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specterchasing-a · 3 years

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Hold On (Part 2) || Eddie & Alfie

TIMING: One month ago, directly after part one.

LOCATION: En route to the woods.

PARTIES: @yikesimonfire & @specterchasing

SUMMARY: Alfie and Eddie have a heart-to-heart in the car.

CONTENT: Internalized homophobia tw

Eddie mindfully secured his filming equipment in the trunk of Alfie’s odiously yellow station wagon. As he took a step back to close the hatch, an idea occurred to him. He hastily ducked back into the trunk and unzipped his bag to pilfer for his camera. Now satisfied, Eddie slammed the door shut and walked briskly to the car’s passenger-side. The moment he settled into his seat, a pronounced frown settled into his features.

“When are you gonna get your AC fixed?” Eddie implored, his gaze settling on his chaperone. “Every time I get in this car, it feels like the air’s been replaced by uncomfortably warm dog breath.” He refrained from adding that it smelled like it as well. Alfie didn’t need to be subjected to verbal beration of that magnitude after agreeing to accompany him tonight.

While Eddie packed his gear into the back, Alfie hopped into the driver’s seat, helplessly turning the ignition repeatedly until the engine sputtered to life. Immediately, he was hit with a blast of cold air before the air conditioning unit forgot how to work. The ration of cool air was quickly replaced with a suffocatingly stale breeze. Alfie stretched over to unlock the passenger door and cranked the window open before rolling his own window down to allow a more comfortable airflow. Soon enough, Eddie was in the seat beside him.

A laugh reverberated in his chest at Eddie’s comment. “What do you mean?” Alfie asked, emphatically waving his hand at the dashboard. “It’s doing its best. Besides, parts are hard to come by.�� That’s what he got for being cheap. What he needed was a new car altogether, but that wasn’t happening any time soon. The wagon got him from point A to B; that would have to be enough. It wasn’t like he needed a functioning air conditioner anyway, not that Eddie was privy as to why. “We can always take yours,” he offered with a small smirk.

“I hate to break it to you, but its best doesn’t cut it. It needs to do another car’s best,” Eddie riffed while opening the viewer on his camera. With the press of a button, it became a diligent archivist of its owner’s per view. Without warning, Eddie lifted the device to eye-level and pointed it in Alfie’s direction. He knew well and good his friend didn’t enjoy being in the crosshairs of his filming, but that never stopped him in the past. Why would it deter him now?

“Trust me, I would love to take the Mini, but it’s… well, mini, and you know that. As quirky as your car is, it has better storage options.” Eddie’s voice lacked interest—he found himself too caught-up in recording to have any to spare. “You have a nice profile, have I said that before?” he asked, slipping further into his seat as he rested his feet on the dashboard. Meanwhile, his eyes (and camera) remained fixated on Alfie.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” Alfie chuckled as he shifted the car into reverse and eased out of his parking space. With his eyes now fixed on the path ahead, Alfie didn’t notice the camera focused on him. “You really should have considered that when you bought it. What would you do if I ever wasn’t around to lend my cargo space?”

The compliment that soon fell from Eddie’s lips made Alfie’s brow raise. His eyes flickered to look at Eddie, only to find that he was being filmed. “Wha— Christ’s sake, Eddie, would you turn that thing off?” A fire rose in his cheeks, coloring them a vibrant red. He quickly turned his head away, but was unable to avoid the camera’s watching eye. Damn it. He hated being recorded; Eddie knew that. “Or, I’unno… turn it somewhere else, at least?”

As the car reached the edge of the parking lot, Alfie applied the brakes and looked back at Eddie, the blush still prominent on his face. “And buckle,” he scolded — albeit playfully — with raised eyebrows. “Seriously, are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Die, probably,” Eddie deadpanned. If he were to make an effort, his car could likely hold whatever necessities he needed it to. Alfie probably knew that, too. However, if he went that route, he wouldn’t be able to spend his time being a nuisance in the passenger’s seat. He much preferred reclining and filming to focusing on the road. A miracle happened the day he got his license, that much was certain.

Alfie’s reaction to being caught on candid camera inspired an impish grin from Eddie. He noticed the change of color in his cheeks—so did his heart, actually. It drummed desperately within his chest, as if also begging Eddie to rethink staring at Alfie for so long. Unfortunately, he rarely listened to what either of them had to say. “I can’t believe you hate art so much that you’d deprive me of my muse,” he said.

Eddie rolled his eyes, also playfully, when Alfie scolded him. “Not today,” he answered before he quickly switched his camera off and buckled in like he was told.

Deprived of his main source of entertainment, Eddie resorted to turning on the radio. Like everything else in Alfie’s car, the display refused to work properly. What should have been words and numbers looked more like hieroglyphs. Eddie briefly toggled through stations before a familiar tune (‘Hold On’ by Wilson Phillips) caused him to turn the radio off with evident disdain.

A strange sensation tugged behind Alfie's navel at the suggestion that Eddie would die without him. It wasn't true, of course. With any luck, Eddie would go on fine without him; he had to. Still, the thought made him feel… guilty? Alfie's time in this life was growing increasingly limited. He couldn't afford to think about it now. It would only make the time he did have left with Eddie less worthwhile, for fear of causing him any grief.

"Your muse?" Alfie nearly cooed. "Please—" his voice cracked. "I have complete faith that you'll find something better." Once again unable to make eye-contact with Eddie today, Alfie shook his head with a breathy chuckle and rolled his eyes. His attention was back on the road and as the seat belt beside him clicked into place, assuring Eddie's safety, Alfie merged onto the street to begin their journey.

It didn't take long for Eddie to begin fidgeting. He knew well enough by now that finding a suitable radio station in the station wagon was unlikely. Alfie wouldn't complain about the music as long as it kept the camera off him. But when Eddie abruptly cut the radio off, he successfully piqued Alfie's curiosity.

"What was that about?" he asked, an impish grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes darting between Eddie and the road. "You trying to tell me you hate Wilson Phillips or something? And you were just getting onto me about hating art," Alfie teased.

Alfie’s insistence that Eddie would eventually move on to something better almost made him laugh. For years, his thoughts revolved around his reclusive neighbor and not much else. Alfie and Youtube; that’s what filled his days since he moved downtown. “No, I won’t,” he gently corrected him. “Besides, I don’t want to.” It didn’t worry him to voice his genuine fondness for Alfie, not when they had years of friendship behind them. At this point, it would’ve been more alarming if he didn’t love the guy enough to negate his self-deprecation.

“Wilson Phillips is not art.” Eddie emphatically pointed a finger at Alfie. “Not that song, at least. ‘Hold On’ is trite and cheap. And, all it does is make me think about the time I spent in group therapy as a teenager when our counselor insisted on performing an acoustic version at the end of every single session. Every session, Alfie,” he looked at his chauffeur with bewildered eyes. “She even made eye contact with us while she sang—who does that? I never felt like I could look away, not when she was tearfully pleading with me to break free from the chains. It was torture. Wilson Phillips is torture, not art.”

Alfie didn't want to argue about how quickly Eddie would (or wouldn't) move on. No matter how much Eddie didn't want to, there would come a point that he would have no other option. Besides, Alfie playing the part of Eddie's muse was clearly a joke. Or, perhaps more accurately, a metaphor for their friendship. All that mattered was Eddie had not meant it in a literal sense. So why had he allowed himself to become so flustered over it?

"Bullshit!" squawked Alfie, who was now fully prepared to enlighten Eddie about his previous love affair with the early 90s pop scene. Before he had a chance to share however, Eddie shared his own history with the song. Alfie's jaw slackened and he shot Eddie an incredulous look. "Every session?" he parroted in disbelief. His face scrunched as he imagined what kind of hellscape that must have been. Being forced to listen to acoustic covers was bad enough, but on top of awkward eye-contact?

"Okay, yeah… no. I see your point," Alfie softly spoke after a moment. "Who in their right mind thought she was still fit to be a counselor after the first time that happened, anyway? Like — I'unno, you'd think someone would've had to question her capability or whatever at that point."

"Still," he continued after making a point to showcase his disapproval with a series of disdainful facial expressions. "I stand by what I said. I think there's something beautiful in wanting to turn around and say goodbye — much like how you must have felt after being subjected to that special brand of hell."

Eddie adopted a tight-lipped grin when Alfie conceded. “Every session,” he confirmed. Looking back, he couldn’t remember liking anything about group therapy. Owning up to his issues should’ve never been something that required an audience. As extroverted as Eddie could be, he kept his cards close to his chest when it came to his emotions. Alfie knew him better than anyone else and even he didn’t get the whole truth half the time.

Eddie let out a terse laugh at Alfie’s final comment. “Real cute,” he snarked playfully before his expression became more serious. “It didn’t help that I hated therapy in general. Not only did it well and truly suck to talk about my feelings, but the only reason my parents even made me go was the whole… ghost-vision deal.” Eddie emphasized his annoyance by accompanying the tail-end of his sentence with a flippant flap of his hand. “Funny, that they pegged the one thing that made me happy as the problem.” His brow raised as he pursed his lips.

“But, uh, wow—sorry about the impromptu sharetime,” Eddie said when shame began to collect in chest. “Don’t mind me complaining about therapy while simultaneously making you my therapist.” He hoped levity would be the cure for oversharing.

Alfie’s face lit up at Eddie’s initial response. “I’m the cutest, obviously,” he chided with a lopsided grin. He couldn’t recall any previous conversations about Eddie’s group therapy, but he was well aware of his friend’s relationship to his parents. Maybe he had mentioned it before; it was truly a testament to how solid Alfie’s active listening skills were. “Fuck your parents!” his voice trilled. “Seriously — when have they ever cared about your happiness?” His commiseration was probably unnecessary; Eddie didn’t need another reminder that his family were awful. “Sorry… too far,” he added with a small frown.

With a clear road ahead, Alfie lifted a hand from the steering wheel and maneuvered it around to rest on Eddie’s shoulder. “Hey, man, don’t sweat it — really. I will gladly take an impromptu sharetime over an awkwardly silent drive to our inevitable doom.” His gaze shifted to Eddie as he gave him an apologetic smile, allowing his hand to linger a bit longer than was probably acceptable. “Besides,” Alfie added, gently squeezing Eddie’s shoulder before returning his hand to the wheel, “that’s what friends are for, right?”

It wasn’t often that Alfie referred to them as “friends”. The word was scattered few and far between, but that didn’t make it any less true. “From now on, that song is banned. We don’t talk about it. We don’t listen to it. It’s purged from our lives. What song? Wilson Phillips, who? Never heard of ‘em!” Alfie tilted his head in Eddie’s direction and peered at him expectantly, waiting for some sort of positive reaction to ensure he’d sufficed at making his friend feel better.

Eddie glanced at Alfie in surprised amusement after his initial outburst. “You’re right and you should say it,” he encouraged in a light-hearted tone that didn’t fit the topic. If he didn’t try to lessen the weight of the conversation, he might have to admit to how much it hurt to discuss. He couldn’t risk letting Alfie know the extent of his damage.

When Alfie’s hand landed on his shoulder, Eddie felt a lump form in his throat. Usually, he initiated whatever physical contact they shared. He didn’t know how to react to being on the receiving end. Alfie’s mention of ‘inevitable doom’ managed to ease his uncertainty. Eddie replied with a soft huff of laughter, his eyes shining with fondness.

Soon enough, Alfie deprived Eddie of his hand, but didn’t give him much time to be upset about it. He called them friends. “Oh, is that what we are?” Eddie asked with a teasing grin. “Could’ve sworn our relationship was more like whatever Bugs and Elmer had going on.” His expression softened, though his grin remained throughout Alfie’s condemnation of Wilson Phillips.

“You’re…. You’re a really good guy, Alfie,” Eddie said. “Thanks for humoring me tonight.”

It didn’t seem appropriate to continue down the path of shit-talking Eddie’s parents, no matter how much they deserved it. Eddie didn’t enlist Alfie on this adventure just to talk about all of his woes. If he was going to do this, then goddamn it, he was going to make the best out of it. Eddie deserved that much. “‘Course we’re friends,” Alfie returned with a playful sneer. “Though, I think you’re way off base with that one. If anything, we’re more like Bugs and Daffy.” His eyes focused on the road, but his mind was lost in thought. “Actually—” Alfie corrected, “come to think of it, that’s really fuckin’ accurate. Just, y’know, don’t ask me who’s who.”

In an instant, Alfie’s eyes were back on Eddie. Immense guilt crept over him for trying to turn down the invitation in the first place. It was glaringly obvious that Eddie was trying to involve him in his life; something Alfie tried to avoid with just about everyone who did. His heart ached. He didn’t want to refuse Eddie, truly. There just happened to be parts of his life that were better off private. But it wouldn’t kill him to hang out with the guy more every now and then. Well, given Eddie’s track record, it very well could. But it would be worth it… RIght?

“Listen, Ed… I know I’m a pain in the ass. It’s not — I don’t do things like this, y’know? I stay at home like the grumpy hermit crab that I am and that’s how I like it.” Apologies were never Alfie’s strong suit. It was rare that the words “I’m sorry” ever made it out of his mouth. “But I’m already pretty glad I came with you.” Once again, he was dancing the conversation dangerously close to heavy. Alfie mentally berated himself; he needed to keep things light. “But if we make it out alive, you do still owe me those Baby Ruths,” he teased, lightly nudging Eddie’s arm with his own.

#c: alfie #wickedswriting #hold on #internalized homophobia tw #// there's like two more parts to this still #i hope you guys like weekly installments #poaisdjfosdf

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whatdoesshedotothem · 3 years

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Tuesday 23 July 1839

7 ¼

11 ½

fine morning long in dressing – ready at 9 ¼ at which hour F74 ¼° on the window seat – sun shining in – busy over 1 thing or other while A- dressed – went to Mrs. Todds’ at 10 to breakfast – café au lait and large dish of small good strawberries – had our bookseller with two recommendation letters of the payable gentleman about 10 ¾-courier it seems to some English sporting gentlemen – explained to our bookseller the sort of place that of courier was, and desired to see the man – he came soon after 11 – 5 Rigsgeld [kriegsgeld] dollars a day, and we to pay all his expense of living and lodging – about what would these be? He could not possibly say – never would tell beforehand what they charged in Norway .:. he could not calculate, what we should have to pay – on pressing him to calculate, supposing us to travel on the average six Norse miles a day, he said 60 dollars Banco a day - £150 should be taken for a months’ journey – Enough thought I – I remarked upon this – said it staggered me – I would consider about it, and let him have my [?] thro’ Mrs. Todd – he begged if I thought of getting a carriage, that he might be let know before I made the agreement that he might see to the wheels, etc – I said I should say nothing about this at present – It was now near 12 – sent Gross, with Anderson to see if the banker merchant carnegie was at home – no! gone to England and his partner always away – but went there – the clerk could not give me money for £25 circular no. 8582 till 4am but gave me 50DB. in a//c to pay our coachman – then to our bookseller – explained about the courier – his calculations had alarmed me – 60DB. a day too much – they stared – then bought 2 vols. (my German dictionary size i.e. small square size) Swedish and English dictionary 6DB. and vocabulary Swedish Danish German French English and Italian 2DB. and Swedish grammar 36 [skillings] – No English Swedish grammar now to be had out of print – would send an old cashed for drunkenness but now sobered Lund [?] professor of languages to give me a lesson in Swedish at 4pm – I had told our bookseller this morning I would give him a letter (he is going to Brussels Paris and London) to Mr. Bewsher at our London custom house – but seeing that our friend had already got 37 letters of introduction I saw he had enough and told him the letter to Mr. Bewsher would really be of no use – I took the house he is recommended to in London doubtless good for him – George and Vulture Tavern St. Michaels’ Alley Cornhill - He is taking his wifes’ sister to Paris to finish her singing education – 4 masters recommended – Lablache and Rubini 2 of them – I said R- was perhaps the best in Europe? – sauntered along the pier – one of the steamers gone (at 5am) the other waiting till Thursday – Had walked thro’ the establishment des Bains – pretty building with circular portico front towards the water and a little flower garden ground roses etc. and gravel walks in front to the edge of the pier – Home about 2 – paid our coachman having him at Mrs. Todds’ and having her and her secretary to help us – not dissatisfied with him, but it seems the [forebud] was in fault for our being so long en route – the man I had promised him 10 Rs. – gold dollars – no! thought all was paid when I had given him the 33+ Dollars B. it ended in my giving 2DB. for the [forebud] saying I was not satisfied with him – and then at the coachmans’ request I wrote ‘I am quite satisfied with John Harder, and much obliged to Mr. Munthle – I was thirty three hours and a half in performing the journey that is till half past three yesterday afternoon – Gothenburg Tuesday 23 July 1839 A. Lister’ – then came here (our lodging) and sat down to write – about 4, had a young

SH:7/ML/E/23/0090

man from the bank with the remainder of the money exchange 11 dollars 32 skillings Banco - .:. Mr. Munthe got 1 dollar 32sk. banco x 15 = 25 dollars Banco!!! besides probably a premium upon coachman, harness etc. – the banker merchants clerk just gone when John Vanderholm recommended by Mr. Tod came to offer as servant to go with us to Norway – a Swede – tanner by trade which he learnt in London and married an English woman – she is here – his trade failed him – he does what he can to get a living – has 8 children – asks 3 Dollars Banco per day, but then he pays for himself – calculated expense – He said at utmost

Dollars banco skillings banco

1 dinner 1 0

1 breakfast 0 32

1 bed 0 32

1 supper cold 0 32

3 00 x 2= 6 DB. for A- and myself

3/9 --------- for the servant DB. a day exclusive of posting should sometimes go 12 Norse miles a day –

a hot supper same as dinner

3 horses cannot average more even in Norway than 2DB. per mile

all this seems more likely to suit us, yet the man has never been in Norway – But he can speak to be understood by the Norsemen – speaks English like an Englishman, and perhaps our own travelling knowledge and handbook will suffice – had just written so far (from line 8 inclusive of page 168) now at 7 40/.. pm – dinner at 8 – then went to look at the little open carriage for Norway – 200 Rigsgeld [kriegsgeld] dollars without harness or anything - but if not much worse, will give me half price, Rigsgeld [kriegsgeld] dollars for it on our return – dinner and looking about the carriage till 9 ¾ - then while A- had Grotza, sat reading the memoir and translation of Cassandra of Lord Royston till 11 at which hour F70° - fine day till about between 2 and 3 when heavy shower – and showers afterwards

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snowdice · 4 years

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Road Trips and Missing Persons (Part 13)

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Patton & Virgil, Virgil & Deceit, Logan & Patton, Emile & Remy, Roman & Remus & Janus

Characters: Patton, Virgil, Deceit, Remus, Roman, Logan, Emile, Remy

Summary: Patton was just getting groceries. The next thing he knew, there was a knife at his throat and he was an unwilling uber driver. Virgil’s on the run after the murder of his dad, and it’s not just his paranoia that’s telling him he’s being chased down. He has to get somewhere safe, somewhere he can trust, and all he has is a couple of stories from his dad and a name: “Green Bellow Foods and Dispensary.”

Notes: Secret Agents AU, knives, carjacking, kidnapping, murder mentioned, guns mentioned, pepper spray, blood mentioned, drugs mentioned, explosions (more to be added)

This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve affectionately named it the Goblin Brain Fic because it’s helping my brain actually get motivated for studying. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 My Master Post

Remy was slumped down in his seat as Emile continued to lecture him on all the possible consequences of his actions over the past 24 hours. Jeezy creezy was Emile miffed about all of that. Remy had been trying to blow it off, but Emile was fully, painfully aware that he’d almost had lost his brother today and Remy was going to hear about it until Emile’s lungs aches.

“And another thing…” he said.

“Wait,” Remy said, and Emile did because there was a lace of panic to his tone.

“What?” Emile asked.

“The tracker stopped working,” Remy answered pushing buttons a little bit desperately on his device.

“It went completely offline somehow,” Remy said.

“Did it get turned off?” Emile asked. “Or run out of batteries?”

“It doesn’t turn off and the batteries are designed to last for years,” Remy said. “It can even track through 20 feet of water. The only way it could stop sending a signal this abruptly is if the thing was destroyed.”

Emile paused. “You said Virgil knows what the blinking light means.”

“Yes.”

“Is it possible that he knows, or well, ‘knows,’ you’re dead? Barbara did send a man after him, he could have mentioned it.”

Remy stared down at the device in his hands.

He pressed a couple of buttons and studied the screen for a moment. “You little shit,” he groaned. “You threw it out the fucking car window, didn’t you?”

“How do you know?” Emile asked.

“Because if I look at the history, it was going at 65 miles per hour down the interstate, suddenly stopped cold, and then went offline probably when another car inevitably crushed it.”

“Ah.”

“Well, at least the fucker’s probably okay. Dammit Virgil! Where are you going?” Remy pushed a few more buttons almost idly as he thought. “Let me get into Virgil’s head for a minute: emo music, dark clothes, would rather have his toenails ripped out than go to parties, makes split second decisions based on little info. Yep! Got him.”

Emile rolled his eyes, but Remy wouldn’t have noticed as he had his own eyes closed. “Hmm. So, I’m Virgil. My bitch mom killed my dad and sent someone after me. I have no idea what’s going on, but I bolt out of there because fuck mom. I want to get the hell out of dodge so I convince someone to drive me somehow, I guess, but where would I want to go? Someplace safe. Where’s safe? Maybe Emile, but obviously that’s not where he went. Or Janus, but he’s too connected to mom. I don’t really know anyone else, especially not someone who could help with this sort of stuff.”

Remy thought for another long moment. “Oops.”

“Oops?” Emile asked. “What oops?”

He could tell by the expression on Remy’s face that he was not going to like the answer. “I may have let something… slip.”

“What do you mean, Remington?”

“Um, well you see,” Remy said. “A couple of months ago Virgil was being, you know, himself: a little shit. He may have, possibly, found some papers.”

“What kind of papers?” Emile asked.

“They were nothing important!” Remy assured. “There wasn’t any dangerous info in them or anything, but…”

“But?”

“It is somewhat possible that they had the name on them.”

“How possible?” Emile asked, eyes narrowed on him.

“He asked what Green Bellow Foods was and why they needed 50 top-of-the line computers outfitted at an old factory.”

“And what did you tell him?!”

“Nothing!”

Emile glared at him.

“Okay, well I had to tell him something,” Remy mumbled. “I just kind of said that I knew the owner well and was working with him on some stuff. Then I told him not to worry about it, which was probably a mistake, because he’s Virgil. So, then I found him snooping in my car. At that point I had to sit him down and talk to him. So, I told him a bit about Logan.”

“Remy that’s not nothing!”

“I didn’t use his name or anything. I just told him a couple of really, extremely, tremendously, vague stories, so he didn’t think I owed money to the mafia. Which, yes, he did suggest.”

“That’s worse!”

“What do you want from me Emile?!”

“Some common sense!” Emile answered. “I’ve been comparing you to the rat in Ratatouille for years, but I’m starting to think you’re more of a Pinky from Pinky and the Brain.”

“Hey, ouch,” Remy replied. “Also, I personally subscribe to the theory that Pinky is actually the intelligent one who is foiling Brain’s evil plots from the inside. So, there.”

“Now is not the time,” Emile said.

“Oh, it’s not the time to discuss cartoon theories?” Remy mumbled into his lap. “Must be serious.”

“It is serious! Virgil is missing!”

“Don’t you think I know that?!” Remy snapped. “I know, Emile.”

There was quiet. Emile took a breath. “Okay,” he said, calmer. “Do you really think he’s going to Logan?”

“He’s headed somewhere,” Remy answered, “and wherever that somewhere is, it’s inexplicably down the most direct route towards base.”

“Well, Virgil is smart. I don’t think he’d just keep going so quickly without a destination in mind. We should call Logan.”

“Do you honestly believe Barbara doesn’t have your phone tapped when Virgil is missing? If you had one of Logan’s phones, I might agree with you, but as it is, we’d be giving away our position, and possibly clueing her into Virgil’s plan. If he shows up at base, Logan will take him in no question. It’s less dangerous for everyone this way.”

“Fine,” Emile said. “We’ll just keep driving towards Logan and hope you’re right about where he’s going.”

“Of course, I’m right,” Remy said lightly. “I’ve got the paternal instincts going on. Course, they didn’t stop the knife throwing incident of ’09. I blame Janus for that, though.”

Emile shook his head at him.

“It is good for when he tries to steal sweets, or that one time he brought home a baby piglet and tried to hide it from me in his bedroom. Or when he’s feeling anxious about something but won’t tell me because he thinks it’s silly.” Remy’s own fingers tapped out an anxious pattern against his knee. “It also worked with the golf cart incident, but it was too late. Again, I blame Janus. He messes with the paternal instinct meter. He’s far too unpredictable and I make the mistake of thinking he’s responsible, which he is half the time, but the other half of the time I remember that he’s still mostly a kid and one that grew up in an unstable environment. Did I tell you that last month they went and won a bunch of tickets at the arcade and used them to get those 5 ticket rubber ducks and just unloaded them all over my room? Honestly, you’d think a 21-year-old would have a better use for his money or at least have the brains to go buy them at a store. He could have gotten like 500 more ducks for the same amount of money. Of course, it was his mom’s money, so I guess I can get behind wasting it on arcade games and rubber ducks. The prank was apparently based on some comedy sketch Virgil found online.”

“You’re doing the thing again,” Emile pointed out calmly.

“Stop psych evaluating me,” he shot back.

“Fine, fine,” Emile said. “Keep distracting yourself from your emotional responses with silly stories. See if I care.”

“Thank you,” Remy replied. “I will.”

Emile sighed as he started back up again mumbling something about having taken away Virgil’s Gameboy after catching him playing it at 3 o’clock in the morning. He claimed this wasn’t because the boy hadn’t gotten any sleep on a school night, but because he’d insulted Donkey Kong to Remy’s face. After that story had run its course, Remy continued to babble at an increasingly fast pace about all sorts of things. Emile imagined most of the stories he sprouted off were quite embellished.

Emile had tried to turn on the radio once, but Remy had slapped his hand away saying, “The next one’s a really good one.” So, he had resigned himself to his fate of tuning out Remy’s coping mechanism to the best of his abilities and just focusing on driving for the next 45 minutes. Which is probably why he noticed that traffic had strangely decreased. He didn’t really pay the fact that much mind until the traffic suddenly increased… in the form of a wall of stopped cars.

“Jenkies, what’s going on?” he asked, as he came to a stop at the end of the line of cars.

“Um…” Remy said looking out of his car window. There, staring into their car with beady black eyes was a cow. As Emile watched, said cow leaned forward to drag its tongue across the passenger side window. “Shit.”

Want to read more? Click below!

Part 14

#sanders sides #remy sanders #virgil sanders #janus sanders #platonic remile #remus sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #road trips and missing persons #adriana writes #murder mentioned #emile piccani

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slapshot-to-the-heart · 4 years

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Flatbush & Atlantic: part ix

part i part ii part iii part iv part v part vi part vii part viii

And here we’ve got part ix! This will be the second-to-last part of the series, I’ve got some thoughts also running around for a possible epilogue if that’s something anyone would be interested in reading. As always, there’s literally nothing writers love more than hearing from you all, so don’t be afraid to come and tell me what you think - my inbox is open, comment on the post, reblog with your thoughts!

part ix

April 27 (tues)

Mat’s mind was racing. If he was honest, he hadn’t been able to concentrate worth a damn since Cass had dropped the news about her job offer. Hong Kong? He knew she was brilliant, knew that her skills could and should take her anywhere in the world she wanted to go; the thought that she might leave New York, leave him, was still terrifying. Becoming more worried by the minute, he pulled out his phone, dialing the first person he could think of that might be able to help.

Tito answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, Tito. What’s up?” Mat asked nervously.

“What’s wrong, Mat?” He immediately asked. Mat cursed under his breath; even over the phone, Beau was always able to read him like a book.

Mat grimaced. “That obvious, huh?”

“Mat, we see each other pretty much every day. Not to be a jerk or something, but you don’t really call me unless something’s wrong. What is it? Did you and Cass have a fight?” Mat could imagine him crossing his arms on the other end.

“Not exactly,” he said, scratching his head as he wandered aimlessly around the park. “She got this job offer, and it sounds like a really exciting opportunity, but…” He trailed off.

“But?”

“It’s all the way in Asia. It’s in Hong Kong.”

Tito sucked in a breath. “Oh, wow. That’s a big one. Big move. Has she said if she’s going to take it?”

“Not really, she hasn’t decided.” Mat shook his head, not realizing Tito wouldn’t be able to see. “We talked through it a little, they’re offering a really good starting salary and she likes the company values, but it’s such a huge jump that she’s not ready to make the call yet.”

“Did you talk about what it would mean for you as a couple?”

“A little, though not as much as we probably should have,” Mat admitted. “Neither of us would want to break it off just because it would be long distance, but logistically it would just be a nightmare. It’s something like a 15 hour flight from New York, so it’s not like either of us would ever be able to make that more than once or twice a year. Did you know that it’s a twelve hour time difference from here?”

“No,” Tito said, “and it’s obviously not like I know exactly what you’re going through. Paige is a kindergarten teacher, so it’s not exactly like her job would suddenly pick up and move to another country. But it’s obviously a different story with me.”

As distracted as he was, Mat felt compelled to respond. “You know they’re going to resign you, right? It would be a terrible move for them if they didn’t.”

“Yeah, I mean that’s what I’ve figured,” Beau responded. “And my agent told me to expect negotiations to start in the next month or so, but still. I could be sent to Winnipeg or Phoenix or Vancouver pretty much without notice, and I wouldn’t want to ask her to just pick up her whole life and follow me. So, I get the feeling.” He paused for a moment. “How do you feel about it?”

“Mixed feelings,” Mat answered honestly. “I’d never want to hold her back from anything, that’s not the kind of person I am and it’d be a dick move regardless. She’s her own person and deserves to be able to make her own decisions. And I would never want her to grow to resent me if she decided to stay for my sake. That would almost be worse. I just..I really love her, Tito, and I would hate for us to never be able to see eachother because of her job. Or worse, for this to mean the end of us because the distance was too hard to deal with.”

It took Tito a minute to respond. “I know you love her, Mat. It’s pretty obvious. You look at her like she hung the moon. But if they all say that things will work out if you love each other and talk it through, then what are you so worried about?”

Mat took a deep breath before answering, trying to gather his thoughts as best he could. When he spoke, his voice wavered. “Because I’ve never been this gone for a girl, Tito. What Cass and I have...I don’t even know how to describe it. I’d stop the Earth turning if it made her happy. It’s just...she’s it for me. I’m done looking. And the idea that I could be 13,000 kilometers away from her isn’t even something I had considered. I wouldn’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”

“Wow. That’s...that’s big, Mat. You serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he replied.

“When do they need to hear back by?” Tito asked.

Mat looked down at his watch, checking the time. “Not for a few weeks. She’s got some time to decide, which is almost worst.”

Tito hummed sympathetically. “Just talk it through. I can’t pretend like I know what’s going to happen, but I have faith in you. It’s going to work out.”

“I hope so.”

May 13 (thurs)

It was nine days before Cass graduated, and if she was being honest, her time may have objectively been better spent studying for her finals, the first of which was Monday. But this was Mat, and this was the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and she supposed that her studies could wait for a night while she spent her evening at Barclays. It was Game 5 of the Eastern Conference final, and there was no way she was going to miss her team’s chance at the Wales trophy. The tone in the arena was tense from the moment she stepped in; ever the optimist, Cass liked the Islanders’ chances, but the fact remained that they were down 3-1 in the series after a 4-0 rout by the Lightning in Game 4. The series had started off with forward momentum after winning the first game at home, but the three-game losing streak had done little for the fans’ hopes and even less for the team’s morale.

The only bright spot, if she could call it that, was Mat’s return to the ice. He knew as well as anything that the recovery time was for his own good, but he wasn’t made to be cooped up in his apartment for nearly two weeks straight, save only doctor’s appointments and short trips to the complex gym. Per his usual dramatic fashion, Mat had been cleared in time for Game 7 of the second round, returning to raucous cheers and scoring two goals in the eventual 4-2 win over the Capitals. She had caught up enough on her work to be able to make the game, and it was one of the great joys of her life to be up in a box surrounded by her friends when the love of her life scored the goal that sent the Islanders to the conference finals for the first time in nearly thirty years.

That kind of a dramatic win had made the losing streak that much harder. Game sevens are always exciting, especially with someone coming back off of injured reserve. While the win hadn’t made the team cocky by any means, the confidence had carried over into something more closely resembling complacency. They won Game 7, they won the first of the next series, so some of the team — mostly the younger players who hadn’t yet cut their teeth in the league — had made the mistake of assuming that the rest of the round would be smooth sailing. They should have known better, Cass thought ruefully as the Lightning scored two minutes before the first intermission to even the score at 1-1. Why couldn’t this be the round before, filled with confidence and coordination and laser-focused passing on every line? Why couldn’t it have been the celebration after?

---

May 3 (tues)

Winning a game sometimes called for going out. Winning a series almost definitely called for going out. And winning a series in Game 7 that sent your team to the conference finals for the first time in recent memory called for going out, and going out hard. As much as Cass would have loved to get as hammered as the rest of the group, especially considering the stress she was under with finals and graduation and her job offer piling up, they didn’t want a repeat of the afterparty from the All-Star Game, and Cass still had school the next day. So, she had committed to limiting herself to three drinks. “I want to be tipsy, not shitfaced,” she had explained to Paige on the drive over. Tito had driven his car over, Paige volunteering to DD so the boys could let loose and everyone could let off some much-needed steam.

Someone had already opened up a tab for everyone by the time their car had gotten there, and it wasn’t ten minutes before they had claimed a few couches in the corner and Cass had a caipirinha in her hand. She was a little worried that Mat’s tolerance had tanked in the past few weeks; he hadn’t really drank since before the concussion and it was their first time at a bar in a few weeks regardless. Mat noticed her nervous glances out of the corner of his eye. “I’m fine,” he reassured her. “I specifically asked the doctors if I was good to drink at my last appointment and they said I was in the clear.”

Cass giggled, sipping her drink. “You asked your doctors if you could drink alcohol?”

“What can I say?” Mat shrugged. “I wanted to go out and get lit with friends, can you blame me?”

Cass’ giggles had evolved into full-on belly laughs. “Lit? What are you, sixteen?”

Mat’s cheeks reddened in what was probably a combination of alcohol and embarrassment. “My cousin said it once.”

Cass headed back over to the bar a few minutes later for another drink, leaving the boys to talk amongst themselves with the occasional interruption from an excited fan. On a high from the win, the team were more than happy to take photos and have quick chats with anyone who stopped them, and thankfully weren’t mobbed by the crowd inside the bar. For the most part, Cass and her relationship with Mat had been able to fly under the radar — well, as much as she could being Mat Barzal’s other half. Her Instagram hadn’t been private since college, and while a fair few fans and fanpages followed her, it had all remained mercifully low-key. Waiting at the bar, she resigned herself to scroll through Twitter for a few minutes, knowing it would be a little while before the bartender got to her.

“Are you Cassidy Shaw?” Cass’ head turned slowly towards her right, where a short blonde girl looked at her with a shocked expression.

“Cabrera Shaw, but yes?” She answered slowly.

“Sorry!” The girl apologized, “I didn’t mean to be weird or anything. I follow you on Instagram, it’s just so weird to finally see you in person.” Cass gave a nervous laugh. She had fans? On Instagram? Who were excited if they met her in real life?

“One Southside and whatever your favorite IPA on tap is, please,” Cass said to the bartender who had just leaned over the counter to get her order. “Thank you? You’re welcome?” Cass smiled awkwardly.

“I just wanted to say that I think it’s super cool how you’re not a typical WAG or anything. My name’s Sierra, I’m a junior at St. John’s. I’m applying for law school next year. It’s just, like, awesome to see a woman being successful in her own right apart from her partner, especially when they’re in such a visible position and it’s not what’s expected of them. I’m sorry — I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

Cass laughed, a genuine one this time. “No, you’re totally good. Don’t worry. That’s really sweet of you to say, thanks a lot!” She sipped the Southside the bartender had just handed her, sliding Mat’s beer over. “Yeah, I have so much respect for the other women who choose to do more philanthropic work or be stay-at-home moms, but that’s not what I feel pulled to. Right now, at least.”

“Right, totally,” Julia said, grabbing what looked like a rum and coke from the other bartender. “Anyways, I should let you get back to the celebration. Tell the team congratulations, it was a great game to watch!”

Cass picked up the other glass, nodding. “I will. Thank you for your kind words, that was sweet of you to say.”

“Anytime!” Julia chirped happily.

Cass walked carefully back over to the group, keeping an eye on the drinks. She handed Mat’s beer to him. He looked up curiously, taking a sip. “Something hold you up at the bar?”

She shook her head, then nodded, then shook it again. “Kind of? I think I just had my first fan encounter.”

He laughed, leaning over to plant a kiss on her cheek. “Comes with the territory, babe.”

---

The game was scoreless through the second period, which didn’t help the tension in the stadium or Cass’ blood pressure. She and Paige had decided to get actual seats for the game, which Mat and Tito were more than happy to arrange. The Islanders were doing well through the first half of the third period, other than a little bit of messy passing the lines were good. But good wasn’t good enough sometimes, good wasn’t close enough to score and give them the lead. Cass’ heart sank as soon as one of the defensemen, she wasn’t sure who, made a turnover in the neutral zone to give the Lightning the puck. Kucherov picked it off, skating past the defenders and around the goal while the rest of the line nearly tripped over themselves trying to skate back in time.

She was on the edge of her seat as he wrapped around the goal, silently praying that Varlamov would somehow be able to get a piece of the puck with his blocker or that it would have one of those one-in-a-million deflections off of the post. You could hear a pin drop in the stadium as everyone waited for the shot; tall of the sudden, time seemed to move like molasses. And then the puck went in, the red light went on, and the scattered sections of blue-and-white clad Lightning fans threw their arms up in celebration.

Cass allowed herself exactly ten seconds to hold her head in her hands. There was still seven minutes, thirty nine seconds left. There was still time. Then there was five minutes, forty-two seconds left, and Maroon got two minutes for tripping, and that was their chance. That was supposed to be their chance. But then the penalty came and went, and it was three minutes left. Two minutes left. They pulled Varlamov at one minutes fifty-eight seconds left, and then it was the last shift. Forty-nine seconds left, and it was time for a Hail Mary. Out of habit, Cass’s lips began moving in the prayer. Hail Mary, full of grace...It was a holdover from her lacrosse days, when they were down in the last quarter with seemingly no hope in sight. It didn’t always work, but it sometimes did. It didn’t work that night. It didn’t work because the clock ticked down to zero, the score was still 2-1, and the Islanders had lost. They were out of the playoffs. Fans began shuffling out of the rink, shoulders slumped and heads down, as Cass bit her lip and tried not to cry. The team had worked so hard for this. God, they had worked so hard. And if she was taking it this badly, if it was affecting her this much, then she couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like for the guys on the team.

Paige turned to her after a few minutes, when there were only a handful of people still left in their seats and the Zambonis had come out to resurface the ice one last time. “We should probably get down there, do you think?” She asked softly. Cass nodded. She was referring to the tunnel, outside the locker room where everyone usually got to greet their partners with kisses and hugs and words of congratulations, but where the mood would be profoundly different on that night. Cass grabbed her bag and straightened out her jersey, squeezing Paige’s hand. Neither of them really knew what the environment was going to be like after such a devastating knockout; Paige had started dating Anthony the summer before, and Cass obviously had even less experience. They had dealt with losses, they had dealt with disappointments and losing streaks and points droughts, but this was something new entirely.

They rode the elevator in silence before walking down the corridors to the room, where the rest of the WAGs and other family had congregated. Kerry rubbed her shoulder sympathetically as Lauren walked over. “We in the Islanders family have a lot of experience with getting knocked out of the playoffs,” she said with a weak smile, trying to crack a joke, “so here is how it usually goes. The guys should be coming out in a few, it takes longer than usual because the media typically has some end-of-the-season wrapup questions and Trotz and Anders will probably make speeches or say something. Some others might too.” The two women nodded. “Don’t treat it like just another loss, but it’s also no good to hover too much. It’s obviously a real disappointment, so it usually takes a week or so before most of them bounce back to being their normal selves. They know what coping mechanisms work best for them. Most will hit the gym more, read or cook if they’re into that, something to get their mind off of it. Obviously they’re still players and still want to know how they can get better, so they might want to go over tapes of the games and make notes of where they went wrong. That’s fine, but don’t let them beat themselves up about it too much. This was a hard series, and Mat especially,” she gestured towards Cass, “tends to be more than a little bit of a perfectionist.”

“I’ve noticed,” Cass said.

“One last thing,” she continued. “Let them process, let them cope, but a loss not an excuse for them to treat you any worse, any less kindly. Be understanding, of course. But don’t take any crap from them, regardless of the circumstance.”

“Thank you,” Paige said gratefully. Cass echoed her sentiment. The next ten minutes were filled with checking emails and making half-hearted conversation before the team started to trail out of the room. Embracing their partners and families, most couples exchanged no more than a few words before turning down the hall that led to the players’ parking lot. Paige left with a squeeze to her shoulder and a promise to get coffee the next week before grabbing Tito’s hand and guiding him towards the cars.

Unsurprisingly, Mat followed right behind. He hadn’t combed his hair after his shower, the top button of his dress shirt was undone and only haphazardly tucked into his pants. Mat had been on the shift when Kucherov scored, and if there was anything she knew about her boyfriend, it was that he’d take it personally. He dropped his bag on the ground as she embraced him, and the thud against the concrete floor felt as if it could echo all the way across the Long Island Sound.

“I’m so proud of you, Mat. So, so proud. I know this didn’t end how you wanted it to, but you worked so fucking hard to get here, and that’s what I see. That’s all I see,” she whispered.

Mat wasn’t crying, but his breathing was labored nonetheless. “I just feel...I feel like I let everyone down. I wasn’t supposed to be that far up on the ice, and if I hadn’t, maybe I would have gotten back in time to steal the puck, or check him or something, or…” He trailed off.

Cass sighed. “I know, chou, I know how you feel. But just try to remember that this is a team sport. You win with the boys, you lose with the boys. Do you get mad at Tito when he makes a bad play? Or Jordan, or Anders?” Mat shook his head. “It’s the same way with you. They don’t stop being proud of you or think you’re any less of an incredible player because you made a bad decision. Bad decisions get made all the time, and it doesn’t have to reflect on the person who made them. It’s a hard game, love, but you did your best and that’s all anyone ever has a right to ask of you.”

Mat’s thumb rubbed against the small of her back. “I know I’ll be fine, eventually. I mean, we’ve all dealt with this before. It just seems different this time, because we were so close to actually making the finals. It seems kind of silly to say since I know I’m only 23 and I know I’ve got so much time left to play, but,” he took a shaky breath, “I look at all the veterans, all the amazing players whose entire careers have gone by without ever having gotten the Cup. Lundqvist and Thornton and Marleau and all of these legends. And it sounds kind of selfish and naive, but I don’t want to be one of them.”

They stood like that for a few more minutes, just holding each other, before either spoke again. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” Cass murmured to Mat as she carded her hands through his hair. She felt a tiny, almost imperceptible nod against her shoulder. Her bag had her laptop, books, and chargers. She had a whole drawer in Mat’s room by then, a combination of stray shirts that were his-turned-hers, a few pairs of leggings — they took up an entire drawer of their own back at her apartment — and balled-up socks from her one unsuccessful attempt at doing the laundry in his building. She had a spare box of tampons in his bathroom, her floral shampoo next to his 2-in-1 Old Spice. No matter how hard she pushed, Mat remained oblivious to the benefits of having separate shampoo and conditioner.

He pulled away, reaching into his pocket and handing over his keys. “Do you mind driving?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. Whatever you need.”

The ride back home was about forty minutes, and it was almost halfway through before either of them spoke, the lull of the 80s rock channel filling in the silence. “Where’s your head at, Mat?” She asked carefully.

He was looking out the window, distracted. “Hm?”

She repeated the question and he tensed slightly, leaning back into the passenger seat. “Just feeling kind of...confused about the whole thing. Seems like I’m being pulled in a thousand different directions one day, but then all of the sudden something like this happens and I’ve got nothing. It’s overwhelming. I know I have a life outside of hockey, I know it’s not all of who I am, but sometimes it seems hard to believe that when it seems like that’s all I’m recognized for.” Keeping one hand on the wheel, Cass reached over to cover his hand with her own. His fingers held onto hers like a lifeline.

“You’re right, you know?” She said as they passed into the Queens-Midtown tunnel.

“About?”

“Being so much more than people perceive you to be. I get that, it’s like that for me too sometimes. And Mat, you are so much more than ‘just a hockey player.’ You’re a good son and an amazing brother to Liana, and an awesome friend to Tito and the guys on the team and everyone back home. And,” she added, cracking a smile, “you’re a pretty good boyfriend too.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Just pretty good?”

“I didn’t want to fluff your ego too much,” Cass said. “But seriously, Mat. You’re incredible entirely on your own merit. You care so deeply for the people in your life and you love so hard, and it’s an honor and a privilege to be able to witness that firsthand.”

Mat bent down to the center console, brushing a kiss over her hand. “How do you do it?”

Now it was her turn to question. “Do what?”

“Always know the right thing to say.”

“I don’t,” Cass admitted. “And sometimes I get it wrong. But I know I love you, and I don’t want to see you hurting if there’s anything I can do about it.” The car exited the tunnel into the dotted lights of a Manhattan evening.

“Well,” he cleared his throat, “if there was an Oscar for pep talks, I’d have to give it to you, hands down. No offense to any of the guys on the team.”

She laughed, stopping at the light. Right on red wasn’t legal in New York City, a rule she found out the hard way two months after moving. “I’m glad it helps.”

“It does,” Mat said softly. “It means the world to me that you care enough to do it. You mean the world to me.”

Her cheeks heated. “You sure know how to flatter a girl, eh, Barzal?”

“I meant every word.”

---

May 20 (thurs)

She was done. After three years, six semesters, dozens of classes, and hundreds of hours studying, Cass had just finished her last final of law school. Her classmates stumbled out of the lecture hall, not entirely believing that all of their tears and heartache and hard work had come to a head in such an anticlimactic fashion. Turning on her heel, she walked south. It was just before seven, and her friends had a group reservation at some ridiculously extravagant French wine bar. It was Les’ idea, who had a penchant for all things expensive and who had made the reservation months prior because “you never know, John Mayer could book the whole place up and as much as I love dollar slices, we don’t want that to be our only option for what’s supposed to be a very prestigious celebratory dinner.” Les, Fiona, and Samaira were coming, along with Daniel, another editor on the law review, and Robin, one of Cass’ friends from first-year criminal law and the president of the Women’s Law Association. She had initially been wary about inviting Mat; it wasn’t that she didn’t think he’d get along with her law school friends, but she didn’t want him to feel out of the loop. After Les had announced that he was bringing his boyfriend, Xavier, Cass had extended the invite to Mat as well.

It was only a ten minute walk, and the hostess directed Cass to their table, where she realized that she was the last one to arrive. “Don’t worry,” Robin said, “we’ve just been interrogating your man.”

Cass scooted in next to Mat, kissing him quickly before rolling her eyes. “I hope you haven’t been too hard on him.”

Mat smiled. “Nah, they’ve been good. But being questioned by six lawyers who all seem very adamant that I don’t deserve you —”

“You don’t,” Samaira cut in, though it was clear she was joking.

“Was more than a little intimidating,” Mat finished, handing Cass the menu.

“Order whatever you want, I’m paying,” Daniel said as he flicked through the wine menu. “Well, technically, my parents are.” Daniel came from money; his mom was a partner at a firm in Chicago and his dad was a law professor at the University of Chicago. “If they’re going to insist on sending me to law school and sheltering me my whole life, the least I could do is take advantage of their generosity,” Daniel said, plunking his credit card onto the table. Fifteen minutes later, the group was sharing plates of escargots, crab tartine, and roasted cauliflower; twenty minutes after that, entrées were served. Mat had recognized the waitress’ accent and was chatting to her in French in between plates. Cass sipped on her wine, a pinot noir, and took a moment to look around the room, a moment to relax. Two more days, and she graduated. Everything that she had worked so hard for was finally coming to fruition. She still had to pass the bar in July, sure, but for one night — for a few days, really — she was going to let herself finally rest in the ability of her accomplishments.

Dessert was maple bourbon crème brûlée with Sauternes, and Mat may have had a little too much fun breaking the caramelized sugar. Cass was full of good food and conversation; after everyone was done it was after nine. Les, Daniel, and Xavier had decided to get drinks, but Robin had barely slept at all that week, Samaira was going to watch a movie at her boyfriend’s, and Cass and Mat had to wake up early to get her grandparents from the airport. Mat took her hand as they walked towards the subway station. He had parked a few blocks away and offered to drive Cass back to her apartment, but she didn’t want him to go out of his way and all things considered, taking the subway at night had become something of a routine for her.

They walked down Manhattan Avenue, resting in the kind of comfortable silence that only came with being with someone who really gets you. Cass had decided not to take the Hong Kong job the week prior. It was just too much distance from her family and Mat, and while the job seemed interesting enough, it wasn’t the kind of position she thought she could really be happy in long-term. “Have you figured out what you’re doing yet?” Mat asked as they turned the corner. “I’d say you should just move in with me and become a full-time housewife, but something’s telling me that’s not exactly the kind of opportunity you’re searching for.”

Cass laughed, bumping him with her shoulder. “Tempting offer, the housewife thing, but I think I’m going to have to pass. Plus that would necessitate you wifing me up.”

Mat kissed her head. “All in due time, pretty girl.” “But anyways, about the job search.” Cass said, a smile playing on her lips. “I was going to wait until graduation to surprise you, but since you asked…” She paused for dramatic effect. “Chris offered me a job. Permanently.”

Mat stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “Chris? Like Islanders Chris? Lawyer Chris?”

She giggled. “Yes. Islanders lawyer Chris. You’re looking at the new Associate Counsel for the New York Islanders, Mat.” Mat damn near hollered in celebration, picking Cass up and spinning her around before pulling her into what was very possibly one of the best kisses of her life. Cass barely took notice of the tourists watching them from the side or her own public display of affection. It was New York City. They had seen weirder.

It felt like a weight had been lifted off of Mat’s chest. He was being honest when he said that he wouldn’t have done anything to get Cass to stay, it just wasn’t his place. But he also would have been lying if he had said it would be anything but heartbreaking to see her leave. It was like he told Tito. Not even giving the future a chance to work itself out would be worse than a breakup. And with any luck, they’d never have one of those either. They rounded the last corner, steps down to the subway in sight, when Mat remembered what he had wanted to ask her but had been interrupted by her news. Her incredible, perfect news. “What would you think about spending some time in Canada this summer?”

Cass, seemingly oblivious, answered, “Oh? Like as a vacation?”

He shook his head. “No, like in Coquitlam with my family.”

“You want me to spend the summer with you and your family?” Cass asked, eyes wide.

“Yeah, only if you want to, of course. And I’m not sure when the job with the team starts, or…” He looked down.

Cass smiled. “I’d love to, but are you sure it isn’t too much? I don’t want to feel like I’m intruding on family time, I know you don’t get a lot of time with them since you’re here most of the year. I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to bring me around just because we’re together.”

They stopped by a lamp. Cass leaned up against the post. “Cass. My parents have made it very clear to me that you’re family, and that they’ll have my head if I’m ever dumb enough to let you go.” She snickered. “Just so we’re clear, I don’t intend on ever letting that happen. My family loves you, my sister thinks you’re way cooler than me.”

“She’s got good taste,” Cass said, tilting her head.

Mat laughed. “She does. She told me you guys were texting the other day about the guy she’s interested in, giving her advice. Sure, it was my idea to invite you, but they were so on board from the moment I mentioned it. Plus, my friends back home are getting annoyed with me because they haven’t met you yet with how often I talk about you.”

She bit her lip. “How long were you thinking of staying?”

Mat shrugged. “Leave in a couple weeks, I usually stay two months or so, so until sometime in August?”

“I’d have to fly back to take the bar in July, and I’d still need some time to study while we’re over, but my contract doesn’t start until the end of August, so…”

“You’ll come?” Mat smiled hopefully.

She nodded. “I’ll come. I’ve never been to Canada before, did you know that?”

He shook his head, leaning in and brushing a kiss on her hairline. “You’re going to love it.”

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prorevenge · 4 years

Text

Got an asshole fired and helped a co-worker get a job they wanted.

About 20 years ago, I got a job at a warehouse/ delivery place, pulling and delivering windshields. When I started, there were 6 drivers - 1 old white guy who'd been there since humanity existed, 4 young black guys, and me (white female). I mention this only because, unfortunately, it does become important later. There were also 4-5 people in the office running sales/ admin, including the only other female at the company. She'd wanted a delivery job, but had been told "that's not a woman's job" so was stuck in the office. The guy who hired me made a big deal about how he'd stuck his neck out for me, and was getting crap from his buddies for hiring a woman. There was some undertone about equal opportunity, but I've never counted on that and made sure I went above and beyond.

At the time, it was a locally-owned place, and rules were not really standardized about most things. In theory, each driver was supposed to take orders for the next route scheduled, load up the next available truck, and head out. In reality, there was an unofficial pecking order, and each driver had "their" route/s and truck. As the new guy, I got the less-than-great pickup truck with an open-air rack and various problems; most of the other trucks were box trucks (think small moving trucks) so the windshields wouldn't get wet as they were delivered, and the driver could rearrange things inside the truck if the route got switched around for whatever reason. I also got the furthest-away route with the latest delivery times, so I usually got stuck in rush hour on the way back. I know the rules, though, so I shut my mouth, sucked it up, and waited for turnover to make me not-the-new guy and get a better truck/ route.

Surprisingly, turnover didn't happen. There were the usual problems with 2 of the workers not pulling their weight, but... no one ever got fired. The worst offender was, of course, the guy at the top of the unofficial pecking order, we'll call him Mike. Dude was huge - easily a foot taller than me (I'm not short), I'm pretty sure all he did was work and workout, and he constantly bragged about doing steroids to get bigger. He would only take the shortest run with the fewest deliveries and spend the rest of the time talking sh!t with the other drivers or just randomly vanishing. A couple months after I started, I got some big orders for my routes all in a row, and asked for help so I could gather everything, load up, and head out on time. This was not uncommon - there were several machines used for pulling the stock, so if you finished your orders early, you helped others who were behind. Not Mike, though - you'd think I'd asked him to skin a puppy. Got in my face, yelling about how dare I ask him to do anything, I'm just the new guy, get out of here and don't let him see me again, etc., you get the picture. One of the other guys I'd become friends with pulled me away and helped me get loaded up and out the door, but that never really sat right with me. Mike had never been friendly to me, but after that day, he'd go out of his way to be an ass - nothing big, but enough to seriously irritate me and intimidate the other guys to not talk to me when he was around.

A little while later, I mentioned the outburst to the lady in the office, and she told me why nothing would ever be done about Mike or anyone else. Apparently the personnel guy, we'll call him Tony, had gotten fired from his previous job over a complaint about racism. He'd used the phrase "Black Friday" to refer to, well, Black Friday: the day after Thanksgiving, when sales are supposed to get companies back in the black/ financially solvent. Apparently one of his employees claimed he used it as a racist remark, it got taken to court and somehow, Tony was found guilty and fired. Basically, that meant that he couldn't take any actions against a black worker ever again, because he's got a prior judgement against him. The drivers knew that, and Mike (and one other but he's not important here) absolutely used it to do the bare minimum required to stay employed. That didn't sit right with me either, but I was just a driver, and the new guy, so nothing I could do about it.

Until...

A couple months later, the owner did some necessary maintenance around the place, and one of the things done was getting rid of "my" old truck and buying a new-er one that was half-enclosed/ half open-air racks. The owner apparently said it should go to "whoever had driven the old truck" as an apology for not having heat/ ac in the old one, but I'm not super picky. Offered it to the old guy, because seniority, but he turned it down in favor of "his" truck that he was used to and was fully enclosed. I offered it to the two black guys who actually did their jobs and were pretty decent to me (when Mike wasn't around), but same thing - they wanted their own, enclosed trucks. Ok, cool. Newish truck for me! Spent the first day getting used to it, and stayed late off the clock getting it sparkling clean, inside and out. The only thing it lacked was the new car smell, everything else was polished, cleaned, buffed, shined, etc.

Well, apparently, the fact that I didn't bow and scrape to Mike pissed him off even more, and seeing the "new" truck out back all shiny and pristine was too much to handle. He was already out on a run when I came in the next day, so I loaded up and headed out as per usual. Got back about 5 minutes before his second run of the day was supposed to leave and he came storming out before I could even get out of the truck. Screaming profanity, "how dare you take my truck, get tf out of that thing, get your sh!t out, that's my truck, I'm gonna take it 'cause it looks good and I deserves it, you're just a bitch, you don't deserve anything nice, I'm gonna f**k you up," etc etc.

Side note: I don't tolerate bullies at all, and I don't back down easily. I was always the little kid, growing up, and I learned just how far I could push it, mouthing off and calmly standing up to kids bigger than me because "oh, you're so tough? You're gonna pick on a little girl?" As I grew up, I tended to work in "men's jobs," so I was used to taking some sh!t but also drawing a line firmly in the sand and defending it. I am occasionally surprised I haven't gotten decked a time or two, but I've gotten pretty good at reading a situation.

Back to the story: I'm sitting in the newish truck with Mike standing outside the door screaming profanity and threats at me. For all the sh!t that Mike talked, though, I got the feeling he was used to getting his way without actual violence. I calmly opened the door and got out, but left my personal belongings in the truck and locked the door behind me. He was doing his damnedest to intimidate me, getting up in my space, finger in my face, personal threats, etc. I started walking toward the office, which was all the way on the opposite end of the warehouse, and he followed me the whole way, still screaming, threats getting worse and worse, apparently ignorant to the fact that literally every single employee had stopped what they were doing and was watching us. I walked into the office and just stood there for about 4-5 minutes, staring at the owner while Mike just kept going off. He finally realized I wasn't reacting to him and ran out of steam, and you could see the realization of where he was register on his face, but he glanced over at Tony and smirked, probably figuring he was still untouchable.

In the silence that followed, I calmly said to the owner, "You have four black guys working in the warehouse." He nodded. "And you have one woman working out there." He nodded again, and I saw the light come on. Without looking at anyone else, I said, "I do not want to pull the gender card here, but if something is not done about this situation, I will have to take steps to ensure my safety." I grabbed the tickets for my next run, turned around, and walked back to the warehouse to start pulling the orders.

I'm not really sure what happened next, because all the other guys had mysteriously gotten loaded and left on their runs in record time, and I followed not long after. When I got back, Mike was no longer there, and one of the other guys was training the admin lady to be a new driver. Over the next week, I got quiet "thank you"s from her, Tony, and the other drivers who actually did work. The other slacker guy got fired a while later for possession with intent to distribute, I believe. I left about a year later to drive bigger trucks, but by then we had a pretty solid crew of drivers who helped each other out.

TL;DR: I worked as a warehouse/ delivery person with 4 black guys and an HR guy who'd been fired as a racist for using the phrase "Black Friday," so he couldn't take any action without being accused of racism again. One of the black drivers who thought he ruled the place didn't like that I got a newish delivery truck that no one else wanted, screamed and threatened me as I walked into the office so everyone could see; pointed out there were 4 black drivers and one female. Guy was fired.

Sorry, that was WAY longer than I thought it'd be when I remembered it. Let me know if anything's unclear or this isn't where it belongs.

(source) story by (/u/Manarelle)

#prorevenge #by /u/Manarelle #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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loreweaver-universe · 4 years

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And that’s the episode.

Ooooh. That’s an interesting twist. I hadn’t even considered the possibility that there would be people intentionally driving their number up to stay on the train longer. Fair enough, I guess! If you think it’s better than your life back home, go for it. But. But, but, but...she’s dragging other people into it, encouraging them to drive up their number, and being a shithead to the denizens. She’s not Amelia by any means, obviously, but she’s going to be an interesting villain in her own right.

But she’s going to be a complex one, for sure. She seems like she’s not going to take no for an answer from Jesse, and may actually manage to drive up his number a little. Hopefully the lessons he’s learned about being a bully stick with him.

This is going to be interesting.

The Lucky Cat Car was REALLY fun, and has introduced an interesting new villain besides. It comes in at my new #1 for season 2, above The Black Market Car, and my new #5 overall, between The Ball Pit Car and The Cat’s Car.

Up next is going to be episode 17 of Infinity Train! We’re in the latter half of the season, now, and it...ooooh. Just had a realization. Grace has a mirror, we focused on that, and I think she’s going to sic Mace and Sieve on MT. Anyways, we’re in the latter half of the season, and I expect things to heat up continuously from here. I’ll be doing episode 17 on Monday, so look forward to that!

Streamwise, I just finished The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince, a sad and sweet little game that I rather enjoyed. You can view the playlist of that game by clicking here. I’m not sure what the upcoming schedule of games is going to be--I want to do Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel, and I want to do Alien Isolation, and I want to do Devil May Cry 5, and then I want to do a longer game like Breath of the Wild or the last campaign of Fire Emblem Three Houses, but I’m not sure in what order I’m going to do them. Stay tuned for the announcements there.

Thank you all for tuning in! I’ll see you next time!

IN OTHER NEWS:

I recently completed my blind playthrough of Astral Chain! You can see the full playlist of those streams by clicking here!

I recently completed my playthrough of Final Fantasy VII Remake! You can see the full playlist of those streams by clicking here!

I recently completed my playthrough of the second story campaign in Fire Emblem: Three Houses! You can view all the streams of the Golden Deer and Black Eagles routes I have done by clicking here!

If you’d like to help me pay my rent, buy me some food, or help with my bills and medicine, please use my direct donation link! If you’d like to support me per liveblog completed every month, please pledge to my Patreon! Becoming a patron not only allows you to vote on what shows I do whenever I choose a new one, but also grants access to the community Minecraft server to $5 patrons or higher!

You should also go pledge to Gio’s Patreon–our Discord server maintenance tech, creator of Rubybot, and community Minecraft server overlord deserves far more than I can afford to pledge to him by myself.

If you’d like more of me and my content:

My Episode Lists master page, where you can find every show and liveblog I’ve done!

My Discord server, where you can come hang out with me and other fans, check out member liveblogs, and join community gaming guilds!

My Twitch channel, where I stream variety games every so often!

My Youtube channel, where you can check out past streams!

My ask blog, where you can send me questions and comments!

My Twitter, where I make announcements about liveblogs and streams!

It’s your kindness and support that lets me do this stuff, and I wouldn’t be where I am without all of you to do it for. Thank you all so much for your support, and for tuning in every episode!

OTHER PEOPLE YOU MAY ENJOY:

I may have been one of the earlier Steven Universe liveblogs, but a whole community of livebloggers has sprung up over the last five years! I linked to a bunch individually for a few wrap-ups, but honestly, this end-slate is already eight billion miles long, so I’m just gonna link to my links page. Click here if you want recommendations of other livebloggers, or other neat people, or webcomics and podcasts that I recommend.

#infinity train #infinibloggin #bloggin #infinity train episode 16 #inf18 #episode wrap up

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ommsims · 4 years

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story process challenge

i was tagged by @xldkx to do this challenge, created by @herpixels , like a month? a month and a half? ago and it’s been sitting half finished in my drafts for nearly as long. *sigh* (regardless, i love stuff like this so even if it takes me forever to get to it, i appreciate the tags! 💕).

i decided to answer all the qs because it took me damn long enough to get to this, so i might as well put some extra elbow grease into it (plus it was fun!). btw it’s all going under a cut b/c it is long. i apologize in advance.

1. My Writing Process - used to be a hot damn mess. literally word docs strewn throughout my pc. However, I recently switched to using Onenote (it’s what i use to organize my d&d campaign notes) and hoo-boy is it so much nicer. this is how it’s set up and it’s honestly night and day. i can have a page with outlines, a page to organize & order screenshots, and a separate page for drafting text, and i can easily toggle though them without having to switch windows? a big thumbs up from me.

When it comes to actual writing- I used to write my drafts in novel format, which i enjoyed but it made “converting” them into tumblr posts time consuming and frustrating. I ended up scrapping most of the text in the process, retaining pretty much only the dialogue.

Anyway, nowadays I write in more of a screenplay format: dialogue only + key scene information with the occasional note to self.

I do keep a master “arcs” page with key events and each individual character’s arc from beginning to end and secondary “outline” pages with slightly more detailed outline for each leg of the project. No screencaps b/c spoilers galore!

My typical work flow process for a scene goes: (1) brainstorm scene ideas, (2) take screenshots, (3) organize screenshots into a rough storyboard, (4) add 1st draft of text, (5) edit photos, (6) edit text, (7) upload to "drafts” here on tumblr, (8) let sit for a bit (9) take a final look at things/proofread and edit as needed. It may sound counterintuitive, but i find it much easier to write dialogue for a set of images rather than attempt to take images based on prewritten text. I feel more comfortable editing and tweaking tone and content in the text this way. Otherwise, I get frustrated when I “can’t” shoot a scene exactly as it appeared in my head.

2. How I build my scenes - A lot of what i do is rooted in gameplay, therefore my sets are usually (a) play-tested and (b) not super pretty. I’ve certainly improved at decorating & building over the years but more often than not I download lots off tumblr and the gallery because I don’t have the patience, aptitude, or time to build all of my own sets. That being said, I frequently gut builds only to build a number of completely unrelated mini sets inside to reduce the number of times i have to replace lots. I also keep a list of “important locations” and where certain characters live / will move to, to help keep this all straight as there aren’t nearly enough lots per neighborhood or even per world in this damn game...

my least favorite part of scene building is actually decorating. lol. Don’t get me wrong, I love clutter. I honestly do. but fuck me if i expect myself to spend hours meticulously decorating a set, spend another 3 hours toggling back and forth b/w BB & live modes adjusting things to get rid of the damn routing errors. (yeah, yeah, i know i could ignore them, they’re not important, especially in those scenarios where i’m using a set for screenshots and nothing else, but idk. it really grinds my gears.) and then have to replace the lot like a week later because there aren’t enough lots in the game. *sigh*

3. CC/Pose Making - i do not consider myself to be a cc creator nor a pose maker but i do dabble occasionally. And to be completely honest i’d much rather spend my time doing other stuff, so it’s not high on my list of priorities atm. plus there are so many talented cc creators in this community; i can usually get by with what’s already out there.

4. Getting in the zone - Honestly, I do a lot of brainstorming for plot & dialogue in the shower. I don’t have any particular playlists to get me “in the writing mood” but I do enjoy listening to music as I work. Either instrumental stuff or simply artists/songs I like. If something just so happens to “fit” a scene I’m working on, one i’ve got planned, or even just gives me vibes for a certain character or group, I add a quick note to the top of said scene’s draft. Most of the time I stick it in the recesses of my brain and add a quick link when I finally get to the point of posting the draft to tumblr. For whatever reason, when I have one of those “oh this song is perfect for X” moments it’s essentially ingrained in my mind for the rest of eternity.

5. The screenshot folder - this will most likely give some of you out there major anxiety. but i swear it’s an organized chaos. :)

yep. 32.9gb of screenshots & related things...

So with the raws from a single random scene selected, you can see i take roughly 10 screenshots per image posted. not terrible i guess but i’m working on it. Typically I take screenshots and once I’m done editing a scene I’ll move them from the general folder to a more specific project folder.

6. Captions - I’ll answer this in three parts:

for my townie story. not really. I prefer using the text box. I tend to write (& re-write) the dialogue for each one of these scenes several times over as I add more “scenes” into my drafts. It would be incredibly inefficient, time consuming, and would waste a lot more space on my pc to have to save .psds of each image just so i could edit dialogue when I decide: “oh hey maybe so and so needs to bring up X in this scene” and then change my mind an hour later.

for niko, noor, & co. I’m a text on image type gal here. don’t really know why, but it gives the project a different energy. ironically it makes it feel more laid-back to me. which i guess makes sense, it’s a much more light-hearted “story” than my townie project. which is, imo, very soapy haha.

for legacy stuff. all text goes below the images in the text box. reasoning: it’s gameplay, I don’t brainstorm, outline, or pre-write for this. I play the game, take screenshots, plug ‘em into my drafts and write some commentary / dialogue to go along with it.

7. Editing - i am a creature of habit and have not majorly changed my editing process in probably a year and a half (when I began using reshade and had to adjust my color correcting psd). it’s a super basic system:

drag & drop my “color correction” psd.

run actions in ps. (i made my own “all-in-one” actions to really streamline the process; i have different “actions sets” for my premades’ story and for other things that get posted to tumblr. even if no one else notices it, i like the little details that keep my projects separate and “identifiable”.

voila. all set to upload.

sometimes i crop images, add “text effects”, or do more in depth editing (i.e. editing a phone screen or adding rain etc.) but overall i try and keep it simple for myself.

8. Throwback - i posted an image of one of the first (but never posted) scenes I’d written for my townie project up above. but as for how would i redo a scene i’d already posted. well i’m currently re-doing my townie story so i guess i’ll just say you’ll see how it’s redone when i get to part 1! 😉

anyway, no tags because i’m so embarrassingly late to this party but if you hadn’t gotten around to this tag, wanted to do it but didn’t get a tag, or started it and left it to sit and now you’re thinking “oh god that was months ago should i even post this anymore?!?” consider yourself tagged by me and go ahead and post it for all to see!

#tag train #story process challenge #it's long. it's rambly. but that's me.#this one was a challenge! a challenge but fun.

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kendrixtermina · 4 years

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One thing that felt uncomfortable to go along with in the CF route for me was when Edelgard lies about what happened at Arianrhod to her closest allies (Black Eagle Strike Force) and blames it on the church. Can you give some insight as to why she does this? Especially when Edelgard criticizes the church for lying to the people of Fodlan, but isn’t she doing it here?

That’s certainly a moment that is genuinely ambiguous / a valid point of criticism and something I’d laud a whistleblower for exposing if it were a RL politician, but also the sort of realpolitik / appearance management that has taken place in most RL wars.

Once you’re the leader of anything, allowing panic, division, etc. at bad moments comes with its costs. Of course this is hardly a carte blanche (see: Beating down legit protesters for superficial “order”), but neither is it a factor that can be ignored completely.

At the point of the Arianrhod attack Edelgard was one month away from seizing control of the landmass and ending the large-scale fighting, having one enemy taken out (the Church) and being able to turn all her resources on the other (the Agarthans)

The agarthans at this point know they’re losing control of Edelgard and they’re not stupid enough to have any illusions about her loyalty. So they fire a warning shot to demonstrate their superior weaponry. Arundel makes a thinly veiled threat to fire it on Enbarr.

Of course at this point he basically gave away his location and allowed Edelgard & Hubert to come up with countermeasures, but they don’t want him to know that yet, their strategy involves that they keep being underestimated, let the Agarthans keep thinking that the “beasts” have no counter for the nukes pointed at their heads.

But they still destroyed half a fortress killing the ppl inside. If she reveals that she’s got a rogue faction infiltrating her ranks that’s firing frightening superweapons nilly willy, there will be chaos outrage and disunity right before the final battle. If she doesn’t make a statement at all and declares it a mystery, no one will believe it and her own faction will get the blame throughout the country. So what does she do? Pin it on the enemy she is currently fighting anyways. The purpose here is not to reveal the Agarthan situation too early so they can focus on the church for now.

It’s unclear if this was ever revealed to the public (probably not, I don’t think she’d cause a stir on principle alone) but the ending cards make it quite clear that the Strike Force was let in on the Agarthan situation later and helped her mop them up.

Yeah, it’s defamation, an indisputable textbook government cover up and maybe even technically a kind of propaganda, but her casus belli existed before it’s not like she’s basing it on the lie, and in most wars throughout history the factions have hidden or made a spin of failures & mishaps and made the enemy look bad.

There are certainly many historical examples of such actions creating problems, such as fueling lingering resentments or creating general mistrust that can led to real information not being believed etc. so it’s by no means a safe action that is no big deal and I can see how it could be a legit dealbreaker for some, you certainly weren’t supposed to be 100% comfortable with it, or anything on the CF route, everyone involves is well aware that they’re doing ugly, costly things because (or so they see it) the alternatives are all worse. In that sense it’s the most self-aware one. It’s about actually looking at the bottom line of consequences, not what makes you feel like a hero.

At the same time, doing things like that that squander her moral credibility genuinely IS a flaw in Edelgard’s leadership style - it’s probably why more ppl didn’t believe her manifesto, “she already lied to us cooperating with these shady guys”, making it look like a ‘he said she said’ situation to the wider public that can’t go & confirm the evidence for themselves. This is why Claude thinks he has a better shot at winning& implementing reforms in VW (”too shady for the ppl to get behind”) - just like Dimitri has no plans and Claude’s secrecy creating mistrust even when his secret plan is utterly benevolent. Doesn’t matter how altruistic you are if you look suspicious it will have consequences I mean that’s how she loses on the other rouses, everyone ganks up on her cause she antagonized them all with suspicious actions. I’m not saying she’s any more perfect than the other 2.

but putting that on the same scale as what Rhea did is comparing a candle to the sun.

And maybe the Kantians in the audience will disagree with me but it can be a bit unhelpful to classify different actions of vastly different consequence and magnitude as “Lies”. There is a common principle (telling things that aren’t exactly true) but different magnitude. Clearly “The Confederacy was all great and glorious” and “I totally didn’t eat my little sister’s share of toffees” aren’t on the same level of immorality.

Neither is below the “everythings fine and dandy” line but one is a lie about one incident for one clear purpose, and the other is creating a whole fake world view for the express purpose of control, maintaining harmful systems, suppressing any advancement of science & technology... for 1000 years.

Scale, purpose and consequences are totally different. The arianrhod coverup coming to light would spark controversy & discussion on wether she should have done it under those circumstances; Some might change their opinion about her but overall everyone already knew that she’s not above dirty methods. If you told the average citizen of Fodland about all of Rhea’s lies, everything they know would be wrong. They would go from Adoring & worshipping her to being very confused about what’s true.

It’s the difference between your average modern-day politician doing backroom deals with diverse industry lobbies to accomplish their other goals, and a place like Saudi Arabia.

To get perspective here, let’s look at another example: Claude’s deceptions.

He, too, ultimately wants what’s best for everyone and a lot of the time he decides to fool people to avoid fighting them, I don’t mean to bash him at all, but let’s look at his actions in and of themselves:

Look at the sequence where he, Hilda & Byleth rope the church into helping them - that’s even more outright with the slimy politician tactics: He tries to downplay alliance involvement though he is totally in control, he says that “getting the church on our side will make fighting the empire look like a moral cause” implying that he doesn’t think it is one but wants to portray it as one to get ppl’s support, we’re told he made lots of promises to the merchants to get them on his side (so like that’s literal lobbyists), he installs Byleth as a figurehead, he tells the church ppl he wants to help them get back their old power when he really wants it to diminish and to drastically reorder the society.

He tells everyone he’ll help them save Rhea but while he still has basic human empathy for her & what happened to her he makes it clear he doesn’t want her to go back to being archbishop... at all. He even does this with Byleth: “Yeah, sure, teach we’re totally gonna save her” though in their case he tries to hint that she’s not to be trusted for their own good. Despite his dishonesty, he’s actually a very good friend to them imho. (#broTP)

In the end the power struggle between Claude and Edelgard isn’t personal nor a righteous struggle - he’s just taking advantage of the chaos she caused and he needs the seat of power to reach his own goal. He thinks he can do it better and she’s in the way (and to be fair, she thinks the same about him)

It’s your classic slimy politician: “he’s pretending to be for family values etc thing but really he wants power & is in cahoots with economic interests and he won’t do what he promised” etc. ... except with the plot twist that he’s deeply good and not actually all that ruthless. In a sense he’s as much a total subverted trope as Edelgard.

So doesn’t he have the right to criticise Rhea either? Or do you see how, while not per perfect, he’s miles better and not remotely the same?

Edelgard isn’t 100% truthful, but by and large, she made her intentions very clear with the pamphlets and stuff (even if it meant antagonizing ppl who were against that) and all her soldiers generally know what they’re fighting for and are going to get out of it if they support her, or what the consequences will be if they fail, even if she kept some of the “how” to herself.

Which isn’t to say that Claude ever makes ppl act against their interests even if it’s sometimes what he sees as their interests.

Under Rhea’s rule no one knew what the government’s doing, why it’s doing it, or to some degree, even that she IS the government... for 1000 years. There’s some cult of personality going on. She probably genuinely believes that it does benefit the sheeple to be “guided” by her, but she hasn’t even told Seteth about all she’s doing, she’s pretty much accountable to no one.

In terms of honesty, we could probably rank the lords like this:

Dimitri (a few omissions at worst)

Seteth (lies mostly out of self-preservation)

Edelgard (some convenient secrecy here & there)

Yuri (about the same as El but I’d put him slightly higher for the fake betrayal)

Claude (no one rly knows what he’s up to, but he gets ppl what he promised them and doesn’t outright betray them)

(very)

(big)

(gap)

Rhea (fake history, isolationist bubble, abuse of power left & right, manipulation, will smile in your face while planning to make you a meat puppet for her mom)

#fe3h #fire emblem: three houses #fire emblem three houses #three houses #edelgard von hresvelg #edelgard

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where2next · 4 years

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Hiking the Salkantay Trail to Machu Picchu

The Salkantay Trail is a popular alternative to the Inca Trail to reach Machu Picchu. It is roughly a 37 mile long trail which takes about 4 days to arrive at the famous ruins. This trail takes you through the rugged beauty of Peru from the snow capped mountains down through the rainforest below. However, those who want to follow in the footsteps of this ancient path should read on to ensure you are prepared for the challenges and that you don’t miss out on some of the greatest experiences this hike has to offer.

Why choose the Salkantay?

For budget backpackers, there is no better option than the Salkantay to get to Machu Picchu. While the Inca trail is the most famous, it is restricted due to high demand. Not only do you need a permit, but it must be obtained several months in advance and having a guide is required. For the Salkantay, there are no permits required and no fees to use the trail. It is free to set up tents along the trail though if you wish, there are several houses along the way that will let you camp in their yards for a small fee. These places also offer food! You have much more freedom on the Salkantay to choose your own pace, stop at different spots along the way as you wish, and even take slightly different routes depending on your preferences. Perhaps the most important consideration for the Salkantay is that it is raw beauty like you haven’t seen before. You will be able to admire the marvel of the icy “Savage Mountain” and just a day later admire the wild flowers of the rainforest.

Recommended Equipment

You can check out our recommendations on how to pack for a mutli-day hike.

The Trail

The trail itself is well marked and easy to follow. There are a couple of points where you can choose different paths to go down, but either mapping your route beforehand or talking to other travelers should get you going in the right direction. This trail also has several small villages and houses along it, making it easy to make pit stops for food or to camp for the night. All of the locals that we met along the way were extremely friendly people and they made delicious food for cheap. There are also several streams and waterfalls along the trail where you can refill your water bottles. Just make sure you always fill up where the water is running and make sure you have some sort of water treatment system like Aquatabs or a LifeStraw.

Things to remember if you hurt yourself on the trail

A hike is not without risks or challenges, but they are no reason to be discouraged. Our group happened to run into a scenario where one of our members twisted an ankle halfway through the hike, effectively making us progress slower than expected. From the small village of Chaullay (below) we managed to secure travel for our friend to capac nan; a coffee farm and our next destination. Throughout this whole process we trusted the Peruvian locals with the responsibility of our friend and they were more than hospitable, even providing first aid and refreshments! So don’t be afraid to befriend some locals while you are here!

Spots of Interest

Humantay Lagoon

Toward the start of the trip, just above all of the camps lies an offshoot of the trail that leads to the Humantay Lagoon. This is a small lake fed by the mountain runoff and is a beautiful spot for pictures. However, the trail up to it is quite steep and is longer than it looks. For our crew, this small hike was the litmus test for who was going to be affected by the altitude, as this is above 11,000 ft elevation. More on dealing with elevation later on.

Coffee Farms

While hiking the Salkantay, we noticed that several of the locals had huge piles of white beans drying out on tarps beside the trail. It wasn’t until our last full day of hiking that we realized these were coffee beans as they are plentiful in the area. During one of our stops, the owner of the property where we set up our tents also worked on a coffee farm. He invited us to the farm when we got up the next morning, which was on our way up the trail. He showed us their entire process from harvesting the beans from the fruit to grinding the beans to brewing the coffee. We even scored some coffee liqueur at the end. This was a wonderful experience and also a small glimpse into the local lifestyle.

Hot Springs

There had been a silver lining to our friend who was injured earlier in the hike. We had to split up the group which resulted in two entirely different experiences. The first group continued on to Llactapata, a steep mountain, and the second group took a ride to the Aguas Termales de Cocalmayo hot springs in Santa Teresa. You can make a guess as to which group had the injured person in it. The hot springs were unlike anything else we had experienced on the trip. There were natural flowing waters, canopy tops, paved floors, it's as if we arrived at a tropical hideaway. (Photos above courtesy of google as we were too relaxed to lift a finger.)

Llactapata

After a high energy morning hike which brought us up and over another mountain, we arrived at Llactapata. This place has one of the most breathtaking views in the world. Situated in a clearing on the side of a mountain, it gives you a vantage point to see both green and snow capped peaks from miles around, a waterfall below, and with a good eye and a clear day, you can spot the ruins of Machu Picchu in the distance for the first time. Pictures do not do it justice, but it was a great morale booster for our group and a wonderful spot to stop and rest in the middle of the day. Llactapata is also known for its own ruins which you can explore at your leisure or even camp at.

Things to Plan Head

As with any adventure, a little preparation will go a long way in making sure you have the best experience possible with minimal inconvenience. Here are a few things to do ahead of time so that your Salkantay hike is the best it can be.

Purchase Machu Picchu Tickets - You need to purchase tickets ahead of time in order to get access to the famous ruins of Machu Picchu. These can go fast so you will need to do this part several months beforehand. You can choose just exploring the ruins, the ruins and hiking Machu Picchu mountain, or the ruins and Hiking Huayana Picchu mountain (the one that is in all of the pictures). I found the cheapest way to get these tickets when booking as individuals and not a tour group, is directly from the government website. This website is quite dated and in Spanish, so we will soon be posting a step-by-step guide of how to book your tickets. Make sure you give yourself at least 5 days between arriving in Cusco and going up Machu Picchu. You do not want to miss your day at the ruins because you didn’t get through the trail quickly enough!

Route & amount of distance per day - Make sure to plan out your exact route along the Salkantay. This can be done along the way, but is much easier to do before you are on the trail without cell service. There are several maps that can be printed off (we don’t spend money on tourist maps!) and many of them have recommendations of stopping points for each day to keep you on track and make the most of your experience.

Your fitness - Hiking the Salkantay is not an easy feat. Our group consisted of experienced hikers and it was certainly challenging for each of us. You are hiking for roughly 9 hours a day several days in a row all while carrying a 30lb pack. This will test your body. Do practice hikes around your local area in the months leading up to the trip. Preferably with a pack to get used to the extra weight.

Get ready for the altitude - Altitude sickness sucks. In our group, half of us were affected by altitude sickness and half were not. It really varies and there is no way to guarantee that it will not affect you. In fact, with the highest point of the pass at 15,000 ft, it will likely affect you in some way. The best thing you can do is try to acclimatize slowly. Cusco sits just over 11,000 ft and is usually the starting point for people doing the Salkantay Trail. If you can, give yourself a few days in Cusco before you start hiking. It is a beautiful little city to explore and it will give you some time to get used to the thin air before you start doing strenuous activities. There are also medications that can be purchased or prescribed to help avert these affects. Finally, there is mate de coca, or coca tea, which is sold all around the area. For generations, the coca leaves have been used to ward off the effects of altitude sickness and they are still used today. I can personally vouch for this one, as I was hit hard by altitude sickness my first day on the trail. However, each morning I would have my coca tea, then would chew on the leaves as we started our hike for the day and it really did wonders for me.

Test your equipment - So you have made sure you have everything you need for this hike. But how do you know it will hold up during your adventure? You need to test your equipment before taking it on such a journey.

1. Tent - Take out your tent and make sure it is waterproof. We used a sealer for the seams of our tent as well as Kiwi’s waterproof spray for the tent overall. We then tested it using a water hose to simulate a steady rain and the inside stayed perfectly dry. Also, remember to have a tarp underneath your tent. Getting wet from underneath is just as bad!

2. Pack - You should also test out your hiking pack to not only make sure it has good comfort and utility, but most packs also have rain covers that should be tested beforehand. The same thing goes for rain jackets and water repellent hiking pants.

3. Boots - Your boots are probably your most important equipment. You need to make sure they are form fitting. Too small will give you excess blisters and pain, too large let your feet slide around and greatly increase your chance of twisting an ankle. You also need to make sure your boots are broken in. While buying brand new boots for a hike sounds exciting, it is a quick way to destroy your feet. You need boots that have already formed to your foot shape and that are still comfortable and reliable after several wears.

Main things to remember on the trail

Rise with the sun - get up as soon as there is some light so that you can break down camp and get ready to hike. This way you make sure you have the most amount of daylight possible for hiking. Believe me when I tell you that it is vastly more difficult to hike in the dark even with good headlamps. There is a higher likelihood of straying off trail and getting lost. Get up early and this won’t be a concern.

Slow and steady - Like the proverbial tortoise, slow and steady really does win this race. Since you started first thing in the morning, relax and don’t push yourself too hard. Remember, the purpose is to enjoy your hike and take in the beauty around you. Keep a nice, steady pace and the miles will melt away. Keeping this pace will also help protect you from injury. Every single injury I have seen during a hike has come from a fatigued hiker who was trying to push their bodies too much. Make sure to take breaks when needed and drink plenty of water.

Drinking water - For multiple day hikes like the Salkantay, you need water and lots of it. However water is heavy. You can’t carry all that you need with you, so you will need to fill up along the way. The most important things to remember are not to get your water from stagnant pools and to treat the water. The Salkantay has a lot of waterfalls and rivers so finding a source of running water will not be hard. You could also ask to get water from the locals, but there is no guarantee that is any safer than getting it from the streams.

Hidroelectrica

The hike through the Salkantay eventually brings you to Hidroelectrica. This is really a train stop turned small village. Here people can continue to make the trek to Aguas Calientes at the base of Machu Picchu, or they can opt to take the train the rest of the way. The train is pricey, however, and this is only a half day hike from Aguas Calientes. Besides, you want to be able to say you HIKED all the way to Machu Picchu! We decided to stop in Hidroelectrica for lunch, then trekked the rest of the way. We also knew we would only be at Augas Calientes/Machu Picchu for one day so we decided to leave our hiking packs with the owner of the restaurant where we had lunch and opted to take our day packs the rest of the way. The nice thing about the rest of the hike is that even though it’s about 12km it is almost completely FLAT. That combined with having almost no weight to carry meant a much faster hike.

Where to stay in Aguas Calientes

The town at the base of Machu Picchu is remote and picturesque. However, because this is such a highly trafficked tourist destination, the town has prices to match. As you hike into Aguas Calientes, you come in from the downhill side. The very first hotels you come across are large and ornate, rivaling the fancy hotels of large cities. Here is where you will see the older tourists. Here is where you will be received with a welcome in English. And here is where you will spend several hundreds of dollars per night. However, the farther up the hill you go, or if you go to the buildings behind the main street, the hotels and hostels get significantly cheaper. You may need to brush up on your Spanish a little, but we were able to negotiate a deal for our crew for less than 1 tenth the cost of the hotels at the bottom. Especially after 4 days of hiking and camping, a clean bed and a hot shower was more than enough for us!

When you are at Machu Picchu

The entire trip has built to this moment. You climb the switchbacks to the top of the mountain and there you are...in front of the gates amidst a sea of people with no ruins in sight. There are 3 things that I recommend you do first

Go to the bathroom - This will be your last chance until you come out of the site and it’s actually quite difficult to get back in once you come out. Get it done now and then enjoy Machu Picchu for as long as you can.

Get a Spanish speaking tour guide - This is one area where we splurged. To get the knowledge of someone who truly knows the site was well worth it. We were able to learn a lot of the history of this famous site with our guide and once the tour was done, we still had time to explore for ourselves. She also helped us get through the gate quicker and showed us some of the best spots to take pictures. Also, if you get a Spanish speaking guide, it is cheaper than getting an English speaking guide. Our guide actually spoke both which worked out great for us because she gave us a tour in English but at the lower price!

Get in line - It takes a little while to get through the gates and into the site. Make sure you are ready so you can get right in and enjoy your time at Machu Picchu. Your guide can help expedite this process.

Once you are inside, get as many pictures as you want, explore the ruins, watch the llamas, and marvel at the architecture built into this mountain. One thing that I loved about Machu Picchu is that while it is quite touristic, each group has a set time slot. It gives you plenty of time to explore while also giving you enough space to truly enjoy it and to get beautiful pictures without people constantly blocking your way. On your way out of the site, remember to stop by the stand where they have the special Machu Picchu stamp for your passport! It is a wonderful memento to have.

#travel #worldtravel #budget travel #machupicchu #camping #hiking #peru

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oncearoundthegarrison-blog · 4 years

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London to Lundy Part 1

5 months sounds like a long time, but when you’ve started a new job in a completely different industry, it flies by. New colleagues, new commute, new schedule, new maze-like museum building that took at least a month to get used to. Even new vocabulary.

I felt like I was desperately treading water, slowly drowning in a sea of to-dos. It finally took the Christmas period, when the museum was closed, most colleagues and external contacts had taken holidays and my telephone and inbox fell quiet, that I had a moment to realise... I have 13 days of annual leave to use up before the end of the financial year.

My husband’s birthday is in March, so I thought we could go somewhere together to celebrate, as we had been doing the last few years. The thing is, my husband works in a small company, a team of 3, in fact. Unfortunately, the other 2 also have their birthdays in March, so, being the most junior, he felt he couldn’t take a week off, especially because they were planning a work trip around that time too.

“You should go on a yoga retreat by yourself.” he suggested. As if I wanted to pay hundreds of pounds to go and spend days stretching with strangers, some of whom were guaranteed to be a little too ‘woo-woo’ for my taste (no offence).

I decided I wanted to do something that was ‘worthwhile’ with my time. After hours researching expensive (and scammy) conservation holidays, scrolling through WorkAways and WWOOFing opportunities, I somehow landed on the jackpot; a National Trust working holiday on Lundy, a three mile long, half mile wide island off the coast of North Devon.

Having hastily signed up and gained a place, I set to work on the dreaded getting-there logistics. The first thing was already ticked off the list. The only way of getting from the Devon coast onto Lundy Island at that time of the year is by Helicopter. With that booked, I looked into getting from London to Devon and back.

The autumn before, I had bought my first car. It’s a fully electric Nissan Leaf. Using it largely for the weekly shop and commuting to work (15 minutes if the traffic is nice, 1 hour if it’s the usual), it’s the perfect car for pootling around the city and suburbs, where an electric charger is always close to hand. We’d done the odd 2 hour drives, but the route planning, and adding 30 mins per charge stop, the anxiety of ‘what if the charger we are heading towards is out of order’ was quite stressful, so a solo drive down to Devon seemed a foolhardy concept.

But, the more I tried to arrange the public transport, the more complicated things got. First off, the nearest train station is 25 miles away, and you need to get on a bus for an hour even to get close to the helipad. Not only that but you had to get there by 10am latest, so unless you wanted to leave London at crazy o’clock, you had to arrive the night before and find accommodation. On top of that, on the way back, you have no idea what time your helicopter flight is. “Sometime between 11 and 3pm, and it depends on the weather, you could be delayed to later in the afternoon or even the next day!” So booking a train for the way back was a gamble. Driving to Devon in my electric car started to look like a more attractive, at least simpler, concept.

I’m not what you call a confident driver, and some past long distance drives had been very stressful. It’s hard for me to forget that I could kill myself or anyone else by making a silly mistake. And I make plenty of those in my everyday life. What if I don’t plan well and I run out of charge on my car? The prospect of driving alone, for four hours, which would probably include at least 4 charges, was terrifying. Also, if I want to arrive at the heliport at 9:30am, then I would need to leave at 5:30am, but add on 4 x 30 minute charges is 3:30am, and maybe I should add an extra hour in case I take the wrong turning or there is traffic or a diversion... well that’s crazy o’clock. So I decided to break up the journey by stopping off at my uncle’s in Bristol.

The week before setting off, I made sure to check and double check the route on the Zap-Map app, which shows you the locations of all the EV chargers. I read reviews of each charger, making sure it was used recently and recorded as having a successful charge. I made sure I knew the locations of at least 2 other chargers near the one I actually planned to charge at, in case that one was occupied or faulty.

I wrote out the addresses of each charger, in case I lost my phone. I packed a portable power bank for my phone, in case it ran out of battery. I found out what numbers I need to call if I break down or run out of charge, or have an accident (yeah OK I should’ve known those already). Some chargers require you to start the charge using your mobile phone... but what if you didn’t have enough reception? I drove my husband crazy with my fretting and stressing. I made sure I had enough car snacks and a good playlist.

Then the day finally came. I left for Bristol around 9.00am. It was a bright sunny day and I left in high spirits, onto the M4. Forty minutes later, dirty black clouds appear and it starts to properly pour. The roads were not too busy but there was a ropey 15 minutes of very poor visibility, the spray from the other cars and lorries obscuring the road like a thick fog. My heart pumping, I was very glad to arrive at my first charge stop at a service station just after 10am.

There, I struck up a conversation with a fellow Nissan Leaf driver, and I asked him if he’d heard the rumour that you shouldn’t charge your car up to 100% on one of the rapid chargers (there are a few different charge speeds, you see). It’s something I was told by the customer services person when I rang up the helpline on a day a charger refused to stop charging (really reassuring). The man looked at me doubtingly and said that he hadn’t. When he left, I googled it and it really does seem to be the case that it damages your battery. I hope he looked it up later as well. I had a hot chocolate in the Starbucks, charged my phone and bought some gloves, as I forgot to pack mine. Feeling panicked about damaging the battery, I headed off at 82% charged.

Luckily, the closer I got to Bristol and my uncle’s flat, the lower the speed limit, the more traffic there was. I say lucky because driving in those circumstances uses up much less charge than going 70mph down the motorway. By 11:40 I have arrived at my final charge stop, a Bannatyne Health Club just round the corner from my final destination. I was even more happy to see that it was a simple plug in, tap your contactless card and charge jobby. You’d think that’s how all chargers are, but no. EV chargers are run by different providers, I have no less than 5 different apps on my phone plus a physical tap card, and there’s still some chargers where I have to spend ages registering on a website in order to start a charge. Mental.

I go into the health club and explain I’m not a member but would like to sit in the cafe while my car charges. I was a bit worried they would turn me away, but, just as my Zap-Map colleagues had reassured me, they asked me to sign in to a guest book and let me in. I order a tea and settle down for 20 minutes. In hindsight, during my journey to Devon and back, I think I spent almost the same amount of money on beverages and nibbles waiting for the car to charge as for the charge itself!

Anyway, all in all a smooth journey to Bristol, and I get to my uncle’s around 12:15, just in time for lunch. After a lovely afternoon taking in the sights of Bristol (managed to catch the excellent Wildlife Photography of The Year 2019 exhibition at M Shed, see below for the fun image of a shocked Himalayan marmot that won the Grand Title) and catching up with a friend over a quick drink in the evening, I go to bed early, ready for an early start in the morning.

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snowdice · 4 years

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Goblin Brain Study Session Fic 1 [Day 35]

Because I don’t want to just have walls of text for my Goblin Brain Study Session posts, I’m separating them by days. If you want to read the previous chapters, click the links below. Chapter 13 and what I have done of Chapter 14 is under the cut.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12

See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today.

The Gobiln Brain is a problem today. I’d planned to start like 2 hours ago. :/

Remy was slumped down in his seat as Emile continued to lecture him on all the possible consequences of his actions in the past 24 hours. Jeezy creezy was Emile miffed about all of that. Remy had been trying to blow it off, but Emile was fully, painfully aware that he almost had lost his brother today and Remy was going to hear about it until Emile’s lungs aches.

“And another thing…” he said.

“Wait,” Remy said, and Emile did because there was a lace of panic to his tone.

“What?” Emile asked.

“The tracker stopped working,” Remy answered pushing buttons a little bit desperately on his device.

“It went completely offline somehow,” Remy said.

“Did it get turned off?” Emile asked. “Or run out of batteries?”

“It doesn’t turn off and the batteries are designed to last for years,” Remy said. “It can even track through 20 feet of water. The only way it could stop sending a single this abruptly is if the thing was destroyed.”

Emile paused. “You said Virgil knows what the blinking light means.”

“Yes.”

“Is it possible that he knows, or well, ‘knows,’ you’re dead? Barbara did send a man after him, he could have mentioned it.”

Remy stared down at the device in his hands.

He pressed a couple of buttons and studied the screen for a moment. “You little shit,” he groaned. “You threw it out the fucking car window, didn’t you?”

“How do you know?” Emile asked.

“Because if I look at the history, it was going at 65 miles per hour down the interstate, suddenly stopped cold, and then broke when another car inevitably crushed it.”

“Ah.”

Emile rolled his eyes, but Remy wouldn’t have noticed as he had his own eyes closed. “Hmm. So, I’m Virgil. My bitch mom killed my dad and sent someone after me. I have no idea what’s going on, but I bolt out of there because fuck mom. I want to get the hell out of dodge so I convince someone to drive me somehow, I guess, but where would I want to go? Someplace safe. Where’s safe? Maybe Emile, but obviously that’s not where he went. Or Janus, but he’s too connected to mom. I don’t really no anyone else, especially not someone who could help with this sort of stuff.”

Remy thought for another long moment. “Oops.”

“Oops?” Emile asked. “What oops?”

He could tell by the expression on Remy’s face that he was not going to like the answer. “I may have let something… slip.”

“What do you mean, Remington?”

“Um, well you see,” Remy said. “A couple of months ago Virgil was being, you know, himself: a little shit. He may have, possibly, found some papers.”

“What kind of papers?” Emile asked.

“They were nothing important!” Remy assured. “There wasn’t any dangerous info in them or anything, but…”

“But?”

“It is somewhat possible that they had the name on them.”

“How possible?” Emile asked, eyes narrowed on him.

“He asked what Green Bellow Foods was and why they needed 50 top of the line computers outfitted at an old factory.”

“And what did you tell him?!”

“Nothing!”

Emile glared at him.

“Okay, well I had to tell him something,” Remy mentioned. “I just kind of said that I knew the owner well and was working with him on some stuff. Then I told him not to worry about it, which was probably a mistake, because he’s Virgil. So, then I found him snooping in my car. At that point I had to sit him down and talk to him. So, I told him a bit about Logan.”

“Remy that’s not nothing!”

“I didn’t use his name or anything. I just told him a couple of really, extremely, tremendously, vague stories, so he didn’t think I owed money to the mafia. Which, yes, he did suggest.”

“That’s worse!”

“What do you want from me Emile?!”

“Some common sense!” Emile answered. “I’ve been comparing you to the rat in Ratatouille for years, but I’m starting to think you’re more of a Pinky from Pinky and the Brain.”

“Hey, ouch,” Remy replied. “Also, I personally subscribe to the theory that Pinky is actually the intelligent one who is foiling Brain’s evil plots from the inside. So, there.”

“Now is not the time,” Emile said.

“Oh, it’s not the time to discuss cartoon theories?” Remy mumbled into his lap. “Must be serious.”

“It is serious! Virgil is missing!”

“Don’t you think I know that?!” Remy snapped. “I know, Emile.”

There was quiet. Emile took a breath. “Okay,” he said, calmer. “Do you really think he’s going to Logan?”

“He’s headed somewhere,” Remy answered, “and wherever that somewhere is, it’s inexplicably down the most direct route towards base.”

“Well, Virgil is smart. I don’t think he’d just keep going so quickly without a destination in mind. We should call Logan.”

“Do you honestly believe Barbara doesn’t have your phone tapped when Virgil is missing? If you had one of Logan’s phones, I might agree with you, but as it is, we’d be giving away our position, and possibly clueing her in to Virgil’s plan. If he shows up at base, Logan will take him in no question asked. It’s less dangerous for everyone this way.”

“Fine,” Emile said. “We’ll just keep driving towards Logan and hope you’re right about where he’s going.”

“Of course, I’m right,” Remy said lightly. “I’ve got the paternal instincts going on. Course, they didn’t stop the knife throwing incident of ’09. I blame Janus for that, though.”

Emile shook his head at him.

“You’re doing the thing again,” Emile pointed out calmly.

“Stop psych evaluating me,” he shot back.

“Fine, fine,” Emile said. “Keep distracting yourself from your emotional responses with silly stories. See if I care.”

“Thank you,” Remy replied. “I will.”

Emile sighed as he started back up again mumbling something about having taken away Virgil’s Gameboy after catching him playing it at 3 o’clock in the morning. He claimed this wasn’t because the boy hadn’t gotten any sleep, but because he insulted Donkey Kong to Remy’s face. After that story had run its course, Remy continued to babble at an increasingly fast pace about all sorts of things. Emile imagined most of the stories he sprouted out were quite embellished.

He’d tried to turn on the radio once, but Remy had slapped his hand away saying, “The next one’s a really good one.” So, he had resigned himself to his fate of tuning out Remy’s coping mechanism to the best of his abilities and just focusing on driving for the next 45 minutes. Which is probably why he noticed that traffic had strangely decreased. He didn’t really pay that much mind until the traffic suddenly increased… in the form of a wall of stopped cars.

“Jenkies, what’s going on?” he asked, as he came to a stop at the end of the line of cars.

Chapter 14

“You two doing okay back there?” Roman asked, glancing into the rearview window at them as he exited the interstate onto highway 236.

“We’re perfectly fine,” Janus replied evenly.

“Ow ow ow ow ow! You’re crushing me!” Remus complained. Janus was currently sitting on his chest, pinning him to the back seat.

“You should probably put your seatbelt on,” Roman advised.

“You’re probably right,” Janus agreed.

“No! Get off!” Remus said. “Or I’m going to scream!”

“Oh, because you don’t scream randomly when someone isn’t sitting on top of you?” Janus shot back. Roman officially liked Janus; he’d just decided. “Give me that!” Janus said, and a moment later, Remus’s phone was thrown into the passenger seat.

Remus whined and Roman glanced back at them once again, amused. That is when he caught sight of a car behind them. He glanced at his speedometer and then back at the car. Roman was currently going a little over 90mph, having slowed down a bit now that they were off the interstate. Yet, the car was gaining on them.

“Hey,” Roman said. “Wh-,” and that’s when a bullet came through the back window right past Janus’s head. “Holy fuck!” Roman screamed, swerving a bit before getting the car back under control. Remus grabbed Janus by the front of his shirt and pulled him down as more bullets rained on them courtesy of the car Roman had spotted. The glass from his car’s back window shattered over the two of them.

Roman pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator and started purposefully swerving to throw off their shots as Remus shoved Janus down onto the floor so he could lunge into the front seat. He grabbed the gun Roman stored in his glove box and loaded it with practiced ease.

“My bag,” Janus requested, and Remus threw the asked for object over his shoulder before rolling down the window.

“Methinks mommy dearest’s people may have found us,” Remus commented.

#study break stories #remy sanders #remus sanders #roman sanders #janus sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #guns #platonic moxiety #platonic remile #creativitwins #emile piccani

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graemeruns · 5 years

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Manchester marathon, and the journey to a PB

I think, by now, most people I know expect that I am going to run the London marathon each year, so a fair few that I talked to were surprised when I told them that I was actually going to run the Manchester marathon first, and then London three weeks later. To be fair, their surprise was not unjustified, as I entered Manchester as a late decision; I was already three weeks into my London marathon 18 week training plan when I had this major concern that the following four months of hard work could all end in disaster if the weather turned out as hot as it was last year at the end of April. With Manchester being at the beginning of April, it also fell nicely at the beginning of the school Easter break, so it didn't take long to decide to enter it and have a week away near Manchester at the same time with the family. My wife, Yasmin, set about the task of finding us somewhere to stay, and all I now needed to do was compress by 18 week plan into 15, and we had a target set.

I had decided to be even more aggressive with my training this year, base it on the 55-70 miles/week plan from Pzitzinger and Douglas' book "Advanced Marathoning", but with all rest days being recovery runs, and tweaking it using my own experience of how I like to train. Since Abingdon marathon in October last year, I had kept my mileage ticking over at around 40 miles/week, so was hoping that this base fitness would help me as I moved into my new marathon training plan. Two weeks before the plan started I increased my mileage to 47, then the following week 50, so that 60 miles in week 1 would not seem too much of a step upwards.

Loosely, my training plan went something like this:

Monday - 3-4 mile recovery run (8:45 - 9:00/mile pace). I really needed these runs to be as-slow-as-you-can go recovery otherwise they would be counter-productive. Tuesday - intervals or tempo (6:20/mile) - around 10 miles in total with warm up and cool down. These were sometimes moved to Wednesday if I was still feeling tired from the weekend, in which case they would be an easy 9- 10 miler (7:40 - 7:55/mile pace). Wednesday - medium long run, 15 - 17 miles, usually as a double run because just finding the time to run it in one go was too difficult. Sometimes these would be a workout and a recovery run later in the day if I had moved the workout from Tuesday. Thursday - easy run - around 10 miles. This is about 7:40 - 7:55/mile pace. Friday - 3-4 mile recovery (8:45 - 9:00 pace) Saturday - parkrun, of course, as fast as possible! I think I ran to and from nearly all of them to some get extra mileage in (usually 9 - 11 miles total). Sunday - Long run - 16 - 23 miles (7:40 - 8:15/mile pace). In all honestly, I didn't run as many 20+ mile runs as I'd have liked, as two of the Sundays were used for tune-up races. But I did do seven runs over 17 miles (the longest being 26 miles which was a bit too far!). My legs were also usually tired from the previous days' parkrun too, so running on tired legs was something I got used to, and I think is crucial for the latter parts of the marathon.

Lets look at the tune-up races:

Wokingham half marathon. This fell 9 weeks into in my calendar on 24th February. I wanted to have a go at my current half marathon PB (1:23:44) in this race, so I dropped the workout that week, cut back the mileage a little and rested the day before. The day was perfect, being cool and bright with only a little breeze. After a bit of a congested start, I was able to get into my rhythm and run consistently around 6:20/mile, which would get me a time under 1:23. My 5k splits were good: 19:42, 19:42, 19:48, 19:54, but slipping just a few seconds in the last 10k meant I crossed the line just short of my goal in 1:23:09. But I'd given it everything, so was content with the result. You can see my run on Strava here.

The Big Half. This race fell just 2 weeks after Wokingham. The previous Sunday my long run had accidentally ended up as 26 miles, and this meant I took a couple of days early in the week to recover, and what with running a steady parkrun on the Saturday as well, meant I was not that fresh for the race. The weather was cold, wet at the start, and very, very windy. Overall, it was a bit of a disaster really, as I queued so long for the loo I started too far back, which required a lot of weaving through slower runners, and while this probably didn't cost a huge chunk of time, the speeding up and slowing down was using an unnecessary amount of energy. I ended up running a negative split because of this, in 1:26:05, which was a bit disappointing, but deep down I knew I wasn't flat out and that this was closer to marathon pace than half marathon pace, so took that away as a positive. It had also given my potential marathon shoes a good outing, so the decision what to wear for the marathon had been made too. You can see my run on Strava here.

My training plan also includes some marathon paced runs. Always run on a Sunday on tired legs, these can be tough but honest workouts. Striders had arranged for a group of us to met at Kenley aerodrome for exactly this sort of training, so the 13.1 miles I ran there at marathon pace two weeks before Manchester was my final big effort. It ended up around 1:27:30, approximately 6:40/mile pace, and I felt fairly comfortable during the run. This was a good confidence boost for me, and gave me an indication of what to aim for on the day. A big thanks to my Striders mate Martin for being my running pal for that effort.

Fast-forward two weeks and I'm at the start line. We had booked accommodation in the lovely village of Old Glossop at the base of the Peak District. Travelling to the race start had been fairly easy - a 25 minute drive to Didsbury East where I parked and boarded the tram to Trafford Bar, the nearest tram stop to the start. The whole journey was just over an hour, and quite stress-free. I didn't hang about though: this year they were expecting around 20,000 people to run in the various races, and it was quite crowded, so I quickly dropped my bag off and made my way to the start line, which being the 'A' start, was also the furthest away; even so, I was in the pen with 15 minutes to go. The weather conditions were near perfect (8 degrees, overcast with a little breeze) and I was raring to go.

When I race marathons I like to plan my pacing based on 5 mile intervals. It's easy to remember just 4 split times, and an overall average time per kilometer (at this point I should apologise for mixing miles and kilometers, but I do tend to think in both when running). My intended splits were:

5 miles in 33 minutes and 10 miles 1:06 (average 4.06/km), 15 miles in 1:39:30 (average pace now falls slightly to 4:07/km due to natural slowing), 20 miles 2:13:00 (average pace now falls to 4:08/km) Which leaves just a 6.2 mile (or 10k) sprint to the finish, which I'd hope to cover in around 42 minutes, and will mean I have run a 2:55 marathon. That was the goal, though I really thought 2:56 - 2:57 was more likely.

At 9am on the dot we were off, and being so near the front I was across the line almost immediately. There's the usual overtaking, and being overtaken, that goes on in the first few kilometers as runners find their pace. I went through the first kilometer in 4 minutes dead. "Hmm, that's a bit fast", I thought, "but it's probably just because it's the first kilometer". I went through the second kilometer in 4:03: "Hmm, that's still a bit fast". The third kilometer took 4.01, then 4.03, then 3:56, passing 5k in a little over 20 minutes. I was in a real dilemma - the pace seemed far too fast, but I just didn't seem to be able to reel it in. It didn't actually feel that fast, and my heart rate was averaging around 142bpm, which is pretty low for me.

Kilometer 6: 3:59, kilometer 7: 4:04, kilometer 8: 4:00 - I went through 5 miles in a little over 32 minutes, much faster than intended. But I couldn't slow down - somehow I was being pulled along by the runners around me. So it was at that point I did something I've never done before: I threw away my pacing plan and decided to stick it out at this faster pace and see if I could hang on at the end. I'll either crash and burn, or run a very fast time.

The Manchester marathon route is pretty flat, although there are some long gentle inclines where you unexpectedly lose time, and the first time that happened (at kilometer 17 when I ran a 4:10) I immediately worried that this was where the slowing up starts, but then I ran 3:58 in the next kilometer, so equilibrium was maintained.

I passed half way in 1:25:55, much faster than intended (and quicker than the Big Half!). The simple maths said that I just had to run a 1:30 second half (4:14/km) to achieve my 2:55 goal. But I know marathons - they aren't that easy to predict.

Between 25 - 30k I was still running well, averaging about 4:09/km pace, and 20 miles came up in 2:11:40; I was over a minute up on my time. The 20 mile (32.2km) sign is my friend: it says “you’ve now completed the 20 mile 'warm-up', and it's just 10k to the finish, which you will run as fast as you possibly can”. But in the latter stages of a marathon it is never as simple as that: I was tired, and I had a lot of pain in my right foot*, which was worse on the inside camber of the road, so I tried to run in the middle of the road. This did help ease the pain a little, but in the grand scheme of things it was not a big issue, and it wouldn’t prevent me from getting to the finish line, which I’d like to see soon, please. (* It turned out to be an enormous blood blister on my 3rd toe).

Yasmin and Chloe had made the clever decision not to get up at 6:30am and travel to Manchester with me, but instead got the train into Manchester later and were going to be just past the 25 mile sign. It's amazing how much of a boost seeing someone familiar is, and just looking forward to that point in the route gives you something to focus on. After waving frantically at them and trying to smile, with 1 mile to go I just got my head down and headed for the finish - which is quite torturous because you can see the finish line from 500m away. It looked a long way!

With 200m to go I realised that I was closer to sub 2:54 than anything around 2:55, so found a sprint from somewhere but it wasn't quite enough. I crossed the line in 2:54:02, a 4 minute 25 sec PB. I had surpassed my expectations, and, to be honest, was a little shocked to have run quite that fast! You can see my run on Strava here.

A week later, and recovery has been slow. My racing flats did the job, but I attempted a run the Saturday after the marathon and my calves were still very tight and sore, so I will be giving them some more rest. I've enjoyed the break from running though, as it does take over my life in a big way when marathons are looming. For the 13 weeks proper training I did for the Manchester marathon (not including the 2 taper weeks), I averaged 63 miles/week, and there were 3 weeks in there where the mileage was reduced due to upcoming races and a niggle. But attaining a PB at half marathon and marathon at the age of 51, I am not complaining at all. I love running, and there were few runs or workouts I didn't enjoy. It was worth every moment I spent doing it, and you know what, I think I can go faster!

#manchester marathon; running; marathon

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prorevenge · 6 years

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Shady business owners don't like it when you call regulators.

Used to work in private security (rent-a-cop/bacon bits jokes go here). When I was first hired on, thought the company was fairly upstanding yadda yadda because the owner and I would bullshit a little about our respective military careers. "A guy who used to be in pararescue can't be that bad, right?"

First year was relatively normal security work, mostly fixed post (think Walmart door greeter but with a badge and handcuffs) and general "I'll tackle you if you steal things, but otherwise I'm just a breathing security camera" stuff. About a year in, I finish all of my qualifications for armed work and get assigned to patrol. Patrol is basically private police: companies would hire us to make rounds and respond to things at their locations (mostly apartment complexes, and mostly noise complaints or occasionally towing off cars and such, but occasionally managing residents during a fire or breaking up disturbances).

The company handled pay in a kinda wonky manner. Twice a month (on the 1st and 15th) we got paid for two weeks worth of work, and every now and again (it seemed like whenever they felt like it was getting too far behind) we'd get an extra paycheck slipped in with our normal one. I got my first paycheck five weeks after starting, and there was a point where we were receiving December checks in February. Pay rates were determined by the type of work: entry level stuff made $7/hour, more advanced made $8, and armed paid $10. Raises were available on top of that (for the record, I worked there for 3 years and never got a raise, and the two people I know who got raises each got 25¢ an hour after 4 years, also all of this was during a $5.15 minimum wage). Patrol required armed officers but paid as advanced, but was also a guaranteed 42 hours a week on a set schedule (three 12 hour days, a 6 hour day, and three days off) so most of us didn't really complain.

Moving up into patrol taught me a lot about the company that I didn't know. I figured the owner was a little sexist (ex-military types tend to be) but the depths of his sexism caught me a little off-guard. And then there's the racism. I'm Latino but I look white (because I avoid sun like the plague and got my bone structure from my [white] mother's side), though my surname is a dead giveaway: there's a state in Mexico to which I'm apparently related (must be a distant relative on Abuelita's side). I was apparently good enough to be on patrol, but not promotable (even though I worked my fucking ass off, even though supervisors routinely recommended me for promotion) for some reason. Or the fact that we had one black guy on staff, and he was fired for something that other people got away with. The female officer who was assigned the easiest shift because "it's all she can handle" and "this way, it's obvious I'm trying to work with the women." Those are as close to verbatim quotes as I can recall. Or the time he held a contest between patrols for excellence and canceled it after 2 months...two months in which it happened that the female officer won once and took second once, and the Mexican dude won once and took second once. Between those two months, I made an extra $30 in gas cards. WOOO! /s

For frame of reference, here are a couple of things white dudes did that they didn't get fired for: hitting 120mph in a company car in a 40mph zone (after over a year of doing 20+ over), carrying a gun without the proper permit, blatant sexual harassment, admitting to skipping stops on a route and just sending the business a false statement, writing racist slogans on the front of company-provided TASER cartridges (Homie Down is the one I remember), tasing people without proper justification, sleeping on the job, working drunk, etc.

I also learned about how they screwed over clients: this company pays for 12 hours of continuous patrol between their three properties, but the owners want more money so that route also covers 5 apartment complexes and handles cash drops for a couple of stores. Another business pays us $1M a year for 5.5 hours per weeknight and 7.5 hours per weekend night (approximately $450 per hour) and that route jumps off property like clockwork every night to take care of 3-5 other properties at specified times, leaving that client without their only security at key times. This group of apartment complexes pays for 1 hour on property per night, might get half of that if the night is slow because of the workload.

And then he decided to fuck over his staff (more). Patrol was offered a salary (that was 10% less than the minimum legal salary), with the strong implication that if we wanted any hours at all we'd take it. Once we were all salaried (or gone), things shifted over to 48 hour weeks. I did the math at one point and realized that if I watched a movie at the theater and ate twice at fast food on every day off, it was still cheaper for me to not work than to work (because of gas and food while working, considering I walked about 12-15 miles every night as part of the patrols, which requires a fairly brisk pace, which requires calories galore). But if you were scheduled off and they called you in, you either accepted the extra hours or you got chewed out, and if you made a habit of saying no you'd get written up for anything they could think of.

Then one of my colleagues got into an accident at work. He was hospitalized for like 9 days, ended up making a full recovery. But he was in the company car, so according to the company he was responsible for paying the $2500 insurance deductible. I'd had it at that point. I borrowed some money from my mother to talk to a labor attorney. Best $200 I ever spent.

Attorney gave me three pieces of advice:

If there's a problem with the way we're being paid, talk to the labor board.

My colleague was not on the hook for the car. That's why the company had insurance. It wasn't our fault that he was too cheap to spring for a lower deductible.

Document everything, but keep my name out of anything.

I passed word to the injured colleague about the insurance thing, and he lawyered up pretty much immediately (his family had enough money that he didn't have to work). I also made a not-so-anonymous phone call to the state labor board (asking that they not reveal it was me). 3 weeks later, I'm in the office handling post-shift paperwork when the rep comes in. I GTFOed as fast as I possibly could. I didn't want to be there for that whole thing.

Fast forward about 6 months, and the labor board has finished their investigation. Turns out that the salary was in fact too low to be legally allowable, but also that our positions were not legally eligible for salary anyway. So all of those 48/60/72+ hour weeks were full of overtime. Unpaid overtime. Unpaid overtime on which we were owed interest. Also, requiring patrol to be armed but not paying them armed rates wasn't legal (based on the employment contract, any work for which we required that license required we be paid the rate associated with that license). Also, the "twice a month you're paid for 2 weeks of work" thing isn't legal either. So we got several oversized paychecks covering back pay, plus others covering interest (which had to be noted in the check stub as interest on back pay).

The labor board rep couldn't do anything about the ways they were screwing over their customers, but she did have someone she could call. Someone she should call. Someone she did call. A couple weeks later, that investigation started. I don't know all the details (I left during that time to start some higher education) but a few months later they sold the company to someone else, and I heard through the grapevine that part of the reason was that they lost several contracts and all that back pay pretty much wiped out their savings (I got something like $8K in back pay, and there were another dozen patrol officers in that time frame, so I figure around $100K total went out just to patrol, and apparently there were some discrepancies in how they managed fixed post staff as well) and they had to move to a smaller house. The rumors also said that after the sale, the new owners renegotiated all the contracts (including getting a few that the previous owners had lost to being shady) and somehow they're still profitable (even after giving raises and whatnot). It's almost like the previous owners had just been trying to milk everyone for as much as they could get.

Oh, and an aside: I got to know the manager of that business that paid us $1M/year pretty well afterwards. She neither confirmed nor denied that $1M figure. So take it with a grain of salt, but if it's true (she manages the most affluent shopping center in town, which includes a restaurant where prices aren't on the menu because "if you have to ask, you can't afford it") that one contract would cover all the expenses of all of patrol. The owners always seemed really intent on keeping her happy (and made sure that we knew not to tell her we left the area for any reason except end of shift). And they always had money to spend on things like a large house in one of the more affluent areas, and the private school for their daughter, and buying a new gun or two (higher priced stuff, where the name stamp adds $1500 to the price) every couple of weeks...

(source) (story by m4dn3zz)

#prorevenge #by m4dn3zz #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #revenge story #revenge stories #last10

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a-fools-jester · 6 years

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Falling Forever

"We're falling forever, we're far from together tonight The light at the tunnel is a runaway train The stars that we wish on are only airplanes The love that we're chasing is a heart break away Cause we're picture perfect in a broken frame" -Alex and Sierra, Broken Frame

The team comes home and Tony struggles to balance raising a teenager and dealing with their betrayal.

Chapter 1: We’re Falling Forever

Tony could not deny the shock that ran through his veins when he opened the door and saw who was standing on the other side. In hindsight, he should have listened to Friday. [“Sir, I really should warn you before you open the door-” Friday had tried, but Tony didn’t care who was on the other side, only how fast he could make them go away so he could go back to the medical ward and make sure that Peter was breathing. He muted her and told himself he’d feel guilty later for doing that to her. She'd come so far in her development that Tony learned the hard way she was capable of having her feelings hurt. And harboring a grudge. Cold showers at 5 am while on the way to a meeting? Not fun.] So needless to say he walked up to the door without any idea for the shock he was in for, his breath leaving for a second as he saw a familiar set of blue eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Tony demanded- or that was what he'd planned on doing but his voice raised hardly more than a whisper, eyes belying the emotions coursing through every atom of his body. He couldn’t have expected the pulsing ache that went through him as he saw Steve Rogers standing there in front of the door with a duffel bag in hand and a baseball cap on, looking at him with those hesitant baby blues that used to show Tony the way home. Steve looked different, his bright eyes muted, his stance taking up less space than they'd used to before, back when…

His time on the run must have taught him a few things about being invisible and trying to make yourself smaller to avoid conflict. Tony wondered if Steve suddenly felt like he did- unseen, unheard, invisible to everyone he came across, on the run from something that couldn't be outrun. Did things like this even affect the great American hero? Steve shuffled around a bit before he answered, taking in the sight of Tony as if he’d been away from him for a hundred years and not little more than half a year. “It’s... the day that we move in. The Accords-” The Accords. Of course. Tony had fought tooth and nail to keep the Avengers free and to amend the Accords so that they would be less of a rigid contract with a genie and more of a terms of service that could easily be tiptoed around if they knew what they were doing. It recognized enhanced individuals as humans who deserved rights and it was a way of giving them rights while also ensuring that these individuals were willing to work within the guidelines the government set for the protection of all people. And today was the day that the entire team of Avengers was scheduled to go back to the Avengers tower, staying under Tony’s “guidance and observation until further notice” as per the contract to make sure nobody would go rogue again. To make sure that nobody would break the rules and cause more destruction than necessary, they put Tony as the makeshift leader of the group that until now had been composed of him, the War Machine (Iron Patriot), Vision, and- unofficially- the Spiderling that Tony took under his wing. Until Steve earned the right back, Tony was technically in charge of the entire team. Which, of course, would mean absolute horseshit because it wasn't like any of the Avengers really gave a shit what Tony had to say when Steve Won't-Rest-Until-Justice-Is-Served Rogers was in the same room with his moral compass and his ability to detect evil a mile away. “Right, of course. You’re obviously here, where’s the rest of-” Tony didn’t say the word Avengers, didn’t dare to taste the bitter poison of the word, and he didn’t know whether he should call them your team instead or if that was something Steve Rogers would find hurtful. Tony just wanted to get out as fast as possible, everything else came in second. Steve seemed to understand though because he nodded. “They’re on their way from the van, sorting out baggage and belongings,” he responded and Tony nodded absently, looking around. “Okay, great, so Happy will sort all of you out with your own rooms and whatnot, Vision will be over the moon to be helpful after being restless for last few days, so if that’s all I’ll just-” he pointed behind him to show that he was going to bounce without saying it. “Tony,” Steve said with a sigh. “Please don’t… shut me out, I’m-” “No,” Tony cut in before Steve could go off on a sentimental rant about this. “No, we’re not doing this right now. We can’t do this right now because I have to go back to the medical ward right now- don’t take this personally, Cap, I’m fucking elated you got your head outta your ass but I have a boy upstairs that went sky-diving without a parachute and while tied to a boulder, so I really have to go.” Steve’s eyes were confused before Tony turned around and resolutely did not look back. If he looked back he might forget how to breathe, forget everything he'd forced himself to learn in the past few months, like he isn't coming back and he isn't mine and never really belonged to me like I belonged to him. Peter was just as Tony had left him: unconscious, arms covered in bandages, breathing with an oxygen tube in because he was hardly breathing when Tony found him. The silence of the room was a stark contrast to the rest of the tower and the dull blue and gray colors gave the room a melancholy feeling. Tony sat back down on the seat he’d been occupying the entire time that Peter had been here, watching the boy’s chest rise and fall slowly. If he didn’t watch him breathe, Tony worried that he might stop. If Peter stopped, Tony would too. As he stared at Peter on the hospital bed, Tony’s thoughts began to wander to the part of his mind he tried to keep closed off, full of crushed dreams and overflowing guilt and heaps of trauma from decades' worth of betrayal and mistreatment. The fact that the Avengers would now be living in the same building hit him in the gut, a slow, steady thrum of blinding panic filling his lungs like ice water until he couldn't breathe, suffocating him. 1, 2, 3, 4… 1, 2, 3, 4… Inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale. For god's sake, let's not do this right now, alright? They’d be staying here. He’d see them every day on his way to get coffee and when he was going to his room or going to his car. He’d see them, all of them, and he’d remember the events he’d been trying his damnedest to avoid thinking about. They'd look at him with venom and hatred that he deserved. They'd spit vitriol that would always hit too hard because of who they came from, because in the mouth of anyone else it was okay but from his friends? His family? They would always be sharper than glass on their tongues. And he'd come apart like clay in the hands of a careless child. There wouldn't be enough of him left after that, wouldn't even be enough shattered pieces for him to try and pick himself back up. A dozen, a gross, and a score- he mentally recited, trying to center himself with numbers before he kept going down that route and lost himself completely. He couldn't do that right now. He couldn't be selfish right now. Peter needed him. All of them would be living together again for the first time in what felt like forever. When he’d agreed to this part of the Accords he really hadn’t given it thought, agreeing just for the sake of agreeing because it meant that the Rogues would be free again. People he once considered family would be free again. And he hadn’t quite comprehended what it meant until now. His heart sped up in his chest, images of the way the arc reactor sputtered out in his chest back in Siberia flashing in his mind. Too fast, too fast, too fast, his mind raced, thoughts shooting like fireworks around his brain. He couldn't stop remembering everything he'd been trying so hard to forget. -plus three times the square root of four- He remembered the blood in his mouth, spilling down the back of his throat, lips throbbing from where Steve's bruised knuckles had connected. He remembered that those same porcelain knuckles had once carded through his hair with the utmost gentleness, eyes loving, voice soft as magnolias and tender as dawn. He remembered the way Steve used to pull him against his chest, pressing his lips against a place in Tony's neck that always made him go weak in the knees. -divided by seven- He remembered Steve hovering over him like a reaper with a shield in his hands and a savage look in his eyes that Tony had never quite seen before, his eyes singing a song of death and ruthlessness. It was something feral and untamed, something as controllable as a hurricane and as easy to subdue as a storm. Tony raised his arms up then and he had a choice to make: blast Steve Rogers to hell with the repulsor or let him bring the shield down. If he fired that blast, if he activated the lasers, if he decided to use his suit for one last fatal blow, he would have been the only one leaving that bunker alive. -plus five- He didn't fire the blast. Steve brought the shield down against his arc reactor instead and in the end, it was Tony that was left behind in the unforgiving bunker, unable to breathe, no way of finding his way back home. Alone and cold again, as usual. Steve left as if they weren't… As if what they had wasn't… -times eleven- When Tony got back home, he'd found Rhodey waiting with his arms open just like all those years ago back when it was a desert and not an icy terrain. Searing heat and not frigid cold. Afghanistan and not Siberia. The Ten Rings and not Steve. The one thing that stayed the same is that no matter how ragged and broken he was, Rhodey was there to pick him back up from the ground in spite of his own paralyzed legs. So Tony got to work, distracting himself, working himself to the ground, trying to perfect the EXTREMIS formula. And when he managed to get it to a stable and more reliable formula, he tried it on himself first and then gave it to Rhodey to make up for the legs he'd gotten hurt because of Tony. -is nine squared - "Now you can lose them a thousand times and they'll grow right back," Tony had joked. They were invulnerable, and it reminded Tony so much of a certain super-soldier he had to keep himself from grimacing every time he remembered the man who had laughed with Tony in bed one night and was gone on a search for the past the next. With the strength of the super-soldier serum coursing through his veins, Tony suddenly understood how it felt to not have to cower in front of others. He understood how it might feel to finally have that power and go fuck you to anyone who wanted to shoulder him around. It was a power and a responsibility he had to learn how to properly harness so he didn't burn from the inside out or burn half the universe away. -and not a bit more. "Sir?" Tony heard through the haze in his mind and he blinked, taking in the scene of the hospital room. Belatedly, he realized he was gripping his own thigh and released it, forcing himself to take a few breaths like he'd practiced before. Lucidity came over him like rain against paint, spilling colors and sound back into Tony's brain. The heart monitor beeping, the smell of lemon-scented cleaner, the feeling of the chair under his legs. He was okay. Everything was okay. Peter was still asleep, but Tony wasn't alone in the room anymore. He met Happy's eyes and stood casually, hands in his pockets. "Happy, just the man I wanted to see!" he said with a fake cheer in his voice as he walked over to the other man. "How did our team of rogues react to being housed once more in the same building as the horrible bloodsucker Stark?" Happy rolled his eyes. "They were confused why you weren't there, Rogers debriefed them, and they went on their merry little way. I came here to ask about the kid. And about you." Tony laughed, pointing a finger at Happy. "You, my friend, care a lot more about him than you let him know. You always act like you'd rather be anywhere but with him but we both know you've got a soft side, Hap. We both know he's grown on you. He does that, the little shit. Can make anyone love him, I swear he is not human, he's some seductive… innocent…. thing." "Eloquent as always, sir," Happy replied, not responding to his claims and looking at Peter instead. "How long till he wakes up?" Tony shrugged, taking his own pulse inconspicuously. "No clue. Probably tonight if the universe doesn't completely hate me." Happy walked to the table and made himself some coffee before he took a seat in front of Peter. Tony walked over to the window seat and plopped himself down, taking a sip of the coffee Happy handed him. Neither of them spoke as they sat there, watching Peter and listening to the steady beat of his heart. The hours passed by agonizingly slow, but when Peter finally opened his eyes he almost wept for joy. "Oh sweet mother Maria, Peter, how do you feel?" he asked, finding himself with an armful of shaking spider boy. He couldn't even resist it- he was too relieved to push the kid away and besides, he just bounced back from his first real near-death experience. "You almost gave me a heart attack, you know that? Fighting on a goddamn plane without telling me again - I swear, I'll never let you out of my sight again after this. You're benched until I'm sure you're smart enough not to go on planes to catch assholes using magic which means that they could fly and you can't, got it? You can't just- After Rhodey, I mean, I- For god's sake, Peter, you could have died." Peter nodded into Tony's neck, holding Tony like he was scared that the older man would leave him if he let go. He still felt like he was falling when he closed his eyes. And the way that the piece of broken metal had landed on him reminded him too much of the fallen building, which already gave him nightmares. "I'll be alright. I'm sorry, sir, I'm so sorry. I didn't- ah, I mean, you know- I didn't think that they would-" and he sighed in frustration when the words wouldn't form quite right, stumbling from his tongue rather than flowing easily like he wanted them to. "I didn't think about the possibility that they'd blow the entire thing up. I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. It won't happen again, I promise. Please don't be angry." Tony tried to keep up the act of being angry for a total of five seconds before he crumbled under Peter's soft eyes looking into his own with a mixture of repentance, hurt, fear and hope. Honestly, he wasn't even that mad and the relief far outweighed any anger he felt about Peter's stupid stunt. "Alright, I'll assume that the whole this-" Tony gestured to Peter's bandages and tubes, "-is enough to teach you a lesson. But if you do this again, I'm going to be pissed beyond belief." Peter melted back against the bed and nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Stark. You're the best." "Thanks, I've been told very many times and they're all very right," Tony responded, loving the laugh he got from Peter, loving the way that Peter looked at him as if he was the best thing in the world. Maybe, just maybe, things might be okay. "Oh, and heads up, the Avengers are now… in the building, so try not to faint if you see Captain America in the kitchen at 6 am drinking green tea and whatever garbage healthy stuff he eats." Peter's eyes didn't widen with excitement like Tony expected though, instead, they averted and Peter nodded solemnly. "Oh. Okay." He didn't meet Tony's eyes for a while but Tony decided not to think of it, pulling out his phone and typing up some updates to Peter's suit that he had in mind so that they would be better prepared to deal with a situation like this in the future. Apparently, one parachute wasn't enough. He'd have to install more ways to ensure that Peter would survive from falling from an aircraft- which wasn't exactly something they taught in the hefty parenting books Pepper bought him. - Tony decided early on that he would not be the one tiptoeing around his own house. Not this time. So he simply continued on with his daily routine and didn't pay much attention to the fact that each of his previous friends- turned enemies- turned technically subordinates were now in the same building as him. For the most part, they seemed to avoid him as well. He'd only seen them in passing and he'd shared a brief nod or conversation with each, almost always small talk, never about anything which could threaten the fragile peace they had. Sam was the one that tried to initially talk to Tony, leaving him a book on self-help and panic attacks that Tony promptly shoved into the deepest corner of his walk-in closet. Rhodey was the one who Tony spent most of his time with, training with him, bouncing around some ideas, doing whatever they both decided to do. Even if said thing was playing board games or flying around the city and throwing water balloons. It was about being together, not about what they were doing together. Or so Tony said to Rhodey when he would complain about the activity. Or other times, it was Peter beside Tony, tinkering with him in the lab, sitting beside him for a meal that Tony couldn't say no to if he wanted to set a good example, talking science with him or persuading Tony to help him build Lego sets in spite of Tony's attempts to complain and explain the word "reputation" to him. Peter was a constant source of warmth for Tony, always happy to see him and be with him even if Tony was hardly a pleasant person to be around most of the time. Still, Tony found himself caring a lot for his "ward" he still didn't really know how he came to have- it was an accidental adoption brought about by circumstance, really. When May had died and left Peter with no other suitable guardian, it was all Tony owed Peter to give him a house and food and a stable source of income. Of course that, somehow, came with nights spent worrying over the little hero and driving lessons that almost gave Tony a heart attack every five seconds and days spent doing nothing but ended up being enjoyable nonetheless even if all they achieved was finally finishing a movie marathon. And that was enough for Tony. Everything was less important compared to that. Of course, that was not taking into account the looks he got from the others from time to time. He tried to ignore it, he did, but sometimes they were so transparent that he wanted to turn around and snap. But he didn't snap and he kept a lid on his temper and he made sure not to be affected by the looks of confusion and anger and regret and contempt on their faces. Steve Rogers was the worst though because Tony knew what his facial expressions meant even if he could only use the tips of his fingers to trace them. Tony saw the wistful look in his eyes, the regret, the shame, the frustration he tried hard to push down. But most painful and disturbing of all, Tony saw the longing in his eyes when he leaned forward- to touch, to reach out- before he stopped himself. Steve Rogers was a bruise and he made Tony ache just looking at him. There were too many things to be said between them, too many words that had built up and turned sour on Tony's tongue because he'd bitten them down too long. There was a conversation to be had about trust and secrets and betrayal. About putting your hands on your lover and leaving them to die for someone else without so much as a goodbye and not turning back even when they called your name- as a plea or a curse didn't matter, if they whispered it or snarled it was irrelevant. If you loved that person you should at least have the decency to spare them a parting glance before you closed the door behind you. But when Tony looked into Steve's mournful eyes, all the words clattered against each other until all remained was a jumble of letters and vowels and white noise in Tony's brain. So he said nothing except "good morning" and "good evening" and " bless you" and "excuse me" and "goodbye". He said nothing about arc reactors flickering out in his chest or about videos watched in Siberian HYDRA bases that showed a murder that had been kept secret from him or about the long shadow that Bucky Barnes cast. Steve didn't try to talk to him either. It was always "morning, Tony" and "hey, Tony" and "bye, Tony" and "night, Tony". So Tony focused on making sure Peter was capable of keeping himself alive when Tony was gone for longer than 5 minutes and that his inventions were used for good things like giving the sick and dying a second chance at living a normal life and giving the incapable the means to even out the playing field. "Tones," Rhodey called and he looked up from his phone to look at him. And then beside him, where two people stood with ridiculously bright smiles that felt a bit out of place for 6 in the morning. "You got a few visitors looking to book a room." Bruce and Thor stood there, looking like friends that just got home. It struck Tony how they were both actually happy to be there, with their smiles and gentle eyes. Tony didn't hesitate before he got up and walked over, placing a hand on Bruce's shoulders. "Bruce, are you okay? How have you been?" he asked, opening his arms up when Bruce moved to embrace him without missing a beat. "God, I missed you. Where have you been, man?" "I was on this planet called Sakaar for a few years as the Hulk and then Thor showed up there so I guess he sorta woke me up? And then we went back to Asgard to fight his sister who was trying to kill everyone and he lost an eye and the entire planet burned so we're here now with a lot of Asgardians," Bruce explained and Tony struggled to take in everything he was rambling about. Was Bruce high? What the actual hell were they talking about? Thor nodded, agreeing with everything Bruce said as if he'd just said something perfectly sensible. "Yes, and my father died as well and my sister Hela broke my most cherished hammer. And a crazy old man cut my hair off. Ah! And my brother Loki is here with us and also needs a place to stay for the next few days until he finds somewhere more suitable and acceptable. He has proven his goodness, Man of Iron, and I assure you he is no enemy. His hand was forced when he attacked Midgard, verified by our trusted Heimdall, who sees all and knows all the events that go on within the universe. He has been freed from his spell though, so I can assure you he will not be a threat any longer." Tony watched as Loki stepped from the shadows, hands clasped behind his back, looking far less evil and perhaps a bit more charming now that he was wearing a warm blue outfit and a smile that reached his eyes rather than bearing a sneer and a murder stick. "Hello, Anthony." "Tony's fine," he responded with a small smile. And that was that. "Everyone else calls me that, so… I don't know, welcome aboard, I guess? You know most of the old Avengers here, I'll assume, because we were all trying to take you down: Cap, me, Natasha, and Clint. The new ones are Vision, Rhodey, Spider-boy aka Peter Parker who's in his room, um… Bucky isn't here right now, there's Wanda, and… Wilson." Tony finished pointing at each of the ones he mentioned before he looked at Loki, who was giving him a puzzled smile. "I could give you either the seventh or eleventh floor, up to you. Which do you prefer?" Loki frowned, crossing his arms in front of him. "You are offering me shelter?" "You said you needed a place to stay, Loreal, so tell me which you'd prefer so I could have it set up by dinner." Loki blinked at him, baffled by the welcome he'd received without Tony missing a beat. He'd expected that he'd need to beg and barter to receive shelter from a man he threw from a building, but instead he was greeted with a "Tony's fine" and told to pick which floor he'd prefer, not questioned about who controlled him, how, or asked questions to verify the credibility of his story. It was quite odd, but with a gentle prod of mind magic, Loki figured out the answer lay in the strained relationship between Tony and the rest of the previous Avengers who now stood there with either confused, curious or distrustful looks on their faces even if none of them spoke up about Loki's stay. How curious. "I would prefer 11th if the choice is actually a choice." "Of course the choice is a choice, I'm not here to dangle options just to pull them away last minute for shits and giggles," Tony said, before raising his hand. "Fri, you heard? 11th floor, personalized furniture, whatnot. Give him the Thor or Bucky deal but make it match the files I have on hand for him to be better suited for him. Leave a magazine for him to be able to customize it." "I'm on it, Boss," Friday responded. "Alright, so… Thor, you're the top floor and Bruce you're the first basement level. Is this still okay with the two of you?" At their nods, he flashed them a thumbs up. "Nice to have the two of you back, I'll have some more things ordered for you. Friday is my new AI, so you can ask her for anything you might need or if you need to contact me." "Mr. Stark can I go to the museu-" Peter walked in and froze, eyes widening when he saw the two men he hadn't met before. "Mr. Stark is that-" "Thor and Bruce Banner and Loki, yes it is, kid, go nuts," Tony said, clapping him on the back and pushing him towards the three. Peter stared at them all in awe, eyes wide with wonder as he approached them. Tony thought he looked like a kid that just went to a candy store for the first time, smiling as Peter fawned over all of them, excitedly rambling. "Hi! I'm Peter, or uh, Spider-man. It's nice to meet you, sir," Peter gushed to Thor, looking at him. "Say, your hair is a lot shorter than the news says it is. Did you cut it? I like it better like this, with a little lightning thing on the side. Do you still have your magic hammer?" "I'm afraid I do not, for it was destroyed in a death-match with my eldest sibling, Hela who was bent upon destroying our planet." "Oh, okay. Mr-Dr Banner! Hi, I'm Peter. I read all of your works and journals and I loved all of them, especially your articles on biochemistry! I'm a huge fan, my school holds an honor day for you, Mr. Banner, sir," Peter said as he shook Bruce's hand, who stood there blushing, visibly flustered as Tony flashed him a smile. "You're a hero amongst scholars and- and an Avenger too, which is so awesome when you think about it. The Hulk is the coolest thing ever! It's an honor to finally meet someone who helped revolutionized modern science." "Finally meet someone who revolutionized modern science?" Tony muttered, crossing his arms. "Wow, way to go for the pride, kid. Right in the arc reactor." "Uh, thank you very much, that's very kind of you, Pete- Peter. You've read all of my works?" Tony nodded. "Yep, he read yours and wouldn't shut up about all your theories and discoveries for weeks. He's a huge science nut and did the same thing for my journals and all that jazz though so I wouldn't let it go to your head, Brucie." "Wait- is this, I'm sorry, I have to ask because this is all pretty... confusing. Is he your son? How old is he? 12? How long were we gone?" Bruce finally asked the question that had been bubbling in his mind from the moment he saw Peter walk in and Tony flashed him a smile that Bruce knew to be rare and had to be earned. It was genuine and unfiltered, which begged the question of who this kid was and how he'd managed to earn Tony's affection. There was a murmur of agreement among the others in the room, and Tony looked at them to see they were all waiting for an answer. Seemed most of them wondered but none had dared to ask. He shrugged. "It's a long story. Son? Technically, yes, because his last legal guardian died and that left me to take him in. You were gone a few years, which is good because a shitstorm is what you missed if we're going to be brutally honest. Avengers broke up, then they were legally mandated to come back here under my ever-so-watchful eye so they came back here a week ago. There's really no need to recap all that, you could google it if you want to see us acting like street punks at 7/11 fist-fighting to claim their turf. Press called it the 'Civil War' if you're interested." "Broke up? What, like the Beatles?" Bruce asked, looking around to meet Clint's eye, who nodded jerkily before turning back to his oatmeal. "You guys broke up?" "I'm 15, not 12," Peter replied with a frown, walking over to Loki and giving him a smile. "Hi, Mr. Loki, I'm Peter. I heard a lot about you." Loki internally winced. The only thing this small child could have heard was how Loki went into a rage and tried to destroy Midgard with his army of chitauri and got beaten into the ground, defeated. Or perhaps how he was Thor's less important and less powerful brother, a simple god of mischief, adopted Jotunn son of two Asgardian gods. "Did you?" "Yeah! Can you explain how your- uh, it's called cider, right?- works? Is it something you inherit from your parents? Can I learn it? Do you think you can show me how the cider works?" The silence around the room was almost hilarious because nobody, not even Stark, could have expected that those were the words that Peter was going to say. There was something beautiful about a kid's charm and innocence and naivete, and though Tony would have scolded him any other time for asking a murderous magic man to teach him magic, he couldn't bring himself to do so when he saw the brightness in Loki's eyes that looked ridiculously close to watering. Thor was giving his brother a soft smile, unseen by either Peter or Loki, and the rest of the Avengers couldn't even bring themselves to look away from the scene playing out. "It is called seidr. I could explain it further if you… wish," Loki responded, visibly caught out of his depth by the curiosity and genuine interest in the boy's eyes. Tony returned Peter's beaming grin, happy that his geeky son would get to do whatever geeky stuff he wanted. The kid loved fantasy and sci-fi after all, so learning magic from an actual god must be a dream come true for him. From the shadows, Tony saw Cap with a small, sad smile on his face before he turned around and left the kitchen. Tony knew he'd be going to the gym by the tense set of his shoulders and the way he walked like his fists were itching for something- anything- to make contact with until his mind stopped its course of destruction. Tony watched him until he turned a corner and disappeared.

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