could save it without having to hire someone to professionally paint the inside (we hear that can flake and peel off down the line, so getting it back to its original finish would beat a rental with a peeling/flaking tub in 5-10 years).

We originally worried there were rust stains (which wouldn’t be something we could scrub off – rust literally pits the glazing and creates a hole that needs to be filled and sanded and typically calls for a pro to fix) but upon further inspection we realized that some of this “rust” was actually rubbing off! See the white speckles on those brown streaks below? Turns out nothing was pitted, but there were just some really really bad hard water deposits on top of the tub… which meant if we could scrub them off, we’d find more of that original white finish under them!

So a few weeks later, once the plumber had moved the tub back into the bathroom, we arrived in Cape Charles armed with an array of cleaners – ready to show the tub who’s boss. This is what it looked like when we started:

First, we wanted to evaluate what was just surface grime and what was a legit stain. So we sprayed the whole thing down with 1-part white vinegar, 1-part water and used a little elbow grease (and a green scouring pad) to get all of the superficial gunk off.

It made a HUGE difference, although not enough that I would be willing to actually take a bath in there yet.

The next tool in our arsenal was a bottle of Bar Keeper’s Friend Soft Cleanser, which a few people had recommended to us for old tubs (I just happened to find it for like $1.50 at Ross). We followed the instructions of applying it to a damp surface, letting it sit, and then scrubbing it off. Results were not very good. Confidence levels majorly wavered at this point.

Undeterred, we decided to try a more generous application of BKF (is that what the kids are calling it these days?) and let it sit for much longer (like 15-20 minutes). In the meantime, we also used a heavy duty Magic Eraser on some of the other spots, which is another tip you guys shared for trying to clean up an old tub. It certainly helped, but was a bit slow-going. We burned through a couple of them pretty quickly, but things were starting to look better…

After the scrub had sat for about 20 minutes, we tackled it with a piece of fine grade steel wool (along with hearing that magic erasers and fine steel wool can work, we also have heard that a pumice stone can buff out small stains too – so that’s something else to try if you have the same job ahead of you – we just didn’t have one with us). I’m not sure if it was the cleanser or the steel wool, but we finally started to see some noticeable progress.

It still required A LOT of elbow grease, but it was insanely satisfying to see those rust streaks dissipating. We also very gently scraped it in some parts with the dulled tip of our multi-tool. I didn’t take a picture because I didn’t want to necessarily recommend it since it can etch/scratch your tub which is NOT GOOD, but we checked frequently to make sure we weren’t scratching ours, and it was helpful in chipping off some large chunks of rust-covered hard water stains.

The final results are not flawless, but we are more than satisfied with how it looks. All the rusty looking rings you see below will be covered by a new drain, faucet and spigot once they’re installed, so aside from a few slight imperfections in the white interior finish, she’s gonna look pretty dang good. I’m officially more than willing to plop my bod down in there for a good soak. Just picture me in there wearing a black turtleneck for modesty reasons.

This feels like a good moment for a before and after. Again, this is all from just cleaning – no actual refinishing or reglazing went on with the inside. So we’re glad that there should be no issues with bubbling or peeling paint since we were able to restore the original finish of the tub. Those few sentences don’t adequately capture how elated I am, so I’ll add this: ALL THE JAZZ HANDS!

Now let’s talk about restoring the outside, because what good is a tidy interior if the exterior looks ready for a horror movie?

Our first step was to sand it down, mostly just to get all of the already flaking paint off so we could have a relatively smooth surface to paint. NOTE: always test old tubs for lead paint! Many have it, which is extremely dangerous, especially if kids will be bathing in them. We were thrilled to find out ours was clean- most likely since the outside was painted sometime after lead was phased out and since the inside had never been reglazed.

First we used some coarse sanding blocks to scrub all of the exterior by hand, which was slow going, but definitely knocked a bunch of old dry paint flakes to the ground. John had also bought this rust-removing drill attachment while we were at the store and it turned out to be the perfect tool for the job. It knocked off even more of the loosest parts of the old finish in no time. NOTE NUMBER TWO: we were both wearing heavy-duty lead paint removal masks during all this sanding just to be safe because tons of dust flies and even though it checked out to be lead free, we didn’t want to be inhaling a ton of tiny dust particles anyway, so you’ll catch a glimpse of those later in the post.

After a pass with the drill, we went over by hand with medium and then fine-grit sanding blocks to smooth it out a bit more. It would’ve taken us hours to get everything down to the original finish, but in about 20 minutes we got it down to a smooth-to-the-touch finish which is good enough. You just want a nice flake-free base for some rust-blocking primer and paint to adhere to without worrying it’ll flake and pop off down the line (primer & paint are generally only as secure as their base – so make sure that’s not crumbling).

After a wipe down with a clean towel, we were ready to prime. Based on a deep and meaningful conversation with the pro at our local paint desk, we chose this oil-based Clean Metal Primer to do the job. We obviously wanted something that not only covered the existing rust but helped prevent more – plus it would make the whole thing ready for paint that would last.

It’s very thin (read: drippy) so make sure your floors are well protected! We used small foam rollers to cover most of the large surfaces, and then a cheap chip brush to get under the lip and around the actual clawfeet. It’s also pretty stinky, so we opened every window, put on all the fans, and kept our masks on for this step too.

There was a moment when we were watching the primer dry where we considered just painting it white. It was so refreshing to see it all clean and “new” looking that we were very tempted. However, the room itself is very white (white floor tiles, white trim, white ceilings, white shower tile, and white inside the tub), so we thought a darker accent in the space would actually be really nice to break things up. Plus, the interior finish is a tiny bit off-white (you can sort of tell in the photo below), so matching the outside exactly would’ve made the whole thing a bit creamier than we wanted (which might have clashed with the bright white floor tiles). With all of those factors urging us to go deeper and more dramatic with the outside of this tub, we considered 45,731 paint swatches (just kidding, it was only 45,721).

You probably spotted some of our contenders a few photos up. We considered a whole range of colors for the outside of the tub, but we landed on Riverway by Sherwin-Williams because it was a pretty deep blue with a heavy dose of gray and a hint of green. All of the straight taupes or grays felt a little too boring for a room with such a playful floor pattern, and we wanted to go noticeably darker than the little accent tiles in the floor so it didn’t look like we were trying to match it or skew too “baby blue” everywhere. Also, ignore how dirty these tiles look. They have since been scrubbed within an inch of their life.

After choosing that color, we actually had to have it color matched at Lowe’s in this Anti-Rust Armor paint since it came so highly recommended from the paint pro we chatted with (it’s moisture and stain resistant and has some additional rust prevention built into it – so they thought it was the best bet for our tub holding up longterm). The literal description online says its great for “appliances, playground equipment, mailboxes, and tanks.” I know they probably mean things like propane tanks, but I got a good laugh imagining someone painting a giant military tank by hand with this stuff.

Oh and this paint was also pretty stinky (hence the masks we donned again for this step) but it went on much thicker than the primer did. Once again we used small foam rollers for most of it, and then we used a brush meant specifically for oil-based paints to get between the toes. Basically we gave our tub a pedicure.

A few people have asked why we chose to make the feet the same color, rather than accenting them with a white, silver, or gold finish. We just looked at all of our inspiration photos of clawfoot tubs (because you know I’ve pinned like ten million since we bought this house) and we liked the two-tone look better than a three-tone effect. That’s definitely something you can go for if you like that extra foot-bling though! It can look really cool too.

You can tell in these photos that the outside isn’t perfectly smooth – you can still see the subtle topography of the old finishes beneath the fresh coat of blue. We’re actually kinda happy that it will feel like a tub that has been in this house for decades instead of some new replica that we brought in, so we’re totally cool with that dappled texture – and the glossy shine from the fresh paint is a nice counterpart.

Dappled dots or not, it’s certainly a huge improvement! So for around $50 and a fair amount of sweat, we got something that looks pretty darn close to this Rejuvenation clawfoot tub that retails for $3,300!

I’m gonna hold off on sharing any more “afters” for now, mainly because we haven’t taken any. But late last week our plumber came back to install the faucet and connect the tub (and remove the cardboard!) so word from him is that it’s ready for use! We have to skip our weekly visit since the floors are being sealed and need time to cure before anyone walks on them, so we’re just over here holding our breath until we can go back over to the house and see the tub all hooked up (and the floors all refinished). You know I’ll take like ten million pictures for you guys, so stay tuned!

Psst – Wanna read more about this beach house rehab project of ours? Click here to see everything we’ve done for the past year to get it to this point!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub appeared first on Young House Love.

How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub published first on http://ift.tt/2r6hzQy

[truereviewpage]

How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub

We’ve gotten A LOT of questions about how we’ve rescued the clawfoot tub at our beach house, so let’s just dive right into what worked (and what didn’t) and how we nursed this baby back to life.

The tub existed in the house when we bought it last October (Saturday will be our 1-year house-iversary!). But it was a pretty sad existence, as evidenced by the bathroom literally falling apart around it. Yes, this is what that bathroom looked like when we bought the house. You’ll remember we later had to fully remove and rebuild that entire side of the house because it was sinking into the ground due to a completely failing foundation (!!!). You can read more about that process here.

During demo, our contractor moved it out into the bedroom, which is where it lived for over half a year as destruction and reconstruction went on around it.

Once that side of the house was all rebuilt, it was pretty exciting to picture the tub going back in there – this time on stable footing. Here I am back in January standing where the bathtub now sits. Remember John’s best Boomerang capture of all time?

We pretty much ignored the tub during the entire gutting/rebuilding process of the house. We did keep it covered with a piece of plywood so it didn’t get dinged up, but we put off making a plan to resuscitate it until we actually had a bathroom to put it into again.

And then came that exciting day when the bathroom tile was in, the grout was done, and we needed to think about getting this tub back into the bathroom. It was finally time to assess the tub situation to see if it was something we’d have to pay someone to refinish, or something we could tackle ourselves. The first thing I did was wipe everything down (with a spare grout sponge) just to see how stained the inside of the tub really was. A remarkable amount of grime came off, so it gave us hope that we could save it without having to hire someone to professionally paint the inside (we hear that can flake and peel off down the line, so getting it back to its original finish would beat a rental with a peeling/flaking tub in 5-10 years).

We originally worried there were rust stains (which wouldn’t be something we could scrub off – rust literally pits the glazing and creates a hole that needs to be filled and sanded and typically calls for a pro to fix) but upon further inspection we realized that some of this “rust” was actually rubbing off! See the white speckles on those brown streaks below? Turns out nothing was pitted, but there were just some really really bad hard water deposits on top of the tub… which meant if we could scrub them off, we’d find more of that original white finish under them!

So a few weeks later, once the plumber had moved the tub back into the bathroom, we arrived in Cape Charles armed with an array of cleaners – ready to show the tub who’s boss. This is what it looked like when we started:

First, we wanted to evaluate what was just surface grime and what was a legit stain. So we sprayed the whole thing down with 1-part white vinegar, 1-part water and used a little elbow grease (and a green scouring pad) to get all of the superficial gunk off.

It made a HUGE difference, although not enough that I would be willing to actually take a bath in there yet.

The next tool in our arsenal was a bottle of Bar Keeper’s Friend Soft Cleanser, which a few people had recommended to us for old tubs (I just happened to find it for like $1.50 at Ross). We followed the instructions of applying it to a damp surface, letting it sit, and then scrubbing it off. Results were not very good. Confidence levels majorly wavered at this point.

Undeterred, we decided to try a more generous application of BKF (is that what the kids are calling it these days?) and let it sit for much longer (like 15-20 minutes). In the meantime, we also used a heavy duty Magic Eraser on some of the other spots, which is another tip you guys shared for trying to clean up an old tub. It certainly helped, but was a bit slow-going. We burned through a couple of them pretty quickly, but things were starting to look better…

After the scrub had sat for about 20 minutes, we tackled it with a piece of fine grade steel wool (along with hearing that magic erasers and fine steel wool can work, we also have heard that a pumice stone can buff out small stains too – so that’s something else to try if you have the same job ahead of you – we just didn’t have one with us). I’m not sure if it was the cleanser or the steel wool, but we finally started to see some noticeable progress.

It still required A LOT of elbow grease, but it was insanely satisfying to see those rust streaks dissipating. We also very gently scraped it in some parts with the dulled tip of our multi-tool. I didn’t take a picture because I didn’t want to necessarily recommend it since it can etch/scratch your tub which is NOT GOOD, but we checked frequently to make sure we weren’t scratching ours, and it was helpful in chipping off some large chunks of rust-covered hard water stains.

The final results are not flawless, but we are more than satisfied with how it looks. All the rusty looking rings you see below will be covered by a new drain, faucet and spigot once they’re installed, so aside from a few slight imperfections in the white interior finish, she’s gonna look pretty dang good. I’m officially more than willing to plop my bod down in there for a good soak. Just picture me in there wearing a black turtleneck for modesty reasons.

This feels like a good moment for a before and after. Again, this is all from just cleaning – no actual refinishing or reglazing went on with the inside. So we’re glad that there should be no issues with bubbling or peeling paint since we were able to restore the original finish of the tub. Those few sentences don’t adequately capture how elated I am, so I’ll add this: ALL THE JAZZ HANDS!

Now let’s talk about restoring the outside, because what good is a tidy interior if the exterior looks ready for a horror movie?

Our first step was to sand it down, mostly just to get all of the already flaking paint off so we could have a relatively smooth surface to paint. NOTE: always test old tubs for lead paint! Many have it, which is extremely dangerous, especially if kids will be bathing in them. We were thrilled to find out ours was clean- most likely since the outside was painted sometime after lead was phased out and since the inside had never been reglazed.

First we used some coarse sanding blocks to scrub all of the exterior by hand, which was slow going, but definitely knocked a bunch of old dry paint flakes to the ground. John had also bought this rust-removing drill attachment while we were at the store and it turned out to be the perfect tool for the job. It knocked off even more of the loosest parts of the old finish in no time. NOTE NUMBER TWO: we were both wearing heavy-duty lead paint removal masks during all this sanding just to be safe because tons of dust flies and even though it checked out to be lead free, we didn’t want to be inhaling a ton of tiny dust particles anyway, so you’ll catch a glimpse of those later in the post.

After a pass with the drill, we went over by hand with medium and then fine-grit sanding blocks to smooth it out a bit more. It would’ve taken us hours to get everything down to the original finish, but in about 20 minutes we got it down to a smooth-to-the-touch finish which is good enough. You just want a nice flake-free base for some rust-blocking primer and paint to adhere to without worrying it’ll flake and pop off down the line (primer & paint are generally only as secure as their base – so make sure that’s not crumbling).

After a wipe down with a clean towel, we were ready to prime. Based on a deep and meaningful conversation with the pro at our local paint desk, we chose this oil-based Clean Metal Primer to do the job. We obviously wanted something that not only covered the existing rust but helped prevent more – plus it would make the whole thing ready for paint that would last.

It’s very thin (read: drippy) so make sure your floors are well protected! We used small foam rollers to cover most of the large surfaces, and then a cheap chip brush to get under the lip and around the actual clawfeet. It’s also pretty stinky, so we opened every window, put on all the fans, and kept our masks on for this step too.

There was a moment when we were watching the primer dry where we considered just painting it white. It was so refreshing to see it all clean and “new” looking that we were very tempted. However, the room itself is very white (white floor tiles, white trim, white ceilings, white shower tile, and white inside the tub), so we thought a darker accent in the space would actually be really nice to break things up. Plus, the interior finish is a tiny bit off-white (you can sort of tell in the photo below), so matching the outside exactly would’ve made the whole thing a bit creamier than we wanted (which might have clashed with the bright white floor tiles). With all of those factors urging us to go deeper and more dramatic with the outside of this tub, we considered 45,731 paint swatches (just kidding, it was only 45,721).

You probably spotted some of our contenders a few photos up. We considered a whole range of colors for the outside of the tub, but we landed on Riverway by Sherwin-Williams because it was a pretty deep blue with a heavy dose of gray and a hint of green. All of the straight taupes or grays felt a little too boring for a room with such a playful floor pattern, and we wanted to go noticeably darker than the little accent tiles in the floor so it didn’t look like we were trying to match it or skew too “baby blue” everywhere. Also, ignore how dirty these tiles look. They have since been scrubbed within an inch of their life.

After choosing that color, we actually had to have it color matched at Lowe’s in this Anti-Rust Armor paint since it came so highly recommended from the paint pro we chatted with (it’s moisture and stain resistant and has some additional rust prevention built into it – so they thought it was the best bet for our tub holding up longterm). The literal description online says its great for “appliances, playground equipment, mailboxes, and tanks.” I know they probably mean things like propane tanks, but I got a good laugh imagining someone painting a giant military tank by hand with this stuff.

Oh and this paint was also pretty stinky (hence the masks we donned again for this step) but it went on much thicker than the primer did. Once again we used small foam rollers for most of it, and then we used a brush meant specifically for oil-based paints to get between the toes. Basically we gave our tub a pedicure.

A few people have asked why we chose to make the feet the same color, rather than accenting them with a white, silver, or gold finish. We just looked at all of our inspiration photos of clawfoot tubs (because you know I’ve pinned like ten million since we bought this house) and we liked the two-tone look better than a three-tone effect. That’s definitely something you can go for if you like that extra foot-bling though! It can look really cool too.

You can tell in these photos that the outside isn’t perfectly smooth – you can still see the subtle topography of the old finishes beneath the fresh coat of blue. We’re actually kinda happy that it will feel like a tub that has been in this house for decades instead of some new replica that we brought in, so we’re totally cool with that dappled texture – and the glossy shine from the fresh paint is a nice counterpart.

Dappled dots or not, it’s certainly a huge improvement! So for around $50 and a fair amount of sweat, we got something that looks pretty darn close to this Rejuvenation clawfoot tub that retails for $3,300!

I’m gonna hold off on sharing any more “afters” for now, mainly because we haven’t taken any. But late last week our plumber came back to install the faucet and connect the tub (and remove the cardboard!) so word from him is that it’s ready for use! We have to skip our weekly visit since the floors are being sealed and need time to cure before anyone walks on them, so we’re just over here holding our breath until we can go back over to the house and see the tub all hooked up (and the floors all refinished). You know I’ll take like ten million pictures for you guys, so stay tuned!

Psst – Wanna read more about this beach house rehab project of ours? Click here to see everything we’ve done for the past year to get it to this point!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub appeared first on Young House Love.

How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub published first on http://ift.tt/2qCHnUt

[lukerhill]

How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub

We’ve gotten A LOT of questions about how we’ve rescued the clawfoot tub at our beach house, so let’s just dive right into what worked (and what didn’t) and how we nursed this baby back to life.

The tub existed in the house when we bought it last October (Saturday will be our 1-year house-iversary!). But it was a pretty sad existence, as evidenced by the bathroom literally falling apart around it. Yes, this is what that bathroom looked like when we bought the house. You’ll remember we later had to fully remove and rebuild that entire side of the house because it was sinking into the ground due to a completely failing foundation (!!!). You can read more about that process here.

During demo, our contractor moved it out into the bedroom, which is where it lived for over half a year as destruction and reconstruction went on around it.

Once that side of the house was all rebuilt, it was pretty exciting to picture the tub going back in there – this time on stable footing. Here I am back in January standing where the bathtub now sits. Remember John’s best Boomerang capture of all time?

We pretty much ignored the tub during the entire gutting/rebuilding process of the house. We did keep it covered with a piece of plywood so it didn’t get dinged up, but we put off making a plan to resuscitate it until we actually had a bathroom to put it into again.

And then came that exciting day when the bathroom tile was in, the grout was done, and we needed to think about getting this tub back into the bathroom. It was finally time to assess the tub situation to see if it was something we’d have to pay someone to refinish, or something we could tackle ourselves. The first thing I did was wipe everything down (with a spare grout sponge) just to see how stained the inside of the tub really was. A remarkable amount of grime came off, so it gave us hope that we could save it without having to hire someone to professionally paint the inside (we hear that can flake and peel off down the line, so getting it back to its original finish would beat a rental with a peeling/flaking tub in 5-10 years).

We originally worried there were rust stains (which wouldn’t be something we could scrub off – rust literally pits the glazing and creates a hole that needs to be filled and sanded and typically calls for a pro to fix) but upon further inspection we realized that some of this “rust” was actually rubbing off! See the white speckles on those brown streaks below? Turns out nothing was pitted, but there were just some really really bad hard water deposits on top of the tub… which meant if we could scrub them off, we’d find more of that original white finish under them!

So a few weeks later, once the plumber had moved the tub back into the bathroom, we arrived in Cape Charles armed with an array of cleaners – ready to show the tub who’s boss. This is what it looked like when we started:

First, we wanted to evaluate what was just surface grime and what was a legit stain. So we sprayed the whole thing down with 1-part white vinegar, 1-part water and used a little elbow grease (and a green scouring pad) to get all of the superficial gunk off.

It made a HUGE difference, although not enough that I would be willing to actually take a bath in there yet.

The next tool in our arsenal was a bottle of Bar Keeper’s Friend Soft Cleanser, which a few people had recommended to us for old tubs (I just happened to find it for like $1.50 at Ross). We followed the instructions of applying it to a damp surface, letting it sit, and then scrubbing it off. Results were not very good. Confidence levels majorly wavered at this point.

Undeterred, we decided to try a more generous application of BKF (is that what the kids are calling it these days?) and let it sit for much longer (like 15-20 minutes). In the meantime, we also used a heavy duty Magic Eraser on some of the other spots, which is another tip you guys shared for trying to clean up an old tub. It certainly helped, but was a bit slow-going. We burned through a couple of them pretty quickly, but things were starting to look better…

After the scrub had sat for about 20 minutes, we tackled it with a piece of fine grade steel wool (along with hearing that magic erasers and fine steel wool can work, we also have heard that a pumice stone can buff out small stains too – so that’s something else to try if you have the same job ahead of you – we just didn’t have one with us). I’m not sure if it was the cleanser or the steel wool, but we finally started to see some noticeable progress.

It still required A LOT of elbow grease, but it was insanely satisfying to see those rust streaks dissipating. We also very gently scraped it in some parts with the dulled tip of our multi-tool. I didn’t take a picture because I didn’t want to necessarily recommend it since it can etch/scratch your tub which is NOT GOOD, but we checked frequently to make sure we weren’t scratching ours, and it was helpful in chipping off some large chunks of rust-covered hard water stains.

The final results are not flawless, but we are more than satisfied with how it looks. All the rusty looking rings you see below will be covered by a new drain, faucet and spigot once they’re installed, so aside from a few slight imperfections in the white interior finish, she’s gonna look pretty dang good. I’m officially more than willing to plop my bod down in there for a good soak. Just picture me in there wearing a black turtleneck for modesty reasons.

This feels like a good moment for a before and after. Again, this is all from just cleaning – no actual refinishing or reglazing went on with the inside. So we’re glad that there should be no issues with bubbling or peeling paint since we were able to restore the original finish of the tub. Those few sentences don’t adequately capture how elated I am, so I’ll add this: ALL THE JAZZ HANDS!

Now let’s talk about restoring the outside, because what good is a tidy interior if the exterior looks ready for a horror movie?

Our first step was to sand it down, mostly just to get all of the already flaking paint off so we could have a relatively smooth surface to paint. NOTE: always test old tubs for lead paint! Many have it, which is extremely dangerous, especially if kids will be bathing in them. We were thrilled to find out ours was clean- most likely since the outside was painted sometime after lead was phased out and since the inside had never been reglazed.

First we used some coarse sanding blocks to scrub all of the exterior by hand, which was slow going, but definitely knocked a bunch of old dry paint flakes to the ground. John had also bought this rust-removing drill attachment while we were at the store and it turned out to be the perfect tool for the job. It knocked off even more of the loosest parts of the old finish in no time. NOTE NUMBER TWO: we were both wearing heavy-duty lead paint removal masks during all this sanding just to be safe because tons of dust flies and even though it checked out to be lead free, we didn’t want to be inhaling a ton of tiny dust particles anyway, so you’ll catch a glimpse of those later in the post.

After a pass with the drill, we went over by hand with medium and then fine-grit sanding blocks to smooth it out a bit more. It would’ve taken us hours to get everything down to the original finish, but in about 20 minutes we got it down to a smooth-to-the-touch finish which is good enough. You just want a nice flake-free base for some rust-blocking primer and paint to adhere to without worrying it’ll flake and pop off down the line (primer & paint are generally only as secure as their base – so make sure that’s not crumbling).

After a wipe down with a clean towel, we were ready to prime. Based on a deep and meaningful conversation with the pro at our local paint desk, we chose this oil-based Clean Metal Primer to do the job. We obviously wanted something that not only covered the existing rust but helped prevent more – plus it would make the whole thing ready for paint that would last.

It’s very thin (read: drippy) so make sure your floors are well protected! We used small foam rollers to cover most of the large surfaces, and then a cheap chip brush to get under the lip and around the actual clawfeet. It’s also pretty stinky, so we opened every window, put on all the fans, and kept our masks on for this step too.

There was a moment when we were watching the primer dry where we considered just painting it white. It was so refreshing to see it all clean and “new” looking that we were very tempted. However, the room itself is very white (white floor tiles, white trim, white ceilings, white shower tile, and white inside the tub), so we thought a darker accent in the space would actually be really nice to break things up. Plus, the interior finish is a tiny bit off-white (you can sort of tell in the photo below), so matching the outside exactly would’ve made the whole thing a bit creamier than we wanted (which might have clashed with the bright white floor tiles). With all of those factors urging us to go deeper and more dramatic with the outside of this tub, we considered 45,731 paint swatches (just kidding, it was only 45,721).

You probably spotted some of our contenders a few photos up. We considered a whole range of colors for the outside of the tub, but we landed on Riverway by Sherwin-Williams because it was a pretty deep blue with a heavy dose of gray and a hint of green. All of the straight taupes or grays felt a little too boring for a room with such a playful floor pattern, and we wanted to go noticeably darker than the little accent tiles in the floor so it didn’t look like we were trying to match it or skew too “baby blue” everywhere. Also, ignore how dirty these tiles look. They have since been scrubbed within an inch of their life.

After choosing that color, we actually had to have it color matched at Lowe’s in this Anti-Rust Armor paint since it came so highly recommended from the paint pro we chatted with (it’s moisture and stain resistant and has some additional rust prevention built into it – so they thought it was the best bet for our tub holding up longterm). The literal description online says its great for “appliances, playground equipment, mailboxes, and tanks.” I know they probably mean things like propane tanks, but I got a good laugh imagining someone painting a giant military tank by hand with this stuff.

Oh and this paint was also pretty stinky (hence the masks we donned again for this step) but it went on much thicker than the primer did. Once again we used small foam rollers for most of it, and then we used a brush meant specifically for oil-based paints to get between the toes. Basically we gave our tub a pedicure.

A few people have asked why we chose to make the feet the same color, rather than accenting them with a white, silver, or gold finish. We just looked at all of our inspiration photos of clawfoot tubs (because you know I’ve pinned like ten million since we bought this house) and we liked the two-tone look better than a three-tone effect. That’s definitely something you can go for if you like that extra foot-bling though! It can look really cool too.

You can tell in these photos that the outside isn’t perfectly smooth – you can still see the subtle topography of the old finishes beneath the fresh coat of blue. We’re actually kinda happy that it will feel like a tub that has been in this house for decades instead of some new replica that we brought in, so we’re totally cool with that dappled texture – and the glossy shine from the fresh paint is a nice counterpart.

Dappled dots or not, it’s certainly a huge improvement! So for around $50 and a fair amount of sweat, we got something that looks pretty darn close to this Rejuvenation clawfoot tub that retails for $3,300!

I’m gonna hold off on sharing any more “afters” for now, mainly because we haven’t taken any. But late last week our plumber came back to install the faucet and connect the tub (and remove the cardboard!) so word from him is that it’s ready for use! We have to skip our weekly visit since the floors are being sealed and need time to cure before anyone walks on them, so we’re just over here holding our breath until we can go back over to the house and see the tub all hooked up (and the floors all refinished). You know I’ll take like ten million pictures for you guys, so stay tuned!

Psst – Wanna read more about this beach house rehab project of ours? Click here to see everything we’ve done for the past year to get it to this point!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub appeared first on Young House Love.

[additionallysad]

How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub http://ift.tt/2xW6urO

We’ve gotten A LOT of questions about how we’ve rescued the clawfoot tub at our beach house, so let’s just dive right into what worked (and what didn’t) and how we nursed this baby back to life.

The tub existed in the house when we bought it last October (Saturday will be our 1-year house-iversary!). But it was a pretty sad existence, as evidenced by the bathroom literally falling apart around it. Yes, this is what that bathroom looked like when we bought the house. You’ll remember we later had to fully remove and rebuild that entire side of the house because it was sinking into the ground due to a completely failing foundation (!!!). You can read more about that process here.

During demo, our contractor moved it out into the bedroom, which is where it lived for over half a year as destruction and reconstruction went on around it.

Once that side of the house was all rebuilt, it was pretty exciting to picture the tub going back in there – this time on stable footing. Here I am back in January standing where the bathtub now sits. Remember John’s best Boomerang capture of all time?

We pretty much ignored the tub during the entire gutting/rebuilding process of the house. We did keep it covered with a piece of plywood so it didn’t get dinged up, but we put off making a plan to resuscitate it until we actually had a bathroom to put it into again.

And then came that exciting day when the bathroom tile was in, the grout was done, and we needed to think about getting this tub back into the bathroom. It was finally time to assess the tub situation to see if it was something we’d have to pay someone to refinish, or something we could tackle ourselves. The first thing I did was wipe everything down (with a spare grout sponge) just to see how stained the inside of the tub really was. A remarkable amount of grime came off, so it gave us hope that we could save it without having to hire someone to professionally paint the inside (we hear that can flake and peel off down the line, so getting it back to its original finish would beat a rental with a peeling/flaking tub in 5-10 years).

We originally worried there were rust stains (which wouldn’t be something we could scrub off – rust literally pits the glazing and creates a hole that needs to be filled and sanded and typically calls for a pro to fix) but upon further inspection we realized that some of this “rust” was actually rubbing off! See the white speckles on those brown streaks below? Turns out nothing was pitted, but there were just some really really bad hard water deposits on top of the tub… which meant if we could scrub them off, we’d find more of that original white finish under them!

So a few weeks later, once the plumber had moved the tub back into the bathroom, we arrived in Cape Charles armed with an array of cleaners – ready to show the tub who’s boss. This is what it looked like when we started:

First, we wanted to evaluate what was just surface grime and what was a legit stain. So we sprayed the whole thing down with 1-part white vinegar, 1-part water and used a little elbow grease (and a green scouring pad) to get all of the superficial gunk off.

It made a HUGE difference, although not enough that I would be willing to actually take a bath in there yet.

The next tool in our arsenal was a bottle of Bar Keeper’s Friend Soft Cleanser, which a few people had recommended to us for old tubs (I just happened to find it for like $1.50 at Ross). We followed the instructions of applying it to a damp surface, letting it sit, and then scrubbing it off. Results were not very good. Confidence levels majorly wavered at this point.

Undeterred, we decided to try a more generous application of BKF (is that what the kids are calling it these days?) and let it sit for much longer (like 15-20 minutes). In the meantime, we also used a heavy duty Magic Eraser on some of the other spots, which is another tip you guys shared for trying to clean up an old tub. It certainly helped, but was a bit slow-going. We burned through a couple of them pretty quickly, but things were starting to look better…

After the scrub had sat for about 20 minutes, we tackled it with a piece of fine grade steel wool (along with hearing that magic erasers and fine steel wool can work, we also have heard that a pumice stone can buff out small stains too – so that’s something else to try if you have the same job ahead of you – we just didn’t have one with us). I’m not sure if it was the cleanser or the steel wool, but we finally started to see some noticeable progress.

It still required A LOT of elbow grease, but it was insanely satisfying to see those rust streaks dissipating. We also very gently scraped it in some parts with the dulled tip of our multi-tool. I didn’t take a picture because I didn’t want to necessarily recommend it since it can etch/scratch your tub which is NOT GOOD, but we checked frequently to make sure we weren’t scratching ours, and it was helpful in chipping off some large chunks of rust-covered hard water stains.

The final results are not flawless, but we are more than satisfied with how it looks. All the rusty looking rings you see below will be covered by a new drain, faucet and spigot once they’re installed, so aside from a few slight imperfections in the white interior finish, she’s gonna look pretty dang good. I’m officially more than willing to plop my bod down in there for a good soak. Just picture me in there wearing a black turtleneck for modesty reasons.

This feels like a good moment for a before and after. Again, this is all from just cleaning – no actual refinishing or reglazing went on with the inside. So we’re glad that there should be no issues with bubbling or peeling paint since we were able to restore the original finish of the tub. Those few sentences don’t adequately capture how elated I am, so I’ll add this: ALL THE JAZZ HANDS!

Now let’s talk about restoring the outside, because what good is a tidy interior if the exterior looks ready for a horror movie?

Our first step was to sand it down, mostly just to get all of the already flaking paint off so we could have a relatively smooth surface to paint. NOTE: always test old tubs for lead paint! Many have it, which is extremely dangerous, especially if kids will be bathing in them. We were thrilled to find out ours was clean- most likely since the outside was painted sometime after lead was phased out and since the inside had never been reglazed.

First we used some coarse sanding blocks to scrub all of the exterior by hand, which was slow going, but definitely knocked a bunch of old dry paint flakes to the ground. John had also bought this rust-removing drill attachment while we were at the store and it turned out to be the perfect tool for the job. It knocked off even more of the loosest parts of the old finish in no time. NOTE NUMBER TWO: we were both wearing heavy-duty lead paint removal masks during all this sanding just to be safe because tons of dust flies and even though it checked out to be lead free, we didn’t want to be inhaling a ton of tiny dust particles anyway, so you’ll catch a glimpse of those later in the post.

After a pass with the drill, we went over by hand with medium and then fine-grit sanding blocks to smooth it out a bit more. It would’ve taken us hours to get everything down to the original finish, but in about 20 minutes we got it down to a smooth-to-the-touch finish which is good enough. You just want a nice flake-free base for some rust-blocking primer and paint to adhere to without worrying it’ll flake and pop off down the line (primer & paint are generally only as secure as their base – so make sure that’s not crumbling).

After a wipe down with a clean towel, we were ready to prime. Based on a deep and meaningful conversation with the pro at our local paint desk, we chose this oil-based Clean Metal Primer to do the job. We obviously wanted something that not only covered the existing rust but helped prevent more – plus it would make the whole thing ready for paint that would last.

It’s very thin (read: drippy) so make sure your floors are well protected! We used small foam rollers to cover most of the large surfaces, and then a cheap chip brush to get under the lip and around the actual clawfeet. It’s also pretty stinky, so we opened every window, put on all the fans, and kept our masks on for this step too.

There was a moment when we were watching the primer dry where we considered just painting it white. It was so refreshing to see it all clean and “new” looking that we were very tempted. However, the room itself is very white (white floor tiles, white trim, white ceilings, white shower tile, and white inside the tub), so we thought a darker accent in the space would actually be really nice to break things up. Plus, the interior finish is a tiny bit off-white (you can sort of tell in the photo below), so matching the outside exactly would’ve made the whole thing a bit creamier than we wanted (which might have clashed with the bright white floor tiles). With all of those factors urging us to go deeper and more dramatic with the outside of this tub, we considered 45,731 paint swatches (just kidding, it was only 45,721).

You probably spotted some of our contenders a few photos up. We considered a whole range of colors for the outside of the tub, but we landed on Riverway by Sherwin-Williams because it was a pretty deep blue with a heavy dose of gray and a hint of green. All of the straight taupes or grays felt a little too boring for a room with such a playful floor pattern, and we wanted to go noticeably darker than the little accent tiles in the floor so it didn’t look like we were trying to match it or skew too “baby blue” everywhere. Also, ignore how dirty these tiles look. They have since been scrubbed within an inch of their life.

After choosing that color, we actually had to have it color matched at Lowe’s in this Anti-Rust Armor paint since it came so highly recommended from the paint pro we chatted with (it’s moisture and stain resistant and has some additional rust prevention built into it – so they thought it was the best bet for our tub holding up longterm). The literal description online says its great for “appliances, playground equipment, mailboxes, and tanks.” I know they probably mean things like propane tanks, but I got a good laugh imagining someone painting a giant military tank by hand with this stuff.

Oh and this paint was also pretty stinky (hence the masks we donned again for this step) but it went on much thicker than the primer did. Once again we used small foam rollers for most of it, and then we used a brush meant specifically for oil-based paints to get between the toes. Basically we gave our tub a pedicure.

A few people have asked why we chose to make the feet the same color, rather than accenting them with a white, silver, or gold finish. We just looked at all of our inspiration photos of clawfoot tubs (because you know I’ve pinned like ten million since we bought this house) and we liked the two-tone look better than a three-tone effect. That’s definitely something you can go for if you like that extra foot-bling though! It can look really cool too.

You can tell in these photos that the outside isn’t perfectly smooth – you can still see the subtle topography of the old finishes beneath the fresh coat of blue. We’re actually kinda happy that it will feel like a tub that has been in this house for decades instead of some new replica that we brought in, so we’re totally cool with that dappled texture – and the glossy shine from the fresh paint is a nice counterpart.

Dappled dots or not, it’s certainly a huge improvement! So for around $50 and a fair amount of sweat, we got something that looks pretty darn close to this Rejuvenation clawfoot tub that retails for $3,300!

I’m gonna hold off on sharing any more “afters” for now, mainly because we haven’t taken any. But late last week our plumber came back to install the faucet and connect the tub (and remove the cardboard!) so word from him is that it’s ready for use! We have to skip our weekly visit since the floors are being sealed and need time to cure before anyone walks on them, so we’re just over here holding our breath until we can go back over to the house and see the tub all hooked up (and the floors all refinished). You know I’ll take like ten million pictures for you guys, so stay tuned!

Psst – Wanna read more about this beach house rehab project of ours? Click here to see everything we’ve done for the past year to get it to this point!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post How To Refinish An Old Clawfoot Tub appeared first on Young House Love.