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createuntiltheendoftime · 6 years ago

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Love is Found in Violence, and Humanity is Found in Inhuman Acts

this is my secret santa for @silverswordthekilljoy

I'm sorry it took so long, I spent my whole day writing it cause i finished it then reread it and hated it so i rewrote it. I hope you like it!

“There is no way in fuck I am letting you leave the Zones!” Jet snapped.

Party stared hard at him. “Why the hell not! What if there are other ‘Joys? We could build an army, free the City, like we’ve always wanted.”

“Or you could find nothing.” Jet half-turned away. “An’ starve to death. Or die of radiation sickness.”

“C’mon. You and I both know very well that I’m gonna die of radiation anyway. Do you really think that BL/I was just happy with California and Nevada? That they wouldn’t control the entire world if they could? If you believe that, you are lying to yourself.”

“Don’ tell me what’s truth, Party.” Jet snarls. “Don’ tell me what you think is real, because you grew up in the city! You’ve got no idea what it was like being alone out here! I know what BL/I wants to do. I saw it first hand!”

The door to the Diner opens, and Kobra and Ghoul walk in, laughing at some joke one was telling. Both their smiles fade as they see Jet and Party in the middle of an argument. “What’s up?” Ghoul asked cautiously.

“Nothin’, Party jus’ wants to run a suicide mission.”

“It’s not! It’s a chance to end this.”

“You asked him?” Ghoul looked surprised, and a little hurt.

“You knew about this?” Jet rubs his face. “I’m goin’ to bed, and we’ll talk about this in the mornin’.” Jet turns and stalks down the hall.

“What was that about?” Kobra looked at Party suspiciously.

“We intercepted a transmission from outside the Zones.” Ghoul says.

“We do have intel that BL/I is tryin’ to take a seventh Zone.” Kobra glanced sideways at Ghoul.

“Not like that. Like Killjoys. Plus the expansion won’ happen for another six years at the very least. Ghoulie and I wanna check it out.”

“As in, go outside the Zones? Hell no! There’s a reason the expansion’s goin’ to take years, it’s because a prospective Zone Seven’s completely unlivable.”

“But there are people out there.” Ghoul protested.

“I am not letting you two idiots die. The rest of the Zones will never know what happened to the two Crash Queens from Zone Six. An’ what if you go out there, an’ you die, an’ leave me an’ Jet alone. You wanna do that shit?”

“Kobra—”

“No. Come back to me when you don’ wanna be a dumbass.” Kobra turned and followed Jet’s steps down the hall.

“Godammit!” Party yelled, and stomped out the door, into the desert.

Ghoul sat alone in the Diner for a while, staring out a window, before deciding to follow Party. The back of his throat itched, and he suppressed a light cough, climbing up to the roof, where Party and him liked to hang out. “Hey Party.”

“Hi.”

“Are we still going?”

“‘Course.”

“When?”

Party sat up, that stupid light in his eye, and looked out at the desert horizon. “We go now. Mom an’ Dad’ll never know what hit ‘em.”

“Wait, you’re serious?” Ghoul grinned.

“Yeah, dead serious. Pack your shit. We’re goin’.”

Ghoul started down the ladder, Party following after him. “What about Kobra and Jet?”

“We’ll be gone before they think we’re ghosted.” Party smiled, and the pair headed down to the ground.

* * * *

The Trans-Am started up a lot quieter than Party had thought, still blaringly loud in the desert night, but Kobra and Jet didn’t come running out, so he figured they were good. They climbed into the car, turned the radio up, and headed out.

Ghoul glanced out the window before looking back at Party. “We so did not think this through. No gas, no food. This is gonna go Costa Rica.”

“Calm thy tits. We got some extra Power Pup, full tanka gas is gonna give us 200ish miles. When the pup runs out, we’ll eat lizards, and there are so many gas stations in the Zones, they gotta be outta the Zones too. We’ll be fine.”

After an hour and a half, Party slowed.

Ghoul put a hand on his ray gun. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s the edge of Zone Six.”

“Let’s go then.”

Party sped up again, and the edge of Zone Six flashed by. Ghoul coughed again, cursing himself for sounding so weak in between sucking breaths. Party glanced at him sideways, then glanced back at the road. “You okay? You don’t sound so good.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? We could go back.”

“No.”

Another hour and a half later, the radio starts to die. The music fades out, crackling and messy. “Party…” Ghoul says nervously. “There’s nothing around. No gas stations, no body bags. There ain’t shit.”

“Do a transmission.”

Ghoul nodded and pulled out his long range radio. “Name’s Fun Ghoul. ‘M with Party Poison, and if you believe in freedom, we’re lookin’ for you. If you’re BL/I, get off my goddamn frequency.”

He says this multiple times, over multiple frequencies, and by the last one, it’s lost it’s magic. Well, Ghoul’s voice was not lost on Party. That would be impossible. But the message was less dramatic the eighth time around. Party looked over worriedly as Ghoul started coughing again.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fuckin’ fine, leave me alone.”

Party reached over a hand and felt Ghoul’s face. “You’ve got a fever, dumbass. Drink some water or I’m turning around.”

Ghoul grabbed Party’s wrist and threw it back in his lap. “I said I’m fine goddammit, shut up about it.”

“Drink the fuckin’ water.” Party grabbed the bottle and threw it at him.

“Party. We can’t turn around.”

“No, we can’t, so drink.”

“No, I mean check your rearview mirror.”

Party glanced in the mirror, and slammed his foot on the gas, causing the RPM needle to go up alarmingly. “Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” Party’s cussing caused Ghoul to grab his gun and stare at Party, currently scrambling for the reverse. “Fuck it! Get down, Ghoul!” He threw the car into drive and stepped hard on the pedal.

Thunder rolled as the engine grew so loud it sounded like it was going to explode, blasts flung through the open windows, and a low hum started to pierce his ears, then all of a sudden, the car slowed and stopped. “No! Fuckin’ shit!” Ghoul yelled.

“Be ready to put up a fight!” Party snapped.

“It’s an EMP. Our guns won’t work.”

“Theirs won’t work either,” Party growled, pulled a switchblade from his pocket.

Ghoul tensed as Dracs approached the car. “Fuck, this’s gonna hurt.”

In the split-second hesitation before the pair jumped out and rose hell, the doors opened, and the Dracs drug them out. Lightning flashed, illuminating Ghoul’s face, and sending flashing shadows across the Dracs’ faces, and fear shivered down Party’s spine

Ghoul sucked in a breath to start yelling, but he hit the ground with another coughing fit, and Party punched the Drac, trying to get away. “Get off me you fucking pig!” Party hissed.

Ghoul snapped his head back into the Drac’s face, looking smug for a moment before getting a faceful of raygun, the Drac slamming his raygun into Ghoul’s nose.

Party cringed at Ghoul’s yell, and the blood pouring out of his nose, the Dracs letting him go unsupported as he kneeled on the ground.

A black haired SCARECROW stepped out from wherever they were hiding, a smug smirk on his face that Party longed to punch. “What are you two little Zone Rats doing out here?”

Party rolled his eyes, partly stalling because he couldn’t remember the Crows name. Flare? Fire? Something along those lines. He knew it started with an F at the very least.

“C’mon Flare.” Ghoul said. “Haven’ you had enough of stalking me? You know I’m no’ indo you thad way.” His grin and slightly muted broken-nose voice made Party’s heart flutter.

The resounding thud dropped his stomach, and Ghoul was on the ground, breathing hard. Flare kicked him in the side, and then again in the face. But Ghoul tried to stand, making it to his knees before swaying harder to stay upright. He got to his feet, then Flare kicked at his knee, sending him back to square one with a pained yell.

Party wrestled with his Drac for a second before snarling, “you don’t touch him.”

That was a mistake. Ghoul shook his head, and Flare smirked, “is that so?” He grabbed a handful of Ghoul’s hair and lifted his chin. The blood down his face and throat almost hid the bruise blooming over his cheekbone.

Ghoul grinned up at Flare and spat at him. Flare seethed, and twisted his hand, causing Ghoul to cry out. Party slammed his head into the face behind him, using Ghoul’s distraction to get the upper hand and knock one out. The next one came at him, and he grabbed its head, bringing it down to meet his knee. He turned to Flare, still holding Ghoul hostage, holding the knife close to his throat. His voice was steady, but his hand shook.

Flare laughed, “you don’t even trust yourself.”

Party smiled, a sweet, innocent smile. “It’s not me I need to trust.” He opened his hand, and the knife fell straight into Ghoul’s grip, who shoved it into Flare’s chest. Flare stumbled back, and fell off the knife, literally kicking Ghoul away. Ghoul hit the ground hard, the knife skittering across the rocks, and Party grabbed it, standing to face the Dracs.

Lighting and thunder accompanied his attempt at escape, and Party made short work of them; their guns were completely useless, so they didn’t actually have a weapon. Briefly, Party wondered why they didn’t carry knives, but then Ghoul groaned, and Party dropped down next to him. “Are you okay? You’re not lookin’ so hot.”

“I’m fine, ya bastard.” Ghoul snapped. “Where the hell is Flare?”

“He’s gone.”

“As in…?”

“Disappeared.”

“Thank fuck.”

Party pulled off his bandanna and held it to Ghoul’s face, and Ghoul put his hand over Party’s, taking the bandanna. There’s a huge flash, and everything goes white.

* * * *

Party cracked his eyes open. The same desert light filtered through his eyelids, and stung as he got his eyes all the way open. “Ghoul?” No answer. Maybe he was still unconscious. Something knocked them out and—There’s no Ghoul. There’s no Trans-Am, and there’s no Drcas. “Where the hell am I?” There’s nobody around, but it looked like he was laying on some kinda road, an old dirt road, but the dirt looked freshly turned, like it was still being used. So Party stood, and he started walking.

The air slammed out of Ghoul’s lungs and he gasped, the ground warm against his back. For a second, he just laid there, trying to get air into his lungs. After a moment, he rolled onto his hands and knees, trying to make it to his feet. “Party?” He yelled. Nothing. There’s no sign of him, or the fight they were just in. Party’s bandanna is still in his hand, so it wasn’t a dream. “Party!” Still no answer. A tiny-looking town is on the horizon, and it’s all Ghoul could do to stumble into it, and the moment he did, he stared.

The streets were dirt, and every building was wood, the sidewalk cracked and broken from various things. The women were dressed in dresses, like, actual ankle length dresses, and the men were dressed in pants and vests. Ghoul looked down at his own green vest. At least he was sort of in the right clothes. There were carriages along the street, horses tied up to various posts. Horses. Real live horses. Ghoul’s jaw dropped. “Phoenix Witch!” He walked up to one slowly. Party had told him about horses. He only had vague memories from before the Helium Wars, the four-legged animals in fields, with swishy tails. Party knew from what they had told him in Battery City.

Someone crashed into him and he turned, ready for a fight. The kid jerked back, his hands curled into fists.

“The hell’d you do that for?” Ghoul snapped.

“Who messed up your face?” The kid looked as ready to fight as Ghoul felt.

“None ya business.”

“Well ya crashed into me.” The kid leaned back on his heels and regarded Ghoul cooly.

“The hell are you on! You crashed into me ya fuckin china doll!”

“What does that even mean?” The kid looked at him like he was nuts.

Ghoul rolled his eyes. “If you really wanna know, it was a dude named Flare.”

“Messed up name.”

“Messed up dude.”

“C’mon. You look like you need some help.” Ghoul followed the random kid, and while he was aware that following the random kid was never a good idea, and never turned out well, he still needed answers as to where he was. “Wha’s your name? I’m Liam.”

“Ghoul.”

“What kinda names do your people have?”

“Okay, first of all, Flare is not ‘my people’. And we choose them. Well, Flare didn’t. But I did. And so did Party.” Ghoul followed him, all the way to a two story wooden building, titled “Home for Young Boys.” A newspaper vendor sat just outside, and Ghoul caught a glimpse of the date.

June 8th, 1899.

Ghoul’s mind raced. That’s impossible. But it made sense. Actual, standing buildings, weird clothes, weird slang, horses. He had time travelled.

“Who’s that?” Liam yanked him out of his thoughts, and forced him to keep going.

“My friend. He disappeared.”

“Outta thin air? That ain’t possible.”

“No, we came here, and he disappeared.”

“Fuck.” Ghoul looked at him in surprise. He didn’t seem like the type to cuss like Ghoul would. “Normally I wouldn’t say that, but ‘round here we’ve been havin’ some problems.”

“What kinda problems?” Ghoul asked.

“The kid-stealin’ kind.” Liam opened the door to the boys home and motioned him inside. “Six kids’ve been taken in the last two weeks. Looks like this Party is the seventh.”

“He wouldn’t let that happen.”

“C’mon. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“No, you don't get it.” Ghoul grabbed Liam’s shoulder. “Party’s the best Killjoy we got. He’s gotten his way out of plenty of claps before, and I guarantee they’re a lot worse than whatever plastic flower’s out here.”

“You talk so strangely.”

* * * *

When Party finally made it to a town, it was dark, and the lights of the town are gas lights in the windows.

There’s a scream, and Party’s fight or flight went directly into overdrive, and as normal, skidded violently past flight and into fight mode. He raced down the alley, where a kid his age, dirtied up and angry, fought hard against the guy who was grabbing him.

“Hey! Let him alone!” Party yelled. He ran towards the kid, before someone else caught his arms, and held him back. The guy who was going after the first kid punched Party, and he gasped, feeling the blood trickle into his mouth. “What gave you the right to hurt a kid like that?” Party snarled.

“What gave you the right to interfere in my business?” The guy hit him in the stomach and slowly Party sunk to the ground. He coughed weakly, and thought about Ghoul and his coughing fits, and his fever.

“Ghoul…” Please be alright.

The guy punched him in the face and his head snapped back. Slowly, the lights faded, and the world turned black.

When Party came to, he was in a room with seven other kids, all dirty, all around Party’s age. “Hey. Um… Where are we?”

“Dunno.” Someone responded.

Another person pressed close to him and whispered, “thanks for trying to help.”

“I wasn’t gonna stand by and let him take you.” Party muttered.

“Who—Who’s Ghoul?”

Party turned bright red, he could feel it. “Ghoul—Ghoul came with me here. I think. I don’t know where he is.”

“Who is he? To you?”

“I don’t—”

The door opened, and someone dumped a plate of food on the ground. All seven kids scrambled for it, racing to see who got to it first. Party leaned back against the wall.

The kid Party tried to help came back, with a scrap of bread. “You didn’t go for anything.” He observed.

“There isn’t enough, and I’m not gonna take from kids who need it.” Especially since he had a lot of experience in starving from the Zones. “Besides, I’m used to it.”

“Nobody should have to say they’re used to starving.” The kid tore the bread apart and handed one half to Party.

Party paused, before taking it. “My situation is different.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

“I need to get out of here.”

* * * *

“The police have been searching everywhere for these guys, but I think I know where they are.”

Ghoul, Liam, and two other boys sat in a circle in a room full of bunks. They had explained to him what they were, and the whole boys home thing. They were newsboys, sold papers on the street, and most were orphans, so they lived in the boys home. Liam said they could get you anywhere and anything.

“Where?”

“There’s an old ghost town not far from here. I think that's where they are. It’s not even four hours ride.”

“Ride?”

“A horse?”

“Oh.” Ghoul didn’t know how to ride a horse. “When do we leave?”

“Now, I guess. We’ll have to borrow some horses, but we’re ready. Do you have a gun? Or a knife?”

“Yeah. Although what good it will do.” Ghoul pulled out his raygun, checked the battery, and sniffed happily. “Yeah. It’ll work.”

“What is that.”

“It’s my gun.” Ghoul, very clearly, wasn’t gonna say anything more about it.

Fifteen minutes later, Ghoul, Liam, and the two others, Gavin and Jeramiah, who insisted we call him Jem, had four horses, each on borrowed, except for Gavin’s who saved up an entire years wages to get a horse. He said he wanted to be a cowboy. Ghoul waited until everyone was already on their horse before trying to get up, hoping that he would be able to figure out how to do it. Finally he got up into the saddle—and almost fell off the other side. “Fuck! Fuck!” Liam laughed as Ghoul forced himself back up. Ghoul huffed, and they set off. Ghoul was super wobbly, almost falling off several times.

“When we start trotting, we’re gonna have a problem, I think.” Jem says with a smile.

“What the fuck is trotting?” Ghoul asked.

Simultaneously, Jem, Gavin and Liam, started at a faster, bouncier pace. His horse started following them, and panicked, Ghoul grabbed the piece of leather sticking out of the saddle, Liam called it the saddle horn.

All three started laughing, and Ghoul glared at all of them. “You know what you guys, shut up.”

“Okay, we’ll lope then.” They started going even faster, but this time it was smoother, but Ghoul still felt himself sliding out of the saddle.

“Heels down, pockets touching the saddle!” Liam yelled.

“What does that even mean!?” Ghoul yelled back, right before he hit the ground. “Motherfucking shit!” Ghoul gasped.

The three circled back around, Jem grabbing the reins and handing them to Ghoul as he stood back up. “That's gonna hurt tomorrow, Ghoulie!”

“Don’t call me that!” Ghoul snapped. Only Party called him that. He hauled himself back into the saddle, and they all continued on, this time Ghoul stayed in the saddle.

* * * *

Party stood as footsteps came to the door, and he darted behind the door. The second he opened it, Party slammed it forward, and heard a thunk as it hit his head. He threw the door open and kicked the guy in the balls, then punching him in the face. The kids cheered, and Party turned. “Shhh. You guys gotta be quiet or they’re gonna hear us. Any of you have somethin’ sharp?”

None of them nod, so Party leads them out, slowly, and quietly. The first room he came to, a desk stood, and he searched every drawer, eventually finding a letter opener. “This’ll work.”

“Listen, I’m going to take it one hallway at a time. I’m gonna go first, and I’ll clear it out. Then you guys will come with me.”

There was no one in the building. Party saw his switchblade on a table and grabbed it, tossing the letter opener to the kid he had helped, who was the second oldest, as far as he could tell. “This your audition?”

“What?”

“Is it your first fight?”

He nodded.

“You’re gonna do fine. Move before you think you need to, okay?”

“Is this your first fight?”

“Not even close.”

The group made it out unharmed, but that was when everything changed. There were two men guarding the door, and Party managed a strangled “stay there!” while he took them down, a lot bloodier than he’d like. “Don’t look.” Party muttered as he led the group into the desert town’s air. They looked a lot dirtier in the bright sun.

“Get down!” Someone yelled, and Party automatically hit the ground, pulling down the other kids with him. There was a hail of gunfire, and pounding hooves. “Party?”

“Gavin! Get to Strings and get us a sheriff! Go! Run!”

“Ghoul?” Party yelled. More bullets hit the wood above him. “Guys, you have to listen to me. Do not stand up. Otherwise, you will die. I’m serious.”

Some of the kids looked scared out of their minds. Party was okay with that. He grabbed the gun dropped by the guards outside the door just as one of the kids stood up, looking about ready to take off and run. A half-second later, he was writhing on the ground. Blood bloomed on his dirty shirt, and he screams as Party pulled him to safety.

“Ghoul, we got injured!” Party yelled. “Alright kid.” He said softly, pulling off another of his bandannas. “You’re gonna be okay, but this is gonna hurt a lot,” the poor kid whimpers, and as Party pressed down on his wound, and he screamed louder than Party had ever heard someone scream. “You’re gonna be okay, kid, I swear. Ghoulie an’ I, we ain’t gonna let anythin’ happen to you. I swear to Destroya.”

“Party!” Ghoul screamed, sounding terrified.

“Listen, listen, press down here. Don’ let go for the goddamn world.” The boy nods, and Party snuck around the side of the box, to see Ghoul, a knife at his throat, gun across the street.

“Drop the gun!” The guy with the knife yelled.

“Don’ move, Ghoul!” Party yelled. He aimed carefully, and with a bang, the guy fell behind Ghoul. Party started to run to meet him in the street, but something stopped him. Something being a loud crack, and a scream. It felt like he had been punched in the gut, but there was no one around him.

Ghoul watched Party get shot, watched the yellow Keep Smiling on his shirt turn to red. “No!” Ghoul sprinted over to him, catching him as he began to fall. “Party, Party, please don’t do this.” Party was completely oblivious.

“Ghoul… tell Kobra I’m sorry.”

“No! No, you’ll tell him yourself, you stubborn bastard.” Ghoul tried not to think about how eerily similar Party’s blood was to his hair.

“At least I get to die here with you.” Party looked up at him with glassy eyes.

“You’re not gonna die. I swear to the Phoenix Witch.”

“Ghoulie… Ghoulie, are you crying? Didn’t know you cared so much.” It was true, Ghoul’s tears carved tracks in the dirt on his face, and the two were blissfully unaware of the firefight going on above them.

The police had come.

“Party you fuckin’ idiot.” Ghoul sniffed. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time.”

“I know, Ghoul. I have too.” Party whispered. His voice wavered, and he fell heavier into Ghoul’s arms.

“No. No, please don't.” Ghoul leaned down and kissed Party, and Party kissed him back albeit weakly. Ghoul pulled away and wiped Party’s blood away. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here.” Ghoul pulled him closer, and Party’s eyes slid glassily to meet Ghoul’s.

“Don’t… leave.”

“I won’t. I’m staying right here.” Party’s head drops, and his eyes stare past Ghoul, somewhere far away. Ghoul buried his head in Party’s shoulder, before resting him on the ground and grabbing his gun. Ghoul stood up, glaring at the guys who had shot Party. He got a few effective shots off before he felt a hard hit, then again. He looked down, and his chest was colored red. “Fuck.” He fell next to Party, the lights already fading. “It’s alright. I’m here.” He took Party’s hand, and the world disappeared.

* * * *

Ghoul woke up on the floor.

The world was bathed in a dark red, and everything was fuzzy. There was a creaking, like a rusty wheel turning, and a figure came into view. They were covered head to toe in feathers, and hovered a few inches above the ground. The creaking was the squeaky wheel of a cart she was pushing, filled with masks. Killjoy masks.

“I know who you are.”

Ghoul’s voice echoed in the silence.

“Do you now?”

Her voice didn’t echo.

“Yeah. I do. The Phoenix Witch. You’re her.” Ghoul looked up at her mask. “Why are you here?”

“Because it’s not your time. You still have work to do where you’re from.”

“What do you mean? How are you here? What’s gonna happen to those kids?”

“Killjoys didn’t create me. But you believe in me. That gives me power. And I can be with you. I am with all of you, always. Even in a different time. A different dimension. As for the kids, that’s the past. It’s not about what will. It’s about what has.”

“What happened?”

“The boy who got shot didn’t survive. The rest went back to their old lives.”

“Why us?”

“Because you’re the hope for the future.”

* * * *

Party woke up to Ghoul’s breathing. They were surrounded by dead Dracs, and Ghoul’s bloody nose was still bleeding. Everything that had happened in the last two days, had disappeared. Party pulled up his shirt. There was a scar where he remembered being shot. He remembered Ghoul’s kiss, and remembered how much it hurt to die. “Ghoul?” His voice cracked.

Ghoul woke with a start, almost immediately breaking into a coughing fit, sucking in breath after breath. He stared at Party for a moment, disbelief in his eyes. Then he hugged him hard, and kissed him harder.

“Ghoul, what happened?”

“You were shot. You—You died. Right there in front of me.” Ghoul paused. “Party, I met the Witch. The Phoenix Witch.”

“What did she say?”

“They made it. The boys made it. Except…”

“The kid who got shot.”

“Yeah. Party, I’m so sorry.”

Party didn’t look at him for a long while. Then, “we have to get back. Can you walk?”

Ghoul tried to stand, then shook his head. “Not without you.”

“Alright. Come on.” Engines sound, and Party groaned. “Please not more Dracs.” Instead, it was two motorcycles, and as they got closer, Party realized it was Kobra and Jet. “‘Joys. It’s Kobra and Jet.”

“I’m half broken, not fuckin’ blind.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Kobra shouted, jumping off his skidding bike in true Motorbaby fashion.

Ghoul let go and leaned on the Trans-Am, and Party pulled Kobra in for a hug, not looking like he was letting go any time soon. Kobra pulled away, stared at his brother for a moment, before punching him. Hard.

“I deserved that.”

“Yeah. Ya did. You disappear in the middle of the fuckin’ night, you get yourselves in a clap, you’ve both got the shit kicked outta you, and you expect me not to be mad!”

Now Jet breaks in. “You dragged Ghoul into this, and now he can’t even stand straight.”

“Jet, you have no idea. He didn’t even drag me into this. I aske—”

“Ghoul, it’s fine. You guys are right. I never shoulda even considered leaving the Zones. It’s my fault. All of it.”

Ghoul knew he was talking about the kid. “No. It wasn’t.”

“Forget it.” Jet snapped.

“We’re going home.” Kobra said. “And staying there.”

#danger days the true live of the fabulous killjoys #funpoison #my chem #my writing #secret santa 2019 #this was fun ngl #also love ghoul falling off a horse #im also kinda sad #but im proud of what i wrote #mostly #i hope u like it bruh

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linz33y · 5 years ago

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ty for tagging me @veraynes-blog! 💕

relationships: My spouse and I have been together for 7 years, married for 2. Coincidentally, it’s our anniversary today, so I need to sneak out to buy them flowers before they wake up 😁

break ups: Nothing too wild, but then again, I tend to do the dumping 😅Most dramatic was my first long term boyfriend right after college (we don’t talk anymore...). Least dramatic was my first girlfriend in high school. She’s cool as hell and we’re still buds!

kids: nooooooooope!

brothers and sisters: I have one younger brother and he is the dopest human on the planet. He got ordained online by one of those vague "Church of Humanity”-type things so he could officiate our wedding. We actually just got off the phone because he called to wish us a happy anniversary :) I love that kid to pieces.

pets: One pitbull and one floofy orange cat. Our third furbabe was a wonderful old grump named Batman, but sadly we had to put him down a few weeks ago at the ripe old age of 20 :(

surgeries: I had one when I was a toddler, and a follow up for it when I was in second grade. I still fucking love my scar <3

tattoos: YES. I tried to count... I think I have 16 so far? Some were collected as souvenirs during trips (shoutout to Shorty at Salon Serpent in Amsterdam), some were custom designs (my fave is a big chest piece from a really kind human that went on to compete on the show Ink Master. it was SO WEIRD seeing him on TV), and most are flash pieces gotten on a whim because I’m friends with many tattoo-addicted enablers who don’t bat an eye when I say something like “hey, I’m bored. wanna go get tattooed?”

countries you’ve been to: I live in the US, and I’ve traveled to Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands, and Italy. Technically Iceland too, but that was a layover, so I didn’t get to leave the airport.

been in an airplane: Yep

been in an ambulance: Yep

sing karaoke: Yes, but I’d rather sing along with the rest of the audience than be on the stage.

ice skating: Badly, but I have.

been on a cruise: Once, but they terrify me now.

driven a motorcycle: About 15 years ago, my dad had his midlife crisis and got a motorcycle. He sold it about 6 months later, but regardless, he thought it would be a fun bonding activity if he took me to get my license as well. He also considered it a practical skill for his high school-aged daughter in case, and I quote, “[I’m] ever being chased by bad guys (???) and need to commandeer a vehicle, and the only available vehicle is a motorcycle.” Loool. Idk how it works in other places, but I got to ride a state-provided motorcycle around a parking lot for 2 days with my class, while my dad sat in the grass with a cooler full of snacks cheering me on. I haven’t ridden one since (I’m not confident on anything with a manual clutch 😬), but it was a blast!

ridden a horse: Yes

stayed in a hospital: See “Been in an ambulance” 😅

favorite fruit or berries: Raspberries! I wish they weren’t so expensive, or I’d eat them all the time.

favorite colors: 💚and 💙

last text: “Did your mom finish watching Twilight yet?” (I’m so tempted to provide the context for this... but I think I’ll just leave it.)

coffee or tea: Coffee! But tea with milk if I wanna treat myself ^_^

favorite pie: See “favorite fruit or berries”

favorite pizza: ok, I know Papa John is a terrible human, but Papa John’s garlic butter sauce is SO GOOD. Their pizza is simply a vehicle for the sauce.

cat or dog: yes ^_^

favorite time of the year: SUMMER! I’m a leo. This is my time. ♌️☀️🦁🌻🔥

met a star: sort of? I mean, he was a star to me. Story: My favorite holiday tradition is seeing A Christmas Carol with my family at a little theater near where I grew up. The last time we all went was a few years ago, and after the show, the actors were hanging around the lobby. I whispered to my brother, “Look, there’s Scrooge!” and because my brother one of those weirdos that can actually socialize with strangers, he dragged me over to meet the guy. The 3 of us got a selfie together, and you can actually see tears in my eyes in the photo because I was so happy 😂

flown a helicopter: About 15 years ago, my dad had his midlife crisis, and I’m kidding. No, I’ve never done this.

been on tv: Nope

broken my leg: No, but I came close enough that I did need a cast.

seen a ghost: One poked me in the back once while I was trying to fall asleep. Granted, we chose to stay in a haunted mansion. And we opted to sleep in the ghost’s bedroom. Really, I was asking for it.

been sick in a taxi: Nope.

seen someone die: No, thank god.

I’m going to tag @mushigo-palm-spores and @echospool, but I will not be mad if y’all don’t wanna do it 😄

#i love any excuse to talk about my tattoos #so thank you verayne <3 #also yay for snake wrist tats!#we should form a club 🐍#or just get more tattoos

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witchqueenofthemoon · 6 years ago

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BODY AND SOUL Part 18 (Duncan Shepherd/Mackenzie Stone Millory AU)

BODY AND SOUL MASTERPOST

Author’s Note: Lots of little details for this part--which was a joy to write, by the way. I cried a little over some of the bits towards the end--to write something I love so much is truly moving again and again. I listened to Hozier’s INCREDIBLE new album, Wasteland, Baby! a lot for this part, a HARDCORE #Duckenzie album (Movement, As It Was, Sunlight, wowwwwowowowwww).The hook/lingerie stuff got pushed to 19, because I want it to be from Duncan’s POV/wanted us to see Kenzie in the lingerie through his eyes (for...obvious reasons), and also because when they get home (now at the beginning of 19 rather than the end of 18 as I originally planned) they’re gonna be too sleepy to have a long fuck since they’ve been at the beach all day/I needed something fun for their Monday night. So, that is coming soon. I wanted this part to be joyful and really fun and very romantic, and I think I succeeded with that. Kenzie thinking of her Momby playing John Denver during car rides is my nod to my own mother doing that very thing when I was growing up. A very special thank you to Diah (@impiorumrequies) who helped me with all of Pilar’s Spanish phrases (both she and Pat are my characters, not AUs). The picture Duncan takes of Kenzie in the house is based on the one @ghostwithangeleyes used for this Millory Honeymoon edit (I was actually the anon who requested that one, and I love it SO MUCH--it was a huge inspiration for this part too)--the original is a pic Billie posted on her Instagram here (I realized when I saw her bikini closer it had colored dots, not black ones, but whatever, I wanted Kenzie to have a black-and-white polka dot bikini, so I left it that way in the story). Both of the photos Kenzie takes of Duncan are based on actual photos of Cody: the second one here, and this one from his Instagram from when he was in Costa Rica at the beginning of this year (@hi-ilovedamien I may or may not be hoping you’ll make some Duckenzie Insta edits with them lol xoxo). Here are Kenzie’s cheapie sunglasses (I ordered them for myself lol). Here’s her wrap dress. Here’s her beach hat. Here are her sandals. Here’s her beach bag. Here are Duncan’s sunglasses in this part. Here are his Armani sandals. Here are his swim trunks. Here’s the buckling beach blanket--I want it so bad now, I might have to buy it this summer. Here is Duncan’s $200 Crate and Barrel picnic basket, which I also want really fucking badly now...but it’s $200 fucking dollars. Here’s their beach towels. Duncan’s jet is a Falcon 900LX, the same kind the Koch brothers have--since Beau Willimon based the Shepherds on the Kochs, I thought it made sense to give Duncan the same kind of private plane (Annette and Bill have their own planes, the Falcon is Duncan’s personal plane). The Shepherd Cape Cod house is something like this, though not quite--the Shepherds’ beach house is white and surrounded by a gate, and the interior is a little bit larger, the couch is longer, etc. I had to feature Hozier’s DINNER & DIATRIBES (also from Wasteland, Baby!) at the end of this part--a nod to @deanfinite including it on her BODY & SOUL playlist (thanks again for making that, darling--wow, what an honor!), and a song I will forever associate with Duckenzie now. As ever, those of you who are following along and showering me and Duckenzie with so much affection--I love you all.

Kenzie had been beyond surprise when she saw Tyler approaching her and Claire at their barstools, from the far corner of Jack Rose--the day had already been so surreal (this week has been the most surreal of my life and it’s felt like a year and like the blink of an eye at the same time), and her argument with Annette (Annette’s eyes flashing, Kenzie falling down into their dark well, blood chilling in her veins) was still humming in her nerves, making her jittery. Some days are diamonds, she thought of that old song by John Denver, Momby used to play it during car rides, some days are stone. I think today is both and diamond and a stone, and my whole life now seems to be days that are roller coasters of emotions. How can I be so happy and so upset and so confused all in one day? And so, so, so happy.

Tyler had looked good; he had looked clear-eyed and happy and she could tell that when his eyes fell over her, they held nothing but affection, and if anything, that was the worst part. I wish you hated me just a little, Kenzie thought as he leaned beside her chair, his shirt unbuttoned just-so. Because I know I broke your heart, even if you never said it. When she saw Duncan coming, Kenzie’s heart had lept into her throat--god, this probably looks bad, she thought, and she could feel the wave of jealousy coming off him as though it were literal heat, as though someone had turned a blast of hot air onto her skin, fluttering at her cheeks. His blue eyes had looked at her with smoldering attention, and Kenzie knew again, knew utterly, that Duncan was wildly, deeply, and utterly in love with her. It dipped its fingers, his love, down into the center of her, scooping her heart out and pressing it into his lips. And she hadn’t, not for a moment, wanted him to feel hurt. If only I could shield him from ever being hurt again, she thought, if only I could spare him pain, for I love him, and his pain is mine, and I can feel it in his gaze, and I know he doesn’t want to feel it, I know he feels guilty over his own pain, but I know he feels it just the same, looking at the man I used to love.

Later, in the BMW, she’d felt the raw rush of his pain again, her hands in his hair, his stubble, when he’d murmured “he still loves you” into her mouth and she heard the ache in him, the echo of his own words said so many times already behind it (I love you, Kenzie) and she’d wanted nothing more than to hush it away--Kenzie hoped with all her being that Duncan knew, in that moment, that he was the only one for her. I only love you. It frightens me too, she thought, but I would die for you, this I know, I’d do anything it took to be with you, I’d swallow my own pain a thousand times, because the hole you would leave, if I didn’t, would howl in me, it would rip time apart, because to be with you is my destiny, Duncan Shepherd, in this world and all the worlds to come and all the worlds that came before.

That morning she woke first--Duncan was sleeping with his head tucked down towards her, his hand under his chin, an eyelash on his cheek (she brushed it away, gently), and Kenzie wondered if this is how he’d looked sleeping as a child--every line of worry had faded from him, and his breathing was so small she’d felt a wild, tiny burst of fear until she noticed the breath from his nose stirring the small hairs on his arm. Someday, he’ll die, and so will I, and that makes every moment we are together precious beyond all words. If we’re all reincarnated endlessly, I think we are written into every lifetime, he and I. I think we will find each other every time. I think so. I don’t know how I know that. But I think I know that now. Kenzie leaned down over Duncan’s wondrously beautiful face, molded from the first clay, most divine, by the gods, waxing romantic and idealistic in their artistry, pressing her lips into the softness of his cheek. He stirred just a little, but didn’t wake yet, and she could see the delicate dip of moisture she’d left on his skin, glistening for a moment, then drying. Like an invisible tattoo. Kenzie got up carefully; me first today, she thought, and tip-toed to the walk-in closet, glancing long at her naked reflection in the huge mirror as she did (hair tangled, god, my hips are huge, my eyes look nice today though, they’re so bright lately, god, you really are in love aren’t you Kenz), struck again by its colossal beauty, heart hammering. It seemed to shimmer with a gold sheen in her eyes as she watched herself in it, throwing gold dust over her body--how odd, she thought, it must be a reflection from the frame. Some kind of trick of the light. This mirror is so strange.

Kenzie stopped as she went into the closet, heart falling down into her stomach and then catapulting back up into her throat--tears immediately pricked her eyes as they fell on all her things, organized so meticulously, across from Duncan’s perfect monochrome wardrobe.

Oh my god, he did this for me. I can see his love in this. He organized my things so carefully; by style and color. This is so beautiful. This is art. Kenzie felt as though she could see the aching sensitivity with which he’d touched her things; she felt she could go back and watch in her mind’s eye and see his face, the affection in his gaze as his fingers trailed against the softness of her clothes, lined her dresses and shirts carefully beside each other, touched her shoes with such care--her eyes fell on the heeled sandals she’d been wearing that night, a long, long week ago, the ones he’d untied, kissing her feet--oh, baby. You did this for me. You made this so beautiful and so perfect, for me. She felt a tear course down her cheek, and Kenzie hugged her arms against her naked belly, sniffing quietly so as not to wake him in the room beside her. I never thought, in all my life, I could feel so wonderful, so wildly, so completely happy. There’s so much joy in my heart when I look at this, I could dissolve into it like stardust.

She went to the drawers underneath where he’d carefully hung all the clothing from the standing rack; these drawers were organized meticulously too, oh my god, even my underwear, and she blushed. She shut the drawer, heart twinging, opening the one beside it, in search of her bathing suits--we’re going to the beach today, and not just any beach, Duncan’s private fucking beach at his Cape Cod house, fuck. She found them neatly lined alongside her bras (according to color, whites and creams blending into pink, red, gray, black), pulling out her favorite bikini, white with tiny black polka-dots, slipping the bikini bottoms over her hips, pulling the top over her little breasts, carefully tying the back with her arms crooked behind her (I bet he’ll like this little number, she thought, smiling down at it, loving its coolness on her skin). Then she rifled through the dresses he’d lined carefully above her, finding the navy beach-wrap dress with white flowers she loved so much and had worn on several vacations with Momby (one had been with Tyler, she thought, shivering a little, remembering last night and the way Duncan’s jealousy had thrilled her, made her anxious to be alone with him, to reassure him, I’m yours baby, all yours, kiss me, fuck me, touch every part of me, I’m yours, body and soul and fuck had they reassured each other, Kenzie could still feel the soreness in her ass where he’d penetrated her)--Kenzie pulled the dress down off the hanger and wrapped it around her body, pulling her tangled hair out of the back, stepping quietly out of the closet as she did. She glanced over at the bed--Duncan was still fast asleep, his closed eyes only vaguely visible over his back and the crown of his dark auburn-and-russet hair. My love, sleep a little longer, I love to see you so sweet and so quiet this way. She quietly padded out to the living room, her eyes falling on the roses on the coffee table; Kenzie dipped her face down, drinking in their rich scent, suddenly struck with sadness for the day soon to come when they would wilt; I’ll hang them upside down over our bed to dry, she thought, and then I can smell them at night and never forget how much he loves me, because their scent is his love, and so is the sight of them.

Kenzie moved on to the seldom-used dining room; she moved around the cherrywood table (in her mind’s eye Kenzie saw Duncan lay her down on it and pull her roughly onto him, between his legs, pressing needy kisses against her breasts--I can’t help it, she thought, smiling, blushing at no one, into her hand, I want him to fuck me on every surface of this place, in every corner and everywhere and always) to where a long, ornate chest rested in one corner--Kenzie opened it carefully, and her eyes fell on the telltale object she had hoped to find: a wooden picnic basket, painted white, with brown leather straps and gold embellishments. Ugh, this is lovely, she thought, pulling it out carefully and peeking inside--there where small white plates strapped to the inside of the lid, a cheese knife and a bottle opener between them, four wine glasses in sturdy compartments in each corner of the interior, a cutting board, napkins lined in blue and white, and several sets of cutlery. Kenzie wondered idly if he’d ever used it with another lover; selfishly, she hoped not. She gripped the straps of the basket and went back out to the kitchen, setting it gently on the black obsidian island. Kenzie went over to Duncan’s imposing black espresso machine, pulling two of the little copper espresso cups down from where they rested in the tray atop it, its shiny exterior winking at her in the sun streaming through the window over the sink as she pulled the portafilters out, carefully dispensing grinds into them from the grinder beside it, biting her lip, hoping the sound wouldn’t wake him; not yet. She glanced at her succulents that lined the window as the espresso machine ran two doubles into the cups silently, streamlined, sepia crema rising--there were a dozen plants in all, in their little terracotta and glass pots, each growing cheerfully, their green-and-red leaves seeming to wave at her, and she grinned. I love them there and Duncan said he loves them too. I’m so fucking happy. Who needs drugs when you’re in love like this.

Kenzie went to the fridge, pulling out the bottle of orange juice within, going to the cupboard; she noticed someone (maybe Duncan, maybe the housekeepers) had placed her cheap little glasses--most of them from Target--next to Duncan’s ornate Waterford glasses; the little one with peonies on it, the glass he’d pulled from her hand to crush her longingly against him the night he’d slept in her futon with her--was near the front. Kenzie pulled it down and poured orange juice into it; then, carefully, she gathered the three cups in her hands (the two with espresso clutched in one, a delicate balance of fingers, the orange juice in the other), and watching her footing in the long wrap dress, trod back to the bedroom. She watched Duncan’s back rise and fall, still fast asleep, as she carefully set the two cups and the glass on his night-side table--Kenzie pushed her hair over her shoulder from where it had fallen into her eyes, glancing at the silvery alarm clock (7:42) and then she climbed carefully onto the edge of the bed, her hands falling on his arm and along the back of his neck; then she pressed her face down into his neck and kissed him under his ear, her lips lingering, biting at his earlobe. The musky scent of him filled her nose, and Kenzie felt a twinge down between her legs; that smell kindled her need, brought thoughts of him devouring her into him in the watchful eyes of the mirror (that mirror) last night barreling to the front of her mind. Fucking her so good that she drifted into delirium just to think of it. Beloved, sharing all the secrets of your body with me, I never want it to end, my dearest love. Devour me again, and again, and always. Duncan stirred, turning towards her; his eyes opened, hazily, their blue fire piercing into her, snatching her breath as they always did. His arms lifted and immediately pulled her down into him, demandingly; his lips pressed into hers, his tongue probing into her mouth, and Kenzie fought to resurface from the depths into which she immediately plunged in his arms.

“Good morning, angel,” he murmured into her mouth, hands falling down the softness of the wrap dress, searching for the opening, finding it as her thigh came free; Duncan’s hand went up the incline of her calf and pressed between her legs to the smoothness of the bikini over the lips of her cunt, and Kenzie couldn’t stave off the burst of desirous laughter that erupted from her mouth as she facetiously tried to twist away--”Fuck, Duncan, baby,” she whispered into him as he continued to press his mouth into hers, “Good morning to you.” She could feel the weight of his cock pressing into her thigh under her knee; he’s always hard in the morning, always. “I made you an espresso. But I want some of your orange juice.”

Duncan pulled away from her with some reluctance, glancing over his shoulder at where she’d placed the various cups. He reached for the orange juice (she watched his eyes rove up to the mirror, as if surprised to see it in the daylight, then back down), taking a careful sip from his prostrate position (she also noticed his eyes fall down the peony print on it, affectionately), then handed it to her; as she took it, Duncan pressed his face into her neck, the sweet smell of the juice falling into her from his mouth, and sucked at the sensitive skin there. “You can have as much as you want, baby,” he whispered, and his fingers fell down to her thigh again, trailing there, greedy.

“Baby, be careful, you’re gonna make me spill this,” she giggled again, but Kenzie thought who cares, honestly, who cares, keep kissing me, baby, you’re so fucking gorgeous and I always want you to kiss me, fucking kiss me. She drank deeply from the glass as his mouth worked at her, then she turned her face back into his, letting her tongue press between his open lips, and Duncan moaned. “I’m gonna fuck you right now if you don’t stop that,” he whispered. Kenzie pulled away from him; “Is that a threat, baby?”

“It’s a fucking promise,” he said, pulling the orange juice out of her hand and pushing it back onto the nightstand, reaching back to press her, harshly, flush against him; Kenzie felt the hardness of his cock against her belly now, and she tried to steady her mind as he bit into her neck, his tongue flicking out to leave a wet little trail on her skin. “Baby, it’s almost 8, we should probably get ready soon, shouldn’t we?” Duncan groaned into her, resting his nose along the side of her face. “Ugh, yeah...I guess we should...maybe we should cancel the beach after all.”

“Aww, Dunny, no, I wanna go--” and Kenzie turned her face to nuzzle her nose into his, closing her mouth and pressing a soft little peck on his bottom lip. “I really wanna see your plane, too.”

“Aggh, okay, fine, baby,” Duncan pulled away from her reluctantly, sitting up in the sheets, rifling a hand through his sleep-tossed hair; even sleep-tossed, baby, it looks so fucking good, Kenzie thought, still in the pillow, her eyes falling over his graceful features. I wonder if I’ll ever look at you and not feel struck dumb by you, lost in your face, your eyes, your lips, you, baby, Dunny, my beloved, you. “Thanks for making me a coffee.” He reached over to the espressos, grasping both, handing one to her carefully; Kenzie sat up too, kissing him again as she pulled it from his hand. “I found your picnic basket,” she said, staring at him as she sipped at the bitterness, carefully, her other hand reaching out to trail along his arm. Duncan stared at her; Kenzie fought off the shiver she felt at his eyes. They look at me with devotion; those incredibly radiant eyes. Now I’m always caught in the gaze of a god of beauty. “It’s so lovely, I can’t wait to use it today.”

“I’d forgot about it, actually,” he smiled at her, finishing off the espresso, setting the copper cup back on the nightstand, his hand coming around to press at her thigh, eyes still intensely focused on her. “I’ve never used it before; I bought it a long time ago, on a whim; maybe someday I’ll find someone to use this with, I remember thinking. And it’s been in that chest ever since, for years.”

“I guess it was waiting for me.” Kenzie grinned at him, her espresso cup now empty, too. Duncan pressed his face down to her, the bitter taste of the coffee mingling between their mouths, her hand coming up to cradle against his hair.

“Kenzie, I was waiting for you,” he said, and she shivered a little, pressing into him. They stared at each other for another long moment; my sweet Hades, come out into the sun with me, Kenzie thought, and pulled away from him, climbing out of the bed. He whined after her. “Time to get up, baby,” she replied, turning her nose up in mock-severity. “You can kiss me on the beach.”

Kenzie went into the bathroom to where all her things were lined up on the sink opposite Duncan’s; she loved the picture of it, his minimalist bottles and jars, her colorful containers of perfume and makeup. She reached for her brush, pulling it down into the tawny tangle of her hair as Duncan came up behind her, now in a tight dark grey pair of briefs in the same style he always wore--his hands came around her in the mirror, drifting up to her little breasts in the wrap dress, and she grinned at him, turning her head to the side so he could kiss her jaw as she continued to brush her hair. He reached for his toothbrush and the tube of toothpaste on the counter over her shoulder, and Kenzie couldn’t help but admire him again in the reflection as she set the brush down; how lovely to spend the whole day with you, she thought. How lucky I am. But it isn’t luck, is it? It’s how things are meant to be. Me and you, baby. Kenzie admired the small dusting of hair in the center of Duncan’s chest, the fall of his belly (his bellybutton was concave, and Kenzie thought of her own, which pressed outward just a little), the trail of hair leading down into his groin, the coiled strength in his upper arms, the staggering loveliness of his hands, which looked always akin to something painted by Michelangelo, the gods’ perfect daydream of hands. Those hands on my body, what ecstasy, she thought, reaching for her own toothbrush.

“You know,” she said, staring at him through the bathroom mirror as she ran cold water over the bristles of the brush, “I’m wearing my bikini under this.”

Duncan’s eyes flicked toward her and rolled up a little, and he leaned down to spit into the sink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and reaching for her, his hands (your fucking hands, love) coming up under her breasts to grip her ribs there, possessively. “Fuck, Kenzie. Don’t tell me that. We’re not going anywhere if you don’t stop it, baby. I’m gonna throw you on the fucking bed and fuck you all day instead.”

Kenzie made a face and stuck her tongue out at him, which was covered in toothpaste. He laughed at her, moving his hands down to the dip of her waist. Kenzie twisted away from him and he let go, reluctantly. “I told you I wanna go to the beach,” she said with mock severity. “Do as I say and get ready, Dunny.”

He pouted at her. “Fine, Princess Kenzie.”

Kenzie rinsed her toothbrush, grinning at him again. “I like that. Princess Kenzie.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him, teasingly.

“You are. You are my fucking Princess, aren’t you, baby.”

“Uh huh. And you’re my Prince.” He smiled at her (absolutely intoxicating, my Prince, my Hades pulling me down from a field of flowers into your dark smoldering kingdom of bones and pressing your ardent kisses into my body, baby) and went to the closet, his eyes skirting back over her as he did. “You should see the stuff people are saying online,” he said, turning away from her as she followed him out, disappearing into the walk-in, obscured from her for a moment.

“Like what,” Kenzie followed him into the closet, too, reaching for a pair of beige flat sandals with laces similar to the heeled sandals that rested beside it (those sandals he’d unlaced on that first night, pressing her into him and Kenzie knew her life was about to change forever, somehow, I knew) on her side of the shelves. She slipped them onto her feet (her toes unpainted but neatly trimmed--when Kenzie got a pedicure, which was very seldom, she asked for clear polish only), leaning down to tie the laces. Duncan glanced to her from where he was rifling through one of his lower drawers--then he knelt down, quickly, still in only his dark gray underwear, and gently pushed her hands away, carefully crossing the lacing over her ankles, the gentle caress of his fingers making her legs break out into goosebumps instantly, and Kenzie’s heart slammed against her breasts. He’s so wonderful. Fuck. Baby. You call me angel, but you’re my angel too.

He finished tying the laces (double knots) and looked up at her from where he knelt before her; Kenzie could see the devotion dancing in his gaze again, and felt frozen under it. How can you, Duncan Shepherd, be looking at me this way.

“Thanks, baby,” she whispered.

“They’re saying we’re the most beautiful couple they’ve ever seen, that you’re a princess, a queen, and I that should marry you. And I am inclined to agree.”

“Dunny. We’ve been dating for a week.” Kenzie’s heart slammed into her ribs again. In a colossal tidal wave of abandon, she allowed herself to indulge the thought for a few seconds; imagined their wedding, surrounded by a thousand flowers, imagined a flower crown around her head with crystals threaded through it, imagined how beautiful he would look, his hair falling so perfectly, his blue eyes looking at her with the same reverence she saw in them now, clutching her hands in a dappled sunset, surrounded by loved ones, pressing cake into his cheek, both of them laughing. Then she willed herself to bury these thoughts; god, could anything be so wonderful...Kenz, it’s already happening, you’re surrounded by wonder already, how is any of this real in the first place. Kenzie felt dizzy suddenly as Duncan stood up, his hands reaching for hers. He gazed down at her.

“I love you, Kenzie.”

“You’re still in your underwear, Duncan.”

“I don’t care. I love you.”

“I love you too, baby,” and she went up on her tip-toes (I just can’t reach you otherwise, can I, baby, she thought with a thrill) and kissed him. “Now, get dressed.” She turned her back to him, pushing away her needs and her disappointment and her daydreams of their imaginary wedding (I’m inclined to agree) and the allure of his blue eyes as he looked after her hungrily--time to pack us a picnic lunch for the beach, she thought, time to spend all day with you, in a dream.

------

It was about an hour later when they left the penthouse; Duncan was carrying the picnic basket now stocked with a picturesque array of foods from his seemingly-always-perfectly-stocked futuristic silver fridge, as Kenzie was starting to notice--clusters of wine-colored grapes, a wheel of white brie, tiny, round, crispy baguette crisps, several small cuts of cured charcuterie sausage, cold chicken, golden pears, little gherkin cucumbers--and another basket in his left hand, this one with two bottles of wine (a white and a rose) and a six-pack of Corona cerveza, which Kenzie had been delighted to find on the bottom shelf of the fridge (he does drink beer after all, reassuring her once again that he was indeed human) and one perfect green lime. Tucked under his arm were two luxuriously huge jacquard-woven cotton white-and-navy beach towels, which Kenzie had squealed in delight over when she found them in the linen closet in the bathroom. He had a different pair of sunglasses on today; these were round black Saint Laurent with very thin frames, and made him look like a famous musician to her, effortlessly cool--his shirt was a collared button-down Hawaiian-style with a print that reminded her of the dappled floor of a pool, and he was wearing navy blue Burberry swim trunks with a white tie around his abdomen, and black thonged Armani sandals--today Kenzie had noticed how well-pedicured his feet were in the sun, the prettiest feet on a boy I have ever seen, she thought, shyly. Kenzie tucked her hair behind her ear in the soft wind, glancing around--mercifully no paps, she thought, good thing because Harris has today off--shifting the buckled navy-and-white beach blanket she carried to her other arm, a slouching straw beach bag over her shoulder with sunscreen, one of her books (Jane Eyre), a cardigan, her phone, her earbuds, her cheap little round rosy-golden sunglasses, and her wallet. She clutched the edge of her straw beach hat in her fingers (it had a black ribbon around the crown) and smiled at him. Duncan gave her a little smile in return as they walked to the BMW, the sidewalk quiet today--the sky was clearest blue, with no clouds, and it was already quite warm, in the low 80’s. Samuel was idling there on the corner--as Kenzie looked up he came out of the driver’s side and reached for the buckled blanket she carried, grinning at her, lifting it carefully from her grasp. “Thank you, Samuel,” she murmured.

“You two look like you’re about to go to a photoshoot,” he replied, cheerfully. He was wearing dark sunglasses today and Kenzie could see her reflection in their shiny surface, her hair drifting around her shoulders, the dip of her wrap dress. “You are stunning, Miss Mackenzie.” She grinned at him, toying with the tiny rose-gold necklaces she’d put on today--three charms, a celestial sun, a crescent moon, and a planet with rings. Duncan carefully placed the two baskets in the trunk which Samuel had opened for them, then tucked the towels in beside them--Kenzie’s heart swelled to look at the beautiful things all lined up neatly there before Duncan shut the lid with a snap, beckoning her away from her thoughts and into the backseat as Samuel got back into the driver’s side. “C’mon, baby, the jet’s waiting for us at Dulles.” Kenzie slid in behind him, her hat in her lap, She looked up at Duncan--he was gazing at her (I’m always caught in his blue-fire eyes, licking at my skin) with a serene expression, and he reached for her hand, twining his fingers through hers.

“I’m so happy to spend the whole day with you,” he said softly, leaning down to kiss her. Kenzie’s breath caught in her lungs--my life is this charmed thing now, this beautiful dream, only it’s not a dream, it’s really happening, you’re really mine--at the scent of him, woodsy and musk, and she returned his kiss, closing her eyes, lost in the moment and the feeling of his hand on her cheek as the car pulled away from the curb, and the air smelled like sunlight and cool green grass, the windows down and the warmth on her skin. Samuel played Etta James again today--at last, the skies above are blue...my heart was wrapped up in clover, the night I looked at you...I found a dream that I could speak to, I dream that I can call my own…

-----

At the airport Samuel pulled into a designated area for cars near a lot where several private planes were lined next to each other, partitioned into a small bunker--”Come on, baby,” Duncan murmured to her, pulling away from the cradle of their embrace, where they’d been lost in the touch of each other on the way, leading her gently out of the car, his blue eyes glinting at her over the rim of his sunglasses--Kenzie let him pull her up, let him grasp the edge of her straw hat to carry it for her, his other hand holding hers tightly, and he led her to a jet on the end, white with red curving ribbons of color along the sides--900 LX, Kenzie could see printed on the tail, serial numbers along one of the side-engines. Its stairs were already extended to the ground, anticipating them--the pilot, who was white and middle-aged with a large nose, a dark brown mustache going gray around the edges, and squarish sunglasses was standing casually near it, sipping from a Fiji water bottle, a cigarette in his other hand, almost entirely smoked. He gave Duncan a little wave as they approached, and Kenzie noticed him look down over the dip of the sunglasses at her, smiling a little, curiously. His gaze was gray and friendly.

“Duncan,” he said cordially. “And this must be the famous Mackenzie Stone.”

“Pat,” Duncan said, nodding at him, then smiling down at her. “The one and only.” Kenzie shyly readjusted the strap of her beach bag. “I dunno about that,” she said, a mortified blush in her cheeks. “Nice to meet you, Pat.”

“The internet’s in charge these days,” Pat replied, cheerfully. “And it says you’re famous now. Welcome aboard, Miss Stone.” He inclined an arm toward the plane’s steps, and Duncan’s hand went to the small of her back, pressing her slowly toward them. Kenzie grasped the silvery railing, gathering the edge of her wrap dress in one hand so she wouldn’t trip, and stepped up into the plane; she glanced over her shoulder at Duncan, who nodded at her encouragingly. Inside, there were several rows of seats--7 rows in all, two seats per row except for the last, which was one long seat with two seatbelts. A woman of indefinite age with coffee-colored skin, in a smart white blouse and fitted black pants, smiled at her as Kenzie got to the top--she wore mauve lipstick and dark eyeshadow, and had her dark hair tied back in a glossy ponytail.

“Miss Stone,” she said, holding out a carefully manicured hand; her nails were dark red, and her smile was warm. Kenzie grasped her fingers, smiling back. “I’m Pilar, buenos días. I’m your stewardess today. Please do not hesitate to let me know if you need anything. I’ve been taking care of Duncan since he was five years old.” She had a very slight accent, a vague lilt at the end of her words. She glanced at Duncan, her eyes bright on him. “I watched him grow more and more handsome everyday.” Duncan looked away, clearly embarrassed at her flattery.

“Pilar used to slip me extra cookies when Mom wasn’t looking,” he said, then looked down at Kenzie affectionately. “My partner in crime.” Pilar laughed; it was a wonderful laugh, her head thrown back with abandon, the sound of it seeming to emanate from the pit of her belly. “Always,” she replied. “We’ve just switched to extra gin and tonics these days.”

“Speaking of which--” Duncan said, and Pilar nodded, grinning at him. “Claro, Duncan. Please get settled, I’ll let you know when Pat says we’re ready to go. Is Samuel here?”

“You know he is. I can’t seem to get him to take more time off, no matter how hard I try.”

Pilar looked down the stairs to where Samuel was carefully carrying their picnic baskets towards the plane; she let out a little squeal and carefully rushed down the steps on her black pumps, trotting towards him to give him a long hug; Samuel’s big white grin was visible from where they stood at the top of the steps. Kenzie smiled towards them; Samuel really is the best, everyone who works for the Shepherds is so wonderful. I never really realized how many people are constantly working behind the scenes for the wealthy. When Duncan takes over Shepherd Unlimited, we have to make sure they’re really being taken care of. Kenzie went through the side-door of the jet, hesitating over the seats; Duncan pointed towards the back, where the long seats were. “Let’s sit back there, Kenz, yeah?” Kenzie nodded and made her way there, setting her beach bag on the floor, sitting and looking up at him carefully. “Everyone is so wonderful, Duncan, everyone who works for your family, I mean. We have to make sure they’re all getting paid fairly. We have to make sure they have good benefits--when you take over the company, I mean. I’m just...so moved by everyone.” Kenzie pushed the apprehension she felt over being so forward with him away; surely, he must understand what I’m saying. He’s my dearest love and he will listen to me.

“I agree. Mom hasn’t been very transparent with me about that sort of thing and I plan to go over everyone’s salaries and benefits as soon as I take over for my Uncle.” Duncan sat next to her, reaching for her hand, taking his sunglasses off to look at her. Kenzie reached her fingers up to his cheek and Duncan turned his face into her palm, closing his eyes, as if the feeling of her alone moved him beyond words. Oh baby, she heard his mind push the sweetness of the emotion in it towards her, you are such an angel, I’ll do whatever it takes to deserve you. I have to. You deserve only the best of everything, including the best of me. Her heart ached inside his words; she was nodding to him before she realized. “We can make so many people happy,” she whispered.

“Kenzie. Listen to me. I want to make you and Madeline members of the board of directors for Shepherd Unlimited.”

Kenzie’s fingers were still on Duncan’s cheek and she gasped a little; he opened his eyes and stared at her, his gaze unflinching, and put his hand up against hers, keeping her fingers on him.

“Duncan. What.”

“Kenz. I mean it. Please say yes.”

“I--fuck, Duncan, I--”

“I know you can do this. You’re so brave and so brilliant and so kind. I need your help, baby. I need your help to make Shepherd Unlimited into what it needs to be to help people. I need you.”

At that moment Pilar stepped back on board the plane, carrying the picnic baskets; Kenzie could see her through the open pathway between the plane’s plug door and the seats, the curtain there pulled to the side. Samuel was behind her with the beach blanket and their beach towels, and he and Pilar were chatting amiably, not having noticed the heightened nature of the looks on Duncan and Kenzie’s faces or the way Duncan held her hand against his face. Kenzie let go of him and looked down at her bag, rifling in it for her phone, attempting to keep the other two from noticing her expression; her head was pounding, and she could feel Duncan’s eyes (blue flames) on her, feel the warmth of his emotions still, falling over her. Pilar and Samuel were slipping the baskets into a fridge towards the front of the plane, beside the door to the cockpit, and then Samuel waved to them; Kenzie smiled at him from her bag and Duncan gave him a little nod, then Samuel turned and kissed Pilar’s cheek in an affectionate gesture before he climbed back out. Pilar came towards them, and Kenzie fought to straighten her face, pulling her phone out of her bag and clutching it tightly in her hand. Duncan’s fingers came against her thigh, and his touch immediately began to soothe her nerves; it was medicinal, healing, and utterly trusting. The board of directors, she thought, dumbstruck. Me and Momby. Oh, my god, Duncan. Annette will actually explode.

“Pat says we’re ready to go,” Pilar said, her dark brown eyes shifting between them. “I’ll get you that gin and tonic as soon as we’re in the air, Duncan. Mackenzie--what would you like?”

“Umm,” Kenzie’s mind felt blank, like a chalkboard someone had wiped clean.

“I make a strong mimosa,” Pilar wiggled her eyebrows, sticking a little bit of her tongue between her very straight, white teeth.

“That would be wonderful. Thank you, Pilar.”

“You look a little green, mami. Do you get airsick?”

“Um, no, no, I don’t think so.”

Duncan squeezed Kenzie’s leg a little, his eyes on her with an expression of concern. I didn’t mean to bring it up too soon, they seemed to say, though his thoughts were indistinct to her right now. I didn’t mean to upset you. Kenzie slipped her hand under where his was against her thigh, opening her palm to him, threading her fingers into his. “I’m okay, just excited, I guess.”

“I have to say this--don’t get upset with me, Duncan, miho--but ¡qué parejazo!--you are a very, very beautiful couple,” Pilar said, and Kenzie could see the way the woman’s face was flushed with the sincerity of her words. “No wonder everyone online is so obsessed. Like a prince and a princess, ay dios mio. Like royalty.”

“Ugh, Pilar. Thank you.” Kenzie looked at Duncan as he said it and saw the blush on his cheeks, and his delighted grin at her sincerity. Pilar shifted her gaze onto Kenzie again, her expression tinged with both immediate affection and concern. You don’t even know me yet, and already you’re so lovely, Kenzie thought, a wave of appreciation washing over her. I think I have to do this. I think I have to accept what Duncan is proposing. I think I need to be on the board of directors and be fucking brave and fucking do this for him--for everyone. I can help everyone in the company if I do this and so many people who aren’t in it, too. And Momby will be there too, if she accepts. Why wouldn’t she? Annette may hate me, but Momby loves Duncan already.

“Thank you, Pilar.” Kenzie’s voice trembled a little, and Pilar leaned down to her immediately, grasping the hand Duncan wasn’t holding, her other hand coming up against Kenzie’s hair to rest gently on her shoulder, her face full of sympathy. “Mami, you are doing just fine. Don’t you worry. It must be hard to suddenly be in the spotlight this way. But I can see how much this boy loves you. In fact, I have never seen him this way. And es tan conmovedor...it’s very beautiful to see. You will be happy together. I can see that too. I’m gonna make you a very strong mimosa, and you’re going to have a beautiful day together.” Pilar squeezed Kenzie’s hand, then she straightened and turned to pass through the aisle, closing the curtain behind her. They heard an audible click and Pat’s voice fell into their ears from overhead. “Hey Duncan and Mackenzie, we’re all clear for take off, should be about three hours, skies are super clear and the wind is with us, don’t see any delays. I’ll check back in when we’re on our way down. Enjoy Pilar’s strong libations, Mackenzie, she’s infamous for them.” The loudspeaker clicked off and the Kenzie felt the plane drift forward. She snapped her seatbelt together, phone in her lap, and Duncan snapped his in turn beside her before leaning into the side of her hair, his lips pressing into her ear.

“Kenzie, baby, are you okay?”

“Mmhmm. I’m okay. I’m just...everything is...everything’s so…”

“You don’t have to explain, Kenzie. I love you.”

Kenzie lapsed into grateful silence, looking into his lovely face, her heart full. She sniffed a little, pushing her tears back; she could feel the plane drifting towards the runway, and her stomach did a somersault; I told Pilar I don’t get airsick, but I guess that isn’t entirely true. I feel sick right now. I feel overwhelmed in the wonder of everything again. Right now she felt as though her heart was trying to leave her body. The plane accelerated and she gripped Duncan’s hand harder; he leaned into her and her head fell on his shoulder, his chin coming gently against the crown of her hair. Kenzie closed her eyes as the plane went faster and faster, trying to concentrate on the warmth and pressure of Duncan’s hand; then she felt the plane lifting off the ground and the empty drift of its ascent into open air. She breathed out, slowly--she could feel Duncan breathing carefully, measuredly, beside her, feel the rise of his chest under the crook of her arm resting at his side. She thought of Pilar’s words, the sincerity in her eyes: you will be happy together.

------

A few minutes later they were still sitting quietly that way; Kenzie had been drifting inside the feeling of Duncan’s hand, the woodsy smell of him under her nose, the feeling of his jaw against her head, the slow incline of the plane; she opened her eyes as she heard Pilar come through the curtain again with a bar cart, upon which was a dish of round ice cubes, a plastic tumbler of gin and tonic for Duncan, and a plastic champagne flute of mimosa for her. Pilar handed Kenzie the flute with a napkin pressed to the side, her warm hand touching Kenzie’s fingers gently, then she handed the tumbler to Duncan with a napkin underneath it. “Enjoy, vida bellas. Call me when you want another.” She gestured to the round buttons on the far edge of the armrest of Kenzie’s seat, and then Pilar winked at her; Kenzie smiled up at her and nodded against Duncan. I love her. Pilar turned the bar cart back around as Duncan unbuckled his seat belt, carefully easing away from the soft weight of Kenzie’s head, pulling the tray on the back of the seat in front of him down to place his drink on it, then he turned to her and looked at her for a long moment--Kenzie held her mimosa, her fingers chilly on its icy, smooth surface, feeling frozen inside him. I’ll always get lost in his eyes. And not just because they’re so beautiful--but because they look at me as if I’m the reason for their beauty. And that’s what shakes me. She took a deep breath.

“Baby. Okay. Dunny. Duncan. I accept.”

“Kenzie.” The smile that broke over his face crushed into her heart like flower petals falling in a spring storm. “Thank you. Baby. Everything we can do. Everything we will do, together. With you by my side, I know we can do wonderful things with the company. Things that will help the world.” He reached for her hand; Kenzie felt overcome with the rawness of the emotion that drifted between them, and she smiled back at him, tears in her eyes.

“Baby, let’s take some photos today,” Duncan said, pulling his phone out of his back pocket, opening his camera. “I wanna save memories from this day. I wanna look back on them later. Our first full day together, no one else.” Kenzie grinned at him; this sweet angel. Duncan pressed his hand against her cheek for a moment, then moved it to angle his phone. Kenzie lifted the mimosa out to him; it caught the morning light through the plane’s row of small windows, and Duncan lifted his drink with his other hand, his index finger reached out as they clinked them together, tucking around the incline of her hand between thumb and forefinger; he held his phone up and snapped a photo. He held it up to her for her approval; Kenzie gazed down at it, loving the graceful shape of his hands and the desirous affection with which he’d reached for her, the dancing golden line of light reflecting off her flute. She nodded at him, cheeks burning. “Good, baby. Really good.” He grinned at her (the smile of an angel) and she watched him type, though he had his phone angled so she couldn’t quite make out the letters.

Kenzie opened the Instagram app impatiently on her phone in her lap; the first photo that popped up on her feed was the one Duncan had just posted. At the bottom he’d included a caption: Stealing away to a secret hideaway for today with @kenzielouwho. I am the happiest man on earth.

Kenzie’s cheeks burned, her heart full to bursting. Duncan reached out for her hand and she felt his face lean down to her, lips against her cheek. “I can’t wait to be alone with you, baby, really alone.” The whisper of his mouth against her made her shiver. She turned her face into him; into his mouth, this mouth that’s mine, this mouth that is a part of me as he is a part of me, as he is the other part of me, once lost in the darkness, now illuminated in the light. And what a bright light we are. What a brilliant light we will be.

“Dunny. I love you. I love you so much.” She looked up into his eyes; his were glittering with a sheen of moisture, and she breathed against him, her words soft, her hands caressing down his arms to soothe him. “You are my special one. The only one.”

He blinked, then closed his eyes and let out a little sigh, as if overwhelmed by her touch and her words. Kenzie watched as tears gathered along the edge of his eyelashes and she fought back her own, and concentrated, pushing her thoughts into him with golden fingers; the size of the love inside me for you is greater than I am; how can something within me be bigger than I am? But it is. I know it is. I wish I could show you, pull it out of me and let it fall over you, a weightless armor for you to wear, and wearing it, you’d always be fearless, and you would never need to cry about anything, Dunny, because your heart would know that mine holds it, always. I’ll love you until the stars fade and the universe is swallowed in darkness. I’ll love you with all of me, in every lifetime, with all of my body and every bit of my soul, forever.

--------

Kenzie had drifted off into sleep against him about an hour later; she’d been idly scrolling through Duncan’s Instagram, leaving hearts and starbursts and kiss emojis on his posts (red carpets and black-tie events and photoshoots and one that she particularly loved of him laughing on the deck of some opulent place, looking into the camera with the sunset fading behind him; Mom got my good side, he’d written below--all your sides are your good side, baby, she thought, you are the most beautiful boy I have ever seen). She tried to avoid the comments--they left her stomach in a ball of anxiety--but Kenzie noticed Duncan had liked and left hearts and heart-eyes and comments (my baby, I love you, you look so beautiful here, and so on) on almost all of her photos. She’d also noticed she had over a million followers now--yikes. As she did this, Duncan threaded his fingers through her hair quietly--he’d seemed unable to speak for awhile, lost in the intensity of his emotions, and she had pressed her head into the crook under his arm, that spot of mine, until she felt his breathing quiet and his body soothe under her touch, and in his embrace, eventually, she’d fallen into a slumber wherein she dreamt about finding a dead deer under a flowering tree; in the dream, she’d laid her hands carefully on its matted fur, and pushed life back into it; reversed time, her dream-self had thought, I pulled time back so it left the thing that happened in a future still unwritten and I brought the life back from the dark place it went into when the deer shuddered its death-rattle, and the deer had gotten up and walked away, and in the dream Kenzie had thought yes, that’s it, that’s the way of it, the right of it. But then she woke up--woke up to the sound of Pilar pushing the little bar cart back through the curtain, handing her another mimosa with her warm smile. When Pilar had left again, she sleepily leaned away from Duncan, setting her mimosa down on the tray in front of them, and he looked down at her affectionately, his phone in this other hand--Kenzie saw he’d been on sothebys.com, looking through the “upcoming auctions” section. My boyfriend is rich enough to casually browse priceless antiquities like he’s shopping on Amazon.

“Pat was just on the speaker,” he said to her softly, “We’re starting the descent into Yarmouth now. The drive from the airport is only about five minutes, and then we’ll be right on the beachfront, baby.” He trailed his large hand down her arm, then onto her thigh. “Were you dreaming?”

“Uh huh. There was this dead deer...I had a white dress and a golden headband with leaves on it--and I touched the deer and brought it back to life. It was so strange. The other day I had this dream where Claire was choking and I literally did something to open the skin of her neck and get the thing out that was choking her, and then she was okay. What the fuck does that mean?”

Duncan gave her a puzzled look, re-buckling his seatbelt. “That is weird. I’m no expert on dreams; I wonder if it means anything. Maybe we should go see a psychic or something,” and he grinned at her. Kenzie made a face and stretched; Duncan lifted his hand up to press it down her waist as she did, in a longing moment of abandon. “I keep thinking about last night, baby,” he leaned into her, whispering. “I keep thinking about that mirror and how it feels like it always belonged with us somehow, I keep thinking about how beautiful you looked in it--” Kenzie couldn’t help it--Duncan looked so beautiful, his hair falling in perfect waves, his eyes so impossibly blue, staring into her, the light shadow on his jaw, the curve of his cheek as the now-midday sunlight from the plane’s small windows fell against him, his straight nose and full lips and the way he reached for her with his beautiful, graceful hands, the tenderness and aching lilt in his voice--thoughts of last night fell down into her too, the musky smell of him as he had fucked her, filling her to the point of madness, the commanding voice he’d used to tell her to open her eyes, to watch them in their passionate embrace--and she forgot the strange dream in the space of a moment, her mouth coming up to his, lost inside the immensity of his arms (the greatness of my love for you angel is as vast as the universe and you fill me up so it grows more and more and its beauty staggers me), she heard his thought, tinged with blue flame. As the plane descended, they barely noticed--Kenzie felt his eyelashes brush against her cheek as he kissed her, pulling her into him, needy; and by the time it had landed and the steps had descended and Pilar came through the curtain to tell them they’d arrived, Kenzie and Duncan were breathing fiercely into each other, reality obscured by lust and Pilar’s strong drinks, mislaid in the scent and the feeling of the other, trying to resurface from the private place between them into whence they’d strayed in the space of moments.

“Mis amores, the beach is waiting for you,” Pilar said as they pulled away from each other, cheeks flushed and breathing heavy. “You can continue where you left off when you get there.” She was grinning at them, and Kenzie leaned down to grab her beach bag as Duncan pushed his sunglasses onto his nose, as if to hide the brightness of his eyes, the heavy vibration of their desire for her. He turned to Kenzie and gave her another kiss, this one a small peck, his mouth closed; wait till we get to the beach house, she heard him press into her, and the wave of want inside the thought made goosebumps break out on her skin. Pilar helped them carry their beach equipment down the steps, and there was already a dark SUV waiting for them, a service from the airport--they carefully lined the baskets and towels and blanket in the trunk with the driver’s help, and Kenzie slid into the backseat, Duncan behind her.

“We should be back by 5,” Duncan said to Pilar before he slid the door shut.

“Si, Duncan, Mackenzie. Enjoy each other.” Pilar grinned at them mischievously again and turned away to where Pat was having another cigarette--Kenzie saw him pass one to her as the car drove away. She reached for Duncan’s hand; so close to being alone with you in the sunlight, baby, she thought, and relief washed over her as he clutched her tightly. He was right about the ride being short--4 minutes and 50 seconds later, the driver was helping Duncan with the baskets and the buckled blanket while Kenzie gathered the beautiful beach towels in her arms, breathing in their freshly-laundered scent. The Shepherds’ beach house was a huge, classic white Cape Cod-style, with two decks and a wide driveway facing the street, enclosed by a padlocked gate that Duncan had hopped out of the SUV to press a code into as the driver pulled up. As the driver went through, Kenzie could see the white stretch of beach visible behind the house, and no other residences were close enough to spy--Kenzie saw two other similar houses about a two dozen yards down the street, but they seemed to either be empty right now, or their residents inside. Kenzie looked back at the house; and it seemed to look back at Kenzie in quiet contemplation, ocean-minded and easy. The driver placed the baskets on the doorstep and Duncan thanked him; Kenzie hopped up behind him as the man walked away and drove off. “He’ll be back around 5,” Duncan murmured to her, and used a keycard from his wallet to open the door. It swung to a living area with a long, expensive-looking brown leather couch and easy-chair, seashells and gold paperweights and books on the shelves, a stone-lined fireplace in one corner. Kenzie moved through it to the kitchen after him, where he placed the picnic baskets on a tasteful island in the center of the room (not like Duncan’s obsidian island, but nothing is as beautiful as that is). The kitchen had long counter-tops and a spotlessly clean dining table with seven chairs, and Kenzie could see a long deck through the window of a pair of sliding doors; she felt giddy at the wide stretch of sand she could see beyond it.

“Fuck yes!” She couldn’t help it--this is fucking great, she thought, rushing to the door of the deck, yanking it open, feeling the sea breeze cascade over her hair and cheeks as she did. Kenzie stepped onto the deck and hopped a little, up and down, with pure delight. She could see seagulls wheeling above them; long seagrass stretched along the beach in clusters, and the sand seemed impossibly light in the dappled warmth of the sun and the deeply blue sky. Duncan followed her out onto the deck, smiling at her with an expression of pure happiness--she couldn’t see his eyes for his dark sunglasses, but he laughed as she hopped up and down again, falling against him.

“Baby,” she said into him, breathlessly. “This is so beautiful. We should come here every fucking day.”

“I agree. Fuck work and everyone who isn’t you, angel.” Duncan gathered her against him and his kiss tasted like the sun, its warmth reaching into her and pressing around her lungs. “I think we should go down to the sand and eat lunch and lay in the sunlight.”

“Oh fuck yes,” Kenzie agreed. “I just wanna look at you for the rest of the day, baby.”

“Ugh, baby,” and Duncan leaned down to her again and his hands came to the tie at her waist, undoing it before she even thought of stopping him--his hands (those hands) slipped down to the bare skin above her bikini bottoms, sliding against the softness of her waist and belly, and his tongue went into her mouth, and Kenzie couldn’t stop the little moan that came out of her, the smell of him like sandalwood and damp earth, her hands coming around his neck. Duncan’s hands went down around her ass, clutching her there for a moment (last night how you fucked my ass and filled me up and came inside me there how you fucked me so fucking good baby) and he moved them further down still to grip her at the back of her thighs, lifting her into his arms, her head hovering above his, their lips still crushed together. Duncan carried her, kissing her, pressing her against him, back into the kitchen, then into the living room--Kenzie gasped as he threw her down onto the long leather couch, tossing his sunglasses onto the easy-chair, pushing the dress away from her body; he kneeled down to where she lay against one of the throw pillows, watching him with desire and delight, and pressed her legs apart, insistently, staring at her--then Duncan licked his lips and Kenzie let out another little moan; she brought a finger up between her mouth, biting into the pad of it, lost in his eyes again. Duncan grasped her bikini bottoms in his two long hands (those fucking hands, fuck) and yanked them down from her thighs in one strong motion; they pooled around her ankles and Duncan pulled them away from her feet, his lips kissing into her knees for a moment--then he pressed her legs apart harshly again, his lips coming up the inside of her thigh, slowly, carefully, with concentrated attentions--his tongue slid up the delicate, sensitive incline of the space between where her thigh met her hip bone and down to where the lip of her cunt began--Kenzie’s body shuddered with the knowledge of where it would go next, and she whimpered into her finger, eyes half-closed now.

“Tell me what you want, baby,” he whispered, and she felt his breath against the wetness he’d left on her skin. “What do you want me to do to you? Tell me. Command me.”

“Duncan, eat my pussy. Suck my clit. Do it right now.”

He groaned into her at that; Kenzie could see the mound of his erection under the thin fabric of his swimming trunks from where he knelt. He pressed his hands on either side of her thighs, wrenching her legs apart even further so her cunt was lifted up to his face, the lips of her vulva shuddering as her muscles spasmed in arousal; then he pressed his mouth against the bud of her clit and laved his tongue out against it, achingly slow. Kenzie shuddered violently; a prolonged moan erupted from the back of her throat, and she felt his mouth smile against her. He paused, his lips pressed into her, and Kenzie bit into her lip, hard, trying not to beg--but the sensation of him was too much to bear.

“Bay-beeee,” and she heard her own voice as if removed from it, as if floating beside herself, “fuck me with your tongue, Dunny, fuck me good with your mouth--”

Duncan didn’t need another prompting--he sucked insistently at her clit as her pleading bled out into whimpers again, his grip pressing her thighs apart, making her core ache with intensity and need. Kenzie could feel how wet her cunt was growing--she felt dampness leaking down into the pucker of her ass, felt droplets of his spit falling into the folds of her vulva. Duncan pressed his tongue into her clit again, then probed down into the canal of her pussy, then back up, and her hips bucked up into him, slowly, into his mouth, to welcome him inside her. Duncan’s blue eyes opened from where they’d been closed in concentration; Kenzie tried not to gasp as she stared into them, feeling dazed, bewitched in his stare--not every girl gets eaten out by a fucking angel, she thought, fighting to keep her gaze inside his, her heart fluttering wildly as the intensity of his attentions between her legs caused a hot, rising swell there, her orgasm already threatening to arrive full-force into his mouth.

“Kenzie, come for me, Princess,” he murmured into her, and Kenzie’s head fell back, her eyes falling up to the ceiling, unable to stop herself. Princess, oh my god. I am your Princess, baby. You’re my Prince, and I’m your Princess. She couldn’t help but feel a kind of carnal satisfaction at the word--I’m yours, your princess, now fuck me good. “Fuck your Princess good, baby,” she said, and watched his eyes come up from where his mouth worked on her, a promise in his gaze: oh, I fucking will. Suddenly she thought of the dress Morgan had sketched for her; the dress she would wear to the Gala, resplendent and divine. Wait until you see this fucking dress, baby, she thought. Your Princess all in gold.

Duncan sucked at her clit again, his fingers coming up demandingly to press the lips of her vulva away from the bud, and Kenzie shuddered, feeling the wave of her release riding up now--the most beautiful boy in the whole fucking world is pressed between my legs right now, sucking on my clit, and he calls me baby, calls me angel, calls me Princess, calls me divine, a goddess, and he wants me to come, and fuck, I’m gonna--

“Gonna come now, gonna come hard, baby--” And Kenzie’s hips bucked up harshly into his mouth now and Duncan continued to press his fingers into her so the lips of her cunt were spread under them and his mouth was pressed with careful immediacy around her clit, his tongue working into it as she moaned, her mouth wide and raised up, and his other hand came into the wetness that rushed out of her between her legs, fingers probing into her cunt to feel it spasm out her release in waves, her muscles clenching around him.

“Yes, baby, good,” he whispered into her, his breath on her clit making her shudder again and again as she came down. “I love how you feel when you come under my mouth like that, fuck--” He licked his lips (oh my god, those lips) and Kenzie pulled his face up with shaking hands, pulled his wet mouth against hers, tasting and smelling her own release on him--then she said “my turn baby, it’s my turn now,” and he moaned and she pressed him into the couch beside her and slid down, softly, between his legs, pushing the dress off her shoulders, undoing the tie at the back of her bikini top and tossing it to the floor, so she knelt between his knees naked for him, her cunt still spasming from the memory of her orgasm, kindling her desire to please him. Kenzie pushed her hair back, then her fingers went to the tie on his swim trunks, little fingers working quickly. “Uhh, Kenzie, angel baby,” he whined, and his hand came up to press into one of her little breasts, his thumb fondling over her nipple, his eyes (blue flames, storms, demanding) shining at her, all his attention focused on her, his mouth still wet from her. Kenzie reached down into the waistband of his trunks and her hand fell on his cock, thick and hard (so big, filling me up when he fucks me)--she pulled it out, gripping it tightly, as she moved her other hand down between her legs to slick the wetness from her orgasm over her fingers. Duncan watched her do it with hunger shining out of his beautiful eyes--”Fuck, Kenzie,” he whispered, and she shushed him, bringing the other hand, her fingers now soaked in her release, along the length of his cock, and using both her hands to lather it from the bottom of his shaft to the head, easing it into the sensitive hole there. Duncan’s head fell back and Kenzie felt the shudder in his thighs--then she dipped her head down brought her tongue over the head, bringing spit out of her mouth to slide down his length obscenely.

“I need you to come in my mouth,” she said, and she looked up at him, making sure to stare--making sure he saw the demand in them. “Fuck my mouth, Prince Duncan. Fuck my throat and come in my little mouth, baby.” He nodded (Prince Duncan, rapturous in his beauty), his lips falling open a little, and his hands came up to her head, gripping into her hair, gently at first, then more harshly. She slid her mouth down into his length, willing her throat to open and take him in--she gagged for just a moment, then felt his thick cock slide down into her throat until her lips were at the bottom of his shaft--Kenzie closed her eyes, steadying herself, then she moved back up and began to bob her head while he was still buried inside her --she felt Duncan lift his hips up into her, lost in her mouth, then back down, and into her again, so he was fucking her throat with slow, measured concentration--Kenzie closed her eyes, feeling tears gathering at the edges of her eyes at the intensity of his length inside her this way, but she continued to move her head, feeling spit drip down the side of her chin. Duncan reached out to wipe it away, and she looked into his eyes as he did--his were full of deep, coiled lust--but that same wildly ardent adoration of her twined around it, and Kenzie realized she’d stopped breathing. She lifted him out of her throat to gasp a breath out--then she plunged his length back down into her, and Duncan shivered violently, a deep moan tearing from his throat, and he said “Kenzie, baby, I’m gonna come in your mouth n-now, okay--”, his voice shuddering as he tried to hold back, and Kenzie nodded and pulled back so his cock was just between her lips, then she felt the wet heat of his release coat her tongue and the back of her teeth and a long rivulet of his white come ran down from the side of her mouth, drops falling on her knee, and her eyes fluttered closed as Duncan’s gaze went hazy on her, lost inside his orgasm, and he groaned as he watched her, his hand coming up to grip her throat gently, tenderly, but possessively, needy, his cock still delicately held in the front of her mouth as every drop shuddered out of him into her. He quieted and Kenzie swallowed, licking her lips--Duncan leaned forward and his tongue came out to lick his come from the side of her mouth where it had dribbled out, and then he kissed her, needy again, his mouth open, and she could taste both her release and his as they tongues came together.

“Fuck, Kenzie, that was fucking incredible,” he whispered into her. “Fuck, I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Duncan,” and she smiled up into him, loving the hair falling on his forehead and the soft feeling of his fingers under her jaw, falling down into her golden hair. She reached down to where she’d discarded her bikini top and pulled it back around her little breasts; searched for where Duncan has discarded her bottoms and slipped them back on, standing on post-coital wobbly feet. Duncan leaned back to look at her for a long moment, carefully, tenderly slipping his cock, now going limp, back into his swim trunks. Kenzie stuck her tongue out at him, wiping at the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, and he laughed.

“Baby, I wanna take a picture,” he said, pleadingly.

“Oh, yeah, Mackenzie Stone, covered in sex, here she is everybody!”

“Please, baby? You look so beautiful.”

“Fine.” Kenzie rolled her eyes facetiously as Duncan pulled his phone from his back pocket--he held it up to her and Kenzie struck a pose, hands on her hips, dipping her legs together, her mouth smiling open, her eyes skirting to the side on a whim. “There, that’s the best Instagram pose I can do.”

“It was perfect, look,” Duncan held his phone up to her after a moment--he’d posted it with the caption Princess of the beach @kenzielouwho followed by the crown, celestial sun and wave emojis and she felt raw under the adoration in his gaze as he looked at her. She glanced down at the photo. Aw, I do look sort of cute, she thought. “You’re just good at taking pictures, baby,” she murmured to him. Duncan shook his head. “No, you’re just really that fucking beautiful, Kenzie.”

“Ugh, give it a rest, Mr. Shepherd,” Kenzie turned, squinting at him over her shoulder. “Help me bring all this stuff out, I’m starving.”

“Yes, Princess Kenzie,” Duncan replied, his tone obedient and playful, and she felt a secret thrill; I love it so much. I love telling him what to do and I love it when he obeys me. He’s so fucking beautiful and he’s mine. I love his devotion. Kenzie slung her beach bag over her shoulder, tucking the towels under her arm and grasping the basket with the beer and wine in it in the other hand--Duncan grasped the picnic basket and the buckled blanket and followed her out onto the deck and down the little wooden steps to the side, where there was a path that led a short way to the beach. It was hot and sunny now and the heat felt good on her skin, soothing away the intensity of the post-coital comedown she’d felt inside. She set the towels down carefully on top of the basket and as Duncan set the picnic basket down beside it she reached for the buckles under his arm, helping him spread the blanket out on the hot white sand, lifting her face up to kiss him for a moment.

“This was such a good idea,” she murmured to him, and Duncan smiled at her, nodding, his sunglasses back on the bridge of his nose. “I love it here, I knew you’d like it,” he replied. “I love how hidden it is from everything, I don’t even think most of the paps know about this house. They don’t seem to know about the Deep Creek cabin, either. I can’t wait to take you there, baby. It’s so beautiful there.”

Kenzie sat on the blanket, contentedly, and Duncan came down beside her, crossing his legs and reaching into the basket with the drinks, pulling out the frosty bottle of rose. Kenzie opened the picnic basket and handed him the bottle opener and he worked on the cork as she brought the plates and cutting board out, placing food on it carefully; the grapes and cheese and cold chicken. She popped some of the grapes into her mouth--”Gimme one of those, baby,” Duncan said, and she pushed one between his lips; they lingered on her, kissing her fingertips, before he chewed and swallowed, pulling the cork out of the bottle with a satisfying pop.

“I sort of mentioned something to your mother the other night at Busboys,” Duncan said, looking at her over the edge of his sunglasses, pulling out one of the wine glasses, filling it to the brim and handing it to her. Kenzie gawked at it, unable to suppress her grin, grasping it carefully. “Sheesh, baby, thanks--and what? You mean Momby knows about the board of directors thing already?”

“Not in so many words, but I asked for her help--when I take over for my Uncle. I guess I wasn’t sure yet exactly what I meant. But now I know I want her--and you--to have some clout, the power to make decisions that can combat and overrule Annette. Because I know one thing, Kenzie--Annette is going to combat us with this every step of the way. She’s not going to let either of you come in without pushing back. So we need to be ready for that.” Kenzie handed him a fork, a knife and a plate, and he took them gently from her, nodding gratefully. She smiled at him and jabbed her knife into one of the cold cuts of chicken, lifting the whole thing up to her mouth and biting into it ravenously. Having sex all the time sure makes you fucking hungry, she thought, deliriously drifting in happiness. This chicken is like, the best chicken I have ever fucking had. Everything tastes so good lately. She swallowed, reaching over to her beach bag and slipping on her gold-framed round sunglasses, pulling out the bottle of sunscreen after it, placing it on top of her bag as a reminder while they ate.

“I’m not afraid of your mother, baby,” she murmured, and she reached out to brush a finger across Duncan’s knee as he poured some wine for himself.

“I know you aren’t, baby, but I am. That’s why I need you and Madeline so much. I have to completely restructure the way Shepherd Unlimited functions as an enterprise--I have to convince the other shareholders that this is what’s best for everyone. I can do that with your help, I’m sure of it. I know we can do it together.”

Kenzie pulled one of the pears out of the basket and handed it to him--he gripped it from her hand, his fingers trailing along hers before lifting it to his mouth, his teeth ripping a chunk out of it with abandon. Kenzie pulled a sleeve of the tiny baguette crisps out too and ripped them open.

“I understand, baby. That’s why I’m going to do it.”

“Kenzie, please know how grateful I am. I don’t ask you this lightly. I know it’s going to be a challenge. I love you, Mackenzie.”

“Duncan.” Kenzie handed him one of the crackers, gently. “I love you too. I know. And I love eating with you like this. I love sitting here alone with you on this beautiful beach. I love you and I’m here for you and I’m with you, baby.”

“I want to buy the Post and give Candice executive powers over the operations. What do you think? Are you okay with that? I want to protect it from my mother and I want to protect you and your coworkers. I want to dismantle the show and Gardner Analytics. And I want to shift the Foundation’s goals. I want it to become a real Foundation. One that nurtures.”

“The Shepherd Foundation for Arts and Sciences.” Kenzie breathed out the words before she even realized what she was saying--Duncan paused, and she couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but she saw the coiled movement of his hand as it came down to his knee in thought.

“Kenzie. That’s perfect.”

“Thank you, Mr. Shepherd, I expect to be well paid. And tip your waitress.”

Duncan laughed; it was a real laugh, genuine and from the gut, from the well of his heart, and Kenzie’s own heart clenched to watch him; he’s so beautiful and we are so fucking happy when we’re together, I’ve never felt like this with anyone, and we are going to do so many wonderful things, and I could just die my heart is so full---of him, and everything we’ve already shared with each other, and everything we will share--the days ahead will be so full and no matter what, I know we’ll get through them, we’ll be together through all of it, I can feel it, like he wrapped a blanket around me in the cold, soothed me with coolness in the heat. My special one. My Duncan. Duncan leaned across the cutting board and pulled her against him; his mouth was sweet with rose and pear and grape and she ran her tongue for a moment against his teeth and he groaned happily into her.

“I’m gonna go fucking jump in the ocean,” Kenzie said. “It’s fucking hot out, baby.”

“Not if I catch you first.”

Kenzie hopped up to get away from him; Duncan reached out and the tips of his fingers brushed her ankle; she squealed and took off across the sand, glancing behind her as he came after her, discarding his shirt to the ground--Kenzie waded knee-deep into the waves, yelping as she felt his arms come around her, his lips pressing down into her neck, tickling her skin and making her writhe in his grasp. “Kiss me, baby, kiss me, Kenzie,” he pleaded, and she did, her sea-damp hands coming into his hair and pressing him into her, and then she pushed him harshly and he stumbled back into the water, falling under a wave. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna get you for that,” he sputtered, grinning and coughing. Kenzie screamed in facetious fear, grinning back at him as he caught up with her and dunked her under the next wave--she came up spitting the salty sting from her lips, her hair soaked down her back now, and moved out into the water away from him, kicking off to swim out a little; swim so he’d follow her, and he did; he did and his lips crushed into hers as they floated in the sunlight, the taste of the ocean on his mouth, and his hands finding her under the water, finding her body and pulling her into him, his eyes on her, reflecting the water, making her shiver at their beauty; she grinned at him and pressed her fingers into his torso, tickling, and he kicked away in the water, laughing again, and then she wrapped her arms around his neck as they trod the waves beneath and rained kisses into him, his sea-soaked hair and his eyelids and his nose and his mouth, reaching up to taste her in turn. Icarus, fallen into the sea to be with me. Poseidon, come up from beneath the depths to be with me. Apollo flown down from the sun, to be with me. Ares paused from his rage, turned to me. Dionysus, grapes on his breath, kissing me…my Hades, my beloved, pulled from the dark, warm in my arms, here on earth, with me. With me.

------

Kenzie sat cross-legged on the beach blanket, Jane Eyre open on her lap (she was about halfway through--she’d read it before but it had been years since she revisited it--Jane was about to find out about Rochester’s mad wife in the attic, and Kenzie imagined, wildly, that Duncan kept his own secret mad wife in a closet hidden in the penthouse somewhere), one of the big towels tucked around her back from where she’d used it to dry off, slathering her limbs in sunscreen, her gold-rimmed sunglasses at her eyes, her straw hat with the black ribbon on her head, her hair, now drying in the sun, blowing in salty, golden strands around her face. They’d cleared the food away from the blanket but the wine glasses still there, Kenzie’s tucked between her legs, a little left in the bottom, Duncan’s balancing in the sand, empty, one of the Coronas, half-drunk with a wedge of lime floating in it, beside it. He laid next to her, his pool-dappled button-down under his head, his eyes closed against the afternoon brightness; Kenzie gazed at him as she rubbed sunscreen on her thighs and the back of her neck (he’d rubbed some on his chest and shoulders and she had gently smoothed some over his face a few minutes ago, admiring his unblemished skin and the chiseled beauty of his features as he lay still, obediently); his fingers were resting on the toes of her right foot, crooked under her knee, and she couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep.

His hair had dried in luxuriant curls, and it seemed lighter in the direct sunlight; almost golden like hers. She could see the light dusting of sand that had brushed into the side of his cheek, into his stubble, along the curve of his jaw--Kenzie almost felt like crying to look at him this way, in this angelic sweetness. She pulled her phone out of her beach bag and opened Instagram, checking that the sound was off; I’ll take this one in secret, she thought, but I want everyone to know too, baby, I want everyone to know that you’re mine, an angel in my arms every night. She brought the phone down close to his cheek; Duncan didn’t stir, and she could see the small rise and fall of his belly in the quiet breeze. She brought the photo back up to her eyes; just his cheeks and the corner of his eyelashes, grains of sand, and the curls of his hair. He really does look like an angel. She posted the photo with three emojis: the angel, the heart pierced by an arrow, and the celestial sun. Duncan stirred a little, and Kenzie realized he really had drifted off to sleep, his face turning toward her, his other hand tucking over his eyes, the hand on her foot gripping tighter, as if in his half-sleep he worried she would leave. She leaned down and couldn’t resist the urge to press her lips into his cheek; it was salty and gritty with sand, but it still smelled like him; woodsy musk, sandalwood, jasmine soap, and that lingering scent underneath, the smell that was him, a smell without a name or description. Just him.

Kenzie glanced at the time; it was a little past 3, and there was still time to drift in this moment, his hand warm on her foot, the sun drying their sea-soaked skin. She thought let him sleep, drinking off the rest of the wine in her glass, topping it off with more from the bottle nearby quietly so as not to wake him, and went back to Jane Eyre.

------

It was about half an hour later when Duncan stirred awake; Kenzie was on the last page of her chapter, munching on one of the tiny cucumbers they’d packed, and she looked up at him, her hand coming across to his hair, gently.

“Kenz, I had a dream too,” he murmured, pressing his fingers into the corner of his eye, rubbing it as she stroked his salt-kissed curls. She imagined him doing the same thing as a little child, felt sure it was something he had done his whole life (like the tick he has when he’s nervous, rubbing against his jaw and the bottom of his lip).

“Oh yeah? What was it about?”

“I was in pain...terrible pain. I think I was dying. I was on the ground and I couldn’t get up--I couldn’t feel my legs. I was talking to my grandmother..she looked different than I remember her, though, her hair was up, and Adelaide usually wore her hair down...I was begging her to take me into the house...I don’t know what house. I don’t know what I meant. I said, I can be with you forever. And she said...she said...go to hell. I couldn’t believe that. And then she left me there, in terrible pain.”

“Oh, baby, what an awful dream. It was just a dream, though. That never happened.”

“But--Kenzie. After she left. You were there. You leaned over me, your face full of compassion for me. You looked...different, but the same. Your hair was darker and down around your shoulders, a little bit shorter. You were all in black lace, but you had little gold jewelry--the kind you wear for real. And you leaned over me and you were soothing me. But you called me a different name. You called me Michael. And then...then I woke up.” As Duncan spoke he closed his eyes, as if to remember the images from the dream, and his hand came up to the crook of her legs where they were crossed. She grasped his fingers and kept her other hand in his hair, soothing through it.

“I’ll always be here for you, baby,” she whispered. “As long as I’m alive I will. I love you. You’re the only one for me.”

“Kenzie,” he opened his eyes and stared at her; they were clear despite his sleep. “You’re the only one for me, too. And I know that...I know it. As absolutely as I know the sun is going to rise in the morning and set the evening. As absolutely as a tide going in and out, or thunder coming after lightning…”

“That’s lovely, baby.”

“Still, all the same, I know it, Kenzie.”

She grasped his fingers; Duncan moved his head into her lap, and Kenzie pressed her legs closer together to cradle his cheek. “I wish today could last longer,” she said down to him, and he nodded against her, replying. “Soon we’ll go to the cabin and we’ll have days together, days to be alone together--I’ll show you the woods and we’ll make a bonfire, we’ll drink wine and fuck and watch the stars, baby.”

“Oh, Duncan. That sounds so wonderful.”

“I can’t wait, baby. I can’t wait to really get away with you for awhile.Today has just made me want it even more. This week is going to be so long. And the Gala is on Friday. My Uncle’s going to be there, too. If you think my mother is bad...just wait. And he’s dying. So he’s really his best self these days.”

“I’m not afraid of him either, Duncan.”

He pushed himself up on one arm, up into the crook of her neck; “I don’t doubt it,” he whispered. “You’re so beautiful and so brave and I love you so much. You’re my moonlight, baby, my Persephone, breathing life back into me when I thought I was dead...”

Kenzie could feel the waves of emotion coming off him, like an endless tide of warm shadow; could feel the confusion still huddled in the lining of his thoughts from the dream he’d had while he slept, and she felt drunk off it, drunk on him and the closeness of him, not just his body, but what was inside. Duncan looked at her for another long moment, pushing himself further up to sit facing her; his hand came against her cheek. He didn’t speak, but she felt the waves grow stronger for a moment; felt his desire to soothe her in all things, to protect her and care for her for the rest of her life, for as long as she would let him--it was like he was pressing his lips against the deepest part of her, and it was so intimate it made her want to scream in its intensity, made her want to scream in the ecstasy of the feeling of him touching the lining of her hidden self; a part of her no one had ever touched and she hadn’t even really been sure was there. But she could feel his invisible fingers on it, and it shattered her. She turned her face away from him, tears immediately coursing down her cheeks in a cascade of overwhelmed emotion. Duncan leaned towards her--”Don’t cry, baby, please don’t cry.”

“I’m crying because...I’m happy. Baby. I’m so happy. So happy, but the happiness wants to tear me to pieces, it wants to rip me apart. It’s so much; it’s so big. It’s like all of the world is inside it. When I look at you, it’s like I see the world too. The universe. Everything.”

“I know. I know.”

She shuddered; the tears wouldn’t stop now. Duncan pulled her against him and she let a sob fall into his bare skin; he held her that way for a little while, his hands in her hair as she cried, her tears falling along his arm, the sound of the surf and the seagulls in their ears, and Kenzie couldn’t be sure, but she thought maybe he cried a little too, cried so his tears fell against her hair and into the sand, though he didn’t make a sound.

------

Soon it would be time to go. Kenzie was putting her things away in her beach bag, a nostalgic melancholy already falling into her mood--work tomorrow, she thought, and the magick of this weekend over, at least, for now...I guess I shouldn’t be too sad, the magick that is between Duncan and I grows stronger every day. But the world keeps trying to get between us, doesn’t it. Well, I won’t let it.

She glanced up to where Duncan was sitting, his back toward the beach house, his face toward the ocean--he had his round Yves sunglasses and his shirt on again, and his expression was as melancholy as she felt; his arms were crooked around his knees, hair on his forehead, blown by the breeze over the sea, and his lips were almost closed, open tinily, almost imperceptibly, wistful. The sun was hanging low in the sky now, scudding behind some wisps of cloud that had appeared, throwing very small shadows over him. She grasped her phone where it lay near her bag--lifted it, and snapped the photo of him--a photo she would come to love fiercely in time, though she didn’t know it now. She added a black and white filter and was struck by the romanticism of it. Hades comes to earth, she typed, and spends a day in the sun with his Persephone. @duncanshepherd my heart belongs to you. She hit Share. He looked over at her, as if re-emerging from a dream; his eyes were concealed behind the sunglasses, and his thoughts were imperceptible to her right now.

“Ready to go, baby?” She asked, softly. He sighed a little and cocked his head to her. She cocked hers too, half-mocking, smiling at him coyly from where she kneeled in her bathing suit and sun hat. His melancholia seemed to lift at that; affection washed into his cheeks, and he smiled back.

“Today was perfect, Kenzie, wasn’t it.”

“Yes, Duncan. Today was perfect. I will never forget it.”

“Me either.”

-------

Pilar welcomed them, now sun-kissed and smelling of sea salt and sand, back into the jet with her deeply friendly smile--she gave Kenzie a knowing look as she took the picnic basket from Kenzie’s hands, and Kenzie wondered if Duncan had left any marks on her neck that she hadn’t noticed. Or maybe I just look really fucking happy, because I am, she thought. Duncan asked Pilar for another gin and tonic, and Kenzie asked her for a vodka tonic--after Pat’s cordial voice came over the speaker again to tell them they could take their seatbelts off, she brought the ice cold plastic tumblers to them, setting them gently on the tray in front of Duncan--Kenzie had pressed her earbuds in, her head on his shoulder, fighting the urge to sleep as her eyes fluttered closed. “So much sun makes you sleepy, reina,” Pilar commented, nodding to her affectionately. Kenzie nodded and smiled at her--she heard Duncan thank Pilar quietly--then a ethereal masculine voice with a lively guitar floated through her earbuds, blocking the rest of their conversation from her hearing...

Honey, this club here is stuck up / dinner and diatribes

I knew it from the first look of / the look of mischief in your eyes

Your friends are a fate that befell me / head is the talking type

I'd suffer Hell if you'd tell me / what you'd do to me tonight

Pilar walked away from Duncan, glancing at her affectionately again, her dark eyes skirting between them with that admiring glint. Like a prince and a princess. The song continued in Kenzie’s ears, lilting, choir-like chanting and clapping resonating.

That's the kind of love I've been dreaming of

Her eyes fell over Duncan, who was looking down at his phone. Instagram. He was on Kenzie’s profile and she blushed to see he’d noticed the two pictures she’d taken of him when he wasn’t looking. He expression was surprised, then shy, then he turned his face to her, eyebrows raised, and held up the one of him sleeping, sand on his cheek. What’s this, he mouthed, his eyes dancing. She smiled at him, timidly.

That’s the kind of love I’ve been dreaming of

He looked back down for a moment, going to the other one, of him staring out at the ocean in his dark glasses, a look of melancholy on his face. He held that one up to her too--his smile now seeped in emotion.

Now that the evening is slowing / Now that the end's in sight

Honey, it's easier knowing / What you'd do to me tonight

I love you, he mouthed to her.

I love you too, she mouthed back. Then he kissed her, and Kenzie closed her eyes, the music and the evening-soft touch of his mouth drifting into her, and she thought Eros carried Psyche into the clouds, again.

That’s the kind of love I’ve been dreaming of

#millory #duckenzie #body and soul #body and soul fanfic #body and soul au #millory au #duncan shepherd au #millory fanfic #duncan x mackenzie #duncan shepherd x mallory #michael x mallory #mallory x michael #mackenzie stone #cody x billie #collie #ahs apocalypse au #house of cards au

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kakosindustries · 6 years ago

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in which you get some wiser words to ponder over, you consider the nature of texture issues, you think about beastly appendages, you step in a puddle of Dana, and Red Renton “wins” the Ruin-A-Life Drawing. Do Evil Better.

Transcription:

Kakos Industries is ad-free. To help keep it that way, please visit KakosIndustries.com/Patreon, that’s p-a-t-r-e-o-n, and consider a pledge of a dollar or more a month.

Intro: What you are about to hear may inspire you to create your own new political party.

Hello and welcome to the Kakos Industries corporate shareholder announcements. At Kakos Industries, we help our clients and every single living thing down to the microscoping level to Do Evil Better. I am Corin Deeth III, and I am CEO of Kakos Industries. I am now back at my full capabilities, and I have returned to all of my job tasks. This includes testing the monster meat, determining which naked photographs will do the most harm when put on the Internet, stepping on employees that can only be motivated to work when their submissive fantasies are fulfilled, and looking at an enormous number of reports and formulating where the company should go to maximize both profits, and general nastiness throughout the world. I am also, for whatever reason, consulted any time the carpet needs to be replaced, which is relatively often. And not just when that carpet is in my recording studio and stained with my blood after my closest ally shoots me. After seeing how capable Junior is, we gave him a few new responsibilities. We put him on certain divisions as a consultant. He does have good ideas and he does know Evil, even if he is a bit strange at times. He has helped the Division of Automata to create a new android servant, that, by my estimation, is just a fancy sex toy. He helped the Division of Hygiene to invent a hose attachment that, when the hose is turned on, will pretty much clean anyone or anything that water hits. He also helped the Division of Tactile Textiles to make an even smoother fabric. He has some texture issues. And most recently, he has locked himself in his cave because he hates working. He wanted responsibility, but then it was too much effort, I guess.

Soundman Steven is back to his former stature. You see, new shareholders out there, when we built this fine facility where we record and transmit my voice to you via whatever strange and high concept device you have received, he was so impressed with the gear that his heart grew three sizes, and he became quite erect. This erection was first viewed as a nuisance by anyone who had to work with him or otherwise accidentally bumped into it. But once we all learned that it meant us no harm, we became inspired by it. It became a mascot. Look, people would say, at what Evil has produced. An unyielding, ever present icon of what Evil can do. People would work harder after seeing it. Posters of it were created by adoring fans and posted around the building to inspire all of us to be at our best. And then, I shot it. I needed some quick Evil, and I was desperate and perhaps a bit myopic, and my aim isn’t very good, so I shot it. We gave him a new one, but it seemed that the bond of trust he and I had developed was broken, and without it, the erection could not return. Until Soundman shot me. Not in the dick, just in the leg, but I’m told I could have died. The memory of that violence has been keeping him strong and proud, and most importantly erect. No, Soundman, I’m not going to mention the shame that you feel. I have forgiven you. So we have him back. And that is quite possibly the most important thing.

Today’s broadcast is coming to you from the particularly pungent aroma from a permanent marker we mailed you. No, we didn’t expect you to inhale it on purpose. It is strong enough that when you opened it to see what was inside or how it might write, you caught a sufficient whiff to let us get into your head. This chemicals are very sensitive to radio frequencies, and by modulation them very carefully, we can change what your mind is perceiving as far as sound goes. You are almost certainly completely blind at the moment, but that should pass, assuming you were sighted before. I would recommend not trying to get up to do anything, and I do apologize if you were driving. The Internet tells me that this might be a decent time for your to try to beat Punch Out. This product comes to us from a collaboration between our Division of The Cheapest Thrills, and Marker Island, a company that only makes markers, and never pens. If you are not a shareholder, then it is possible that your mind is not fully calibrated to resist the allure of smelling even more of this marker. The broadcast will then grow much louder inside your head, ultimately resulting in serious damage to your brain. Shareholders will of course know their limits by now and cap up the marker for the time being.

The Division of Figuring Out What All of These Keys Go To has unlocked another Kakos Industries rule book. Well, I shouldn’t call it a rule book. It say The Kakos Industries Book of Proverbs, and is then followed by two diamonds. I have no idea if these diamonds are just a decoration, or maybe an indication that this is volume two. According to Grace Rule, our contracts master, this book tastes quite official, and we must take it seriously. The trouble is that the proverbs have been encrypted. Or they are in a character set we do not understand just yet. It is taking us some time to translate the proverbs, but I have the first completed on here. It reads “It is better to be a two-headed bear feasting on wolves than to be a coyote eating a cottontail rabbit.” Grace was unable to tell me exactly what this meant and what we should do about it, but it gives us something to think about. I will be sure to give you updates as I get them.

The Shareholders’ Ball, as always, was a blast. It was a great way to celebrate having been CEO here at Kakos Industries for the past five years. There was one snag, though. When it came time for the blood orgy, I found myself surrounded by interesting and beautiful people. That’s not a bad start at all. I was ready. But I have a bit of trouble just diving in without getting to know people a little bit. It’s far more interesting to be romantically involved with someone you know and perhaps care a little about. It adds something extra to what can otherwise seem kind of mechanical. And the issue was, they all had the same name. Or similar names, I suppose. If you’ve been following along with my personal stories during these broadcasts, then you probably know what I’m about to say. There was Tabitha, Tabitha, Tabbs, Tabbi, Tabby, Tubs, Tiber, and maybe a few others. Now, it seemed to me as though the basement ballroom started to run away from me, bringing the exit door ever closer, but I think in hindsight I have to admit that I was probably just fleeing on foot. Once I found a place to hide and catch my breath, I had some time to clear my head and think. This has been too many coincidences. This has been too strange. But it can’t be something big and scary. I thought back to the people that Bernice Largo, the head of my support staff, must have hired to see to my sexual needs. What if they have all taken on a name to signify their goals? But I have to say that, if this is true, Bernice has made a terrible mistake. I have missed out on more opportunities due to this fear and frustration than I would have for any other reason. Unless that is actually the point. Perhaps I was supposed to be freaked out. Perhaps it has nothing to do with my sexual needs, but instead what makes me the most Evil. I will need to do some looking into this. It may be true that this makes me more Evil than anything else. But it may also be true that knowing this has ruined the experiment. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Bernice. It seems that she has been out of the office. For a while. Like, a really long time.

The Chili Cook Off didn’t go according to plan. There was some sort of hang up and most regular attendees were late. Something to do with our transit network. Junior was not late, and he had finished almost all of the Chili by the time anybody else got there. On the plus side, we did get to enjoy the remaining aroma in each of the pots. Some were quite spicy, and definitely Evil.

We are now making preparations for the Celebration of Affirmation, which is ordinarily the celebration where we say nice and reaffirming things to one another. While this is fine, I gave the Division of Dionysia a challenge. I said, what if we affirm ourselves through actions instead of words? The head of the division scratched his chin and thought for a moment before going off to start working on some ideas. We shall see what comes of this.

We are also preparing for the Big Black Hole celebration. It is usually a good time to remind ourselves what Evil can do when we don’t apply it carefully and thoughtfully. It reminds us that an experiment can go wrong, destroy a whole branch of the company, and create a wormhole to Costa Rica. Or wherever the hole goes now. The dirt was grape flavored, but it is now strawberry flavored. And, you know, dirt flavored.

I have just received word that they have translated and/or decrypted another proverb. “The wind is best when it dries your enemy’s skin. Best to invest in emollients.” Huh. That one seems pretty straightforward, but perhaps I am missing something.

Last time, Junior discussed Dana Govern in great detail. She is the woman who was given a staggering number of genetic modifications, and we have just sort of been waiting to see what would happen. Most of the time, she just seems to be a woman. Late thirties. Average figure. Generally attractive, but not in an unusual way. We have had some strange reports. One person claims they saw her grab her lunch from the fridge using one of her many tentacles. She does not have any tentacles. Another person reported seeing her cook a meal by setting her hand on fire. She has no severe burns. Another person claims to have stepped in a puddle, but then there was only Dana on the ground. This is all very exciting, though we have yet to catch any of it on video. So far, our most reliable way of finding her at any given moment is using Junior’s nose. I’m not sure how he finds her, but he always finds her.

Kimzzzzzzzzzzz has eased up on the dyed hair thing. I think she just got bored of it, because we’ve been refusing to pay her off. Now, the only thing that matters about you is how glamorous your nails are. Your face doesn’t matter, your hair doesn’t matter, your hygiene doesn’t matter. It’s only your nails. Long nails with fine decorations and intricate artwork are the best. I do not like having anything on my nails. It’s a texture thing. So I’m really unappealing right now. Except to people named Tabitha, apparently.

We now know that Meredith Gorgoro is alive. For those of you who are new, Meredith Gorgoro was in charge of the labor camp we built in a huge cavern we dug once looking for the biblical Hell. We caught her on camera again. But where she lost her left arm, she has now replaced it through some sort of field surgery with the arm of one of the monsters she has slain. It is an enormous and powerful arm, covered in white fur, and the skin underneath appears to be green. And from what we caught on the drone footage, it would appear that she can control it incredibly precisely. I probably don’t have to tell you this, shareholders, but an attachment like that would require meticulous and excruciating work attaching all of the nerves to their new destinations. But there she is. With a monster arm. I’m a little jealous, but I don’t know exactly why. It looks really cool. It would be hard to type with it, but I think I would get my way in meetings a lot more often if I would just whip that baby out any time someone questions me. Oh, you don’t think lemon skin is inedible, well, fuck you. Monster arm. Wait, maybe we should market monster arms. That would be sick.

I walked in on a heated argument between Jasmine Aashna and Dr. Dunkelwissen, head of the Division of Erotic Experiences and rogue scientist respectfully. I got the impression what they were arguing about wasn’t what they were really arguing about. They are still trying to answer the question “What is most sex?” but it doesn’t seem to be going very well. From what I could gather, they are having a hard time narrowing down any physical activities that can be said to always be sex, or super sexy sex. Yet the mental and emotional stuff lacks a certain edge necessary to be the most sex of all sex. They turned to look at me. I gently waved and saw myself out. For what it’s worth, on their whiteboard, they had the phrase “really long nails?” written and underlined several times. I can’t know for certain what that means out of context, but I felt like passing it along anyway.

They say that Evil once released a hundred thousand balloons, each destroying the drive and ambition in someone nearby when it fell to the Earth. This is Things We’re Taking Credit for Now. Today, we are taking credit for social media celebrities, an undying desire to be adored, and butt bleach. Now, you might be thinking, that seems a little unreasonable. With the exception of butt bleach, those other two things seem like they probably come about on their own. Well, you should stop right there. Stop thinking like that. Because thinking like that gets your butt extra bleached. And nobody needs that. We did these things. We made them. They’re ours. And extra butt bleaching kills.

Red Renton has won today’s Ruin-A-Life Drawing. As a result, Raz Razelton, the selected target of Red Renton, will have his life ruined. We gave the Wheel of Misery a nice pep talk, and then a mean spin. It landed on the space for Undecipherable. From this day forward, or as soon as the Damnation and Ruination Squad can get it done, Raz Razelton will be 97% more undecipherable, feeling the need to speak in ways where his meaning cannot be easily detected or understood. This will get annoying fast. For Evil measure, Red Renton will speak 22% more plainly, losing a little bit of tact in the process. Congratulations on the win and best of luck.

This brings us to the end of our broadcast. In a few minutes you will be permitted to destroy this marker. I will say it is excellent for writing your handle on toilet seats or bathroom mirrors, but you might go blind again in the process. Kind of hard to get away when that happens. Anyone who wasn’t a shareholder is almost certainly dead by now. The numbers are next.

122

199

337

338

449

567

Don’t cut the feed yet, Soundman. I just got another proverb. It says when the star Burgeron is closest to the Dark Planet, and the moon is at its highest point near Fuffeni, and a cool mist sweeps across the land, it shall be time to party hard. Let me just take a peek out of the window here. Wait, that one must be Burgeron, and… yes, Fuffeni, the dark planet, and the moon is so close! Call the Division of Dionysia! There’s not much time! We need to party! We have to party! It has been foretold. Or proverbed. There is no time to waste!

Credits: Kakos Industries is written and produced by Conrad Miszuk, who is also the voice of Corin Deeth, and the composer of the music. The introduction is read by Kim Aiello, and the credits are read by Kelsey Kemmer, know detangler extraordinaire. Please visit KakosIndustries.com for news, extras, and more episodes. There are also transcriptions on the website if you’d like to read along with the Kakos Industries announcements. That’s K-A-K-O-S-I-N-D-U-S-T-R-I-E-S dot com. Please visit store.KakosIndustries.com for merchandise and special offers and get wonderful benefits by becoming a subscription donor at kakosindustries.com/patreon. Questions, comments, or a strong desire to collaborate? Drop us a line at [email protected]. If you like Kakos Industries, be sure to rate and review us on your favorite podcasting service, and connect with us on YouTube (YouTube.com/KakosIndustries), Facebook (facebook.com/kakosindustries), Tumblr (kakosindustries.tumblr.com), and Twitter (@KakosIndustries). We encourage fan art and listener participation on all our social media platforms. Please visit our website for cast details and the credits for all of our social media contributors.

Special thanks to our esteemed shareholders Iain Croall, Dan Shumway, William Brandon, Floyd Singh Power, and Jack Attack. Also thanks to honored employee Dorkpool Dorkuss, who made sure to distribute valentines to everyone who wasn’t going to get one otherwise, and Chris Leclerc, who reorganized the DVD collection after they all catastrophically fell from the shelves. And thanks to our division heads Britney Garcia, head of The Division of Beanies, Booties, and Construction Projects That Are Probably Too Large for Yarn, Valerie Koop, Director of the Division of Inappropriate Games to Play in Public, Patrick Green, head of The Division of Oceanic Micro-Cryptozoology, Carl H, Director of the Division of Unanswered Messages, Xavier Jarman, Director of The Division of We Know Magic Doesn’t Exist But We’re Going to Keep on Trying, and Craig Czyz, director of the Division of Obscure Vintage Technology. The Division of Beanies, Booties, and Construction Projects That Are Probably Too Large for Yarn has begun designing a ferris wheel. It sounds even scarier than normal ferris wheels. The Division of Inappropriate Games to Play in Public has introduced The Real Life Drinking Game. Whenever your boss says something passive aggressive, take a shot! The Division of Oceanic Micro-Cryptozoology has lost the puddle-cabra, and are now much more focused on the unicorn actinopod. It uses its horn to gather food. The Division of Unanswered Messages has ignored their morning alarm for sixteen months. In that time, they’ve gotten up and went to work, but the whole time, their alarm has been going off, annoying many. The Division of We Know Magic Doesn’t Exist But We’re Going to Keep on Trying has begun using a Divining Rod to look for wells all around Kakos Industries. So far, there are no new wells, but many new holes. The Division of Obscure Vintage Technology has dragged out the old crate of 78s. The crate is only the finest pressings of people’s last words. They are truly haunting. Our esteemed shareholders, honored employees, division heads, and other Patreon patrons are the best. If you want a thank you in the credits, your own division, or other great rewards that help to keep this show running, please head to Kakosindustries.com/patreon. That’s Patreon: p-a-t-r-e-o-n.

Kakos Industries can be heavy sometimes. Try flipping off a wild animal to bring about catharsis.

#IFTTT #Kakos Industries #Do Evil Better

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iamnotbrianmay · 6 years ago

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The A Experience

okay, here goes the first of the two back to back updates for tonight. the tag list is: @seven-seas-of-why, @twotitsjohndeacon, @dancindeaky, @gee-uloser, @mozzarellamazzello, @mozzie-s, @deracine-dogma-deux, @shutupanddontjudge, @warping-reality, @demianhill

I hope you like it!

By noon Roger was so anxious that he called Freddie and asked him to come over. His flat was a mess, clothes thrown all over the place, speakers blasting songs that didn't last one minute before Roger decided that the lyrics, or the melody, wouldn't help his case, and tension filling the air in a way that made it hard for Roger to breathe.

There was a knock at the door, and Roger was off his phone and answering the door in the blink of an eye. He yanked open the door, completely forgetting that he was only wearing an old, oversized, shirt his parents had gotten him from their trip to Costa Rica and red boxers. Freddie met his eyes and grimaced, "Oh dear, must be really bad if I find you like this."

Roger crossed his arms defensively, "How'd you know I'm not like this all the time."

Freddie scoffed, walking past Roger, "Darling, nobody willingly listens to Nickelback unless they have already gone through most of the music on Spotify." The older man kicked aside a jacket, making way from the door to the place where Roger's speaker was proudly displayed on the kitchen counter, and right beside it, his phone. "So, just to start fixing this mess, I'm going to put some good music, to help you with your crisis."

He tossed Roger his phone after telling him to unlock it, the blond obliged, then handed Freddie the phone back. Jimi Hendrix started to blast through the speakers, and Freddie turned to him with a sly smile, "Okay, now onto more important things. What will you be wearing for tonight's dinner?"

Time seemed to fly when he spent it with Freddie. The older man seemed to know how to ease his mind, because suddenly all of the pent up anxiety from that morning had vanished by the time they got to the third outfit change. Freddie would pick pieces of clothing that Roger had thrown on the floor and chuck them at the younger man. He would go into the room, change, then strut out for Freddie.

Somewhere along the line, when the music had turned into the Dire Straights, Freddie had started to narrate Roger's outfits, giving them ratings out of twenty-five ("Come on, Rog. Twenty five is just a better number for the job.") and making Roger twirl and dance when they found one outfit they particularly liked. He was now trying out a jacket that had been stolen from the market stall of a grumpy looking woman at Kensington market. It was a pretty looking jacket, with black background and golden flowers stitched all over the jacket in a fancy looking pattern.

He looked at himself in the mirror and smiled, "Okay, Freddie, I'm coming out."

He heard his friend clear his throat from the other side of the door, "Okay, and now dazzling us with her beauty, comes Miss Elizabeth Taylor—"

Roger came out of the room and struck a pose, ready to keep listening to Freddie talking about how pretty he looked. Instead there was silence. Roger looked at Freddie quizzically, who had his eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Oh, darling, that looks amazing!"

Roger laughed, "Yeah?"

"Yes!" Freddie stood up from the couch and walked over, "Oh, you should definitely wear this for the dinner tonight! You'll be the talk of the party!"

Roger laughed once again, "I think I'm going to be the talk of the party even if I wear something simple, Fred."

The mood instantly dimmed, Freddie looked at him with a serious expression and placed both of his hands on Roger's shoulders, "Have you thought about what you are going to tell him?"

Roger shook his head, "I've been trying to think about it all morning, but nothing feels right."

Freddie guided them to the couch, throwing the clothes off the couch and to the floor, then sitting Roger down, "Talk to me, Liz."

Roger smiled shyly about the newly acquired nickname, and then sighed, "It's just— 'I think I don't want to break up with you' is too lame, and 'I think I fell in love with you' is way too much, way to fast."

"There is still many things you could say. Those are not your only options."

"I know, Fred," Roger whined, "I just can't find the right thing to say."

There was a long pause in which Freddie wrinkled and relaxed his face about five times before he finally settled on one idea, "What if you don't say anything?"

"As in not telling him?"

"As in flirting with him all night." Freddie clarified, "Make it clear enough that you like him a lot. sticking to his side all evening, and then proposing to go on a date, a real date, when we leave. Then you tell him about your feelings at the date. You give yourself more time to think about what you want to say to him. Not only a few miserable hours."

Roger tried to find any fault in Freddie's plans, searching for the catch, or the way it could go wrong apart from getting turned down, and gave up once he found there was nothing wrong with it. He ran a hand over his face before nodding, "Yeah, that sounds like a solid plan."

Freddie smiled, "Great, now let me just find something to wear and we will be off to the party."

"Okay," Roger agreed, "Let me help you choose."

Once they left Roger's flat, both dressed in equally outrageous clothing, they headed towards the underground station that lead them as close as they could get to Phoebe's house. Freddie made a few calls, most of them to instruct Brian and John what to take, and then turned his full attention to Roger, and start planning his date with Brian.

They stopped talking once they were outside Phoebe's house. It was a large and pretty house with flowers and decorations adorning the doorway, inside he could hear loud music, probably Cyndi Lauper, and laughter. He tugged at the sleeve of his jacket, trying to look presentable.

Freddie grabbed his wrist, "I told you, darling, you'll be the talk of the party with how pretty you look."

And talk of the party he was. Roger entered the house walking side by side with Freddie, and as they got close a commotion could be heard from inside. Soon a pretty blonde girl with a crooked nose opened the door, she squealed when she saw Freddie and threw her arms around him. The singer spinned her once before setting the blonde down, "Evening, m'lady."

"Freddie," she turned towards Roger, "you brought us our gift!"

Freddie laughed, "This is Roger, Brian's boy—"

"Brian's boyfriend," She interrupted, "Yes, I know. We have been waiting for him to show up." She stuck her hand out, "Hi, my name is Mary Austin."

"Roger Taylor," he answered and took her hand. Mary instantly pulled him into a hug, "I'm so glad you could come."

Then she turned around and started dragging them inside. Roger looked at Freddie and the older man could barely mouth an I'm sorry before they were pulled apart into different groups of people. After twenty greetings, a dozen compliments on his jacket, what seemed like three hundred hugs, and a rather large glass of something being shoved into his hand, Roger was finally able to stand beside Freddie for moral support. That small peace lasted for about ten minutes, which was the time it took for Brian and John to arrive, then all hell broke loose again.

Not only because all of the people in the house started screaming and laughing, shoving Roger and Brian together, but because Brian looked like a dream to Roger. His hair curled right above his shoulders, framing his face. He was wearing black pants that made his legs look long and slim, and he was wearing a grey and white jacket that fit him just right.

Roger didn't have to pretend to look absolutely smitten.

Brian leaned down and placed a soft kiss on Roger's nose, "You look amazing tonight."

Roger blushed, "When did I magically turn into a mirror?"

At that the older man threw his head back with laughter, sound that made Roger's heart skip a beat. Cooing came from all around the room at the action. Everyone was watching the pair with soft eyes. Once Roger met Freddie's eyes the other man raised his cup, "Three cheers for the couple!"

Everyone proceeded to make loads of noise and Roger buried his face on Brian's chest. The older man brought his hand to cup the back of Roger's head, "I did warn you about them."

Roger laughed, and remembering what Freddie had said about flirting with Brian all night long, he hooked his finger around the belt loop of Brian's pant, "I like them a lot."

"You would."

The mood was broken when the door opened once again, letting in a breeze of cold air. Everyone turned to look at the door and Roger took his chance to bury his head further into Brian's body, practically nuzzling into his chest. That is until he heard Brian mutter under his breath, "Oh Jesus fuck."

He peeled himself away and looked at the person on the door. The guy was tall, lanky, and badly dressed. Roger was about to ask who he was until his crappy eyes adjusted to the sudden change of light and his heart fell to the floor.

The drummer felt out of breath, out of balance, and ready to run out of the building. Old and new feelings bubbled up to the surface, as Roger watched the man say hi to some of Freddie's friends, and take off his scarf and coat. He clenched his fists to stop them from shaking, and closed his eyes to prevent unshed tears from spilling. Then once his emotions and expression were suppressed he allowed himself to open to his eyes, only to find him standing a few meters away.

"Roger," the brunette said once he saw him, "I didn't think I would see you tonight."

And with those nine words, Tim fucking Staffell was back into Roger's life.

#the a experience fic #maylor #roger taylor #brian may #freddie mercury #john deacon #tim staffell #my writing #my fic

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endless-vall · 7 years ago

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The map - Part 13 - Endless Summer fanfic

<< First < Previous , Next >

Summary: Recruiting Estela doesn’t seem too hard, but who’s side is she on?

Author’s note: Going back into a lighter pace/storytelling, we’re closing in on the ending.

Tagging: @mariamatsuo @writtenbycandy @asprankle @liam-rhys @endlessflame @endlessly-searching-for-you @truekender @princesstopgun @quacksonlover. Comment on this post to let me know if you wanna be tagged as well.

“Estela Montoya.” Mike notes, as a sleepy Taylor barely sits up in her bed.

“You’re up early.” She comments, furrowing her eyebrows at him.

Did he recite some sort of name at her?

“Couldn’t sleep too well. If what you’re saying is true, we have to solve this mystery fast.” Mike explained, munching on a leftover piece of cold pizza left from last night.

He threw one Taylor’s way and she was lucky enough to catch it before it gracefully hit her in the face.

She shook her head, but bit in the cold pizza, savoring it’s taste.

There was something about college food that made it both disgusting and delicious at the same time.

She chuckled to herself as she continued. “You were saying?” She asks, getting back into Mike’s previous words.

“Estela Montoya.” He notes again.

“What about her?” Taylor knew her from around campus. They might’ve had a few classes together, too.

A quiet yet intimidating girl, that seemed to have just the right amount of scary in her.

“She’s our next lead.” Mike shows a photo of her, even though Taylor already knows how she looks.

“Why?” She asks.

“She’s the daughter of the scientist Rourke was fooling around with. And from what I’ve gathered... She hates his guts.”

“I have a class with her today.” Taylor points out after checking her timetable.

“Then I’ll talk to her.” She added. Mike nodded, agreeing.

“It’s almost semester’s break, so we should work fast.” He tells her.

“Already?” Taylor’s eyes widen in shock. She barely blinked and the semester was almost over.

It feels as if just yesterday she first confided in Mike with her weird dreams.

Now look where it got them.

Mike nodded, and laid back on his bed. They didn’t have classes for at least an hour, and could rest a little before actually getting up.

Taylor rested her head over her pillow as well, as memories of the last night flooded back to her mind.

She had more, of those dreams, lately.

She didn’t tell Mike, though. Not because she didn’t trust him - Nothing like that, but because they were getting more and more ridiculous.

Time travel? Yetis? Ice foxes and blue people? Sabertoothed tigers?

She could remember more and more details, too, but nothing that made sense.

She still couldn’t make out the faces of her friends, in those dreams.

Oh, and one last thing.

She was pretty sure she was married in those dreams.

But that couldn’t be true, right?

She wasn’t even in love... With anyone.

So get married?

Nah.

She shook her head to herself, and wrapped up in the blanket, setting an alarm clock for a little bit later.

She’ll have a nice nap and forget about all of this.

---

"Vanuu! Answer me!” Taylor hears her own voice once again.

A clear figure makes its way towards her, and Taylor takes once hesitant step back.

“Vanuu?” Her voice wavers.

The figure glows with something, and presents it to Taylor.

Taylor looks down at his hand, and then back up at the figure’s face.

In the spurt of the moment, she takes them in hand.

Looking down at her hand, she sees it. Dog-tags.

Why would Vanuu give her dog-tags, anyway?

Before she can wonder, Vanuu speaks, but she doesn’t see their lips move, just hears a voice inside her own head.

“Protect him”

Right after that, she jolts awake.

Gasping for air, she tries to wrap her mind around her newest dream.

It was different than before, but still... Equally weird. It gave her the sensation it was related to the others, but at the same time something was more important about this dream.

She had more dreams lately and yet all of them faded into the background in comparison to this one.

Who’s Vanuu? Who does he want her to protect?

Those are questions she’d have to put off for later, since she has to get ready and head to class already.

She headed to class. More confused than before, but determined with a mission.

She suddenly heard an engine roaring beside her, and saw a dark haired girl on a motorcycle passing beside her.

She caught a glimpse of the girl and then her eyes lighted up. Estela!

She watched as Estela parked her bike, and walked over to her.

“Estela Montoya?” She asked, maybe a little too formally.

Estela raised her gaze to her, startled.

After a few seconds of studying her up, Estela got off her bike and faced Taylor.

“Yes,” She nodded.

“Hi. I’m Taylor. We have history class together. Wanna walk with me?” She extended her hand.

Estela hesitated but grasped her hand, lightly, and shook it.

She seemed as if she didn’t know herself why she did it, but just rolled with it.

“Sure.”

Jake stood in front of his mirror in his old house.

It was so weird being here again, and yet - So exciting.

He was filled with a warm feeling of joy whenever he stepped inside his house, knowing he had a loving family who supported him, that he was finally free to visit.

Also, the fact that Mike was there, not that far away from him, was the best thing that could’ve possibly happen.

Not only that Jake got to be happy, reunited with his family, but so did Mike and hadn’t the whole story with Rourke in Costa-Rica happened, maybe Jake could’ve been truly one-hundred percent happy for the first time since he left the army and escaped Lundgren.

He sighed, before reaching for his razor.

Time to say goodbye to his beard.

His mom urged him to shave it.

“You’ll never get a date with that rusty beard of yours.” She teased, and felt a teen all over again.

“Who said I was planning on scoring a date?” He frowned at her but his mother was a stubborn woman, and the beard probably reminded her of all the time Jake was away.

He understood why she’d want that away.

Smirking to himself and starting to shave it off, he finally listened to her advice.

“Mom, I’m off,” He said, walking down the stairs.

“Again??” She asked, almost saddened.

“Yeah I need to meet a friend.” He tells her.

Well, he could call Estela a friend - if she actually remembered who he was.

Somehow, Jake doubted it would be an easy task…

The moment he’s at the bottom of the stairway, his mother’s whole face lights up.

He shaved the beard.

She collects him into her arms, and Jake chuckles nervously but hugs back.

“See you soon.” She smiles, and lets go off him.

He nods and goes on his way.

“So, this is gonna sound weird, but I was wondering if you could tell me anything about your mother?” Taylor asked, her eyebrows arching upwards into a hesitant but hopeful expression.

Had she had the luxury of time she would’ve taken her time, got to know Estela, got past her walls and friendly asked her about it, but she didn’t have that luxury, so desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Anything at all?” She added.

Not only she suspected Jake, Aliester and their friends, but she also had a really, really bad gut feeling that something was about to happen soon,

And both she and Mike would have to work fast to stop it from happening.

Estela looked her up and down, as if she was seeing her for the first time.

Usually, Estela was this quiet, distant and a little hostile girl, who everyone were both mesmerized by but terrified off.

Most people preferred to stay away from her, since she was too much for them to handle.

But as far as Taylor could remember, she was always nice to Estela. Their interactions didn’t go past sharing a couple of pens during exams, but it was a beginning, right?

She looked Estela up, studying her features. Her glance was unreadable, her lips sealed in a narrow line, and face stiff.

Taylor thought she’d made a mistake, she bet all she had and lost everything, before Estela’s eyes glistened in something familiar, and her confused and stern expression broke into a grin.

Was that a yes?

“Sure.” She said. “But why don’t you tell me about yours first?”

Taylor gulped.

Well, that was an unexpected turn of events, but Estela wasn’t being unfair.

Fine.

She took a deep breathe. “She passed away my freshman year.” She admitted.

The memories flooding her mind, only...

That something felt incredibly forged with the images in her mind.

She remember it happening to her, but... It felt as if it had happened to someone else. It felt as if Taylor was witnessing someone else’s loss.

Her grief and pain were real, but the memories seemed wrong, somehow.

She shook her head and ignored it.

“Oh.” Estela looked as if she regretted asking, but Taylor hurried to reassure her. “I’m sorry--”

“-It’s okay. My aunt kind of took care of me. Me and Mike visited her over the course of the last holiday season. We really had a blast.” She smiled at her.

There was something melancholic about her smile, but it was an honest one.

Estela must’ve seen that, before she nodded. “Okay.”

After that, it seemed Estela was ready to cooperate completely. “What do you want to know?”

Jake made his way towards the local Hartfelt cafe. It seemed Aliester and the gang from La-Huerta really liked spending their time there.

He walked through the doors and was surprised to see Taylor was there as well.

He spotted her sitting in a distant corner along with Estela, the person he was supposed to get to first.

Well, screw that.

Maybe he still had a chance, though.

Aliester waved him from the other side of the cafe and Jake made his way towards him.

“What’s up?” He asked, sitting down.

After ordering something and getting an update from Aliester, Jake sat back in his chair and waited for the right moment to approach Estela.

“So you think she remembers?” He asked Aliester, wondering how hard is it gonna be to convince her to help them.

“I talked to her earlier today. She agreed to meet up, and while she didn’t really give away whether or not she has regained her memories... Well, she was awfully nice to me.”

“Then she must remember.” Jake snorted.

“I thought so too.”

Estela told Taylor everything she wanted to know.

Even the things she didn’t really like.

She told her about Olivia and how she worked for Rourke for years.

She told her what an outstanding scientist she was. She told her about the... Less legal work Olivia got to do for Rourke Internationals.

She also told her how Olivia didn’t agree with Rourke’s course of actions, and how eventually she turned against him - even though she had an affair with him at one point.

“So, Roruke didn’t run away because the news about his affair got out, he ran away because-”

“My mom almost exposed him, yeah.” Estela nodded, confirming.

Taylor gulped. “Can I ask...”

“He killed her.” Estela shut her eyes, still pained and furious with Rourke...

But the memories of La-Huerta and how she’s grown past that soothed her. She took a deep breathe, and reopened her eyes, sending a weak smile towards Taylor.

Taylor took her hands in hers and thanked her.

“That couldn’t have been an easy story to share.”

Estela just shook her head. “You’re going after Rourke, aren’t you?” She asked, in a half smile.

“How did you know?--”

“Whatever helps you in your investigation.”

Taylor nodded, maybe a little too fast but at least she was getting somewhere.

She was about to continue the conversation with Estela when she noticed a familiar figure striding their way.

She was so deep in conversation with Estela prior to that, that she never even noticed him coming into the cafe.

“Ladies.” Jake approaches them, his signature smile smeared over his lips.

She looks up to him, and something’s different about him.

He shaved off his beard and suddenly Taylor’s chest filled with a warm, confusing feeling.

Wait, what? No you can’t do that, don’t be silly!!

“Wow… You- You look-” Taylor mumbles, before she can stop it as she examines him thoroughly.

“I look?” He smirks at her.

He doesn’t know what gotten into him, but he uses a mischievously flirty tone.

Maybe to annoy her even more, now that he knows she doesn’t like him.

He didn’t have to try to ‘impress’ anymore, so he could let loose and have fun all he wanted.

She blushes. “Different.” She blurts out.

Plan worked.

Jake snorts and walks past her, leaning over the table closer to Estela.

“May I have a word with you, please?” He asked nicely, sending Estela a knowing look, making sure Taylor wouldn’t see that.

Estela considered for a second before agreeing.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” She promised Taylor, and took off with Jake.

#playchoices #endless summer #the map #playchoices fanfic #es #jake x mc #jake mckenzie #estela montoya

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pokefan531 · 4 years ago

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[MMD] Back to the Wacky House from Alola Trip + announcement

Headcanon description first:

Finally since December 4th sometime in afternoon, the whole Wacky House team returned to Pokefan's Wacky House. The lovely Daisy who's been working out here, kept the entire house safe. She told us that she kept the house protected and nothing suspicious in sight, not even detecting Iris coming. Daisy did a good job, and only invited Avery and Klara as they both agree to come in sometimes. Good thing she was very reliable on taking care of this place.

But also, Daisy told us that she noticed that we have a neighbor a bit far from this house. Well this house is surrounded with big fields so we have big wide yards, but there are houses around. Daisy just say she saw 6 young adults moving in to a house, and says they're pretty interesting. We can't wait to meet those people someday!

As Daisy leaves with a welcomed thank you, the wacky house quickly do their activities regularly. Yep, a trip to Alola was so great! We stayed in Hano Grand Resort in the middle of the trip for 5 days, doing various activities, like the pool, the beach, the buffet, and other fun events. We took multiple pics of us having fun around Alola. We started in Hau'oli City as we flew to there on first day, and went around it. We also attended Kukui's party who also invited Lillie too. A week later, we traveled to Akala Island to go stay in Hano Grand Resort for nearly a week. Although when we entered, Champion Iris appeared, saying there is no Iris or anyone around on our time there, so good thing she took a fine care of it just so she won't try to get Ash there again. So afterwards, we went to take a tour around the island, and even went to Route 7 to find hot springs, so we stayed for few days. We even take a look at restaurants that are great quality with lots of foods in menus. And also, we went to a mall to have fun there. On and on first day of our trip, we participated to BDSP event as a couple of us got the games. Once our trip was about to be over, we had a blast at night with a huge party along with Team Skull with Guzma lol.

So yeah, be prepared with a couple of vacatio renders to appear.

Now Real Life update and channel:

Ok, so 2/3 of the story above is true to my trip in Costa Rica in last two weeks. I returned at Saturday December 4th, but had to do a couple of things like helping out others for a MMD model, and even trying to get tools for editing to make a vacation video for my channel. So here is my trip story. All right, we just entered the country on the 19th, yep in BDSP release date! Although we didn't attend an event there, I already have it and played up to 6th gym by the end of the trip. Also we did attend in one party, and later on entered Barcelo Tambor and stayed for 3 days, in which I filmed for a future video of Champion Iris related, as well as for a three part vacation video coming up as well. We also went to hot springs later on that one day and I also recorded there too. We did enjoy hanging with other families often.

So you probably may ask. Did you say you were gonna upload renders on youtube's community channel or on DA during your trip? Or even a vacation video? To answer, I would, and I even made a couple of renders during my trip. Not all, but did some of them on my own time. The real problem, is having a horrible mobile signal, that the bandwidth on international service will be very limited like 2g, and I can't see much of any videos most of the time, hence the problem on uploading contents during my trip. The scheduled small videos from 2 weeks ago was already done in advance. Even connecting to my family house's wifi has problems too. Faster than mobile, but can be unstable at times, and I don't often bring my laptop outside of our summer home. So there's that. Although the only exception was my new PFP in night of December 1st, for Christmas related.

From this point, I'll finally upload content from my trip as stated from my announcement last month. I'll upload part 1 shortly as it's rendering.

#mmdmikumikudance #Daisy

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themurphyzone · 8 years ago

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His World: Monkeys

Requested by @arendalphaeagle! It took me forever to get to this one....

1. Monkey Phase

Milo wasn’t normally this fussy. But now he refused to wear any other pajamas besides the fuzzy monkey onesie, even though it clearly needed a wash. There were crumbs lodged all over the sleeves, and the round tan spot in the middle had a little smudge of drool. “Come on, Milo,” Brigitte cooed. “No monkey pajamas tonight. These are dirty.”

He crawled to the side of the crib nearest to the wall, tugging the monkey pajamas so that they rested in a crumpled heap next to him. Next he glared angrily at her, though the effect was lost when he also puffed out his cheeks. And also because babies were adorable when they tried to be mad.

“I’ll give you two bananas for breakfast tomorrow, if you’ll give me your pajamas,” Brigitte offered. “How does that sound?”

“Ana?” Milo repeated.

“Ana,” Brigitte confirmed. Milo squealed in delight, and Brigitte scooped him up in her arms, cradling him with one hand and tossing the monkey pajamas in the hamper. “I blame Martin for turning you into a little monkey. Now, do you want the pajamas with the presents or the bees?”

2. Monkey Business

“Blast this infernal attic,” Balthazar muttered, sneezing for the 23rd time. No, he wasn’t so bored that he was counting his sneezes. Who did that? They were camped out in the attic of the Murphy residence, waiting for the family to leave for the day so they could conduct a thorough investigation. Unfortunately, the family kept forgetting the most random things and kept rushing back inside to grab them.

Maybe there would be information in the attic.

Balthazar opened a large box, a family of squirrels scolding him for disturbing their nap. “Pardon me. So sorry,” he closed the flaps, leaving the box where it stood. “Dakota, help me find something I can use for proof!”

Vinnie shoved a bag of chips into his pocket and started poking around at a corner. “Chips kinda taste gross in the attic anyway. You get to take in a mouthful of dust and cobwebs while eating and-oh cool, so this is the time period where they had all those children’s animal magazines! I loved looking at these when I was a kid!”

“There’s not enough time-oh, never mind,” Balthazar knew it was a lost cause when Vinnie picked up an issue with a photograph of a spider monkey on the front cover, flipping through the pages.

“Balthy, are you sure you don’t wanna learn about New World monkeys with me?” Vinnie asked. Balthazar continued to rummage through a stamp collection, mentally noting they all seemed to be centered around historical disasters. “What if we were assigned to, I don’t know, Costa Rica and we got lost in the rainforest or something. And we have to learn how to hop from tree to tree because there’s a ferocious jaguar that everybody’s afraid of. And we would have to avoid arrows tipped with dart frog poison. And there’s probably an ancient temple somewhere. There’s usually one in those kinds of settings.”

A practical application. Not likely, but plausible. Setting aside the stamp collection for now, Balthazar leaned against the wall and sighed. “I suppose it’s a possibility,” he mused as Vinnie laid down on the floorboards, his head resting on Balthazar’s stomach. He propped the magazine up on his chest.

Listening to Vinnie gush about the eating habits of capuchin monkeys was a great stress reliever.

3. We’re Going to the Zoo and We’re Gonna Get More Than We Bargained For

“And here comes a cart full of kids, monkeys in hats, and a clown on a unicycle barreling through to make a daredevil leap through the shark infested waters that has put at least thirty-four professional stuntmen in the hospital! Huh, what? No way! Sorry folks! Correction, it was thirty-two professional stuntmen and two pharmacists.”

“What do we do?” Melissa shrieked, clutching a vacuum cleaner as a lifeline as the cart hurtled uncontrollably down the ramp.

“Well, as soon as this blows over we should really get these monkeys back to their exhibit,” Milo replied, watching the monkeys hoot to each other as the banana perfume the cart was coated in whipped them up into a frenzy. “The zoo staff will be using them for a kid’s birthday party later.”

“Monkeys, stop chasing us! Monkeys, stop chasing us!” Zack shouted. The monkeys ignored him, one latching onto an iron bar of the cart and desperately holding on as he was helplessly pulled along. Milo pulled the hitchhiking monkey up so he didn’t get hit by the wheels. The monkey hugged Milo out of fright instead, covering his face with a long, hairy arm.

A shark appeared out of the water just as the cart went airborne, jaws wide open. Melissa threw down the vacuum cleaner, smacking the shark in the head. It sunk beneath the surface in pain.

Milo managed to move the arm so that he could peer out with one eye, turning pale as three more sharks appeared, bumping the bottom of the cart with their noses so that it landed on the other ramp safely. They slowly rolled to a stop, catching their breaths.

The clown was knocked out on the other side, while the monkeys around him fought over the unicycle. The monkey that was clinging to Milo let go, circling around the walkway to join the others. Workers herded them to the exit.

“On second thought, do you just want to find a balloon vendor?” Milo asked.

“Okay, but this time, I handle all communication with the woodpeckers,” Zack said.

#his world #milo murphy's law #brigitte #melissa chase #zack underwood #vinnie dakota #balthazar cavendish

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sentrava · 7 years ago

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Smoky Mountain Adventures: A Dinner Show in Pigeon Forge, Dolly Style

Like anywhere, Tennesseans are a diverse bunch with varied backgrounds, cultures and interest, but we all do agree on a few things: UT orange should be the state color, hot chicken is an essential food group, and Dolly Parton is the real queen, the unofficial patron saint of the arts (and humanity) who could save us all in these troubling times of strife. And anything Dolly touches turns to sparkly, glitter-infused gold, like her new dinner show in Pigeon Forge.

I’ve been coming to the Smokies since I was old enough to have memories. Both my late grandparents grew up down the road in Knox County, and I have cousins and aunts and uncles scattered throughout the surrounding towns that flank the Great Smoky Mountain. To me, this is Dolly country��you can’t deny what she’s done for her Tennessee mountain home, including employing more than 4,000 people, sending out more than 100,000,000 books to children across the region and supporting victims of the Gatlinburg fire financially while they got back on their feet.

It’s clear: It’s Dolly’s world, and we’re just living in it.

SVV and I went down for a quick Spring Break of our own last week to work with her team and check out the new show, which is starting its second year with a fresh new performance that gave me allllll The Greatest Showman feels. Heading to Pigeon Forge soon? You don’t want to miss this act.

What to See: Dolly Parton’s Spectacular Dinner and Show at Smoky Mountain Adventures

Romance, comedy, music, acrobatics, terrifying feats of strength and balance—Dolly Parton’s Spectacular Dinner and Show has a little bit of it all. The new cirque-inspired act just launched in mid-March and we attended one of the first shows with a group of eight, ranging in ages from nine to 55, a good litmus test for how young (or old) you have to be to enjoy such an performance. The answer? It’s universal.

Kids can arrive early and get all dolled up in the Outpost with face paint and flower crowns, wings and a wand if they’re lucky. The Outpost itself is designed to nudge show-goers into the spirit with old-timey games, trivia (Dolly-themed, naturally) and other fun interactive components. I’m not going to lie: I briefly toyed with the idea of getting my face painted, too. For research, of course.

Once the doors open to unveil Celebration Ridge, a soaring expanse of a quadruple-decker room, you’ll find your tiered-style seat and a server will take your drink order before beginning to pile heaping spoons full of delicious Southern specialties on your plate. Our four-course meal was akin to Thanksgiving dinner—think: sugar-cured ham, fried chicken, mac and cheese, sweet potato delight, the whole nine yards—and I did not leave hungry. But the servers are the real MVPs here, dodging up to 700 show-goers as they expertly balance drinks and plates of food while diners sit in their seats, their eyes glued to the mesmerizing act taking place down on the stage.

The show itself feels rather like being out on the town for an evening in New York’s Theater District—only, without the pretense. The production value is surprising given how small a town Pigeon Forge is, but team Dolly recruited top-notch talent from far and wide.

The cast members hail from Australia, Brazil, Siberia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Hungary, and Cuba and, of course, various parts of the US. There were even a couple of furry performers and a lone, long-haired pig named Gibson (who has two understudies, it bears noting). How’s that for entertainment?

You already know it’s a family-oriented show, but can you go without kids in tow? Absolutely. SVV and I both had a blast. I’ve always been drawn to acrobats—even more so now that I’ve been doing AcroYoga for three years—and ooh’d and aah’d and gasped as they flipped and tumbled and glided across the stage.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say the special effects were pretty magical. If you’re lucky, you’ll even be plucked from the crowd for one of the many audience-participation bits!

Shows run every night of the week, so no matter when you’re visiting the Smokies, you can get in on this Pigeon Forge dinner show.

Where to Stay: Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort and Spa

Dolly has her own resort now, and it’s every bit as perfect as she is. I’d been dying to stay at DreamMore Resort and Spa since it opened nearly three years ago, and it lived up to expectations—especially as the Dolly Parton Suite was unoccupied and we got to take a peek. If Miss Dolly herself isn’t using it, it’s open for guests to book. That’s definitely going on the bucket list for me!

Spanning 300 rooms, DreamMore Resort and Spa is just big enough without feeling overwhelming. Being where it’s located, in Sevier County where cheap hotels are a dime a dozen, I wasn’t expecting the sophisticated, country estate feel that we found when we checked into the resort.

But like everything else, Dolly put her touch on this property, and she didn’t want it to be over-the-top. Sure, there are glimpses of her, from album covers to 1,800+ butterflies woven throughout the property, but everything is tastefully done and classy.

One thing I’m regretting is not taking advantage of the “and spa” part of the equation. We wandered down to the spa and checked out the pedicure chairs and massage treatment rooms, and I made a mental note to prioritize this on my next stay.

What to Do: Visit Dollywood

You knew I was going there, right? You can hardly come to Pigeon Forge and not visit Dolly’s own theme park. It had been just over three years since my last visit to Dollywood with SVV’s family, and in that time, they debuted the Lighting Rod, which zips around the wooden tracks at speeds up to 73 miles per hour and, at times, feels as if your face is going to melt off. It was adrenaline-inducing. It was fast. It was awesome.

Dollywood seems to always have something going on. Right now, it’s Festival of Nations through April 9, which totally appealed to this traveler’s heart, then Barbeque and Bluegrass starts in May, followed by Dollywood’s Summer Celebration from June 16 to Aug. 5.

The great thing about staying at DreamMore is not only are you right across the street from Dollywood and Dollywood’s Splash Country water park, but there’s also a free shuttle that transports you back and forth, so you need not worry about the hassle (and cost) of moving your car and parking.

**********

Other than two months immediately following New Year’s, Dolly Parton’s Spectacular Dinner and Show at Smoky Mountain Adventures and Dollywood are open throughout the year, so you can recreate this trip at any time, whether Spring Break, summer vacation or a weekend trip to see the Smokies’ fall foliage in all its glory.

Have you ever visited any of Dolly’s properties? Would you go all out and hit every one of her attractions in a single weekend? (I highly recommend this plan of attack.)

This post is sponsored by World Choice Investments. All opinions are our own.

PIN IT HERE

Smoky Mountain Adventures: A Dinner Show in Pigeon Forge, Dolly Style published first on https://medium.com/@OCEANDREAMCHARTERS

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beyondvapepage · 6 years ago

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 269

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 269 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Adam: Hey, we are welcome everybody to Hump Day Hangouts Episode 269. I don’t know just sounded cool. So anyways, gonna roll right into it. And we got some good announcements coming up. But first I want to say hi to you guys and see what’s going on and then we’re going to dive into we got a lot of questions this week. So want to make sure we get into what looks like everyone’s fully back from the holidays now and focused on moving forward. So I think the questions are on full blast, but Bradley, how are you doing today?

Bradley: I’m well, how are you?

Adam: I wasn’t prepared for that. No, doing good. Yeah. Nice and cool down here. I’m in the Bay Area near San Francisco. It’s actually really nice. It’s partly cloudy and I’m getting ready to head up and take some time off and visit family later this week. So I’m pretty pumped.

Bradley: Very cool. I’m glad to be back to a normal schedule. So got a shit ton of work backed up from the holidays.

Adam: Yeah, the routine is good. Definitely it’s nice to go on vacation. I really look forward to coming back and kind of even if I’m not working full time, getting back into the groove. Hernan, how are you doing, man?

Hernan: I’m doing great, man. I’m really, really pumped for what’s coming. I’m really pumped for the next couple of weeks actually flying to Nashville. By the end of the month, we were getting an award for Semantic Mastery, which is pretty cool. It’s the Two Hundred Club award. So gonna be there in the Funnel Hacking live 2020. So I’m excited about that. And I’m excited about what’s cooking this month for Semantic Mastery. So really pumped to be here.

Adam: Definitely. And we will circle back to that last part with her on here in a minute. But first, Chris, how are you doing today?

Chris: Well, I’m doing super good here and I’m excited because in a couple of days it will actually in two weeks almost. I’ll be going skiing in the mountains and yeah like Christmas was not too big of a holiday. I was working and stuff. So like yeah, I was with my family like I kept it up. And yeah looking forward to actually have some really vacation towards the end of the month.

Adam: Sounds good man. Yeah, I’m actually going to be doing the same thing I want I’m not going to be joining any. I’m gonna be going to Puerto Rico for like work vacation so I’ll be hopefully doing some work from the beach there. Hernan looks like he’s getting ready to say something. Do you have something you’d like to add or

Hernan: no, no, no the work part of it. But Awesome.

Adam: Well, speaking of beaches and warm weather, Marco, how you doing today?

Marco: warm and sunny. Oh, can I say it? Groundhog Day, dude, Groundhog Day. Good, great, great holidays. I actually worked over the holidays on it on and off. When the family was busy with other stuff. I had time to go do a ton of research into some of the things that are coming up. heavy hitter club, Semantic Mastery, a lot of things that we’re planning to do. I actually found a flaw in my math. And I found a flaw in my math for a lot of the stuff that we’re doing, you know, that plugin that I built that I made available to mastermind members. There’s a flaw in it. But I’m correcting it because I found the math twice I got the math people working on it, we accounted for the discrepancy. But for the discrepancy, I found that there was the force was disturbed. Suddenly, I saw the there was a ripple in the forest. And so we had to go and fix that. We got we had to go and find out why we did that. It was just back and forth, servers and computers and geeks all over throwing out equations that I don’t understand. I understand the basics of it. I just tell him Look, this is a problem. We need to fix it and then they go they they figure it all out and they bring it back to me and something that I can build into the plug in. So that’s what I did. Besides spending time with my wife, 3 kids and in laws, which is time consuming in and of itself. So I’m glad to be back at work.

Adam: Fair enough. Definitely. I think that’s yet definitely a common thread here. So I’m going to pass it over to Hernan real quick, but I wanted to tell before Hernan talks about this, I want to give you the specifics. And I’m gonna let her tell you a little bit more about it. But in two weeks on Hump Day Hangouts, we’re going to have a special intro we’re going to be launching a brand new training course but it’s a hell of a lot more than that. All right, you’ve heard us talking about a 2xyouragency. We’re getting ready right now to release that. And I don’t know Hernan, I’m starting to like stumble because I’ve got so many things I want to like touch on and tell people about but maybe if you just want to give people again, like kind of the overview of what this is about and who it’s for.

Hernan: Yeah, for sure. So most of the people that are watching come to Hangouts, they do some agency work in some capacity, right? And we refer to an agency whenever you’re solopreneur that have a couple of VAs and then maybe you have anywhere between three to five clients. Or maybe you have a bigger team, you have maybe 20 to 30 VAs and you have 10, 15, 20 clients, however many you might have. So we started asking you guys, we started serving our audience with something that we do frequently. And one of the things that came up a lot was how do I get more clients? So that was the first thing, the number one thing that came up. So how do I get more clients? How do I get more clients and not that bu how do I increase the quality of the of the clients that I’m getting? And basically, the client, the quality of the clients that you’re getting is you need to decide on who you want to work with. Are the these people super cool? They’re geeking out on SEO paid media with you, they have this mentality that they want to grow their business and all that stuff. So what we decided to do and this took place last year, during our corporate meeting after POFU Live 2019 is to put together a brand new training program, which is going to be a comprehensive program and we decided to name it 2xyouragency because the goal and the promise of that program is that you can double your agency revenue in 90 days if you apply the concepts.

So basically, we’re going to be going deep into prospecting, generating more leads, generating more clients to your agency, and also going after SEO, going after paid media, Google, Facebook ads and whatnot. And then additionally, we want to help you guys increase the worth and the value that you’re delivering to your clients or you can charge more money, work less hours and show you guys how to be more productive and how to outsource. So it’s going to be a really comprehensive program that has allowed us to you know, do this from five different parts of the world. It has allowed some of us you know, we want to travel want to go to conferences. I’m traveling, Chris’s traveling Marcos with his family, Costa Rica, I’m traveling Bradley, he’s not traveling, but he’s launching.

Adam: He hates traveling. He’s doing what he wants.

Hernan: That’s cool too. And and that he’s launching additional sources already. So I think that that’s really, really powerful. And that is something that we want to share with you guys. And we want to share with you guys how we have been doing it and put in our brains together to actually help you achieving that. So I’m really uh, we’re really excited about the launch of that’s going to be in two weeks.

Adam: So yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say if you want to get notified and you’re interested already, head over to 2xyouragency.com we have an early access list hop into that which special deal. And also want to say if you’re just joining us for the first time, welcome. Be sure to be back here in two weeks, if not every single week for that special event. But also the first place to start with us right now is the Battle Plan. And you can find out more about that at battleplan.semanticmastery.com. And then we have the done for you services. A lot of people who are watching Of course know this, but we do get new people watching and are saying hey, I hear you talk about syndication networks, RYS drive stacks, press releases, where should I get this stuff done? Head over to mgyb.co. All right. That’s your one stop shop for all that stuff and we’re adding more services constantly in the SEO shield, and it’s two varieties just came out within the last two months. Really good results with those and I mean you can find out more about that I’m not going to tell you all about it just go check it out. That’s going to become the backbone moving forward.

And last but not least, if you’re watching the replay, we really do appreciate it if you can subscribe or leave a comment Say hi. We appreciate it and we just you know, it’s nice to see the engagement and know that people are out there and getting us out of it. So if you do check out these videos, you see this and you’re getting good use out of it. Let us know and if you have any questions again come to semantic mastery.com/HDquestions every week at 4pm Eastern

Marco: for 2xyouragency before we move on, I just want to give a quick just just a nugget for people to actionable sheet right now. Get help. Get help instead of you be doing it all yourself. You’re actually losing money because you’re you become the bottleneck. Everything stopped at you, and at how much time you have to deal with, with everything we have about 15 days right now in in MGYB to imagine if we had to do the work of 15 people and that’s just VAs I’m not talking about Rob. I’m not talking about the other people in there that helped us out and other people that we reached out we reached out to. Imagine if I had to go and and and learn discrete math, so that I could then come back and start applying all of those. I don’t want to learn all that shit. This people who already know it way better than I’ll ever know it. So just surround yourself with really good people, pay them well. And and take care of them and they’ll take care of you. And that’s the only way that growth can start. When you start delegating when you realize that No, nobody else is going to do things like you do. But there are people who will do it really, really well up to whatever it is that you demand from them because you set the expectation. If you don’t do that, then don’t even bother because you’re not going to grow. So if you’re making any kind of money, the first investment that you make in your agency is hire someone to help you to grow is the first post that people see from me when they join the free SEO group, right? Get help, get help so that you can go and make even more money.

Bradley: I like what Adam said in the past. He says, you know, he takes like what your processes Adam and that’s once a week you spend a few minutes or half an hour or whatever it is to try to determine what can you automate delegate or eliminate. And kind of in context to what Marco was saying to Marco’s point was, you know, I started a real estate business last year. And I’ve been working on that on the side as well as my agency, my lead gen business and Semantic Mastery obviously. I want to scale my real estate business though and because of that, I’ve spent the last week, week and a half since Christmas working on trying to automate, I’m learning a very complicated CRM right now, to help automate a lot of the tasks that I’ve been either doing myself or even delegating so that it can actually free up my VA, who’s a very trusted team member for me to have her do even higher level stuff than a lot of the menial stuff that I’ve delegated to her. I think I can automate a lot of this stuff. It’s just a matter of putting in the time and the effort to do it. So I’ve been working on learning a new CRM, which is customizing it to a degree. I’ve also been learning or working on additional process documents and process training for her to teach her the higher level things that I’ve been doing right now, once I’ve automated, once we’ve automated some of what she’s been doing manually, then that’ll free her time up to work on some of the higher level stuff that I’ve been doing, if that makes sense. So, even though that’s not specifically related to agency or consultancy work, it’s the same principle. And that’s what I’m trying to get across to you guys now is that what we’re going to be doing with 2xyouragency or double your agency is teaching how to scale a business.

It’s going to be catered towards digital marketing consultants and agency owners, but it’s the principles are the same, regardless of what business you’re in. And so, you know, we’re going to get away from doing strictly or mainly SEO type training to more how to build and grow your marketing business. And I think that’s really important. So you know, we’re practicing what we preach. And that’s what I’m trying to get at. I’m going to be talking a lot over the next many weeks with Hernan. Hernan and I going to be doing most of the training for the double your agency training, and we’re going to be talking a lot about how to get better results from what you’re currently doing and actually how to even simplify what you’re currently doing. I think that’s part of the problem is that we all overcomplicate stuff, and in fact, part of my real estate business has been overcomplicated, and that’s where now getting in and really going through everything on through it with fine, a fine tooth comb going through all the nitty gritty details. I’m learning how to simplify and kind of consolidate steps and things like that. So that’s really what we’re going to be teaching on guys. So I would encourage you to, you know, make sure you sign up for that when it’s available. All right, anything else, guys before we get any questions?

Adam: Think so let’s let’s do this.

Bradley: All right. Let me go to screen. Make sure everything is kosher on my end standby. All right. Somebody confirm when you can see my screen.

Good to go. Yeah.

Is It A Good Practice To Do Internal Link Exchange Between Blog Posts And Pages?

Okay, cool. So it looks like our first question comes from motion digital or motion. I’m not sure if I’m saying that right. Hello, SEO, SEO experts. I want to ask that is, is it good practice to do internal link exchange between two blog posts or pages? Thanks for your reply in advance. No and Marco can talk more on this provided how much he wants to share here, but a reciprocal link is not a good thing. So if you’re linking from one post or page to another, and then that post or page links back to the same page, you know, to the page that was linking to it, then that’s a reciprocal link and it stops page rank dead in its tracks. Is that right?

Marco: Yeah, that’s one of the things that we’ve proven.

Bradley: So that’s not a good practice, right?

Marco: It depends on what he’s trying to do. Okay, so you if you’re strictly doing it for the purpose of building up the weight of your page to affect the algorithms that account for your score your page rank and your ranking score, then no. But if you have to do it for user experience, then that’s something that you have to take into consideration. And then you have to figure out how to work around that.

Bradley: Just nofollow it, right?

Marco: And no, that’s that’s not a good practice, either. I just what I’ve been trying to tell people is I don’t want to get too deep into this, because that’s only mastermind stuff. I’ve been telling people that if you have to, if you absolutely have to get page rank, nofollow bleeds page ranking and ranking score. And so you’re, you’re still affecting the way that you’re going to build your page ranking ranking score. So now if you absolutely have to, and you have no other way than then yes, that’s what has to be done. But there are other ways you just have to think outside the box. And this is not a forum where I’m going to help people think.

Bradley: Okay, well, thanks.

Alright, so we’ve got multiple questions from Dan, the man, Dan, we’re going to our I’ll make an executive decision here to answer the first two, and then we’re going to keep moving. And if we run out of questions, we’ll come back. But, you know, for questions that arose a bit. It takes up too much time, and it’s unfair to other people. So that’s cool. We’ll try to come back to them if we have these if we have the chance.

Is The Local Lease Pro Method Still Valid From A Location Research Perspective?

First one is, is local lease pro method still valid from a location, location research perspective? Or are there any changes I should be aware of to outsource the process? To be honest, I can’t give you a solid answer on that. Because I haven’t done any of that type of location research for many, many months. So I can’t tell you with any certainty if that has changed, except that the tools that we were using before for competition research was a tool by Chad Kimball. It was free I think he kind of locked that down. And I don’t even know if it still works. I know many months ago, at least six months ago it was it that tool had gone from a desktop version to a cloud app. And it didn’t work with the same functionality as it did as the desktop version did. And that was really the columns of data that it would reveal was really where you would determine just by quickly looking at very select data points, whether or not there was what the competition level was and what the likelihood was of a GMB registered in that specific zip code.

You know, how easy it would be to actually get results. And it was, you know, there was a fairly good success rate if certain criteria was met within the location research that you could just register a GMB within that particular zip code and it would rank with little to no work and it was a fairly good success rate with that somewhere around 60% would rank and the three pack with little other without doing anything other than on page optimization, primarily for the GMB assets. However, that that tool, like I said, when it went from a desktop version to a cloud based version, it didn’t reveal the same kind of data. And so I don’t know if that method still works, because I don’t know that we can get that the same data that that tool originally showed. I can tell you that within the last few months, I don’t remember when it was but they tightened the proximity filter even more. So that’s an even bigger issue now than it was when we first, which was a year and a half ago now, developed a local lease pro method. So I can’t say with any certainty, Marco, do you have an opinion on this?

Marco: No, absolutely not. Because when I got into the local lease pro method, we had all the different tools and a way to get the GMB available to us with you know, that that was taken away fairly quickly. And so I just I just stopped doing that and just worked on the assets that I had already gotten. Having said that though, we’re where it’s in the works. We’re trying to get that back. And we’re even trying to get it. So where it’s always you know, we can guarantee that if it gets suspended, we’ll get it unsuspended. But like, if I say anymore, I might have people come knocking on my door and putting me in a trunk and getting rid off me for that. But yeah, it’s in the works. So in a few months, you might see local lease pro redubbed or 2.0, because then the methods would be would be viable, and then Semantic Mastery could stand behind it, because then we can provide a guarantee if your assets get suspended. It’s in the works. It’s in the works will tell you, it just talks right now. Give us time and we’ll get back to you on that.

Bradley: Yeah, and that’s, you know, that’s, that’s kind of what I would say is when, you know, you can still do some competition research, maybe not the local lease pro method, but more traditional competition research for map stuff. And, but remember, it’s all about the entity right now and it’s going to continue to go further in that direction. So, if you can identify some holes in the competitors in a particular area that you’re looking to, to break into, if you can identify some weak spots in their entity. So I mean, ambiguation that kind of stuff, then that’s, that’s an opportunity that presents an opportunity. But, you know, it requires some research and also some judgment on your end. So, but it looks like Marco kind of answered your second question, Dan, and we’re going to move on, but that was that we are in the process of possibly potentially getting the ability to generate GMBs back, to verify GMBs back, and then even possibly to reverify or unsuspended if needed. But that’s not something that we have available yet and we’re not 100% sure that we’re going to be able to do it, but we’re looking into it, okay.

Marco: I want to be sure that we can provide a guarantee, because if we can’t stand behind the product, then I refuse to even put it out, I mean, that’s not how we do things.

What Are Some Best Practices You Follow When It Comes To Reverifying A GMB?

Bradley: So when it comes to Is there a best practice you use when it comes to re verifying a GMB, I am getting several assets that are being asked for re verification. And that’s interesting, I’ve only I’ve only had that happened to me twice since 2010, where I’ve had to re verify an existing asset. In both times I’ve had to do that. I had to have mail sent to the original business location. And that’s only happened to me twice in 10 years and in fact, I haven’t even seen it or nine years, I guess? Oh no, I should it’s been 10 years now I can’t believe it. And both times that happened that was at least five years ago. So I haven’t had that happen at all in the last five years. Now they in my what I’ve experienced is either is no issues whatsoever or a suspension, not a reverb, not a request for re verification. So I don’t know what the process is now because it’s been at least five years since I did it. And like I said, the last time that I had to re verify an asset it was via us mail. So it was just sending the postcard again with the pen to the same address that it was originally listed for. That’s why I used to keep my PO boxes. And you know, I used to rent them and then keep renewing them. But I got away from doing that because after five years well like I said in the last five years, I haven’t had to re verify even one of them and so I got taught you know I had so many damn p o boxes and also I think I’ve said this before, but about once every six months, I would have to get take a whole day and it got to a point where it would take two days because I had so many of them. But I’d have to take a day and go from post office to post office to post office and actually collect the mail because otherwise I would get calls from the post office from each different post office saying that they had a box of mail because the post box the P o box was full of junk mail and it’s all solicitation mail. It’s all junk mail. And even if I would give them verbal, okay or authorization over the phone to throw out the junk mail, I tell them Look, I don’t there’s nothing in the PO box that I need. Just throw it all out. They wouldn’t do it. So I would have to every six months or so go through and actually collect mail and it was it was literally go open up my mailbox, pull the mail out, go to the desk, ask them to give me the box of mail its head and then I just go stand over the recycling bin and just throw it all in there. And so I got away from doing that because it was just a waste of money, a waste of time, and I never had to do it again. But I don’t know what the processes now, Dan. You know, you’d be lucky if you could do it via phone. But I doubt very seriously, if that’s possible with the spam stuff. So it’s probably going to be verification via us mail, or even potentially the way that they’ve required some businesses to do it, which is to have a Google photographer, you know, actually come out and take photos of the business and stuff. So, I don’t know, I don’t know what to tell you, other than if they’re requiring you to do it, start going through the process and see what it does and then come back and report to us what you found because I’m not sure what the process is now. Okay.

Should You Use GMB Service Areas For Restaurants Or Is It Only Applicable For Service Area Business?

All right. I’m going to move on next one is two questions. If you only have time. For one, please answer the second one. Should I enter GMB service areas for restaurants and or service areas only for service area businesses, or number two is if a company is worried about the restaurant image. Can I create my IFTTT network and Twitter? Will it work if I don’t do a branded ring but instead use something like fans of restaurant change name, chain name and then run everything through that. This way I can post anything to Twitter and not have to worry about them not liking the content I would want to post the blog since I don’t have any time for budget for expert copywriting. Thanks.

Okay, so we have time for both of those. The first one is should I enter GMB service area for restaurants? I don’t know. I’ve never done any restaurant marketing. Is anybody here have a good answer for that?

Marco: No, I don’t but I asked him This was in I think the free SEO group and I asked him to put it in here because I wanted you the opinion from you guys in case you you guys have worked with restaurants, because my view of it is alright. So let’s say your traffic is mostly from your your neighbor, from your area. You don’t really need the service area. Yeah. Because people already know. I mean, it service area would work because people already know where you are. Correct? Yeah, but let’s say what if you’re trying to reach people a little bit farther up? People who actually need directions to wherever it is that you are? If you have a surface area those people cannot get right. It’s like a double edged sword. Right? Because what’s this restaurant planning to do? Are they planning to add a catering business? For example, in which case a service area would be great, right, you know, because you’re not serving people at your location. We’re actually going out of the kitchen, you have both. You used to be able to unless it’s changed in the last couple of months, you used to be able to have, in some cases a service area business with a shown location, like a published location. Did they do away with that, you remember that people started getting hit

Yeah, no, no, I know that is that what he has to do is go and find out whether he is in one of those niches where you can display both the address on the service area. And that would be a win win. Yeah. If If not, and you have to choose one or one or the other day, you’re going to have to talk to the restaurant owner and say, Where do most of the restaurant patrons come from? Are they from the neighborhood? Or are there people coming from out and telling you? Hey, you know, we heard about you and we went into Google Maps, and we typed the directions of it so that we could come here. There are people who will travel a long way. Yeah, go to a really good restaurant. And if they don’t know where you are, and they can’t find the restaurant and that’s a service area, they can’t find the address, then they won’t know how to get to you.

Bradley: Yeah, you know, I would suggest contacting Google support or Google My Business support and asking that question. Seriously, it can’t hurt to ask I would contact Google support or Google My Business support and just ask, say, look, we’ve got you to know, I managed the marketing or the Google My Business profile for this business and they are a restaurant but they also deliver and they also do catering or whatever the reason is that they would want to also be in the service area business and ask is it Am I able to do both the list the the the address, you know, publish the address and list the service area where they deliver to, or where they do catering or both, and just ask and find out because here’s the thing if a Google rep says no, that’s fine because of that type of situation, then you can while you’re on the phone with them, make the change to the GMB to add the service areas and keep the address published. And if it suspends it, you’ll have them right there to say, well, you just gave me you know, said it was okay to do so can you suspend this or whatever, that’s what I would do is in a situation like that is just contact them before you do it, and it causes a problem, I would contact them and ask them and if they say that it’s okay, that that’s one of the conditions which that’s allowable, then make that change. That makes sense. So that’s a good question, though. Because again, good question. Yeah, I’ve never done any real. Excuse me. Restaurant Marketing. So I really don’t know.

Can You Create A Second Tier Network Promoting The Money Site Without Compromising Brand Image?

Number two is if a company is worried about the restaurant image, can I create the IFTTT network? Okay, I know what you’re saying here. You’re saying they’re not keen on you creating a branded network for them? And I’m not sure why that is, but it is what it is.

You know, can you do fans of Yeah, cuz I, I’ve never done that again. But in my judgment, it sounds like it would be okay because you’re still doing a branded ring, but it’s not branded content. Like, in other words, it’s not content published directly from the brand. It’s published from, you know, so it’s not the brand. So I don’t know as far as I think for because of the way that syndication networks, it’s not just the publishing of content and the backlinks that are the most important thing about syndication networks anymore. It’s not that those aren’t important anymore. They certainly are. But the real value or power of a syndication network now is about solidifying the entity. Right, which we’ve proven that again, and again, I’ve talked about this before, we’re just adding a syndication network to a brand new domain, even without doing any content syndication, can actually solidify that entity and get that entity name to break number one for brand search, we’re doing nothing other than connecting a syndication network to it, and that I’m not even talking about syndicating content, just building the syndication network interlinking everything back to that primary asset that the money site. So I don’t know that it’s going to have the same result is that the next best thing, I’ve not tested it. I don’t know. It seems to me like it could help, but I don’t know that it would have the same effect the same amount of benefit that a branded Ringwood because it’s not technically an entity asset. What say you, Marco?

Marco: Well, I say that the process right for the entity is creation, verification, validation, and solidification. The syndication network plays an integral part in this process, because if you don’t have the GMB, which I’m assuming that they do, but if you don’t have a GMB, then then the next best is you got you to go and pay Google for some ads, which we always recommend you go and pay Google for ads, Google ads, and YouTube ads. Facebook ads will also help so that there’s a credit card on file with Google for the entity. That’s just as good as verifying the entity One. Two, it’s claiming that footprint because it’s expected in today’s Semantic Web for you to be out there in social media, trying to get people to be social, with whatever it is that you do. I don’t see why these people balk at a branded network at getting all because if somebody else doesn’t then and they fuck up the entity, then you’re fucked and your client is fucked. Think about that. Yeah. Because then what you have no ambiguity, which is a big, big, big no-no. Right now and moving forward. I mean, if you are ambiguous the entity you are in all kinds of trouble. Are fans of the next best? Yes, it is. As long as the entity is solid as long as Google understands what the entity is, that golden frame, then you can go out there and you can drive traffic through that into whatever it is that they’re doing. So you got to be really careful about it. Messing with the entity can get you a lot of traffic. And if you don’t do it right, it can get you into tons of trouble and trying to recover from ambiguity takes you and I’ve said it before it takes probably 10 times the work that it did to ambiguity.

Marco: Yeah, I think if it’s a restaurant chain name, so it’s probably you know, a franchise or a chain like you said, the new entity is probably strong, but you’d have to evaluate that on your own anyways. And then as far as I said, if you did fans of the type of syndication network then is then really all you’re using it for is the SEO signals like the backlinks and you know, that kind of stuff. It’s not as much as the entity validator because it’s not actually to you know, it’s not part of the entity. So I don’t know. That’s a really good question. I’m not tested that I agree with. I mean, we would typically say, Marco, says don’t, nothing beats a tribe but a fail. Right?

So it would be, or, you know, it’d be worth maybe trying. But at the same time, I would be concerned about what Marco said, which was ambiguating the entity, if that caught if you do that, if this were to do that, then it could end up causing more harm than good. So I would be careful with that. It’s interesting, I just can’t imagine I mean, if they have if it’s a restaurant chain name, then they could have a lot of the entity assets built out even if you’re not, you know, actively publishing to those, it would still help to build that SEO shield for that particular location in the entities name. Right. So in the name and the brand name of the business.

Hernan: Hey, can I add something real quick here? I think you’re completely right, Bradley. I think that some of those assets probably already built, but I’m 100% sure that the syndication I will right now have a lot of different properties and I’m pretty sure that the restaurant doesn’t have them all. So you can add them, you know, you can add them and then use the assets that they already have, which has, they have the history they have age to make them part of your syndication network. So if they have like, for instance, a Facebook page or a Twitter profile, you can post to those, you know, and you don’t need to recreate the entire thing. That’s, that’s what I’m saying. Yeah, they’re probably don’t have a Tumblr blog, they probably don’t have whatever Pearl trees, those are more like the obscure type of networks, that only us since your marketers know about it. So we create them. Probably they’re not going to give a fuck because they’re not using it anyways. And you’re like saving their name on that like saving that URL and adding that to the entity validation process. So that’s what I would do like, you know, don’t recreate the wheel if they already have a bunch of assets that are already out there that are, you know, ready to use and they have age, you know, so.

Marco: So think about it this way. Also, this is a restaurant chain, and you’re going to take a look at the restaurant chain entity.

And that’s not right. It’s not done properly in the entity at the corporate level hasn’t been solidified properly, then here is a perfect way for you to get your foot in the door with corporate to come in and say hey look, I took a look at your entity and it went the okay of your client. And you have big issues, which could be fixed with some simple code. And we’re going to send Google the right signals to get your company your brand, a whole lot of love. I see that as a big, big opportunity for support getting your foot in the door at the corporate level. Yeah, that’s a good idea actually.

How Do You Add Schema To A Google Site And Pages?

Okay, so next question is how you talk also about optimizing Google Sites with schema, can you show how to add schema to Google sites and pages? Thanks. As far as I know, the Google site itself won’t accept JSON LD, I could be wrong about that. But the way that I typically do it is I just embed a webpage that has schema in it into the G site page, and then it reads through just as if the schema was on the page itself. Is that correct? Marco?

Marco: That’s correct. That’s how we do it. The G site comes with its own schema already set up by Google. And that’s all you get so so how can you get even more schema in there while you fake it till you make it? Right.

Bradley: So just to clarify, just take the page, a page, you know, even if you had to build out an Amazon s3 page specifically, just for the schema. But if you’re if you follow our training and you understand theme mirroring, where you’re going to mirror onto the G site, the same pages, and silo structure and everything that you have on your main money site, your website, then you can actually do a, you know, you should have a page by page, you know, one to one ratio, four pages on your posts on your site, your main site, to your G site. And then you can iframe each of the pages, the corresponding pages from your money site into the G site. Right. So they, again, one to one ratio, and then each one of your individual pages on your site will have the schema from your money site anyways. But if for whatever reason you’re not using the money site, or whatever the case is, then you could even do something like just take an Amazon s3 page and as an HTML page and add JSON LD markup to that and then embed that as an iframe into your G site page. And that’ll suffice.

Marco: So now, we did away webinar on how to power up, drive stacks and decide for the under our best practices series. I’m going to post the URL in there so that people can go in and go and have a look.

Bradley: There you go. And those are all MGYB anyways, those webinars we did, right.

Marco: Yeah, they’re in there, but I want I’m going to post the URL. Okay.

Is Google’s AMP Stories Valuable For Ranking And Traffic?

So next question is I’ve come across Google’s AMP stories recently. Do you see any value in these for ranking or traffic? You know, I haven’t done much with AMP. I just know that it’s important for mobile stuff. Because they’re like, cached pages. So they don’t, they don’t have to load they just they’re instantly load. But I’ve not done too much testing with that. I know Marco did so Marco would.

Marco: Yeah, we have we have our own amp amp plugin and what but what Google does it caches them on their servers and so they’re served directly from Google so you can imagine it’s lightning. So if you have something that’s newsworthy, if you have that that type of website, then by all means you need to AMP that and look at the categories where these AMP stories are, are being served. I mean, you will, what are they above? What are the different categories and see if you fit one of those categories, and I would totally pursue that.

Bradley: Yeah, it sounds like it’s it’s pretty much developed for news stuff, news type stuff, right?

Marco: Yeah, it has to be newsworthy. Okay.

What Are The Benefits Of Hosting Your WordPress Using Amazon S3?

Fitz says good day and Happy New Years. Thanks. Thank you guys for this forum. If you host your WordPress site on Amazon s3 and then you hammer with links or is it the best practice to treat like all other money sites? Is there any benefit to hosting on s3? Well, I don’t think you can host on s3 not a WordPress because it’s a CMS. It requires databases.

Remember, s3 is just a storage, right? So it’s simple storage solutions. That’s what s3 stands for. So you can, you can host static pages. I know you can use Amazon elastic cloud for if you want to host WordPress sites, you can do it with Amazon elastic cloud and lightsail. Okay, I’m not used that one, but you can’t do it with. With s3, you can host pages that are static, but they’re not dynamic. In other words, they’re not accessing databases and all that kind of stuff. So I’m not sure that that’s what you were asking Fitz.

Marco: I know what he’s asking. So if you’re going to host up a WordPress site, which is a top level domain, on Amazon, you go you’re going to have to go to EC two, are you going to have to go to lightsail, as I said, but that’s still your top level domain even though it’s an Amazon hosting. It’s your top level domain. And all of the rules that apply the top level domains apply an Amazon, they applying Google Cloud, Google Cloud doesn’t offer you extra protection at the top level domain level. That’s why we stay at the Gsite level. If you map your domain over to the Gsite, right there, then you’re protected because you still have the underlying g site, then you can just hammer. This doesn’t happen. At this level. Not at the s3 level, you’re actually getting an Amazon domain URL with the HTML it’s s3 and location and what a whole bunch of other shit. Now that offers protection, we hammer the crap out of those. I mean, we do do that over and over again. So you have to understand what it is that you’re doing. TLD then TLD rules apply. If you’re on the Amazon domain, then Amazon domain rules apply. Hosting on Amazon does not necessarily mean that you have an Amazon URL to protect you. And that’s what we’re looking for.

Bradley: So even for your custom pages, like the HTML pages that you do host or store and Amazon s3 in an s3 bucket, you can use, what is it route 53, or whatever it is Amazon route 53, which is their DNS tool, you can actually do it through Cloudflare too now where you can map a custom domain over to your HTML page, right? So you could do that still. But what you wouldn’t want to hammer your custom domain with links that the Amazon page URL, so the bucket URL, essentially, it’s still there, even even if you’re you map a custom domain over to it, then your underlying s3 bucket URL is still live. And what you do it you can canonicalize that to The custom domain page URL, if that makes sense. But then hammer the Amazon page with links and not the page on the custom domain, if that makes sense. So I agree with Marco hundred percent you’ve got to be, it doesn’t matter where it’s hosted at it depends on what the domain is. So if your domain is the Amazon domain, then absolutely. But if it’s your custom domain hosted on Amazon servers, then what I would do is take any sort of Amazon domains that you could extract and hammer those but I would not hit the actual domain itself the money you

Marco: use an SEO shield, and then you can do whatever you want with it. Seo shield, SEO shield guys, we did it for a reason. It works. It protects you. It’s going to protect you in the future. You said well, why try anything else? Why take risks when you can play it safe and get tons and tons of power?

Are There Any Google Properties That Don’t Play Well Together?

So the next question is on. Are there any Google properties that don’t play well together? For example, shouldn’t embed on a G site or should link to from another property? If you have time for a second question, is there any legal Google properties that don’t play well together? I’m not that I’m aware of. Any, any that you know of?

Marco: Absolutely not. I mean, it’s RYS Academy, RYS Academy Reloaded. That’s what it’s all about how well as an ecosystem, all of these things play together to provide massive power. If they didn’t, I mean, we would have found it by because we did isolate each one of the dots and we actually saw or files excuse me, to see which one had had had the most ranking power. But then, as you say, sometimes Bradley. The whole is greater than the sum of its part is not that they don’t play together is that when they’re all hooked up together, the way that we hooked them up with activity, relevance, trust and authority, the art of ART is just what happens in there is incredible. We’re not sure what Well yeah, it’s Google’s narcissism, Google loves Google preparing itself. Being in the Google ecosystem, all of that come comes into play. I don’t see them not playing well together. I mean, and if you had a drive second g side done by MGYB to then you’d see what it is that we’re doing and whatever it was pointed at, once it started ranking and bringing you back all the love that you can get back and all the money, then you know, just how well they play together. Yeah.

What Are Some Ways On How To Rank GSites (Medium Competition And Medium-Sized City) In SERPs?

Okay, so the second question is, I have seven Gsites that are still indexed, but missing action in the SERPs. Any suggestions? I will stick them fast. Um, okay. So I’m going to give you my answer to that because of my experiences and I think I just talked about this last week on Hump Day. But my experience with G sites and part of the drive stack is that it takes a while for it to fully settle in it dances for weeks. And then what’s interesting is I, you know, I was maybe it was on a mastermind webinar last time anyways, I was talking about this because you know, I’ve got my real estate business, and I’ve done some work on the G site for that I haven’t done near as much as I should. But some and it’s interesting, but some of the work that I’ve done sometimes when I do a search to see how things are going my money site is ranked number one for the keywords that and the G site will be number two because remember theme mirroring that’s we keep hammering away to you guys. So I duplicate the pages on the G site that are on the money site. And all I do is embed the money site pages into the G site pages. So what happens is my money site ranks for the first the keyword and then the G site page, the corresponding page will rank number two, but over the last few weeks, I’ve been watching the Google Site bounce in and out too. It shows that it’s still indexed. But some days, it’ll be number two position for my keyword, you know, right underneath the money site page. And other days, you can’t find it at all, even though it’s still indexed. It’s not showing in the top, you know, 10 pages or whatever. And that’s been happening for several weeks now. And I haven’t done any additional work to it because I just haven’t had the time and I don’t have a VA trained to do that type of work for my real estate business yet.

But I’ve experienced this over the years now since 2015 when we started doing drive stack stuff that I’ve seen that over and over and over again and what I would recommend and I’d love to get Marco’s opinion on this, but what I typically do is just don’t worry about it. I mean, I understand what your if your primary purpose of the G sites is to push relevancy and authority to your money site, then don’t worry about the G site, whether it’s ranking or not. If it’s indexed, that’s the important thing because you’re pushing relevancy through to your primary asset. If you’re trying to use the G site, however, as the primary asset, then then I can understand why you want to see it ranking. And if that’s the case, then I would continue hitting it with links and everything else because eventually, it will settle in. What do you think Marco?

Marco: I think I have a question on this because he only mentioned g site. To those 70 sites have companion drives that right? Are they orphaned? She cites how much work went into those decides their orphan g sites. Don’t expect them to do much. Yeah, because the work isn’t finished. Now if you do have G site and a companion drive stack, who built it? Did we build it? Did you follow our process meaning that once it was done? Did you hit it with link building? Did you hit it with press releases? Did you then hit those press releases? With link building? Did you then do your embed runs with link building? Did you push all of that power into that drive second into that g site, and then gauge the results of where it is that it’s settled, you know, so you hit it with all that after 21 days you going, you look? Okay, it’s on page three, I need more power. So maybe what I need to do is isolate one of my top market-level keywords on an inner. And this is again, going back to the webinar that I just posted, maybe I need to isolate keyword in on an inner page keyword in a drive stack, and gold goes that way and then hammer that because then you repeat the process. And you might need another inner page and repeat the process. But once you start doing that and adding those inner pages, adding those additional drive stacks, what’s going to happen is you going to push so much power that every additional drive stack bets are off. So again, I would ask, Who did these? And are they complete? And what have you done? In addition?

Marco: Yeah, and that’s, you know, very, very nicely said Marco, because I just assumed that when somebody right on Hump Day hangouts talks about their having g sites that they have, the drive stack is, you know, it was kind of all one thing, you know, a G site with a drive stack because that’s, that’s just what we’re so used to. So I just assumed all of that was present, but that was those are very good questions on your part, Marco, thank you. Because that’s something that yeah if you don’t if you don’t have companion drive stacks or they weren’t built correctly, you know, all that kind of stuff. You were talking a whole different ballgame.

What Is The Best Way To Use Stacks For A National Brand?

So, Austin Don says what would be the best way to attack a national brand target specific geo areas or the general broad keywords? For example, we buy houses niche with stacks. Okay. My suggestion would be to target to kind of break it down. I mean, I see I’ve never done I haven’t done national SEO stuff in years other than affiliate stuff, which for the most part, it’s not the same as for doing it for like what you’re you’re talking about for an actual business. So the way that I build out for stuff that I want to expand like surface area type stuff, as I build it, build it out by silo structure and content.

And so I’ll use the location modifiers as part of the solid structure. So for example, we buy houses, you can do it on a state level. For example, so we buy houses in Virginia or something like that right and then each state would have its own category its own silo. And then from there, you can start building up the metro areas within the state right so the big regional metropolitan areas you could do by you know, like the metropolitan area names you could break it down on a county level if you wanted an even to a city level if you wanted but you got to consider if you’re doing a national build how much work that would be it would take years to build all that out. Really think about it because of the amount you know, the amount of cities and each state on a broader level the counties right it’s gonna be less number of counties so that’s how I’ve always built it out. I don’t know because best the way that I’m doing it with my real estate business, which is not we buy houses, it’s we buy land, right? So the way that I’m doing that is I’m using I targeted the state of Virginia, specifically with my my brand and I’ve got the drive stack and which is really just targeting we buy land in Virginia or sell land fast in Virginia. Those are my two top my top two keywords. And so my drive stack was built, just the way that we taught we teach and the way that we build them for you in the MTI be, which is to associate your top level keyword with the brand name for your top level stack. Which, again, I may have pigeonholed Alpha Land Realty my land business into just Virginia because that’s how I started building it out. If I want to scale outside of Virginia, then I’m going to have to do some work on the entity to be able to, you know, break out of that constraint, right those confinements that I created.

So the way that I’m building it out of Virginia is I’m starting to target specific counties and in building out internal pages on the blog or in the G site and also within the drive stack to target those counties. And then from that level, I do selectively choose the cities within the county that I want to target or the ones that get, you know, traffic and then build out the content for that, like I said, on a smaller scale, on a statewide scale at smaller than on a national scale. So I think that’s feasible. If I was going to go on a national level, though, if that was my target area, then I would probably start with the broadest keywords, in this case, we buy houses, and then I would start building out on a state by state basis, internal silo structure, throughout all of your assets, all of your SEO shield. But you know, it’s very difficult, in my opinion, I know, AdWords can be or Google ads can be expensive. But it’s so much simpler to get results that way. Think about the amount of time and effort and money that you’re going to spend on content creation and everything else to achieve SEO results, building out content for all of those different areas. Whereas you could go in and set up ads very quickly, and you’re going to spend money on that too. But the difference is, you know, you don’t have to put in all the effort. So I’m not sure how I would target that, I would probably start with associating the brand with the general keyword. So in your cases, we buy houses, but then I would start building out on the state by state basis, the areas that I’d want to receive leads from first and then from there, I would drill down further and go into a county-level or Metropolitan regional metropolitan area first, then a county level and then ultimately a city level. That’s a really good question, but Marco, how would you go about it because I know you typically don’t localize as much as I do.

Marco: You have to, you have no choice, right? Because that’s how the keyword the top-level keyword that we’re targeting is, for example, Sell house fast, and then city, maybe state or county or whatever. It’s one of those variations of the keyword. So you have to do it that way. It’s how we did it with Land solutions network, right, the land buying arm that we’re building nationally, haven’t had time to really work on it, but I’m just looking at analytics right now. And we just had what 60 something clicks during the last month or so. So that means that it’s ranking already for whatever.

Bradley: Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna see if I could just yeah, I mean so that’s, that’s what I’m talking about is what you’re saying it you know, here’s the thing if you go into Google Ads even if you don’t plan on running ads, which I don’t know why anybody doesn’t want to run ads. You know, especially in this type the real estate business because you can I mean, one deal, you know, could pay for your ad budget for six months or a year. So anyway, that’s a whole nother topic. But what I was going to say was with Google ads, if you go into the keyword planner, remember the keyword planner sucks, guys, unless you’re spending money, right? If you’re not saying spending money, it gives you this broad range of search volume, and it’s just it’s stupid. So you’ve got to be spending money in order for it to show somewhat accurate search volume numbers, but go in and do a search on, we buy houses and some of the other, you know, related keywords and then just take a look at the ones that are that show up in the suggested keywords results of the keyword planner that show modifiers so we buy houses, and then the different modifiers you’ll see state modifiers and you’ll see a lot of city modifiers you won’t see as many state modifiers but you’ll see a lot of city modifiers. And I know because again, I’m in a similar industry. And those are the ones that I would start to target because a lot of people don’t.

A lot of people will just search to sell my house or sell my house fast and they won’t put a location modifier in there. So you do want that’s why I think AdWords is great because you can rank or you can get traffic from those blogs, keywords very easily. And then you can also get traffic from even the localized, very specific keywords if you set your ads up properly, right, so I would go in and just kind of do a survey or, you know, survey the results of the Google Keyword Planner to extract all of the We Buy Houses, keywords and related keywords that have location modifier so that you know which ones if you’re going to target on an SEO level where you’re going to build content out for those, you’re targeting the ones that have enough search volume to be returned in the keyword planner as a result, if that makes sense. Because if you’re not seeing it show up as a location modifier. So we buy houses plus a particular city if you don’t see that show up in the search results, the keyword planner results, then it’s likely that it’s not getting searched enough for it to be tracked by Google, which means it probably wouldn’t be worth targeting or spending the effort on developing content out for that specifically if that makes sense. So I was going to try to show you some things samples of that, but we’ve run out of time, so I can’t. So anyways guys, we’re past the one hour mark. I’ve got to go, Marco. I appreciate you hanging out. Thanks, everybody for being here. Bye, everyone. sorry, we couldn’t get to your question post it again. So we cover it next week or come join the mastermind we got a webinar tomorrow. That’s right. Alright, guys, we’ll see you later. Thanks

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 269 posted first on http://beyondvapepage.blogspot.com

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pledje · 6 years ago

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Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 269

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Click on the video above to watch Episode 269 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Bradley: I’m well, how are you?

Bradley: Very cool. I’m glad to be back to a normal schedule. So got a shit ton of work backed up from the holidays.

Adam: Definitely. And we will circle back to that last part with her on here in a minute. But first, Chris, how are you doing today?

Hernan: no, no, no the work part of it. But Awesome.

Adam: Well, speaking of beaches and warm weather, Marco, how you doing today?

Adam: He hates traveling. He’s doing what he wants.

Adam: Think so let’s let’s do this.

Bradley: All right. Let me go to screen. Make sure everything is kosher on my end standby. All right. Somebody confirm when you can see my screen.

Good to go. Yeah.

Is It A Good Practice To Do Internal Link Exchange Between Blog Posts And Pages?

Marco: Yeah, that’s one of the things that we’ve proven.

Bradley: So that’s not a good practice, right?

Bradley: Just nofollow it, right?

Bradley: Okay, well, thanks.

Is The Local Lease Pro Method Still Valid From A Location Research Perspective?

Marco: I want to be sure that we can provide a guarantee, because if we can’t stand behind the product, then I refuse to even put it out, I mean, that’s not how we do things.

What Are Some Best Practices You Follow When It Comes To Reverifying A GMB?

Should You Use GMB Service Areas For Restaurants Or Is It Only Applicable For Service Area Business?

Can You Create A Second Tier Network Promoting The Money Site Without Compromising Brand Image?

Marco: So think about it this way. Also, this is a restaurant chain, and you’re going to take a look at the restaurant chain entity.

How Do You Add Schema To A Google Site And Pages?

Bradley: There you go. And those are all MGYB anyways, those webinars we did, right.

Marco: Yeah, they’re in there, but I want I’m going to post the URL. Okay.

Is Google’s AMP Stories Valuable For Ranking And Traffic?

Bradley: Yeah, it sounds like it’s it’s pretty much developed for news stuff, news type stuff, right?

Marco: Yeah, it has to be newsworthy. Okay.

What Are The Benefits Of Hosting Your WordPress Using Amazon S3?

Are There Any Google Properties That Don’t Play Well Together?

What Are Some Ways On How To Rank GSites (Medium Competition And Medium-Sized City) In SERPs?

What Is The Best Way To Use Stacks For A National Brand?

Weekly Digital Marketing Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 269 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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