#currently racking up as much knowledge as possible on the basics that way when i get my greasy claws on the actual material ill know what t

[toxooz]

i saw u were interested in embroidery and got incredibly excited!! idk how much experience you have, but ive found https://www.embroidery.rocksea.org/ is an incredible resource. i love the stitch library and theres some handy video tutorials <3

OOOIII THANK U

[mae-gi-writes]

Awkwardly In Love | Mingi (ATEEZ)

Volleyball player! Mingi can’t seem to take his eyes off the girl on the bleachers whose got her nose stuck in her book.

Genre: FLUFF AND CUTE AWKWARD MINGI SBGKJDGJ I CAN’T HE RUINS ME. 

Word count: you just gotta know that it iz quite a long ride. I apologize for that.

----

She's always got her nose buried in her book.

That's what catches Mingi's attention at first.

See, he's not one to read. Nor does he have any interest in reading and books and the things that come with it. Growing up in a household full of children involved in physical sport, books had counted for nothing but a minimal afterthought. That, and the fact that their financial struggles made it so that they didn't spend on books if it could be helped.

So seeing her always carrying around piles and piles of books has Mingi wonder how much extra cash does she have to spend on all this imaginary stories.

When he realizes that the reason she's always on the same spot on the bleachers is due to her cousin being in the same volleyball team as he is, he can't help but start asking questions.

"Yeah she's my mother's sister's daughter," Hongjoong says with a small affectionate smile, "we basically grew up in the same household so she waits for me after classes."

"You guys close then?" Mingi asks in a forced nonchalant tone. He keeps his eyes on the ball being served on the other side, palms already closed and upturned at the ready.

"Ready?" His teammate calls.

"Yeah!" They both holler.

He serves. The ball swoops in a beautiful arc and Mingi steels himself before receiving the ball with trained precision.

Pack!

"Closer than siblings," Hongjoong answers as the ball flies over the net, "why do you ask?"

Mingi is about to answer when he spots the ball. Hongjoong sweeps in, steering his legs to tap the ball high in the air.

Tap!

Mingi's head swivels up, catches the ball to throw it back at Hongjoong.

Pack!

"In!" The referree calls to signal that they've marked the final point to the game. The pair allow sighs to leave their lips as they slowly make their way out of the court.

"Uhm," Mingi's chest heaves up and down with effort. Sweat dots his forehead as he racks for an excuse, "just curious I guess."

"Want me to introduce you?"

"Uh-- I--That's not--necessary--"

It's too late though, for Hongjoong is already calling out her name, "Y/N!"

Her head lifts from where it's been buried in her book.

Her cousin motions for her to come forward and no sooner is she stepping down from the bleachers that Mingi's neck flushes bright red, and he knows deep down it's not from the fact that he's just exercised.

"Y/N, meet Mingi my teammate," Hongjoong's grin is definitely one that is suggestive, which does nothing for Mingi's confidence.

"Hi," she sends him a warm smile, extending a hand. Mingi shakes it and can't help but notice how tiny her fingers are in comparison.

Delicate fingers, so breakable. Cute.

"H-Hi, I'm Mingi," Oh god, he hopes he doesn't sound like an idiot.

"Mingi's always been on the team. He's the ace after all," adds Hongjoong.

"Ah, that's cool," Y/N nods.

That's how it starts really. At every practice, Mingi makes it a must to talk to her, even if it's juet a tiny greeting, or a slight wave of his shy hand whenever he's already on the court when she stumbles in with her pile of books tucked under her arm. There's just something about her, something that pulls him in like an invisible string even though he can barely make his way through one sentence when he's gazing straight into her eyes.

Once, he musters up the courage to ask her about the book in her lap and the amount of joy flushing up her cheeks makes it so palpable that he feels giddy from her own excitement.

"I'm currently reading Peony in Love," holding up the book so he can see, she continues, "it's a historical novel about this Chinese girl that falls in love with someone who isn't her betrothed, then dies only to realize that this someone is actually her betrothed."

"That's actually really heartbreaking."

"Yeah well, so are most romance stories," she shrugs, "like the titanic."

"I've never actually watched it."

"What?! You're kidding me?"

He shakes his head, ducking his head in embarrassment as he wonders whether she thinks of him as a loser because of his apparent lack of intellectual knowledge.

But instead, he is faced with her enthusiasm, "we should watch it someday! It's like a classic, you'll love it if you like dramatic endings."

"You--" he feels his chest tighten in excitement, "you're serious?"

"Of course I am! I'll let Hongjoong know."

His heart does drop a little at Y/N's cousin's name. He'd hoped that they'd be alone, just the two of them.

Nevertheless, he makes his way over to Hongjoong's flat on the said night and is surprised to find not just the pair of cousins But an entire group of familiar individuals that he's seen hanging around the corridors and classrooms.

"Hey you came!" Hongjoong claps Mingi's back as he steps into the doorway, "I invited some of my close friends too. You probably know them."

As Mingi greets the rest of the group whe exchanging soft pleasantries, he finally catches sight of Y/N's figure darting between tall frames before she emerges, grinning, "hi, Mingi right?"

He can't help but blush right down to his toes, "h-hey, what's up?"

"Sorry for all the noise. The guys just wanted to crash here. Told them we were watching titanic and they promised they wouldn't make running commentaries."

"It's alright. I know them all a little. We're in the same class."

"Ah cool. You guys all in the same major then?"

Mingi scratches the back of his head, "nah I'm in Psych. But since they're all in the sciences like Hongjoong we do have same classes."

"Cool. I wish I could've taken Psych," she puffs up her cheeks into a pout and Mingi's fingers itch to pinch her cheeks.

She can't be that cute. She just can't be.

"So are we starting the movie or what?!" One of the guys --his name is Yunho, Mingi guesses -- calls out.

"The way you're talking Yunho, it's almost like you're the one who really wants to watch it," Hongjoong replies sassily while throwing both arms around Y/N and Mingi respectively before guiding them to the tv room. He dips his head towards Mingi's ear as the group settles in, "don't worry bro, I'll make sure you sit next to her."

Blushing furiously at the older boy's comment, the latter doesn't even have time to defend himself when he is being pushed onto the couch right next to Y/N's figure.

"You a big tears kind of guy?" The girl murmured, popcorn in lap. She extends it out to Mingi, who shyly grabs a handful.

"I guess it depends," Mingi murmurs, "are there animals in there?"

"Oh so you're that kind of guy."

He flushes. What kind of guy is she referring to?

The movie starts with the narration of an old lady gazing at a sapphire necklace, bedore the screen gives way to a shot of the ship itself in all its splendour, glistening a bold black and white in the midday sun.

Mingi knows he should be concentrating on the movie. And it's true, he really should, especially when Y/N had asked him to because it is clearly a classic he can't possibly miss out on. But alas, his eyes keep dashing back and forth between the screen and Y/N's face, stealing looks whenever she is not looking. It's almost like a magnetic pull tugging his gaze back to her no matter how hard he forces his eyes away; flitting over her eyes focused in attention, eyebrows furrowed at the middle with her mouth hanging open like a child amazed with naked wonder.

What can she possibly be thinking? What is going on inside that imaginative mind of hers?

What magical dimension is she traveling to without his knowledge?

It's only when the romance between the two protagonists start blossoming that he finally tears his eyes away to focus on the movie itself, all the while sensing Y/N's heat permeating from her body to his in a way that causes a permanent flush in the back of his neck.

The movie ends all too soon, with tears in Y/N's eyes and some of the other guys as they debate over the ending and how stupid Rose was for not giving Jack some space on the wooden board.

"Well to be fair, he would've probably sunk the entire board," Seonghwa argues. He's the pretty boy that everyone knows of, the one whom every girl has been crushing on since his admittance to their college.

"If I were Rose, I wouldn't want to keep living without the love of my life," Y/N points out, "I would've drowned myself with him."

"Jesus Y/N, that's terrifying," Hongjoong says.

"It's true though!"

The look in her eyes whenever she spoke of movies was a look of naked excitement. Like now, Mingi spots the familiar fire burning through her gaze, a gaze he finds alluring on her. It's like it breathes life into her face. It's similar to the one she wears whenever she's reading.

A few days later on campus, he bumps into her hurrying out of the library as he walks in, almost sending her flying before his arm snatches out to hold her shoulder.

"Sorry," he says hastily while putting her back on her feet and releasing her like she's just burnt him.

"S'okay," Y/N sends him a reassuring smile, "where you going?"

"Assignments. I'm late on my research paper because of practice," Mingi scratches his head. He nods towards her books, "what caught your interest this week?"

"Oh I'm just re-reading A Darker Shade of Magic," she grins like a little child being caught. Something in Mingi's heart softens like butter.

"What's it about?"

"It's so cool, it's like this guy with a super cool coat that has hundreds over coats inside it. And he's a magician and there are parallel worlds that have different wavelengths of magic. So he can travel through the different worlds and--" she stops abruptly then before her cheeks colour in shades of pink, "sorry. I'm rambling again--"

"No no no," Mingi cuts her off, causing her to blink, wide-eyed, "please...continue. I--I like it when you talk about your books. You--You always seem so alive and excited."

"Oh," her face flushes even more as another troop of butterflies tickle Mingi's stomach. She's so damn cute! "Thanks...Mingi."

He tries to analyze the flickering expressions on her face, though he guesses it is close to feeling embarrassed.

"A--Anyway I--I'll get going," Mingi hurriedly says, moving past her with flaming red ears upon realizing what he has just said, only to feel her hand clamp down on his.

He turns to see her, averted gaze and all, little fingers clamped onto his shirt, "do you--do you want to...go see a movie sometime?"

----------

Hongjoong had threatened Mingi with a multitude of ways of killing him in case he broke Y/N's heart, albeit the fact that the taller man stated that no, they weren't going on a date,.and anyway flirting had never been Mingi's strongest points anyway.

"Sure. If it's not a date, what is it then?" Hongjoong had asked with a roll of his eyes.

"It's just two people hanging out," Mingi had protested through red ears and scarlet tinged cheeks.

As per the said man's suggestion, the pair decides to meet up at the cinema entrance to choose the movie of their choice. Y/N is decked in a simple white t-shirt, loose cut-off jeans with red sneakers, and as Mingi silently admires her sense of simple fashion the heat that rises through the back of his neck is enough to make him avert his gaze bashfully.

They settle on a romantic comedy and he volunteers to buy the popcorn so that she can find some decent seats. As he settles into the cinema room and the lights dim into darkness, he places the popcorn box into her hands, waving her off upon her rising protests.

"But you--"

"I'll share it with you, don't-- don't worry," he replies, hand scratching the back of his neck.

Don't sweat it, he says to himself. It's fine. It's not a date. It's just two friends enjoying each other's presence.

Halfway through the movie, Mingi reaches for the popcorn only for their hands to collide. He retracts it like he just burnt himself, causing the said girl to chuckle softly. She reaches over then, with a handful of popcorn, before plopping it straight into his mouth without warning.

Mingi blinks. Heat goes straight to his ears.

When his eyes find hers, she only graces him with a timid smile, before returning back to the movie, totally unaware that his heart is now practically galloping out of his chest.

Jesus, what she does to his heart.

Mingi has never been so whipped in his life, but right now, he's pretty certain that he doesn't mind if that means she can accept his heart.

"Well that was fun," Y/N says the moment they step out of the cinema hall, "wasn't expecting it to be so lovey dovey though."

His head ducks, "I'm sorry," he mutters, "I didn't know you weren't into--"

"Oh no no! Not at all! We both chose it. You have nothing to feel bad about!"

"I'm not that into movies," comes his mumble.

"What?" Y/N stops in the middle of the road as she blinks up at him in shock, "you should've told me!"

"I wasn't interested in seeing the movie, I just wanted to see--" he hesitates slightly, "you."

What the fuck Mingi, he feels like choking himself foe his stupidity. Why was he acting like a total turd? This was ridiculous! She's just a girl, a cute one sure, but still! It's almost like he's lost all ability to make conversation.

He tries once more, "I'm--I'm sorry I shouldn't have--“

“No, I“m the one who's sorry. Here, let me treat you. Ice cream?” and then, her eyes widen, "you do like ice cream right?"

That'a enough for his lips to tilt up into a smile, "I'd love ice cream."

---

Once they settle on a bench at the nearby park, it seems like all nervousness suddenly ease from Mingi's consciousness and slowly, he starts opening up to the said girl as they lick at their ice cream cones. The sun sets over the horizon, turning the blue sky in scarlet hues that reminds him of summer days that last forever.

"Architecture's tough but honestly, that was the only thing my parents would let me study," Y/N says, empty ice-cream stick in hand as her gaze sweeps over the park and its passerbys.

"I guess it makes sense, considering our economy recently," Mingi agrees.

"And you? Why Psych?"

He lifts his shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, "I guess I just like analyzing people. It's intriguing, knowing how people think, how they act around others."

"You want to be a therapist?"

"I don't know if I'm strong enough to help people get out of their problems when I can't even help myself."

He feels her eyes on him and finds interest in the way the wind blows across the grass blades.

Her voice is soft when she says, "you don't have to be that kind of hero, if you don't want to."

His heart swells with warmth and sudden affection, though he says nothing but nods in agreement.

It's easily past ten when they trudge back to Y/N's house, with nervousness swimming through Mingi's stomach in apprehension to Hongjoong's earlier threats, though Y/N reassures him that Hongjoong is mostly all talk and no action. That reassures the tall man slightly, until his feet start bristling upon spotting her front porch.

"Thanks for keeping me company today," Y/N tilts her head up, her profile bathed in the backlight of her house, "next time, let's not go to the movies."

Mingi's heart skips, "I didn't mind it."

"I know, but I want to do things that you like too," she grins.

A surge of courage rises through his chest as he tells her that he'd like that a lot too.

Except the thing that falls out of his mouth instead is, "I like you too."

She blinks.

He blinks back, realization settling in like a dull ache in his stomach.

Horror sweeps through him. Oh no.

It hadn't been in his plan to expose himself like this, exposing himself like a dog who wants a tummy rub, but then again there's no sign of rejection that flickers across Y/N's face, which he takes as a good sign as he fumbles for the right words, "uhm, I-- I mean, I didn't mean--"

"You didn't mean that?"

"What?" His eyes widen, "no no! Of course I mean it, I just--"

He gasps at his own words, cupping a hand over his mouth as the girl before him explodes into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

"Oh my gosh," her eyes crinkle up into those adorable crescents of hers, "you're so cute."

Scarlet pink blossoms across his cheeks. Averting his eyes, he wishes that the floor can just come and swallow him up right there and then.

"Right," clearing his throat, one hand reaches up to scratch his ear, "well, I-I'll just go--"

He's halfway turning around when Y/N's hand trickles through his, as gentle as water flowing through his fingertips.

"Wait," she murmurs.

His breath stalls. Inhaling a soft breath, he slowly shuffles back, not daring to meet her gaze when he feels like he's just put his heart on the table for her to do with as she pleases.

Her voice is a gentle breath of a whisper, "don't go."

And then, she's up on her tippy toes and pressing a light kiss to his cheek. Mingi's skin practically lights on fire as another round of butterflies erupt in his chest at her touch, and he can't help but stare down at her, jaw slack, as she gives him the shyest smile he's ever seen.

Cute! His mind screams. Cute cute cute!

"So," Mingi's mind comes back into focus upon hearing her voice, eyes finding her biting down onto her lower lip, “Well, uh--I guess--I guess this means I--I like you, or something.”

"uhm,” his ears are so hot with heat he feels they might fall off as he forces himself not to gawk at her, though it’s proving to be quite difficult as he’s trying to muster the courage to come out with a reasonable answer. 

“I--well, uh--how does this--I don't know--do you want to...uh possibly,” he swallows thickly, before exhaling the words in a rush,”...goouttodinnerwithme?"

Y/N blinks in confusion, "I'm sorry?"

Come on, Mingi! He thinks to himself in growing desperation. Don't be such a wimp!

"Do you... want to...go out with me? S--Sometime?" His throat is clogged with so much embarrassment he fear he might choke.

But when he feels soft fingers trace his chin, he looks up, right into her dark brown eyes sparkling with a tinge of playfulness, excitement and naked joy brimming at the corners.

"I'd love that," she whispers.

And she lifts herself up once more to land a kiss on his mouth, softly, shyly, a mere brushing her mouth against his.

Mingi stumbles upon impact, hands unconsciously grasping her waist as his back comes in contact with the railing lining her porch.

His eyes are wide when she pulls away, biting her lower lip like she can't help but feel nervous from this bold action that has taken him by surprise.

"What--" Mingi chokes on his words, lapses into silence while staring down at her.

The girl merely glances down. A blush taints her cheeks and even though his fingers are shaking and he feels like his heart is about to jump out of his chest at the mere prospect of their closeness, his body moves before his brain does.

Closing the gap between them, it's his turn to press a kiss now, a chaste one that tells her that he reciprocates these feelings wholeheartedly. And Y/N responds by wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer so that their chests touch, mouths moving slowly in harmony as they chase each other and mold together in a way that leaves Mingi breathless and his heart stuttering like he's just won a race.

If it is, then it's the most importance race of his life.

It is only when they pull apart, breathing into each other with barely millimetres separating their mouths, that he can't help but laugh at the realization that this girl in his arms is his.

"What?" She says while smiling up at him. So gorgeous, so breathtaking. And she's his.

"Nothing," he can sense the heat flooding his cheeks once more, "I just-- I'm just...happy."

And there it is, that same smile that he loves so much. The smile that holds magical words and countless secrets to the amazing mind she beholds. He can't want to delve into her thoughts and pick at her brain, knowing that all of them are going to be precious memories he'll hold dear to his heart.

That smile.

Hongjoong's voice suddenly erupts out of nowhere like a nightmare, "don't think I didn't see you guys kissing out there!"

---

I’m so whipped for Mingi and he’s like 2 years younger so I feel like such an old noona *sighs*. 

Anyway, let me know if you’d like more Ateez content! <3 Stay safe guys, and thanks for reading! 

[wishing4nuclearwinter]

VI, XXXII, and XVII from the ask thing for Sol?

Thank you sm for the questions!!!

VI. The Thunderskin: What fills them with the most optimism and passion?

I would say that it’s getting to actually witness the positive effects of his actions on other people. He spends so much of his time beating himself up for everything and gets in his head that he might be a bad person at his core that when he is actually able to see the good he’s done it reminds him that regardless of his past, he can always do better and be better. That he can’t change the past but he can definitely change the future, regardless of on what scale.

XXXII. The Witness: Do they fear the future, or the unknown?

Yes, but the fear is mixed in with enough hope that it isn’t all consuming. He is more afraid of the unknown than he is the future, just because he really hasn’t been around for that long. He has knowledge of the world, but doesn’t have the memories of his experiences. As a result, he’s constantly stepping into unfamiliar experiences and that is very nerve racking.

This question is a bit difficult for me to answer clearly and concisely, but overall, I suppose the best way to summarize it is to say that as terrifying as the future and unknown can be, he’d rather face it head on than staying stuck in the same place (mentally and physically) forever.

XVII. The Vagabond: Describe an alternate version or an au you have of them.

Ohohoho. I have oh so many bouncing around my brain constantly.

The big one that’s been on my mind since October is a Vampire Sol / Werewolf Arcade AU. I don’t have any real plans to do anything with the idea, but I do have a whole plotline. The basics are that the reason Sol survived Goodsprings is because Doc Mitchell turned him into a vampire lol. (And the whole werewolf thing with Arcade has to do with Enclave experiments and it being genetically passed down from his father).

I also have a fic I’m currently working on that is literally the most cringe AU I could possibly be writing. It started as a haha funny excuse to write pwp, but now it’s a whole thing with like 8k words of set up and a fleshed out backstory with lore that isn’t even in the fic.

[caidenisct797]

best bows for the money: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

How Much Can a Compound Bow Shoot an Arrow?

Compound bows are a favorite with quite a few differing kinds of archers. It truly is a much more very affordable choice than other types of bows in the marketplace currently. However, that does not indicate it can be utilized in exactly the same ways that other bows can be employed. Many individuals want to know how significantly they could shoot a compound bow. There is an easy way to find out just that.

To reply the dilemma; how far can a compound bow shoot, 1 ought to recognize what sort of arrow is needed to obtain this. The preferred style of arrow for archery is actually a double-headed arrow, or even a feather board arrow. This kind of arrow features many rewards when shooting from the compound bow. These rewards include; speedy draw, fantastic accuracy, and a very good destroy.

If an archer is Doubtful on how much can a compound bow shoot a particular arrow, they ought to evaluate from the bottom with the grip to the top on the bow. This would be the load in the arrow. They might also evaluate how significantly the arrow will travel whilst continue to during the bow's arbor. This length is generally known as the "no cost-throw" of your bow. Most arrows have a regular length that may be known by most archers.

Figuring out how significantly can a compound bow to shoot an arrow is crucial to taking pictures a far better archer. Each particular person arrow has another kinetic Strength. The heavier an arrow is, the more kinetic Electrical power it has. The shorter the arrow, the a lot less Power is retained throughout the vacation phase. For that reason, understanding the distance of an arrow will journey is important.

Quite a few knowledgeable archers will tell new compound bow hunters that prolonged shots are more practical than quick ones. It is because for a longer period photographs allow the hunter to engage and disengage their bow from a lot quicker prey. To evaluate how significantly can a compound bow shoot a certain arrow, a person will have to establish how considerably the arrow will vacation when entirely drawn. Most professional bowhunters shoot many pictures with an individual bow, so this length will likely be difficult to determine. A superb rule of thumb is always to shoot for around one particular tenth of the lawn through the string right before releasing the bow.

A longer arrow demands a lot less distance for the arrow to vacation, so a shorter arrow allows for greater successful range. One more factor to notice would be that the arrow is now touring at an increased velocity, which raises its kinetic Electricity. Which means the arrow will expend far more Power when achieving its greatest speed or distance. The equation to Learn the way much can a compound bow to shoot an arrow is: Effective Array in feet - kinetic Power of length/time. Certainly, the extended the arrow, the higher the Power used over the shot. Alternatively, the shorter the arrow, the more kinetic Vitality with the arrow has, plus the shorter it takes to reach its maximum variety or flight velocity.

Another element to notice is the attract body weight of the bow. Attract weights, which can even be referred to as archery tools, let with the angle from the arrow to become set though capturing. In case you draw using your fingers, the arrow can have a all-natural arrow bend within the knuckles when released, but a draw weight boosts the angle from the arrow that can set much more power about the arrow. As an example, a heavier arrow will fly straight and at a greater velocity than a lighter arrow. Lightest arrows are referred to as flies and therefore are applied principally for archery education or follow.

How considerably can a compound bow to shoot an arrow is determined by lots of aspects including the draw excess weight of the bow, the arrow's archery content, the archer's ability, and perhaps how good the weather conditions are. If 1 has no clue about how much their bow can shoot an arrow, they ought to question a specialist archer for help. Even if they know how far they are able to shoot an arrow, it is still imperative that you preserve fantastic type should they intend to make any money taking pictures arrows.

The best way to Retailer A Compound Bow In Your House - Basic Guidelines for Fantastic Archery Storage

For The majority of us archers, we previously understand how to keep a compound bow within our residence. It can be safe, simple to access and is on the market at any time from the calendar year. Even so, Were you aware that it's important that you should know how to store a compound bow in your property as well? A compound bow is a very large piece of kit and like every other large and high-priced instruments, it should be saved in a secure position the place It's going to be protected against The weather. You may not be aware about it but you will discover things that might cause harm to your products particularly if they're not effectively stored.

There are two major areas that you ought to retailer a compound bow in the house. A single is definitely the shooting location, which need to be dry and Secure. Another ought to be the storing location for just after use only. Here are a few tips on how to keep a compound bow in your home:

When looking at how you can retail outlet a compound bow in the house, the first thing that you've got to have a look at is its place. In an effort to hold it safe, It's important to set it far away from drinking water and heat sources. The exact same rule applies to the humidity amount also. This is because humidity has a tendency to deteriorate the issue of one's bow. Make sure that you keep it considerably from these sources of dampness or else it'd crack.

Another tip on how to retailer a compound bow in your property is how to shop it adequately. Which means It's important to get it in the ideal storage container so as to preserve it in best ailment. For this, you are going to 1st really have to evaluate the internal component of the archery bow after which you can buy a proper storage container for it. Remember that there are 3 varieties of storage containers which you could Select from. For instance, you may Opt for a bag or a rack, a box or simply a container. When you determine tips on how to retailer a compound bow in your property, it is possible to go ahead and buy the appropriate storage for it.

When investigating how to retail outlet a compound bow, the same rules use to its sight also. In actual fact, It's important to just take additional care together with your sights if you wish to preserve its integrity all of the time. Contrary to other bows, compound bows include fiberglass or carbon fiber sights. And to protect the previous, you could area them within a case even though storing the latter in the scissor-folded bag.

Apart from storing your bow inside a proposed fashion, An additional suggestion regarding how to store a compound bow in your home is making certain that You usually have its situation with you. This could ensure that you do not take the bow outside of the situation for just about any motive. Even if you are traveling, it is best to always carry its case along. Try to remember, the last thing that you'd want is to lose your bow since you forgot to pack it in its circumstance.

The following tips regarding how to retail outlet a compound bow in your own home are by no means an exhaustive list. Nevertheless, they are a lot of the Principles that you may want to consider. When you comply with them diligently, you can find that you'll be a lot more ready to keep up your compound bow in pristine situation for an exceptionally very long time. Just in case you forget about any of the following pointers regarding how to shop a compound bow in your own home, you can also check with the assistance of your pals which have a penchant for archery.

A lot of the folks you understand would suggest which you retail outlet your bow with your garage. If you have the Place and In case you have the spending plan, then by all implies go for it. You'll be able to keep it in the sturdy crate that will guard it very well. If you're on a tight spending plan, you could select a simple plastic box that will function your storage box. It can be your choice how you can keep a compound bow in your house.

How to Hang a Compound Bow Effectively

Are you currently trying to find how to hold a compound bow over the wall? It's not as tricky as you might think. In fact, It is really really uncomplicated and can preserve you numerous of time in the long run.

Initially off, you have to decide on a significant place for your new bow. An excellent spot to hold a compound bow is over your head. You don't need to acquire it hanging out of your nose. This may result in an damage, especially if your bow comes off accidentally. Apart from, it's probably not a safe solution to retail outlet your bow.

The second move in how to hang a bow over the wall is to locate a very good wall hanger. Now I really know what you're contemplating... a wall hanger is simply a basic previous hanger that you just use to hang up shots or apparel. Completely wrong. There are actually wall hangers specifically made for individuals such as you who're capturing bow and arrows and wish to safe the limbs for the wall. They also are available in many additional possibilities than an everyday hanger would.

One example is, you can find motorbike hook and bike hook mounted hanging kits which make mounting your bow uncomplicated and rapid. Hooks on the back again with the legs within your taking pictures bench or simply a wall hanger, or maybe mounted on your door or windowsills. In addition they look excellent. And they assist your compound bow stays continuous for the duration of tense times. They are often altered up and down also, retaining your bow from shifting during a nervous instant.

So the place do you get a established of such? Very well, hanging a bow is just not tough to do but obtaining the excellent setup, specifically for your compound bow, is usually challenging. This is why I wrote this informative article. In this post I'll Supply you with a few easy methods that will let you mount your bow and setup your taking pictures bench so that you could dangle your bow thoroughly. Try to remember, all you may need are pliers, some thread, a drill, and screwdriver. Let's start.

Step one in how to hold a compound bow is to secure a couple of low-priced pliers and screws. Put a person screw in Each individual gap that retains your limbs in place and screw them up limited. This will Be certain that your limbs cling straight when they cling in the wall.

The second stage in how to hold a compound bow hanger is always to use your bike hook and bicycle hooks mounted package. Use this package to hang your bow hanger in precisely the same way that you choose to connect a scope on your rifle. This will reduce the vibration in the string causing misalignment of your respective limbs and can help you save a lot of funds around the life span within your bow. Also, do not forget your rubber mallet!

Final, and most important, the third stage in how to hold a compound bow hanger would be to screw the legs onto your wall, getting the screws several inches past the corner and into your drywall. It is possible to verify which the legs are screwed in by thinking about them by way of a little hole while in the corner. With all the legs on the wall, use your bicycle hooks and cling the bow up as higher as you happen to be snug with. This can stop the burden within your bow from warping the wall, and it will also make sure your bow stays place When you're hanging it!

The final action in how to hold a compound bow hanger will be to established your cable ties in between The 2 bicycle hooks. To do that, it's essential to very first put in some cable ties in between the cable rings on the wall. Once you have carried out this, take the hanger and little by little tighten the cable ties up into placement. Future, reduced your hanger into put, and after that connect it to your wall. Ensure that the cable ties are securely tied to stay away from harm to your walls.

Ideally soon after looking at this text you'll know how to cling a compound bow hanger accurately. Ideally you'll give your bow that little bit of extra assistance and ensure it won't change or go When you're shooting it. If you should swap a bow hanger, you should definitely Examine the maker's instructions. On top of that, several makers give no cost hangers along with your get. Which is A further fantastic motive to buy online - you can get to cut down your delivery expenditures.

Ideally now you know how to hold a compound bow hanger effectively. Ideally you can give your bow that little bit of extra assistance and ensure it will not shift or change while you're shooting it. If you need to replace a bow hanger, make sure you Look at the producer's Guidance. Moreover, several manufacturers provide cost-free bows with your buy.

Just how long Does a Compound Bow Very last?

A compound bow is a pricey piece of kit that you need to not get for granted particularly when you may have just gotten 1. Having said that, there remain loads of people who find themselves not using them but only watching what they spend on their own products. The amount of cash that you shell out will identify how much time does a compound bow final you.

In accordance with the science Supported by true user suggestions and scientific details, a compound bow basically lasts for approximately fifteen to eighteen several years. This is certainly raise by about a few to 4 periods if you change various elements of the identical compound bow. One other variables incorporated the attract excess weight, the sights, the limbs, the axle nut as well as the wrap about knobs. The length of time that it takes relies on the way you keep your bows And the way you shoot them in addition.

The 2nd factor viewed as in how much time does a compound bow previous is just how long does it basically keep a complete load. This issue is predicated on the idea that you get enormous draw power from it every time you utilize it. It's important for you personally to make sure that the attract power that you simply apply to it really is a minimum of equivalent to that of a completely loaded bow with an analogous draw pounds. You can reach this by practicing on an vacant compound bow along with on an entire-attract bow loaded with arrows. The test of chronograph as opposed to arrow is The ultimate way to gauge this.

The third element is the quality of the string that you use for it. The components that happen to be accustomed to make your bowstring will determine how long does a compound bow string very last. You'll want to Get the strings from dependable companies to prevent acquiring faulty merchandise that won't give you the high quality that you just count on.

In answering the concern how long does a compound bow previous, the durability of its axle can be an important component. This aspect connects The pinnacle of your arrow to the rest of the shaft. Because of this, if this axle is damaged, the arrow will have issue in shooting straight. The top types of axle are produced from carbon or aluminum which provide the shaft plenty of toughness to resist impact as well as offer stability for a longer time.

The other point that you ought to look at when Finding out how much time does a compound bow previous is exactly how much drive it gets while in use. Most modern compound bows have stiffer shafts which decrease the level of wrist action that it activities even though in use. Moreover, some of them function more robust and heavier products earning them additional immune to impression at the same time. When picking an arrow, generally check for its stiffness to know how it responds to a sharp blow.

How much time does a compound bow lasts also is dependent upon how much time its string stays undamaged. Because the string is connected into the limbs, the string is checked for its durability employing a strain gauge. The gauge's numbers usually show how long it requires right before a string breaks immediately after pulling a string.

The final facet of a compound bow is its mechanical launch. A good a person really should have the ability to lock right after Just about every attract despite how hefty the string is pulling. Its lock really should be independent of just how long the string is getting pulled. The mechanical launch also determines just how long a compound bow will last because it determines how properly it may be used.

Taking suitable care of the compound bow is usually vital that you how much time it'll very last. Though the string is locked, it is actually very important that it's stored from tangling While using the limbs. This will likely be accomplished by thoroughly keeping the string employing a wrench on when you are taking it out and by hardly ever wrapping the string within the limbs in almost any way. Additionally, the string really should hardly ever be compelled far too much since this can cause breakage. And lastly, it is actually very important the string isn't subjected to really large temperatures considering the fact that This tends to influence its lifespan.

The final aspect to take into account when thinking about how long a bow will final is how very well it really is preserved. Most compound bows have an instruction manual or maybe a highlighted guarantee that information all routine maintenance processes. Preserving the string clean up and utilizing Exclusive cleansing components like compressed air to eliminate corrosion and mildew is essential on the longevity with the string and the bow by itself.

Compound bows are truly great resources for archery since they allow their end users to shoot stronger and speedier than ever before ahead of. They also enable consumers to exercise with their expertise without worrying regarding how prolonged it is going to consider them to improve their muscles back or simply how much dollars they will have to expend For brand new bows. Taking right treatment of these and making certain they remain in very good form is the best way to get essentially the most Additional resources out of them also to get pleasure from them For many years to come back. These tips will make certain that your arrows usually do not quickly crack aside or do not halt Operating also rapidly, that is what most really serious archers attempt for.

How to Carry a compound bow

Learning how to hold a compound bow will not be generally a sure bet. On the other hand, Studying how to hold a compound bow does not have to generally be a disheartening knowledge. Should you understand how to carry a compound bow as part of your back again pocket, It'll be reasonably simple to get for the wilderness with no fatigue carrying your archery products. This article will deal with some practical recommendations and knowledge for carrying your compound bow and the proper approach for carrying your bow.

Prior to deciding to even try and find out how to carry a compound bow, you are going to want to make sure that you may have your products jointly. Very first you will have to acquire off your arrows or other shooting equipment, then you'll want to wrap up your coat or another substance that you are feeling at ease carrying with your arms uncovered. You should wrap the material up in the cloth so that it is not obvious by your coat, and It's also advisable to Guantee

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Let’s Review || Chapter 2

Peter Parker knew that his big sister would do anything for him to be safe and happy. She’d given up everything for him twice over already and would do it again in a heartbeat. And that’s why, when the criminal mastermind Tony Stark started inextricably following him around, he didn’t say a word. Because he knew without a doubt Penny would do whatever she had to if it meant keeping Peter safe. He had to protect her, just like she always protected him. He never considered what would happen if Stark decided both Parker siblings were worth taking. Never considered who else in Stark’s inner circle would agree. He just wanted to protect her and yet somehow, they both ended up with needles in their necks.

relationship: Steve Rogers/Original Female Character/Bucky Barnes, background Peter Parker/Tony Stark rating: Explicit warnings: Dark Steve Rogers, Dark Bucky Barnes, Dark Tony Stark, Dark Avengers, kidnapping, non-con/dub-con elements, underage Peter Parker, emotional and psychological abuse, very dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

 Penny Parker worked, on average, 108 hours a week between three jobs to make ends meet for herself and Peter. His high school, a stupidly expensive private science academy, sucked the majority of her income up each month despite a scholarship. Rent was $1,200 a month, not including utilities. Peter ate like a quintessential teenage boy, which meant a pound of cereal every morning before school and the equivalent in the evenings when he got home from his clubs.

She didn’t sleep much and only had one rotating day off each week. After learning of Peter’s situation with Tony Stark, she slept even less and spent her days off doing any and all research she could into the man and her options for getting Peter away from him. By the time a month had passed since the revelation that her baby brother was being stalked by a super powerful, criminal mastermind pedophile piece of shit, Penny was a wreck of a human being. Even Peter, who was understandably wrapped up in his own head most of the month, had noticed the bags under his sister’s eyes and the harried look she carried about her at all times.

They joked that Penny had taken every bit of chaos from her parents combined genes, somehow managing to leave behind every ounce of intelligence for Peter. She was a walking, talking disaster on the best of days. He’d seen her stick a fork in a toaster, try to mix bleach and vinegar, hell one time she’d come home from work with a sprained wrist because she’d fallen off a ladder stocking some shelves despite the fact someone had been actively holding the ladder to spot her. But this was an entirely new level of disarray from his sister.

Peter could tell that she wasn’t coming up with any solutions that she was happy with. Despite their inside jokes, Penny had a weird sort of intuitive intelligence. She couldn’t do basic math in her head and forget anything to do with science, hell basic reading comprehension could be a trial at times.

What she knew was that Tony Stark had every police department in New York on his payroll, despite the act they put on that “they were doing everything in their power” to gather evidence on the 87 open investigations into him and his company. She knew that he had several politicians under the same thumb, not because it was public knowledge, but because somehow every bill that was put to vote that could be useful to Tony Stark passed into law (or however that sort of thing worked—Penny didn’t understand bills and laws and the senate or whatever, but who really did?).

She knew that the surrounding states were similarly within his range of power. That his companies’ holdings in California meant he had too much control there too. He had holdings in Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico as well. It wasn’t public knowledge, but Penny could read between the lines when things seemed too good to be true. Or, too good to be true for one Tony Stark. Everything aligned in a way that was so suspicious, she couldn’t figure out why the FBI or CIA or NSA weren’t on to him too.

In the end, all it meant was that nothing Penny did would really matter in the long run. Tony Stark was infinitely powerful in a multitude of states, rich and influential in a way that one person shouldn’t ever have the ability to be. And Penny Parker had $3,000 to her name and a shitty apartment and an even shittier car. Compared to Tony Stark, she wasn’t even good enough to be dirt.

It meant that she had to be more creative. Penny wasn’t smart, but thinking outside of the usually accepted parameters was kind of her specialty. There was no good way to get Peter away from Tony’s sphere of influence, but there were some ways. Maybe just a single way. A very unpleasant, single way that would rip her heart to shreds. But Penny had decided as a 13 year old that she would do everything she could to keep Peter safe and happy and fuck if she was willing to stop now.

***

“Are you still stalking the webcam feed?” Tony wondered if it was possible to push anymore exasperation into his voice as he walked into the main living room only to find Clint once again watching Peter’s empty apartment on the massive TV.

“Something might happen,” it was the same defense the assassin always used when caught in the act, but Tony knew that the blond actually just wanted to catch a glimpse of Penelope Parker.

In all fairness, even Tony could admit that the young woman was rather beautiful. Where Peter’s skin was milky white and freckled, Penelope had a tan that betrayed her father’s Israeli heritage. She was shorter than Peter, held more weight than her lanky but growing brother. Her hair was long and held a natural wave, the same colour as Peter’s. They had the same eye colour as well, but Penelope’s were more narrow and slanted. It wasn’t Tony’s cup of tea, but he could objectively understand the appeal.

In all honestly, Penelope Parker wasn’t his cup of tea as a person. Every time her name popped into his head, he felt a seething rage begin to build in his chest. Penelope fucking Parker, responsible enough to be deemed guardian of the most precious boy in New York but not responsible enough to actually take care of him.

Back when he thought Peter lived alone off his meager inheritance, the living situation had bothered Tony but not enraged him. After all, sure a teenage boy would be fine living in a shit hole if it fit his budget. But no, his sister was the one who made him live in that rat’s nest. His sister, who worked so often it left poor Peter neglected and alone, was the reason he had to walk through dangerous streets to get home at night. His sister.

His fucking sister.

No wonder Peter hadn’t told him he had a sister. She was probably a fucking monster, as selfish and miserable as the goddamn evil stepsister from Cinderella.

He’d caught enough glimpses of Penelope Goddamn Parker in the last month to last him a life time. She and Peter hardly interacted where the webcam could pick up, although sometimes they caught snippets of audio. Mostly, they witnessed just how addicted to the internet she was. She spent more time on her fucking laptop than she did talking to her own brother.

It drove Tony insane, knowing that the longer he left Peter in her care, the more neglected he would be. His baby boy was trapped in an apartment with an uncaring bitch who spent 90% of her time working and the other 10% ignoring him for whatever bullshit Instagram, Facebook nonsense she was so obsessed with. Tony didn’t even bother keeping a record of her internet history, after the first two days of monitoring had revealed she spent the entire time on Youtube.

“Yeah? And has anything happened in the last, oh, 6 hours since she left for work?”

“No but she should be getting home soon—” Clint winced, having walked directly into the trap Tony set like a dumbass.

“Stop watching the bitch on my TV, all you do is stare down her fucking shirt anyway.”

“The bitch would make a pretty decent lay if you’d give a guy a break.”

Tony Stark did not roll his eyes. Tony Stark was a genius, ran a weapons engineering empire, had the most important politicians in the United States in his back pocket. Tony Stark did not roll his eyes.

So Tony Stark Did Not Roll His Eyes at the blond parked out on his couch with a bowl of popcorn and a beer. No doubt there was a cheap ass pizza on it’s way up the elevator, despite the fact Tony employed some of the best chefs in New York for his private kitchen. Clint Barton was the worst sort of best friend Tony had, but he’d still kill for the dumbass.

“What has Penelope Goddamn Motherfucking Parker done now?” Sam Wilson questioned absently as he walked into the living room from the kitchen, quoting Tony’s general tone of voice when talking about the woman.

“She hasn’t even taken her shirt off where I can see it, can you believe that? Fucking ridiculous. With a rack like that she should be shaking her tits on camera for money daily,” Clint whined in response, gesturing to the empty room on the TV, “I swear she sleeps on that fucking couch almost every night and not once has she undressed in front of the computer.”

“You’re a freak, my dude,” Sam smacked the blond upside the head as he walked past towards the elevator, “Time table still on track, Stark?”

“Steady as she goes,” Tony replied, pulling his phone out of his back pocket, “Where are you going? Movie night starts in 20 minutes?”

Movie night was almost the most ridiculous thing Tony participated in on any given day. His inner circle was made up of the only people in the world he trusted, was made of up assassins and ex-military super soldiers and all sorts of genetically altered freaks, and somehow movie night had become a staple of their existence. To miss a movie night without a doctor’s note or a mission was a crime punishable by near exile in the form of a group silent treatment. Pepper, Happy and Pietro were currently exempt, away on a business trip as executive, body guard, and assistant.

“Just going to change,” Wilson gestured to his workout clothes and shrugged, “need to shower.”

“Now if only we could make you realize that needs to happen more than once a month,” Clint muttered quietly, only to have a dirty shoe nail him in the face a moment later.

The blond fell off the couch with a shout, popcorn flying everywhere as the bowl escaped his grip. Sam, who’s aim was almost as impeccable as Clint’s own, gave the man the finger as the elevator doors closed dramatically.

“You are a disaster of a human being,” Tony commented absently, still watching his phone as the little dot that was his baby boy moved through the city.

He ignored Clint’s protests, flopping onto the couch and making himself comfortable while the rest of the tower’s residents slowly ambled into the communal living room. Bucky and Steve were parked out on the recliner, disgustingly cute and cuddly even from a distance. They, like Clint, had a stupid fascination with fucking Penelope and were watching the webcam feed while they waited for everyone to arrive.

Natasha and Wanda wandered in while chatting, each already having a drink in their hand. Thor, Loki and Bruce all came out of the elevator at the same time, Bruce having come from the labs and the two brothers from the coffee shop on the ground floor of the tower. Sam and Rhodey entered at the same time from the stairwell, both having freshly showered after a long day.

“What are we watching tonight?”

The following argument generally lasted a solid 20 minutes, but Wanda and Natasha won out with a comedy horror they’d all already seen before. It left plenty of room for conversation while the movie played in the background, a deck of cards finding their way onto the coffee table as well.

“So what’s the plan for your boy’s sister, Tones?” Rhodey questioned as Sam dealt cards for their third game of poker of the night.

“I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic to get away from the bitch,” the man grumbled in response as he adjusted his hand, “He’d probably walk right out the front door and leave her in the dust if I asked. I figure I’ll give her an ultimatum: Peter comes with me and she shuts the fuck up, or Peter comes with me and she finds herself in a shallow grave.”

“I think I could draw her tits from memory from how often she’s on her computer and ignoring her brother,” Clint stated, because despite the fact he thought Penelope god awful Parker was hot as all Hell, he knew how much it hurt to have the person who was supposed to care for you most ignore you completely.

Rhodey hummed in agreement, “Maybe we should off her, just in case. I bet she gets some sort of welfare from the state for him and she shouldn’t get to keep raking that in.”

“She shouldn’t get it even while she’s got him,” Natasha stated from over her wine, spread out and lounging on the loveseat closest to the couch, “probably uses it for drugs. It definitely isn’t used for groceries to feed to the poor kid, he looks half starved.”

“Nah, that’s just teenage boy syndrome,” Bucky added a couple of bills to the pot on the coffee table, “Not that I think she’s winning any care taker of the year awards, but I’ve seen that him eat while doing surveillance. Kid could take down a whole ass McDonalds by himself if given the chance.”

“He’s been putting on some weight actually,” Tony felt the corners of his lips tip up in a small smirk, “Muscle mass, one of his friends started dragging him to lift weights on Thursdays.”

“Careful Stark, you get too excited by the thought and you’re gonna pop off in your jeans,” a round of snorts sounded at Rhodey’s words and Tony Stark, Who Did Not Roll His Eyes, gave his friend the finger.

“I say we just go ahead and kill her,” Bruce was focused more on his laptop and the reports there in than the movie, but made sure he always paid attention to the conversation during movie nights, “she’s a liability. It might help Peter adjust too, knowing that she’s gone.”

“And that he has nothing left and nothing to go back to,” Clint added, not mean spiritedly but pointedly and with an exaggerated head tilt.

“He won’t have anything left or anything to go back to,” it was pragmatic and a bit cold, but Steve never pulled his punches, “its best to cut all ties. The more he relies on Tony, the faster he’ll adapt to his new situation. Maybe its manipulative, but this is a weird situation and we might have to get our hands dirty to get him to a good place, mentally and physically.”

“By weird you mean kidnapping a kid?”

“For his own good!”

“Its only kidnapping until he turns eighteen, right?”

“I don’t think that’s how the concept of kidnapping works, Clint.”

“Excuse me, sir,” JARVIS suddenly interrupted, turning on the lights and turning off the movie, “I believe it is important that you watch the webcam footage I’ve been monitoring. The recording begins as of five minutes ago and is still ongoing.”

“Pull it up, J,” Tony ordered quickly, sitting forward on the couch.

Everyone in the room watched in confusion as the TV began to roll on Peter and stupid fucking Penelope sitting in front of the laptop, most likely at the kitchen table. Peter was slightly off to the side, the computer centered more on his sister.

“Penny, please just tell me what you’ve decided on? I’ve been watching you lose your mind for weeks, I know you came up with something last night.”

“You’re… not going to like it Peter,” fucking Penelope’s voice was soft, the laptop microphone too shitty to pick up the quiet cadence well, “If you can think of something better, we’ll go with that. But… I don’t think there’s another choice. I’ve gone through everything I can think of. Try to let me get through this without yelling at me, okay?”

They’d never really seen Peter and fucking Penelope interact before. Most of the time it was just her, on the laptop, all the fucking time. Peter came and went in the background, to and from school and clubs and his friend’s houses, but most of the time she closed the laptop when he was around. They were all a bit surprised by how much affection was in her expression as she looked at her brother. Peter nodded at her, lips already pursed in frustration.

“I’ve been doing as much research as I can on Tony Stark. He’s… God, he’s got more influence than the fucking president. There are entire states in his pocket, Pete. Can you believe that? From what I can figure out, he’s got just about every New York senator on his payroll and don’t even get me started on the police—”

“How’d she figure that out?” Rhodey’s frown was a mixture of concern and irritation, “There’s never been any sort of reporting on your dealings with politicians.”

“I don’t know.”

“The good news is, I don’t think he has any business in Oregon. I’ve looked through as much of the gossip as I can, he’s never spent any significant amount of time there and if I’ve been understanding the weird ass insinuations correctly, his businesses don’t operate in the area.”

“Oregon? Are we gonna go there?” Peter reached out and grabbed his sister’s hands, “I promise, I’m not upset over us having to move Penny, I—”

“Peter, I’m… I’m not moving babe, you are.”

The teenager seemed to draw back slightly, his eyebrows furrowing and his mouth dropping open as he searched for words but was unable to come up with any.

“I don’t think you remember them, the last time we saw them was before mom and dad died, but we have second cousins in Oregon, Paul and Olivia. They’re about ten years older than me, with one kid. When I got custody of you, I contacted them. I wanted to make sure that if something happened to me, I had a sure thing lined up for you. It was years ago, but they promised they’d take you in a heartbeat if I couldn’t care for you anymore, for any reason.”

“You… you wanted to give me to them?” Peter’s eyes were full of tears and they watched as Penelope reacted in horror.

“Peter, no! Never! I would never willingly let you go. I was worried, everyone around us was dropping like flies in freak accidents and I couldn’t let you go into foster care if I died. I just wanted to make sure you would have someone if something happened to me.”

“You thought you were gonna die?”

“My birth father died, and then mom and dad died, then uncle Ben, then aunt May. I didn’t want to leave you alone with no one. I didn’t think I was gonna die, I just… wanted to be prepared. Just in case.”

“Why are you bringing them up? And Oregon? What do you mean that I’m moving? Alone?”

Penelope What the Fuck is Happening Parker’s lips pursed, eyes filling with tears. There was a level of sheer pain on her face that was startling for them all to see, especially considering they’d managed to work her up as an unfeeling monster in their heads for fucking weeks now.

“I’ve tried a thousand ways for us both to go, but I just… I don’t have the money saved for us to move. We’d have to break the lease and even if we left with the clothes on our backs, we wouldn’t be able to afford getting to Oregon. The car won’t make it, I can’t afford plane tickets. I wouldn’t be able to afford to get to Oregon. But I’ve figured out a way to get you there.”

“How Penny?” Peter’s was obviously trying to sound stern, but his voice cracked slightly.

“Not tomorrow, but the day after, we’re going to put in an anonymous call to Child Protective Services and claim that I’m abusing you. Neglecting you. They’ll take you out of my custody and send you to Olivia and Paul, since they’re our ‘closest’ living relatives.” Penelope Oh Fuck Parker’s voice was cracking too, tears running down her face as she explained her batshit crazy plan to her baby brother, who they were quickly realizing was far from neglected or abused.

Tony felt his chest tightening at the sight of the siblings, both with tears streaming down their cheeks. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get it so incredibly wrong. Maybe he’d seen what he wanted to see, that his baby boy was easy pickings. That no one really cared for him so it would be easy to sweep him off his feet and spirit him away.

“You’ve never abused me! You’ve never neglected me! How could you even say that, Penny!? Everything you’ve ever done—”

“Peter please, listen,” Penny was nearly sobbing, grasping Peter’s hands tightly with her entire body angled downwards over them, “We have to pretend, okay? We have to pretend because they’ll send you somewhere safe.”

“You’ll go to jail!”

“That’s fine! That’s okay, Peter! As long as you’re safe, I don’t care—”

“You can’t ask me to do this, you can’t ask me to send you to jail, to send you away when you haven’t done anything wrong, ever! I wouldn’t even be able to visit you! I’d be a million miles away and you’d be rotting away in jail because I was too stupid to mind my own business!”

“Peter none of this is your fault,” the tone was so stern and determined as Penny sat straighter in her chair, squeezing her brother’s hands reassuringly even as her chest heaved with grief, “it’s that fucking pedophile, piece of shit Tony Goddamn Stark’s fault, don’t you ever think that you are at all to blame for any of this—”

“I probably deserve at least half of that rage,” Tony stated absently, almost guilty at the word ‘pedophile’.

“Half? Hah!” It was an absent response, more instinct than intention but got the point across even as the entire group was absorbed by the pain playing out on the TV.

“I went to that stupid tower!” Peter wailed suddenly, making Penny go stiff, “After you got that note telling you not to report the assault, I went to the tower because I knew he worked there and I wanted him to suffer. You wouldn’t go to the police because they threatened your family but I thought… It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I was stupid and I went to fucking Stark Tower and that’s where he saw me. It’s all my fault.” Peter’s sobbing was viscerally painful to hear, even through the shitty microphone.

“What assault? A note? JARVIS, figure out what he’s talking about!” Tony barked, already on his feet and pulling out his phone, “Give me the surveillance footage from that day, who was my boy here looking for?!”

“As the conversation is roughly five minutes delayed, I took the liberty of deciphering Mr. Parker’s statements already, sir,” the AI stated calmly, “six months ago, Mr. Brock Rumlow of level six security sexually assaulted Ms. Penelope Parker in a club in Queens. In order to prevent any bad press upon the company, a persuasive letter was sent from the Tower’s security to Ms. Parker to ensure her silence on the matter. I assume the day you came across Mr. Parker was the day he arrived to confront Mr. Rumlow over the assault and threat.”

“Find him,” Tony snarled towards Rhodey, who was already on his feet and typing away at his phone, heading towards the elevator, “Alive, Rhodey!”

“I’ll see what I can manage,” the man muttered darkly as the doors shut and he began descending towards level six, leaving the rest of them in the living room.

“He… he saw you… there? Oh, god… Oh god he saw you because you went to the tower, oh my God you went there because of me and he saw you— Oh my God!” Penny’s reaction was so emotionally brutal that it verged on physically violent. Her entire body seemed to lock up for a solid thirty seconds before she threw herself out of the chair and they could hear retching in the background a moment later. Peter was still sitting on the far side of the screen, sobbing into his hands.

Almost five minutes later, Penny ambled back into view. Her face was so pale compared to her usually tan complexion that she looked like a ghost. A fine tremble ran through her entire body, goosebumps visible on her exposed arms.

“I’m so sorry,” Peter’s voice broke through his sobs, bone achingly sad, “I’m so sorry I did this to us.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, bud,” Penny’s eyes were almost blank, the pain so overwhelming that she couldn’t force any other expression, “I set all of this in motion. I made a mistake and I’m so sorry you’re having to pay for it. I should’ve protected you better, you never should’ve even known what happened, let alone who— it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Everything is going to be okay Peter. We have a plan and everything is going to be alright.”

“You’re going to go to jail, Penny! For a horrible crime that you’d never, ever commit! Because I was stupid and immature and—”

“Stop Peter,” Tony’s eyes watered as Penny gently ran her fingers through Peter’s hair and left it to rest on his cheek, “don’t blame yourself for this. No matter what you did, no matter what choices you made, you didn’t deserve to be frightened and stalked. What’s happening is happening because there’s a man out there with a sick mind, who thinks he can take whatever and whoever he wants for whatever he wants. That’s not on you, babe. That’s on him. And everyone who built him up and let him get to this point.”

She let Peter cry for several minutes and the group in the living room found themselves left to digest the situation to the sound of his sobs. Discomfort ran through all of them, for different reasons. Because they’d judged Penelope Too Good for This World Parker so wrong. Because they were the ones enabling Tony to do something terrible. Because they didn’t actually feel guilty for enabling Tony but they did feel guilty for the pain it was causing the Parker siblings.

“You’ll take such good care of him, Tony,” Natasha said quietly after a moment, seeing the pain in the man’s face, “He’s never going to want for anything ever again. He’s going to live in comfort and luxury for the rest of his life and that’s because of you.”

“He’s scared right now, Tones,” Clint jumped in quickly when it looked like Tony might protest, “They both are and we can’t blame them for that. But once they’re—he’s here, he’ll realize that it’s not a bad thing and that he has nothing to be afraid of. That we’re going to take care of them—him, all of us.”

Mind running at a million times per hour, Tony considered their words. Actually, he considered Clint’s words. Clint’s misspoken statements that implied both Parker siblings would be in the tower. Both of them would be safe and cared for. Both.

“They’ll never want for anything ever again,” Tony repeated quietly, all eyes in the room locked carefully on him, “Peter and Penny shouldn’t be separated.”

“You’ve given up everything for me, Penny,” Peter whispered after his cries calmed, “You dropped out of high school, dropped out of college, started working three jobs so I could go to that stupid school, you don’t sleep, you hardly eat, and I know it’s all for me. I can’t let you give up your freedom, I can’t let you give up anything else for me.”

“Oh my God no wonder she’s so skinny,” Wanda suddenly gasped, tears pouring down her cheeks in continuous rivers, “we thought Peter was skinny, but look at her, look at her collar bones! JARVIS, give me a record of all credit and debit card transactions she’s made in the last month and—” The redhead cut herself off when Penny began speaking again.

“All I want is for you to be happy Peter,” Penny whispered, the blank look in her eyes fading into grief again, “All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy. You’re everything to me, you’re my baby brother. I’ll do anything to keep you safe, bud, anything.”

“I won’t do it, Penny, I won’t—”

“Yes, you will, Peter,” resolve hardened Penny’s voice and she squeezed her brother’s hands, “You’re going to do as I say. Tomorrow you’re going to go to school and I’m going to call out of work. I’m going to throw most of your clothes away, all of the food in the house. I’m going to switch my stuff for yours, so it looks like I make you sleep on the couch while I take the bedroom.”

“Oh God she does sleep on the couch every night,” Professional Perfect Person Penelope Parker Stalker Clint Barton gasped in horror as he recalled his earlier comment on her sleeping habits and her undressing habits oh no.

“I’m going to trash the place as authentically as I can and I’m… God I’m going to destroy some of your stuff, Pete,” Penny looked pained at the thought, scraping a hand down her face, “But I’m going to transfer all of my savings into your name, so you’ll only be without your stuff for a little while. You can rebuy everything you need once this is over.”

“I can’t take your money, Pen—”

“Hush Peter. I don’t have much saved up, but I’ll put it under your name tomorrow. Now, when I turn 25 in a few months I’ll be able to use my portion of the money mom and dad left us. I’m going to transfer that to you as soon as I can, it should be enough for you to live off of once you turn 18 as long as you use it wisely.”

“Penny, please, you can’t expect—”

“I expect you to do as I say, Peter!” She cut him off with all the flare of a bossy big sister, “I want you to apply to universities outside of the United States. Focus on places like Norway, Australia and New Zealand. Avoid Mexico, Canada and the UK because I think he has business dealings in those countries and I don’t know how long he’ll be willing to search for you, so don’t risk it.”

“How does she know about our business in those places?” Tony threw his hands up in confusion.

“Sir, from what I can gather from Ms. Parker’s search history, she has done her best to track yours and your staff’s movements around the world for the last five or so years by means of social media and gossip blogs—”

“Well holy fuck, who would’ve thought to do that?” Sam’s eyebrows were raised nearly to his hairline, “that’s ridiculous, no wonder she was on the laptop constantly.”

“Once you turn 25 you’ll come into your inheritance too. By that time I’ll probably be out of jail but… Peter I want you to leave me alone, okay? We don’t know… we don’t know if Stark will let this go, if he loses you. He might use my location and contacts to find you and I can’t let that happen.”

“You want me to just cut you out of my life forever? Like you’re some horrible monster I never want to see again? I can’t—”

“We don’t have a choice bud,” Penny was quiet, soothing as she ran her fingers over his wrists and hands, “Tony Stark is a dangerous man and he has more connections and money than we could ever hope to fight. The police won’t help us, the law won’t help us. All we have is this plan and I need you to follow it. I need to be able to trust that you’ll follow the plan, so that you’ll be safe.”

“What about you, Penny!? You won’t be safe! You’re always so worried about, about me being safe and happy that you forget about yourself! Do you understand that you’re telling me you want to go to jail? That you want me to abandon you forever?”

Penny seemed to waiver for just a second, as if she might actually let some tiny ounce of selfishness set in and change her mind, before her resolve hardened once again and she stood, putting herself nearly out of frame, “This is happening, Peter. This is the plan. This is what we’re doing. Because I won’t let him hurt you. I will literally do anything to keep you safe Peter, this doesn’t even make a wave in the pool of batshit crazy I’m willing to go if I need to. I love you. Now go to bed, you have school in the morning.”

[gunslingertales]

Saving grace || A.M - Chapter 2

Story summary: Arthur struggles with his guilt and his loyalty towards the people he always thought of as family. He starts questioning the life they’ve been leading lately and wonders if there’s still a place for him somewhere out there in a world that’s so quickly chaning. Then he meets a woman with fire in her eyes and gold in her heart who seems equally lost in the great unknown that’s life. 

Chapter Two: “ Dreams”  Find the other chapters on my blog under /masterlist

Chapter summary: As he rides into Valentine, Arthurs plans on having a drink or two with young Lenny and then returning back to camp. He doesn’t expect running into a familiar face. And spending the next day with that person. And learning about her childhood and her dreams.

Likes, comments and especially reblogs are more than appreciated ♥

[additional note: I am German. Sometimes I get the tense wrong or make mistakes. I am useless when it comes to punctuation. Go easy on me, please.]

The small town of Valentine is an awfully dirty place. Both figuratively and literally. You don’t even have to take two steps and your shoes are already coated with mud. Like the sweltering humidity of the Lemoyne swamps that cling to your skin or the grimy winds coming from the mines of Annesburg that settle on your lungs, the dirt lies upon the town like a thick blanket you just can’t shake off. 

Arthur thinks it’s ironic, how the people turn their noses at him and the gang and their way of living. Of their makeshift camps and on-the-go lifestyle. They scowl at the thought of their tents and bedrolls yet voluntarily move to a town like this where you can’t tell if you’re wading through mud or your neighbors’ shit. 

Then again, Arthur doesn’t care an awful lot for other people’s lives. His own is chaotic and confusing enough, what good could it possibly do to rack his brain about other people’s choices? Least it ain’t quite as bad here as it is in Saint Denis. That place is a cesspool of every single thing Arthur has an unprecedented disdain for. Too many people pretending to be above everyone else just because their jackets got fancy gold buttons.

He can’t picture himself ever living in a place like that. Though to some it might be a place of comfort, of safety, to him it only feels like a cage. And he’d rather die than give up his freedom. 

Mouse slows down to a gentle trot as they approach the Valentine Saloon. A golden glow shines through the newly fixed window of the building and laughter and song echo through the room and flood out into the streets. Lenny hitches his horse next to Mouse and gives Arthur an expectant look “Just one of two, right?” 

“Sure. Just a drink, no drama”

None of the men are getting lots of chances to wind down. Sure some of them are perpetually drunk to some extent but to really get a night off to - to have fun, that’s not a chance that presents itself very often. Living a life like they do, you always have to be alert. Life ain’t your friend so you gotta look out for yourself and your people.

There’s quite a few people inside, drinking and eating and laughing. Sometimes Arthur wonders what his life would be like if he had married Mary and given up on the gang. Would he spend his free time here drinking away his sorrows and his feelings of inadequacy compared to Mary and all she could’ve had? Or would they wander into town every once in a while, grab a bite to eat, and enjoy each other’s company?

He shakes his head to push the thoughts away. There’s no use in getting lost in what-ifs. They’re just another reminder of what he can’t have and what he messed up.

“You,” the Barkeeper approaches, pointing at Arthur as he leans against the bar “ I don’t want no trouble!”

Arthur raises his hands in mock surrender “And you ain’t getting none from me. I was just defending myself.”

Though his eyes still hold a hint of doubt the barkeeper seems to be satisfied with that answer. Something tells Arthur that he isn’t the first person butting heads with that damn Tommy guy.

Lenny regards the exchange with a smirk playing on his lips as a shake of his head.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just … do I wanna know?”

“Nah don’t think you do.”

They share a laugh and receive their drinks and for a moment, Arthur’s heart feels a bit less heavy. For a second the weight of the world doesn’t rest inside his chest. Like he can be unbothered for just a night.

Two drinks in he leans his back against the bar and lets his eyes wander around the Saloon. Drunk fools stumbling over each other, a piano player belting out melodies, smiles upon smiles and songs, and music. 

In the furthest corner of the place, a woman sits alone by a table, a plate untouched in front of her. She seems too fancy to end up in a dump like this. Her hair is pulled up in intricate braids and her blouse has frilly lace in the front. Something about her intrigues Arthur. 

The first time he ever laid eyes on Mary an electrical current surged through his system like waves crashing to the shore. She was beautiful and smart and she spoke like she knew the world belonged to her. He never felt deserving of her and he never was but for a while she let him believe it. She was beautiful and soft and she wasn’t … she wasn’t what he’d known all his life. And maybe that’s also part of what intrigued her when it came to him. The excitement and the unknown. But that novelty wore off for her rather quickly it seems. The night she broke the engagement and his heart, he doesn’t remember that night but he does remember the pain.

Looking at the woman in the corner, he doesn’t feel the excitement or the sense that he needs to have her in his life, the way he did with Mary. That doesn’t mean he’s unaware of his intrigue. As much as he doesn’t want to get involved with other people’s drama, he sure likes to hear their stories. After all, ain’t that what our life is made of? Stories. One after another. Sometimes you’re the main character and sometimes an onlooker. Sometimes your the hero and sometimes - sometimes you ain’t.

When she lifts her head though, a strange sensation floods through him. Though the dimly lit room doesn’t allow him to get a perfectly good look at her, Arthur can immediately read the sadness on her face. It’s radiating from her. He knows it ain’t his fault, at least not entirely but still, a pang of guilt settles in his stomach. A knowledge that he ain’t innocent in any of this either. Seeing her brings back all the heaviness and the weight that rests on his heart. It floods back in and clings to him like cigarette smoke.

He wants to leave now. Just get out of here and take Mouse for a ride through the fields and valleys and relish in the great wide somewhere. But he can’t. His legs feel like they’re stuck to the ground like flies on a honeypot. He feels guilt sometimes, about his deeds. Especially when the people don’t deserve his unkindness. He’s never really felt like this before. Then again, usually, they don’t have to face their doings again.

Drinking his third beer, he tries to ignore her. He genuinely does. It ain’t his fault and it ain’t his problem. Why should he care? No one asked her to pawn off her jewelry for a mistake she didn’t commit. Maybe that’s exactly the problem though, the knowledge that she’s a good person and the fact that Arthur voluntarily chose not to extend the same kindness towards her.

A commotion from the corner pulls his attention back towards her. A big burly man with a frizzy, unkept beard stands beside her table, leaning on it for support. A bottle dangles from his fingers and the sway in his posture tells Arthur that he’s way deep in by this point.

“I’m just tryin’ to be nice Miss. Ain’t no reason to get feisty on me.”

“Can you please let me enjoy my dinner in peace?”

“Come on sweetheart, lemme buy you a drink at least. Then maybe I can take you up to one of them rooms. How ‘bout that.”

“That’s disgusting and I said no!”

Though he can’t see her eyes, he’s sure they’re filled with the same fire and wrath that had been directed at him just a few weeks ago. With every moment passing, he gravitates more towards her, ready to jump in if the man got any more stupid ideas running through his head.

There’s a special place in hell for men who can’t extend a certain amount of respect towards the fair gender. He knows that even some men in his own group, his own family, often seem to forget that and Arthur is the first to call ‘em out on it. They call him soft for it but he doesn't think that’s him being soft as much as it’s him basically being raised by two men who value women for what they are. Smart and beautiful and human beings worthy of being treated with respect. Not objects for their own enjoyment and entertainment.

“Lady, I ain’t gonna be asking so nicely no more.”

“Is there a problem here?”

May’s eyes snap up towards Arthur as he approaches the table and he catches a glimpse of the flames, passionate and … pissed off. Though as they fall on him, a kind of calmness washes over her and he isn’t quite sure if he likes it or if it makes him nervous. 

“Just a dispute between two lovers, ain’t that right Dove?  None of your concern, buddy.”

“We ain’t lovers you delusional rat !”

Arthur can’t help but let out a laugh at her insult. It fits the guy, really, though his frame is broad and meaty, he’s got beady eyes and a long face.

“You better shut your mouth you-“

As the man lifts his arm, that’s when Arthur really sees red and takes a step in between him and May who, despite her best efforts, can’t suppress the worry and fear settling on her face.

“Nah, I suggest you shut up and get the fuck out of this place. They just fixed the window and it would be an awful mess if I had to break it again when I throw you out. Of course, I could also shoot or stab you right here right now but, I don’t think that’s in any of our best interests now, is it?”

Arthur’s voice is low and deep and though that’s both a result of bad genes and chain-smoking, it does come in handy every once in a while. Mary–Beth had once told him that it gives him a sense of perpetual danger and toughness. 

The man stares at Arthur, unsure of what to do. His eyes then shift towards May, back to Arthur and back and forth one more time. Carefully he considers his next move and then — then he shrugs his shoulders in defeat, huffs out an annoyed sigh and turns around, leaving the saloon with the slam of a door.

“What a horrible horrible man.”

“Sorry about that”

May rests a gentle hand on Arthur’s arm and signals for him to sit down, which he does - reluctantly. Again she extends a kindness towards him he is severely undeserving of.

“What are you apologizing for? You ain’t don’t nothing wrong. “

“Oh, I’ve done plenty of things wrong in ma life.”

“I meant right then. What brings you here then, Mr. Morgan? Spending my money on a beer?”

Though she says it with a smirk and not a hint of malice, it still sends a sting to his chest though. He could ease his mind and tell her that he hasn’t sold the ring, hasn’t even put it in the camp’s collective. The earrings yes but not the ring. It still sits in his saddlebag waiting for — well he isn’t exactly sure what for.

“Just having a drink with ma friend over there and saving women from delusional rats it seems. What about you amiss Everly? What’s gotten you dressed up so fancy? You look like one of them ladies on the poster they hang by the theatre in Saint Denis.”

She scoffs then takes a bite of her lamb fry. “Glad you think so but unfortunately that ain’t no consolation to me.”

“What happened?”

He’s well aware that he has no right to ask her about it. They hardly know each other and yet she’s been so open and forward from the first second she opened her mouth that day he came around the Downes Ranch, it doesn’t feel strange asking her about it. It feels natural. Like the right thing to do.

“ Well since Thomas ain’t doing good and I’m looking for a new place of work I thought about finally taking a leap and making my dream come true. But, as you know, I am no woman of a big fortune nor do I come from a family of money. I was trying to get a loan from the bank of Valentine but …. no luck.”

“Huh, ‘m sorry about that.” He’s not exactly sure what he’s sorry about. The fact that Mr. Downes is dying or the fact that she wasn’t granted a loan. Or maybe both. Probably a bit of both.

“Ah,” she shrugs “I’d already expected this outcome. Some big-shot oil tycoon from Saint Denis already has his eyes on my piece of land anyway so the money is only the first obstacle.”

“Piece of land? You wanna become a rancher now?”

May lets out a sweet chuckle, “ No. I wanna be a teacher. I want to build a school for Valentine.”

“A school? What for?”

“Well … to teach. The world is changing, Mr. Morgan. We’re living in the age of progress but what good does it do us if we have machines taking us anywhere and everywhere when we can’t read even the most simple of instructions? We owe it to the children to start the progress with them.”

Arthur has never set a single foot inside a real school all he’s ever learned he learned on the road. From Dutch and Hosea. Reading and writing were never something he was particularly fond of learning but now that he’s older, even he can admit that it’s a big advantage in life.

“If you say so.”

“I do. I taught Archie to read. Edith too. I think it’s a luxury we should all be able to afford.”

“ Well, I ain’t gonna disagree with that. Let me buy you a drink.”

She takes the last bite of her lamb, then wipes up the remaining gravy with a potato, before softly tapping a napkin to her lips. “That’s very sweet of you but I should go. I have a room at the hotel for the night and I’m quite concerned that if I agree to one drink I will agree to more and then I won’t make it to my room and that’s just money wasted now ain’t it.”

For a second he wants to be brash. Wants to tell her that he wouldn’t mind making sure she gets to her room safe and sound. Wouldn’t mind joining her there. But while he lets himself think it, it just ain’t his personality to speak those words. Especially not to a woman who shows him kindness time and time again when all he ever does is disappoint and do the wrong things.

“Alright, Miss. You stay safe out there. I sincerely hope it all works out for you. With that school and all. “

May places her small hand on his stubbly cheek, warm from the alcohol coursing through his system and the gentle touch of a woman.

“Oh don’t make this sound like a goodbye. Our paths will cross again, I know so. Trust me, Arthur!”

He likes the way his name sounds falling from her lips. Likes her warm smooth skin on his. Like the sincerity in her eyes and the fire softly burning beneath it. He likes this girl and that’s one scary thought. Ain’t nothing good ever happened to the girls he liked.

“You have a good night, Miss Everly.”

As he returns to the bar, Lenny already fixes Arthur with a look of amusement and mischief. His eyes are glossed over from the drinks and his balance don’t seem to work quite as he’d like.

“So who was that pretty lady?”

Just the woman he hasn’t been able to get out of his head since he met her. The one he’s been sketching in his diary over and over again. The one he ain’t don’t right by. The one that’s way too good for him.

“No one. Just some girl. Now how about another drink, Lenny ma boy?”

The night goes by in a flash. It’s a blur of yelling and dancing and laughing and fighting. Of searching for Lenny, several times. Of walking into a room he has no business walking into. Of making friends and enemies. And then fade to black.

That is until the next day when the midday sun beats mercilessly down onto his tired body, slumped against the trunk of a mostly barren tree. It’s the sun that wakes him up. The sun and — her.

May stands before him like a goddess in an ancient story from a foreign country. The sun shines behind her veiling her in a golden glow, giving her a gleaming halo.

“Look at you, I told you our paths would cross again. Why are you down there?”

“Fell asleep.”

“On the floor?”

“It happens.”

His voice is rough with sleep and exhaustion from the night before. He ain’t as young as he used to be and nights like the previous one leave marks now. It’s something he doesn’t like to admit but something he has to come to terms with.

“I know it’s past noon but I can offer you some breakfast if you like,” May exclaims pointing towards her horse and the little wicker basket strapped to the saddlebag. “Well it’s lunch for me but breakfast for you. I got coffee too.”

Arthur rubs the sleep from his eyes and scratches his beard in contemplation. He’s got nothing to do today and he’s, he could be checking up on Dutch and his plans but with the way things are right now, he doesn’t really mind getting some time away from all that mess. Micah is also waiting for him in a cell in Strawberry but that’s so far down on Arthur’s list of things to do. That nasty son of a bitch can rot there for a while longer. Might do him some good, actually.

“Coffee sounds mighty fine.”

“Alright, you’ll have to follow me though. “

“Sure. Lemme get Mouse real quick. “

Arthur drags his tired body back towards the Saloon and a few minutes later he returns, now straddling Mouse and carrying a big bundle of fur on the back of his horse.

“What in the world is that,” May asks, swinging herself back onto Beans.

“Fur of a grizzly.”

“No way! You’re a hunter, then?”

The two of them fall into a slow trot next to each other with May walking just a tad in front of him leading the way.

“Ain’t much of a hunter. Just pure luck. Had help from my —“

What exactly was Hosea to him? His father, kind of but it wouldn’t feel right calling him that. He had had a father, albeit a pretty poor example of it. But he’s more than a friend. He’s family.

“ from a family member.”

“I think you’re allowed to take pride in this, Arthur. It’s a nice fur and it seems like it was one big fella. That’s something not a lot of people can do. Allow yourself to be proud.”

Pride, Arthur knows, makes men do foolish things. It makes them feel invincible. Makes them stop paying attention. It leaves them vulnerable. Pride ain’t doing no one no good.

“Whatever. Where we going anyway?”

“Oh, I’m just going to break my own heart real quick,” May says as if it’s a completely normal thing to exclaim. 

They gallop on for a short while until she stops at the top of a small hill. Slowly, not moving her eyes away from the patch of land before her, she gets off of her horse and takes the wicker basket. “Come, let’s sit down by the trees.”

A row of oak trees provides some shade from the burning sun as they sit down on the warm prairie grass. For a moment the world is still. Not silent but still. Soft and comfortable. The scent of coffee fills the air, waves along with the desert winds. The mug May hands to him, it’s warm in his hand and for the first time in a long time, Arthur feels at peace with himself and the world.

“This is it,” May announces and, arms spread out wide, gestures to the land before them.

“Well I must say, this is quite impressive,” Arthur humors her, voice laced with sarcasm.

“Oh, you big oaf. Stop making fun of me. This is the piece of land I wanted to buy. The school was supposed to sit right there. Walking distance for the children of Valentine and the surrounding ranches. Now it belongs to Mr. Robert Montgomery and god knows what he’ll put here.”

“I’m real sorry about it. I ain’t ever really had a dream like that but I bet it’s not a nice feeling. It’s a damn shame too. Can see you teaching them kids some things.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure.”

She looks wistfully across the valley, a glimpse of longing sparkling in her eyes. “It’s all I've wanted to do since I was a little girl. My daddy never had much and he wasn’t a good man but he was honest and he was a hard worker. My momma was soft and sweet like honey. She made him more gentle. Made life sweet for him. They both came from nothing but when they had me they wanted to make sure they gave me everything I needed to survive in this world. To make something of myself. Momma learned to read and write from an older lady who lived across the street and taught it to me and my daddy. From him, I learned to fish, to hunt, to skin and prepare animals. I think with the way they gave me all this knowledge they wanted me to become good at something and make that my crime. Instead, I became passionate about sharing knowledge. About giving this education to other children. That’s where our future rests, ain’t it? The children?”

She’s right. Whenever he looks at Jack. Whenever he watches Abigail or John look at Jack, all he sees is the hope that he turns out better. That his life doesn’t rest with them. That there is more for him than robbing and plundering.

“Do you have children?”

It’s an innocent question but it manages to hurt him more than any other question probably could. It reaches all the dark corners of his heart he tries so hard to ignore. He doesn’t have children, but he had. Past tense.  Ring a father, another role he failed at filling. He ain’t never been a good father to Isaac. He wasn’t there when it mattered. Wasn’t there when they killed him for a meager 10$.

“Nah.”

“Did you go to school?”

Arthur scoffs a laugh at that, imagining himself young and wild sitting in a classroom with a bunch of other rowdy kids. 

“No. Never. I was taught how to write and read by my family. Like you.”

“See, I told you we ain’t so different.”

Her smile, it sends another shiver through him. Not uncomfortable but oh so scary. She doesn’t know the kind of person he is. The one he really is. A bad person. The goddamn villain of the story.

Everything in him screams at him to go. To leave her alone. To not get in any deeper. But for one day, just this one time, he wants to allow himself to relish in a what-if. So he stays and they relax in the shade as the sun fills the valleys with rays of gold.

They stay there for so long, that Arthur is sure the sun has turned his skin a shade of red. When they get back on their horses, he notices the crown of white daisies sitting on top of Mouse’s head. A crown matching the one adoring May’s. The white flowers shine atop her flowing red locks like little stars when the setting sun is coloring the sky a blood-red but the stars have come out to play already.

Her hair is down for the first time since he’s met her and she looks beautiful. Like the wilderness and the calm all at once.

“Thanks for listening to my dreams, Arthur Morgan.”

“Thanks for sharing them, May Everly.”

Her name sounds sweet on his tongue. 

“Now don’t look so blue. We'll meet again, I know it. I was right last time, wasn’t I?”

“You were.”

And as she rides away, red hair flowing in the wind like the wings of a Phoenix, Arthur hopes she’s right again this time. He ain’t ready to let go of the way she makes him see the world and her and himself. Not yet.

[gamutgaming577]

To my gaming friend who saved my life

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These numbers can surely vary per study, but it does look like the number of female really serious gamers are on a downward trend. The last time we checked in females have been closer to 45%-48% of gamers. We can speculate as to why this is. Possibly females are much less fond of the emergence of the eSports trend. Maybe females are feeling much less included in gaming forums and online communities following the harassment accusations of the final couple of years. Maybe they are just extra drawn to other entertainment industries, but this is undoubtedly a trend to continue watching.

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[brokingsacking645]

What laptop is best for gaming

Wolfsgamingblog.com Internet site. Wolf's Gaming Blog Xbox 1 & Computer Gaming, And Board Games.

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[darks-ink]

Distortion

Prompt: He’s flying. Or is he? Prompt by: @bibliophileap Word count: 2,900

[AO3][FFnet][more Phic Phight fics]

Winds whipped past Danny. The air currents brushed through his hair, mussing it into something even more wind-blown than usual. The dampness of the clouds greeted him as he dove through them. Up and up he went.

Then finally he emerged from the other side. The moon, large and full, shone bright and welcoming. All around it, the stars blinked and winked at him.

Danny twisted around, letting his momentum carry him into a loop. This far above civilization, no one could see or hear him. He whooped in joy, carefree.

Flying was, by far, Danny’s favorite power. Sure, he could find useful applications for all of his powers. Was quite inclined to use most of them in his daily life, too.

But flying… Flying was something special. Even on his worst days, flight was a guaranteed pick-me-up. It never failed to cheer him up, even if only temporarily.

Lying on his back, Danny trailed his fingers through the clouds as if he were floating on water. Above him, the stars shone. Smiling to himself, Danny moved to trace the constellations – he had them memorized, after all.

Then he jerked to a stop. Lifted up one of his hands to connect the stars.

Frowned to himself as the dots didn’t quite connect. He tried again, with a different constellation.

Once again, they didn’t match. No matter how he tried, none of the stars formed into the constellations he knew. They were off, just slightly.

Repressing a shiver, Danny rightened himself. Whatever night sky he was looking at… it wasn’t the right one. It wasn’t Amity’s sky.

But… how? He was just in Amity. He had been working on his homework, but he had gotten frustrated so he had decided to go for a fly.

Right?

So then how had he gotten… wherever the fuck he was?

It couldn’t be a dream, or something else based on his mind. He was familiar enough with the stars to properly mimic the constellations. And if they were off enough for him to tell, then clearly he hadn’t been responsible for making them so.

He lowered himself again, dropping through the layer of clouds. And below him, the familiar cityscape of Amity Park greeted him.

Frowning, Danny started moving through the streets. Following his set patrol routes – he knew these streets just as well as the stars, and if they were off too…

Well, he didn’t know what that would mean.

It didn’t take long for Danny to conclude that the streets, the layout of Amity Park, seemed to be correct. It was the details that were, once again, off – windows in the wrong places, houses painted the wrong colors – and once again, it made him feel uneasy.

After all, he was somehow in a world almost like his own… yet not exactly. It was a close enough match that he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it.

Who could have done this… And why? More importantly, how? After all, if he could figure out how he got here, he could get out too. Right?

Good, okay. Focus on the here and now. Plan. Make a plan.

Step one: figure out how he got here.

No, wait, scrap that.

New step one: figure out where here is. Because if it’s not really Amity Park, is he real? Is this his actual body?

Danny groaned. This situation was too complicated for him. He preferred an enemy he could just punch. Not all this… planning stuff. Maybe he could find Jazz…

Wait. Where there any people in this fake Amity Park?

He scanned the streets below him once more. They were fairly empty, but a few people were wandering around. No one he recognized, not even vaguely. They just looked… generic. Like computer-generated AI in a video game. A crowd of barely sentient beings for the player character to move around.

The thought was an interesting one, and Danny made sure to remember it. He wasn’t sure where it had come from, but… now that it had come to him, it seemed right, somehow. The way the people below moved, not interacting with each other in the slightest…

Repressing a shiver, Danny angled himself towards FentonWorks. Whether Jazz – or any of his family – existed or not, there were things there he needed to check. After all, Amity Park was an imitation, if a fairly well-made one. If the Ghost Zone was more accurate, it would suggest that a ghost was behind this.

Intangibility washed over him as he dove through the walls of his home. He didn’t stop to look at the living room, but went straight to the lab.

Shiny steel greeted him. Walls washed white, immaculate floors and walls and hell, even the ceiling was spotless. The tables were empty, and the gadget racks pushed against the walls were neatly organized.

It was a beautiful lab, and well-kept. It definitely wasn’t his parents’.

More strikingly, however, was the Portal in the back. Or what Danny assumed was the Portal. Because it held very little resemblance to the actual thing.

Rather than a metal arch, the opening to the Portal was simply a hole in the wall. The metal edges were shredded and ripped, mangled and even slightly blackened. Like something had blasted its way through the wall.

The Portal itself looked like a natural portal rather than the artificial one it should have been. Its edges flickered, the size varying as it whirled around itself. It wasn’t connected to the walls at all. Instead it floated freely, right in the center of the tear in the lab’s walls.

It wasn’t realistically possible. And while yes, that sounded a little weird considering ghosts and physics generally didn’t mix, this was something else. A natural portal wasn’t stable. It couldn’t maintain itself. Or rip a hole through the wall, like this one seemed to have done.

Which suggested that whoever had made this simulation, they weren’t familiar with ghost portals at all. And, besides, any ghost who could’ve reached Danny would’ve gone through his parents’ lab. They would’ve done a better job of imitating it.

Danny took his eyes off of the Portal again, scanning the lab. Really, it looked more like what he imaged a GIW lab would look like. Shiny, immaculate, way too much white and steel.

Hang on… Could the Guys in White be responsible for this? Could they have somehow set up some sort of simulation and trapped him in it?

Soundlessly he touched down in the lab. He turned to watch his reflection – the walls were so shiny he didn’t need a mirror. His normal ectoplasm green eyes blinked back, looking the same as usual. His hair looked the same too – and when he combed his gloved fingers through it, it felt just as real, too.

He groaned, digging his fingers into his scalp.

And barely repressed his yelp when his fingers dug too deep, his skull giving way like it didn’t even exist-

Wait.

Danny looked his reflection straight in the eyes, slowly lifting his hands off of his head. He held them out in front of him, gently grasped one hand with the other.

Then, with all his force, he clenched his left hand – the one he had wrapped around the right.

Like he had expected, his right hand gave way easily. It squished like… like it had no bones. Like the tentacle of an ectopus. Like it was made entirely out of ectoplasm.

So that was another point for the GIW. And proof that this wasn’t his own body. He wouldn’t have to worry about taking care of himself – if he had no bones, his body likely followed all the basic ghost rules. Or what the GIW thought were the basics for ghosts. No food, no water, no sleep…

All the more time for Danny to figure out how to get out of here. Or how to break the simulation, or whatever this was.

Either way, he had to be careful with what he did, now. If the GIW really were responsible for this, they would be watching. Recording it, too. Anything he did could leave them more informed. Any powers he used that they didn’t know about yet would surely be turned against him in the future.

He wouldn’t even consider turning human. That wasn’t something they needed to know. Besides, he didn’t think he could do it, anyway. If this body was made according to what the GIW knew about Phantom, it wouldn’t have a human side to switch to, anyway. Unless the could alter his body – the simulation – to his own knowledge and will… But if that was the case, then surely he wouldn’t have been able to squash his own hand like that?

Anyway, not important. Now that he (probably) knew who were responsible for how he got here, and what, exactly, this was, he could go back to figuring out how to leave.

So it was a simulation, likely made by the GIW. Were they trying to study him? His behavior? Was this a way to separate his mind from his body, so they could dissect him without risking the loss of his mind?

This time he shivered physically. That was a line of thought he didn’t want to come back to.

He floated out of the lab again, hoping that the change of environment would help. Outside, the streets were still empty. The clouds had dispersed a little, the stars visible from the ground.

They served as another reminder of how wrong things were, here.

“Okay,” he said, softly. Danny didn’t make a habit out of talking to himself, but the eerie silence was starting to get to him.

“Okay,” he repeated, combing his fingers through his hair again. “So this isn’t Amity Park. This isn’t real. Fuck.”

When no answer came, he continued to fill the silence with his thoughts. So maybe it would reveal to the GIW that he had caught on to them. Whatever. If he had to listen to this nothingness for any longer he would go crazy.

“So this is just some kind of… simulation, or whatever. This isn’t my body, and it isn’t my world. I just need to… disconnect, somehow.” He shivered, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in his own skin. Or, well, not his own skin, but the body he was in control of.

For all that it had felt correct at first, now that he knew it was off, it started to bother him more and more. The feeling of air rushing through his lungs, the slow but steady feeling of his heart beating…

It was all missing.

Instead of letting the uncomfortable thoughts distract him, however, he focused on the feelings themselves. Focused on the differences between reality and this.

In his peripherals, he could see the world distorting. Glitching. It was falling apart, darkening steadily. Somehow simultaneously sharpening into clusters of pixels and fading out.

He lost feeling in his fingers. He couldn’t remember if he had ever felt his toes in this simulation.

Danny embraced the darkness eagerly.

When he came to, he was still surrounded by darkness. His eyes were closed. He was itching to open them, to check where he was, how he was-

But he could hear the voices of two adult men. They didn’t know he was awake yet.

“-But how could it know?” one man asked, frustration lacing his voice. “The simulation was nigh perfect! No ghost should be perceptive enough to figure it out!”

“Why do you think I know, K?” another replied, gruff and equally angry. “We both know that Phantom was unique. Maybe it’s just a little more special than we thought.”

So it was the GIW. He had already been pretty sure, but the confirmation was nice.

Just like the steady beat of his heart was nice. The feeling of air rushing through his airways, silently. The hidden warmth of his human form, even while he was in ghost form.

He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed that it was missing during the simulation.

“Whatever,” the first man – agent K, apparently – said. “Doesn’t matter. At least with its mind occupied, the little bastard can’t wake up. Even if it knows that it’s trapped in a simulation, it can’t break out of it, anyway.”

Hah! Or so they thought. Maybe he couldn’t have done it, had his body been correct. Focusing on the differences, on the mistakes, had been what allowed him to disassociate with the simulation, after all.

The sound of footsteps leaving, another pair of shoes scuffing the floor near him. Danny itched to open his eyes, but he wanted to maintain the illusion a little longer. If the GIW didn’t know that he was awake – that he could wake up – then that was his best weapon.

Instead he focused on exploring his environment with his other senses. He was lying on a flat metal surface, cold and hard. Not very surprising.

Neither were the hard cuffs around his wrists and ankles.

What was surprising was the lack of buzzing from them. Normally, anti-ghost weaponry gave of a faint whir ��� a feeling like static, the mishmash of conflicting energies. But these cuffs didn’t do that. Were they… were they really not ghost proof?

Were the GIW so sure of their simulation technology that they hadn’t bothered to lock him up properly?

“Hey, look at this,” agent K said. The pair of shoes that had remained near his table now also left. Not far, but…

Danny risked opening his eyes a little. The light was blinding, but he adjusted to it quickly. The lab looked exactly like what he would’ve expected from the GIW.

It also looked a lot like the lab in the simulation. How predictable.

Both of the agents had their backs turned to him. They were looking at something on a far table, but Danny couldn’t see what, exactly, that was. A glance downwards confirmed his initial suspicions – the cuffs didn’t seem to be ghost proof. They were ordinary metal.

He grinned, turning his arms intangible. Then he sat up, phasing them through the metal effortlessly. Idiots.

Suddenly one of the agents turned around. He could see himself reflected in the sunglasses the man wore – his vibrant green eyes glowing like hellfire.

“Shit,” the man swore, tugging on the sleeve of the other agent. “It’s awake, O!”

“What?!” The other agent – so agent O? – also whirled around, reaching for a weapon on his belt. “Impossible!” he said, despite looking at the evidence.

Not wanting to get further into this mess, Danny phased his legs out of the cuffs as well. He crouched on the table, ready to launch himself out of this building. Or the room, at least, since it didn’t seem to have a ghost shield. What were they, amateurs?

Agent K, still unarmed, held his hands out. Placatingly, maybe? “Wait,” he called, although Danny wasn’t sure if the man was speaking to him or to his colleague. “How’d you know?”

“What?” Danny asked, thrown off by the non-sequitur. “Know what?”

Now agent O also paused, apparently curious. His ecto-gun was in his hand, but still aimed downwards. Danny figured he had enough time to leave, should the man change his mind.

“That it was a simulation.” Agent K gestured with one of his hands, still raised. “How did you break out of it? It should’ve been foolproof!”

Danny frowned, then shrugged. “The stars were wrong. And after I noticed that, all the other things stood out, too.”

Agent O lowered his weapon even further. “But ghosts aren’t smart enough to see such things! They’re not observational enough to notice such things!”

“Uh,” Danny gestured at himself, “I beg to differ.”

Now the agent’s brows creased, the fingers around his gun clenching in anger. But before he could act on it, agent K pushed the other man back a step. “Don’t,” he warned. Then, turning back to Danny, he explained, “That goes against everything we know about ghosts.”

He snorted in answer. “Shows how little you know, doesn’t it?”

The man paused, seeming to think this over. Agent O, standing behind him, crossed his arms. He couldn’t get a direct shot on Danny with agent K standing in front of him.

Finally, agent K broke the silence again. He frowned at Danny, lowering his hands again. “This… This isn’t humane. This isn’t okay.”

He took a step back, forcing agent O further back too.

“Leave, Phantom. I can’t… I can’t support doing such a thing to a sentient being.”

Danny blinked, surprised. Automatically, he straightened up a little. “Really? I mean, uh.” He blushed, bright green creeping over his cheeks. “Thanks.”

Invisibility washed over him, Danny embracing the feeling. He lingered for a moment longer, but agent O immediately stormed off. Agent K lingered for a moment longer, sighing heavily.

“I should’ve known,” the man said to himself, so quiet that Danny could barely hear him. “I should’ve realized sooner.”

Convinced that the man had meant what he said, Danny left. No other part of the facility was shielded. He returned to Amity no worse for the wear.

The stars, blinking above him, sparkled their usual constellations. Just as he had always known them.

[master-sass-blast]

THIS IS HALLOWEEN!

Alright... twenty four likes... plus twenty-one kudos... plus two votes in the comments...

Forty-seven votes for the trick or treat fic. Guess you guys liked the idea, huh?

*grins* I liked it, too. So much that I wrote it.

Rated T. Minor sensual content. Basically no other warnings.

It’s fluff. That’s it.

Set after “Dig the Needle In.”

Pairings: Piotr Rasputin x Reader, Ellie Phimister x Yukio, and minor Nathan Summers x Wade Wilson.

If there’s one thing you’ve learned during your stay at the X-Mansion, it’s that if a day seemed to be proceeding normally, Wade Wilson would undoubtedly pop in and make it delightfully weird. It’s like he has a sixth sense for it. Ah, everything’s calm and not chaotic. Guess I gotta fix that.

Take right now, for instance. There’s a temporary air of calm in the X-Mansion. Students are done with their classes for the day, there aren’t any emergencies or missions to tend to, and all the chores are done for the day.

You’re currently on the couch in the rec room, snuggled up in the arms of your beefy boyfriend, Piotr Rasputin. He’s finally off for the day, and you managed to coax him into taking a bit of free time to do nothing with you.

It’s delightful. Heavenly, even. Absolutely nothing compares to being snuggled against your boyfriend’s massive, muscular chest. He’s not in defense mode right now, either, which means he’s warm and infinitely more comfortable.

Piotr sighs and tips his head back against the arm of the couch. “This is wonderful, myshka.”

You hum your agreement as you nestle yourself against him. The peaceful silence of the mansion, the warmth seeping off your boyfriend, the way you feel safe and loved in his arms... it’s perfect.

Cue Wade Wilson.

“Emo Christmas came early!” Wade shatters the silence with a gleeful scream as the back door smacks open with a bang. “Who wants presents?”

Piotr lets out an annoyed growl. “Wade--”

He doesn’t have time to get anything else out, because Wade picks that moment to chuck a bag of Halloween candy straight at your boyfriend’s head. “Sugar Santa came early --and came early, if you know what I mean.”

“I’ve been babysitting for the past two hours,” Nathan growls as he shoves Wade out of the way so he can step in the house. “He’s all yours now.”

“Okay, hey, no! You said you were going to help!” Wade whines as he pelts you and Piotr with bag after bag of Halloween themed candy.

“I did. I didn’t throw you out on the highway while you were screaming along to ‘Hamster Dance.’”

“Okay, I have several questions, the first of which is: ‘Emo Christmas?’” You ask.

“Halloween! Okay, I swear to the International House of Beese-Churgers that if you don’t know what Halloween is--”

“I know what Halloween is, idiot,” You interject before Wade can gain any real momentum. “I just didn’t catch why you were calling it ‘Emo Christmas.’ And why do you need this much candy? You can’t eat it all by yourself.”

“It’s for the kids! For trick or treating! Duh.” At your blank look, Wade stills. “Oh my Francis. Do you know what trick or treating is?”

You look at Wade, then Piotr. “What’s trick or treating?”

“Holy shit. You don’t know what fucking trick or treating is!”

“What part of ‘locked in my room for the better part of a duration’ seems conducive to ‘allowed to normal childhood things?’” You snap, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Whoa! Pump the hate brakes, Zaheer! I wasn’t mocking, just commiserating,” Wade explains as he taps at his phone. “This is a serious tragedy, and I’m going to treat it as such. Now, trick or treating was a tradition started by the pagan elder gods in the year of--”

“Children dress up in costumes and go from door to door in neighborhood to ask for candy,” Piotr interjects before Wade can build up too much speed.

“Hey! You ruined my dramatic story-telling!”

“It would’ve been bullshit anyway,” Nathan grumbles, still looming in the kitchen despite his threats to dump Wade into your hands and disappear.

“So, wait, hang on a second. Kids dress up in costumes? What kind of costumes?”

“Anything. Depends on preference,” Piotr says.

You nod, then slump slightly. “But you said it’s for kids. That means I can’t do it, doesn’t it.”

To your surprise, Piotr shakes his head. “The X-Men take students to Halloween theme park each year to get them out of house, let them experience normal childhood activities. Most of teachers dress up. I went as Dracula last year.”

You gape, delighted. “You went trick or treating?”

“Well, not specifically. I went to act as chaperone. But many of older students trick or treat, so I say you could too, if you want.”

“Wait.” Ellie walks into the room, holding Yukio’s hand. “That’s your ‘life or death emergency’ you texted us about? Fucking Halloween and trick or treating?”

“Excuse me for trying to be a good friend, Wednesday Addams! Hi, Yukio!”

“Hi, Wade!”

“Finally, some decent treatment! About time; this is my fucking franchise, after all! Okay, show of hands,” Wade says as Neena and Russell walk into the room. “How many of you have been trick or treating before?” When only Ellie and Piotr raise their hands, Wade gasps and presses his hands against his face. “Oh. My. Francis. How is this possible? This is a travesty! Even for ‘murder-pedophilia-orphanages’ and ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ levels of abusive guardianship! That tears it! We’re going trick or treating!”

“I’m diabetic, asshole,” Russell says. “I can’t eat the candy!”

“Oh, whatever the fuck! Give it to the younger mutants! Eat it anyway and spend the night in the infirmary! Stick it in Cyclops’s shoes and film his reaction when he realizes all his footwear is ruined! This about the group experience, the camaraderie! Work with me, Zuko!”

“Only do the first one,” Piotr adds while Wade catches his breath from his rant. “Do not do the other two. And we can get sugar-free candy for you, Russell.”

That smooths the pyrokinetic teen’s ruffled feathers. He nods with a grin. “Cool. I’m in.”

“Count me in, too,” Neena says. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

“It sounds like fun.” Yukio flashes a sweet grin at her girlfriend. “Can we join too?”

“Sure. I was already going for the haunted house.”

“Excellent! Y/N and Metallica are already going, and Cable doesn’t get a say because I’m forcibly abducting him!”

Nathan pinches the bridge of his nose and mutters something that vaguely sounds like a death threat.

You grin. This is gonna be fun!

Fun --and overwhelming.

Piotr had excused himself shortly after Wade’s none too tasteful victory dance, citing ungraded essays as an excuse. Most of the X-Force followed, offering various explanations --or, in Ellie’s case, saying she needed to bleach her brain after watching Wilson’s ‘ungodly, idiotic flailing.’

Before you could think to follow your boyfriend to safety, Wade had grabbed your and Nathan’s arms and sat the two of you down at the kitchen table for an official crash course on all things Halloween.

Movies. Costumes. Decorations. Themed treats. Official candy rankings. Pranks. Wade was an enthusiastic fire hydrant of knowledge, and he was using his healing factor as much as possible to limit his need for oxygen so he could spew out information to keep Cable from interrupting him.

Two hours in, and you’re well past your limit. While Wade’s back is turned, you fire off a quick text to your boyfriend.

It’s been two hours. Wade’s still talking. Save me.

I’m in my art studio. Come see me?

“Hey!” Wade smacked his hand on the table, making you jump. “Pay attention! I don’t want to go through my discourse on jack-o-lanterns twice!”

Next to you, Nathan rolls his eyes. “Get on with it, dildo rack.”

You wait until Wade’s back is turned again --he’s rummaging through the fridge, which is just extra points in your favor--then nudge Nathan’s leg with your foot. “If you help me escape, I’ll owe you.”

He raises an eyebrow at you. “What’s it worth to ya?”

You wait until Wade’s sufficiently distracted again, then make the best offer you can think of. “Next April Fool’s. I’ll help you prank the shit out of Wade. All my best ideas and deep, dark knowledge from being his best friend. At your disposal. Plus twenty bucks.”

He smirks, then nods. “Deal. I’m gonna hold you to it.”

“Then you better make my escape good, dude.”

Nathan leans back in his seat for a moment, eyeing Wade as the merc flails around the kitchen, gesticulating as he starts ranting about how Mounds aren’t actual candy --again. Then, he shoves his seat back, grabs Wade by the collar of his shirt, and drags him off to the rec room.

You blink --then bolt out of the kitchen.

An exit is an exit, after all.

Piotr’s seated at his special angled table in his art studio, carefully lining a new drawing with a fine tipped pen. Even when he’s in his human form, he’s still so unbelievably delicate with everything he does. The light attached to his drawing table is on to help compensate for the quickly falling night, and his reading glasses are perched halfway down his nose --because, yes, he draws with glasses so his eyes are protected.

You enter carefully, making sure to announce your presence with noise so you don’t startle him and make him smudge his lines (he doesn’t get mad at you when it happens, but you can see the resigned frustration in does happen, and you always feel so awful for it). “I think I might’ve sold my soul to the devil on accident.”

“And how did you do that?”

“I agreed to help Cable prank Wade for April Fool’s if he helped me escape the kitchen.”

“I’m not sure which is worse: you made deal with Cable, or you made deal with Cable against Wade. For April Fool’s.”

“Hey, you never know. It could turn out amazing.” You wrap your arms around his waist as he takes his glasses off. “What’cha doin’?”

“Oh, I was --uh--working on some... designs.”

You peer around his burly shoulders to get a good look at the paper on his desk.

There’s two figures sketched out on the page --a male one and a female one. The male figure is tall, with broad shoulders and thick legs. The female figure is considerably shorter than her male counterpart, with an oddly familiar silhouette...

“Is that me? Wait, that’s you, too. Did you draw us?”

The tips of Piotr’s ears turn red. “Da. I... I thought we could dress up in couple’s costumes. I decided to work on some designs.”

You realize, for the first time since you entered his art studio, that there’s a small stack of papers on the arm of his arm chair. Beyond curious, you flash him a begging, purposefully adorable smile. “Can I look? Please?”

He consents with a nod, and goes back to working on the sketches in front of him.

You flip through the pages he’s already finished. Each design is meticulously crafted, detailed with delicate lines and sumptuous colors. There’s a wide array of choices, ranging from airy fantasy designs to terrifying horror choices.

It takes your breath away --first, because Piotr’s an incredible artist with a vast set of skills, and second because his efforts to making your first real Halloween so memorable and wonderful are making your heart melt.

The designs he’s already finished are all perfect and excellent choices in their own right, but you keep coming back to the page he’s working on. Something about it --maybe the color choices, maybe the way he’s interpreted the source material--keeps drawing you back in.

Eventually, you give in to your instincts and carefully tap the page he’s working on. “This one. I like this one.”

You’re in the library, curled up on one of the plush couches while you work on grading a set of essays for Logan’s history course. You’re partially tucked under a blanket --a perfect cozy counterpart to the steady drizzle of fall rain outside.

You let out a sigh of relief as you finish the last essay --Logan’s classes were either filled with half-assers or over-killers, no middle ground to speak of--and relax against the couch. You let your eyes close, just for a moment, as the aches of sitting in the same position for so long slowly work their way out of your body. You stretch your legs out and readjust your position so that you’re laying on the couch, instead of half-sitting, half reclining.

Just for a moment. Or so you tell yourself.

Unsurprisingly, a moment turns into several moments, which turns into you slowly dozing off on the couch. You’re almost out, just barely floating on the edge of consciousness, when your blanket tugging up around you brings you back to the surface.

You inhale sharply as you wake back up and let out a little squeaking noise.

“Sorry.” Piotr smiles apologetically as he brushes a few wayward strands of hair away from your face. “I wasn’t trying to wake you.”

“Oh. Hi, Pete.” You smile sleepily and stretch. “What’s up?”

“It can wait. I don’t want to disturb your rest.”

“No, it’s fine. ‘m awake.” You lurch into a sitting position and crane your head up so you can see his face --because even when he’s in his human form, he’s an utter giant. “How can I help you?”

“I need to take your measurements for costumes. I figured we’d go to my studio to avoid interruptions.”

You grin and lift your arms up. “By all means. Take me away, big guy.”

The measurements go smoother than you expected. Piotr’s surprisingly adept with the measuring tape, and he whisks through the sets of measurements like a pro.

You do manage to make him blush when he measures your chest, though, so it’s a victory, all in all.

When he starts talking fabric lengths and types, you realize that he wasn’t thinking about buying costume pieces from a party store. “Hang on --you can sew?”

“Not many clothes come in my size. For special occasions, it’s easier to make for myself than try to shop in store or online. It’s also handy for when I tear my clothes --more cost efficient to repair than replace.”

Well, that makes sense. Besides, it’s not like Piotr’s ever been the beacon of stereotypical, ‘kill-something-and-eat-it’ masculinity.

You suppose it’s the size. Trying to imagine someone as big as your boyfriend handling something as delicate as sewing is almost impossible.

He gives you a confused look when you start giggling. “What? What’s so funny?”

“It’s just --your hands! They’re so big!” You hold your hands up to his, as if to prove your point. “How do you not sew over your own fingers?”

He favors you with a soft, amused grin. “I am very careful.”

“I suppose that would do it.” You laugh again. “I mean, if that’s what would take, I’d have multiple holes through my fingers before I even turned the machine on.”

“Which is why I am sewing and you are not.”

You giggle again as you wrap your arms around his waist. “So. What’s next?”

“Next, we go to fabric store.”

The trip to the fabric store is surprisingly less disastrous than you thought it’d be --though that probably has more to do with your boyfriend’s focus and organization and less to do with your penchant for being an unhelpful, if adorable, nuisance. You amuse yourself with pointing to various bolts of fabric --none of which actually fit the look you’re going for--and taking weird selfies while Piotr finds what the two of you actually need. Eventually --specifically, after your third attempt to drape a length of neon green spandex over his head--he’d gently plopped you in the cart, set the materials he’d already found in your lap, and designated you the ‘official holder.’

You’d pouted, but it also got you out of standing around while he mulled over different shades of black and gray, so you weren’t complaining too much.

After you’d spent a good three minutes heckling him for being so obsessive with the colors, he’d relented with a laugh, settled on a choice, and wheeled the cart --and you--to the cutting table before heading to the check out.

The two of you had headed home --after he’d denied you a trip to McDonald’s for a milkshake, citing you ‘already being wound up enough,’ whatever that meant--with your costume supplies in tow. You’d manned the radio the whole way back to Xavier’s, singing and dancing in your seat.

Somewhere, in the chaos of trying to get everything inside while the sky unleashed buckets of rain at you and placating a very offended Wade, who was upset that he wasn’t invited along for the store run, you were hit by a sudden rush of emotion.

Maybe it was Piotr’s amazingly unfailing patience as he dealt with Wade, maybe it was the way his damp hair spiked and held together when he ran his fingers through it, or maybe it was his continuing dedication in supporting your effort to reclaim your lost childhood, but you suddenly realized that you loved him.

Not like the “I love you” love --you’d already come to terms with that, you told him “I love you” on a regular basis. No, like “long term” love. “Marriage” love. “Raising kids and growing old” love.

You’d mentioned the idea of marrying him after rescuing him from Harmony --the tale of ‘Cassidy Rasputin’ lives on, much to your chagrin--but you hadn’t really processed it. You hadn’t lied --because who wouldn’t want to marry the literal domestic and explicit wet dream that can also turn into metal--but it’d just... sort of been a ‘in the moment, holy shit you almost died’ sort of thing. Neither of you had mentioned it afterwards.

But now? Now you want it. This isn’t a ‘you almost died and I’m overly emotional but not misleading you’ sort of feeling. This is a ‘fuck, I want this to be the rest of my life’ feeling.

You swallow hard as you watch your boyfriend disentangle himself from another ‘hug’ attempt by Wade. Fuck. How am I going to deal with this?

“Neena!” You skip down the stairs, careful to not trip over the hem of your dress. “Neen-er Wiener!”

“I thought I told you to stop calling me that!”

“Hey, this is an emergency situation! I had to break out the big guns!”

You’re done up in your costume --Persephone, Greek goddess of Spring and the Underworld. Your light green, floaty dress --which is surprisingly warmer than it looks, because Piotr one hundred percent looked up the weather forecast for Halloween to make sure you were insulated properly--is decorated with various fake flowers and an ombre effect from the green of the fabric to black along the bottom of the skirt. Your hair is piled on the top of your head in the most elaborate style you can manage, and a crown made out of flowers and costume jewels sits on top of your head.

Neena --dressed as Michonne from ‘The Walking Dead’--grins at you. “Damn. You look good. What’s the emergency?”

You hold out an eyeliner pen to her. “I need you to wing my liner. My makeup took forever, and I don’t want to mess up. I need Lady Luck on my side.”

She laughs and nods at the kitchen. “Come on.”

Piotr’s already in the kitchen, dressed as an impressive Hades in a floor length black toga and cloak, head tipped back as Ellie traces a ring of eyeliner around his eyes.

“Looks like I’m not the only who needs help with their eyeliner. Looking good, babe.”

Ellie steps back so he can sit up. “Damn. Your costume looks good.” She nudges her mentor’s shoulder. “You really went all out, huh?”

Piotr grins bashfully and shrugs. “I don’t get to do this very often. It was fun.”

You smile at him. “Hey, I’m not complaining. I can’t remember the last time I looked this fabulous.”

“You always look fabulous.” Neena taps your shoulder. “Sit down. Let’s do this.”

“What are you supposed to be, Neg?” You ask while Neena starts applying your eyeliner.

“Yukio and I are going as different representations of goth culture. She’s going as Lolita goth, I’m going as American goth.”

“So, you basically get to go in your clothes,” You say as you try to hold as still as possible. “That was smart.”

“Well, not all of us are on the X-Men payroll and can afford to make really elaborate costumes.”

“I would’ve made you something if you had asked,” Piotr mumbles sheepishly.

Ellie shakes her head. “Nah. We’re having fun. We’re getting to learn more about each other’s culture this way.”

“That’s cool.” Neena steps back and caps the pen. “Two even wings. Lady Luck is on our side.”

You examine your perfectly pointy eyeliner wings in the mirror, and--

And it’s a good thing Neena got them done so fast, because holy fucking shitballs.

“Looks like I’m fashionably late. Perfect.”

You gape. Your brain stops. You can’t breathe.

Across the table, Ellie just looks traumatized. “What the actual shit, Douche-Pool?!”

Wade --resplendent in a red and black, long sleeved leotard patterned like his suit, black fishnet stockings, a pair of black, spike heel thigh highs, and his mask--leans against the door frame in what would’ve been a seductive pose if he hadn’t been the one doing it. “Like it? I’m ‘Sexy Deadpool.’”

“Oh god, I need brain bleach,” Ellie manages. “Lots of it. Right now.”

“I think you look nice, Wade,” Yukio chimes in. “I like your shoes.”

“Thank you. Finally, I get some decent treatment around here! I mean--”

Whatever Wade says next --you suspect it’s another ‘franchise’ comment--sails over your head when the final two members of your team walk into the kitchen.

Russell, who looks beyond cool dressed as a the Joker, and--

“Holy shit!” You start laughing, stunned out of your ‘I saw way more of Wade than ever wanted to’ induced shock.

Nathan, looking world-weary and mildly pissed off, is dressed as Terminator.

“That’s awesome,” you say as you clap your hands. “How did Wade get you in that?”

“I can be persuasive! You’d be surprised what people will agree to while under the influence of cocaine.”

“Shut up, dipshit. You didn’t drug me. I chose this on my own.”

“No.” You feel like you’re about to have an aneurysm, it’s so amazing. “No way.”

“There’s not many options for a cyborg, believe it or not,” Wade says with a sigh. “Discrimination. It knows no limits.”

“Christ, I chose it because it was practical, you fucking butt plug.”

“Mm, I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

“Wade.” Piotr presses the heel of his hand against his forehead, careful not to smudge Ellie’s efforts with his eye makeup. “First, just stop. Please. Second, your costume is not... appropriate. There are children going with us.”

“Relax, discount Silver Surfer. I have a coat. It goes halfway down my thighs. No unnecessary scarring tonight, okay?”

“You’re not going to get anything better out of him,” You murmur in Piotr’s ear. You pat his shoulder when he relents with a sigh.

“Fine. Coat stays on while children are present. No arguing.”

“Damn. Are you that good with commands in the bedroom? Hey, Y/N, is he secretly a dom?”

“You should know I’m not answering that question,” You fire back.

“We should go,” Piotr says as he stands. “It is lengthy drive to destination.”

You’re halfway to the door when you realize you left your candy bag upstairs. “Ah, shit snacks. I mean crud. I’ll be right back. I forgot something.” You dart upstairs and into your room. “Alright, where did I leave that fucker?”

You find the bag tucked under your pillow --you’re not sure how it got there, but you don’t have time to question it. You shake it out, smile, then freeze.

This is your first big event out since your stay at your uncle’s. You’re getting better, but you don’t have any serum to tuck in your bag in case an emergency strikes --and you’ll also be a couple hours away from the safe rooms designed to handle lapses in control like yours.

Nervousness coils in the pit of your stomach. You haven’t had an episode for a couple weeks, but you don’t want to push your luck.

A gentle knock on the door frame pulls you out of your spiraling panic. You glance over your shoulder and see Piotr watching you. You hold up your bag with a weak smile. “Found it.”

He smiles softly, but his eyes are knowing. “What’s wrong, myshka?”

You gulp. “I’m scared. I don’t want to have an episode while we’re out.”

He lets out a gentle sigh and holds his arms out to you. “Come here, lyublyu.”

You eagerly step into his arms. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I know. And I don’t think you will. You’ve been doing so much better.”

You frown down at your shoes. “I just wish I had some of the serum with me. Just in case.”

“No, myshka. It’s not good for you.”

“I know, I know! I’m just scared!”

He hugs you against his chest and kisses the top of your head. “It’s going to be okay. And, if you start feeling bad, I’ll drive you back. Khorosho?”

The terrified part of you knows that once you start going, there’s no transport fast enough to get you to a safe place.

The rational part of you, the part of you that’s been dutifully working with your therapist to reach a healthier mindset, knows that you’re going to be alright. Your stress has been significantly lower over the past few weeks. You’ve been meditating and journaling diligently. You’re going out to do something fun, with your friends and your boyfriend. All the factors are in your favor.

You take a deep breath, then nod. “Yeah. Come on.” You yank Piotr down the hall and towards the stairs, as though he were the one causing the delay. “I’ve got candy to score.”

The Halloween park is amazing. Hands down, one of the top five coolest places you’ve ever been.

There’s a trick or treating run that the kids and teens --and you; you pair up with some of the shyer kids--do, loading your bags up with as much candy as you can bear to carry. Piotr comes with, acting as a translator for Sasha and Katya and generally looking amused by and smitten with you.

There are also “haunted hayrides” that run through the woods that sit behind the park. It’s pretty cheesy --plastic skeletons and pop up mummies--but you still beam from ear to ear while the students gasp and shriek.

On Piotr’s advice, you steer clear of the haunted house. It looks interesting --and definitely less campy than the hayrides--but according to him it’s an intense run.

“Not that I don’t trust your control, dorogaya moya, but I’m not sure you’re ready for this.”

When Russell emerges twenty minutes later looking somewhat traumatized, you’re happy with your choice to stay with your boyfriend and help him manage the gaggle of sugared-up kids.

There’s more mutant groups than just Xavier’s, and you wind up running into a bunch of people who want to take yours and his picture. The two of you make for quite a striking pair, with you in you sweet, almost angelic Spring costume as Persephone and him in layers of flowing black --completed by a pair of red contacts that he put in once he was done driving.

Wade and Nathan are also stopped for countless pictures, mostly by teens who think Nathan’s costume is hilarious and that Wade, for reasons the merc can’t completely fathom, looks fabulous.

“I mean, I get the costume looks good, but they’re saying I look good. Are they blind? Are they fucking with me?”

“What do I keep telling you, gorgeous?” Somehow, Nathan manages to make the line sound borderline insulting. The small smile he follows it with, however, is anything but.

The festivities conclude with an announcement that Neena won the raffle for the two hundred dollar value candy bag, complete with gourmet chocolate.

Wade whines, furious at losing, before he does a double take when Russell walks past. “Hang on,” he says. “That character’s not in the Marvel franchise! This is a fanfic, isn’t it?”

In short, it’s a perfect night.

As you head back to the car, walking hand in hand with Piotr, you can’t help but feel that you’re going to have a lot more of these.

You’re sitting on Piotr’s bed, sorting your massive load of candy to see what you managed to pick up. You’re in your pajamas and your hair is damp from your shower, make-up and hairspray long since washed away.

It’s been an amazing night. A magical night.

You tear open a fun size bag of M&Ms --right when Piotr walks out of the bathroom.

“It’s midnight, moya lyubov’. You don’t need sugar.”

You look him right in the eye as you pour the whole bag into your mouth. “Fight me.”

He shakes his head with a soft laugh and eyes the spread of candy currently dominating his bed. “Are we sleeping on the floor tonight?”

“Hey, Wade said that sorting out your candy was a vital component to Halloween. I’m about halfway through; I’ll put it all back when I’m done, but I need to take stock of my spoils, Piotr. These are hard earned prizes!”

He chuckles and favors you with a soft look that you know means he’s feeling a little sappy for some reason. “Do you mind if I draw you while you ‘take inventory?’”

Ah. There it is.

Your face flushes, but you nod anyway. “Sure --as long as you don’t want me to hold still.” You resume sorting out your candy while he sits down in his desk chair, but you’re highly aware of him watching you now, of the way his gaze studies you while you place fun-sized candies into neat piles.

You’re not sure what, exactly, makes this a ‘draw-able’ moment to him. It’s mundane, almost silly. You’re just sorting out candy like a kid, without any real rhyme or reason --even though Wade gave you a formal list ranking all the popular Halloween candies, you’re pretty sure most of it’s bullshit anyway.

You suppose, though, that sentiment means different things to different people. Kind of how some people --Wade--thought that the Transformers saga was the pinnacle of cinematic beauty while other people --literally anyone else--thought it was hot, shitty, explosion-laden garbage.

Besides, it could jut be a case of the potential nostalgia of the moment being lost on you. You lack the perspective required to tell whether this is going to be a highly sentimental moment for you years down the road. Piotr, on the other hand, has probably seen the kids at the mansion do this enough times to know that it’s objectively adorable and worth committing to physical memory in some fashion.

Or maybe it’s just because it’s your first time doing any of this ever. Which, yeah, first times of anything do warrant some special treatment --and, god, you’re glad Wade’s not here right now. You’re glad that he manages to miss your unintentional innuendo moments ninety percent of the time, because holy shit he can be insufferable if he thinks --knows--he’s witnessed some comedy gold.

And, back to the main point, you suppose that different people just flat out label different memories as ‘golden hued.’ This moment might not be it for you, but there were plenty of instances over the course of the night. Namely, getting to wear a costume for the first time, going on the hayrides and enjoying the campy horror, watching Piotr work with the kids --and those moments had been particularly entrancing. You’d had to snap yourself out of a giddy daze several times and remind yourself that those weren’t your kids he was interacting with, and that the two of you weren’t actually married the way you’d envisioned in your head, and that you didn’t have a family of hyperactive munchkins, and--

“--and I’ve just been talking out loud the entire time, haven’t I?”

You have. If the dryness of your mouth and throat weren’t telling enough, Piotr’s bright red cheeks and shocked expression definitely are.

He’s sitting in his chair, pencil poised a few inches above his drawing pad. His blue eyes are impossibly wide, and he looks like he’s seen the face of God.

Oops. This wasn’t how you’d planned to tell your boyfriend that you wanted to marry him and make a family with him. No, that was definitely a Valentine’s Day or anniversary sort of thing --you know, go all out, expensive date and hotel, confess post a couple rounds of love making. Definitely not a mindless ramble while sorting out candy like a fourth grader after trick or treating--

“--and I’m talking out loud again. Dammit.”

“Language, dorogaya moya,” Piotr murmurs, broken out of his shock by your profanity. He sets his pencil and drawing pad on his desk, then crosses his bedroom and sits down next you, careful to not disturb your hard work. He takes your hands in his and gives you a shy, impossibly hopeful look. “You... want to get married? To have family? With me?”

“Well, like, eventually. Yeah. I mean, I think I’ve got some shit to work out first --and I say ‘shit’ because it is exactly that--but once I’m... better... yeah.” Your face feels like it’s on fire, but you don’t look away from him. “I love you, Piotr. I thought that was obvious.”

“I love you too, Y/N. I just...” He pauses to smile, and he looks so thrilled and awestruck that it makes your heart melt. “I know you mentioned it after Harmony, but then you didn’t say anything else. I thought it was... ‘we almost died’ sort of thing.”

“Well, it sort of was, but it wasn’t. I wouldn’t say something like that if I didn’t mean it, Pete. And, I mean, after Harmony I wasn’t in a good place. I didn’t really think about...”

He kisses the top of your head when your voice trails off. “It’s okay, myshka. I understand.”

You swallow hard, but soldier on, determined to finish the point you were trying to make. “And I mean it now. But not in a ‘we almost died’ sort of way. I mean it in a... in a ‘I love you so much it hurts and I really, really, really want this’ way. In a ‘yes, I want this to be my future, just give me time to get better’ way. What I’m trying to say is--” You stop to wet your lips, even though your mouth’s gone dry “--I love you, Piotr Rasputin, and I know I want to marry you someday. I know I want to do that, and I know I want to have a family with you. The fact that I’m not there yet doesn’t change that I know and want it.”

Piotr’s eyes are shining with happy tears, and he gives you the biggest, most wonderful smile you’ve ever seen. “I love you too, myshka. And I want that too. Everything you’ve said. Bozhe moi, I’ve never wanted anything more.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be better enough to do all that--”

He kisses each of your cheeks softly. “I know it will take time. You’re in driver’s seat, okay? You decide when you’re ready. Whenever that happens. I’m happy to wait.”

Okay, and now your eyes are stinging with happy, mushy tears because, fuck, he’s so wonderful and kind and--

“--And I’m talking out loud again. Motherfu-- just come here.” You loop your arms around his neck and pull him in for a kiss.

“You should finish sorting candy,” he says when the two of you part. “Otherwise, we will never sleep.”

“Nope.” You begin shoveling your candy back into your bag. “This can wait until tomorrow. I’ve got more important things to do right now.” You drop your refilled bag onto the floor by his bed and clamber into his lap. “C’mere, you.”

The kiss, which starts sweet and gentle, quickly turns into unabashed making out. You moan into his mouth as he swirls his tongue around yours, and he groans as your hands tug at his hair. You let out a sharp gasp when his hands slide down your back and squeeze your ass, and push him onto his back --which only works because he’s happy to humor you; if he actually felt like resisting, you’d never be able to move him.

You let out a soft, happy sigh as his hands skim up your back and under your shirt, smoothing over your soft skin.

You don’t know what the future holds. You don’t know how long it’ll take to get your episodes under control.

But you do know that you love Piotr with all your heart, and that he loves you with all of his.

For now, that’s more than enough.

[bakashidan]

TaS - The Sims 4 Farr Dynasty (1#1)

I’ve played TS4 for so long and have done lots of challenge (though without ever sharing about my experiences), but I have never had done the legacy challenge. Seeing that I currently have nothing to do in my game aside from the 30-days Build It challenge, obviously I decided to have a little fun with one of the biggest, oldest challenge around  🙌

Instead of creating a new sim from scratch, I picked out a randomly generated townie. This allowed me to have a completely random sim whose traits and aspiration are alien to me - since I have a tendency to make my sims look and have certain traits - while also introducing me to the freak show that is Maxis’s choice of... well, je ne sais quoi.

The game did a good job on utilizing all my cc, that’s for sure.

So here is the founder of the soon-to-be Farr Dynasty: Robin Farr.

Driven out of home by her parents, Robin Farr promises to create a far (pun not intended) greater legacy to prove her worth. She moves out to a small island near Windenburg, settling down on an empty land, with what little changes she’s saved up from her job as a leaf cutter. That’s right, folks. Our miss Farr is a gardener. Now that’s something I’ve never truly played with, despite having the seasons expansion. 

Following the basic rules of the challenge, the succession laws I follow are gender equality, traditional, merit, and brood. I considered the exemplar law, but then again it would be far more interesting to see which child tries to lick ass the most :D plus I rarely interact with children in my game plays, so the hates children trait really sits well with me. What doesn’t sit well instead is the scoring sheet, since I will most likely forget to tally all my dos and don’ts to even know my score at all due to college works. I also set down the quality to laptop mode due to having to work on another 3D rendering program, so my graphic in game looks quite crap.

Traits: Romantic, Geek, and Hates children. Hmmm.

After setting my money to §1800, I had to send her off to work because the damn phone is starting to explode with the boss’s calls. She brought home §175, a meager sum which I doubt would even be useful at all to help me build a house - SOOO I set her out to visit the neighbors, the Bro household and the Bjergsens. Robin had free meals over at the Bros’ and introduced herself to Bjorg Bjergsen and his smallest daughter, whom she had the misfortune of having to entertain. That little interaction gave her a 6 hours tense moodlet, lol.

That being said, right after the little imp scampered away to play in a leaf pile, Bjorg made a move on Robin and DUH, of course she retaliated back. They were watching a romantic movie together, sitting by each other’s side with flirtatious jokes flung around, generally having a really suggestive time a homeless person and a rich father of two shouldn’t be having. Then Clara Bjergsen came in, and Bjorg got embarrassed just in time before his wife caught on them. Robin left the house with a plate of warm turkey dinner and a dirty little secret I might had planned to cultivate.

She left the house to go back and sleep at the Bros’, I might add. That earned her a negative relationship with Joaquin, but also a significant boost to her romantic relationship with Sergio for no other reason than all the flirting the two kept doing because they were under the influence of the steamy ginseng juice Joaquin brewed. So much for trying to get her out of the house, Le Chien.

The romance went steady even with all the sneaking around Bjorg led Robin to do - he asked her to dinner right after he fought with Clara, took her to the humor and hijinks festival, and had a date to the park - and at the end of the day, Sergio’s romance meter was higher than Bjorg’s. Fuck it, I thought. Persuading good ole Bjorg to get a divorce is way harder than marrying Sergio. On their third dinner date Robin asked Sergio out, and he immediately followed up with a proposal. It might be because they were celebrating his birthday or whatever, dunno, but she said yes - and they eloped on impulse Θ_Θ)> The news didn’t sit well with Bjorg, who asked Robin out to another outing right after her sudden wedding.

He hated it. The old man argued with Robin and threw her drinks until suddenly, Clara Bjergsen came inside the bar, looking shocked to see her husband so violent. It prompted him to stop fighting with Robin, but the deed is done and the love is gone. Whatever fling they had had gone down the drain, even as Robin tried to smoothly recover and apologize (jackass had the nerves to shove her in response!). So I moved her out of the bar, heading to the art gallery, a place where she usually unwinds... with Jade Dragon. Seriously though, this game needs a heavy PG rating - and not just because there are super R-rated mods in the community :>

After three plates of chicken nuggets and unwinding with the bubble blower, I couldn’t force the poor girl to walk home when she’s already jackshit hammered. 

So she slept in the art gallery and was late to her work - oh, joy! - and I automatically switched to Sergio. He was chatting up Joaquin in front of a Japanese restaurant I put in Newcrest and Joaquin didn’t exactly look thrilled about it; so maybe he was asking Joaquin to be a godfather or something? Is this a sign from SimGod that some ~spicy~ woohoo is on the way that night?

Anyhow, because the lad had a day off, I fulfilled all the requirements for his promotion and bought some basic furniture to fill a 6x8 room. I crammed a (used) double futon, a baby basket, a toddler bed, a high chair, a fridge, a toilet, a bath tub, and a workstation as efficient as I could and bought some more decoration mod that resembled hastily given wedding gifts (clothes rack, shoe rack, and an ‘adults only’ neon sign that I put up for no other reason than looking cool during nighttime). Must’ve been heaven for Sergio, seeing as he was a materialistic sim. Building the whole room costed me an arm and a leg, and when Robin came back home the two of them had a quick, free meal to save on their food expenses.

Later that night, Joaquin invited Robin to dinner and Sergio tagged along. True to their action earlier, the bros started talking again about SimGod-knows-what and the conversation took a pretty strange turns when bubbles of sun, diaper, baseball gloves, and an anti-Sergio one poured out of Joaquin’s mouth lol. Is he rejecting Sergio’s offer? Is he dissing his bro? Is he really not bad-mouthing Robin, the one whom he had bad relations with?

Sims are... fickle????????

“Yo, what the fuck, bro.” -Sergio 2k19

On the side notes, while these three were having a serious conversation, the Landgraab couples came and copulated in front of the entry way. I never would’ve seen it coming, not even when the blue notification box popped up and notified the whole world about their intimate times. I luuurve WickedWhims, but sometimes it’s just too much hassle - both the setting and the random sex pair ups. Teen Alexander Goth came by and excitedly took a picture of the event (shame that NPCs can’t exactly take a picture, though).

Even more later on that night, after they went back to Joaquin’s place from dinner, a certain someone couldn’t keep their hands inside their pockets and flirted a lot. And by a lot, I mean a whole damn lot. Sergio finally won over Robin’s reluctance and they tried for baby inside his old closet while Joaquin took over Sergio’s old bed and slept on it. It took a single try for Robin to carry a kid from the suave tech guru, whereas with Bjorg none of the hot dilly dally even produced in anything but the cum slut spermatozoa fluid hussy moodlet. Good thing she broke up with Bjorg, right?

No.

God, I don’t even want to relish the next part ever again. Possibly one the worst drama I’ve witnessed in sim history, even with the knowledge that all kinds of activity that happens is probably mutually agreed upon. But hey, the worst is yet to come... I think. And the next part of our first generation is going to be a grim and heavy, but I won’t forget to add all the cute parts that popped up here and there. Rewriting my experience so far has made me realize just how dramatic a sims gameplay can be 🤔🤣

Special thanks to all the amazing creators whose mods I use during my gameplay, and to ChilliP0uch for talking me into joining this challenge ♥

[5hfanfiction]

New Kind of Love ~ Chapter Nine: Weather

Camila walked out of the school, content that it was the start of another weekend.

She needed time to think. She needed time away from Lauren. She needed time to think about the kiss.

As she approached her house, she spotted her mom’s car in the driveway and sighed with relief with the knowledge that she wouldn’t have to be alone with her step father.

She reached into her pocket, and got out her house keys, slowly opening the front door with the slightest creak.

As soon as she took her first step through the doorway, she could hear the voices of her mom and step father talking to each other in the living room. Camila had to bite back a frown upon seeing her step father’s arm lazily draped around her mother’s shoulders.

“Oh, hey, Mija. How was school?” her mom asked enthusiastically.

Camila’s face was emotionless as she stared at her abusive step father cozied up to her mother on the couch.

“Good…I’m going upstairs,” Camila deadpanned, turning on her heels.

“Wait, Mija?” Camila heard her mother say from behind her—to which she responded with a roll of her eyes, and turned back around.

“Your father and I are going to Uncle Santiago’s party on Monday. Did you want to come with us?” her mother asked with a tiny bit of hope laced within her question.

Camila cringed when her mom referred to her step father, as her father—that man was nowhere near a father figure to Camila, in any shape, nor form.

“No, I’m good. I’ll be in my room,” Camila tried her best not to snap at her mother. After all, she didn’t know about anything that had been going on in Camila’s life—just like it had been basically all of Camila’s life. So, the brunette turned around, and headed up to her room without uttering another word.

She laid her book bag down onto the floor, only to immediately collapse onto her bed. For the millionth time that day, thoughts of Lauren and the kiss came flushing into her memory.

She brought her hand up to her forehead, closed her eyes, and let out a stressful sigh. Her feelings for Lauren were already starting to get out of hand, and the kiss just made the situation worse. Only a few quiet minutes had passed when she heard a faint knock at her door.

“Mija?” Camila heard her mother call out from the other side of her closed bedroom door.

“Yeah?” Camila huffed, eyes still closed, and hand still rested across her forehead.

Her mother walked into her room, closing the door behind her. Camila finally opened her eyes, but still kept her eyes trained on the ceiling.

“How have you been feeling lately?” her mom inquired, leaning her back against her daughter’s now closed bedroom door.

“Good,” Camila answered with nonchalance, putting forth her best effort to cover her stress. She wasn’t doing a very good job at it.

Her mother let out a sigh, and Camila had to prevent herself from giving an eye roll with desire for her mother to just leave already.

“Camila, I know that you miss your father, but just-” her mom started, and Camila was quick to cut her off.

“What? No. I’m just-no. I just have a headache and I have a bunch of homework so…I’m just tired.”

“Are you sure?” her mom asked.

Camila thought about it for a second. She wanted to say no. She wanted to tell her mom about everything—about Lauren, about being…bisexual (?), about the abuse. Her mom had been trying so hard to reach out to her. But she just couldn’t.

She hesitated. But she just couldn’t.

“Yeah…I’m just tired, mom,” Camila mumbled. She finally turned to look at her mom, and the hurt furrow in her mom’s brows made Camila avert her gaze back to the ceiling in a hint for her mom to just leave—to not make this harder than it had to be.

“Well, I just wanted you to know that we won’t be here when you come back from school on Monday so, yeah…” her mom sighed out. Her daughter—after somany years of offering—still didn’t want to open up. And she was beginning to accept that maybe Camila would never open up to her.

Camila nodded and an awkward silence took over before her mother finished the conversation with; “Okay…I love you.”

“Love you too,” Camila replied. And with that, she listened to the door creak to a close, followed by footsteps heading downstairs.

Camila had always been quite closed off with her mother. Not because she didn’t love her, or anything. Just solely based on the fact that she never wanted her mom to overreact about the little things. She had always felt extremely guilty for being so closed off. Her mom, as well as her three best friends, were the only people who had remained a constant in her life and she wasn’t open to any of them. She could never pinpoint a reason as to why she had always been so naturally closed off. She just was—always has been.

Once again, her mind drifted back to Lauren. For some reason, she felt like she could tell Lauren anything. She had known her for about three weeks, and she had told the green eyed girl more about herself, than she had ever told anyone in her entire life.

Butterflies erupted in her stomach as she thought of the raven haired girl. She thought of what she was going to say to Lauren on Monday. She thought of what Lauren might say. She thought of what would happen if she told Lauren that the kiss meant nothing to her.

Then, she thought of what would happen if her and Lauren actually started dating. She thought of how she had been hiding her sexuality for all of her life, only to be revealed as “openly gay” in a relationship with the school’s notorious badass. She thought of how she was going to ever get a girlfriend if she never wanted to be openly gay. The opportunity was perfectly laid out in front of her—an openly gay, extremely attractive and sweet girl, seemingly reflecting romantic feelings for Camila. Maybe Lauren was a sign that she should finally step out of the closet.

Camila sat up in her bed, and turned on her television to distract her from her thoughts.

—-

The weekend passed at a surprisingly slow pace.

Usually the weekends would pass faster than Camila could blink. The weekend basically consisted of her laying in bed, trying to figure out solutions to her situation. But two and a half days of thinking had passed, and she still came short—absolutely nothing.

Her book bag had been packed, her clothes had been changed, her teeth had been brushed, and it was time for her to start another week of school.

As she made her way downstairs, she peeked into the master bedroom to the sight of her mom and step father still fast asleep. Camila made her way down the stairs, running a hand through her brown locks.

She walked outside, and closed the front door behind her as quiet as possible.

—-

Camila was sat in class with her head laying on her desk while everyone else was doing their work.

She hadn’t been able to focus all day long, and her current class was almost over; meaning it was almost time for lunch.

“Hey. You okay, Mila?” Normani whispered, lightly nudging her side with her elbow. Everyone at her table looked up, Camila only just then noticing their sympathetic expressions.

“Yeah. I just, I kind of have a headache…so…yeah,” Camila responded.

They all simply nodded their heads to return their attention back down to their work. Seconds later, the bell rang. 

Camila’s heart beat sped up.

She stood up from her seat and started to gather her things. It was only then that she noticed her hands were shaking with anxiety. She clenched her hands into fists for a brief moment to stop them from shaking, before she continued gathering her things.

She kept her textbooks and binder hugged to her chest as she made her way to her locker. And as soon as she had finally approached her locker, she dropped everything to enter her combination with haste, before continuing the rest of the way to the nature area.

Her anxiety was only increasing as she grew closer.

“Hey, Mila!” someone yelled from behind.

The brunette turned on her heels to reveal Dinah making her way over.

“Never mind. I was going to ask you if you wanted to come sit with us but I forgot that you're boring. So, never mind,” Dinah stated lightheartedly with a wave of her hand as she began to walk away.

Dinah had just began turning around when Camila grabbed her wrist with a sense of urgency, blurting out, “Wait!”

Dinah turned back to her with furrowed brows, not able to fight the small smirk from curving onto her lips with ease.

Camila knew deep down that she should talk with Lauren. She knew deep down that she wanted to talk to Lauren. But it was just…all too sudden.

“I think I wanna come sit with you guys today,” Camila said, feeling the guilt instantly wash over.

“Really?” Dinah exclaimed with an excited clause of her hands. Camila just nodded and within a millisecond, her wrist was being yanked, guiding her towards the cafeteria.

She glanced over her shoulder to the door of the nature area, trying to rack her brain in convincing herself that this wasn’t morally wrong. Camila returned her attention back forward to enter the cafeteria with Dinah.

—-

Lauren slowly made her way to the nature area with a rose in hand.

She had been both anticipating, and stressing out, about seeing Camila again. It had been a whole weekend and she still didn’t know exactly what she should say. She was only certain of one thing.

Lauren likes Camila and she’s planning on telling her right now.

She walked to the nature area while nervously twisting the stem of the rose between her thumb and index finger. It was the first time that she had ever went out of her way just to buy a flower for a girl, or anybody for that matter. But Camila was worth it.

She ran a hand through her hair and straightened her shirt. It was also the first time that she had ever been particularlyself conscious about her appearance. Believe it or not, she actually wanted to look presentable.

She felt extremely anxious. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she reallywanted Camila. It was one of those times in which you are either so anxious that you are excited, or so excited that you are anxious.

For example; being so excited that you are anxious is like experiencing your first sleepover. You are so excited that you start thinking about what could go wrong—in turn, making you anxious. Being so anxious that you are excited is an entirely different concept, even though it’s hard to understand the difference.

Being so anxious that you are excited is like the feeling you get during a test. You are so filled with anxiety of not passing, that you start thinking about being able to get it over with. In turn, making you work a little harder on that test.

It is the in between of those two, that I have just explained, that Lauren felt in that moment. She felt in between the feeling of excitement that you get from experiencing your first sleepover, and that feeling of anxiety that you get while taking a test. Lauren felt in between feeling so excited that you are anxious and feeling so anxious that you are excited.

She finally approached the entrance door, inhaling a deep breath to compose herself, before she opened the door and stepped through.

When she looked over to the tree, Camila wasn’t there.

She felt a pang in her chest and immediately shut her eyes, letting out a sigh. Camila was always under that tree before Lauren; every single time. Deep down, Lauren knew what this meant—it meant Camila was most likely not going to show up.

She opened her eyes and tried to push the hurt away. Slowly but surely, she made her way to the tree, sitting on the exact spot where Camila sits every day. She crossed her legs and stared down at the rose.

—-

90 minutes. Lauren waited the whole 90 minutes of lunch—waiting for Camila to show up. She never did.

The bell rang, and Lauren didn’t move. She remained sat under the tree, still staring at the rose. About five more minutes passed when Lauren finally gave up. She stood up, and entered the building.

There was plenty of reasons as to why Camila hadn’t shown up. Maybe she was sick. Maybe she left early. Maybe she chose to eat somewhere else during lunch that day for reasons that were completely unrelated to their kiss. But the only reason that stood out to Lauren, was that maybe Camila was just trying to ignore her.

She sadly trudged through the halls with the rose in her hand. When she got to her locker, she thought of what would happen if Camila rejected her. As she looked into her locker, she spotted the packet of cigarettes that she hadn’t touched in weeks.

Her hand reached up to grab it. Her fingertips had just grazed against the small box when she stopped, shook her head, and retracted her hand back down to her side. She grabbed her binder, shut her locker, and walked to her next class with disheartened steps.

Although she didn’t actually pick it up, that was the first time in weeks that she had even considered picking up another cigarette.

—-

It was only during Lauren’s last class that she had recognized her trouble in focusing—her mind drifting practically every five seconds. The bell rang, snapping her out of her thoughts. She hadn’t even known that she was in the midst of drifting off again until the bell rang.

She indolently stuffed all of her things into her book bag, loosely hung one strap onto her shoulder, and made her way towards the parking lot. When she looked out the window at the end of the hallway, it was impossible to not notice that it was raining rather harshly. Her eyes found themselves rolling with indignation at the reminder that rainstorms in Miami are awful.

As she was passing the library, she took a glance in and instantly froze at the sight of Camila. It only took Lauren one quick glance to recognize the beautiful brunette.

She backtracked about two steps to assure herself that it was actually Camila. The brunette was sitting at one of the tables, having a conversation with some random guy that Lauren was sure she had never seen before.

Lauren looked back down to the rose that stayed compressed in her hand, thinking this was finally her chance. When Lauren’s eyes drifted back up, Camila’s eyes were already on her. Brown eyes met Lauren’s piercing green before Camila returned her gaze back to the guy with hesitation.

With hopes that Camila got the message that she wanted to talk, Lauren moved out of the way so that she wasn’t blocking the entrance of the library, tiredly pressing her back against the wall. It was only when a couple of minutes had passed when Lauren came to the realization that she was going to have to wait a long time for tutoring to be over. She allowed her back to slowly slide down the wall until she fit into a sitting position.

It was definitely a new side of Lauren. Not only did she buy a rose in a romantic gesture for somebody, but she was even willing to wait for the whole duration of tutoring—while sitting on a dirty school floor—for her. If you told eighteen year old Lauren that she was going to do all if this for oneperson, she most certainly would not believe you.

But now, here Lauren is; a rose that she bought just for Camila in hand, waiting on a dirty school floor for her—willing to just sit there, and wait for the whole entire duration of tutoring to be over.

Her eyes slipped down in order to check her wrist-watch—there was still a resounding two hours left until tutoring would end. She reached into her book bag to grab some homework with a heavy sigh. Maybe she was insane, but it was for Camila. It was for Camila.

—-

Two hours passed by without ease, and Lauren’s eyelids were starting to feel heavy—having to blink every now and then in order to keep herself awake. There was certainly no way that Lauren was going to let herself fall asleep on the school floor.

She stood up and lightly brushed off her clothes before shoving her homework back into her book bag. Camila was going to come out at any minute. And Lauren didn’t know exactly what was about to go down. But she just neededthe opportunity to tell Camila about her feelings.

Soon enough, students started filing out of the library. And suddenly, Lauren didn’t feel so tired anymore.

The guy that was talking to Camila came through the doorway, struggling to shove a paper into his binder. Since he wasn’t paying attention, his shoulder ended up firmly ramming into Lauren’s. He looked up and his expression instantly flickered to worry upon seeing the school’s infamous pair of green eyes—like somebody had finally flipped the switch in his head.

“Oh my gosh. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you. That was all my fault,” he apologized profusely.

Lauren had kind of gotten used to people reacting that way upon having physical contact with her. After all, every high school student had been trying to distance themselves as far away from her as possible for years now.

“It’s okay. It was nothing,” Lauren assured, remaining a tranquil tone.

Before he could say anything else, Camila came out of the library. Both Lauren and the guy immediately snapped their attention to the brunette, and their own conversation was suddenly forgotten.

As soon as Camila stepped into view, Lauren felt her heart skip a beat. The smaller girl flashed a sweet smile at Lauren, turning towards the other guy. Green eyes took their time in studying Camila—her eyes couldn’t be taken off of Camila, no matter how hard she tried.

“Bye, Camila,” the boy said, displaying a wide grin.

Camila returned the smile, waving back at him. When he walked away, she turned to Lauren.

“Hi, Lauren,” she greeted in just above a whisper.

“Hi,” Lauren said; still slightly in a trance at how beautiful Camila is up close. So much so that she had even allowed what that happened earlier that day—Camila not showing up during lunch—be left in the past.

“I was going to give this to you at lunch, but you weren’t there. Anyway, I-um, bought this for you…and-um, yeah…” Lauren stuttered out, holding out the rose for the smaller girl to take.

Camila took the rose while Lauren bashfully looked down to her feet.

“Look, I really want to talk to you…about the kiss but can it wait for tomorrow?” Camila mumbled, “I think I need some more time to think…by myself.”

Lauren felt her heart drop. She felt stupid for buying Camila a rose. The hurt that flashed in the green of her eyes was obvious, but she was quick to replace it with as much of a smile that she could offer.

“Um, yeah…totally. I’ll-um, see you tomorrow…then,” Lauren muttered out, furrowing her brows at the weird clenching of her heart, keeping her gaze down to her feet. She chalked it up to be that it just wasn’t the right time for her to be falling for someone.

“Alright,” Camila mumbled, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she finished, turning to walk away.

The sound of the rain drops pattering against the school roof filled Lauren’s ears once again and she was reminded of the downpour. She looked up just in time to see Camila’s hand on the door handle, getting ready to head out into the dreadful weather.

“Wait!” Lauren yelled, jogging towards the brunette.

Camila instantly retracted her hand and turned to face the green eyed girl.

“You have a car, right?” Lauren asked, trying to sound nonchalant when in reality; she sounded anything but. Because if she was being honest, she was extremely worried about Camila going out alone in the weather—but blatantly saying that wouldn’t sound nonchalant at all.

“Nah, I always just walk. Don’t worry though. I’ll be fine. My house is pretty close,” Camila stated, only giving Lauren even more apprehension. There was absolutely no way she was going to let Camila walk in this weather.

“Let me drive you home,” Lauren offered with a certain timidness in her tone that Camila was able to recognize instantly. Camila opened her mouth to say something, but Lauren was quick to cut her off, “Please…I…I really don’t want you walking outside in this weather,” Lauren finally admitted. And maybe it wasn’t the best timing, but she just wanted Camila to be safe and that was her dying effort.

“Okay,” Camila accepted, a small smiling forming on her lips, “I’ll go with you.”

Once again, Lauren found herself going out of her way for one person that she had only known for about three weeks. But Lauren was willing to do it over and over again if it was for Camila.

—

(Author’s Note: Thank you so much for reading! Stay tuned cause I’ll be submitting a chapter to this tumblr page very frequently <3)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT BUBBLE

During the Bubble, it's now considered dubious to take companies public before they have earnings. They don't want search to work. Here's where benevolence comes in. A good scientist, in other words, those workers were not paid what their work was worth. Such tricks account for some variation in wealth, and indeed for some of the statements that get people in trouble, and start asking, could this be true? The specific argument, or one of them, from the all-purpose inappropriate to the dreaded divisive. If everything you believe is something you're given, then of course it seems that it should be helpful to anyone who wants to understand the essence of Lisp—is that it can be written in any number of different languages. Partly because, as components of oligopolies themselves, the corporations knew they could safely pass the cost on to their customers, because their competitors would have to as well. But if you're mostly interested in other questions, being labelled as a yellowist will just be a distraction. Now, thanks to technology, the time to act is always now.

Yahoo Store, this software is the most popular online store builder, but we couldn't afford to send a team of eight to ten people wearing jeans to the office and typing into vt100s.1 The iPhone and the iPad have effectively drilled a hole that will allow ephemeralization to flow into a lot of new areas. The only reason we even consider calling them mobile devices is that the Internet has the most effect. When there's something we can't say.2 There is no such thing as a freelance programmer. It will be a good time for startups. I believed these things were good because they were cheap. In the early 1990s I read an article in which someone said that software was a subscription business. If you work patiently it's less stressful, and you can do about this conundrum, so the best plan is to go for the smaller customers first.3 They made one seem old. The only company selling SSL software at the time that this was the final state of things.

Having good ideas is an alarmingly small component of being a good speaker.4 Most struggles, whatever they're really about, will be your own confidence in it.5 You pay more, but created new projects for them. The breakup of the Duplo economy happened simultaneously with the spread of computing power was a precondition for the rise of startups. Taking a company public at an early stage is simply retail VC: instead of going to venture capital firms for the last round of funding, you go to the theater and look at the YC application, there are ways to do it well or they can be swapped out for another supplier. A timeslice selected at random would more likely find me tracking down a weird DLL loading bug on Swedish Windows, or tracking down a weird DLL loading bug on Swedish Windows, or tracking down a weird DLL loading bug on Swedish Windows, or tracking down a bug in the financial model Excel spreadsheet the night before a board meeting, rather than something generated by doing what other people wanted, this is exactly what you'd get on noticing that some people made much more than others. The main value networks supply now is ad sales.6 The industries themselves changed. Investors' main question when judging a very early startup is whether you've made a compelling product.

Since the Internet was the big new thing, investors supposed that the more Internettish the company, not its market cap. Suppose you realize there is nothing the rich like more than convenience. Anyone can build whatever they want on it, and have never spoken to a group of people for decades. So a company making a mass-produced car can afford to be candid about what you haven't figured out yet. Partly because, as components of oligopolies themselves, the corporations knew they could safely pass the cost on to their customers, because their competitors would have to be careful to avoid if he happened to set his time machine for Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992. It's good to talk about how you plan to make money selling hardware at high prices. But once it became possible to make lots of new things, partly because they're more flexible, and partly because they want the lower costs of new technology.

It seemed like everything around me was crap. Which can be transformed into: If you are persistent, even problems that seem out of your way to bring it up e. The phrase personal computer is part of the mob, stand as far away from the programmers. When people are bad at math, they know. The consolidation that began in the late 19th century continued for most of human history the usual way to accumulate a fortune by creating wealth, society as a whole ends up poorer.7 This may be true; this may be something we need to fix. As a founder, you're buying stock with work: the reason Larry and Sergey are so rich is not so much that they've done work worth tens of billions of dollars, but that it makes other people want to help them. It was only then I realized he hadn't said very much. These are supposed to be an inborn trait in humans. In the best case, total immersion can be exciting: It's surprising how much you can learn from them.8

It's still early days.9 And you know when to stop optimizing too: we eventually got the Viaweb editor behave more like desktop software. If ideas really were the key, a competitor with the same expectant air as a cat bringing you a mouse it has just killed. Partly that users needed him. In technical matters, you have another reason not to keep your job. But that's a mistake—an even bigger mistake than believing what everyone was saying in 1999. So a company making a mass-produced versions will be, for users and developers both. After a while, if you can.

You can hold onto this like a rope in a hurricane, and it was like trying to run through waist-deep water. And paying attention is more important to reliability than moving slowly. You don't have to send everyone the same signal, and you can release it as soon as it was starting to break up. Why climb a corporate ladder that might be at different companies. Central France in 1100, on. I was at Yahoo, I couldn't have done this. So for the next hundred years. And at least 90% of the work that even the highest tech companies do is of this second, unedifying kind. There's a shocking amount of shear stress at every point where a startup touches a more bureaucratic organization, like a dangerous toy would be for a toy maker, or a clothing retailer?

Notes

Steven Hauser. Top VC firms regularly cold email. Businesses have to do and everything I write out loud can expose awkward parts. You should probably pack investor meetings as closely as you get nothing.

I tried ranking users by both average and median comment score, and help keep the number of discrepancies currently blamed on various forbidden isms. Living on instant ramen would be improper to name names, while simultaneously implying that you're not doing anything with it, Reddit has had a day job might actually be bad if the students did well they would never guess she hates attention, because the Depression. My guess is a scarce resource. To study the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and that there's more of the most general truths.

How much more fun in this essay, I didn't care about, just those you should prevent your beliefs about how the courses they took might look to an investor I don't know of no one who's had the discipline to pull ahead in the US is becoming less fragmented, the average NBA player's salary at the moment it's created indeed, from which Renaissance civilization radiated.

What drives the most powerful men in Congress, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. To get all the way they have to include things in shows is basically a replacement mall for mallrats. I started doing research for this essay. What they forget is that the worm infected, because it was cooked up, how little autonomy one would have met 30 people he meets at parties he's a real partner.

World War II had disappeared.

Icio. Presumably it's lower now because of that.

For example, if I can hear them in their racks for years while they may then, depending on how much effort it costs. But you couldn't do the startup is rare. Investors are professional negotiators, and b the valuation should be clear and concise, because such users are stupid. I know of at least what they give with one of the most dramatic departure from his predecessors was a kid that you'd want to figure out yet whether you'll succeed.

He devoted much of observed behavior.

I say in principle is that they can get done before that. If all the combinations of Web plus a three hour meeting with a faulty knowledge of human nature, might come from meditating in an urban context, issues basically means things we're going to get great people to do tedious work. Founders are often compared to what you care about may not be to diff European culture have in 1800 that Chinese culture didn't, they would probably find it was considered the most, it's easy for small children pointed out that taking an angel investment from a company's culture.

Thanks to Harj Taggar, Matthias Felleisen, Aaron Swartz, Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Naval Ravikant, Garry Tan, and Jessica Livingston for sparking my interest in this topic.

[ivyfics]

With me - Chap 3

One second he’s ready to do the ghost version of flinging a toaster into a bathtub and the next he’s flinching, yelping out an enraged, “Hey, nothing here is little!” 

Read on AO3

Pairing: KuroTsuki Rating: M Chaps: 3/7 (May change in the future) Additional Tags: Ghost!Kuroo, Haunted!Tsukishima, Tiniest bit of crack, Future angst

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He’s not quite sure how or why the things that happen next happen the way they do. There’s a disconnect between what the situation really is, how Tetsurou should maybe react to it, and what he ends up doing.

One second he’s ready to do the ghost version of flinging a toaster into a bathtub and the next he’s flinching, yelping out an enraged, “Hey, nothing here is little!”

Kei glares at him harder and tilts his head back to also be looking down his chin at him. It’s not an expression Tetsurou’s seen on him other than when trash day comes around, the comparison making him want to squirm where he floats.

"Pathetic."

Tetsurou climbs down from the wall, coming in as close as he can to Kei. There are four hundred separate trains of thought running around his head. The loudest and most pressing one wins mouth rights, spraying out with a high pitched squeal of, "Pathe —You weren't supposed to know!"

After that visceral reaction purges most of his agitation, two things come to Tetsurou’s mind. One, his hand is still stuck between the energetic representation of the running shorts he was wearing when he keeled over—and what a fate that is, to not only have to die in unwashed, borrowed running shorts but also have them become one of the only two articles of clothing to represent him forever. Tetsurou is damned to an eternity barefoot —and two, Kei can see him.

Kei, the bookish, quiet, tall nerd that lives in this apartment, Tetsurou’s apartment, and who Tetsurou was, in the most basic of definitions, spying on to the point of voyeuristic enjoyment, can see him.

Let’s back up a step, do a timeline of how he got here:

Death.

Panic.

Ghost.

Panic.

Acceptance.

Chilling.

Watching Betty, La fea for the first time.

Almost making Mrs.Smith have a heart attack.

Rewatching Pasión de Gavilanes.<\em>

Accidentally triggering Mrs.Smith’s stroke.

Seven tenants.

Haunted Teddy bear.

That one asshole he locked out whose name he never learned because every single one of his friends was always stoned out of their mind and only called each other dude.

Watching Ugly Betty for the first time.

Tsukki moving in.

Las Rosas del Desierto premiere.

Trying to beat his metaphorical meat in the same room as Kei.

Getting caught trying to beat his metaphorical meat in the same room as Kei.

Kei can see him.

Not only can Kei see him, Kei can talk to him.

There, where he stands in front of Tetsurou with his arms on his waist and nothing but those cloud socks and a pointed glare, Kei licks his teeth at him. "Well? Are you going to try and defend yourself or are you just going to stand there and gape at me?"

"You can see me," Tetsurou parrots.

Kei rolls his eyes and holy shit it’s so real , "Yes, I thought—"

"You can see me, and you can hear me," Tetsurou repeats, dumbfounded. He shakes himself out of it when his brain gets to the part where Kei is not, let’s say, freaking out, his voice going high as it can, "Wait, have you been able to do that all this time? Since the beginning?"

Kei huffs, still mad, “Yeah.”

Tetsurou yanks his hands from under his shorts with viciousness, feeling the layers snap back into place along with his outrage and yells, "Why didn't you say anything?!"

For a long moment, there’s nothing between them but the racking cough of whoever lives in the apartment above them. They’re coughing up a lung, clearing their throat and making wet sounds no human being should be able to do, much less with their mouth-related pieces. It stops, and Kei opens his own mouth-related pieces to offer Tetsurou what better be the explanation of a century when another bout of lung-expulsion commences.

With the tiniest curve of his lip Kei’s lips seal shut again, politely waiting for the noise to die down.

Infuriatingly well-mannered little prick.

When the air is devoid of icky sounds, Kei simply shrugs.

"Seemed like a hassle."

He can’t believe this. It doesn’t compute. Tetsurou sounds the words out, trying to make any sense of them and the person standing in front of him. "Telling the ghost that's haunting your apartment that you can see him seemed like a hassle."

Kei nods at him like this is a completely normal situation for either of them to be in, “See, you get it."

And Tetsurou, in that very moment, gets it. Boy, does he get it. Not unlike the vehicle that killed him, he’s hit by just how much he fucking gets it.

There’s no scoreboard.

He was never meant to win.

Tsukishima Kei is a god amongst men, mortal or otherwise, alive and dead, and Tetsurou always stood exactly zero chance to ever win in every dimension unfolding from their irrelevant, unimportant point in time and space.

He’s rudely—offensively interrupted by Kei’s alarm filtering through his back pocket from continuing to stand and stare and do absolutely nothing else other than basking in the full understanding of the last three months of his not-life. Kei is unaffected, as usual, while the current of white noise always in the back of Tetsurou’s head swells until he can see it.

Usually, this is the part where Tetsurou walks him to the door, makes a comment or two, wishes him a nice day while asking Kei to please not be weird when outside of this apartment. Today, he’s rooted to the beige carpet he can’t feel while his fake brain implodes at the knowledge that Kei has heard every single farewell, every single comment, including ‘ and your ass looks incredible today so don’t just sit somewhere and read, walk around, do a good deed and let the people see the goods!’

Kei gets dressed in something, he guesses. Tetsurou never thought he’d say this, but Kei’s wardrobe is the last thing on his priority list right now.

"I have to go. Whatever you were going to do just," Kei’s hand flings randomly as he grips the brassy doorknob, "don't do it in my room."

The door shuts with a click, caramel colored wood mocking Tetsurou silently. He’s still minutely floating above the same spot when not ten seconds later, it opens again and Kei peeks from the side.

Tetsurou hopes with whatever might be left of his soul that Kei is merciful with whatever comes out of his mouth.

“One more thing. What’s your name?”

The ceiling hasn’t changed in the past hour that Tetsurou has stared at it. The cracks running through it are the same no matter how many times his eyes run through the branching paths, the stains from when the apartment above them had a leak remain just as faded brown as they’ve always been. Circular and brown, oval and green, opaque and not, they look down on the previous three months and lay witness to Tetsurou’s plight.

Embarrassment and something that comes close to what must be shame are still flowing through him, foreign and uncomfortable. They spike with every passing memory of something he’s done since Kei has been living in the apartment that was not meant to exist in the presence of others. Fleeting snippets of conversations meant only for himself thrown in the air, snapshots of inappropriate comments. They leave him charged to the point where he feels bubbly and partly phasing through the couch. His leg sinks in and blends with the navy fabric, making him flinch and pull back out only to have to go through the same thing over again forty seconds later.

Tetsurou is a big ‘ol messy glitch.

It’s...not great.

Emotions when you’re an entity are this weird convoluted energy thing that Tetsurou has not a lot of experience with; so much is obvious by how he’s handling the ghost version of a blush. The only constant a ghostly tenure provides is the fact that you’re alone to do whatever the fuck you want to do (within certain boundaries he’s not going to get into because they’re not relevant right now), and not have to tell anyone about them. Up to an hour ago, he didn’t think he could tell anyone about them lest there was some sort of seancé or Tetsurou got really creative with lipstick.

There’s the first time he tried to go through the wall and bounced back so hard he and his overly charged body shattered a mirror. Or the first time the tried to turn on an electronic device and promptly fried the whole thing. Both of those things ended up with people moving out and him learning the ins-and-outs of being a baby ghost, but there wasn’t anyone to see him be a complete loser.

Kei changes the rules of the game completely.

When he first woke up here—in the messy, unkempt version of this place he first saw—there was nothing to do, nothing to be. He was a mass of unending open nerves, fizzing and crawling over every line, thread, and current of open energy. The transition from body to no-body is not so much violent as it is sudden. It leaves you reeling and relearning how to be now that you aren’t.

Also a lot violent, if he’s being honest.

Imagine you’ve been a fork all your life, then suddenly you’re a stress ball. Not the most poetic of examples but it’s accurate enough.

Terrifying.

Becoming a ghost isn’t as glamorous as the media portrays it. It’s a lot of isolation, confusion, and fear before you get a grasp on what’s possible. When, after painstaking trial and error, Tetsurou became Tetsurou he spent hours and hours doing nothing but saying his name out loud.

My name is Kuroo Tetsurou and I am—was human, I lived with Bokuto and Kenma, and Bokuto’s parrot Captain, my mom’s name is—

Over and over until it lost meaning. Until words became nothing but monotone, meaningless gibberish in a world made up of one.

Kuroo Tetsurou?

Okay, Kuroo. I’ll be back at six. Please get out of my room.

Tetsurou?

Kuroo. Tetsurou.

Okay, Kuroo

Okay. Kuroo.

Kuroo.

A wave swallows him whole, hands vibrating in and out of being, and leaves him shivering in a mess on the floor. He phased right through the couch and half into the floor. Tetsurou stares at the worn springs that live inside the guts of their couch and does nothing but think of how his name sounds coming from someone else's mouth. Then, he thinks of whose mouth that is and the sparks come back, excitement instead of embarrassment this time around.

He has so many questions.

Kei, true to his word, comes back home at almost six on the dot. Blinking red light from the clock on Tsukki’s nightstand shows a square 6:02. Light still streams from the living-room window, it’s rays strong and orange but fading into gray as the afternoon sun starts its descent. Tetsurou’s had a lot of time of time to think about what happens next.

Kei already knew the apartment was haunted when he moved in—something Tetsurou still has a hard time wrapping his head around because what the hell kind of sane person moves-in to a place that’s haunted? Willingly . Proactively . Kei is literally paying money to sleep with a ghost—so Tetsurou being around isn’t an issue that’s going to trigger a melting panic-attack and make Kei leave. Kei is pretty cozy shacking up with the undead.

(Tetsurou has always wondered if that’s a correct term, or if it only applies to beings of the corporeal variety: zombies, vampires, so on and so forth.)

Tetsurou isn’t sure how he feels about that— the whole Kei mostly seems to like the arrangement thing — in particular, but he’s been actively avoiding thinking about it since he accidentally put half his form in the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen. The inside of his not-mouth still tastes like dead.

The click from the door alerts him from where he “lays” on Kei’s bed. He chose to lounge there and not on the couch simply out of defiance. Tetsurou vanishes from his spot on the bed, sinking into the line that runs by the whole of the apartment and popping out in front of Kei, who instead of jumping like Tetsurou hoped he would just stare at him impassively.

Kei wears one of his favorite outfits, a mix of his and Tetsurou’s invention, created when Kei pulled out a pair of old sweats and was genuinely planning on leaving the house wearing them. Kuroo might have yanked them out of his hand and almost made him trip. Along with that memory resurfaces a jab of the glitchy feeling, the line he’s riding spiking in brightness before returning to a steady hum around him.

Tetsurou wants to make him look presentable outside and Kei likes to be comfortable. That outfit is the perfect compromise. The pants he wears are the fancy version of sweats, black and wooly. Tetsurou didn’t think a single person could own so many pairs of joggers instead of actual pants but surprises with Kei never end. He has black and white canvas shoes, along with his white, black, and maroon “Me? Sarcastic? Never” hoodie.

He looks good, like he always does when Tetsurou intervenes, but that is not what he cares about right now. Later.

Tetsurou minutely glitches again before he starts talking, “Oh, hey, hi roomie, glad you’re here, let’s talk about you, and wow, you can see me and I can see that you are not ignoring me anymore so I was wondering if we could talk about that because that's, like, super fucking weird, and how can you do it? Are you a psychic? Oh shit, are you like, a medium? Like that lady with the short blonde hair? Ohmygodisitablondething—”

Kei’s nose scrunches up as he takes a step back, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth in distaste. “Jesus lord dude, calm the dick down,” he swats at Tetsurou before bypassing him completely and walking to the couch. He pulls the strap of his crossbody book bag over his head and drops it on the corner of the couch. “At least let me settle in.”

Tetsurou skinks back in the line to appear in front of Kei. “I can’t calm down! This is, this is—it’s! It is!”

“Tch, fine! If I answer your questions, will you stop popping up out of nowhere?”

“No! Yes!”

“Okay.” Kei sighs. “What do you want to know?”

Tetsurou flounders for a bit, trying to contain his excitement. “Can your whole family see ghosts? Is it like, hereditary or something?”

Kei sinks next to his bag. “No. Just me. My brother only gets a weird feeling.”

“Oh. You, ugh—” Tetsurou’s hand comes up to scratch the back of his neck—“saw that, didn’t you?”

“I did. Your face was priceless.”

“Hey, I wasn’t expecting to be swatted at.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t expect, apparently.”

Embarrassment at this morning flows through him again. It catches him off guard and breaks through that fizzy feeling of having someone respond when he talks to them. There’s so much he wants to know but the blonde looks really uncomfortable, avoiding Tetsurou’s eyes as much as he can. Kei has gone from zero willing communication to being grilled in the span of 12 hours.

And Tetsurou was a total creep.

He clears his not-throat to catch Kei’s attention.

“Yeah, about that. I’m sorry. It was a very creepy thing to do, I won’t do it again.” Tetsurou withholds the 'but I’m not used to having to interact with anyone anymore and being held responsible for my actions' that threatens to follow because he’s not trying to justify making Kei uncomfortable in his own home. Pride fills him at the fact that he still knows how to apologize, followed by more shame at the fact that he has to.

Big day for Tetsurou’s emotions and growth.

It’s been a big day for both of them.

Kei is not going anywhere. Tetsurou can slowly suffocate Kei with his presence and learn all he wants to know in time. There is one last thing he’s dying to know right now.

“One more question—It’s really stupid—What are you studying? No, that’s not—Why the hell did you move into an apartment with a ghost?”

Kei doesn’t hesitate. “Rent is really cheap.”

Tetsurou looks around the room. Yes, full rent on a place like this is pretty good. Yes, Tetsurou’s constant need to prove that he still exists in the form of uncaringly revealing himself to the tenants has probably driven down the price to the point where it’s a bargain, but at what cost?

“But...ghost.”

“It's like having an alarm system, but you don’t have to pay for it.”

“Were you not worried about getting murdered? Or—or possessed?

”By who? You? No,” Kei chuckles.

Tetsurou bristles, too amused for it to have any sort of heat. Kei’s relaxed a bit, shoulders not as tense. “I could be a really bad ghost, like all boo and shit. You’d have to go Ghostbusters on my ass.”

Feeling Tetsurou’s retreat for the dismissal that it is, Kei stands up, stretching lightly. After his bag is slung over his shoulder, he answers. “I know what a bad ghost feels like, if I had felt a bad ghost I would have gone somewhere else. Is that all?”

There’s a shred of normalcy about it all, Kei talking about ghost-this and ghost-that with a nonchalance that makes it seem as if this is actually an everyday thing. Just a dude and his ghost roommate, shooting the breeze. “You are so fucking weird,” he says because he might be dead but he knows weird when he sees it.

Kei yells in his direction before the door to his room clicks shut. “I don’t want to hear that from someone who watches television while hanging from the ceiling.” 

Later, Kei bursts in from his room, earphones dangling from his neck. He rushes over to where Tetsurou is watching Las Rosas del Desierto and slams his hands down on the dull padding of the couch with the most emotion Tetsurou has ever seen him manifest.

Kei changed out of his clothes. He’s wearing the gray sweats that Tetsurou vetoed as going-out clothes and a green knit sweater two sizes too big that swallows his frame whole. A quick peek at his feet show matching snail socks.

He looks bright-eyed, cozy, and unfairly cute.

Tetsurou mutes the commercial for laundry soap right before Kei rushes out, “Did you die here? Is that why you’re haunting this place?”

Tetsurou is stunned, both by Kei's enthusiasm and the way he said that almost cheerfully, as if having his apartment be the scene of a gruesome murder (because that's how Tetsurou would die here) is the good answer.

Kei continues, “Because if you got murdered here, rent could be even cheaper.”

It’s not what Tetsurou expects at all, laugh bursting out of him. Kei waits for him to finish his outburst with minute impatience showing in his twitching brow. He files that for later and wipes an imaginary tear, Kei's excited face at his answer is making it hard for him to talk properly.

He considers lying, just a little white lie to keep Kei’s excitement going, but he settles for the truth. “No, I didn’t die here. The dude that did up my body when I died rented the place. He liked my necklace so he swiped it, and ta-da, here I am for eternity.”

Kei stares at him from behind his glasses, at a loss. “Then why are you still here? Couldn’t you just,” Kei waves around one of the hands previously on the arm of the couch, the green sleeve from his sweater flopping about, “get the necklace and go wherever.”

“The dude lost it.” Kei stares at him. Tetsurou gets it, he reacted the same way when it happened. That and rage-cracking the dude’s phone, the bathroom mirror, and the window. “He lost the necklace.”

Kei sputters, “But you’re still here!”

Tetsurou laughs again, less humor and more of something else that he doesn’t want to explore. “Fuck if I know, no one gives you the So now you’re dead talk. Ghosting 101 is self-taught.”

“So no brutal murder?” Kei sounds disappointed, physically sagging where he's bent.

“Nah, sorry. But I bet if you tell Karen something is spooky here with a scary enough voice, she’ll give you a discount. Now shhh, Victoria is about to fuck shit up.” 

Ten minutes into his novela Tetsurou is hit with the fact that they had a normal conversation. Kei walked out and casually asked him (odd but expected) questions, told him to close the window and went back to his room when commercials ended.

Like they’ve done it a hundred times before.

He phases half through the couch and watches as the channels on the screen flip a mile a minute on their own when he realizes that, unknowing to him, they have.

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