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halothenthehorns · 1 year

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Chapter 14: WE MEET THE SHEEP OF DOOM

"Do they spend every night trying to take over the world?" Alex asked eagerly upon the new title.

"Pretty sure those would be rats of doom," Percy grinned.

"Oh so Percy could join in their-"

"I'm still sitting right here, not eating celery!" Percy switched to trying to lob a chunk of his own seaweed bag at him.

Alex laughed and raised the book so it struck that instead when he said, "I bet Grover wouldn't have even noticed the difference." Percy rolled his eyes while Alex began reading, as if he'd ever had to work before having all attention on him.

When you think "monster island," you think craggy rocks and bones scattered on the beach like the island of the Sirens.

"Plus lightning, and spooky evil laughter in the shadows," Will added.

"Annabeth would abandon us all if she saw a single spider web," Percy chuckled.

The Cyclops's island was nothing like that. I mean, okay, it had a rope bridge across a chasm, which was not a good sign. You might as well put up a billboard that said, SOMETHING EVIL LIVES HERE.

"Which would probably only attract more people who don't know an entrance from an exit," Thalia rolled her eyes.

But except for that, the place looked like a Caribbean postcard. It had green fields and tropical fruit trees and white beaches. As we sailed toward the shore, Annabeth breathed in the sweet air. "The Fleece," she said.

Jason let out a throaty whistle of appreciation while Magnus inhaled deeply like he was trying to get just a whiff of that nature magic now, his mom would have worshiped this thing. All he got was a light bit of something earthy, almost metallic, like wet clay or paint or both.

I nodded. I couldn't see the Fleece yet, but I could feel its power. I could believe it would heal anything, even Thalia's poisoned tree. "If we take it away, will the island die?"

"Like pop out of existence?" Nico considered with an interested look on his face. "I didn't think it was that powerful."

Annabeth shook her head. "It'll fade. Go back to what it would be normally, whatever that is."

"I was more worried about that," Percy frowned. He'd never been much of a nature guy before, but Grover had made him wish the whole world could look like this slice of paradise his best friend was trapped away from.

I felt a little guilty about ruining this paradise, but I reminded myself we had no choice. Camp Half-Blood was in trouble. And Tyson ... Tyson would still be with us if it wasn't for this quest.

Percy glanced guiltily about the room as he realized he had forgotten about Tyson for just a moment. Tyson had only come on this quest for him, he had to see it through.

In the meadow at the base of the ravine, several dozen sheep were milling around. They looked peaceful enough, but they were huge—the size of hippos. Just past them was a path that led up into the hills. At the top of the path, near the edge of the canyon, was the massive oak tree I'd seen in my dreams. Something gold glittered in its branches.

"This is too easy," I said. "We could just hike up there and take it?"

"Didn't Polyphemus mention a pet?" Jason reminded.

"Then he sheered a sheep, yeah, not big on details that guy," Percy grumbled.

Annabeth's eyes narrowed. "There's supposed be a guardian. A dragon or ..."

That's when a deer emerged from the bushes.

They all sat there cringing and waiting for this to be some monster deer that would charge them down and spit fire too.

It trotted into the meadow, probably looking for grass to eat,

"Is it a regular deer?" Magnus asked tentatively. "How did that get on the island? Did the cyclops put it there too?"

"We have no idea," Thalia reminded, keeping the idea to herself it might have been a long lost companion of some satyr making the mistake this poor deer had just done.

when the sheep all bleated at once and rushed the animal. It happened so fast that the deer stumbled and was lost in a sea of wool and trampling hooves.

Grass and tufts of fur flew into the air.

A second later the sheep all moved away, back to their regular peaceful wanderings. Where the deer had been was a pile of clean white bones.

Alex sat there for a moment with his mouth hanging open after describing that before saying, "I found the opposite of Thor's goats."

Which made no sense to anybody but him.

"What exactly did Bambi's mom do to the world to keep deserving this treatment?" Will sighed for the poor critters.

"Sheep piranha. There are now sheep piranha," Magnus said into his hands.

'The size of hippos,' Hearth added, which his friend couldn't see. 'Not to mention the cyclops.'

"You're not helping," Magnus told without even looking up.

Annabeth and I exchanged looks.

"They're like piranhas," she said.

"Piranhas with wool.

"Which would make stabbing them with your sword, a, process," Nico understood with dread.

How will we—"

"Percy!" Annabeth gasped, grabbing my arm. "Look."

She pointed down the beach, to just below the sheep meadow, where a small boat had been run aground ... the other lifeboat from the CSS Birmingham.

"Clarisse is alive," Will said in a cheery, sing song kind of voice as he watched those not in the know grin in relief, Percy in particular beamed and sat up in his seat, really smiling for the first time in ages which was a bit odd.

We decided there was no way we could get past the man-eating sheep. Annabeth wanted to sneak up the path invisibly and grab the Fleece, but in the end I convinced her that something would go wrong. The sheep would smell her. Another guardian would appear. Something.

"Percy, for the logic win this chapter," Jason applauded.

"Yes!" He fist pumped the air.

"Doesn't quite trounce you forgetting to disarm Annabeth, but you take your small victory," Thalia pandered along while he flipped her off.

And if that happened, I'd be too far away to help.

Besides, our first job was to find Grover and whoever had come ashore in that lifeboat— assuming they'd gotten past the sheep. I was too nervous to say what I was secretly hoping ... that Tyson might still be alive.

Percy looked sheepish for just a moment at that being on display, before he set his jaw stubbornly and glared at the book to call him foolish. If Clarisse had, maybe he and even a skeleton had made it out too!

We moored the Queen Anne's Revenge on the back side of the island where the cliffs rose straight up a good two hundred feet. I figured the ship was less likely to be seen there. The cliffs looked climbable, barely—about as difficult as the lava wall back at camp.

"Who knew that place actually taught useful life skills, now I'm just waiting for the macro-may to come into play," Thalia chuckled.

At least it was free of sheep.

Alex looked up from the book with a look of trepidation on his face before he caught sight of the next sentence.

I hoped that Polyphemus did not also keep carnivorous mountain goats.

"Same," he nodded.

We rowed a lifeboat to the edge of the rocks and made our way up, very slowly. Annabeth went first because she was the better climber.

"She's the better everything apparently," Nico grinned, but it had a bitter twist to it only Will seemed to notice as Percy nodded along without really looking over.

We only came close to dying six or seven times, which I thought was pretty good.

"Sure, yeah, doesn't count as a parlous climb until you hit double digits," Thalia said, looking a little green around the edges at such an idea. Grover was at the top, she would not have stayed in the lifeboat and given the ship treats for practicing other commands.

Once, I lost my grip and I found myself dangling by one hand from a ledge fifty feet above the rocky surf. But I found another handhold and kept climbing. A minute later Annabeth hit a slippery patch of moss and her foot slipped. Fortunately, she found something else to put it against.

Unfortunately, that something was my face.

"I have it on record I supported her every step of the way," Percy chuckled along as he watched them all try, and mostly fail not to laugh at that.

"Sorry," she murmured.

"S'okay," I grunted, though I'd never really wanted to know what Annabeth's sneaker tasted like.

"Are you sorry, or relieved it wasn't gum flavored?" Alex asked seriously.

"Where would she have stepped on gum recently?" Percy frowned at him.

Finally, when my fingers felt like molten lead and my arm muscles were shaking from exhaustion, we hauled ourselves over the top of the cliff and collapsed.

"Ugh," I said.

"Ouch," moaned Annabeth.

"Garrr!" bellowed another voice.

"Eep!" Will added in, not expecting Alex to actually shout that! The others lost it and laughed all over again.

If I hadn't been so tired, I would've leaped another two hundred feet. I whirled around, but I couldn't see who'd spoken.

Annabeth clamped her hand over my mouth. She pointed.

The ledge we were sitting on was narrower than I'd realized. It dropped off on the opposite side, and that's where the voice was coming from—right below us.

"You're a feisty one!" the deep voice bellowed.

"Challenge me!" Clarisse's voice, no doubt about it. "Give me back my sword and I'll fight you!"

"Which clearly went so well the first time, him laughing and having gotten the sword away," Jason began twitching uneasily she still might die again after being back alive for one page, even if he was smiling she'd made it this far alone.

The monster roared with laughter.

Annabeth and I crept to the edge. We were right above the entrance of the Cyclops's cave.

Below us stood Polyphemus and Grover, still in his wedding dress. Clarisse was tied up, hanging upside down over a pot of boiling water. I was half hoping to see Tyson down there, too. Even if he'd been in danger, at least I would've known he was alive. But there was no sign of him.

Percy hissed in frustration as he felt yet another shard of glass stab into him. How many times could he take the same disappointment? Why did it still feel more painful every time, that frustrating pain lodged in the side of his head promising he was still missing something!

"Hmm," Polyphemus pondered. "Eat loudmouth girl now or wait for wedding feast? What does my bride think?"

He turned to Grover, who backed up and almost tripped over his completed bridal train. "Oh, um, I'm not hungry right now, dear. Perhaps—"

"Did you say bride?" Clarisse demanded. "Who— Grover?"

"No, no!" Alex snapped. "Please tell me you guys do improve, she needs to shut up!"

"I wouldn't call her the quickest on the uptakes," Will frowned. Battle strategies past running in and stabbing weren't exactly her forte, he didn't think she really had the creativity to play along with this either.

Next to me, Annabeth muttered, "Shut up. She has to shut up."

Polyphemus glowered. "What 'Grover'?"

"The satyr!" Clarisse yelled.

"Oh!" Grover yelped. "The poor thing's brain is boiling from that hot water. Pull her down, dear!"

"I was going to suggest stuffing an apple in her mouth," Thalia scowled.

Polyphemus's eyelids narrowed over his baleful milky eye, as if he were trying to see Clarisse more clearly.

The Cyclops was an even more horrible sight than he had been in my dreams. Partly because his rancid smell was now up close and personal.

"How Grover didn't pass out I could not say," Percy told them all through plugging up his nose.

Partly because he was dressed in his wedding outfit—a crude kilt and shoulder-wrap, stitched together from baby-blue tuxedoes, as if he'd skinned an entire wedding party.

"So that's what happened to all the female smurfs," Alex said without looking up. He did though when he heard the painful sounding snort and saw Percy trying so hard to scold, "dude, not the time for," he broke off and kept snickering.

"If there was any chance of this wedding going off without a tear in the audience, it's gone now," Thalia didn't sound much better in a chocked up voice.

"What satyr?" asked Polyphemus. "Satyrs are good eating. You bring me a satyr?"

"No, you big idiot!" bellowed Clarisse. "That satyr! Grover! The one in the wedding dress!"

'Apparently being a child of Ares means they inherited his stupidity,' Hearth frowned she really couldn't take a hint.

'I'm guessing her fatal flaw is a lack of thought process,' Magnus agreed. Did she really look at Grover in this situation and think he was playing dress up?

I wanted to wring Clarisse's neck, but it was too late. All I could do was watch as Polyphemus turned and ripped off Grover's wedding veil—revealing his curly hair, his scruffy adolescent beard, his tiny horns.

Polyphemus breathed heavily, trying to contain his anger. "I don't see very well," he growled. "Not since many years ago when the other hero stabbed me in eye. But YOU'RE—NO—LADY—CYCLOPS!"

Will raised his hand in a mock pleasant manner to say, "I'm going to take this moment to pretend pay Polyphemus respects he'd clearly been respecting Grover's privacy up until this point."

"And here I was hoping for a shotgun wedding," Percy at least sounded equally as amused as he did dreadful about this situation.

"That's not what that means-" Magnus began before he stopped himself when Percy rolled his eyes at him he knew what he meant.

The Cyclops grabbed Grover's dress and tore it away. Underneath, the old Grover reappeared in his jeans and T-shirt. He yelped and ducked as the monster swiped over his head.

"Stop!" Grover pleaded. "Don't eat me raw! I—I have a good recipe!"

I reached for my sword, but Annabeth hissed, "Wait!"

Polyphemus was hesitating, a boulder in his hand, ready to smash his would-be bride.

"Annabeth sure has a lot of faith in that, that monster," Percy said grimly. He remembered the speed Tyson had caught those flaming dodgeballs and knew he never would have made it down there in time, would have died trying, but he still wished she'd let him try.

"That's one way to not have to deal with a messy divorce," Alex muttered, but Percy clearly wasn't to be distracted anymore.

"Recipe?" he asked Grover.

"Oh y-yes! You don't want to eat me raw. You'll get E coli and botulism and all sorts of horrible things. I'll taste much better grilled over a slow fire. With mango chutney! You could go get some mangos right now, down there in the woods. I'll just wait here."

"Don't forget to season the water, if you're being helpful and all," Jason said with a really perturbed look. "He can't be that dumb," he insisted to the room at large.

"Don't underestimate a good distraction my friend," Thalia smiled. It worked more often than not.

The monster pondered this. My heart hammered against my ribs. I figured I'd die if I charged.

But I couldn't let the monster kill Grover.

Thalia put a restraining hand on Percy's shoulder, an unneeded but comforting gesture all the same why he wasn't leaping off that cliff to the cyclops of doom instead.

"Grilled satyr with mango chutney," Polyphemus mused. He looked back at Clarisse, still hanging over the pot of boiling water. "You a satyr, too?"

"No, you overgrown pile of dung!" she yelled. "I'm a girl! The daughter of Ares! Now untie me so I can rip your arms off!"

"At this rate I believe he might," Jason muttered, but then again, he'd fallen for the ruse in the first place, so being conned into a recipe wasn't much of a stretch.

"Rip my arms off," Polyphemus repeated.

"And stuff them down your throat!"

"You got spunk."

"Why did that sound," Jason swallowed his disgust before he finished, "admiring?"

"Let me down!"

Polyphemus snatched up Grover as if he were a wayward puppy. "Have to graze sheep now. Wedding postponed until tonight. Then we'll eat satyr for the main course!"

"But ... you're still getting married?" Grover sounded hurt. "Who's the bride?"

"First Tyson, now Clarisse, Grover's just getting replaced all over in this one," Thalia was still giggling, just a bit for these circumstances.

Polyphemus looked toward the boiling pot.

"This guy seriously needs to find a monster dating app," Nico muttered in concern.

"Nobody likes to be alone," Will said with a sad little smile on his face, almost indulgent if he wasn't all for the end of the events to come.

Clarisse made a strangled sound. "Oh, no! You can't be serious. I'm not—"

Before Annabeth or I could do anything, Polyphemus plucked her off the rope like she was a ripe apple, and tossed her and Grover deep into the cave. "Make yourself comfortable! I come back at sundown for big event!"

"But surely he's not given her enough time to get her own veil ready, let alone fit into Grover's dress," Magnus said in mock horror.

"I don't think Clarisse is any better at weaving," Alex said sagely.

Then the Cyclops whistled, and a mixed flock of goats and sheep—smaller than the maneaters—flooded out of the cave and past their master. As they went to pasture, Polyphemus patted some on the back and called them by name—Beltbuster, Tammany, Lockhart, etc.

Alex and Magnus both laughed in surprise over that last one before Jason began babbling off, "I don't know about those first two, he might have just thought they sounded cool, but Lockhart actually has name origins from herdsmen of sheep and cattle," he was grinning along too. "I would have thought he'd be too dumb to come up with that."

"Oh yeah, that's definitely why we were laughing along," Alex said with almost a straight face. About the closest he'd ever come to doing anything straight in his life.

When the last sheep had waddled out, Polyphemus rolled a boulder in front of the doorway as easily as I would close a refrigerator door, shutting off the sound of Clarisse and Grover screaming inside.

"Mangos," Polyphemus grumbled to himself. "What are mangos?"

He strolled off down the mountain in his baby-blue groom's outfit, leaving us alone with a pot of boiling water and a six-ton boulder.

"Clearly what you came to rescue, he's being very helpful," Magnus groaned.

"Time to see if those earth shaker powers kicked in," Nico grinned at his own idea of Percy shouting open sesame at the door and that huge boulder splitting down the middle parting for him like he was a minor deity. The image melted from his mind as he really looked at Percy's blank look and found himself more curious than disappointed how they did get everyone out of this instead.

We tried for what seemed like hours, but it was no good. The boulder wouldn't move. We yelled into the cracks, tapped on the rock, did everything we could think of to get a signal to Grover, but if he heard us, we couldn't tell.

"Who ever thought a nap would help any situation, but I'm game to try," Percy huffed, wishing that whole life or death link thing was a little more two way and convenient right now.

Even if by some miracle we managed to kill Polyphemus, it wouldn't do us any good. Grover and Clarisse would die inside that sealed cave. The only way to move the rock was to have the Cyclops do it.

"Maybe Annabeth could snatch up that wedding veil and fool him for another week or so until you trick him into the perfect ambush," Jason offered.

"I've heard of that working surprisingly well," Alex nodded.

Percy looked between the two in vague concern what they got up to outside this room, but then his eyes glazed over as he imagined Annabeth in all white and decided not to comment.

In total frustration, I stabbed Riptide against the boulder. Sparks flew, but nothing else happened. A large rock is not the kind of enemy you can fight with a magic sword.

"Not with that attitude," Alex frowned. "Your swords unbreakable right? See if you can make leveraging literally a win, maybe drop a boulder you can push from up high enough-"

"Alex," Percy interrupted in exasperation, "if I ever need to move a large rock again, you will be the first person I call."

"Thank you, that's all I ask," he nodded.

Annabeth and I sat on the ridge in despair and watched the distant baby-blue shape of the Cyclops as he moved among his flocks. He had wisely divided his regular animals from his man-eating sheep, putting each group on either side of the huge crevice that divided the island. The only way across was the rope bridge, and the planks were much too far apart for sheep hooves.

We watched as Polyphemus visited his carnivorous flock on the far side. Unfortunately, they didn't eat him. In fact, they didn't seem to bother him at all. He fed them chunks of mystery meat from a great wicker basket,

"How closely are goats related to sheep? Is it cannibalism if they're eating the other kind of flock?" Magnus asked.

"I have this really awful idea in my head now those are actually his kids from his previous marriage, so lets move on from what anything has in common," Thalia said just to share that nightmare image.

They didn't know if she meant the sheep, or the meat, and didn't want to know.

which only reinforced the feelings I'd been having since Circe turned me into a guinea pig—that maybe it was time I joined Grover and became a vegetarian.

"Well that clearly didn't stick," Alex scoffed.

"Maybe I just forgot the resolution," but Percy was rubbing his stomach and thinking instead he might see if the fridge could let him try a mutton burger.

"Trickery," Annabeth decided. "We can't beat him by force, so we'll have to use trickery."

"Okay," I said. "What trick?'

"I haven't figured that part out yet."

"Great."

"Polyphemus will have to move the rock to let the sheep inside."

"At sunset," I said. "Which is when he'll marry Clarisse and have Grover for dinner. I'm not sure which is grosser."

"Are Grover's table manners that bad?" Alex said innocently.

"If he starts eating the table, yeah," Thalia smirked.

"You two are hopeless," but Percy was fighting off a smile again as their jokes kept off the worst of his concern for Grover.

"I could get inside," she said, "invisibly."

"What about me?"

"The sheep," Annabeth mused. She gave me one of those sly looks that always made me wary. "How much do you like sheep?"

"About as much as I like that question," Percy muttered as he shifted in concern.

"Just don't let go!" Annabeth said, standing invisibly some-where off to my right. That was easy for her to say. She wasn't hanging upside down from the belly of a sheep.

Alex did a double take at that and for once was with Magnus about the weirdest sentences existing in these books.

Now, I'll admit it wasn't as hard as I'd thought. I'd crawled under a car before to change my mom's oil, and this wasn't too different. The sheep didn't care. Even the Cyclops's smallest sheep were big enough to support my weight, and they had thick wool. I just twirled the stuff into handles for my hands, hooked my feet against the sheep's thigh bones, and presto—I felt like a baby wallaby, riding around against the sheep's chest, trying to keep the wool out of my mouth and my nose.

"Nawww," Will cooed of all things. "I am so going to ask, er, a friend to draw me a picture of that and hang it somewhere in camp!"

"You are not!" Percy jabbed his pen at him fighting off a laugh of his own for the absurd situations he kept winding up in. "This is a rescue operation!"

"With counting sheep and a wedding," Thalia added unhelpfully as she busted out laughing again, and Percy dropped his pen and grinned along too.

In case you're wondering, the underside of a sheep doesn't smell that great.

"I was not, actually," Magnus frowned at the same time Alex said, "sort of was, yeah, thanks!"

"At least he takes care of them and you didn't find any burrs and twigs pocking you," Will smiled.

Imagine a winter sweater that's been dragged through the mud and left in the laundry hamper for a week.

"So, Percy's room," Thalia smirked.

Percy opened, then closed his mouth as he decided the retort his mom didn't let it get that bad didn't sound that great.

Something like that.

The sun was going down.

No sooner was I in position than the Cyclops roared, "Oy! Goaties! Sheepies!"

The flock dutifully began trudging back up the slopes toward the cave.

"This is it!" Annabeth whispered. "I'll be close by. Don't worry."

I made a silent promise to the gods that if we survived this, I'd tell Annabeth she was a genius.

"I was under the impression you did that on a timer these days, so I guess it worked out," Nico rolled his eyes.

The frightening thing was, I knew the gods would hold me to it.

"For sure," Will shrugged, especially Aphrodite.

My sheep taxi started plodding up the hill. After a hundred yards, my hands and feet started to hurt from holding on. I gripped the sheep's wool more tightly, and the animal made a grumbling sound.

"I wonder if Grover picked up any new swear words from their bleating," Percy grinned.

I didn't blame it. I wouldn't want anybody rock climbing in my hair either.

But if I didn't hold on, I was sure I'd fall off right there in front of the monster. "Hasenpfeffer!"

"Confirmed, he does eat them," Thalia blinked, though that was a rabbit meat stew. It was a German dish and pretty good though.

the Cyclops said, patting one of the sheep in front of me. "Einstein! Widget—eh there, Widget!"

"He named a sheep 'I forgot your name?'" Jason frowned.

"What are you guys, walking dictionaries?" Percy demanded.

"You just need to read more Percy," Alex shrugged.

Polyphemus patted my sheep and nearly knocked me to the ground. "Putting on some extra mutton there?"

Uh-oh, I thought. Here it comes.

But Polyphemus just laughed and swatted the sheep's rear end, propelling us forward. "Go on, fatty! Soon Polyphemus will eat you for breakfast!"

Percy sighed and mentally took back his own joke. He hoped Grover hadn't understood the cries of the cyclops victims, or at least hadn't tried to make friends.

And just like that, I was in the cave.

I could see the last of the sheep coming inside. If Annabeth didn't pull off her distraction soon...

The Cyclops was about to roll the stone back into place, when from somewhere outside Annabeth shouted, "Hello, ugly!"

Polyphemus stiffened. "Who said that?"

"Nobody!" Annabeth yelled.

That got exactly the reaction she'd been hoping for. The monster's face turned red with rage.

"Nobody!" Polyphemus yelled back. "I remember you!"

That got a bunch of blank looks from the Norse kids and Jason to Percy's relief, he wasn't the only one fumbling in the dark with these myths at least.

"You're too stupid to remember anybody," Annabeth taunted. "Much less Nobody."

"Nobody's capitalized by the way, like a name," Alex clarified, though that cleared up nothing.

"Are you two that bad at picking random names?" Magnus asked.

"Wait for it," Percy said a little pridefully he knew the answer before them, for once. Even just for a couple sentences. And Annabeth had explained it to him. Not the point.

I hoped to the gods she was already moving when she said that, because Polyphemus bellowed furiously, grabbed the nearest boulder (which happened to be his front door) and threw it toward the sound of Annabeth's voice.

They all winced at the bizarre mental image of hoping the invisible person could run and dodge really, really well right now.

I heard the rock smash into a thousand fragments.

For a terrible moment, there was silence. Then Annabeth shouted, "You haven't learned to throw any better, either!"

Polyphemus howled. "Come here! Let me kill you, Nobody!"

"You can't kill Nobody, you stupid oaf," she taunted. "Come find me!"

Polyphemus barreled down the hill toward her voice.

Now, the "Nobody" thing wouldn't have made sense to anybody, but Annabeth had explained to me that it was the name Odysseus had used to trick Polyphemus centuries ago, right before he poked the Cyclops's eye out with a large hot stick. Annabeth had figured Polyphemus would still have a grudge about that name, and she was right. In his frenzy to find his old enemy, he forgot about resealing the cave entrance. Apparently, he didn't even stop to consider that Annabeth's voice was female, whereas the first Nobody had been male. On the other hand, he'd wanted to marry Grover, so he couldn't have been all that bright about the whole male/female thing.

"Or the distinction just doesn't matter to him," Alex said with dignity, and nobody, and probably Nobody too no matter how brave he was, was going to debate that with him.

I just hoped Annabeth could stay alive and keep distracting him long enough for me to find Grover and Clarisse.

"She doesn't really need to keep distracting him does she?" Nico pointed out. "He'll be running around that island looking for, um, Nobody," his lips twitched at the end for the absurd sentence.

"Best to keep him away from us while we sneak out," Percy tried to shrug off her part of the plan, she was supposed to lead him to the far side of the island and leap off towards the Queen Ann's Revenge, to the safety of the ocean...if everything had gone according to plan.

I dropped off my ride, patted Widget on the head, and apologized. I searched the main room, but there was no sign of Grover or Clarisse. I pushed through the crowd of sheep and goats toward the back of the cave.

Even though I'd dreamed about this place, I had a hard time finding my way through the maze. I ran down corridors littered with bones, past rooms full of sheepskin rugs and life-size cement sheep that I recognized as the work of Medusa. There were collections of sheep Tshirts; large tubs of lanolin cream; and wooly coats, socks, and hats with ram's horns.

"I think I'd rather the bones be described in detail," Jason made an eesh face.

"Where is the god of interior decorating when you need them," Percy agreed.

Finally, I found the spinning room, where Grover was huddled in the corner, trying to cut Clarisse's bonds with a pair of safety scissors.

"I guess that's why Grover didn't take Annabeth's approach and stab him in the foot," Will smiled sadly.

"It's no good," Clarisse said. "This rope is like iron!"

"Just a few more minutes!"

"Grover," she cried, exasperated. "You've been working at it for hours!"

And then they saw me.

"Percy?" Clarisse said. "You're supposed to be blown up!"

"So are you," Percy muttered quietly. If the three of them had lived through that explosion than maybe...

"Good to see you, too. Now hold still while I—"

"Perrrrrcy!" Grover bleated and tackled me with a goat-hug.

"So we've finally established that is goat hug," Magnus chuckled. "I liked calling it a goat-bear-best friend hug, but that's fair."

"More power to you," Percy was beaming so much at finally having his best friend safe after all this time Thalia scooted away from him just a bit lest he was still in a hugging mood.

"You heard me! You came!"

"Yeah, buddy," I said. "Of course I came."

"Where's Annabeth?"

"Outside," I said. "But there's no time to talk. Clarisse, hold still."

I uncapped Riptide and sliced off her ropes. She stood stiffly, rubbing her wrists. She glared at me for a moment, then looked at the ground and mumbled, "Thanks."

"Doth mine ears deceive me!" Nico laughed, he'd never imagined Clarisse had learned that word.

"Cut her some slack Romeo," Jason snorted.

"The Odyssey doesn't talk like Shakespeare, it's Greek," Will said just shy of a grumble, once again reminding himself he wasn't going to ask about whatever this super secret mission of theirs was. That Jason might not even remember. Had Nico known that? Maybe he'd like some help now that Jason might be a little, out of sorts?

"You're welcome," I said. "Now, was anyone else on board your lifeboat?"

Clarisse looked surprised. "No. Just me. Everybody else aboard the Birmingham ... well, I didn't even know you guys made it out."

Percy's heart shattered into a million pebbles at his last hope being dashed. Of course all of the demigods had survived that blast, but Tyson had probably disintegrated or something. Like he was just some monster, not his little brother, who Poseidon would never care about...

I looked down, trying not to believe that my last hope of seeing Tyson alive had just been crushed.

The others flinched away from seeing Percy so miserable over this. His friends because each of them desperately wanted to tell him Tyson was okay, it felt so wrong to keep this from him. The others because Percy was a good person who didn't deserve to keep riding on this emotional roller-coaster of a life.

"Okay. Come on, then. We have to help—"

An explosion echoed through the cave, followed by a scream that told me we might be too late. It was Annabeth crying out in fear.

"No!" The word wrenched out of Percy as he clenched his own gut, summoning the book to him by the ocean power pulling it out of Alex's hands and yanking him forward right out of his seat onto the stone floor with the force as it went sailing towards Percy's face so fast it would have broken his nose on impact if Thalia hadn't snatched the corner at the last second.

They glared at each other for several long, loud beats of silence before Percy said in a modicum of a calm voice, "sorry Alex." He was already brushing himself off and getting back into his seat, sitting a little on edge watching Magnus beating down the urge to rip the book away himself and find out what happened to his cousin. "I won't do that again if I'm distracted by reading. Maybe I'll even learn a new word from Annabeth while rescuing her," he added sarcastically.

"Acceptable," she agreed while reluctantly handing it back, her own stomach still in knots. Her little sister hadn't gone into further details between arriving and how they'd left, so she had no clue how bad this was about to be either.

#PJO #Percy Jackson #reading the books #fanfic #fanfiction #HDYSG #Alex Fierro #Magnus Chase #Thalia Grace #Jason Grace #percabeth #fierrochase #Hearthstone #Nico di Angelo #Will Solace #solangleo

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keefbongo · 1 year

Text

A smell

It was almost dawn and Sanchez, weary from his night shift, reached the conclusion that wealthy people must smell nice when they die. It was the only explanation for the contempt they showed him. Many passed by him without saying a word, as if he didn’t exist. Those who did speak to him did so with a condescending authority, or as if to fulfill a daily quota of hello’s, goodbye’s, and hollow small talk. Meanwhile, through the silence of many nights, Sanchez would sit at his desk and watch carefully, double check the locks, inspect shadowy corners for intruders real and imagined. His hands were decorated with callouses from when he’d pull open the garage’s gate himself. All so that the residents of the building he protected could feel safe in their luxurious apartments that rose above everything and everybody else. Yet Sanchez understood their distance. Their lives were so incomprehensibly different, what could there be of substance to talk about? They always arrived in luxurious cars; Sanchez biked to work for miles from a town outside of Barranquilla they had probably never heard of. The residents of the building lived enriched by pleasant, conditioned air; Sanchez’s power always failed on the hottest days, when he’d sleep naked wishing that he had something else to shed to endure the oppressive heat and humidity. It would only make sense that their realities would continue to be different in death. In his coffin, Sanchez imagined, he would stink and his decomposing body would be eaten away by time and insects. The building’s residents would gently dissolve into the earth, beautiful orchids would grow out of them, and their corpses, even before morticians prepared them for burial, would smell of roses.

“That’s why they feel so superior,” thought Sanchez. “They know even the way we will rot will be different.”

The only exception was Señor Fuentes, whose eyes sparkled with youthful intrigue despite his advanced age. His hair and beard had lost their original color, but not their sheen. His caramel skin was lined with wrinkles and his body hunched by the persistence of gravity, but he had not lost his exuberance. He and Sanchez quickly realized upon meeting that they were raised in the same barrio. They spoke the same language — that of experience — and though Señor Fuentes was several decades older than Sanchez, they had lived practically the same childhood. Their barrio was one of the few constants in an ever changing city. They ate the same carimañolas from the same corner store where viejos would gather to read papers and listen to radio. They fell in love with the same types of girls, ones with vibrant smiles and curls that bounced while they danced. And they both knew of the quotidian absurdities, of the inexplicable violence, both physical and spiritual. Sanchez felt he and Señor Fuentes were molded from the same clay, kindred souls spoken into existence by the same Caribbean god, because they both left their barrios to make something of themselves. Sanchez made himself into a doorman, a role he was prepared to fulfill till he died. Señor Fuentes made himself rich.

Sanchez’s favorite part of his night shifts were the early mornings that concluded them. This is when Señor Fuentes would often call the front desk and invite him up to the fourteenth floor for a coffee to help him make it through the final stretch of his shift. They shared memories, debated the future, and then Señor Fuentes would pat Sanchez on the knee with his leathery hands.

“Ay hermano. I’m so tired of being slow when life is so fast,” he’d say.

Sanchez thought of those conversations that morning. The pink light of the infant sky made the lobby’s glass doors shimmer, a spectacle that was only for him. He was lost in his morbid thoughts as he watched a man water grass outside a neighboring building. A symphony of birds chirping echoed down from the trees in the park nearby, sporadically interrupted by the desperate yells of a man screaming the names of the fruit he had for sale.

“Life goes by too fast.”

His thoughts were interrupted by none other than Señor Fuentes, who stood in the middle of the lobby perfectly still. He seemed to shimmer along with dawn’s light. It was unusual. Sanchez didn’t remember unlocking the front door with the button he had at his desk. Perhaps, he had unlocked it instinctively while he was deep in thought. It was also strange that Señor Fuentes had not even acknowledged Sanchez’s existence. There was not even a hint of his normally youthful energy. Even stranger still was that Señor Fuentes then walked into the elevator but Sanchez never heard the elevator go up.

Sanchez resisted the temptation to be hurt by his friend’s disregard and was instead worried. He checked the elevator and it worked perfectly. There was nobody inside. This worried Sanchez even more. He grabbed his emergency key and took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. The elevator doors opened to reveal Señor Fuentes’ living room. The apartment wasn’t just on the fourteenth floor. It was the fourteenth floor. And the fourteenth floor wasn’t actually the fourteenth floor. It was the thirteenth floor. The building, though a beacon of development and modernity, could not fully uphold the pretence under which it was constructed. Its builders could not avoid the constraints of superstition. Neither could Señor Fuentes, who never would’ve purchased an apartment on a floor with such an unlucky number.

Sanchez walked into the old man’s home like he had many times before, though this time with hesitation. The smell hit him immediately. A sweet, sickening smell that wouldn’t leave Sanchez’s nostrils for months, no matter how hard he tried to wash it out. It was the smell of rotting flesh, of matter becoming spirit.

-MGG

#fiction #short fiction #flash fiction #creative writing #magical realism #horror

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viktcrr · 4 years

Text

「maxence danet-fauvel & nonbinary」⇾ samuels, viktor, the senior radcliffe student’s records show that he/they are a capricorn and 24 years old. he/they are studying visual arts, living in noland and can be observant, ingenious, reticent & dependent. when i see him/them i am reminded of a sculptor’s hands clay-ridden, the insistent hum of tv static, and a crying preacher inside a dusty funeral home. ⇽「james & 21 & est & they/them.」

hllo !!! i’m james n here’s one of my big idiot muses <3 he’s not actually dumb he’s :/ a bit evil. bt thts okay hes still <3 beloved <3 LKDSFHLSADLKGFSHLKD anyways!

TW DEATH, HEAVY GRIEF, OVERDOSE / DRUG ADDICTION, HOSPITALIZATION, HYPERSEXUALITY, RELIGION MENTIONS, MENTAL ILLNESS

aesthetic.

old tvs and their static, worn tapes, horror movie screams, spilled ink, a sculptor’s hands, clay-stained, chicken scratch handwriting, messy notes, messy hair, scoffs and eye-rolls, bruised knuckles, sore throats, funeral homes and a crying preacher, shattered ceramics, knife fights, high ledges, vertically-striped pants, red lights, the moon shrouded in clouds, cigarette butts, graveyards and half-empty wine bottles, sitting there for hours and talking to nothing, about nothing, a god complex, gold rings adorning both hands, barbwire baseball bats, having never played baseball in your life, deep eyebags and broken mirrors, a permanent chip on one’s shoulder, yearning, longing, wishing.

basic info.

full name: viktor phillip samuels

nickname(s): icky vicky :/

b.o.d. - jan 2nd

label(s): the black hole, the crepehanger, the impious, the opaque, the tempest, etc.

height: 6′1″

hometown: rochester, new york

sexuality: pansexual uwu

stats

inspired by: beetlejuice (beetlejuice), sid (toy story), jack sparrow (pirates of the caribbean), francis wilkerson (malcolm in the middle), azula (avatar: the last airbender), vicky (the fairly oddparents), stu macher / billy loomis (scream), marshall lee (adventure time), bojack horseman (bojack horseman), any it’s always sunny character :/

biography.

born to mama and papa (preacher) samuels in rochester, new york - fifteen minutes after his twin sister, tatiana samuels. years later, rosa samuels joined the gang.

was an awkward, quiet kid growing up, he didn’t interact well with others and preferred being left alone to dig up worms and draw on the walls of their childhood home. the only exception was his twin, really.

as he got older he grew out of this, but instead became like … sort of an asshole? maybe to compensate for years of childhood awkwardness. he’s the sort of person who will bite the hand that feeds him & developed into a full time nuisance by middle school, unlike tatiana who was much more subtle about her conniving manners.

always has been a fan of ‘darker’ materials. grim & creepy morbid shit. probably the biggest tim burton fan, ever since he was a kid … not a good look for a preacher’s son, but he never really felt ‘in’ with the rest of his family to begin with. classic black sheep syndrome.

drew disturbing pictures as a kid that probably prompted one or two or five phone calls home to assure everything was fine.

just really had a knack for art at a young age, from drawing to painting to playing with clay. it’s always been his Thing and probably is the only thing he’s good at.

being twins with tatiana was hard. they were near opposite besides both being quite mean-spirited. tatiana handled being in public better, left a better image behind - but viktor had talent, more than she did. they loved each other deeply - y’know, those unbreakable twin bonds as cliche as it sounds - but found each other as competition for their parents’ attention. a rivalry for affection.

in high school is when viktor really started to act out. it started extreme, like losing his virginity in their church and vandalism around the neighborhoods. faked being possessed in the middle of sunday service & almost had an exorcism performed on him.

his only redeemable trait was like … just his sheer talent in the arts. was in a 3D art AP course and specialized in sculptures. he could pretty much create anything he wanted with enough dedication.

because he was the problem child, the one who deserved to be disciplined for all his antics, tatiana could sneak away and get away with whatever she wanted much easier. on the bright-side, for her, i guess.

not a very motivated person - wasn’t planning on going to college, much less going to radcliffe but his parents literally wrote & sent his college application for him because they weren’t going to house a deadbeat but had too much heart to kick him out onto the streets. cool!

he’s actually pretty smart but he just doesn’t apply himself. has a minor in english because he didn’t care for an extra course-load, but he’s good at writing & analyzing literature. is going to use it to write and illustrate his own series of children books with a style similar to tim burton’s. not for the kids, but because he likes to leave a trail of terror in whatever he does.

has been experimenting with himself since high school but college is where he really had started to crack down on himself. was out as pansexual & nonbinary by his sophomore year of college just … not to his parents, who don’t really need to know.

if you asked him if he believed in twins having a psychic connection with each other - he’d tell you he wouldn’t know. it felt believable at times, but sometimes he had no idea what was going on inside of tatiana’as head. on the other hand - viktor had always felt oddly transparent to her, like she knew all of his moves before he did. the only person who could predict him accurately.

( TW DEATH, GRIEF, OVERDOSE / HOSPITALIZATION BEYOND THIS POINT )

when tatiana disappeared, viktor knew something was up. it was a twist in his gut, pure instinct that something wasn’t right. and it wasn’t right - and when she was proclaimed missing, they couldn’t find her.

and when tatiana died - viktor knew. it felt wrong, something cut so severely in him he could pinpoint her death to the second. he didn’t know how, or why, but he knew it. knew it before anybody else had.

afterwards he went on a sort of bender. he’d begun to struggle with a mild drug addiction late senior year of high school / early college, but he was managing it up until this point.

his mental health had also sunk to an all-time low, when it’d never been great to begin with. (manic & depressive episodes. once fixated on a sculpting project for six months and then knocked it off the table and destroyed it as soon as he finished it for no apparent reason.)

tatiana’s body wasn’t found immediately, and when it was … viktor went off the rails. ended up overdosing & being hospitalized. spent six months in & out of psychiatric care after that.

came back to radcliffe to finish his senior year because … for the reasons above, he hadn’t been able to complete it. just wants to get his credits and get out of here.

is still dealing with a lot of trauma & grief, especially since the one year anniversary of tatiana’s death was this month (january) - causes him to spiral and be unpredictable in regards of his mental health. he stopped taking his medication, so. :/ some days are alright, other days are pretty bad.

UPDATE: now that summer’s come n go ... viktor hs been thru <3 a lot <3 recently. switched therapists (his :/ last one got her license revoked) & started new medications, went to a treatment center briefly ‘cos .. he wasn’t doing too well :/ bt now he’s back baybey! trying to be better n trying to be sober but ... :/

personality.

the human embodiment of a gremlin that was fed after midnight. a goblin, if you will. one of those cats with a narrow head and really big ears … that’s them!

a big horror & halloween enthusiast. loves the old campy horror movies & probably has an abundance of masks from different movies. dresses like a grimy millennial beetlejuice more than they should because they just … love those black & white vertical-striped pants.

can appreciate the lore & cryptids at radcliffe and likes to feed into the fear that surrounds them. is probably the cause of a few ‘anomalies’ and ‘paranormal sightings’ because they’re just … a jerk.

fashion alternates between e-boy (they would be tiktok famous if they were 17 & didn’t think that a majorly minor based app was weird.), millennial beetlejuice, and goth in a crop top & sweatpants. big fan of crop tops and a big fan of sweatpants.

they can be really fucking mean? petty, aggressive, a major instigator. will literally spit in your face for little to no reason, you could just look at them the wrong way. the kind of person who will stick their gum into someone else’s hair. other than that? they’re like … sort of okay. they’re not always mean, just a dick about 90% of the time lmao

like okay yeah they’ll call someone a stinky bitch for no reason except they feel like it and believes it. it’s fine, they’re fine, we’re fine.

despite the fact that they’re probably getting into a fight whenever, considers themself to be a lover and not a fighter but that’a primarily because they fuck a lot. uses it as a coping mechanism, like they’re this big fancy carnival show that’s like ‘come one, come all! fuck the dead girl’s twin brother!’ and it’s … a Lot. might have a problem with hypsersexuality but they’re not fully aware of it.

the preacher’s whore son, basically :)

pansexual & nonbinary, switches between he & they pronouns often and without a pattern, but they have such a fragile grip on their identity that you could call them ‘dog-faced bitch’ and they’d turn around like. sup.

vastly impulsive … like i said, they destroy their own creations for the fun of it. spends all teir money on useless shit, will cheat on someone because they feel like it & likes the thrill, screams into the night sky frequently like a cat in heat.

will also spend months creating useless shit for no reason too. spent six of them sculpting a hollowed out tree the size of them & then took a sledgehammer to it.

they’re very super dramatic. would play the organ at church when nobody was looking after them and service was about to start. would just churn out these super haunting, creepy melodies like they were phantom of the opera. would do the same exact thing at home on their keyboard with the pipe organ setting whenever they got grounded until their parents took it away HBDSJFNGKH

will absolutely not talk about their ‘time away’ because it’s not anyone’s business, not even their own younger sister. still refuses to talk about tatiana’s death, or their mental health, or their addiction (fallen back into it but it hasn’t gotten severe … yet :/), or anything involving their own emotions.

will just change the topic abruptly, no warning. asks about the jonas brothers instead and they fucking hate the jonas brothers.

that being said they’re absolutely not over tatiana’s death & it’s to the point of obsession over it. like there’s some kind of secret that needs to be uncovered, even though there just. isn’t. tatiana was their rock and they were pretty much dependent on her. kept them grounded. could control them when nobody else could, got into their head easier than others. it’s sort of like rosa lost two siblings that day because viktor hasn’t been the same since.

emotionally unavailable while also crying twice a day. cries during their brawls but still wins. is stony-faced when they tell you they cheated on you with your much hotter best friend.

will tell you straight up what they want from you, no bullshit & no beating around the bush. just blunt. if they want to fuck, nothing else, then that’s it. if they feel deviation or developing feelings then they’ll ghost in less than a second. is awful like that but feels no shame.

but also emotional as shit and it’s confusing. will cry on a whim and then flip you off if you try to console them or ask them what’s up. will bite you.

they go to therapy but they just fuck around and wastes their therapists’ time … also is fucking their therapist, but that’s neither here nor there. so they’re not really getting the help they need.

likes to be intimidating but not … with their body or anything because they’re a TWIG but uses their love & knowledge of horror and creepy shit to their advantage. has an abundance of fake blood. has channeled the energy of jack nicholson and used it on tatiana’s boyfriends before (also is a big fan of sfx makeup & has dabbled in it)

probably chases kids around with a chainsaw without the chain on halloween every year.

generally never doing good, both mental health wise & morally. would probably steal candy from a baby for funsies.

i don’t know if there’s a good to them somewhere deep down, but they don’t see any issues with themself either. nothing really breaks through to them anymore because the only person who ever made them stop and think about their actions was tatiana, and well, y’know. :/

an introverted reclusive type who doesn’t like most people or going out, but does so anyway if it means a quick high & a cheap thrill.

pretty observant and likes to analyze people even though they’re often like … partially wrong. judgmental because they like to make people feel bad, not because they’re a righteous mighty person. because they’re not. so like, a hypocrite!

wanted connections.

a roommate… but it’s an absolute nightmare to live with him.

enemies… because viktor would have a lot of them…

familiar faces… people who knew tatiana or of her / were her friends. maybe even those who dated her, and who viktor would’ve tried to intimidate / scare at any given chance :/

pitiful glances… people who take pity on viktor and he hates it sooo much.

hooligan gremlin kids… just a friend group of grown ass adults who do drugs and fuck shit up around town like they’re edgy teenagers.

high school girlfriend… probably the one he lost his virginity to inside his family church :/

childhood acquaintances… people who knew him from his youth.

exes… good & bad terms, but mostly bad terms because viktor is an actual demon. probably cheated on them.

soft… i don’t know if he’s soft towards anyone and/or is capable of it but we can try. we can try.

unrequited… either viktor just doesn’t like them or he’s holding back because he’s :/ got issues with relationships & is self-sabotaging as one does

enemies with Tension… of the … spicy kind if you know what i mean. wink.

friends… old friends, new friends, bad friends, good friends, close friends, frenemies, etc. i don’t know how many he had but if your muse likes to cause a ruckus and fuck shit up then viktor’s your man.

hook-ups… current or old. friends with benefits, one night stands, anything and everything because he fucks around a lot.

ride or die… friendship but make it extreme.

bad influence… he’s just toxic to be around and brings out the worst in people :/

bad egg… he’s gotten into a few fights :/ maybe you witnessed it. maybe you were in it.

literally anything i wld love all sorts of plots.

#ruhqintro #death tw #grief tw #drug abuse tw #addiction tw #overdose tw #hospitalization tw #hypersexuality tw #religion mention

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altviktcrr · 4 years

Text

『MAXENCE DANET-FAUVEL ❙ NONBINARY』 ⟿ looks like VIKTOR SAMUELS is here for HIS/THEIR SENIOR year as a VISUAL ARTS student. HE/THEY are 24 years old & known to be OBSERVANT, INGENIOUS, RETICENT & DEPENDENT. They’re living in NOLAND, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ JAMES. 20. EST. SHE/THEY.

hllo ,,, again ,,, this is my last child i SWEAR ,,, at least fr now ,,, hes also the most problematic one ,,, the most dramatic ,,, one of my absolute faves ,,, pleathe love him. as always if u wish to plot please like this so i can msg u !!!

TW DEATH, HEAVY GRIEF, OVERDOSE / DRUG ADDICTION, HOSPITALIZATION, HYPERSEXUALITY, RELIGION MENTIONS, MENTAL ILLNESS

aesthetic.

basic info.

full name: viktor phillip samuels

nickname(s): icky vicky :/

b.o.d. - jan 2nd

label(s): the black hole, the crepehanger, the impious, the opaque, the tempest, etc.

height: 6′1″

hometown: rochester, new york

sexuality: pansexual uwu

stats

biography.

born to mama and papa (preacher) samuels in rochester, new york - fifteen minutes after his twin sister, tatiana samuels. years later, rosa samuels joined the gang.

as he got older he grew out of this, but instead became like ... sort of an asshole? maybe to compensate for years of childhood awkwardness. he’s the sort of person who will bite the hand that feeds him & developed into a full time nuisance by middle school, unlike tatiana who was much more subtle about her conniving manners.

always has been a fan of ‘darker’ materials. grim & creepy morbid shit. probably the biggest tim burton fan, ever since he was a kid ... not a good look for a preacher’s son, but he never really felt ‘in’ with the rest of his family to begin with. classic black sheep syndrome.

drew disturbing pictures as a kid that probably prompted one or two or five phone calls home to assure everything was fine.

just really had a knack for art at a young age, from drawing to painting to playing with clay. it’s always been his Thing and probably is the only thing he’s good at.

his only redeemable trait was like ... just his sheer talent in the arts. was in a 3D art AP course and specialized in sculptures. he could pretty much create anything he wanted with enough dedication.

has been experimenting with himself since high school but college is where he really had started to crack down on himself. was out as pansexual & nonbinary by his sophomore year of college just ... not to his parents, who don’t really need to know.

( TW DEATH, GRIEF, OVERDOSE / HOSPITALIZATION BEYOND THIS POINT )

afterwards he went on a sort of bender. he’d begun to struggle with a mild drug addiction late senior year of high school / early college, but he was managing it up until this point.

tatiana’s body wasn’t found immediately, and when it was ... viktor went off the rails. ended up overdosing & being hospitalized. spent six months in & out of psychiatric care after that.

came back to radcliffe to finish his senior year because ... for the reasons above, he hadn’t been able to complete it. just wants to get his credits and get out of here.

personality.

the human embodiment of a gremlin that was fed after midnight. a goblin, if you will. one of those cats with a narrow head and really big ears ... that’s them!

they can be really fucking mean? petty, aggressive, a major instigator. will literally spit in your face for little to no reason, you could just look at them the wrong way. the kind of person who will stick their gum into someone else’s hair. other than that? they’re like ... sort of okay. they’re not always mean, just a dick about 90% of the time lmao

like okay yeah they’ll call someone a stinky bitch for no reason except they feel like it and believes it. it’s fine, they’re fine, we’re fine.

despite the fact that they’re probably getting into a fight whenever, considers themself to be a lover and not a fighter but that’a primarily because they fuck a lot. uses it as a coping mechanism, like they’re this big fancy carnival show that’s like ‘come one, come all! fuck the dead girl’s twin brother!’ and it’s ... a Lot. might have a problem with hypsersexuality but they’re not fully aware of it.

the preacher’s whore son, basically :)

vastly impulsive ... like i said, they destroy their own creations for the fun of it. spends all teir money on useless shit, will cheat on someone because they feel like it & likes the thrill, screams into the night sky frequently like a cat in heat.

will also spend months creating useless shit for no reason too. spent six of them sculpting a hollowed out tree the size of them & then took a sledgehammer to it.

will absolutely not talk about their ‘time away’ because it’s not anyone’s business, not even their own younger sister. still refuses to talk about tatiana’s death, or their mental health, or their addiction (fallen back into it but it hasn’t gotten severe ... yet :/), or anything involving their own emotions.

will just change the topic abruptly, no warning. asks about the jonas brothers instead and they fucking hate the jonas brothers.

emotionally unavailable while also crying twice a day. cries during their brawls but still wins. is stony-faced when they tell you they cheated on you with your much hotter best friend.

but also emotional as shit and it’s confusing. will cry on a whim and then flip you off if you try to console them or ask them what’s up. will bite you.

they go to therapy but they just fuck around and wastes their therapists’ time ... also is fucking their therapist, but that’s neither here nor there. so they’re not really getting the help they need.

likes to be intimidating but not ... with their body or anything because they’re a TWIG but uses their love & knowledge of horror and creepy shit to their advantage. has an abundance of fake blood. has channeled the energy of jack nicholson and used it on tatiana’s boyfriends before (also is a big fan of sfx makeup & has dabbled in it)

probably chases kids around with a chainsaw without the chain on halloween every year.

generally never doing good, both mental health wise & morally. would probably steal candy from a baby for funsies.

an introverted reclusive type who doesn’t like most people or going out, but does so anyway if it means a quick high & a cheap thrill.

pretty observant and likes to analyze people even though they’re often like ... partially wrong. judgmental because they like to make people feel bad, not because they’re a righteous mighty person. because they’re not. so like, a hypocrite!

wanted connections.

a roommate... but it’s an absolute nightmare to live with him.

enemies... because viktor would have a lot of them...

familiar faces... people who knew tatiana or of her / were her friends. maybe even those who dated her, and who viktor would’ve tried to intimidate / scare at any given chance :/

pitiful glances... people who take pity on viktor and he hates it sooo much.

hooligan gremlin kids... just a friend group of grown ass adults who do drugs and fuck shit up around town like they’re edgy teenagers.

high school girlfriend... probably the one he lost his virginity to inside his family church :/

childhood acquaintances... people who knew him from his youth.

exes... good & bad terms, but mostly bad terms because viktor is an actual demon. probably cheated on them.

soft... i don’t know if he’s soft towards anyone and/or is capable of it but we can try. we can try.

unrequited... either viktor just doesn’t like them or he’s holding back because he’s :/ got issues with relationships & is self-sabotaging as one does

enemies with Tension... of the ... spicy kind if you know what i mean. wink.

friends... old friends, new friends, bad friends, good friends, close friends, frenemies, etc. i don’t know how many he had but if your muse likes to cause a ruckus and fuck shit up then viktor’s your man.

hook-ups... current or old. friends with benefits, one night stands, anything and everything because he fucks around a lot.

ride or die... friendship but make it extreme.

bad influence... he’s just toxic to be around and brings out the worst in people :/

bad egg... he’s gotten into a few fights :/ maybe you witnessed it. maybe you were in it.

literally anything i wld love all sorts of plots.

#radintro #death tw #grief tw #overdose tw #addiction tw #hospitalization tw #mental illness tw #hypersexuality tw #religion mention tw

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kpopfanfictrash · 6 years

Text

Blackjack (Epilogue)

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: You / Jungkook

Rating: 18+ (explicit sex)

Warnings: oral (female), vanilla, lovingly looking into eyes, coconut drinks

Word Count: 5,102

Summary: Bangtan is one of the most vicious mafias on the west coast. Only six members are known by name though, with a mysterious seventh member dubbed only as ‘the shadow.’ When you become indebted to the worst of the worst – how, exactly can you find a way out?

[Master List]

A breeze drifts through the room, carrying with it the scent of sand and the ocean. Waves break on the beach, rolling in crests towards the shore and you lean both arms on the railing, staring out at the sea. A bonfire blazes on the beach, tucked in between sandcastles – you remember seeing a flyer tucked under your door to your suite earlier this week. Jungkook was overly enthusiastic about the idea. He placed it in a position of pride on the end table and insisted you go.

He has never been to a bonfire before – although, come to think of it, neither have you. Smiling, you take a large sip from your drink. Something tropical, mixed in a coconut with a large wedge of lime. As you stare at the ocean, warm arms slip around your waist.

“Hey,” you breathe, turning your head.

Jungkook continues to look at the ocean, hands laced over your front. “It’s beautiful,” he says, eyes bright in the sunset.

He is right about that; the view is beautiful. Sunlight dances over the water in reds, purples and blues sunk towards the horizon. In an hour it will be dark but until then – you turn in his arms.

“Yeah, the view is pretty great.”

A smile tugs at Jungkook’s lips, finally looking at you. “Oh?” he grins, brushing his lips against your forehead. “You’re not even looking at the scenery.”

“No need,” you say, tapping his butt. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”

Jungkook laughs, throwing his head back. His eyes crinkle, skin tanned and seeing him like this, something inside your chest loosens – it is healing to see him this happy. It is healing to be happy yourself, which is something you never thought you would say. Lowering his head, Jungkook’s smile fades as he – reaching out a finger – gently traces the puckered scar on your shoulder. A reminder of the Man, his knife and the last wound he gave you.

You two have talked about that night often, but not now. Not here. Gently, you lift your hand and cover his own. You open your mouth to ask him a question, but before you can –

“Well, shit,” a male voice says, laughing.

Both of you turn slowly to look.

An unfamiliar face stares back at you – hair dark, eyes light and very obviously drunk from the way he is swaying. “I’m sorry.” The man grins, waving an arm. He is balding, middle-aged with a slight beer belly. “My wife is around here somewhere but shit, if you two aren’t a beautiful couple. I just had to tell you that.”

Jungkook’s arms tighten around you, expression relaxing at the man’s sincere tone. He is not a threat. “Thanks, man,” Jungkook says. “Best wishes to you and the wife.”

Beginning to leave, he steers you towards the beach when the man reaches out, placing a hand on your arm. Jungkook stiffens, zeroing in on the motion. A muscle in his jaw ticks, reaction barely restrained. This is understandable, given everything you have been through, which is why you do not comment, simply reaching out to remove the man’s hand.

“Sorry!” he apologizes, holding them both in the air. “That was rude of me. I didn’t introduce myself – I’m Doug. Doug Louis. Anyways, you two are too young and pretty to be out here alone. Come hang out with us at the bar, have a drink or two!”

Jungkook gaze shifts to the bar, then back you. You shrug, since Doug seems innocent enough – there is a wedding band on his finger and, peering over his shoulder, you spot a few middle-aged people at the bar. Gaze returning to Jungkook, you nod.

He pulls a face – Jungkook really wants to see the bonfire – but sighs, acquiescing. “Sure,” Jungkook agrees, slipping a hand into your dress’ pocket as you turn. “One drink.”

When Doug visibly brightens, you feel a tiny bit bad – not every person is evil, you remind yourself. Some people just want to make drunk friends with strangers on vacation in the Caribbean. Following the man through the lobby of the hotel, Jungkook lowers his lips to your ear.

“Is that a knife on your thigh?” he asks, hand brushing the fabric in your pocket.

Fighting a smile, you tap his butt through his jeans. “Is that a Glock, honey?”

Jungkook grins. “Guilty. We’ll stay just five minutes,” he insists, scanning the bar. “Just one drink with Doug, then we go down to the bonfire – okay?”

You nod, sidling up to the teak wood counter. “Whatever you want, Jungkook. It’s you who wants to see them roast a whole pig, not me.”

“A whole pig, though! How are you not intrigued, Y/N?”

“So.” Interrupting your conversation, Doug waves what looks to be half a coconut. “This is the best drink Lenny can cook up. I swear to god, I’ve tried everything he makes and this – this is the god-send.”

Hiding his smile, Jungkook seriously nods. “I believe you, Doug,” he says, settling onto a stool. Rather than join him, you move to stand in between his legs and the bar.

“Two of those coconut drinks!” you call. The bartender – Lenny, apparently – nods and gets to work.

When you turn, you see Doug has chugged half his cup. Jungkook notices this at the same time you do, chewing the inside of his lip and trying hard not to laugh.

“Ah.” Doug bangs his empty drink on the counter. “That’s the stuff. So, what brings you two to this island?”

Jungkook’s smile is angelic. He only looks like that when he is about to raise hell. “Well,” he says, accepting the drink pushed his way. “We’re actually currently on the run from the mafia.”

Doug freezes, drink halfway to his lips.

“Yeah.” Jungkook nods, plunking a straw in the shell. “Crazy, right? So, Y/N’s brother belongs to one mafia and me, to another. We met kind of unconventionally, fell in love and sparked this war between them.” Jungkook pauses to take a sip of his drink. “Anyways, there was this whole stand-off which ended in her brother taking over that mafia, and I,” he frowns. “Wait, no. I’m mixing things up.”

“He always does this,” you say sweetly to Doug.

Doug nods, vaguely horrified. Behind him, Doug’s wife chats loudly to her friends, unable to hear. Doug keeps glancing at her, as though realizing this conversation is an enormous mistake.

“Right.” Jungkook holds up a finger, as though only just remembering. “So, there’s all this confusion, this stand-off and Y/N’s brother is now head of his mafia. There’s a whole, internal power struggle and my mafia – Bangtan – ends up helping Y/N’s brother, yadda yadda. You know. Then Namjoon, the head of my mafia,” Jungkook says, clasping a hand over his heart, “decides to step down. He and Jay – sorry, Y/N’s brother – hatch a plan to combine the two mafias and make one, super-mafia. And...” Jungkook frowns, swirling his drink. “That’s when Namjoon left. Not sure where he is right now, actually.”

“Norway!” you say, sipping your drink. You wince. Too sweet. “He left right after we did and was traveling for a bit – found a girl, actually.”

“Really?” Jungkook’s eyes widen in fake surprise. “Imagine that.”

“Yes. In Italy,” you say. “They were staying at the same hotel, or something. Namjoon fell head over heels and has been holed up with her in an ice hotel in Sweden.”

“Ah, right.” Jungkook grins, snapping his fingers. “Dallon, or Mallon… or something.”

“Fallon. As in, Jimmy.”

Doug lets out a tinny laugh. “Sounds like… uh, quite the adventure you’ve had.” Almost subconsciously, he starts to move sideways. “I really should be…”

“Oh, it really has been,” you say, laying both elbows on the counter. “Even after all that, there are still people who want Jungkook and I dead.” Softly, you pat Jungkook on the arm. “You know, he’s very good at what he does. Makes a lot of enemies.”

“Ah.” Doug’s gaze darts nervously to Jungkook. “I see.”

A long beat passes before Jungkook bursts out into laughter. “Nah, man,” he grins, shoving Doug’s shoulder. “I’m just messing with you. Y/N and I are on our honeymoon. That’s what brings us to the island.”

Jungkook waves a hand, a platinum band catching the light and Doug visibly sags in relief. You tap your own ring to the counter, diamond sparkling.

Instantly, Doug’s expression clears. “Oh!” he laughs, startled. “Oh, wow – you really had me going for a moment. I actually thought…” He trails off, shaking his head. “Wow, wow – another drink, on me!”

He is still chuckling when he returns and Jungkook slides both arms around your waist. “That reminds me,” he whispers, kissing your ear. “We should call Namjoon and check in sometime.”

“Yeah,” you nod, stifling a smile. “And Jimin. Where is he now, graduate school?”

“Yep. Kicking ass, I hear. Top of his class. As long,” Jungkook rolls his eyes, “as he refrains from kicking other people’s asses in the process.”

A twinge of worry enters your thoughts. “The underground exists out there, does it?”

Jungkook nods, nose brushing your shoulder.

“Hm,” you hum, turning around. The thought of Jimin continuing to fight is worrisome, but not a problem to solve tonight. “You promised to bring him back a souvenir – or did you forget?”

Jungkook winces. “I didn’t forget,” he says. “Volcanic clay mask for Seokjin, a luggage bag for Jimin, coffee beans for Yoongi, local weaponry for Hoseok.” Jungkook sighs. “Typical. Dude wouldn’t know a gift if it smacked him in the face. And for Namjoon, I don’t know.. condoms, probably.”

You snort, about to contradict him, when –

“What about Taehyung? Are you not getting him a gift?”

Jungkook’s eyes widen as your head whips sideways. Behind the bar, where Lenny stood a few seconds prior is Taehyung. He wipes the glass in his hands, inspecting each side for spots. “Ah,” he exhales, perturbed. “No matter what I do, these age spots won’t go away.”

You blink once, then twice but the mirage refuses to change. “Taehyung,” you say, scanning the rest of the bar. No one else seems to have noticed a mafia member serving them drinks. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Jungkook lowers his feet from the stool. “This is our honeymoon,” he says, the threat in his voice barely concealed. “Did we crash yours and Lena’s, when you two disappeared for three months to Nepal?”

Taehyung waves a hand. “Well, we didn’t tell people where we were going, did we? You couldn’t have found us even if you wanted to. This is your own fault, really, for putting your hotel in the group thread.”

Appalled, you whirl to face Jungkook. “You put our honeymoon destination on the Bangtan group thread? Jungkook!”

“For emergencies,” Jungkook says, glaring daggers at Taehyung. “It was just for emergencies. Which, it seems as though this isn’t.”

“It is an emergency.” Taehyung shrugs. “You weren’t picking up my calls.”

“That was on purpose, you slug bucket!”

“Taehyung!” Doug turns around, releasing a cheer. “Hey man, how’s it going?” The tourist grins, leaning across the wood of the bar.

Jungkook stares in horror while the two men exchange a rather complicated high five. “Hey,” he mumbles, lower lip protruding. “That’s our thing.”

Trying not to laugh, you rub a circle on his wrist. “Alright. Taehyung,” you say, when Taehyung finally pulls away from Doug. “We – hang on. How long have you been here, exactly?”

Grinning, Taehyung waves Doug aside and slides closer. “Few nights,” he confesses. “Been working at the bar most of that – Lena is down at the beach, pretending to be a life guard.”

“Well, that sounds... safe.”

“Right, I know. Anyways – Jungkook.” Taehyung pretends to be serious. “You wouldn’t pick up my calls, so I had to come here in person.”

“Had to?” Jungkook glowers. “Someone better be dead, Kim.”

Despite his tone, you can tell Jungkook is worried. Ever since Jay took over both Bangtan and the Vine, Jungkook has been working to step away from the spotlight. Jimin chose to do the same, as did Namjoon. Taehyung, Yoongi, Hoseok and Seokjin remained in Bangtan, to… well, help is what they claim to be doing. What they are actually doing is driving your brother up the wall. A smile flickers over your face, having heard this – and often – from Jay.

For Taehyung to come all the way to the Caribbean does not bode well.

“Well.” Taehyung pushes another glass forward. “Does it count as an emergency if my personal timeline is tight?”

Jungkook looks at the ceiling. “We’re done, Tae,” he complains, turning around. “We can talk when Y/N and I are back in the country.”

“Wait! Don’t you want to make a shit ton of money?”

Jungkook’s footsteps falter, as do yours. When you both turn, you see Doug is suitably distracted by his third coconut drink of the night. So are his friends.

“What are you talking about, Taehyung?” you ask, returning to the counter.

Seeing he has your attention, Taehyung smirks. “I’m talking about Vegas,” he declares, lifting both arms overhead so his shirt bunches under the shoulders. The name tag on his uniform has been scribbled out and replaced with Kim Taehyung. “The Megalo Casino, to be exact.”

Jungkook’s teeth grind. “Taehyung.” His expression darkens, displaying a flash of the shadow you know still lurks within. “We can talk about a heist when Y/N and I are back. From. Our. Honeymoon.”

Each sentence is punctuated by a shake of his drink.

Taehyung lays a cup on the counter. “Spoilsport,” he says. “But fine. Admittedly, half of this trip was to ask for your help – and half was because you picked such a fucking amazing resort. Lena and I are having a great time.”

Heaving a sigh, Jungkook places one arm over your shoulder. “Goodnight, Taehyung,” he says, already walking away.

“You look ridiculous, too!” Taehyung calls out. “Just as an FYI!”

Grabbing Jungkook by the hand, you yank him towards the steps.

“With the hat,” Taehyung continues to yell, circling his head with one hand. “And the Hawaiian-print shirt. But hey, you do you, man!”

To your surprise, Jungkook lets the insult go and chuckles, flipping Taehyung the bird while you walk to the beach. Sand squishes between your toes, cooled from the heat. Wrapping an arm around Jungkook, you lean your head to his shoulder. The resort is peaceful this time of day, not that it is overly busy anytime else.

“So,” you say, walking towards the bonfire. Light dances over the sand, casting strange shapes and shadows. “Are we just going to ignore the fact that Lena and Taehyung are here?”

The corner of Jungkook’s mouth lifts. “Let them stew for another day,” he shrugs. “We can talk about making it big in Vegas tomorrow.”

“Okay.” You grin, continuing to walk. “He’s also wrong, by the way.”

“About?”

“You look dead sexy in that hat and shirt.”

Jungkook laughs, eyes crinkling. He has adapted remarkably well to island life, with a straw hat slung around his neck and printed shirt on his back. He looks, well, not like a fearsome member of the mafia, that is for sure – especially not with the puka shell necklace he wears.

You have never loved him more, if you are being honest.

Jungkook’s fingers bunch your dress, holding you close and when you arrive at the bonfire, he stops. The band plays on a raised platform, gentle song drifting over the waves. Already, the sun sinks towards the horizon, the air full of salt, sea, flowers and sand.

Snuggling into Jungkook, you exhale. “You’re thinking about what Taehyung said, aren’t you?”

Jungkook arches a brow. “I don’t know to what you’re referring. I’m just an incredibly happy man on his honeymoon.”

You roll your eyes. “Oh, please. You’re a criminal with a strong ethical conscience – and those casinos take advantage of everyone. You want to join Taehyung, you want to rob them,” you say, glancing sideways.

The corner of Jungkook’s lip twitches. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I hope you also hear the fact that I’m not saying no…”

Slowly, Jungkook looks at you. “Okay, I want to rob them,” he admits, breaking out in a smile. “But not,” he growls, dropping a kiss to your neck, “if it interrupts my honeymoon with my amazing,” he kisses that same spot again, “beautiful,” he sighs, “hot-as-hell, wife.”

Your grip tightens, thighs pressing together. “When we go back, then,” you murmur, breathless.

He nods in affirmation. “When we go back,” Jungkook says, hands sliding up your body. He nudges your nose, hovering over your lips. Gently, his thumbs massage your neck. “But until then…”

He does not kiss you. Instead, Jungkook allows the tension to grow, hands drifting from your neck to your torso. Breath quickening, you shut your eyes and feel, rather than see him take a careful step forward.

Jungkook’s hands find your ass, settling onto the curve of your hips. He pulls you in between his legs and you barely restrain the moan from your lips. The fabric of his jeans is rough; you can feel it through the thin material of your dress and Jungkook hums, low in his throat. His lips brush your shoulder, pressing you to him.

“On second thought,” Jungkook murmurs. “Maybe I don’t care about this bonfire.”

You begin to laugh, until Jungkook moves and his cock brushes your center. Breath catching, your eyes open and Jungkook smirks, no longer attempting to be careful. Kissing up your neck, he comes to a stop just below your ear.

“Our room?” he whispers.

You nod, eager.

Hand slipping into his, you turn quickly and tug him back up the stairs. The bungalow you have is in the rose gardens, a five minute walk from the lodge with a view of the ocean. You didn’t ask Jungkook how much it cost when you entered. Honestly, you don’t want to know. You figure you deserve it, after all that you’ve been through.

It has taken a while, to get used to life after. Life after Jay and the Man and the tumultuous events which occurred. No longer, do you expect to live a normal life. Not after all that you’ve seen, done and experienced – but then, you suppose normal is a relative concept. No two people walk the same path, or have the same mindset and likewise, you and Jungkook will never have the same relationship as anyone else. What you do have is important, though; you choose each other, every time you wake up.

In the morning, seeing him there in the bed right beside you – the choice is always an easy one. You want him. He wants you.

With a grin, Jungkook follows you down the path to your room. He keeps his hat in place with one hand and when you reach the doorway, he stops, grabbing your wrists and spinning you around. Pressing your back to the wood, he hovers before you; needy and aching, for the touch of your body. Bending his head, Jungkook’s nose traces your temple, jawline, lips ghosting over yours – until you inhale, licking your lips and tasting the rum, salt and smell of him.

Unable to take it any longer, you lift yourself higher. Jungkook’s lips touch yours, your back hitting the wall to arch lazily against him. He moves leisurely, letting your fingers rake through the wilds of his hair. You push the hat from his head as he grunts, pressing one hand to the door.

“I liked that hat,” Jungkook complains, sucking a hickey into the skin of your neck. “I wanted to fuck you in it.”

“Tomorrow night,” you promise, curling his hair with your fingers. “Tonight, I want you entirely naked.”

Jungkook’s breath stutters, before nodding. “Fine.” Reaching beyond, he unlocks the door. “By all means, wife.”

Cheeks heated, you duck under his arm and pass through. It has been over a month since your wedding and still, it is strange to hear such words from his lips. Not because the sound of them is disingenuous, no. It’s just that you never pictured yourself as anyone’s wife, let alone his.

Jungkook’s hands don’t leave your waist, burying his face in your neck from behind. The door falls shut behind you, a heavy thud in the dark. The longer you stand there, the more the room illuminates to reveal stars and the ocean through double glass doors. Beyond, there is sand and the ocean. Laying your head to his chest, it is easy to forget that troubles exist in this world.

“Where do you want me,” Jungkook whispers, his hands tightening on your waist.

Fighting back a shiver, your gaze searches the room. Quickly, you pass over the couch and infinity pool on the deck. You had sex there last week, despite your specific declaration such a thing would not and could not happen. It was all Jungkook’s fault, really. He looked so good in those tight, red swim trunks with his dripping wet hair. A girl couldn’t be expected not to climb in his lap when he looked like that, could they?

Things escalated quickly after that, with Jungkook reaching down to tug your swimsuit aside and – remembering just what happened next – you exhale. “The bed,” you whisper, grinding your ass into his crotch. “I want you to eat me out, Jungkook. Bad.”

He groans, quietly squeezing your waist. “Yeah?” he murmurs, pressing his lips to your neck. “Want me to lick that beautiful pussy or yours? Want to be dripping wet on my face? Is that,” he exhales, hands sliding under your dress, “what you want?”

“Yes,” you moan, relaxing against him. Jungkook’s fingers slide to the front of your body, teasing the damp material of your panties. “I want,” you pant out, struggling to remain still, “you to throw me on the bed and bury your face in my legs.”

Jungkook growls, hands gripping your ass – before he changes his mind, grabbing your dress to yank the fabric overhead. You laugh at his eagerness, momentarily blinded when your dress hits the floor. There was no bra worn underneath, so your breasts bounce freely falling out of their confines. Jungkook’s hands snake around, cupping them soft with his palms.

“These,” he groans, kissing your neck and flicking his thumbs upwards. “Are some of my favorite things in the world.”

A groan escapes when he pinches, tugging your nipples downward. Jungkook releases you then, hands sliding down your body and grinding your ass on his dick.

“Bed,” you gasp, still not moving. “The bed, Jungkook.”

He abruptly lets go. “Right.” Quickly undoing his belt, Jungkook reaches behind him and takes off his shirt. You gape at the muscles, the smooth ridges of abdominals he displays. “Go and sit on the bed, like a good girl,” he orders.

Baring your teeth at his command, you walk to the mattress – a beautiful, canopied thing, completely covered in gauze. Casually, you drop one knee to the mattress, turning to face him. Jungkook’s gaze doesn’t waver, walking across the length of the room. His jeans lie pooled on the floor, beside his shirt and the shoes he kicked off.

Jungkook comes to a stop at the bed, cock hard at his waist. The tip of him is red, swollen with pre-cum and you badly want to lick him, but Jungkook curls his finger upwards. “There,” he demands, jerking his chin towards the headboard. “Scoot up there and spread yourself for me.”

Unable to stop, you move eagerly upwards and lower both elbows beside you. Jungkook kneels casually onto the bed, laying both palms on your ankles. “Good girl,” he murmurs, eyes on your center. “Let me see how wet you are for me.”

He moves your knees apart, keeping them spread when you reach down your body. The material of your panties is flimsy, soaked with arousal as you pull this aside. Jungkook groans, seeing your cunt already dripping for him. Lowering himself on his stomach, his thumbs trace your body.

“That’s it,” he whispers, replacing your hands on your panties. Jungkook toys with you carefully, tugging the material between the slick of your folds. “Fuck.”

You whimper, eyes locked on his as Jungkook lowers his head to your clit. “Shit,” you hiss, when he presses a kiss to your body. Jungkook doesn’t stay there for long, pulling away swiftly to rub his thumb to your clit. He spreads your wetness higher, leaving your panties tugged hastily aside in his grasp.

Without warning, he shoves your knees apart and lowers his head to your core. You cry out at his ruthlessness; Jungkook’s mouth an unfeeling, unrelenting thing as he eats you out. He sucks on your clit, giving more than you think you can handle until he shoves a finger inside, arching your back on the bed.

“Oh fuck,” you gasp, hands curling into his hair.

His tongue licks quickly; curling, tracing and teasing your body. Jungkook makes love to you eagerly, bringing you again and again to the edge. Your cunt is soaked by this point, dripping down his fingers to make a mess of the sheets. Jungkook just chuckles at the sight, pulling away long enough to lick this as well. You stare, pupils blown out when you see Jungkook in between your legs, licking the goddamn mattress because he can’t get enough of your cunt.

It’s enough that you reach for him, returning his face to your legs and thrusting against him. “Please,” you gasp, half-broken. “Please, please, please, make me come.”

Jungkook chuckles, spreading you further to flick over the swollen mound of your clit. He moves faster as you gasp, incoherent and writhing beneath him. It’s hard to control yourself on his tongue and Jungkook holds you to the bed, relentless and calm. He seems to be getting off just like this, rutting against the mattress as you moan out his name. When you come, shattered and broken, he shudders in tandem, with barely held restraint.

“Fuck, fuck,” you gasp, fingers shaking in the strands of his hair. Collapsed to the sheets – you weren’t aware you had risen – you’re left spent and panting beneath him. Jungkook just chuckles, propping himself up on an elbow. He drops a kiss to your knee, then your hip as you groan, curling inward at the sensitive sensation.

“Y/N,” he sighs, pressing a kiss to your chest. Teasing over a nipple, Jungkook finds the curve of your throat.

“Mm, yes?” you mumble, using your thighs to keep his body to yours.

Jungkook pouts, nipping your collarbone. “Y/N,” he exhales, reaching down and holding his still-hard cock. Slowly, he drags this up the edge of your slit. “Please, can I fuck you?”

You almost smile, pushing your hips upwards to meet him. Everything is still so sensitive, almost painful. You shudder when Jungkook lets go of his cock and slowly massages your clit. “Oh,” you groan, your fingers trailing the bulge of his biceps.

Jungkook exhales, determinedly continuing to tease. His fingers slip back to your entrance, getting them wet before resuming his motion. Gripping his arms, a whine escapes you as your body awakens. Moving slowly against him, you gyrate your hips and urge him to go faster.

“Okay,” you breathe, nodding into the crook of his neck. “Okay, okay, yes – please, fuck me.”

He smiles into your skin, withdrawing and propping himself up over your body. Jungkook doesn’t enter you quickly, instead he thrusts his cock between your legs, slipping into your folds. He does this over and over until you’re gasping and needy.

“Please,” you groan, fingers digging into his back.

Jungkook finally acquiesces, adjusting your hips higher on the mattress. His gaze is dark, uncontrolled and you know he must be close when he thrusts halfway inside. It’s enough that you groan, head falling back to the pillows as, with slow, agonizing thrusts, Jungkook eases himself in. When he finally bottoms out, you clench tightly around him.

“Just,” you whisper, holding him to you, “there.”

Jungkook nods, nose brushing your jaw. He kisses your throat, then your chest, taking a nipple between his lips while his cock throbs inside you. Jungkook can’t help but push into you then, filling your warm, wet pussy.

A groan escapes, as he moves. “Shit,” you whisper, lifting your lips to find his.

Your mouths open, needy and wanton while Jungkook grabs for your hands and pulls them high overhead. He thrusts deeply inside you, rolling his hips as you let out a moan. Jungkook’s chuckle quickly dies, when you tighten around him.

“Fuck,” he moans, head bent in contrition. Holding himself up, he begins picking up the rhythm. His lips trail your collarbone, sucking hickies as you gasp, fingers scrambling for purchase against the rough pound of his hips.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he grunts, fucking into you roughly. “You’re so tight… so wet… I’m gonna come, baby.”

“Then do it,” you gasp, arching your back. “Come for me, baby. Fill me up.”

He groans, moving faster – Jungkook’s lips find yours in a wild, desperate kiss, his hips hard and messy against you. Lifting your pelvis, you force him in deeper and begin to lose yourself in the motion when he starts hitting your g-spot. His hips rock forward, filling you deeply as you wrap your arms tighter, needing him harder.

“Fuck,” you gasp, stars pricking the back of your eyelids. “Jungkook!”

He clutches you closer, entire body taut as he thrusts into yours. Everything draws to a point, coming together as Jungkook’s hips tease your clit, pushing you over the edge. “Fuck,” you gasp, curling upwards. You teeter dangerously for a moment before shuddering apart; coming back together, only to breathe into his skin.

Jungkook chokes out a groan, releasing inside you. You exhale at his cum, warm and wet as he fills you. Jungkook keeps moving, gradually thrusting as he lowers his body to yours. He sighs, lips brushing your forehead before he reaches down and slowly pulls free from your body. Jungkook cups you with one hand as you giggle, wriggling upward.

“Hey!” he grins, grabbing your hip with the other hand. “Stop that, let me clean you.”

“It’s your cum,” you tease, wriggling again. “What, are you scared you’ll make a mess?”

Jungkook grabs a towel and, swiping it from a chair, quickly cleans over your center. “I know,” he growls, “it’s my cum, which is how I know it’s a mess. Okay, all done. Come here.”

You obey happily, rolling into his arms. Jungkook laughs, lips brushing your cheek as his hands find your body. His fingers move quickly, interlacing with yours. On your left hand, on the pillow, your ring glints in the moonlight.

He smiles at the sight. “I still can’t believe,” Jungkook exhales.

“What?” you whisper, reaching up to brush your lips to his. “What can’t you believe?”

His other hand finds your arm, tracing the thin film of scars. Jungkook’s gaze lightens, rising to yours. “That we’re here,” he confesses, nearly inaudible. “That we’re here, whole and alive.”

Something warm rises in your chest. It is hard to believe. It’s hard to believe that, after everything that’s happened, the pain and darkness you’ve survived, there exists this light. There exists this happiness and, curling around him, you press your lips to his chest.

“I love you,” you remind, finding his fingers again. “Just a reminder.”

He nods. “I know. Almost as much as I love you.”

“Almost?”

“Almost.”

“Liar,” you tease.

“Mhm. And a thief.”

“My thief,” you proclaim, kissing his nose.

He laughs, thumb stroking your palm. “What if we’re thieves and liars and overall, horrible beings – together?”

“Together, then.”

[Master List]

Author’s Note: thank you so much, for reading! I hope you enjoy the ending of Blackjack. © kpopfanfictrash, 2018. Do not copy or repost without permission.

#jungkook smut #noonanet #kwriterskollection #bts smut #bts fanfic #bts writing #jungkook writing #jungkook fanfic #jungkook mafia au #bangtan mafia au #bts mafia au

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xenodile · 5 years

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A while back I mentioned I had it in me to give a long sorta discourse-y post about Blizzard Entertainment, well here it is.

Blizzard, as a company, suffers primarily from 2 major issues:

1) It’s totally creatively bankrupt

2) It is actively racist/homophobic.

The two issues are closely linked but it’s caught in a “chicken or the egg” situation. Are they so racist because they have no original ideas and racial stereotypes are easy to use, or are they so lacking in creativity because they’re racist at their core and don’t care about coming up with better ideas?

I’ve been playing Blizzard games for just about half my life now.

I started with WoW back in 2004, which then got me into Warcraft 3, Starcraft, Diablo 3, Overwatch, etc.

I’m going to start with Warcraft since it is Blizzard’s biggest and longest-running IP.

Warcraft is built on insensitive racist caricatures and recycled ideas. The humans in Warcraft are all predominantly white and themed after medieval Britain. Dwarves and gnomes, the other human-like races, are also white, with Dwarves being modeled after Ireland/Scotland and gnomes being a joke race that never get taken seriously ever.

I don’t think Warcraft had any black people in it at all until World of Warcraft because the inability to make a black person would have set off some red flags.

Every non-white ethnicity is instead represented as non-human, monstrous races.

Caribbean/African nationalities are all blanket covered by the trolls, lanky tusked cannibals that practice bastardized Hollywood voodoo, worship loa, speak with stereotypical Jamaican accents, and wear wooden masks, lead by their high king Rastakhan.

First Nation/Native Americans are covered by the Tauren, hulking cow people that carve totems, wear eagle feathers, and worship the Earth Mother.

The Chinese are literally just bipedal panda bears. They’re always fat, love to drink, and all know kung fu.

Mongolians and Huns are represented by the centaur, who are consistently described in universe as “the bastard children of a demigod” and are stupid, smelly, and barbarous, to the point of having a cloud of swarming flies baked into their character models.

At least until Blizzard forgot about the centaur and replaced them with the Yaungol, subtle I know, a variant of Tauren that are based on yaks instead of cows, but just as rapacious and violent as the aforementioned centaur.

Orcs were originally Always Chaotic Evil savages stolen wholesale from Tolkien and Warhammer, but after Blizzard retconned them to justify having playable Good Orcs, they were modeled to somewhat evoke South American nations and Australian aborigines, living in mud/clay buildings, having brown(ish) skin, and wearing face paints. At least until Blizzard decided to make orcs always evil again and threw that idea out the window in favor of being bloodthirsty savages all the time.

Inuit people are depicted as fat, mono-gendered walrus people called tuskarr.

And I’d like to give special mention to the Draenei, Warcraft’s stand-ins for Eastern European Jews/Romani. Sporting comedic slavic accents, the Draenei are the exiled members of an alien species that goes on to become the primary antagonist and source of all problems in the Warcraft timeline. They even had their own clumsy version of the Holocaust at the hands of the orcs and evil members of their own race.

That’s right! The “good” Draenei, that suffered the from their Fantasy Holocaust and talk with funny accents, make up only 10% of their race! The remaining 90% of their race are literal demons and the source of all evil in the universe.

And in an alternate universe, those good Draenei turn into an ethnic cleansing facist empire if they’re not actively oppressed! I wish I was making this up!

The unifying trend here is that all of these “other” races, with the exception of the draenei, are uniformly depicted as being stupid and primitive. Despite being culturally older than the humans, dwarves, and gnomes, they are consistently shown as being afraid or intimidated of the superior technology of the humans and their human-like allies, and easily cowed when their “primitive” idols and gods are defeated.

In addition to this, humans have been the de facto heroes of Warcraft since its inception. Human protagonists are always core to the plot and have the most agency.

Meanwhile, non-human characters are not allowed to be anything other than a stereotypical example of whatever culture they’re a parody of. Tauren can’t be anything other than a mystical Native American that helps the hero go on a spirit journey to learn something. Trolls can’t be anything besides the wily and savage fighter that the hero is never sure they can really trust. Draenei are not allowed to be relevant at all unless they’re fighting against their evil counterparts or dying heroically.

In addition to that, I cannot think of a single canonically gay character in the Warcraft franchise. Not a one.

This is what brings me to Overwatch. The very first thing I ever heard about Overwatch was “It has an LGBT+ cast”. Before I even heard what the gameplay was, the fact that it had a “progressive” cast was a selling point.

And then it took Blizzard, what, a year and a half of the game being out for them to actually follow up and say which character is gay?

Think about it. Everyone that liked Overwatch touted it as being this inclusive win for LGBT representation yet for the longest time, none of the characters were actually LGBT. The community did Blizzard’s work for them and just made up who they wanted to be gay and/or trans, until Blizzard finally settled on Tracer and 76.

It also dips slightly in Warcraft’s niche of “foreign nationalities can’t stop reminding you how foreign they are”. Every non-American character cannot STOP peppering words or phrases of their home language into their english dialogue.

When I directly compare it to its most obvious competitor, Team Fortress 2, which also sported a multi-ethnic cast, I can’t ignore how much of Overwatch’s roster uses their ethnicity as the core of their personality.

When I look at Overwatch, I can’t help but see it as insincere. I’ve seen Blizzard blatantly and shamelessly turn non-white cultures into literal monsters for the past 15 years, and I’m supposed to just believe that they suddenly turned over a new leaf?

Their second biggest IP, Starcraft, has a grand total of 3 black named characters, and they are respectively:

An eldritch monster in disguise that promptly changes to a white guy disguise

A mentally disturbed assassin with a caribbean accent and plays with voodoo dolls that becomes totally irrelevant after his personal story arc ends.

A stereotypical General Army Man that dies in the first set of missions of Heart of the Swarm.

So yeah. For as much as I love Warcraft, and Blizzard games as a whole, the whole thing is undeniably built on a core of American/European ethnocentrism, with Overwatch being what I can only call a marketing experiment.

#Long post

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yeats-infection · 6 years

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here’s a little one for @yakovah with all my love. i wrote this while sitting next to @ababelofprose at 24-hour drone in april (one of my favorite things i did in 2017) while ligature was playing. it’s a letter from ras to jack which was never sent and which was probably destroyed, which ras composed shortly after leaving the hospital (st. kelly’s) in late 1991. unfinished / probably unfinishable; this was probably written on one epic mile-long scroll of paper like on the road.

story-ish behind the cut - and more coming -

If the sound — but no sound. There was so much nothing. The rooms were white and the light seemed false. I wondered if the outside was bewitched. I lay in bed and knew I could move if I wanted but didn’t dare. On the ceiling the fan rotated like a clock. They came thrice a day with concoctions they said were healing. As though there were a wound.

Most of what I thought about was what the wound would look like were it physical. And where it would be on my body. Too simple to say it would be a kind of gruesome head injury where your brain spiders out or what have you. But it would have to be a kind of puncture because it felt like a hole. It drained this black stuff. I woke up thrice a night in a cold sweat and the stuff was with me in the room the texture of oily water. There was a sort of being made of the stuff who sat on the edge of the bed. I thought about sitting up next to it but I couldn’t move, remember? It reminded me of you. I remembered longing was a silence and in the silence deep inside the silence like static was a sound - a rhythm. More difficult than a heartbeat kind of shuffling and Caribbean. Anyway I lay there in the white bed with the black stuff thing listening to the sound in the unsound and in process of this I started writing songs. I’m not saying they were good songs. They were like bad outsider art but they were also the very mental essence of pop or what have you. They were kind of dreamed out of space from the static ether the way every great pop song is. Those sorts of ones that have always existed and you just fish them out.

I was thinking about how I could only write songs with someone else. That was part of the wound also. I realize that makes it sound like the wound is you… I don’t think that’s entirely true. The wound is part you because I know part of your wound is me. But I could only ever write songs with someone else by which I mean you. The black stuff thing I think was you. I know at that time you were very sick. I knew even then. Part of you is with me even if you don’t know it. And vice versa is true also I think/hope. That thing was the version of you I invented to hurt myself. So part of it was real and the rest of it might as well have been because I believed so much it was. Or at least at first I did.

So I had to bleed all the black stuff out before I could get better. I knew this but I also knew I didn’t want it to really ever leave me. It is reasonable to fear change, said the doctor. I’ve never known myself not mad. For eight years I’ve not known myself without the self-flagellation crutch that is the black stuff version of you which tortures me. And so I wondered what would be left when I got rid of it. Nothing I first thought. Like if there is no madness there is no consciousness to me. As though one’s every organ were replaced by cancer. Being mad is what makes me me. It’s certainly what makes me a Boardman, though I told Whyland that and she hit me.

I figured if i wrote songs with the black stuff thing maybe it would stay with me. I don’t remember many of the songs now because I didn’t ever write them down. They were with us in the room. It felt like making love. Just generally I mean. A hollowness and a transfer. Transubstantiation and an ecstasy I mean in the saintly rapturous way. It was like seizing something out of the primordial clay I guess or being seized perhaps is more accurate. I started humming and singing to myself and finally I asked my sister to bring me a guitar. Which is how I had the idea to bring you a guitar in prison. But by the time she brought it the black stuff was gone. It was just the nothing for a while. The drugs, Weyland told me. I felt like Van Gogh or Brian Wilson or something. I sat in the bed with the guitar without you. I thought about killing myself again but my heart wasn’t in it. Also the drugs, they told me.

I should ask you. Do you ever hear things inside another sound that you know aren’t there? Do you want to go to America? Will you ever write again with me? Do you love me? And I know that’s cruel. When I think of every cruel thing I’ve done to you… I worry you must think I have no remaining soul. But do you ever hear strange things inside another sound?

I started playing the guitar eventually. Basically it was when I had the fortitude to force myself to. Still I thought probably there was nothing outside and time wasn’t real. I was done wondering about the wound (the drugs) so I wondered if I was dead. And I started playing the guitar.

The songs weren’t the same songs and they were none of our songs so I almost felt guilty playing them. It felt almost like cheating on a girlfriend or something not that I’ve ever done that. Most of them were about guilt eg. my own guilt. I mean the lyrics were hardly even happening but the music itself was like guilt. I wanted the guitar to sound like it was crying but there was only so much I could do where I was at. So in my own head it sounds like crying and when I recorded it all later it sounds crying. But at the time I wrote it it just sounded like a very simple guitar in an empty room.

I loved you the most I ever did then when you weren’t with me and I remembered you were so hurting. I wanted to be with you so badly. Longing is a silence, like I said, an ear-ringing ear-splitting shattering fucking fake silence. I loved you so much then I went about it sometimes for a whole day and night. Not about anything else just that I loved you. Just that it was. That a feeling so big could be. It was a kind of transient fire. I thought of ancient people who carried embers here and there in a horn and that was my love for you. And your love for me I had in another of the same and sometimes I wept about that too. Do you love me and how so do you love me? So all the songs were about the embers in the horns with a little tinder burning and how I felt walking in this dream kingdom of death’s that was flat and arid and I walked toward the mountains which never got closer and sometimes there was another walking with me or ahead of me on the long flat and I knew it was you. Or sometimes I was alone. Not long ago there had been other footsteps on the cracked wash and sometimes far away I could tell it was raining. I didn’t know where I was going or why I was going there or what lived there. But anyway I kept walking sometimes alone sometimes not with the burning coals with me burning and burning. Then I would realize it was dark outside and duskish in the room with the light under the door and my hands were bleeding.

I had to get obsessed with the work or else they wouldn’t let me out of the hospital. Being obsessed with the work was another kind of madness but a productive one that probably could fool the doctors and my sister. I got up in the morning and showered and shaved my face and ate breakfast and took my drugs and went for a walk on the grounds which were real and then I worked. Sometimes a doctor would come and talk to me and I would tell her a piece of the truth eg. that I was feeling better and that the black stuff was gone. She asked all these questions I ascertained later were trying to gather if I had crossed that bridge from depressive into manic. She took my pulse and I willed it to be slow. I wrote all these letters to you and my sister which I burned. They felt to me like confessions or testimonials of a heretic before immolation. But then they burned instead of me. I wish I had kept them now because it would be a good capture of how I felt then trying to pretend it was all fine and I was better and I understood what had gone wrong in everything I’d ever done with regards especially to the two of you. I think it was very verbose and I told Whyland I wished she was my mother and I told you I wanted to make love with you just to see. So maybe I was having a manic episode or whatever.

I was obsessed with the songs. They were my blood basically. Weyland brought some tapes for me to listen to and I tried to learn the guitar bits. Honestly the songs reminded me of your tapes from your squalid flat when you were really bad. I listened to those when I got out of the hospital because Whyland had them. Listening to them I decided I had to go see you in prison though, you know, the wound. You were so sick then and you can tell it on those tapes. I remembered how I’d been such a fool. I was sitting on her kitchen floor listening to the tapes thinking of your voice. You stumbling a little on the guitar bits and the sound of your breathing and the Hammond organ. Your whole entire soul as it was then is on those tapes Jack and I swear I could feel how upset you were with me but it wasn’t just upset. Disappointed maybe but unsurprised. And you were so lonely. Whyland was upset when she found out I’d been listening to them and we had a fight and she asked what I wanted from you and I said I didn’t know. And she told me I had to stop torturing you and myself and I said I didn’t know what she meant, and how would I do that?

Basically what I mean to say is I got out of the hospital and I went to live with Whyland because I couldn’t face our house. I asked the girls to bring some things from there and they did so I recorded the songs I’d written in the hospital.

#my fic #decline and fall

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instantdeerlover · 4 years

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Where To Eat Outside In Harlem added to Google Docs

Where To Eat Outside In Harlem

By now you’ve likely heard (or seen) that New York City restaurants can open for outdoor dining. You might have questions as to what exactly that means, and our FAQ guide can help you sort that out. If you’re feeling ready to eat outdoors, you'll probably find our guide to over 100 NYC Restaurants Where You Can Eat Outside Today pretty useful. We’re also breaking that down by neighborhood, which is why you’ve landed here, in Harlem. Here’s a running list of spots where you can eat off a plate that didn’t come from your own kitchen, and make socially distanced small talk with someone who doesn’t live in your household.

And if you’d rather eat some of Harlem’s amazing food at home, we have a list of places that are open for takeout and delivery (as well as a guide to Black-owned restaurants in Harlem and all over the city that you should support).

the outdoor spots Tsion Cafe $ $ $ $ $$$$ 763 St. Nicholas Ave

The back patio at this Ethiopian restaurant is right behind a brownstone in Sugar Hill, and eating a vegetable combo or some doro wot here is an excellent way to mimic the lifestyle of someone who owns their own brownstone. You can see how the tables are spaced out in the picture below, and make a reservation here by calling 212-234-2070 or emailing [email protected].

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A post shared by Tsion Cafe (@tsioncafe) on Jun 23, 2020 at 1:38pm PDT

Melba's $ $ $ $ Southern in Harlem $$$$ 300 W 114th St

When you go to Melba’s, the chicken and waffles are mandatory - but the short ribs are also excellent, and you should get a side of mac and cheese with whatever you order. This iconic neighborhood spot has sidewalk seating available as well as an impressive build-out in their parking lane equipt with string lights and all.

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A post shared by Melba Wilson Melbas Restaurant (@melbasharlem) on Jun 27, 2020 at 4:53am PDT

Harlem Tavern $ $ $ $ Harlem $$$$ 2153 Frederick Douglass Blvd

Harlem Tavern specializes in burgers, frozen drinks, chicken tenders, and other fried food typically eaten during parties and happy times. Even with social-distancing between tables, there are plenty of options for both covered and fully-outdoor dining here. Also, Harlem Tavern set up speakers under their tent so you can still have a (responsible) good time if it’s raining.

Yatenga $ $ $ $ French in Harlem $$$$ 2269 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd

This French bistro on 134th and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard reopened their front picnic area for dinner from Wednesday through Sunday, as well as brunch from noon to 4pm on weekends. Get the macaroni and cheese made with bechamel, parmesan, and parsley.

Gaudir $$$$ 251 E 110th St

Consider Gaudir if you’re actively in the market for grilled octopus and paella, and actively not in the market for preparing grilled octopus and paella at home. This Harlem tapas bar has outdoor seating available in its small backyard every day (except Sundays) from 5pm to 9pm and they’re accepting reservations online.

Benyam Cuisine $$$$ 2795 Frederick Douglass Blvd

This Ethiopian restaurant on Frederick Douglass Boulevard set up a few two-person tables on their patio. There are some beautiful potted plants lining the outdoor space, but as soon as your sambusa and shiro wot arrives, those will become a lot less interesting.

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A post shared by Benyam Cuisine (@benyam_cuisine) on Jul 12, 2020 at 10:21am PDT

The Cecil Steakhouse $ $ $ $ American , Steaks in Harlem $$$$ 210 W 118th St

The two specialties at The Cecil are steak and fun (if you need more information about the fun part, please watch the fantastic music videos on the restaurant’s Instagram to celebrate Pride and its new outdoor tables). This Harlem institution is currently open for outdoor dining Tuesday to Sunday from 1pm to 10pm, and serving things like frozen drinks, prime rib, and empanadas. You can even order your food ahead of time to minimize contact with the staff when you make a reservation through their website here.

East Harlem Bottling Co. $ $ $ $ American , German in East Harlem , Upper East Side $$$$ 1711 Lexington Ave

Suppose you’re wandering around looking for onion rings and pulled pork after dark - know that East Harlem Bottling Co. is serving dinner on their patio until 11pm every day. They also have weekday lunch and weekend brunch for non-nocturnal diners. You can see their hours and menu on their website here, and learn more about how to support their efforts to provide 1500 meals every week to NYC Housing Authority locations in East Harlem.

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A post shared by East Harlem Bottling Co (@eastharlembottlingco) on Jun 25, 2020 at 1:57pm PDT

Cantina Taqueria & Tequila Bar $ $ $ $ Mexican in Harlem $$$$ 1838 7th Ave

There are two locations of this Mexican restaurant (one right above Central Park and one on the corner of Malcom X and 126th Street), and both have limited sidewalk seating on a first come, first serve basis. Come to either spot for some nicely fried fish tacos, unlimited chips and salsa, and a fresh margarita after work one day.

BLVD Bistro $ $ $ $ Southern in Harlem $$$$ 239 Malcolm X Blvd

No matter what happens, take comfort in knowing that this American/Soul Food restaurant on Frederick Douglass Boulevard is still committed to providing a DJ during their outdoor brunch service. They’ve also been working with Feed The Frontlines to cook and deliver meals to essential workers. Both are reasons to celebrate. You can make a reservation online for their all-day outdoor dining from Thursday to Sunday.

Corner Social $ $ $ $ Bar Food , Bar in Harlem $$$$ 321 Malcolm X Blvd

Corner Social is another spot with the occasional (masked) DJ. This Lenox Avenue spot is offering outdoor dining on their sidewalk space every day from noon to 10pm. The menu here skews mostly American, with dishes like crab cakes, hot chicken, and a green chile cheeseburger you may or may not get on your white shirt.

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A post shared by Corner Social (@cornersocial) on Jul 10, 2020 at 9:17am PDT

Clay $ $ $ $ American , Pasta in Harlem $$$$ 553 Manhattan Ave

Between the perfectly al dente garganelli and the confit duck that you’ll want to pick up like a turkey leg at Medieval Times, Clay is a fantastic place to impress someone. They recently launched outdoor dining with some new summer specials like heirloom tomato and watermelon salad, as well as all-day brunch on Sundays. Clay is also running takeout and delivery through their website in case you’d rather eat elsewhere.

The Grange $ $ $ $ American in Harlem $$$$ 1635 Amsterdam Ave

The Grange is using their sidewalk and parking lane for outdoor dining every weekday from 4pm to 11pm and 11am to 11pm on weekends. They’ve even set up some string lights and planters to make you feel like eating spicy cauliflower steak and scallop on the street is a quaint activity. Make sure to check their Instagram if you’re coming to The Grange on a Sunday night, they might have live jazz.

LoLo's Seafood Shack $ $ $ $ American , Seafood , Caribbean in Harlem $$$$ 303 W 116th St

Eating in Lolo’s backyard feels like being at the beach, minus the ocean. There are picnic tables, nautical decorations, and lots of peel-and-eat shrimp to get all over your paper bib. This fun spot serves a combination of Caribbean and New England-style seafood, which means you can order things like jerk chicken, johnny cakes, and steampot combinations. We’d suggest supplementing any meal here with rum punch during their daily Happy Hour (which runs between 4 and 6pm every day). In case you need any other incentive to support this restaurant, they’re also giving back to the Harlem community by delivering hundreds of hot meals to essential workers and residents in need.

Vinatería $$$$ 2211 Frederick Douglass Blvd.

Vinateria’s patio is open every day on 119th Street, and they have a bunch of big umbrellas set up in case it’s raining or it’s so hot that you wish it was raining. In addition to their classic Italian dishes and cocktails, this restaurant is also serving DIY kits with fresh pasta and sauce that comes with four portions for $20.

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A post shared by Vinateria (@vinateria) on Jun 23, 2020 at 1:28pm PDT

La Diagonal $ $ $ $ Mexican in Harlem $$$$ 185 Saint Nicholas Ave

La Diagonal has the advantage of a big corner space, a heaping stock of tequila, and a permit to use part of the street for their outdoor dining. Stop by this Mexican spot for some cocktails and ceviche on a day when the city feels especially like an unwanted sauna. And if you’re looking for chilaquiles and mimosas, La Diagonal also has brunch service available every Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4pm.

Uptown Veg $$$$ 14 E 125th St

If you’re looking for juice, smoothies, and vegan food like soy chicken sandwiches and curry chickpeas, you can pick up food at Uptown Veg and then eat it at one of their tables in front.

Ristorante Settepani $$$$ 196 Malcolm X Blvd

Imagine yourself sitting on the corner of 120th and Lenox Avenue picking at a cheeseboard and drinking a limoncello, sorbet, and tequila cocktail out of an actual lemon. In case that sounds pleasant to you, know that this Italian restaurant has outdoor dining available for brunch and dinner.

Harlem Shake $ $ $ $ Burgers in Harlem $$$$ 100 W. 124th St.

Harlem Shake’s burgers are made with thin, fast-food style patties that make fast-food patties taste like plastic. This diner-inspired spot on West 124th Street also serves a red velvet milkshake we’d like to go Upstate with one weekend.

Belle Harlem $ $ $ $ American in Harlem $$$$ 2363 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd

Even if you’ve spent nearly 100 days in an apartment with your dinner companion, Belle Harlem will still make it feel like date night. Partly because it’s the sort of place that takes its produce really seriously (the chef has a garden on the rooftop of the restaurant). The menu here consists of upscale dishes like polenta and maitake mushrooms with braised leeks and some very good mac and cheese spring rolls with bacon marmalade and gouda bechamel. Belle is only accepting reservations for two people per party, and you can book a table for their outdoor dining here.

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A post shared by Belle Harlem (@belle_harlem) on Jul 1, 2020 at 10:44am PDT

Harlem Public $$$$ 3612 Broadway

Harlem Public on Broadway and 149th Street serves seven different kinds of burgers (including one with peanut butter and brown sugar bacon on it). More impressively, they’ve set up a beautiful back patio and sidewalk seating area with flowers nice enough to make you feel like you’re attending a small wedding between the happy couple, burger and fry.

The Row Harlem $$$$ 2374 Adam C Powell Blvd

This Striver’s Row spot is only holding a limited number of spaces for walk-ins. So if you want to drink frozen cocktails and eat jerk wings at a two-top on their sidewalk space, you should plan ahead and make a reservation through their website here. Also worth mentioning, The Row has plenty of vegan and vegetarian options on their menu.

Ponty Bistro $ $ $ $ American , French in Harlem $$$$ 2375 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd

Ponty Bistro’s patio is open until 11pm every day. Come when you can’t decide whether you want truffle mac and cheese or poulet yassa - Ponty serves both (as well as a mix of other Mediterranean, West African, and American dishes). And, if you’re really being strategic, try to show up between 4pm and 7pm during their Happy Hour.

via The Infatuation Feed https://www.theinfatuation.com/new-york/guides/where-to-eat-outside-in-harlem Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://trello.com/userhuongsen

Created July 15, 2020 at 01:42AM /huong sen View Google Doc Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xa6sRugRZk4MDSyctcqusGYBv1lXYkrF

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