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poliwat · 1 year

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Nipomo

Four weeks sharing a room in San Francisco, four weeks since I decided not to go back to England. Michael wasn’t sleeping. A quarter tab of acid for his breakfast. Spliffs throughout the day, booze and blue raspberry C4 preworkout all through the night. He was recording an album, working on his set, making a website, building a 24-7 open-source radio live-stream at a free hackers’ space, and not finishing anything.

I was trying to write but spending a lot of time crying on the hot roof of the apartment building when he wasn’t around. He found me up there one afternoon at the end of one of his twelve-hour stints at the hackers’ space. Two straw hats, a beer, two cups. “I know you like to drink out of little cups!” He smiled and the inside of his mouth was blue from the raspberry preworkout. How do you hate someone as much as you love them? He said he’d been looking for me because he had a great plan. A childhood friend in the city was driving down to their hometown and we could get a ride. I could meet Michael’s parents; go to the beach; see the fields, wildflowers, and back roads. So beautiful this time of year. I wondered if it might save us. “It’s God’s country,” he said.

We arrived at his parents’ the following morning, after a four-hour drive south. A low ranch-style house on a wide road of low ranch-style houses. Michael said it was too nice a day to be stuck inside, so he took me around the side and we climbed straight up onto the roof: “I know you like roofs in California!” I did like roofs in California. The front and back yards of gravel, wood chip, and pebbles, interspersed with the occasional palm tree or redwood. At the end of the road was the main street, a couple of stores, a steak house, and a taqueria. Beyond, fields of lemon trees and mustard grass and farmland that stretched a few miles inland, up to a range of golden hills. Above us, the sun shone like the grill of a new truck.

The house was full of knickknacks and shells and crystals and string lights. A “Be Grateful” sign by the coffee maker. A “Be Grateful” mat by the front door. A canvas in the kitchen printed with a picture of three fluffy ducklings and the words “I have joy down in the bottom of my heart.” It was hard to make out how many cats there were. And then PooPoo, the overweight chihuahua, waddled in from the hallway and charged at Michael, baring his red gums and gnashing tiny, pointed teeth. Michael told me the dog was the spawn of the devil and the root cause of all the issues that existed between him and his parents. I already knew that the issues between Michael and his family had begun when Michael had gone to college in Santa Cruz five years before, found drugs, wouldn’t get a real job, and kept having to move back home when he ran out of money.

His parents were musicians who’d met in Santa Barbara in the seventies. She’d sung in one band and he’d played guitar in another. They’d both worked in the same hippie jewelry store downtown before marrying and moving to a smaller town up the coast. I met them that morning when they followed the pets into the kitchen. Gene was short and round with a kind face, freshly shaved with a peaked cap on his bald head and a smart cowboy shirt tucked into chinos. He gave me a warm hug that smelled of Irish Spring. He picked up PooPoo and fed him some bratwurst from the fridge. Mom went straight to the coffeepot. She wore a blue shirt with cropped leggings and had her blond hair put up neatly in a clip. She had the same unblinking stare as Michael.

Gene left to work his shift at a music shop in the next town over and Mom said she needed more coffee before her pain medication kicked in and she could talk properly. She had arthritis and had pain from a series of botched surgeries. The pain was the worst in the morning, but she was managing it with physical therapy, swimming, and half a pill on the bad days. She spent the next hour pacing around the house, telling me about all the things she needed to do—pay the bills, fill out paperwork, physical therapy, feed the dog, feed the cats—only to be derailed from doing any of it by the pets, or the phone ringing. She kept apologizing for being so busy, but she couldn’t seem to get anything done. The bills stayed untouched in a pile that took up most of the kitchen table, the phone rang and rang. There were Post-its all over the house: “Put coffee out,” “Tell Dad to clean sink,” “Ask Michael where he is living in SF,” “Be Grateful.”

Michael derailed her the most, as he tried to make breakfast and clean up after himself. Mother and son knocked around the place, from the coffeepot to the piano to the back door, to the front door to the coffeepot again. They both had the habit of getting lost midaction and the same strange sweetness. At one point, just after getting at him about putting the dishes away in the wrong place, she went into the living room and sang out with joy. When she came back into the kitchen she was smiling. She put her arms around her son. He rested his cheek on the top of her head and closed his eyes.

Michael and I spent the afternoon walking around town. Not a place built for walking but it had its charm, the slanting golden light making even the Vons supermarket look beautiful. We bought three beers for five dollars at the Stop and Shop and watched the sun go down as we sat against a fence by a dusty abandoned lot. He told me that the most famous thing about this town was a Dorothea Lange photograph of migrants from the thirties.

For dinner Michael made sandwiches and, to his mom’s exasperation, moved the bills off the dinner table and told everyone we were going to sit down. They were very good sandwiches, pastrami and banana peppers and mayo with a steak seasoning, on thick slices of bread. He made a sandwich each for his parents, and two types for me and him to share. “Me and Helen share everything,” he announced. “We’re in love.”

After a few bites, Mom started talking about how hard it was, living with her husband, how she loved him but needed him to leave. “I keep telling him, but he won’t go. He does nothing around the house, just eats and spends and plays his guitars.” She said that when she married him, he was already deep in debt. He’d never told her how bad it was. Then she said to me, “I love my son, but I’d understand if you wanted to leave him. Don’t make the same mistake I made.” Gene didn’t say anything in response, just happily ate his sandwich and seemed to be somewhere else. Michael went to the fridge and popped a Corona.

The next day was a Saturday. We borrowed Gene’s car and spent the day in the ice-plant dunes of Grover Beach. When the sun set, we snuck into a motel jacuzzi. Crouched in the bubbles, Michael said he’d told his dad that he’d marry me if he had a dollar. “I dunno about marriage,” I told him.

Gene was in the kitchen when we got back, enjoying a Corona Familiar in a frosted glass. He was in a good mood from playing a gig at a wedding where he’d devoured a seafood-platter buffet. “I tell you … those crabs. All that fish. Mountains of it.” We sat at the counter with him. Over more Coronas, Mom cackling along to Scrubs on the TV, he told me about his first love. At one point he made the mistake of asking Michael what his plans were. Michael said he was going to start an open-source 24-7 radio station that spread empathy across the world and freed a billion people. He already knew his mission on Earth, God had told him. His parents didn’t need to worry. Gene turned to me with a smirk. “I told Michael to experiment with LSD. I didn’t realize he’d be experimenting every day for five years.”

They drove us to the train station in San Luis Obispo the next afternoon. Another sunny day but things felt different. Now I knew that this impossible person had a mother and father and that he made some kind of sense beside them. When his parents hugged us goodbye his dad whispered something in Michael’s ear. “If I had a dollar,” Michael said.

We found a booth with a table in the train’s observation car, beside a window. Gene and Mom spotted us as they were driving out of the parking lot and circled back through three or four times, waving as the train left the station. Leaving San Luis Obispo, the train wound around and between the Pacific Coast Ranges. The slopes reached up on either side, rolling above the windows. Michael leaned on my shoulder while I read him a story I’d written about my alcoholic dad. It made him cry. I told him not to move yet—a girl in another booth was painting a picture of us. I could see it in the corner of my eye, strokes of yellow and green and gold.

***

Six months later, Gene was diagnosed with stage four cancer. A melanoma that had not been removed properly in the spring had spread to his organs by September. Michael and I were living in Chicago by the time Gene began chemo, sleeping on a futon at an event studio that my sister ran and earning a bit of money setting up and cleaning up after baby showers and photoshoots during the day and after parties and music videos at night.

The family told Michael not to come back yet. So we stayed in Chicago for September and into October. Michael’s desperate restlessness and acid-fueled benders had subsided, and the deranged passion that had brought us together had calmed to a more dependable, if rocky, companionship. We kept our clothes in a cupboard and pretended to the people who rented the space that we didn’t live there. When the studio was in use, we visited my sister and her son, or wandered around Lincoln Park, or walked along Lake Michigan, waiting for the call from his family to say that he needed to come home. Sometimes Michael brought his guitar and I brought my notebook and we’d sit playing and writing, cooling our feet in the lake. Other times we had long, agonizing arguments walking around the humid parks. He said I was unloving and spiritually dead inside. I said he was cruel and overbearing, that we were two very different people from different worlds and it would never work anyway, it was doomed. He said that only proved how godless and unloving I was. What was cruel was how little I believed in us. All that needed to happen was for me to find faith. We were twenty-seven. We could move off the grid, have lots of children, and raise chickens. I wanted to get on a plane and go home. Whenever we had an especially bad argument, he stormed off to the hot-dog place around the corner from the studio, where the staff was famous for insulting its customers. He made friends with the people who worked there. “The only real people in this city,” he said. Baby Jesus Ted Bundy was one of the names they called him. He would come back in the best of moods. He was on one of those hot-dog runs when his sister called and told him the doctor said it was a matter of days. He spent his entire savings, four hundred dollars, on a flight for the next morning. I packed up the futon and moved into my sister’s apartment. He called after two weeks at home. His dad really was dying now and he needed to see me. Please could I come? My sister found me a flight from Chicago to LA for fifty dollars for the following week.

***

The Amtrak train from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo goes up the Pacific coast, at times along the beach and at others high in the cliffs. Michael was waiting for me on the platform, wearing a black hoodie and a black cap with a small red-and-white mushroom on the front. He called it his mourning costume. In the car he gave me a paper bag. Inside was a bar of chocolate wrapped neatly in tissue paper. As he drove out of the lot a full moon appeared over the trees.

We arrived at the house to find Gene sitting on a red La-Z-Boy, watching Blazing Saddles, PooPoo on his lap. The dog jumped off when he saw us coming and charged at Michael’s ankles. Michael picked him up, thrashing, and plopped him outside, slamming the screen door. Gene had almost halved in size, his face completely sunken, his arms and legs, bluish and pale, poking out of a baggy T-shirt and shorts. I tried to hide my shock but it must have been apparent. People had been coming over all week to say their goodbyes.

When Michael had first told me they’d put Gene on home hospice, I’d assumed it meant he would be home under regular medical care. What it really meant on his low-cost insurance was a hospital bed in their house, medication, and thirty-minute visits from a nurse twice a week. The rest of the time it was up to Michael, his mother, and his sister to look after Gene. By the time I arrived, the home hospice had been going on for two weeks and they’d stumbled into a rhythm. Gene slept in the Blue Room (blue walls and carpet), which had once been Michael’s bedroom, then the bedroom of a series of lodgers, then a room for Mom to stretch in. Now it was the room where Gene was going to die. There was the hospital bed in the center and a folding table against one wall, covered in a red paper tablecloth, pieces of hospital equipment, dozens of pill pots, and Michael’s junk. Michael and his mother took turns administering a regimen of medication every few hours: liquid morphine, vitamins, blood pressure pills, pills to help his organs deal with all the pills. There was a mattress in the corner covered with a Lion King quilt where Michael had been sleeping. Gene had a little bell by his bedside that he rang when he needed something.

I was tired from the travel, so Michael set me up a bed in the Green Room next door. It had a single bed, another folding table, and a few blankets laid out for the cats to sleep on. Michael gave me his pillow and the Lion King duvet and put on another hoodie over the hoodie he was already wearing. We sat down on the bed for a moment and he rested his head on my shoulder. From the next room the little bell rang and he shot up. I curled up and drifted off.

The next morning Michael woke me up at nine o’clock with a mug of creamy coffee. “Get up! We’re going to the store!” His dad wanted egg bagels. They’d already given Gene his medicine, taken him for a shower, and rustled up a small first breakfast of eggnog and toast. It was only a quick drive to Vons but Michael drove very slowly, all the windows open, lighting one cigarette after another.

We returned to the sound of the little bell ringing. Gene wanted to sit out on the lounger. He wanted a coffee. Michael helped his dad outside and made the bagels. I did the dishes and Mom put on another pot of coffee while telling me how much pain she was in, her arthritis, her hip —she was falling apart.

I soon discovered that the most demanding part of the home hospice was Gene’s appetite. Over the next week we went out three or four times a day to find whatever thing he craved. The bell would ring and Michael would go running. “My dad wants a steak dinner!” We’d jump into the car to go pick up a steak, then sushi, then burritos.

Mom was paying for these elaborate requests with envelopes of cash she’d saved over the years, each one labeled with a particular purpose. Every time she pulled out a new one from the back of a drawer, my heart sank: forty dollars for Michael’s birthday, a hundred dollars for a plumbing emergency, a hundred for yard work—all gone.

As the morphine doses got larger and Michael more sleep-deprived, nights and meals and dreams collapsed into hallucinations. Gene would wake up, feel hungry, and ring his bell. Michael would help him into the kitchen and cook whatever Gene instructed. I’d hear all about it in the morning. Clam chowder from a can with packet noodles. Chicken soup with pork gyoza and taquitos. Michael told me that sometimes he’d drift off in the middle of cooking, laying his double-hooded head on the kitchen counter.

I slipped by the Blue Room one morning, sheepishly hoping I could just make a coffee and bring my book out into the backyard. “The English Muffin!” Gene called out. “I want an English pot roast. Can you do that?”

I returned to the doorway. PooPoo, who was more or less living on Gene’s chest by this point, greeted me with a growl.

“Yes!” I said. “I think I can.”

Waiting for the coffee to brew, I googled English pot roast. It seemed to be something to do with potatoes and meat, a stew. I couldn’t find Michael anywhere.

“Gene …” I said, eventually going back into his room. “What do you mean by English pot roast?”

“I mean Henry VIII creamy banquet pot roast. Pig’s blood! Potatoes! Lots of meat. Don’t forget the meat!”

I called for Michael all over the house, in the front yard, the backyard, down by the shed. Finally his voice came down from the sky.

“I’m up here!” he said. I couldn’t see him, but some branches moved at the very top of the thirty-foot redwood.

“He wants me to make a medieval pot roast,” I told Michael when he came down.

“He’ll go back to sleep. I need to give him some more morphine now anyway. He’ll forget all about it.”

Michael was right. While PooPoo barked and tore at his fingers, he fed his father the liquid morphine, and Gene fell back to sleep. Michael took a nap. An hour later the little bell rang again.

“Blueberry pancakes!” I heard. “Can she do blueberry pancakes?”

I found a mix for blueberry muffins in the cupboard. It was the middle of the day by the time they were done. One came out with a funny face. Two freeze-dried blueberries for wonky eyes and a crease below them like a sideways smile. I thought it looked a bit like Michael. I showed his mother and she agreed. Excited, we woke Michael up with the muffin doppelgänger on a plate.

Hold it up to your face, we told him. Do your wonky eyes. Smile sideways a bit. See?

Mom brought a muffin cut up in four with a pile of butter to Gene on a little plate. He put the whole lump of butter on one quarter, had a bite, and put the plate down on his lap, exhausted. “Do you like your muffin, Dad?” Michael said. Gene didn’t respond. I felt that in some great way I had failed.

***

Michael’s sister, Bonnie, lived in the next town over. She had a two-year-old girl, Sofia, and was heavily pregnant with her second. She’d bring a meal or some shopping over every few days and spend a few hours with her dad. When she and the little girl spilled in through the front door, the whole house seemed to calm.

One afternoon, Gene and Bonnie were stretched out on the sofa, the patio doors letting in a warm breeze. Sofia was running around, looking for the cats. Mom was out in the hammock. I was sitting next to Michael on the piano bench. He started playing a peaceful, sweet song. I asked Bonnie what Sofia’s birth had been like. She said it had been an amazing experience. She said she went full wild woman. At the moment of the birth, she’d been on all fours and felt her whole heart open wide to God. There was no pain, no body, no one else, just her baby and God. Gene said that was the way he felt about death. When the moment came, he was going to go into it with arms open to God. He held his arms out wide as he said it.

Later, Bonnie’s husband, Paul, came over. They got out some guitars from the garage, brought them into the Blue Room, and sang songs around Gene’s bed. Nineties folk—The Moldy Peaches, Bright Eyes—and then an amazing rendition of “O Holy Night,” Paul on the harmonica, Michael on the guitar, and Bonnie singing. I sat on the mattress and watched them. I wanted them to keep playing—no more talking, talking, talking. “O night divine, o night …”

At the end of the song, Mom came in. She said it was late, Dad was tired, she was tired, we were all tiring him out. Michael said, “Wow Mom, you even managed to ruin this.” Bonnie snapped at Michael, “Don’t talk to her like that.” Michael said, “Yeah, yeah, it’s all my fault.” Bonnie’s husband asked no one in particular if they’d noticed that the moon’s face had changed. “They’ve done something to the moon’s face,” he said. “I swear …”

“He’s tired,” Mom said, turning to Gene. “Are you tired, sweetie? Tell them you’re tired. No one believes me. Someone’s gotta look after him. He needs his rest. Tell them for once. I know how tired you are. He’ll never say it himself …”

“All right, Mom. I’m tired.”

I followed Michael out to the backyard with a beer and a cigarette and found him up in the redwood again. I coaxed him down with my offerings and convinced him not to climb all the way up the tree in the dark.

***

Gene’s body was shutting down. His legs and arms were swelling and leaking fluid. He had to carry paper towels around with him to mop up the mess, but he never complained. We took turns massaging his legs to ease the pain. When it was my turn, I made a bit of conversation, asked him about his life. He didn’t want to go into any of that. He just smiled and told me to massage with all the strength my skin and bones could muster.

Amid all this, Michael wanted to have sex whenever he had a minute free. When his dad was sleeping he’d usher me into the Green Room or drive us out to the back-road fields and pull over on the side of the road. At night, with the hills behind us, the hum of cars in the distance, a light breeze through the grass, it was kind of spectacular. But I was never in the mood. So often we would go all the way out there for me to freeze over. “You’re removed,” he told me. “Checked out. A sandbag.”

“Well, sorry,” I said. “But I massaged your dying dad’s legs earlier. I’ve come all the way here. I’m doing what I can do. Right now all I can be is a sandbag.”

“I’m exhausted and I need love.”

“We just had sex.”

“Oh yeah. ‘We just did this, we just did that. I gave you a blowjob last week …’ ”

“I know you’re sad but you’re being a dick. How can you not see that?”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“You were the one who started the conversation. I was just lying here.”

“Exactly.”

***

The days went on and Gene held on. One evening I noticed a slice of a moon through the kitchen window and realized it had been two weeks since I’d arrived. Despite the pain, Gene still wanted to move around, take a stroll with his walker, barbecue pork, play guitar on the patio with his son. “This is not how normal hospice patients behave,” Mom said. We were standing in the kitchen, looking at family pictures. In many of them the whole family and some friends were sitting around jamming, having a good time. Not that long ago—five years, maybe.

“Most people just lie in bed. But my husband—he’s on his feet demanding fine dining! I don’t want to complain, but it makes me think—miracles can happen. And if he does get better, things would have to change around here. There’s no money. We can’t live like this. Steak-dinner takeout! We’d lose the house.”

I nodded and made to say something, but she carried on.

“Sometimes I think I might be an alien,” she said. “I’m not like other people. Like lying—people lie so easily but I can never lie. Neither can Michael. We’re both like that. I can see how hard it is for him in the world. We just don’t make sense here! He needs to get a job, get a car. Get going with his life. You’re so good for him. He listens to you. I always told him, If you wanna just do what you want, then find a groupie. You’re no groupie. You’re like an angel sent here. I mean it. I prayed to God for you and you came. But you’ve got your life ahead of you.”

Michael must have been listening because he ran out of the Blue Room at that point.

He took my hand and peeled me away. “We’re going on a walk now, Mom. She doesn’t wanna talk anymore.”

“See,” Mom said. “He’ll do anything for you.”

***

Gene was still ringing his bell on his sixty-fifth birthday, November 16, a milestone that had seemed unthinkable a month before. We arranged a small party for his family and a few of his music buddies. Michael spent the morning setting up the backyard with microphones and guitars. He even put a TV and VCR on a cart on wheels to play home videos. We drove out to the Mexican supermarket and bought carnitas and a case of mini Corona bottles. On the way out he impulse-bought a ceramic Day of the Dead guitar to give his dad. When the friends arrived at the house, Mom took the opportunity to go have some time alone and run errands at Vons and CVS.

The men barbecued pork, and I made pico de gallo, according to Bonnie’s instructions. It was a hit. The men in their cowboy getups were shocked that the English girl had prepared it. The sun was shining, people were sitting out, eating the barbecue. Michael tried his best to get people to play music but it wasn’t happening. How do you celebrate the birthday of a dying man? I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself. At one point, Michael gave his dad the ceramic guitar wrapped up in Christmas wrapping paper. “Día de los Muertos,” said his dad. He held the guitar in his palms, disgusted.

The men got it together and started playing “The Cowboy Who Started the Fight.” Gene watched on in his wheelchair. He closed his eyes as they sang “screamed through the veins of the street.” They sang a few more songs. Michael and I took a break to catch the sun go down over a field of tomato vines. In the ten minutes that we were out, Gene stood up with a guitar to play a song with them. He was just sitting back down as we came in the door. Soon after, the guys all left.

“Man plans, God laughs,” Michael said.

Mom was gone for most of the day. She returned from her errands with a gift for Michael. She was so excited about it, she wanted to give it to him straight away. Out of a green and white paper bag, Michael pulled a fluffy llama with wonky eyes. He squeezed it and the llama squeaked.

“It’s a dog toy,” he said, sounding like his father when he held the Day of the Dead guitar. Mom laughed and laughed. She said it reminded her of Michael and the blueberry muffin. I laughed too. Michael grimaced.

“Oh no … I think he’s angry,” Mom said.

“Here,” I told Michael. “Don’t be angry. Squeeze your dog toy.”

He took the llama in both hands, crossed his eyes, stuck his tongue out, and let it rip.

***

November 18 was the eighth anniversary of my own father’s death. I woke up feeling sad and drained. At this point, I thought to myself, Gene needed to die or someone else would. I spent the morning swinging in the hammock by the redwood at the bottom of the garden, hiding from everyone. I heard Michael and Mom calling for me from the house. Gene wanted a massage, they said. His legs were hurting. I couldn’t face it. Michael called my phone. I ignored it.

When I went back inside, the two of them were maneuvering Gene into the living room. Michael almost dropped him and he fell back on the sofa with a cry of pain. “You’re not helping!” Mom screamed at Michael.

“Mom. I am midhelping. You’re brain-dead from your painkillers.”

“Enough!” Gene’s voice boomed from the sofa, where he was half-collapsed, falling off the side of it. “Stop it! Both of you!”

Mom and Michael stopped, ashamed.

“Now, son.” Gene took in a quiet, pained breath. “Can you help me off this damn sofa and take me back to bed?” Michael pulled him up by the armpits.

That night Gene could only manage a spoonful of canned tomato bisque.

“I think he’s going to die today. The same day as your dad. If our dads die on the same day that’s God talking. We’ll have to get married.”

Later, Michael slept next to me in the Green Room while his mom was with Gene. I dozed while I listened to Mom talk to Gene, telling him about their life together. “We’re good people,” she told him. “Weird people.” She could have been saying anything really, the hum was so soothing. “There’s no one around here like us.” It kept sending me back to sleep.

I woke up to Gene’s voice crying out: “Help! I can’t breathe!” I pushed Michael and he bolted into the Blue Room. Mom woke up too. “I’m coming!” she called out.

I stayed in bed, listening. They were arguing about how much morphine to give Gene. Mom said Michael was giving him too much. Michael said it wasn’t enough. She ran to get the phone to call the nurse. Gene was desperately trying to get words out. He couldn’t breathe. And then a desperate gargling, drowning on thin air. Michael was saying, “It’s okay Dad. I’m right here. I’m right here,” all through the gargling until Gene was no longer making any sound.

When I walked in, Gene’s skin had already yellowed. I realized I’d seen three dead bodies now. My dad, my granddad, and Gene. They all looked the same, laid out on a hospital bed. It was five minutes to midnight. An hour later a nurse came. Another hour, and a man and a woman arrived from the mortuary. At the door, their long, gray, thinning hair obscuring half their faces, they told me they were here for the body. Never have I seen more ghoulish-looking people. They wore baggy suits with sleeves that came down over their hands, and round, shiny shoes that also seemed a few sizes too big. They moved slowly. “Was he in the military?” they asked. “No,” we said. “He was not in the military.”

“Okay, thank you.” They put a sheet over Gene’s body and wheeled him through the house, out the front door. Mom followed him out, holding PooPoo. She wanted to show the dog that Dad was leaving. Dad was being wheeled onto the van.

“See, it’s okay, PooPoo. There he goes. They’re wheeling him in now. He’s going …”

Michael didn’t want to watch his dad go into the back of a van. I found him in the backyard with a tall glass of vodka, smoking a cigarette. He joked that he’d been praying to his dad as he was dying. “Come on, five more minutes. If you make it five more minutes I won’t have to marry her.” Then he said that he was plotting to steal morphine to kill the dog.

All the lights were on. It was three in the morning. Michael pulled out a crate of home videos and Mom and I told him to put them away. I made us some tea. We had some more vodka. Mom went to bed and I put Michael in the shower. I washed his hair and cried, but he was like a stone. I could tell he was still obsessing about killing PooPoo. After the shower, I put him in a clean T-shirt and underwear, tucked him in to bed, and held him tight until he fell asleep.

I woke up in the morning to Michael sleeping soundly next to me. He looked so at peace I didn’t want to wake him up. It made me cry. His eyes opened. “Dad?” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was joking. Soon after, we heard Mom howling. Long, slow howls. One of the saddest, strangest noises I’ve ever heard. “My life!” she called out between the howls. “My life!” It was almost like singing.

After that first day Mom said she needed to mourn alone. We needed to leave so she could scream and cry and talk to God. We went to Bonnie’s for a night but then Bonnie said she was too sad and stressed to have us there, with the baby coming soon. A little desperate, we decided to go camping. For the next week we drove between beaches along the central coast, walked, wrote, drank beer. Michael wrote a list of plans for the future, plans that involved him getting paid to travel, recording his album, singing at a body of water every day, building the 24-7 radio live-stream, moving every three months. He was going to give this list to his family, to prove to them that he had a plan. “You two need to move on with your own life now,” Mom had told me before we left. I couldn’t understand how his family could abandon him at a time like this. I’d had to remind her that Michael had come home to look after Gene, that we’d been living and working in Chicago. At the same time, I got what she was saying and why they didn’t want him hanging around. Michael was a liability, and now he was my liability.

***

Gene didn’t have a funeral. They were going to take his ashes out to the ocean in the spring. After the week of camping, Mom got lonely and wanted Michael back again. I decided to leave, to stay with a friend in Brooklyn for a while. I found a flight from San Francisco and booked a train from San Luis Obispo up the coast. Before I left, I found Michael a job doing yard work for a neighbor. He would save some money and leave in January. We said we might travel around. I tried to believe it could happen but I knew that it would not.

As we left for the train station, a commode arrived for Gene, more than a month late. Mom couldn’t bear to look at it, so we said we’d give it to Goodwill on the way to the station. She gave us a trash bag of old blankets to donate, too. I said a tearful goodbye to Mom and she gave me an envelope with a hundred-dollar bill in it. She thanked me for all the help and told me to get something nice for myself.

“Michael doesn’t want you to go,” she said.

I hugged her again and got in the car. “I never say goodbye,” she said. “I only say see you later.”

We drove up to the back of Goodwill and waved down a man who seemed to be accepting donations. “Is that a commode?” he asked.

“Yep. My dad just died. He never used it.”

He shook his head and tutted. “Nah. We can’t take that. That’s nasty.”

“How about these blankets?” Michael said, pointing to the trash bag.

“This bag? Those blankets?” The man took a quick sideways look. “Nah, we can’t take that either. That’s nasty, too.”

We were in a silly mood, driving to San Luis Obispo with the commode rattling in the back. It was a fresh December day. You could feel a change in the air. We stopped off at Ben Franklin’s Deli and I ordered three Californian sandwiches from the cashier, one for me, one for Michael, and one for him to bring home to his mom.

“My dad just passed away and my girlfriend is leaving for New York!” Michael announced out of nowhere.

There was still some time before the train. At the station we ran up over the footbridge to get a good view of the tracks and the hills. I took a few pictures of Michael. He took a few of me. The train came, we said goodbye, and I found a spot with a table at the back of the second-floor observation car, the same booth we’d sat in after that first trip. My bags stowed away, I looked down and saw Michael on the platform below, dancing to get my attention. He was trying to say something, but I couldn’t understand him. He mimed and danced around a bit more. Got on his knees. Drew a picture of a house with his finger in the air.

A man sitting a few seats ahead of me watched the scene in awe. All of a sudden he began narrating it to the rest of the car.

“Marry me,” the man said. “We’ll have a house by the sea.”

Michael mimed writing in a notebook, then swimming, then playing guitar.

“You can write poetry. I’ll swim. Play music,” said the man.

By this time everyone in the observation car was watching. The narrator turned to me.

“Does he have a phone number? I want to tell him something.”

“He doesn’t have a phone,” I said. “But you can leave a message on his mother’s answering machine.”

So the man dialed Mom’s number, and Michael, feeding off the audience, mimed a phone in response. I thought of Mom at home alone, rattled by the phone ringing. The man spoke to Michael through the glass and Michael nodded along, though he definitely couldn’t hear. Neither of them broke eye contact. The man said he was a preacher. He’d married about a hundred couples by now. Each time it had been uniquely special. “Why wait?” he told the future Michael, who would be listening to his mother’s answering machine if he ever got around to it. The preacher ended his message with his number, saying to call him if we wanted to get married.

The train started moving and Michael ran along the platform. I waved until I could no longer see him. Soon I was coasting inland. A rush of green-gold on either side. Pesticide farmland, trees, bushes thick with leaves, sunlight gracing the tip of everything. I stared out the window the whole journey. No sign of December anywhere, no sign of time passing. So much talk of marriage in God’s country. No doubt He had it all planned out for me.

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tayloristragical · 2 years

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3/11/2023

I slept pretty horribly last night, i think it’s because i took adipex yesterday and had an energy drink and preworkout and a coffee. ooops. lol. at least i finished most of what i wanted to do yesterday.

i feel like somehow things are already messy again at home. i feel the urge to vacuum every single day. it can never be clean enough in our apartment. i can’t wait to move and have more space and less clutter.

work has sucked so far today, what’s new i guess. im going to my parents’ house tonight. im not working out today but im going to the gym tomorrow morning.

i just checked and i see that 3 other people are interviewing for the job i want at work. i feel less and less excited about the opportunity as time passes. all im looking forward to rn is going to all-you-can-eat hotpot on tuesday with my bf. everything and everyone else in this world can go fuck itself.

#personalblog #tayloristragical

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mineofilms · 2 years

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Fitness Tips: 2023

Fitness Tips: 2023 My History in/with Fitness, specifically WEIGHT-TRAINING…

From the time I was 13 till I was about 25; pretty much everyone that knew me or knew of my reputation in the SWFL area would praise me for my weightliting efforts. Not just the look but the numbers I could throw up for a small statured person. I was never even challenged in powerlifting till I went to State in my high school run and I still fared better than most being in the Top 5 twice out of 3 years in the state of FL. When I got older drinking, chasing girls, working with bands, film school, computer systems/networking school, took up a lot of my time; but when I finally got back into fitness I was going the bodybuilding route, due to the amount of weight I put on over the years. I didn’t know much about bodybuilding or using weight training to lose weight being into powerlifting most of my life. I was partying heavily and on ever OTC (Over the Counter) supplement I could find.

I was taking a heavy stim preworkout and drinking with it sometimes. Between all that my body decided to go into a diabetic state that just progressively got worse. I couldn't manage it. I still cannot manage it. The reason why I think the supplement had more to do with this than the lifestyle is because that is the great common denominator. I was always living this life. When I started adding these stimulant preworkouts is when I started to have problems and my dumbass just kept doubling down, like CNN on a given broadcast lol.

Eventually, my lifestyle was too much for my diabetic state and my body crashed several times over an 8 year span. Now I have even more problems. When you look at pics from those earlier years of my diabetic state you can see what my body was actually doing. It was literally eating my insides out from the inside out. Almost like a parasite would operate. First it went for all my fat reserves, then it started working on my physical strength, then it literally started to eat away my muscle mass. I was 188lbs in early 2012, by mid-2012 I was down to 150 lbs and even got down to 138 a year or so later. Sure I was working out, I wasn't dieting all that much but had choose better quality of foods. 2013-2014 my body leveled off a little because I eased up on the drinking; but that only lasted a year before I went back to hitting the bottle hard along with whatever female was around at the time to keep me, um, “occupied.” I was still taking heavy stim preworkouts. I was hospitalized in 2017 for an infection on my right middle finger. They wanted to chop it off, I wasn’t having any of that, nope... Then Covid happened. I got Covid halfway through the pandemic and it aggravated my diabetes to such a level that my body went into ketoshock and I had almost died. I have had serious and complex issues ever since.

So, yeah, if you look at pics of me from 2014, I am ripped, six pack, shredded but my strength was way down and getting worse. Now since I quit drinking, the drinking was making my condition worse, I was able to get my weight back up to around 157-162 on a given day. So, not ripped anymore but still pack a good punch. I am somewhere between fit dad bod and a natural bulldog look. I am happy with that. If I had a car and a better money situation I would be at a controlled environment like a gym. Right now I am training in my @home Garage Gym Life with what I have to work with, which is a decent setup for home gym. With the weather down here it is hard for me to really get after it. I cannot handle the heat very well anymore and the garage is not insulated. It gets hot in there even when it’s only in the 70s-80s. It will feel like 100+ in there. I have had to condense my training efforts significantly.

Some of you have ask for some general tips. So here are some…

TIPS: Some of this might sound basic as fuck but it’s important:

1) Consistency – A steady balance of: Diet, Rest, Training and Repeat. All of these are equally difficult but Repeat is the hardest. You do not have to train every day. Actually you shouldn’t train every day but you should train 4-5 days a week and hit at least every body part once or twice pending on your schedule.

2) Eat a well-balanced diet. If you want your body to grow you have to feed it. Protein based foods. You can never fail with meats and veggies people. No matter what all the articles, YouTube channels, professionals say about diet. You have to eat protein based meals. You cannot replace food with shakes. Shakes are not a meal replacement but are meal enhancements. You drink a shake with your meal if the meal doesn’t have the protein you need to sustain both muscle repair and muscle growth. You can/should have a protein shake or a BCAA drink after your workout. There is no magic number here. You need 60 grams of protein for breakfast alone to sustain muscular growth. You will have to look up what your bodyweight/height, all that stuff, and find a number that works for you per meal that triggers the body to respond to this stimulus.

3) You need to rest your body. Your body grows/loses weight during rest/sleep. Do not short change yourself in that arena if your plan is to grow more. Your brain and body both need rest, so sleep… Even losing weight, the body needs to rest to repair what work you did to it.

4) This goes back to consistency… Repeat… If you do all this you must make it habitual. If you are constantly breaking your routine of diet, rest, exercise and skip the repeat button your results will show this.

5) Do not over train. Over training is a real thing but what “they” do not tell you is what that actually means. Over training simply means your diet/rest are not matching your effort in the gym. You might go in the gym and bust ass for 3 hour workouts and that is fine but you have to do both rest and eat at that same intensity or your body will not build upon itself as you expect it will.

6) If your body feels flat, tired and your results are becoming hindered, most likely that is because your body isn’t getting enough nutrients and rest to match the breakdown of your body in the gym. Be mindful. This is the one single reason people quit their fitness journey. The science is real, however, it is not a one size fits all and trainers/coaches will treat you like it is, it isn’t, everyone is different. Everyone’s body is different and what triggers their own stimulus is different. It is a trainer’s/coach’s job to sell you on the premise that you cannot achieve your fitness goals without their help/guidance. That is only partially true. You can absolutely get in shape without paying the obscene amounts of money that trainers/coaches charge people. Especially in group training establishments. However, not all coaches/trainers are like this and you personally may need that extra help. Just know that this is doable on your own if you are willing to put in the time, energy, research, diet, rest, exercise, attention, acceptance, repeat onto yourself. It is more than just projecting this on yourself. You must actually DO IT… No level of belief will do this for you. You must comply and do the work or nothing that is wanted will be achieved.

7) Look up split routines. Look up HITT training. Look up Hypertrophy or the process of how muscles are broken down and built back up. Look up the differences for training for power, endurance and growth. All 3 are different but share common attributes. They are also not all mutually exclusive.

8) Supplements… Be careful with these. If you are gonna use supplementation do your research. Most supplements and/or companies are not regulated by the FDA. They have labels, sure, but what is on the label is not literally monitored by the FDA. You may buy protein and realize the protein has a bunch of fillers in there to make it taste better, but may be a substance that your digestive tract cannot process. I would also stay away from Stimulant based preworkouts. They make you feel great, but what they do not tell you, in a lot of cases, they are using one of like 30 different chemicals that are considered and/or in the meth family tree. You are not ingesting literal meth, but it will pop you as a positive drug test for meth. This is because your standard drug test for meth covers ALL of the whole family of meth-based-chemicals. Not all of them are illegal but they are still considered “meth.” You have to get a comprehensive drug test done so they can see the exact chemical make-up of what is in your urine/bloodstream. It costs more so they do not usually do that. Also if you are taking drug tests regularly you should bring in all the supplements you are taking and let the lab people see it for themselves. I almost got into trouble with probation when I was on probation because I got popped for meth and had to bring in the supplement I was taking that had that meth-family-chemical in it. That is how I know this lol. You can use protein freely for the most part. Plant based is better on the gut than others. There are all sorts of things you can take that are good. You can use a non-stim preworkout or just get Beta-Alanine which is the reason why most people take preworkout to begin with. Just do your research and do not trust that the supplement companies have your best interests in mind. They don’t. They just want you to buy their stuff. If that stuff hurts you or causes sickness or worse they will not help you or even show they care. ALL supplement companies should not be trusted with your health, but you can use supplementation to help garner a better diet and workout recovery. Just do your homework and research on the chemical make-up of the substance you are putting into your body. You should be mindful and doing this anyway…

9) If you want better workout tips follow some of these channels and/or mine on YouTube. I can recommend a few. My channel mostly just shows some creative workouts you can do but I do not cover a lot of the things I have mentioned here. That is why I put this together for you all. You can always message me with your questions. I am not taking clients because to be honest I cannot give you what you really need and that is time, attention; plus I cannot literally monitor what you do on a given day.

Me – https://www.youtube.com/@mineofilms ATHLEAN-X™ - https://www.youtube.com/@athleanx BodyBuilding.com - https://www.youtube.com/bodybuildingcom BroScienceLife - https://www.youtube.com/@BroScienceLife FitnessBlender - https://www.youtube.com/@fitnessblender Tiger Fitness - https://www.youtube.com/@TigerFitness Mike O'Hearn - https://www.youtube.com/@MikeOHearnTitan

Hope this helps…. Mineo (pronounced Mini-O)

Fitness Tips: 2023 By David-Angelo Mineo 1/13/2023 1,918 Words

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dailyworkoutblogblog · 2 years

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Day 6 Progress trying out other exercises

Had an extra busy day at work. Was able to get off of work on time. Got home around 330pm. Meeting up with Loc, PJ, and brought Harlie to EOS fitness for a workout at 520pm. Shoulder day today. Been watching youtube videos to try out "best" shoulder exercises to try to change it up. Drank preworkout as per normal

Started with 5 minutes on sitting bicycle machine for warmup

Seated shoulder press machine 10x3

Cable bent over lateral raises 10x3

Arnold presses 35lbsx10x3

Seated reverse cable fly 10x3

Shoulder Shrugs 60lbsx10x3

Front raises 17.5lbsx10x3

Seated bent over Rear Delt Rows 17.5x10x3

Cross front raises 25lbsx10x3

Close grip tricep bench press 135x10x2 then 90x10x1

Tricep Dips 10x3

Then ran on treadmill. Started off at 7.5mph and started walking about 9 minutes 30 seconds in because I started cramping on the right side of my abdomen. Tried running slower pace but walked it off in an incline. Started running normal again about 17minutes and 30 seconds in then ran 7.5mph until 25 minutes then bumped it up to 8.0 for 2 minutes then 8.5 for 1 minute then 9.0 for 1 minute then 10.0 for 1 minute to finish off 30 minutes total. I rarely start cramping in my abdomen, but noticed it happens when I drink too much water before running or eat something too close to coming to the gym.

Went home and ate left over shrimp Sinigang that Harlie cooked. Had enough dishes to do chores like dishes, take out trash, fold laundry, and sort cans/plastics. Took 2 melatonin 5mg and knocked out to get rested for work the next day at 6am.

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fit-as-fxck · 5 years

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saturday workout & update

Warmup pushing a 165 lb sled x5 and pulling it back into place x20 yards

mobility warmup

conventional deadlifts 2 sets of 8 reps

barbell row x2 sets and then I got bored and decided I didn’t want to work back today

sumo deadlift 4 sets @ RPE of 8

dumbbell tension & pause squats 4x15

superset with: dumbbell tension RDL’s 4x15

scapular pull-ups and dead hangs until failure

Some notes on this: strength on deadlifts is definitely down but thats okay because it’s not as low as I thought. My pull-up work is feeling really good lately. I’m working on grip strength pretty much at the end of every workout. I threw in a few barbell squats at the end of this workout but didn’t count them because I wanted to try out a lifting belt. The belt was pointless for me because I couldn't get it tight enough on me, even on the smallest notch (such is life).

My weekly routine is looking like:

Two or three days of lifting (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday).

Three days of running (Monday, Wednesday, Friday).

Sunday is a hiking day or resting day.

This plan is flexible because I do go to yoga and might throw in weight training on most days after my runs. It all just depends. I’m moving with what works for me right now and focusing on eating e n o u g h . Unfortunately that was my kryptonite. I have to convince myself that eating enough won’t make me spontaneously combust. It’s a weird irrational fear I developed but I'm glad I caught it in time to stop it. I greatly underestimated the amount of general activity I get on a daily basis outside of my workouts. For instance, yesterday I hit 20,000 steps. Yep. Moving a ton. I swear, everyday something new dawns on me.

My cardio is in the trash but I’m able to get it back out with effort and the more I eat - the more I’m able to handle and feel “better”, ya know? I’ve split my lifting workouts into push/pull days, even though I’m focusing on running right now and just using the weight training to supplement. I still LOVE to throw heavy weight around. There’s just something about it that makes me feel fierce and I don’t want to lose any strength gains.

It recently struck me how... weird I'm feeling about where I’m at. My cardio is in the trash and getting it back out of the trash can feels D I F F I C U L T . But doable with persistence. The thing about getting yourself out of the trash can is that getting over the initial hump of “oh shit. this is where I'm at and it’s hard” is a tough pill to swallow. It feels almost humiliating. Not like “ha ha you’re in a trash can” but like swallowing my own pride enough to accept where I am. In order to get anywhere, you first have to accept exactly where you are and know that moving from it is possible. Most people don’t want to do either of those things. They don’t want to love and accept where they are at and that it is hard and they don’t want to believe that they are much more powerful than they think they are. Your beliefs are built through action. However painful at first but that action builds confidence that others can’t destroy. After you get over that hump of “oh shit this is hard for me and once upon a time it wasn't”, well, it won't be easy but at least you won't have to get over the hump again. I tried to stay really objective about it and not be a dramatic bitch but I am hooooooman to the utmost degree and this week felt terrible but it won't for long. If I had a dollar for every time I had a really stupid setback in life (idk how to finish this sentence so use your imagination). Sometimes I take a look at it and I'm like, wow. I’ve fucked up so many times, in so many different ways that I've lost count. I’m going to be 30 soon believe it or not and I'm still out here fucking up. Maybe you don't ever reach a point where you don't fuck up anymore. But the good news is the only way to learn is through failure and finding out what DOESN’T work gets us closer to what DOES. It’s the trying 99 times until you get that 100th time where it works. You can only learn this on your own or watching others and learning from their mistakes too but not many are honest and real about theirs. It’s important to note that everything is relative so comparing your story to someone else’s and vice versa is pointless and will do nothing but send you into a pit of despair. Just make sure the story you are telling yourself is one of growth and possibility (because we are the stories we tell ourselves) and not a life held back by your own limiting beliefs because of the other highlight reels you see. At any moment you can choose to be the comeback kid. Its a choice. And so I do the only thing I know how to do - I move forward, knowing that I made a mistake many people have made (or haven’t) and that by doing this it has turned me into a wiser person.

I’m taking the rest of the month off of Tumblr updates because I want to remain focused, put my head down and work. I’ll continue to increase calories and activities as I see fit and track my progress.

#personal #rambles #all over the place #because I took preworkout #and I'm sensitive to caffeine lolololol

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divinegrey · 2 years

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first and foremost, drink water as soon as you read this ask, second, I can't get enough of the fluff you write, so how about a prompt where the reader has just been overworking herself at the gym, at the firing range, or doing some work at the protocol, and the val women take it upon themselves to ensure that the reader, as stubborn as she is, is taking care of herself. thank you in advance, you're awesome!

ok this took a while but mostly bc i had to hold myself back from writing like ten thousand words. hope you enjoy! i picked my ot4 ;)

RELAX | FADE, REYNA, SAGE, VIPER X F!READER

words: 2300 warnings: enough sexual tension to choke a donkey, cursing, fluff, reader being taken care of bc she deserves it

Yet another mission comes and goes. With a tired sigh, you walk off the Vulture, your gun slung behind your back. Every step aches in your body, and you rub the sleeplessness away in your eyes. It had been a quick mission, but vicious nonetheless. Brimstone needed someone to make contact with a notoriously tricky informant, so off you went on a goose chase that ended with more blood spilled than necessary.

Doesn’t matter. You completed the mission and the informant is now secured on the base. Glancing at your watch, you see that it’s still early morning. The time zone difference is fucking up your internal clock, but as far as you’re concerned, there’s still an entire day of things for you to do. You have a training session you need to lead— maybe you could squeeze in some time at the firing range? The gym will be empty during dinner, so you can get a workout in then.

You put a smile on your face and go about your day.

Training turns out to be rough— between not sleeping overnight because of the mission and your body rumbling with hunger, the soldiers you’re in charge of begin to notice your lethargy, even as you run through hand to hand combat drills. During demonstrations, you’re more sluggish than you want to be.

Push it aside. Focus.

After managing to get through training, you tear through a ration bar on your way to the shooting range. You’re moving so fast on your feet you hardly notice the eyes peering at you in the shadows of the hallway.

The firing range is peaceful. Yoru is there along with Phoenix, practicing their shots with a Sheriff. The two of them pay you little mind as you pick up a Guardian and get to work, utilizing the simulation bots.

The rest of the day goes by smoothly.

Or, as smoothly as it can be when your exhaustion is starting to catch up midway through a workout session. The preworkout is helping, but there’s only so much you, a human, can do to ward off basic bodily functions.

You put the barbell back onto the rack, sitting up from the bench. You put your hands on your eyes, trying to rub away the sparkles you’d seen while trying to rep out a heavy set of bench presses. The gym is quiet— odd, but you’re glad because you’re struggling a little bit and you’d rather have no one see it.

“Damn it,” you whisper, rubbing your hands on your neck. “C’mon, this is easy weight. Why can’t I fucking do this?”

“Because you haven’t slept in over twenty four hours, cariño.”

Aw, shit.

You turn your head to Reyna, the woman having just entered the gym in a rather plain attire; sleeveless tank top and black pants that do wonders to complement the shape of her legs. Naturally, you straighten up.

“Not all of us can devour souls and keep moving like machines,” you remark, standing up from the bench to unload the metal plates on the bar. You’re not really in the mood for Reyna’s friendly needling of your human status. You’re on par with her when it comes to your skills, so it’s more a jest than anything. Still, though. Reyna can be harsh with her words.

“Yes, because we all require sleep to function,” Reyna says, walking over to where you are. “You and I are no different when it comes to that. Put the weights down. Rest.”

“I’ll do that once I finish my session,” you answer, sliding the weights onto the rack. When you turn, Reyna is standing right there with what you’d call a glower. You’re unphased by it. “Reyna, please.”

“Queen Bitch is right.”

You turn your head at the sound of another voice. From the shadows, Fade steps out, garbed in a long sleeve with a wide collar that shows the animal print that claws across her shoulder. Beside you, Reyna rolls her eyes.

“You’re not gonna do yourself any good if you keep running yourself ragged,” Fade says, stepping up onto the bench before kneeling down into a squat to get eye level with you. She tilts her head to the side. “You left for a mission over twenty four hours ago. Judging by the way I can feel your exhaustion brimming off of your body, you’re about to fall over flat in the next three hours if you don’t get your ass into a bed.”

With a sigh, you hold up your hands. “Look, I appreciate it, but I’m fine. Honestly. I just want to finish my workout and then get some dinner.”

“Not happening.” Fade slaps her hands on her thighs before standing up. She drops down from the bench, throwing her arm around your shoulder and pushing you out of the rack. Putting her hand on your shoulder, “As you have been officially put on bed rest for the next two days.”

“Wait, what?” You turn to Fade. “No, I have a mission I need to do, I was put on it by—”

“By who?”

Walking into your vision from through the doorway are two figures that cause your heart rate to shoot right through the roof. The person who spoke, Viper, and the resident healer, Sage. Behind you, Reyna slips her hand onto your shoulder, idly rubbing her hand across your collarbone.

“By… by you, Sage,” you say, glancing sideward at Reyna’s hand.

“Yes, well, that was before you decided to go on that mission Brimstone sent you on. Why he assigned you, I have no idea, but I’ve taken you off the schedule for the next two days,” Sage says in a voice that says you can’t fight back, even if you tried. Beside her, Viper crosses her arms, leveling you with a glare that makes your blood run cold. Sage continues, “I heard from our resident informant that you haven’t been resting. At all.”

“I— I had things to do, you know, training to run,” you say as a reply, feeling yourself shrink backward at Viper’s stare.

Fade leans toward you, whispering. “This was our backup in case you wouldn’t cooperate.”

“Oh my god— you got backup?” You say, eyes wide with shock. “Seriously?”

“We had to get you to rest one way or another, and it seems you wouldn’t go down unless it was by force, cariño,” Reyna drawls into your ear, sliding her hand down to your waist. “Now, are you going to let us take care of you, or am I going to have to do it myself?”

Looking around at the four women flanking you from all sides in the doorway, you feel crowded. It’s hard to function, but honestly, that might be because the exhaustion is really starting to hit you now. With a sigh, you just nod your head.

Sage steps forward, grabbing your hand. “C’mon. Let’s go wash up, okay?”

“Yes, let’s go wash up,” Reyna purrs from behind.

And that’s how you end up with not one, not two, not three, but four women back to your room. This feels like some sort of strange fever dream, only amplified tenfold when Reyna makes a spur of the moment decision to literally pick you up in her arms. If you weren’t so fucking exhausted, you would tell her to put you down, but honestly…

It feels kinda nice.

After all, this wouldn’t be the first time they’ve all ganged up on you. Honestly, they’ve never been this bold yet; doing it in the base gym, of all places? Despite the weird tension that Reyna, Fade, and Viper all seem to have with each other, they’re strangely amicable when they’re with you.

Mostly.

You swear Fade and Viper have too much sexual tension for them to not being doing something. And then there’s the matter of Reyna’s incessant flirting with Sage, and then Sage being all sweet and caring to Viper (who willingly takes it). You’re somehow smack-dab in the middle of it all, finding yourself at the receiving end of their affections.

Fade had been the one to warm up to you first. She’d seen everything of you, and you’d seen everything of her. Nightmares are strange like that.

Back at your room, you’re pushed into the shower by Sage. After you’re done, Viper and Sage, being the two medical experts, double check your work and make sure all of the bandages and scratches on your body were done properly.

“They all look really well taken care of,” Sage says, tilting your arm in your hand. She runs her thumb along the length of your forearm, pushing knots out. Behind you, Viper yanks off a bandaid.

“Not on this one,” Viper comments as you mutter a small ouch. “Sage?”

“On it.” The healer brings up a small orb, pressing it into your skin. Your back straightens at the touch, a coolness filling your body to easily contradict the warmth of the shower you’d just taken earlier. You’re keenly aware of Viper’s hand on your shoulder, and you glance back at her.

Viper looks at you, and you swallow the knot in your throat.

“That’s everything,” Sage says, patting your shoulder gently. You get up from your seat on the toilet, heading back into your room with Sage’s hand looped through your arm. To your surprise, Reyna is sitting at your desk, her legs thrown up on the edge. Fade is lounging on your bed, one of her prowler’s in her lap in the form of a cat, snuggled against her.

Up until the prowler notices you, and scampers right over.

The prowler crawls up your leg— it’s a weird cold and icy sensation, but you reach down and take the cat into your arms. It’s odd, holding the manifestation of Fade’s powers in your arms, but you know how her abilities can leak out of her like a faulty battery. It just so happens that cats are how it chooses to represent itself.

“Come here,” Fade says, and with a guiding hand by Sage, you’re pushed to the bed. You sit down, feeling Fade adjust herself behind you until her hands touch your shoulders. Then, she starts massaging the tension out of them. Her hands are surprisingly strong, and it’s a relief to have some of the tension bleed out.

“So, cariño,” Reyna says, folding her arms behind her head in an entirely unfair way that shows off the lean muscle of her arms. “How can we serve you?”

The way her voice drops an octave not only catches your attention (along with everyone else's), but causes your entire face to flush.

“As if you’d do any serving,” Viper says dryly. Affronted, Reyna turns her gaze to the doctor.

“Many could say the same for you, Callas.”

“They’re not going to stop unless you intervene,” Fade murmurs into your ear, driving her knuckle into a particularly harsh knot. You melt against her back, resting your head on her shoulder.

“Would it be wrong of me to say that this is slightly entertaining?” You whisper in reply, prompting Fade to chuckle. The sound is throaty and deep, warm in your bones. She murmurs something that sounds close to you’re not wrong. Her hands slide from her shoulders until she’s wrapping you into a tight hug, an odd amount of affection for her to show.

You take it in stride. God knows you need it.

Sage, luckily, steps in the middle before it gets too bad with her hands on Viper and Reyna’s chests, pushing them apart with a terrifying force of power in her eyes. She points to both of them with silent eyes, and they ease off. The result is their attention turning to you— Reyna flocks to your side, pulling your leg into her lap before digging her knuckles into the tense muscles along your thigh.

You find it’s a little hard to breathe when you have Reyna leering at you and Fade purring into your neck. But you have to admit, you do feel a little better.

“Thank you,” you say out loud. Any conversation that might’ve been happening is cut off posthaste. With a smile, Sage comes to the bed and kneels before it, grabbing your hand.

“We see how hard you work, taking on far more than you should. But we also see how you need to take care of yourself better,” Sage says, running her thumb over your knuckles before kissing them softly.

Viper tacks on, “You’re one of our finest, but that means little when you wear yourself out. If not for your own sake then… please, for our sake.”

Fade rests her arms over your shoulders, holding your chin and turning it until you can see her out of your peripherals. “We do care for you. That is the truth— I’ve seen it in all of you.” Her eyes scan around the room, lingering for perhaps a few seconds too long on Viper before turning back to you. “And in you too. All we want is for you to be okay.”

Reyna leans over, pressing her lips to your forehead. “Look after yourself, cariño. I can’t stand watching a brilliant star like you burn out into darkness.”

With a quiet sigh, you nod. “Okay. I’ll do better. Promise.”

“Thank you,” Sage says, squeezing your fingers. She stands up. “Sabine, come with me to get some dinner for all of us.”

“We’ll take good care of our darling while you do that,” Reyna says, waving her fingers at Sage with a wink. Your eyes widen ever so slightly.

Viper’s eyes smolder. “Leave some energy left for me.”

“No promises,” Fade remarks, kissing the back of your neck the same time Reyna grins toothily at you, like she’s a shark in the water about to feast.

“Nothing too strenuous, please!” Sage chides, holding Viper’s hand before walking out of your room.

The moment the door shuts, you’re pushed back onto the bed, laying flat on your back. Fade and Reyna loom over you. Deciding that you’re better off going with it, you raise your arms behind your head, and you wink at them.

This is a much better way to end the night than whatever you had planned before.

~~~~~ A/N: fun fact i actually have a one shot with my valo oc with these four <3 doesnt mean u guys will ever see it LMAO

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burnedbyshoto · 3 years

Text

dedicated to the man who became my gym buddy & eventually we fucked in his car:

quirkless au, yum, & nsfw so aha

bakugou katsuki is a gym rat.

he drinks protein shakes like water, down pre workout like it’s candy, and spends so much time at the gym his phone believes the gym is possibly his house or his workplace.

he typically comes into the gym with black sweatpants on and a compression shirt, a hoodie always in his hand as he scans his membership card and stalks into the gym with his huge water jug. the smell of sweat and pulsating testosterone is no longer recognized by him, and the lingering looks of both regulars and new members never faze him as he enters the wide open space for warm up.

bakugou katsuki is meticulous in his workout routine. everyday, even his rest day, has something specific for him. mondays is upper body. tuesdays lower body. wednesdays chest and arm. thursdays quads and calves. friday back. saturday glutes and hamstrings. sunday is cardio. every week he takes a break from a single day.

it works for him.

and he doesn’t care what his friends say.

but as he’s warming up one day, head peeking up from his form, he sees you doing chest presses, or at least attempting to do so. his eyebrows furrow at your terrible form, the obvious curve in your body that shouldn’t be there, the way your hands are way too close to each other, the bar tilting on most likely your more dominant side way too much, and your feet flailing in the air.

it’s bad posture, but after a long work shift, bakugou has no energy to correct it. he figures another gym rat would help you.

well that is until the bar shakes, your arms give, and you squawk.

bakugou katsuki is known in his gym for being only about himself, sure he’ll share his routine if you ask, he’ll even give you an extra protein shake, or a sip of his water if you’re an insane person who didn’t bring your water, but it’s a known law that he doesn’t help with form and he doesn’t spot anyone.

but no one is around, and even though the 60lb bar will most definitely not hurt you, he finds himself lifting the bar off your chest with an irritated snarl as you gasp and splutter for air. you were not choking.

“oh my god, thank you so—“

“shut up!” he barks in your face, slamming the bar onto the holder with much more force then necessary. “the hell you think you’re doing, idiot? you trying to break your back and ribs?! get a fucking spotter before doing shit you’re not ready for!”

“oh,” you blink, head tilting a bit, your own frown on your face. “well, I don’t know anyone, and no one is here except you? and you weren’t here be—“

“doesnt fucking matter! wait until someone shows up!”

“uh, I needed to do that for my circuit though. according to gymtok I should be doing a lot of things that I haven’t been doing. so I was just trying things out.”

“…what the fuck is a gymtok?”

“oh! tiktoks for gym workouts!” you exclaim grabbing your phone with obviously sore arms before showing the plentiful of preplanned workouts by what bakugou immediately knows are gym posers.

ANYWAYS

thus begins the weirdest friendship bakugou begins as you become attached to his side at the gym, undeterred and overall completely unaffected by every snarl, growl, and screech sent your way. eventually he gets you on his own workout schedule and the two of you even shoot a scoop of pre workout in the parking lot together.

the first time you took his preworkout was the first and last time because it was so highly concentrated that not only did you create new personal records for every machine and free weight, you managed to fit an entire weeks workout into a single day and promptly pass out on the bench outside the gym.

he knows you’re flirting eventually, but he’s a prude and trying to keep his head in the game. and even though you both are frequently texting throughout the day and even go to eat together after workouts 3 times a week, he refuses to let your stupid lips anywhere near his because he’s a virgin prude and he gets nerv— I mean… he’s just busy… ahem…

and eventually you ask if he wants to do a gymtok with him. and it must be because you managed to sling him over your shoulders and squat his weight without so much as a tremor in your form, and he was impressed with elation, excitement, and burning hormones in his dick, he says yes.

he gives you complete fucking consent to do whatever you want.

so you smile sweetly and say, “i’m going to be your savior because you don’t have a spotter. when I save you, you keep doing reps like nothing happened.”

so with a measly bar and 45lbs on each side (his warm up set from three years ago, btw) he does as requested. letting his arms pretend to give out.

but…

oh…

fucking….

HELL!

he feels your ass sitting millimeters above his crotch, and sees your pretty fingers grasp the bar and push it up.

bakugou is harder than a diamond and the bar gives, crushing his chest.

eventually the two of you are able to get the bar off him and he falls onto the floor, stomach down, flexing his biceps and thigh, desperate to erase his boner as you chirp frantic worries around his head.

anyways, he storms away, finally boner free and is just pissed. ignores you the entire rest of his workout routine and is focused on his reflection in the mirror only. but on his way out, compression shirt off his body and sling on his shoulder, you’re waiting with a face he can’t read.

“you know, I think you need to be laid,” you sigh as he pushes past you to where his car waits. “don’t you think?”

bakugou nearly trips and falls on his face, but he plays it off (not really). he snaps his head towards you, full on furious because that might be exactly true but he doesn’t need some little shit that he taught everything to, to tell him that!

“you think I need to be fucking laid?! you know what I think you need?!” he splutters, face flushed red and gym bag dropped by the wheel of his car.

“to be fucked by you?” you respond with lidded eyes and seductive steps his way. all words die on his lips as you’re suddenly in front of him. “cuz I think I really need that too. besides, what’s the point of all that strength if it’s not being used to fuck people in every way imaginable?”

bakugous not entirely sure who kisses who first. he was already seeing red at that point, but he does know that you’re shoving him into the passenger seat of his car and the seat is reclined all the way down with a slam.

it’s messy and a bit gross. the faint smell of BO is eventually washed out with hormones, dripping sex, and sweat. his fingers and pressing around your sweet spots, and bakugou nearly blacks out when your soft, hot, and dripping wet sex presses down and consumes his dick.

he fucks you so well that you hobble around the gym for a solid week & everyone just assumes you went hard on leg day ;)

sex soon becomes your guys cool down routine :)

anyways, I was just thinking about stupid gym rat bakugou who hella needs to get laid and gym regular reader who actually knows what they’re doing but saw bakugou one day and decided they wanted him. and because I love happy endings, they obvi get married & fuck in their limo as a nod to the beginning of their romantic relationship.

#lyssa doesnt shut up

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haijmei · 2 years

Text

there for you

even after everything, kuroo will always be there for you.

⁎⁺˳✧ kuroo tetsuro x reader | post-timeskip | 1.0k words

warnings: cursing !!! a lil toxic maybe? there’s arguing lol

a/n: i apologize for not posting my work as often as i used to 😭 please take this as an apology

fights were typical with couples, you knew that. but what you didn’t know was that it could grow to this extent.

you were sure the neighbors hated you at this point. nonstop yelling and the occasional slamming of a door or cabinet was all you could hear from your apartment in the dead of night. the situation wasn’t getting anywhere, you both knew that, and all it seemed to be now was the both of you letting your frustrations out in an unhealthy way. sure, it felt good in the moment but the words would be like poison – it’ll take time to set in and eventually, you’d understand the severity of it. it was an endless battle that would lead to the defeat in both parties.

“y/n! i don’t know why you’re getting so pissy over the shoes! at least they’re by the door and mud isn’t tracking around the apartment.”

“it’s not about the fucking shoes, tetsu. it’s about you not being considerate enough to maybe stomp off the mud before you come in! a-and everything else! you’re such a slob sometimes that it bothers me so much!”

kuroo scoffs in annoyance, smiling out of who knows what? frustration? annoyance? being completely over this argument? something about his manner ticked you off however, leading you to unleash more of your temper at him.

“oh, so you think this is funny? because i’m being dead serious right now!” you walk over to the counter in the kitchen, pointing at the mess from this morning that you saw but hadn’t bothered to clean, wanting to prove your point in him living messily. “this! right here, it’s your preworkout all over the counter and the wrap of your onigiri that you hadn’t thrown away!”

you pass by the front door, once again pointing at the muddy shoes before walking towards the bathroom.

“your towel is on the floor, and the counter’s always wet by the time you finish using the bathroom.” as you walk away to the bedroom, kuroo trails behind you, stopping to stare at the bathroom before catching up to you in the bedroom.

“our bedroom’s such a mess too! everything in here is so disorganized! i know we live together tetsu, but so much of this is your mess and you don’t even bother to try and clean up a little,” you speak to him, pinching the bridge of your nose. you were certain it was past midnight now and this conversation of yours was going in circles.

“ok and? you live here too and you sit here all pretty doing who the hell knows what,” he mocks you. “i have a job and i work most of the day, so maybe do something around the house for once.”

the statement he said out loud shocks you, and shakes you to your core. he thinks you do nothing all day? he knew damn well you were a student and worked part-time, saving up money for rent, groceries, and everything else. so what the hell was he thinking?

“you must be out of your mind if you think i do nothing! what do you think i am, a fucking maid? i work hard like you and study my ass off at university! i come home and i do my part in making sure the house is clean! all i ask is for you to do is clean up after yourself a little.” speaking your thoughts into existence, the toll of the situation breaks you. your breathing gets a little heavier, your legs start shaking, and the tears you never realized you held start to leak out.

“i just remind you, i-i’m not here to be a pest. school and work a-and everything just stresses me out. i-i just want this place to b-be clean and…” the fury you previously had starts to turn into frustration, and quickly into sadness. the words you stuttered out were no longer there, and all you could do was fall onto your knees and cry into your hands. all while kuroo stood there in shock.

he wasn’t sure what to do. he knew the both of you took the argument too far and the guilt started to eat at him. after a significant pause in the yelling, he fell onto the floor beside you and squeezed you into a hug. at first, you were hesitant to return the affection, you were still upset at him after all. but after such an intense battle between the two of you, all you wanted was to be in his arms.

and that you did. after a split second you settled deep in his hold, letting the tears freely fall. the sounds you let out were incoherent and full of frustration, muffled by the clothing he was wearing.

“y/n, i-i’m sorry. i let this conversation go too far. i should’ve just listened to you. i had a bad day too, and i just let it out by getting upset with you. i never should’ve done that.” in response to his apology, you simply sniffled and settled deeper in his arms.

“i’ve been busy and all with work, but i don’t think that’s an appropriate excuse for how messy i became. i’m sorry i haven’t cleaned up after myself and for undermining your own problems too. i’m really sorry.”

over time your tears and sniffles subsided, leaving you calmly breathing still in kuroo’s hold. all you could do was nod.

“and i’m also sorry for getting us into this fight. it’s a stupid one, really. it shouldn’t have lasted this long.” you smiled a little, thinking back to the argument. back then, it wasn’t a laughing matter, but now all you could think about was how something as simple as mud could create a storm this large.

you shuffled a bit to be more comfortable in his arms. kuroo shuffled too to adjust to your position. “i’m sorry too, tetsu. i yelled at you too and called you mean names. but i was just frustrated and i should’ve communicated this situation better with you instead of this.” he nodded in response as well.

“yeah, i’m sorry again. are we good now?” kuroo asked.

“yes we are. but maybe please clean up after yourself you slob.”

kuroo chuckles, lifting you up off the floor as he wipes the rest of your tears away. “of course, babe.”

taglist! (ty for your support!)

@itachislut @xububabuba @hoothootreiber @rintones @dai-tsukki-desu @nanana-kashi @nicerthanu @chloee0x0 @mangowetwipes @tendouluvr

#❥ :: works of art #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#hq #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #haikyuu fluff #hq fluff #haikyuu angst #hq angst #haikyuu comfort #hq comfort #kuroo tetsuro #kuroo tetsuro angst #kuroo x reader #kuroo tetsuro fluff #yeahhhhh kuroo i love him

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sweating30s · 2 years

Text

Day 14

After an early night, It was an easy wake up for Day 12 strength of Body Revolution. Today was the last of workouts 1 and 2. Thursday I will try workout 3 for the first time. Tomorrow is cardio.

I want to add running into my workout. Back in 2016, I got myself running 5ks in 25-27 minutes. I was able to run 6 miles in under an hour. Once I moved abroad my training became sporadic until I wasn't anymore.

For a long time, I've tried to get back into running but have failed. I always wondered why. I truly enjoyed running. I loved seeing my times drop and how far I could go. I'm dating someone now who ran cross country in college and runs most days. It took a talk with a friend who works as a trainer and honestly it echoed what my health coach said. Have the right reasons.

So many times I restarted running, it was to lose weight. It wasn't for myself, it wasn't to see how strong I was. It was because I didn't like myself. Because I was missing an old version of me. One who only worked 6 hours a day and could do 2 hour gym sessions. Who lived at home without rent and grocery bills. Now I live on my own, pay my own bills, don't have a gym like that, and I work 9 hours a day, a majority of it on my feet.

To succeed, you need to have the right reasons. I don't want to be skinny or thin anymore. I want to be healthy and strong. I don't diet, I nourish my body with good choices and eat what it craves too. I'm not losing weight to please people or change their minds about me. I'm losing weight to build a healthier future. I'm going to try running again. Not to lose weight, but to get stronger and faster. To build up so my boyfriend and I have another activity to do together. So I can show myself, I am capable. I'm going to do the 8 week couch to 5 k that can go straight into a 10k. Total is a 14 week program. I might even be able to test into the 2nd or 3rd week.

86 days to my trip

Pre-workout: c4 preworkout

Post-workout: BCAA, blueberry green tea

Breakfast: greek yogurt, peanut butter, banana, cookie butter, iced americano

Lunch: Grilled chicken, protein pasta, mushrooms, zucchini, sweet pepper, gochujang tahini sauce

Dinner: broccoli fries, veggie gyoza

Snacks: peppermint tea, protein cookie

Totals: 2,022 Daily Goal : 2,421

Water: 3 liters

SW: 128 kg (282 lbs)

CW: 123.4 kg (272 lbs)

Loss: 1.4 kg (3 lbs)

Total loss: 4.6 kg (10 lbs)

GW: 120 kg (264 lbs)

UGW: 75 kg (165 lbs)

#caloric deficit #fitblr #fitfam #fitspo #fitness #gymbabes #gymspo #healthblr #healthy meal ideas #healthy weight loss #weightloss progress #weight loss program #my progress #weight loss

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c0keprincesaa · 3 years

Text

Weekly round up sort of

Started taking a preworkout (it’s like 3 cal) instead of energy drinks/coffee as they don’t affect me anymore

Started taking these shot things in the morning because it makes me feel healthy idk if it actually does anything

I was a slutty police officer for Halloween

And went to the most amazing Halloween party ever it was a a huge invite only party in Mayfair

I took m0Lly and c0k3, leant against the speakers and had an epiphany…I was in a huge crowded room, music I love playing, surrounded by people and I still wanted to sewerslide 😂😂

I bought some new plates and glasses in IKEA

And have plans to go on a date on Friday

A uni friend invited me ice skating this Friday at the history museum

And finally I have decided that instead of speaking £300 a week on c0ke when I’m unemployed I’ll spend £100 a week on fitness classes at Barry’s boot camp and soul cycle (see how that works out)

#ana recipes #anamia #thin inspo #bonespro #proo ana #anam1a #proanni #notprojustusehashtags #tw eating things #anna miaa

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btswishes · 4 years

Text

Love me for who I am now

Bucky x Reader ( Chapter 5)

Previous / Next (6)

Summary: You apply for the Stark internship and end up getting it, so now you have 5 months to make a good impression to continue working with the Avengers.

A/N: I hope the chapters are not too long with no action. Lets see how it goes from now on. I have no idea how long this might end up being, presumably not past 20 chapters. Sorry for any mistakes made, hope you enjoy it even a tiny bit.

Tag list: @vicmc624 @yasminwashere

Word count: 4,076

Warmings: fights, harsh language, not part of the original MCU

Y/N- Your name

Y/L/N- Your Last Name

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

Three moons shined over your new room one after the other, observing its slow but sure change. A white canvas starting to turn into a personal expression of ownership and personality. Working with Dr. Banner was quite enjoyable. It was you two at first till Tony joined in, showing you little tricks that increased your productivity by 50%. Amazing what one could do with an experienced teacher. You got used to the gym, going on your own at this point. Anxiety now a part of the past. The first week in the compound felt like more than a month. Cups and mugs, kitchen and rooms, you memorized it all by heart – a surprise even to some of the Avengers still struggling with it. Your brain but a sponge for all important information.

Peeking inside your room, the sun gently warmed up your skin, awaking you to a missed call from Nea. Your fingers lazily, based on touch memory, rung her phone back.

“Why don’t you pick up when I call you?” she lectured you in the mic

“Because unlike your grand majesty vampire Nea, we mortals need sleep to function.” You murmured in a groggy tone “Maybe share your ambrosia with me next time.”

“They don’t offer super soldier serum energy drinks there?”

“No.” your voice sounded like two stones being grinded together. Palm rubbed over your eyes, leaning your body on that exact elbow seconds later “What do you want? It’s 6 fucking AM.”

“To have breakfast together grumpy.” Nea had a devilish tone, who knew what she was thinking in that pretty head of hers again.

“Now!?”

“No, no. At 9 maybe. Same place we usually go to.” It took a bit of convincing, but you ended up saying yes “See ya later sugar.” The beep following her voice made you throw the phone to the side and puff out, body falling back on the mattress. Your eyes shot open again a few cloud movements later, when you jumped off the bed and into the bathroom. Your gaze landed on the reflection, hair looking like you had an exciting night – wrong by a mile.

6AM or not, you couldn’t fall asleep anymore, so what was the next best thing? Getting training over while everyone was hopefully still sleeping. Less embarrassment when you miss the punching bag and face plant in it – again.

Workout clothes on your back, bag in hand and a big chug of water – off to the elevator for your exhausted self. Numbers appearing into the little screen one after the other, counting down the floors till you smelled that familiar cleaner. At this point it did the same job as a preworkout powder. Throwing the duffle bag on a bench, you dragged yourself around the gym - thrilled by the emptiness.

“Lovely.” Your voice rung out breathy with relieve. Some cardio later you began your usual workout program designed by yours truly the trio of demons - Nat, Steve and Bucky who in more than one way was the father of the shittiest things you had to do. What normal human being does upside-down crunches?

White chalk enveloped your fist in a cloud, as it made contact with the punching bag. The sheer force pushing back farther with each powerful blow. You huffed and puffed bearing the exhaustion starting to slowly drop and pile in your system. The little trickster in your head began hypnotizing you, making giving up or stopping now such a sweet idea, only one choice away. Yet if you didn’t finish up the daily routine you knew they would catch you and the penalty one was far from pleasant. Better the lesser evil than Satan himself.

“Glad to see you are not training your face for once.” The voice vibrated with an amused bass, conducted by the heavy boots shacking up the room with the same depth.

“Ha, ha.” Your skin made contact with the leather at the last word, taking the object off the chains in one clean swoop “Funny Sergeant. So much so I didn’t even laugh.” Fingers wrapped around your wrists as the punching-bag rested on the floor after its ceremonial thump, making sure there was no damage you could have missed with the lack of pain.

His eyes enveloped your arm, running over your shoulder and to your face, no thought behind his blue eyes. Almost like a force of habit to check for something. Even if his body frame was big you could never noticed him moving, which was scary at first. Bucky could be anywhere at anytime with no sign at all.

“What got you up this early?” he grabbed a second punching bag and threw it on the hook, filling the huge gym hall with the sound of metal hitting metal “Night…terrors?” the sentence came out like a small whisper, hoping you didn’t catch it.

“Nope si-“

“Do I make you uncomfortable?” your words stuck on top of your tongue, just shaking your head “ Then why don’t you use my name the same way you call Steve and Natasha?” your eyes looked at him for a moment, before grabbing the weights from the side and tying them up to your waistline. His head turned to the side, somehow making him feel stupid for letting such a thing leave his lips. A coldblooded soldier, scared of a request.

“I actually had a goodnight sleep, that is until my best friend called me at 6am.” Your body pushed off the floor, chains singing out, tapping on your thighs.

“I see.”

Palms firm on the bar, your neck crooked a bit to catch a glimpse of his sagging posture before refocusing in front.

“How did you sleep…- Bucky?” the blue color in his eyes twinkled with delight, maybe a hint of pleasure at how his name sounded coming out from your lips, with that sweet tone he seemed drawn to the past days. It felt almost like he longed to hear it again from decades ago.

“I slept.” His voice was colored with need to cover his lie with a coat of truth

“Doesn’t look-“ you pulled yourself up the bar “- like you did much of that. Trouble sleeping too?”

Bucky’s fist kept hitting the bag at the same speed you were doing pull ups close by. Two sounds, hand in had married to a familiar rhythm intertwined by silence. His grunts sending a chill down your neck, convulsing it back a bit. It felt almost like his fingers were inches from touching you skin, the area blazing.

“Ugh.” You whined out, his ear twitching in your direction. The thud followed your body walking past him to your bag “I will go take a shower seeing how it is 8 already. Time sure passes fast with you Bucky.” A giggle rung out tugging on a smile. His lips parted, but he gave himself an unaffected façade, even if his heart was doing leaps.

“I don’t talk much.”

“Well maybe if you actually slept more, you would.” Scolding and serious about health issues with this man child, had become a daily occurrence. Seeing how he didn’t even try to lay down. “See ya later.” You waved the back of your hand at him, walking away.

The showers in the compound were amazing. Everyone in the Avengers had their own one. Your shampoo and products were already resting inside waiting for you to jump in. It was a co-ed bathroom, but usually most of you guys had a different schedule so no encounters. Well maybe once or twice with Natasha, but it was fun aside from her teasing. The warm skin on your heel cooled down immediately after it made contact with the light navy tiles.

“Ohhh.” Your muscles made you spasm for a minute before adjusting to the temperature. Water running over your body, relaxing every bit of your strained figure, droplets gently massaging the pain from the inside out rhythmically. The stream pulled your hair down, elongating it with each pass over. You felt your arm lean onto the wall in front, just to enjoy the full effect of the radiating warmth, opening up your sinuses. Eyes slowly closing, taking you to a safe space, almost away from this world and back into another.

After what felt like an eternity of alone time in the gym, Bucky had stopped working out just standing there. He had no more motivation. Fist draped with the soft material of the towel, he made his way to the shared showers before his body froze. Running water caught him off guard, but what laid the finishing blow was the delicious smell of flowers and fruits filling up his senses. Usually faint to people, but he was enhanced – a gift on missions, a knife to his chest when it came to things like these. He took a deep breath, trying to swallow the forming lump in his throat. Bucky didn’t know why this was so difficult for him. He had been in here with others before, but nothing made his blood flow faster than right now.

“Bucky?” your voice shook him out of his daze, nowhere to run anymore.

“Yeah. Sorry I didn’t know you were still here.” Your face flushed red upon hearing him actually answer, for a second you thought it was just a random sound. His heavy footsteps echoed on purpose, almost like he wanted you to know where he was exactly, so you would feel less uncomfortable or frightened. Eyes shooting in the direction of your door, where he seemed to have stopped.

“Something wrong?” your voice pitched with his presence so close to your naked body

“My shower is next to Sam and Steve on the other end, but-“ he stopped opening the door to the one positioned right next to you. “ My name is right here.” It took you a minute to register what could have happened, before a forced laugh pushed out your throat

“Tony got bored I guess.” He always pulled stunts like this from what you saw and were told by others. Pepper made sure to warn you, but you didn’t think he would go this far. Then again, why were you nervous in the first place anyways? Who cares, right? You knew Bucky wouldn’t do anything, he was just a puppy with a scary outer shell. Or maybe you wanted something - a thought turning your eyes a bit dark, glazed over almost.

“I swear, he needs his ass beat.” Bucky growled which didn’t help your situation or thoughts “I will wait for you outside.” Pressing your lips together you held in a thought, that just couldn’t sit still. Its metaphorical fingers pried an escape open.

“It’s ok. I trust you, plus we are team mates Bucky. I don’t think it will always be a nice encounter for us if I started going on missions soon.”

Tense air, steam filling not only the room but also your mind. Damn it! You cursed at yourself, but that soon dissolved the moment you heard the click and water hitting the tiles. For a moment air couldn’t come out of you, only the humidity in the room running over both your bodies.

Gathering yourself together, the memory of your breakfast plans harnessed you into action. Your finger flicked the lid of the bottle open, pouring some onto your sponge. Cutting the water flow, you began rubbing it all over your body, bubbles forming a thin fabric like veil over your figure. Taking in the ambiance of the situation, you could smell that familiar scent that usually came off Bucky – almost relaxing you out of instinct.

“That is a nice shampoo you have there.” You spoke up. Bucky wasn’t a stranger, plus small talk could ease your nerves more. In your mind you were the only one feeling weird – far from the truth.

“It’s a body wash.” He said “I use it for both.”

“You can’t do that!” and just like that anxiety flew out of the window like it wasn’t here, in your chest at all “ That will dry your hair out!”

“It does the job. I don’t mind.”

“Well you should. I know it’s probably too much work for you, but you gotta put some care in yourself too Bucky. This is a terrorist attack to your scalp!”

“You seem very enthusiastic about this subject.” He laughed out, catching you of guard. He was having too much fun and you weren’t having any of it. Bucky should be taking you seriously. Pursing out your lips, the little devil on your shoulder crawled to your ear and whispered with an alluring voice. The corners of your lips curled up in the same evil smirk, as your fingers silently grabbed your mango ice cream with essential oils, shampoo. Tiptoeing over to the wall dividing you, you reached over pouring some on top of his head, while Bucky was busy explaining how it is a waste of time for him. Palm over your lips grasping your jaw, you tried to not let out even the smallest peep, no matter how much you wanted to bust out laughing – he would find out. The sergeant’s big hands rubbed the product into his long hair, before bringing his fingers to his nose and catching your snickering from the other side. A new found confidence started filling your blood circulation with adrenalin.

Bucky didn’t say anything, he used your lack of concentration to do exactly the same. It took you faster to figure it out, his shampoo already soaked up into your hair, roots and scalp.

“Barnes!” a hostile hiss parting your mouth, mad at his childish behavior even thought you were the one that started it in the first place.

“An eye for an eye doll.” You could practically feel him smirking. Switching the game on you, it wasn’t fun being on the receiving end.

“Did you peep on me!” he laughed out and denied , seeing how riled up you were – feeding his inner self

“Don’t let yourself fall prey to your primal instincts James.” This was the first time you used his first, real name. You wanted to tease him, he always acted like a kid so pushing his buttons wouldn’t be something too difficult to achieve. On the other side, fire lit up in his chest, flowing like lava all over his body, skin radiating waves off heat. Bucky’s eyes shot up almost over the wall, dark.

“Oh trust me doll, this wall isn’t high enough or strong enough if I truly wanted to take your figure in.” His palm hit the top of the only barrier between you two, proving his point. The tiles almost cracked under his pressure “If I wanted to I easily could.” Showing just how tall and massive he actually was. The water almost not hitting the floor could give you a good idea about his posture. The image of his back flexing in that pose intoxicated your mind, but you weren’t ready to give up the crown now.

“Don’t be ashamed Bucky. You lack a few years of experience sleeping through them. Happens, no one will put it against you.” Hitting him right in the manhood, low blow even if he was 100+ years.

“Say that after you have experienced me doll. 40s James couldn’t do to you the things super soldier me can.” Your voice hitched upon that whole sentence, the confidence in this man. You heard Steve joking about this from time to time, but coming directly from Bucky was a whole other thing. The shower felt like ages, when you stepped out wrapping the towel around yourself as tight as possible. Not taking your chance with meeting him you dashed towards the door, almost slipping.

“Careful doll face.” his right hand holding you by the waist, chest pressed into you. He had only one towel around his hips dangerously close to sliding off his hips and thick thighs. The water from his hair dripping onto your chest, fixed hungry gaze onto you. “Cat got your tongue? You were so talkative with that wall between us.” A light push and you found yourself back onto your feet and scrambling to get out to the lockers and to your room.

You didn’t want to give yourself a moment to process what happened, so you got dressed and ran off to your destination. Flying through the crowds almost, leaving the situation streets behind.

“Wow wow!” Nea’s hands flew up when your body jumped into the booth she saved for you two “What got you all riled up?”

“I am NOT!” strenuous notes hitting her right in the face.

“Ok…so not the case then. I already ordered your usual. Mind?” you shook your head, leaving your light green bag close to you, trying to calm down. “So.” Leaning onto the soft pads on her palms, Nea eyed you up and down feeling embarrassment oozing out “ Did you break something or someone?”

“No, No. Can you just, drop it?” mimicking her posture you threw your face in your hands, wishing to A) go back in time or B) just disappear from the face of the Earth.

“I was going to but...” pulling her body back, letting it lean on the chair, she scanned “Let me guess. You dressed up in less than 10min, ran here for the same amount of time AND.” Her nose found its way to your hair, making you jump back protectively “You smell like a man, not a boy. A man. Not to mention your red face.” Nea paused, letting you take in her wave of words “Grab a glass of water and let’s see if it will evaporate. Tssssss burning.”

“Your order.” A waitress rolled up with your food. Thanking her, you flashed a forced smile watching her walk away.

“Spill it! Who was it?” arrows were being shot at you. Nea was your best friend. If you didn’t tell her, who would you? After a lot of consideration you sighed, giving her the sign she needed to get ready for this.

An explanation later

“You got cocky.” Her arm taking in her weight on the table minutes after the whole story “ What does the agent even look like? Is he taller? I mean do you have an upper hand or something.”

“It was….Bucky.” you hid your face, waiting for the explosion. Not hearing anything pulled your eyes to her wide ones, mouth hanging almost to the table. With a light motion you closed it back up for her.

“The….the…WINTER SOLDIER!?”

“SHHHHH!” your body flung up, pressing both your hands to her mouth, almost stopping her air. Nea pushed you off, oxygen meeting her lungs before silence again. “Don’t yell!”

“Well I mean WHO WOULDN’T .” She noticed how uncomfortable you were about explaining “At least he smells really good. Is he as beefy as they say? Who is thicker him or Steve? What about Thor, heard he had a nice body too!”

“Calm down. I don’t wanna talk about other people like that.”

“Fine! Keep it to yourself then….” She eyed you, her posture sideways “How is the tower treating you? ” The topic changed to your daily lives and some tea about mutual friends. Breakfast was nice, quite refreshing to meet the city bustle compared to the Zen state of the compound. Nea knew exactly how to calm you down and get you back into your natural rhythm. After paying, you two made your way out the restaurant and back into the ensemble of random sounds.

“Any plan?”

“Hm?” Nea was throwing you a worried stare “About?”

“The situation with the sergeant. You will meet him at some point in there. Gym, hall, common room. You can’t evade him forever. What if you end up being paired up on a mission? Y/N, you are not the type to let stuff like these effect your job.” She was right. There was no way to hide forever. Being bold was what got you in this situation and it could be the answer to it again.

“You are right. If we end up being in a place alone, I will talk it out with him. Probs apologies for making him uncomfortable.” Rubbing the back of your neck you paired the motion with an uneasy, maybe slightly painful laugh.

“ There you go again!” Nea crossed her arms in front of her chest scoffing, letting them fall forcefully. “Going in your head. To me it sounded like he liked it AND teased you back. Don’t force people away like you usually do just because you THINK they don’t like you.” Her smile was soft, sweet like that of a mother giving advice to her hurt child.

“OK!” balling your fingers in a fist you rose them to the level of your chin – aura filled with enthusiasm “I got this!”

“You do!” this girl could hype a crocodile to fly and actually do it.

“What is wrong?” you waved your hand in front of her concentrated face behind you, seeing as how your words weren’t registering anymore

“Better do what you promised me ok?” her hand pushed you back slightly, before you felt an arm as strong as a bolder grab onto you, lifting you off in one swift move.

“TAKE GOOD CARE OF HER!” your best friend’s voice being left further and further away. The disruptive winds were pulling your hair back with the speed the car was drifting with, drying out even the smallest water droplet left. In a moment’s notice you got smuggled in through the big window, finding yourself sitting in someone’s lap.

“Congratulations on your first mission kid.” Steve was holding onto the car’s wheel like there was no tomorrow, driving with speed close to seeing God.

“What is going on!?”you began moving around, confused, catching the city and your freetime in the distance. Bucky’s hands pushed you down onto his lap, trying to stop you from falling out the window

“Tony called. Something out of nowhere popped up and he needs us.”

“Us?” you gasped at the blonde man, trying to calm your heart from the contact with Bucky

“Yup.” His thumb pointed at the back seat “Bruce made sure to pack the stuff we need so just sit down and enjoy the ride. Bucky is pretty comfy.” He threw you a wink.

“Can I go to the back at least?”

“No can do doll. We can’t stop the car.” Your now seat explained

Rage, confusion and who knows what else was stirring up in you, wanting to jab a punch in both the faces of the super soldiers. Tony too, he has been messing around a bit too much lately. Your back hit Bucky’s muscles when you leaned aggressively, pushing your arms to your chest as you blew a strand of hair out of your face. The whole situation pulled a light groan out of him, that didn’t go unnoticed to your shivering thighs.

“We will be there in a bit.” Steve grabbed the gearstick with the same aggression projected on the wheel, his knuckle turning white under the drip. There was no running away from this, first mission or not you at least wanted to know before hand, get briefed maybe. Your knee began jumping nervously. How bad could this actually be - sending 2 super soldiers and a bag of who knows what. If your metal dust was in there, shit was going to go down. Could you do it? Could you trust yourself enough to finish the job, not get yelled at….or die?

Bucky’s vibranium arm ran over your uneasy leg and gently rubbed circles into the fabric of the pants. Head leaning down to your ear, fingers moving the hair to expose the shell.

“It’s ok, just relax. Nothing will happen promise baby girl.” Warm air over your skin, yet calming in a weird way “I have been told that my lap is pretty comfortable by ladies. Just enjoy it.”

“James! Buchanan! Barnes! How! Can! You! Be! Pervery! Right! NOW!!!” a hit to his chest between each word, send a vibration through his body, the laugh coming out distorted. Steve threw a look your way, but didn’t say anything, keeping his thoughts behind those serious eyes of his. As he let his best friend get beat up. Whatever it was, this mission was not just a field trip and Cap knew.

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