#halfway to 200 so maybe let’s just double it

[skeptical-saniwa]

Hm… 100 followers… 100 kisses for Aventurine?

[mjolnirswriststrap]

Haunted

“It's getting dark and it's all too quiet

And I can't trust anything now

And it's coming over you like it's all a big mistake”

Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

Summary: Reader escapes her abusive ex and moves to the alps. Bucky is in denial about some things, like what the year is, and if he’s dead. Part 1/6

Warnings: Mentions of an abusive boyfriend, Ghosts.

Masterlist Pt.Two

You shiver as a freezing cold breeze finds its way through the cracks of the window. The train is old, insulation and heat are nowhere to be found. You sit back in your seat cupping your hands for warmth, looking around at all the empty seats, you’re sure its only you on the train, no one wants to go to this tiny village in Austrian Alps. You made sure when you picked it, population of only 200, no one would find you there.

Some people might say you’re crazy for moving halfway across the world because of a crazy ex, but it wasn’t just that. You couldn’t shake the feeling of disappearing. How freeing it would be, to live just for yourself. You know it was the right thing to do, you had to much emotional baggage and you left it in the taxi at the airport in New York. It was also who you left in that taxi, they are the reason you walked into an airport with nothing but the clothes on your back and a purse.

They didn’t know you were hidden underneath three layers of shirts, pants, underwear, socks. You looked like a hobo, but no one could tell you had shorts, leggings, and jeans underneath your baggy sweats. No one noticed the sports bra overtop the strapless one, or the doubling of tank tops. Maybe they noticed the light blue of your favorite t-shirt popping out of the collar of your grandma's cable knit sweater. Did they notice the amount of gold bracelets or the diamond rings on your fingers? He didn’t, you hid your hands in your sleeves around him. TSA didn’t bat an eye though. Your purse contains everything, your whole life stuffed into a school bag you’d been pretending was a new purse. You made up the excuse that you needed more organization. You practically brought nothing; he’d notice if it was stuffed to the gills.

You told him you were picking up your cousin from the airport, you knew he wouldn’t let you go by yourself, so you couldn’t pack a bag. You just got extremely lucky when he said he’d wait in the taxi. That was 10 hours ago, and it was night then, it’s somehow 2 pm here. You were exhausted and freezing, you just wanted to get to your cabin.

You bought it in secret when your aunt died last year. Instead of putting you in her will, she left cash behind in the cat food container. She knew your situation, and she knew you’d be the only one to think about her cats after she died. When you found the money, it had a note saying to make a secret savings account, never tell a soul, one day the moment would come when you’d had enough. You know your aunt didn’t mean move to Austria, but what can you do when your abusive boyfriend is a secret agent for shield. You have to be this dramatic, taking chances wasn’t an option now. You had to go as far as you could. Even though disappearing excited you, it was very necessary. The chance was minimal that he would ever find you, but it was enough to keep you looking around the train.

When you make it to the tiny town you don't realize there is a welcome parade waiting for you. It really only consists of some local women and pies. They keep you entertained with their broken English, as you all hike your way up to your new cabin. They tell you how lucky they are to have you, how excited they are for summer and to be able to show you around more properly.

You thank one of the women as she hands you a key, "The bank sent this from the city.". You wave them off, turning the key and stepping inside. Once you're in the door you're standing in the kitchen, a countertop that doubles as a bar separates it from the open concept living room. A wooden staircase leads to a loft bedroom. You smile at the thought of no more slamming doors.

You do see one door, making your way towards it. Opening it reveals an outdated bathroom that needed some tlc. You covered your nose at the stench of mildew. There was a major leak, you need to find where it comes from so it doesn't get worse. You make your way up the stairs, and you search around for the cause of your grief. A sizable patch of mold is found behind your bed, under the windowsill. The realtor's photos did not disclose this damage.

As you’re bent over accessing the costs, you hear a loud creak come from downstairs. It's enough for you to jump up and run to the banister, searching for what caused it. You find nothing, you tell yourself it's just the wind and shake it off. It's too early to be getting spooked. This cabin is so old, there's bound to be creaks and whispers ever once and a while.

You make your way downstairs to have a closer look around. You check the cupboards to find that the women stocked you up with the basic necessities, sugar, flour, salt. You find farm fresh milk, cheese, and eggs in the fridge. You close the tin door; the women were nice enough to give you food but not enough to dust the place. You find some supplies under the sink and get to work.

You dust old pictures of strangers, as you're knocking down cobwebs in the corners a powerful scent clouds your mind. You stand against the wall, steadying yourself. Pine and mint, it is gone before it was truly there. No matter how hard you try to find the smell again, it's gone. You try to explain it away to yourself.

You're done by the time the sun finishes setting. The cabin envelopes you in a dim yellow glow from the old lamps. Ornate rugs where found, rolled up inside an armoire. The leather of the couch gleamed due to the scrubbing and polishing you did. A warmth fills the room, something you haven't felt in your own home in years. You run into the kitchen grabbing a glass of milk and a piece of pie.

You devour your pie and milk before you can find a watchable channel on the tv with an antenna. You settle on the hallmark channel. The acting is enough to make you cringe. But you know entertainment is slim pickings in the mountains. Throwing a fleece blanket around your shoulders your curl up into a ball. You start to fall asleep when the princess on the screen admits she was not who she said she was.

Right as your eyes close the front door bursts open. White flurries intrude on the warmth you created. You jump back, holding your chest. You know this is it, he found you that quick. When no one enters, you run and slam the door shut, locking it behind yourself. You can't help but laugh manically at yourself for clutching your pearls. Turning, you make your way upstairs, today was hectic, and you're too exhausted to deal with anything,

You wiggle your way into the flannel sheets. As you fall asleep you think about everything you left behind. Your family, a few friends, him. Your family was the hardest part. Your little brother Max will understand one day. You are going to miss out on so much, you just hope they don't hate you forever.

A stinging stabs your eye, and before you know it, tears are pooling on your pillow. It is all becoming overwhelming. Leaving your whole family behind, spending all of your aunt's money on a cabin, being alone in this cabin, the constant fear that he is coming. You had luxuries in New York; places to run, people that can hear everything. You don't know what he would do out here, especially because of what you did.

Before you can spiral completely you hear the faint sound of a train whistle. Strange, you think to yourself. The tracks are a mile away back in town, there's no way you should be able to hear them out here. The whistle sounds like it's getting closer and closer. You stand from the bed and look outside the window; you're greeted with darkness and still trees.

With no sights on a train, your heart jumps out of your chest when the house begins to rumble beneath your feet. It's like only the cabin was being affected by the nearby train. You walk to the center of the room, covering your ears as the whistle gets unbearably loud. The cabin starts shaking violently, causing a picture frame to crash on the ground. You let out a scream and fall to your knees.

Everything ceases. The house is silent, your rapid breathing echos off the walls. You raise your head, looking around, you half expect something to pop out at you. When nothing comes, you stand and slowly walk down the stairs. The only thing out of place, shattered glass.

You cross the room to the kitchen, grabbing the broom off the hook. You're still trying to explain it away and catch your breath as you sweep up the shards. Maybe there is a different set of tracks nearby. You're being paranoid because it's your first night. It will take time for everything to be okay again. You toss what is left of the frame, practically crawling back to bed.

You fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow, exhaustion overtaking you. Your dreams are no reprieve from your fast-moving life. You're hurt really bad, and you're trying to flag down a soldier in the woods for help. He's running away from you, holding his shoulder, screaming a man's name. Its muffled, and his face is fuzzy, the only thing you could make out were images of dog tags.

You drift to a happier place as you smell mint and pine again. Instead of clouding your senses, this time it relaxes them. letting your dreams ease your anxiety while you slept.

[digital-corruption]

🤔 I probably should've cut this one in half. Ah well, you can have a double length part. ;)

Haunted by the Past Part 10

Leaving that warehouse was depressing in its own way, but I knew we had no choice. Jake had insisted I go full cover like he and ensured that none of my hair peeked through my hood before we left. It felt weird to be to be full cover during the day, like I was up to shady stuff. Then again, we sort of are?

For the first stop, we visited an ATM away from prying eyes.

“Take out as much as you can from your account. It’s the last time you’ll see your money,” Jake instructed from beside the ATM, while keeping an eye out for trouble.

“I don’t know what my limit is,” I admitted.

“Let me see your card,” Jake stuck his hand out. I handed it to him and he looked it over. “Start with a thousand. Keep withdrawing a thousand until it stops you.” I managed to get three grand out before reaching my limit and we went back to the car.

I was a bit surprised as he started driving us further into the city, into the slums. Eventually he turned the car down an alleyway and stopped halfway down.

“You need to come with me. It’s not safe for you to stay in the car. Keep close behind me, don’t make eye contact with any of the degenerates,” he instructed before getting out.

I followed close behind as he said. He stopped as a large steel sliding door and sighed before opening it. Inside was a busy chop shop. As we walked towards the back of the shop, I could feel the eyes of the individuals falling on me like a pack of wild animals watching their prey.

Suddenly Jake stopped. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon again and unannounced as well,” I glanced around Jake just enough to see an older man at a desk smoking a cigar and eyeing us up.

Jake shifted his position to keep him from making eye contact with me. “Do you have any plates or not?”

“I might. Have you got the cash?” the man blew smoke into Jake’s direction. Jake pulled a roll of bills from his own supply and slammed them down on the desk. The man frowned, “You know my price.”

“200 for the plates. 400 for your silence,” Jake said coldly.

The man laughed, “That's 400 per person. Plus an express service fee of 200.”

“You already have the plates!” Jake snapped.

“Watch it or you lose the loyal customer discount!” the man extinguished his cigar roughly.

I could feel the anger emanating from Jake's back. He eventually gave in and pulled out a stack of bills, counting them off and then tossing them onto the desk. Where is all that cash coming from?

“Next time I’m shopping elsewhere,” Jake threatened.

The man opened his drawer and pulled out a pair of license plates. “Good luck with that,” he chuckled.

Jake snatched the plates and turned; his eyes were ice cold. I took it as my cue to turn and swiftly make for the door.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt the warmth of the sun again. Jake motioned for me to get in the car. Meanwhile he pulled out a screwdriver and began swapping the plates over. He was silent still even as we drove off. As we left the city I reached over for his hand resting by his side and snaked my fingers between his. He squeezed my hand tight, then relaxed.

“Are you ok?” I broke the silence.

“I have to put myself in a very dark frame of mind going into places like that. I always feel like if I don’t, they’ll eat me alive. It just takes a while to shake it,” Jake lifted my hand and kissed it. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

“No, I wasn’t scared...” I trailed off.

“Hmm?” he knew there was more.

“I don’t know, you felt very in control. It was reassuring,” I paused.

“Really? I felt in control? Maybe that’s the effect you have on me,” I could tell by his eyes he was smiling.

“But it feels like there is something else bothering you,” I continued.

“You mean besides our impending doom?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“it’s nothing.”

“Tell me. It is never nothing.”

“I-I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Jake asked hesitantly.

“No you didn’t,” I smiled. “Why?”

“This life has twisted me, MC. I have a hard time understanding when I’ve crossed a boundary when so much of my time is spent getting past boundaries. When is it acceptable and when is it too far? I wasn’t exactly in the right mind earlier,” Jake explained.

“Ok, um, that’s why couples have safe words. Because most people don’t innately know, at least not until they have spent a long time learning their partner's limits. If it would make you feel more comfortable, we should have a safe word,” I proposed.

“Like what?”

“It can be something absurd so it snaps you out of your train of thought, like pineapple,” I smiled.

“Pineapple? Why pineapple?” Jake looked at me perplexed.

“Ah, of course you don’t watch any TV. It’s just a joke from a TV series from years ago,” I explained.

“Hmm, it could work...” Jake trailed off.

“What?” I knew there was something else.

“Well like any new code, it needs to be tested,” I could tell he had a sly expression behind the mask. He let go of my hand and turned off the freeway at the next exit.

“Hang on, I need time to recover!” I insisted.

“That’s fine, I need to check our situation. I can’t do that while driving,” Jake drove into a small town.

“Really? So you don’t have an ulterior motive?” I raised an eyebrow in doubt.

“It might not be the only motive,” he pulled into the parking lot of the first motel with a vacancy sign. “For example, I’m bored of driving.”

“Uh-huh. Let me guess, you also need to use the toilet and you just happened to pull into a quaint motel with lodging options,” I joked. “And it even comes with free internet!”

“Eh, I won’t be using their network, but we do need somewhere for you to sleep tonight so in my eyes this fulfils a lot of requirements,” Jake smiled as he opened his door.

We went into the reception together. Jake went to the front desk while I looked at the pamphlets. I could hear that the older lady at the counter was asking Jake about our health since we both were wearing face masks, which was a normal sort of reaction after pandemic. Jake lied and said I had a compromised immune system so we didn’t like taking risks in common areas. He had obviously used that one before.

As the process continued there was some commotion about the room. I looked over and saw that Jake was walking back confused.

“I just wanted a king room,” Jake looked at the keycard like it was a foreign object.

“They didn’t have one?” I questioned.

“They did, but she gave us a free upgrade for the honeymoon suite. I told her we didn’t need that,” Jake said bewildered. “Why would she do that?” He continued towards the door.

I glanced back at the receptionist and she gave me a wink. I laughed, “Well Jake, when a man loves a woman...”

Jake held the door open for me to go through frowning, “I know that one.”

“No, let me continue,” I teased as we went to the car for our bags. “When a man loves a woman he tends to do crazy things like ask her to marry him.”

Jake opened the car and pulled out my bag first, “I still don’t get what’s in it for her.” Did he really just brush it off like it was nothing?

“They have wedding packages here. She was probably hoping that by encouraging happy memories, we’d consider the package,” I explained as Jake pulled out his backpack and locked up the car.

“I won’t be saying my wedding vows to you in a place like this,” Jake said nonchalantly as he led the way to the suite. I blushed at hearing him say that. He's thinking that far ahead?

“Where would you want to get married?” I asked amused.

Jake stopped and turned to me, “On a deserted island...”

“With electricity,” we both said simultaneously.

“Ah so you do understand,” Jake winked at me.

When we reached the suite, Jake told me to wait outside. He put his backpack down and pulled out some sort of device, then proceeded to wave it around the suite. I realized he was looking for cameras or listening devices. Satisfied that there were none he came back to the door.

“You'd be surprised at how many blackmail cameras I find,” Jake explained picking his backpack up. He let me in first, then shut the door behind me, locking the deadbolt.

I put my bag down gently on the baggage rack while Jake put his down next to it. I turned as Jake reached for my facemask. His had already been removed. He tossed mine aside and pulled me in for a very passionate kiss.

When we finally broke for air, “So was this on your list of motives? Or just a happy coincidence?” Jake smiled and kissed me again. “I did say I needed time to recover, right?” I bit my bottom lip to stop myself from kissing him.

“Just needed a little reminder before I start working on Jake things,” he grinned. He kissed my forehead, “You let me know when you’re ready. No pressure until then."

[theflashdriver]

By Land and Sea

When Sonic makes a bet with Amy, it backfires almost immediately. He has come face to face with one of his greatest fears but, at the same time, he isn't one to back down from a challenge. Can he beat Amy at a swimming race or will he flounder? This is the third part of my Sonamy Week catch up! This fic was written for the race prompt! It’s a little over 4.5k words long, I hope you will enjoy!

"This isn't what I agreed to, Ames."

"Oh, it's exactly what you agreed to, my darling." He could hear the delight in her voice; though his eyes were turned from her the blue hedgehog could plainly see the grin on her face. "You promised that if I beat you in a race you'd go on a date with me."

No, he wasn't looking at her; instead, his eyes were fixed upon the racetrack before him. The very racetrack he took issue with. Marked with floating orbs and, no more than 200 metres away, a flagpole that slowly bobbed from side to side. Two lanes of ocean had been isolated, made into a path through the positioning of small orb-shaped buoys. The two met at their ends, a larger central buoy with a blue flag marking the midway point. If the water were land it'd be simple, as fast as Amy was he'd beat her to the marker, around it and back. He'd probably pass her before she got halfway up her lane… well, maybe three quarters. But the sea was a different matter, they were stood on a beach rather than a raceway. Though he avoided water, he'd seen Amy swimming before. She was good and fast, while he might as well have been made from lead. The blue hedgehog needed a life preserver to keep himself above the surface, let alone swim a straight line. No matter how he tried to bolster himself, throwing his eyes to the sky or focusing on that flag, fear and, an emotion he so rarely faced, doubt was plaguing him.

There was a tug at his wrist. Shuddering, he pried his eyes away; allowing them to meet those of Cream. Innocent and full of empathy, she spoke. "I'm afraid that is what you said Mister Sonic. You didn't specify what kind of race, you only said that Miss Amy had to beat you."

"She's got you there, Sonic. You should've been more specific." From his other side he'd heard Tails, the young fox he trusted more than anyone, betray him over the silly technicality. "You kinda brought this upon yourself."

"D-Don't side with them Tails! You know what I meant just like they do! I mean really. When I say race, is your first thought actually…" He shuddered, looking to the lapping waves ahead of them. "…Swimming?"

Amy's didn't hesitate to answer, gleefully posing a question of her own. "Come on Sonic, what would you call this if not a race?"

Many phrases rushed through Sonic's head; a death trap, a nightmare, a one-way ticket to a watery grave, but he settled on, "Lame. Just plain lame." Unable to stomach it, he turned around; eyes closed and chin raised. "It's like challenging Knuckles to chess after he says he can beat anyone in a one on one match, or askin' the Chaotix to solve maths problems rather than mysteries. It's just not what they do, just like I don't swim."

Cream gasped, innocently taken aback. "Oh no, does that mean you're giving up Mister Sonic?"

"Of course not Cream." He'd turned back to the young rabbit, lowering himself to better look her in the eye. "Even if Amy's better at…" Despite having spoken it once already, the word 'swim' felt gross in his mouth. He shook off its vile taste, continuing to reassure the little girl. "Even if Amy's better at this than me, I've got to give it my best shot! No matter how scared you are Cream, you should never back down." It wasn't his best motivational speech, but then he wasn't in the best headspace. He was bolstering himself almost as much as he was trying to send a message.

The young rabbit gave a strong nod, the little chao in her arms matching it. "You're right Mister Sonic! You should always do your best, even when defeat is certain. You might get lucky!" It wasn't quite the glowing affirmation he'd hoped for; even though he knew the rabbit was being genuine, her lack of faith did scuff his pride. Before her wounding could show, she'd turned to face Amy. "Cheese and I will go set things up. Good luck both of you!"

With that, Cream rushed away from the group; what she had left to set up Sonic had no idea. There was a beat of silence, his gut wouldn't let him turn toward the sea and yet he didn't have the strength to face Amy. Thus, he looked to the sky; the sun was shining, the day was windless and only had a few clouds to its name. If this were it a regular race, these would be the perfect conditions.

"Sonic." All of a sudden his imagined visage of Amy was discarded, the anxious way she'd said his name had stripped it all away. "Are you actually scared? You know we don't have to do this if you don't want to"

"Me? Scared?" He snorted, both attempting to reassure her while, simultaneously, puffing himself up. "Yeah right."

"Well, supposing you were, there's nothing to worry about." Unfortunately, his words hadn't been quite enough. She probably wanted him to meet her eye. "The waters are calm today and we shouldn't be at sea any longer than ten minutes. Besides, we're not going too far out."

Finding the strength, he looked to her. Sure enough, there was a glint of concern in her eyes, hands clasped before her. He grinned, shaking his head. "Honestly Ames, I was just putting on a show to make the kids think you stand a chance. Keep things interesting. I'll totally be able to…" The word 'swim' caught on his tongue again, its mere thought made him queasy, but he forced himself through it; maintaining bravado. "Win this race, no sweat."

"Oh really? You're not?" Following his show of confidence, her concern had mostly slipped away, a smile sliding into its place. Amy had leant in, standing on her tiptoes to match his height. "It's cute seeing you flustered for once, Sonic." Perhaps his queasiness wasn't so easily hidden. "Don't worry; I'm sure it'll be an easy lap." There were few cockier than him and so, when it came to smugness, he could recognise it from a mile away. "If anything happens just call me and I'll swim over to save you. I want you in one piece for our date after all."

Attempting to exceed her cockiness, Sonic rose to his own toes and outsized her once more. A winning smirk returned to his lips. "Don't you worry about me Ames, it may be calm now but as soon as I'm out there it's going to get choppy. Maybe duck under when I pass by, the waves are gonna be huge."

"Yes Sonic, I'm terrified of your doggy-paddle." Once again, his endeavour had failed. "Well, as long as I can hear your screaming over the splashing you're in safe hands." Amy lowered herself, turning on her heel, but before she left she looked back to him, a gentler smile on her face. "As much as I want to win, more than that, I hope you have fun; I know you enjoy competition after all. Good luck Sonic!"

"Y-Yeah, good luck Ames!" He ran his finger beneath his nose and, before he could stop himself, called out in reassurance. "Don't worry so much, swimming or running, I like spending time with you." He almost bit through his tongue as she turned around. A pinkness matching her hair had snuck onto her cheeks. "I mean, having you around keep things interesting… you know what I mean?"

Amy's hands clasped, her smile blinding. "Aww, Sonic! Of course, I know what you mean!"

When Miss Rose turned around the spring in her step had more than doubled. He rubbed his forehead. Sonic wasn't sure which parts of that conversation he regretted and, while he was no stranger to making a fool of himself, the knot in his stomach and heat he was feeling were a little too much to handle. He took a deep breath, circling his shoulders, and tried to push out such thoughts. What's done was done, he'd talked a big game so he had to do something… even if winning wasn't in the cards. Just what that something was, he had no idea. Planning was difficult…

"If you're so worried about it why don't you just run off?" Tails question pulled Sonic from his stupor; the little fox had raised a good point. "It's not like you haven't before."

"As stupid of a race as this is, I did kind of promise her, you know?" He ran a hand through his quills, continuing to ignore the heat on his cheeks. "Running off now, it'd just be wrong. Uncool even."

"Wow, I guess this really was smart of her. I didn't realise your word to her meant that much." A glance to Tails proved a fact he'd feared, there was a broad grin on his face. The smugness was spreading.

Flashing his own grin Sonic reached down, ruffling the young fox's ears. "Nah, it's just that Cream's here. Got to be a good role model, after all, I can't let her think heroes back down from a challenge. Let alone lie."

The young boy snorted. "Yeah right, you just don't want to admit it."

"Admit what?" He feigned ignorance.

"Though you whined about the race, and I'm sure you'll moan when you lose, you don't think Amy winning would be such a bad thing." Sonic could practically hear his influence in the young boy's taunts. "In fact, I bet you want to go on that da-

The hedgehog continued to noogie him, further messing his fur and cutting him off. "Yeah, well, when I beat her in this race I'll prove you doubly wrong, won't I? That'll be a change."

Finally, the boy genius pushed him off. The grin on his fluffy muzzle was forced into view. "Lucky I brought your inflatable then, isn't it? Or will you not be needing them, seeing as you're so confident."

Hands crossed over his heart, an overly pained expression overcame the Blue Blur's face. Bending his right leg he allowed himself to lean on the young fox as if he'd been gravely wounded. "My own little bro, siding with the enemy. Where did I go wrong? You knew about this, you knew they'd tricked me all this time and yet you said nothing. Oh Tails, how could you?" His right arm raised to cross his brow as he began to mock cry; "My own bro, betrayed by my own bro!"

Laughter erupted beneath him, Sonic heard the sound of feet struggling to kick up sand as the little fox struggled to support him; "It's not like I could've done anything about it, you agreed before I could say anything."

At that, Sonic brought himself to stand straight; whipping a final faux tear from his eye. "I suppose I'll find it in my heart to forgive you then. Stop me next time though, alright? Tackle me to the ground if you have to, you're meant to be my brains."

"Fine, fine, I promise I'll stop you next time." Tails promised. Reaching behind himself and into a small rucksack, the youth pulled out a dark blue lifejacket. On its shoulder a new addition, a bright orange whistle on an extendable cord.

Sonic took it with a sigh, pulling it over his shoulders before doing the buckle around his belly. "You're really confident in me winning, aren't you Tails?"

He shrugged, that smugness had returned. "Better to be safe than sorry,"

The blue blur turned back to the water, Amy wasn't lying when she said it was calm. It must have been close to low tide but the beach was long and empty. A glance further up the bank revealed Cream and Cheese, staking two flags into the sand; both their finish line and likely starting point. So, there would be a dash from land to water before the true challenge started. While at first he'd thought this would merely give him a small head start, an idea snuck its way to the forefront of his mind. There was a technique that, while difficult, he had performed before in times of crisis. The sand sprawled out far enough for it, the only problem he could really foresee was rounding the midway buoy, a sharp turn. If he could control his turning long enough to manage that then things would be fine. Running on water, well… it was worth a shot at least?

"Well, good luck finding your nerve. I'm sure you'll have fun on the date." Before Sonic could get in another word, Tails had taken off; tail spinning as he rushed over to aid the young rabbit.

Rolling his eyes, Sonic opened the valve in his lifejacket and started to blow; inflating it until he felt safe. The young fox wasn't necessarily wrong; even if this plan didn't work out he was more scared of the water than he was the practically inevitable date. Despite his stutter and regret, he hadn't lied; he did enjoy spending time with her. Amy was always excited to see him and she could pull reactions from him that no one else could. She kept him going like no one else could. Pacing, he cast his eyes across the water's surface; watching the waves froth as they broke against pale sand. It really was gross, everything from the scent of salt to the sound told him he wasn't meant to be here. Even the sand beneath his feet was uneven; it kicked up with every step and certainly didn't make for smooth running. Standing on the beach was definitely way worse than lying on the beach, at least then he could keep his distance from the water, listen to music and properly daydream.

"I thought I'd be seeing you at the starting line, I'm surprised you're still hanging back here." Amy had returned, freeing him from his thoughts. "You'll be swimming in your shoes then?"

"Figured I'd end up waiting for you no matter what." He grinned, turning to her as they wandered toward the finish line. "And well, if we're starting with a sprint I ought to get the most out of my head start."

Her red dress had been shed in place of a red swimsuit. While he tried not to think too long about it, let alone stare too long, he did think it suited her. It was a simple, red, one-piece suit but, around the waist, it had additional fabric that flared out to give the guise of a white skirt with a thin red hem.

"I thought you were going to win this race no sweat." She teased.

Winning would still be difficult but with his plan in mind; there was a spark of genuine confidence in his heart. "Well yeah, but this way you won't even make it to the water. No point in you getting soaked over what's sure to be a landslide victory."

"Oh, we'll see about that." They arrived at the starting line, Cream having gathered pebbles from the surrounding area to construct the start/finish line itself and flags being planted to better separate their lanes. "If you're going to do your best, so will I."

As she started to stretch, warming up well for someone certain they'd win, he couldn't help noticing Amy's hairband had been replaced with a messy bun; her quills bundled near the back of her head. Despite telling himself he wouldn't, he'd found himself staring at the cute sight; pulled in by her excitement. Tearing himself away he reached across his body, beginning a stretch of his own.

With the kids continued to set things up, Tails preparing a camera in case (by some miracle) a photo finish occurred, Sonic saw idle opportunity to pry. "So Ames, what did you have in mind for that date?"

"You'll just have to wait and see." She swapped from crossing her right arm against her body to the left.

"What, no spoilers?" He bent down, touching his toes before reaching behind himself; feeling his calves warm. "Come on Amy, give me a hint at least."

"I know the only way to keep you interested is to keep you on your toes," She continued to refuse. "If I told you now, wouldn't you get bored?"

"A deal's a deal, isn't it? I'm coming on the date if you win, no matter how gross it is." Another glance to Amy found her mid-lunge, returning his gaze. "But that doesn't matter, I'm only asking 'cause I'm gonna win. Tell me now, it might convince me to lose on purpose."

"We both know, as soon as your feet leave the sand, you're going to get stuck my darling." She jested. "Regardless, I want you to enjoy yourself on the date so…"

"So?" He quirked a brow, awaiting her statement.

"Well…I haven't quite decided what we're doing yet." That surprised him; Amy had been asking him out for as long as he could remember… yet she had nothing planned? She elaborated. "I've waited so long for this, I've had my heart set on so many ideas, but now it's so close I'm not sure what I want to do." She stood straight, rolling some final kinks out of her shoulders. "Twinkle Park, going to the movies, getting dinner… I can't decide." There was a sparkle in her eyes that, coupled with the glow in her cheeks brought on by her warm-up, was too much for him.

Maybe, if his plan did work out, he'd treat her to something anyway. Go out for chilidogs or maybe just hang around the beach a little longer, today felt like an ice cream and relaxing kind of day.

Having caught himself staring again, Sonic turned away. "Well, it's good you're not set on anything seeing as I'm gonna win."

"In your dreams my darling Sonic." The pink hedgehog had taken her place on the starting line, lowering herself to a crouching start position.

Sonic matched it, fingertips buried in the sand and eyes locked on the path ahead. The running lane couldn't be longer than twenty metres, even that was a higher estimate. Still, he figured it would be enough to build up the speed, he'd grab onto the buoy on the way around for turning leverage. Yeah, that seemed like it'd work!

At the edge of his lane stood Tails and at Amy's stood Cream, both prepared a flag in one hand and a whistle in the other. Cream was beaming. "The first one back wins! Good luck you two!"

"On your marks…"

"Get set…"

With the blow of the whistle he was off, kicking up sand and bolting forward as fast as he could; not a glance to Tails nor even back to Amy as he claimed his lead. No sound but his footfalls and breathing filled his ears, vision tunnelled on the midway buoy. Soon the dull thudding of his feet turned to splashing, the smack of his soles against water, he had to be prepared for that; had to maintain his pace, quicken it even. He could feel the wind cutting against his cheeks, muffling the sun's warmth as the pounding of his heart grew faster.

Then it happened, the first splash; he'd arrived in the shallows! Sonic closed his eyes, refusing brace himself lest it slowed him. Seaspray coated his body, beads of water like bullets buried into his fur to mingle the salt of his sweat with their own. His footfalls continued; short, rapid, splashes that blurred into each other, making it impossible to identify how far out to sea he was. Confident he could keep this up, the hedgehog's eyes reopened. As he could feel, the waters directly in front of him were flickering up with every step; colliding with his legs and bare stomach. He refocused on the buoy, growing closer with every fraction of a second, in preparation he reached out with his right arm. It couldn't have been ten seconds since he'd left the beach, probably closer to five.

The hedgehog lent in preparation for the turn. Contact was made with the flag. His fingers coiled around the pole's length. A resounding snap cut through his wet footfalls. The flagpole hadn't been strong enough to handle his speed and had broken in two; before he could even realise what had happened it was dragging behind him. The drag from the pole had an immediate impact on his speed, rather than bounce off the surface Sonic's next footfall splashed straight through it. Sonic quickly let go of the pipe but it was already too late, his slowed (but still considerable) momentum led him to bounce off the surface twice, splashing deeper each time, before he found himself submerged and spinning.

The world was a blur, his mouth opened only to fill with seawater as his head dunked time and time again, carried by his own prior speed. When he finally stabilised and surfaced he'd completely lost his bearings, coughing and spluttering the hedgehog found himself surrounded by ocean; kept afloat by his life vest more than his awful attempt to tread water. His shoes waterlogged, he could already feel them starting to slip. Limbs smacking against the surface, Sonic was struggling to turn. Craning his neck, bobbing as though he were tempest-tossed, Sonic could see the base of the buoy and, no more than a few metres beyond that floating grey orb, a bobbing pink head on the approach.

Having spat up what was either his fourth or fifth mouthful of water, he felt a wave meet with his back and push him ever so slightly closer to the floater. He knew he was supposed to lean forward, kick his legs and swing his arms, but the position was just too bizarre to him. The hedgehog was at his best upright, sprinting, not lying down and flailing. Thus, precisely as Amy had predicted, Sonic found himself doggy paddling; arms fumbling through the water as he ran in place. His pace was gruelling, though he continued to wriggle the truth he'd always known had set in. In the water, he stood no chance of beating Amy.

Her consistent, fast-paced, breaststroke was cutting through the water unfazed by its gentle waves. As he watched the pink hedgehog approach he did, admittedly, feel himself relax. Tail's lifejacket, despite its condescending whistle, was keeping his head well above the water despite his frantic efforts. He wasn't comfortable but, at the very least, seeing her so close made him feel safe. Before he could quite make it to the buoy she'd pulled up in front of him, coming to a halt and treading water so very casually.

Soaked and ragged, he used most of his remaining smarm. "Hey, Ames. Long time no see."

"Hey." That prior cockiness wasn't there, instead that gentle smile she'd worn when she'd worried about his fear. "Need a little help?"

"Maybe just a little, looks like you're goin' my way and getting there way faster than me." He smiled.

"Nothing to it but practice." She'd gotten closer still, floating shoulder to shoulder with him. "Wrap your arm around me and I'll show you."

He fully stopped treading water, taking her offer and allowing herself to properly float with her. It'd be a lie to say he wasn't embarrassed but, given the situation, he thought he was keeping his cool rather well. "I think it'll be lost on me but I'll give it a shot."

Amy lowered herself, laying flat in the water, and began to swim again. She'd slowed yes, head permanently raised above the water rather than bobbing, but her pace was still ten times what his had been, "You just need to understand that, as long as you keep moving, you'll keep floating."

"You say that but without this vest, I'd have sunk like a stone regardless of how hard I struggled." He explained.

"That's where the practice comes in, the more you do it the longer you'll manage to stay up."

"I'm sure you're right Ames, but, I think I'll just stick to dry land wherever I can." He couldn't help staring at her as she swam; powerful arms cutting through the water. Words seemed to bubble up without his say. "Then again, I guess I would like to practice running on water some more. If I'd made it around that corner I'd have beat you for certain."

"Well, if you want another shot at it you could always challenge me to another race." He could tell she was joking, at least mostly, "Although, I've yet to decide on our first date, let alone a second…"

As she raised the deal again, a thought entered the hedgehog's head, one he hadn't considered until now. Thinking fast, Sonic waggled his forefinger; "I said if you won I'd go on a date with you, not what kind of date we'd be going on." Finally, having been soaked and beaten, things were back to their natural state. He was the one being cocky. "That means I get to pick what we do."

"Oh Sonic, you really think that matters to me? Of course, you can pick our first date! I'd love that!" Her swimming slowed, she'd turned to look over her shoulder. A smile had spread across her lips, still gently pulling him along. "I didn't pick this race because I knew I'd win, I picked it so you couldn't keep running once you cleared the finishing line. Any time spent with you is a good time."

"Y-Yeah, sure, wh-whatever, Ames." Though he couldn't bring himself to admit it, surrounded by ocean and blushing profusely, he felt the same.

[askwhatsforlunch]

Gin and Tonic Chiffon Cake

The Roaring Twenties episode of the Great British Bake Off was one of my favourites, because I love the 1920s fashion, decoration and design, and if I could be an aristocratic sleuth (so I could afford the fashion, but with my own socialist spirit!) a la Phryne Fisher or Peter Wimsey, or even a title-less foreign dandy like Hercule Poirot, I would be quite glad! Also, because David’s tartlets were stunning. But mainly because the showstopper was a Prohibition Era Cake. I knew right then and there, that I would make a G&T cake. I quite like my gin, and always fancy a gin and tonic; so does my Mum, and we’ve converted my Dad! I knew also, exactly for which occasion I would bake it, as my parents were to be home on the 14th November for my Mum’s birthday. They were going to leave and return to Laos on the 19th. Except, on the 14th November, my Dad was in the hospital; so I “only” made Hazelnut Lamingtons for my Mum’s birthday. In the end, it turned out fine; my Dad recovered, and I saw the Classics episode of the Great Australian Bake Off in the meantime, where another David (Davids were my faves on Bake Offs this year!) stunned Maggie Beer with his chiffon cake, and particularly his juniper sponge, which in Maggie’s words “tastes just like gin!” My parents are home until January, and we celebrated both their birthdays (my Dad turned 60!) last weekend, with this glorious Gin and Tonic Chiffon Cake. It could look more spectacular maybe, but it was like eating the cocktail and the sponge was maybe the moistest I’ve ever baked!

Ingredients (serves 8 to 12):

For the Gin and Tonic Jellies

6 1/2 gelatin leaves

3 1/4 cups tonic water, like Schweppes

1 small lemon

1 cup London Dry Gin, like Hendrick’s

For the juniper chiffon cake

30 grams/ 1/2 ounce juniper berries

330 grams/ plain flour

200 grams/ caster sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

7 egg yolks

a small lemon

125 millilitres/ 1/2 cup sunflower oil

125 millilitres/ 1/2 cup water

9 egg whites

For the filling and icing

1 cup double cream

1 1/2 teaspoon cream of Tartar

450 grams/1 pound cream cheese

1/3 cup Lime and Lemon Syrup

Lime and Lemon Curd

Candied Lime and Lemon Slices 

The day before, make the Gin and Tonic jelly. Run a 16cm/6.5″ pan and a 20cm/8″ pan quickly under cold water, and line both pans with cling film (water makes it easier to adhere).

Soak gelatin leaves in a bowl of ice water.

Meanwhile, heat 2 cups tonic water in a large saucepan over medium heat until just simmering. Squeeze in the juice of the lemon. Remove from the heat and immediately stir in Gin and remaining tonic water. Squeeze water out of the gelatin leaves and stir them into the hot Gin and tonic mixture until completely dissolved. Divide Gin and tonic mixture between prepared pan, and place them in the refrigerator to chill overnight.

Preheat oven to 160°C/320°F.

Line two 20cm/8″ round cake pans, and one 16cm/6.5″ cake pan with baking paper. Set aside.

In mortar and pestle grind juniper berries into a fine powder (it takes a bit of time; but it works; if you have a coffee grinder, you can also use it). In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt; Sift in juniper powder. and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre and add egg yolks. Grate in the zest of half the lemon. Add sunflower oil and water, and stir with a wooden spoon until just blended.

In a medium bowl, beat egg whites, gradually increasing speed to high until soft peaks form. Continue beating, adding 2 tablespoons of caster sugar, until smooth and glossy. 

Stir one third of the egg whites into the juniper batter to loosen it; then, gently fold in remaing egg whites into the batter, one third at a time, until no white streak remains. Divide juniper batter between three prepared pans, and place in the middle of the hot oven. Bake cakes, at 160°C/320°F, for 35 minutes, rotating pans halfway through cooking, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cakes comes out clean.

Remove from the oven, and let cakes cool, 5 minutes, before removing from their pans. Let cakes cool completely on a wire rack.

In a medium bowl, beat double cream with an electric mixer, gradually increasing speed to high, until soft peaks form. Add cream of Tartar, and continue beating until stiff peaks just form. Set aside.

Spoon cream cheese into a larger bowl. Whisk in Lime and Lemon Syrup until smooth and well-blended. Then, gently fold in whipped cream. 

Spoon half a tablespoon of the icing onto serving plate or cake stand, and sit one of the larger juniper sponge in the centre of it. Spoon about one third of the Lime and Lemon Syrup cream cheese icing onto the sponge, spreading it outwards with a spatula until levelled. Drizzle liberally with a tablespoon and a half  Lime and Lemon Curd. Then, carefully lift the Gin and Tonic jelly out of the 20cm/8″ pan, and gently invert it onto the cake. Carefully remove cling film. Place the second 20cm/8″ juniper sponge on top, pressing very slightly. Cover the top and edges with Lime and Lemon Syrup cream cheese icing, to seal the jelly in. Then drizzle about a tablespoon Lime and Lemon Curd onto the centre of the cake. Again , carefully lift the second Gin and Tonic jelly out of the 16cm/6.5″ pan, and gently invert it onto the cake. Carefully remove cling film. Sit the smaller juniper cake on top, and ice the whole cake thoroughly with Lime and Lemon Syrup cream cheese icing, levelling with a spatula. 

Arrange Candied Lime and Lemon Slices all aroud the cake, on both levels, alternating l and l on the edges of the top tier, and on top. Keep Gin and Tonic Chiffon Cake in the refrigerator until serving time.

[vulpinmusings]

Ski’tar and Friends part 9: From Frying Pan to Fryer

This week, Ski’tar, 6, and Vemir finish the Dataphile job and get started on the next faction’s task.

Premiere part

Antecedent part

Our meeting place for swapping the old hacker’s new identity for the data she unwittingly stole was Zetembi Park, a public space in the Eye that has been carefully groomed to resemble a natural forested area from lost Golarion.  It’s full of trees, meandering paths, a couple of small rivers, and other details that serve equally well to help one forget they’re on a giant space station and to create plenty of places for clandestine meetings.  Old Lady Hacker was waiting for us at the end of a bridge over one of the rivers, and everything seemed fine until we were about halfway across the bridge.  Then, Vemir and my drone both noticed unexpected movement in the bushes, and as we continued our approach with heightened vigilance, three goonish-looking humans appeared and started threatening the old lady.  The Bluerise Tower corporations had finally tracked her down and sent these three mercenaries to reclaim their data.

Since we also had a vested interest in obtaining that data, we trotted up and challenged the goons.  At first we put on the act of simply being concerned citizens stepping in to help a poor old lady who was being harassed, but the goons were not to be intimidated.  Their orders were clear and their paychecks plenty high enough to make them confident they could handle a three-armed Kasantha, a robot man, and a little rat.  Our group and theirs traded insults and threats until the goons finally decided to make a real fight of it.

After a brief opening salvo of missed pistol shots from Sixer, my drone, and one of the goons, I tried to lob a grenade behind the goons to frag them without hurting any of us, only to fumble and drop the ‘nade off the bridge.  The explosion of water was pretty, but harmless.  One of the goons grabbed Old Lady Hacker and started to drag her off, while Vemir and Sixer engaged the other two in melee combat.  Vemir tried to do some fancy knife trick, but only managed to score a light hit on his opponent and took a baton to the face for his trouble, which cracked one of his goggle lenses.  Vemir did not like that at all; he’s got a Tradition about hiding his eyes on top of the species-wide habit of covering his mouth.  Covering his exposed eye with one hand, Vemir forwent trickery and focused all his efforts on stabbing his guy with his recently acquired venom spur.  Sixer took a sword to his opponent, who responded with trying to shoot Sixer at close range.  I shot Sixer’s target a couple times to keep him off-balance while I circled around to get at the goon dragging Old Lady Hacker away.  My drone tried to contribute, but its aim continued to prove faulty.

One tactical knife to the arm was enough to convince the hostage-taker that he had a higher priority than getting Old Lady Hacker away.  His counter-attack was pitifully easy to duck under.

Sixer’s opponent decided at this point that the risk to his life was not worth the money he’d been paid, so he disengaged and started to run off.  A moment later, Vemir succeeded in stabbing his guy with the venom spur, and that goon also decided enough was enough.  Sixer pointed out the risk of the goons going for reinforcements, so I backed off from my opponent just enough to toss a second grenade into the path of the escaping goons.  The explosion was marvelous; the two runners were reduced to bloody gibs, and the shrapnel spread far enough to cut the third guy’s arm off and blow out a kneecap along with other serious wounds.  I called my drone over to point its gun threateningly at the remaining goon as I posed with a third grenade and offered the guy a chance to leave and seek medical attention if he promised not to go crying back to his bosses.  He gladly took up the offer and crawled away in the most tortuous scene ever.  I almost considered putting him out of his misery despite my promise, but he was out of sight before I made up my mind.

Aside from some blood splatter, Old Lady Hacker was in perfect shape and in surprisingly high spirits. She waxed nostalgic a bit about how the fight reminded her of similar encounters back in her youth, until I handed over her new ID to get her back on track.  Once we’d finished briefing her on the details of her new life and the circumstances of her false death, she declared that she would stay at the Lorespire Complex for a couple of days to let the heat die down.

So, after all the work she put us through because she didn’t trust the Starfinders to keep her safe, she ends up doing exactly that.

We escorted her back to the Complex and presented her and her data to Historia-7.  Historia recognized Old Lady Hacker’s name instantly, and the two hit it off like old friends.  They downloaded the stolen data to the archive computers, and after looking through it all Historia declared it was exactly what she needed for some mystery she was working on.  We couldn’t get her attention long enough to have her elaborate, so we just left. Vemir bought some sunglasses from the Lorespire Gift Shop to wear until I could take the time to repair his goggles, and then we went off to Guidance to get our next assignment.

For our third initiation task, we would be working for the Exo-guardians, the military branch of the Starfinders and the faction most heavily hurt by the Scored Stars Disaster.  They didn’t have any kind of headquarters on Absalom Station, but their current leader, a Shirren named Zigvigix, did live on-station in the Down-low.  We were instructed to meet with him in a park near his neighborhood, but there wasn’t as serious a time constraint as there had been for our previous two missions.  We decided to take a bit of downtime to evaluate our conditions, and so I could fix Vemir’s goggles.  Once I’d done that, I made some modifications to my drone, replacing its visual sensors with a new set that could broadcast what it saw to my rig and re-calibrating its aiming algorithms from the ground up along with reinforcing its outer plating a bit.  Hopefully the drone will shoot better in the future, but the only real test of that is to get into an actual fight.

Once we all felt ready to take on whatever monsters the Exo-guardians would inevitably sic us on, we met up and prepared to head to the Down-low.  Just before left, however, a courier drone rolled up to us with a message of belated thanks from Historia-7 and a box containing 200 credits and a frostbite zero rifle.  Feeling comfortable with my finances, I let Vemir take all the creds while Sixer claimed the rifle, since he was the only one of us with any long-arm skills at the moment.

Zigvigix’s neighborhood was a “poor but trendy” location – the kind of place that attracts people by playing up the aesthetic of the eccentricity of its inhabitants.  The “park” we headed to was more of an art installation, full of weird metal sculptures and absolutely ripe with garbage and graffiti of cute but off-putting animals.  Zigvigix was sitting on a cement bench munching on some rice candy, and he offered us some as he introduced himself through telepathy.  Right off the bat, he gave us permission to refer to him as “Ziggy,” which I would likely have chosen to be his nickname anyway.  He seemed like a typically gregarious Shirren, but that friendly attitude was undercut by a serious case of survivor’s guilt for not being a casualty of the Scored Stars Disaster.

At any rate, Ziggy actually had two jobs for us.  The first was to help secure a new headquarters for the faction on Absalom Station.  The Stewards had gifted the Exo-guardians an old warehouse that they no longer needed, but the place had a bad case of deadly alien monster hiding inside it, so we had to go kill the thing and clean the warehouse out a bit in preparation for refitting it as a headquarters.  The second job… Ziggy wanted us to go buy a copy of the new Strawberry Machinegun album as a gift for Historia-7.  Ziggy thought the Dataphile leader seemed a depressed lately, and had noticed that Strawberry Machinegun seemed to be quite good for raising android spirits.  The problem was, Strawberry Machinegun was only the biggest name in sugar-pop music, so the lines to get an album were more than Ziggy could deal with.

Sixer and I volunteered to go get the album right away, while Vemir opted to stay behind and keep Ziggy company.  Ziggy gave us a cred stick to use to purchase the album, and off we went.  While we were gone, Vemir got Ziggy to open up a little about the Scored Stars Disaster.  He didn’t learn much except that there wasn’t much known for sure about what happened.  Most of the Society had gone off to wherever the Scored Stars were, and then their drift beacon had suddenly gone dark and there had been no contact since.  There were rumors about the Disaster, but Ziggy didn’t feel up to relating them and Vemir didn’t press.

At the music shop, Sixer and I found ourselves caught up in a six-hour long queue, with people pressing about on all sides.  As Sixer dealt with the brunt of the pushing, I took up a perch on my drone to both make myself more visible (and thus less of a trip hazard) and so the drone would take most of the abuse from the mob pushing and shoving.  As we got near the front of the line, I was feeling smug in my position because while Sixer looked exhausted, I was still fresh as a moonflower.

And then someone stumbled into my drone hard enough to knock me off, bruising my nose on impact with the floor.

Maybe I should have gone for the riding saddle mod…

When we made it to the front of the line, Sixer and I both decided that after enduring six hours of that, we deserved to get something for ourselves, so we bought three copies of the album in all and went back to the park.  I’m not sure what Sixer was thinking on the way, but I was plotting ways to force Vemir to join us in listening to Strawberry Machinegun.  Possibly in double-stereo.

We handed over Ziggy’s copy of the album, and after thanking us for our heroic standing-in-line efforts, he showed us some security footage from the warehouse so we could get an idea of what we’d be dealing with.  The footage showed a worker moving a crate, and then something feathery bursting out of the crate and quickly devouring the poor sap.  There wasn’t much footage, but after watching it several times I realized I knew what the creature was: a feather stalker.  It’s an exceptional ambush hunter, quite dangerous even when you know one’s about.  Vemir and Sixer were confident we could handle the beast, but as for me, I’d rather stand in that line at the music store again.

[antiquechampagne]

Antique Champagne - Chapter 29 - Reunion

Payne was unsure she wanted Hancock to walk her to her room, but she found herself grateful for his presence as she crossed the threshold into the lobby of the hotel. Every head turned to watch her, conversations stopping mid-sentence. Her embarrassment turned into anger as they passed through the silent room.

She jumped up on a coffee table. “It’s been a while since I held an audience like this. I take requests.” Her words were drenched with sarcasm.

Reddened faces turned quickly turned away, returning to their previous discussions. Train wrecks, it seemed, were only fun to watch if the subject of the destruction isn’t inviting disaster. Satisfied, Payne jumped back down.

“Well, that is certainly one way to handle that,” quipped Hancock, shrugging.

“Hey,” Clair barked in her gravelly voice as they reached the front desk. She dryly eyed both of them as Payne leaned against the front desk. “The boss thinks we need to update your rental agreement if you want to continue to stay at the Rexford.”

Payne arched an eyebrow. “And what does Marowski want now?”

Hancock scowled a bit, even with his Mentat buzz winding down; he could easily figure this out. “Let me guess. A damage deposit?”

Clair nodded. “Bingo.”

Payne huffed. “Fine. How much?”

“10 caps...”

Payne reached for her money.

Clair wasn’t done. “A night. On top of the normal rate.”

“WHAT?” Payne retorted. “He wants me to pay double what anyone else would pay per night?!”

Clair shrugged nonchalantly.

“That ain’t right, Clair,” Hancock added.

“Not my call, Mayor. And it isn’t yours either.”

Payne put the remainder of the money she had on her up on the counter. It would get her a few more nights, but with everything she owed Amari now, her brain was scrambling and calculating.

“Enjoy your stay,” Clair said sarcastically.

Taking her cue, Payne turned to head upstairs. She was surprised to see Hancock continue to follow her. Marowski eyed them from his backroom office as they passed.

“I think I can find my way from here. You don’t need to chaperone for me.”

“I know.” They reached her door and stopped. “I wanted to make sure to give this back to you, and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t like a crowd watching.” Hancock pulled something from an inner pocket of his coat and handed it to Payne.

Payne turned it over in her hands. At first, she was confused what she was looking at. It was a strap of rich black leather, clearly a thick bracelet. Unrolling it, her heart stopped. A flattened Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle cap glowed dimly surrounded by some decorative chain; everything securely stitched in place.

Payne looked up bewildered. She thought she had lost her brother’s lucky bottle cap when they had been attacked by the deathclaw months ago. Her mouth fell open, but no words came.

“Uh… I felt kinda bad for what happened to your necklace, it being crushed and all. So… I sent it out to this guy I used to know in Diamond City to see if he could do anything with it. All I really told him was you seemed to like the color black.” Hancock rubbed his palms together nervously. “Daisy told me it came in just a couple of days ago. I hope you don’t mind.”

Payne’s mind raced. “You…?” she faltered, thinking back to the day she had thought she lost her last connection with her family, before looking up in bemusement. “You pickpocketed me?”

Hancock’s lips curled into a smile. He fanned the fingers of his right hand. “You’d be surprised what these fingers can do…”

“Gah!” Payne gave his shoulder a playful shove. She thoughtfully looked over the bracelet, her fingers gliding over the supple leather. “Thank you. I really appreciate having this back. It means a lot.” As she strapped it to her wrist, Payne couldn’t contain a wry smile. “Though that last comment of yours is going to make my next question a bit awkward.”

Hancock nonexistent eyebrows hitched up. “Oh?”

Payne released a small exasperated sigh. “Could you come in and just…” She flexed her fingers nervously. “I want to make sure I don’t wig out.” She realized she was avoiding his eyes. “You don’t have to stay long. Just until I am asleep.”

“Oh, I think I can manage that.” He placed his palm lightly on his chest. “But what will the neighbors think?”

Payne rolled her eyes. “Just don’t need any more extra surcharges added to my bill because I start sleepwalking or something.” As she opened the door, Hancock started in. He quickly found his path blocked by an elbow.

“Hold on. I need to change first. Give me a sec.” Payne quickly changed into what passed for pajamas: an oversized Guns and Bullets T-shirt over threadbare shorts. Swinging the door open, she nodded for Hancock to enter.

“There are some books over on the end table if you get bored. The love seat isn’t too bad, but watch out for the left cushion. The springs are shot on that side.”

“Don’t worry about me. I think I can handle myself.” He patted his coat pocket, the one he normally kept a backup tin of Mentats in.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. You are too damn chatty on Mentats and I’m beat.”

“I’ll be a quiet as the grave.” As he said it, Hancock winced. “Sorry.”

Payne rubbed her forehead as she sat on the sagging bed. “Just…” She gathered the thin sheet around her. “Just make sure I stay in bed.”

“Sweet dreams.”

Within a few minutes, Payne had slipped off to sleep.

___

Payne felt the familiar sensation of sand shift under her feet as she walked. It took a few minutes to pinpoint what made the whole scene so eerily strange. It was the lack of any sound. In the distance, she could make out a building. Though there was barely any structure left, something in her soul knew where she was.

Home.

Or what home looked like the last time she had seen it. Nearly all the pink walls had collapsed, the rooms filling with sand and debris. Her hand brushed against the crumbling birdbath.

Of course, she was here. Where else would she be?

Stepping over the broken lintel of the front door, she turned into the kitchenette. A single metal chair remained upright next to the upturned table. Dusting off the seat, she sat down. This silent ruin held no more horrors for her. She sighed and hung her head, running her fingers through her hair.

She began to look up, but she stopped. On the floor before her a pair of blood covered baby-doll pumps. She knew those shoes.

“What are you doing back here, of all places, Dahl?” She knew that voice. Strong and fiery, but full of love.

“Mom?” The word fell out of her mouth like a dropped stone. Payne‘s head snapped up. There stood her mother, but not the mother of her childhood. Casually standing there was the corpse of her mother, exactly the way she had looked last time Payne had seen her. The day she killed the squatters and buried her. This version of her mother, her limbs and face bloated and blackened with pooled rotting blood, didn’t horrify her like it had that day so long ago.

“I guess I can’t get away.” Payne mused.

“I suppose not.” Her mother sat down on the ground next to her. “Though I can see why you might not find the time to come visit your mother, given you are halfway across the country now… but what excuse did you have for the previous 200 years?”

“Jeeze, Mom! Really? Even in my dreams you badger me!”

They both chuckled.

“And what does that make me? Chopped liver?” a male voice interrupted. Across the cracked tiles stepped Aiden, wearing his fresh-pressed dress uniform. Payne could even see the distortion of the silhouette of the back of his head. They couldn’t afford to have it smoothed over for his visitation, a luxury few could afford with all the war rationing. A rueful smile played across his partially painted lips, the cheap mortuary make-up flaking, revealing the bruised corpse flesh underneath.

Payne rose, grinning from ear to ear as she ran to embrace her brother. Wrapping her arms around his torso, she clung to him.

Finally pulling back, Payne wrinkled her nose. “You smell like old lady perfume and death!”

“Well, a hello to you too, pipsqueak!” They walked back to their mother, Payne returning to her chair and Aiden leaning against the table. “I leave you for two minutes and the whole place goes to hell in a handbasket.”

“You have no idea…” A few tears trailed down Payne’s cheeks. She quickly wiped them off. “God, I’ve missed you two.” Even with them in the state they were, she found their presence comforting. Maybe, she thought, because that is the last true memory you have of them.

Suddenly, she felt guilty. Guilty for trying to replace their memories with something saccharine and fake.

“I’m so sorry,” she confessed. “I never should have gone into the memory lounger. I never should have tried to…” As her words faltered, her mother’s hand found hers. She gave me mother’s hand a squeeze before trying again. “I’m sorry for trying to erase you. The real you. I just wanted to see you two again. For us to be together, one last time.” Aiden wrapped a strong arm around her shoulders.

“We know,” He answered. “but that’s not what you need now, is it?”

“What?” Payne puzzled. “What I need now?”

“What are you feeling right now? In the middle of wreckage of your old life, what do you want to say to us?” Her mom’s dead eyes stared directly at her.

Payne shook her head, trying to sort out her thoughts. “That I am sorry.” She grasped at threads of thought. “So sorry.”

“For what?” her mom prompted again.

“For?” Payne was at a loss. She had no idea what her mother was getting at. “I’m not…” but even as she spoke the words, the realization of what they were asking, of what truly had been tormenting the shadows of her mind crystalized.

Guilt. Guilt weighted heavy on her soul. Not that she had let them down in their last moments. Not for what she had become.

Tears streaked down her cheeks. “I don’t want to forget you.”

“Why do you think you would forget us?” Aiden’s apparition asked, his cloudy eyes searching Payne’s face.

“I’m so far away… from where you are.”

“That’s not it.” Her mother patted her leg. “Our bones have long since turned to dust.” Payne knew she was right.

“But if I were home…” Payne gasped. Home. There was the crux of the it, wasn’t it? Someplace new was becoming home.

She looked to see her mother smiling at her, a kind and knowing smile. One that every child knows, though most aren’t coming from a corpse.

“You aren’t going to forget us,” said her mother. “No one could take your past from you… so stop being afraid of living your own future. A future you live for yourself.”

As Payne embraced the ghosts of her family, the silent Nevada desert faded away.

___

Hours later, Payne woke. Sitting on the side of the bed, she realized how clear her head felt. Even her body felt lighter, like a weight had been lifted. Stretching, she heard the springs of the sofa groan. Payne scoffed as she shook her head. It was Hancock sprawled in the love seat, his arms and legs dangling over the edges.

Quietly, Payne gathered up her sheet and covered him up, picking up the crumpled copy of Peter Pan and placing it back on the stack of books on the end table.

[luteia-fr]

Lair Review: Kaial

Listen, I’m pretty sure I have your lair memorized at this point. When you boot dragons for sale I play the game of ‘which perma was this’ and oftentimes I’m right, and when I’m not I get myself all confused. Now, we got 12 dragons to do, let’s go take a dive! @pumpkin-bread

Let’s start with Hazel! Listen, I love pearl, I love pearl striation, I did not expect it to work with friggen stone, and eldritch is a damn hard tert color unless the dragon is green or blue. The fact that she works is a gotdang miracle, and she’s solidly a favourite in the nuzlocke, too!

This is Zuehal. We know nothing about him other than he is the resident NPC. But I’m gonna give him a shoutout anyway because this man clearly has a story he’s not telling, and my queer detection unit is ringing with “that is a GAY DRAGON” and keeps me wondering where he’s hiding his stellar backstory and probable boyfriend. I see you, NPC guy. I see you and I know there’s more to you than Kai is currently telling me. 

Ahhh, Ezekiel. I didn’t actually catch when Flores left other than he did (and it’s understandable why out-of-lore), but this? This is a good dragon. I have no idea when Kai bought him but the idea of a neato necromancer teacher is brilliant. And that’s how I ended up with Byaku and Albafica in my lair, because now I was thinking about necromancers in FR and not the ‘wooo I wear dark robes with skulls on them and green fire’ kind, so Thanks To This Guy I have two more dragons in my lair. You’ll still be a favourite, Zeke. Great name, by the way, I named a cat that once.

Mistfall, or in reality, That Stubborn Girl Who Just Wouldn’t Leave. Radioactive’s a damn difficult colour, even I don’t like it even though I can appreciate its rainbow potential, but Kai did a good job making it work anyway! Now if she had glowing green clawtips, maybe it’d balance it out a bit and make her look Even More Stunning. She’s beautiful, she really is. I love her.

Rosalyn’s been in Amberspire for a long, long time, and she’s still absolutely gorgeous, and even more her story’s so saaaad. She needs a happy ending. I really hope she gets one, she’s beautiful and so is her artwork. Still love the apparel, fpose coatls are notoriously annoying to me to dress  because of their funny shoulder area that I can never get right - yet, she looks amazing! I envy that, definitely.

We’re apparently halfway through, so let’s go with Ylva who got a new accent, I see! At least, I don’t remember her having that one. I love her, she’s very good, but I also know for a fact that this is an Evil Woman. I don’t know how she’s evil, but she is, there is quotation marks around her job and that means she is definitely not a hostess but something evil posing as one. I do not trust her. She is beautiful. I love her.

Ahhh, Lux. I’m still kinda mad at myself since I didn’t go get one of her kids when I had the chance, but she’s absolutely beautiful. I really love her accent and the way her pri and tert match like that, she’s gorgeous. The kelpie manes really were necessary for her and I especially love the double wing silks. I don’t remember who taught me how to layer them (it was someone layering gossamer+crimson to make the unreleased pink silks) but goddamn, when they work they work. I really love the PC fpose because they look a little like they’re praying, and Lux fits that really well, since she’s in mourning. I love her. She needs a hug.

NEAR MY BABY. The last time I checked in with Telyn, Near, and Wil; Telyn got himself kidnapped again - did he make it back home? Their bios don’t say. But Near is a very good boy and I love him, and he makes a great father. Plus he’s blind and still a warrior, which is awesome. His bio doesn’t actually tell his side of Telyn’s story, and I’m interested in seeing that for sure. Especially with how collected he is, how he reacted to the whole ‘you’re taking my husband away yet again to your shade cult’ thing. I wanna see what this boy is made of!

I am gotdang predictable, and I will never, ever, ever review this lair without mentioning My Baby Girl Althea. I know the nuzlocke is the main plot right now, but I wanna know what she’s been up to soooo much. Because we did establish that Annabella did learn at Tialla’s dance school so even though Althea wasn’t much in the picture, there’s no way Tialla wouldn’t look at her and immediately know she was Up To Something. I wanna know. I wanna see the showdown between her and Nihil (who I still don’t get because he doesn’t appear to have a soft spot, except he does, somehow?) and I want to know who Jacquara throws a pumpkin and a yell to calm down at first. Althea is My Girl. I am very honoured to have her daughter as mine.

Tialla is another favourite girl of mine! Her story is heartbreaking and absolutely perfect, and I want to know definitely if she ever finds her family again! She’s brilliantly complex and I really love her. I don’t have much to say on her other than ‘arhgahga she’s perfect’, but like, she is though. 

Ahhh, Cassis, a new boy to help support an impulse buy. I know that feeling very well. I can tell he’s gonna have a plot, and I only wonder what he let escape by accident and why it killed his power. I’m so ready for that plot, I really am. He’s absolutely beautiful, and while I’m not the biggest fan of stained, it probably is the only way rose will work on a double thicket. He’s really beautiful, and I just can’t wait to see what happens.

Lastly, well, there was never a way that I’d do this review without mentioning Gidget. I barely knew Kizzy, but... I’m glad I did get to know you, a little bit. Your birthday is in a few days, so... Thank you for the time you spent with us. I’m glad that the dragon you wanted so much ended up with someone who loved you as much as Kai does, so in a way, Gidget is yours too. Gidget is beautiful, and what has been done with her even more so. I can’t say for sure, but I think you’d be happy with that. I hope you rest well. Thank you, for your time with us. We’ll always be thinking of you. <3

And that’s that! 12 dragons (hopefully, I went back and counted but might be off) - which is a very difficult feat with the 200 someodd dragons Kai has that I know of. But I did manage to narrow it down in the end, so here we are! :D

[queencryo]

@silly-go-round is asleep right now.

i guess i should make a journal for the past few days. as good a time as any. as AMY. heh. cuz shes super good and amazing. heh.

uh...... lessee.... for the two days after the last journal i just. hung out at the house while silly worked. i managed to not keep her in bed and make her late the second day. hung out a lot, watched more adventure time, worked on my tumblr filter script (lie. i judt ran it on my main. 200 posts / day is a bitchhhh) , played a good amount of ds3 (to pointof tetris effect at a couple points the nexg few days)

also did some like. helpful tasks. washed some dishes (undone quicklu, but. eh). not enough, mot as much as i shouldve, but... i tried i guess.

alao we've like. said the same thing at the dame time a Lot while ive been here and its like. nice. its really nice. same wavelength! i feel so close go her.

oh! alxo night before last we went grocery shoping. got food for prolly enoygh for the two weeks, but i guess we'll see. also a cheesecake! it was.... echausting. hily fuck it was exhaysting. jesus. the store was big and it took like 3 hours and $200 to get everything but. we did itttt.

we both mentionef that like. it felt nice to like. have a full fridge 2gether. cuz. it feels like were gonna have a futjre togetjer? u know. like that is. i love her a lot and it feels good for this to feel like a home for a little while. we hope that it can be so in tbe future.

so YESTERDAY she finally FINALLY taught me how to play magic the gathering. it was. a long time coming. but she brought me into the store and like. sat me down w some regulars and had me play commander. i played moooostly her snake deck, so like.that was fun!! i kept talki g about how i woulda gotten lorescale Coatl up to 39/39 and flying, had i like. gotten q more turn. but on that game D was running a mill deck that was. extremely long to play (that game took like ~>2 hours ugh), and was very bery annoying, so i didnt get to actually do that.

but it was fun! part of me wants to blog everything, but i dont think i will.

im glad to be able to use silly's decks, bc i dont think i want to make my own. im considering making a cheap angel deck or smth, but we'll see if yhat actually ends up happening.

i also met her girlfriend Iz, who is sweet. i played magic w her fkr a while, which was fun! she was runni g an annoying mono black deck (i kkow all these... these Terms and Words now, its incredible...)

shes sweet and i think i like her. dunno if enough to date yet (which makes me Partially regret flirting w her so much in the groupchat but. hey)

talked w her some, mostly about magic, hung out while silly closed the store, pet her cat, silly discovered that cyddling w TWO girlfriends is very nice (not rhat id know ;;;;;;;), was good times. i dont think im as comfy w izzy physically yet as i may have implied in messages, which hopefully wull be rectified by the message i just sent her (my initial physical comfort with people varies, it depends very much on the person)

skip forward, me and silly make a pizza at home cuz were fuckin tired, she admonishes me for not eating for uh... like 11 hours or smth (that mornings bagel was VERY good tho omg), but adderall, so like... meh.

uh... i dont think anything else on yesterday...

today! we waaamted to go to the store at like. 2. but in actuality got there at like! 330.

i went back to sleep cuz im a losenerd, and she. made this breakfast casserole thing. which hse put into a bagel abd brought to me bc i guess shes the best person on the entire earth oh my GOD. jesus

skip... apparently she knows maximum the hormone and doesnt like them very much... fair fair. (cause for xeath)

came to the store agai. tofay. it was fun and good. iz didnt come in today, do played some more with regulars. played w what is apparently called a blink deck, which revolvea arounf exiling cards then immediately bringing them back, to capitalize on "when this enters battlefield, do smth" cards. neat!

i DID actually manage to win today!!! the victory was. literally handed to me, but like. thats fine! i was playing silly's uhhh... elintor the masked? idr her name :( the mask planewalker! deck, which. i had SO much land, most of wh8ch was enchanfed. meaning it could be tapped then untapped w eljntor's thing, then tapped again for DOUBLE MANA. i mean. i had like 9/turn even b4 that but. BUT. i also had. i think i drew 3 creatures total. bit anyway. i had the white card that gave me a life whenever a creature was put on tge board (and also, w another enchantment, made all non-me creagurss and enchantments enter the board tapped, so. nya). so... rob had a card what dealt one damGe to all other players whenevr he puta. creature on the board. then he played united forces, which lets each player commit X mana to create X 1/1 soldier tokens on all players' boards. so. we made 28 white soldier tokens on everyones board. this killed perry, ans gave me, uh. 56 life (84 - 28). i then attacked ron for 28 w the soldiers, and drew sacred mesa, which lets me sacrifice 2 mana (1 any color, 1 white, but i had so many cards that said "this land can instead be tapped for 2 of any color, so like. ueah) to create a 1/1 flying pegasus token. so i. ended the game w 44 white 1/1 tokens. goblins get fucked.attack w my ssoldiers cuz his were tapped, so brought him down to 7 life. i didng catch what he did w the enchantment, but i think he said he like. put a copy of every creature on my side of the board onto his board, and then. cipying that enchantment 3 times. so. holy FUCK. wow. BUT those all came in tapped and i had 18 flying yokens, so. i still won! yay!!!! i won a game of magic!!!!!

goblin decks scare me. stop running krenko you fucks. exponential goblins goddamn

silly would come by every so often and like. look over my dhoulder and say "oh that was dumb whyd u use fabricate for thay" which is fair. but also god i love her. (i used fabricate for a mana generator insteaf of lightning greaves. whateverrrr) i love her so much dear god. i wish i coukd help w the store more, but. on the same time i also. dont enjoy working. so. maybe part time.

hm. what ekse. oh yeah i kove her so much.

by the end of the night it was just. me and her, rob and the two regulars i started out llaying w yestwrday. theyre sweet, i like them. theyre married. the dude calls me honey smtimes, which is. kinda weird? dunno how i feel about that. i guess fine. its gender-nice, but still a lil uncomfy. otherwise i like em fien, though. but they talked abouy moving into sillys apt. so thats cool!! better than her current (awful, terrible, lazy / horrifically depressed / manchild roomate, who doesnt clean ever) roomate. i was reading the monster of the week gamebook thruout, which i... bought, for some reason. idk. oh also i wanna make a fallen angel divine, because im... predictableeee. also a conspiracy thworist whos just a trans woman w way too much time and really weird hobbies (throwing knices, butterfly knife, net friends, etc). also a spooky. i speny like. 3 hours reading thr7 the monster of the week book while ppl played magic around me. i kinda wish i hadnt bought it, but hey! its neat c:

oh, also i didnt take adderall today. i dont think it went toooo bad, i think i like. was meaner and less thohghtful with what i said, but like. i guess thats better than feared. i took a caffeine pill (200mg) at ariund 10 which is. prolly why im wide awake right now. i regret doing that, sincr from what shes said tmos gonna be big)

she says we gotta be at her moms by 4, for reasons she WONT TELL ME. bit she says its part of one of her plans, i ASSUME the romantic one? im kind of afraid that ill like. no-sell it unwillingly because im abroke and soulless human being, but uh. i guess rhats thw risks we take to be alive :shrug: im excited. were also going to a shop (diff one) tmo, which im Quite excited for, as ive only been in similar shops by accident before. also doing laundry!!! which is important ^_^

oh ysah. so we got white castle on the way home. its. yeah she was r8ght. mediocre-at-best sliders. onions are bad.

we also made a pizza. whifh i ate most of. i overate. sob.

she fell asleep halfway thry an episode of nailed it. cant blame her, she seemed really tired. i hipe i dont disturb her rwst. and i feel so utterly blessed thay i can be around her.

ih!! i also fell down the last few staies ywstersay. bruised my arms, but otherwise fine. it was. idk, it is nice to knoe that others worry fir me and like me. she was very concerned. i love her.

[baldysims]

Strange Legacy 3.3

This one’s going to be a short one, guys.

When last we left off, Angeline and Betelgeuse had finally died, and Fornax and Danni’s oldest daughters left for college along with their vampiric aunt Diadem. This left plenty of room for Danni to get pregnant with yet another set of twins, one of whom will hopefully be a boy, because Danni’s uterus could use a rest and so could I.

What do you know, it’s a boy and a girl. Welcome to the family, Kornephoros and Lilii Borea. Kornephoros is the heir and the baby factory is officially shut down!

As you probably gathered from the wishing well in the last chapter, the Stranges’ garden has been thriving and we have all the produce necessary to make every kind of juice, officially netting us an additional Seasons point.

Once the produce was mostly harvested, I repurposed the greenhouse to display all of our career rewards. That’s right, Cassie and Danni did it! That’s every single career reward in the game, and another sweet sweet collection point.

And while we’re looking upon my works and despairing, we might as well get this shot of another 25 Elixirs of Life out of the way.

Ahhhh. It’s good to have points.

Anyway, back to the family. It has come to my attention that I’ve given approximately zero screen time to Ilkil and Jishui, Fornax’s middle set of twin daughters, so please enjoy this shot of them as toddlers.

Ilkil is the one on the right sweetly cuddling with an angelic expression to match her personality. Jishui is the one on the left, with eyebrows as sharp as her bangs. The two of them have kind of a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on.

They’re children now, of course. It’s just that I don’t have that many pictures of this time in the Stranges’ lives on account of being bummed that I essentially had to play generation 4′s childhood years twice.

Trust me, though, you’re not missing much. Six kids + functional relationships among the adults = the only thing anyone does around here anymore is talk about toddler skills.

And it goes without saying that the headmaster is over here constantly.

It’s cute that Danni’s trying to impress him by talking about the Stranges’ fabulous wealth, don’t you think? There’s really no need for that as long as the tour ends in the same room as the open bar. I can see why he was such good friends with Angeline and Sharon back in the day; the man’s a complete lush!

“When are you going to change me out of my default Maxis clothes and bowl cut? I’m the heir, right? I thought that meant you were going to focus on me, but here I am halfway through childhood and this is only the second photo you’ve ever taken of me."

You know, he’s got a point about the bowl cut.

There we go. Sorry, kid, it’s just that I was burned out on your generation before you were even born, plus I’ve never found kids all that riveting to play in the first place. We’ll revisit when you hit your teen years, kthxbai.

And that goes double for your sisters! Hurry up and grow up, all of you!

“But dad, what if I’m the only one she got a picture of acknowledging that you wrote your memoirs and fulfilled the Storytelling handicap for your generation? Then she’ll have to take another picture of me as a child, won’t she?”

Jishui might be a little too smart for her own good.

Is it really so much to ask that they take a leaf out of big sis Gomeisa’s book and grow up and move to college as fast as possible? Danni and Fornax are elders now; they should not still be raising four kids under 10 years old!

Although if it was an option, I’m sure they’d be making more as we speak. These two are still just as in love as the day they met, and actually might be even more adorable in their old age.

Awww. Yep, they’re definitely my legacy OTP. Now that every woohoo doesn’t have to result in children, I’ve been sending them on lots and lots of dates in the hopes that Fornax will roll the want for 100 Dream Dates. I’ve never seen it, but damn if I’m not determined to force it for the sake of another impossible want!

Anyway, back to Gomeisa.

Gogo’s been having all kinds of fun at college. Between the coeds, the parties, and the makeover of the house Aunt Diadem was able to fund with her scholarship money, it’s been a blast.

I expected there to be some friction with Christy, what with the house being occupied by three competing Romance Sims, none of whom are particularly nice, but she surprised me by becoming fast friends with both Gomeisa and Hamal. Maybe last generation’s cowplanting actually took!

Back on the home lot, Ilkil bucked Gomeisa and Hamal’s trend and rolled Family. I gave her a correspondingly wholesome makeover.

Jishui, on the other hand...

Boy, I’m glad we have that wishing well. Handling all these Romance teens’ first kisses when all I want to do is get their asses to college would be hell otherwise.

F.I.N.A.L.L.Y. Kornephoros rolled I-don’t-remember-what but I’m pretty sure it was Romance too (these pictures are well over a year old and I’ve since played him through his sophomore reroll, sue me) and Lilii Borea rolled... well, I’ll just let you guess based on her 8am pillow fight date with the creepiest Tricou kid on the front lawn in her pajamas.

God bless Pleasure Sims.

Kornephoros was no different than his sisters; as soon as he got home from school, he too went straight for the wishing well and conjured up Swan Tricou for a first kiss.

It was at this point that I realized, hey... I have six Strange kids and six Tricou kids. Wouldn’t it be kind of adorable to send them all to college and marry them off to each other Seven-Brides-for-Seven-Brothers style?

There’s just one problem: Swan doesn’t have enough chemistry with Kornephoros to work with the True Love restriction.

Clearly, I had no choice but to make him fall for her sister.

“Kestrel, we’ve only known each other for a few hours, but you can’t tell me you don’t feel what’s between us. Will you come to college with me?”

“Um... I don’t know if that’s going to work, Kor.”

“We’ll make it work! It’s true love”

“No, I mean literally, I don’t see how that can work. Don’t you already have five sisters, an aunt, and a placeholder going to that lot with you? I don’t think I’d fit.”

Damn it, she’s right! Pardon me while I go do some rearranging.

The choice for who had to go was clear. Christy has always been a Sim who tried my patience at the best of times, and she’s been living (and deceased) on this lot for well over fifty years now. It’s time for this perpetual student to graduate.

Plus she keeps messing with Di’s coffin in the middle of the day, and I just can’t have that. It’s hard enough keeping a vampire alive in college as it is. The lack of a magic school bus has been really killing me over here, especially since Di chose the physics major and her classes are all in the middle of the day.

So byeeeeeee, Christy! Don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you!

Next time: How much trouble can 8 college Sims get up to when 4 of them are Romance and 2 are Pleasure? Is marrying two groups of six siblings off to each other primarily because the symmetry appeals to you a good idea? And just how long does it take to get back on the horse after your neighborhood explodes into a BFBVFS?

Legacy Scoring:

Legacy: 3.5 Money: 3 Family friends: 38x.25 = 9.25 Impossible wants: 9 (Alph 20L, Sharon 30F, Zaniah 7Sk, Angeline 7Sk, Fornax 7Sk, Electra 50FD, Diadem 7Sk, Danni 7Sk, Cassiopeia 200S) Platinum graves: 4 (Family, Popularity, Fortune) Ghosts: 1 (Old Age) Business: 4 Seasons: 4 + 2 (tree and fish/well/juices) Free Time: 3.5 (Games: Zaniah, Betelgeuse, Alpheratz, Electra, Fornax, Cassiopeia, Angeline) Collections: 3 (25 Elixirs x2, Career Rewards) Master: 2 (Social Bunnies Need Love Too, Child Prodigy - Fornax, ) Handicaps: 0 Overflow: 0 Penalties: -1(bills) Total: 47.25

[project-ives]

11

Here it comes.

She sat freezing on the couch for it, hands wedged between her knees.

“How are you doing?” Mars leaned in as he passed, those blue eyes nearly black, eclipsed. “You’re cold huh?”

Sydney smiled. “I won’t be in just a second.”

His eyes darted to the brilliant mass of jumping bodies that was calling to him, then back to her. He hesitated to set his drink down, but did. “I’ll help you.” He leaned in closer, smile somehow bigger than his face. He fell into the couch and took a second to adjust to the incredible feeling of her just there with him, unaware he was halfway crushing her. From a different point of view, they looked ridiculous, Sydney thought, struggling to unearth her arm from behind him. But he was so soft, she thought. It was impossible to be annoyed with someone this...soft.

This was it.

Sweat pooled up immediately around her collarbones, the back of her neck and behind her knees. She was glad she had left her hoodie at home: she’d lost a ton of them at parties before and this was why.

“Are you alright?” his voice was like a wave in her ear. He twisted to put his arm around her, and for once she didn’t mind. “Mmm,” she replied.

Mars tilted her head up, laughing at her. “Check it out. This is all for us.”

The party was like any party she’d been to, loud music out of big speakers, sticky floors, piles of purses and jackets in every corner, a dense mass of sex-hungry drug addicts surrounded by less dense masses of the same sort but shyer. Only this time, for the first time in a long time, it was beautiful.

“Pretty, cool, right?” Mars caught up with her eyes, brushing her hair away from her face with his fingertips to try and be where she was. She let him for a moment, and Bianca saw it right away from across the room. She click-clacked over in her heels, taking a knee to grab both of Sydney’s hands in hers as if she was an old friend she hadn’t seen in a long time. 

“There she is!” she exclaimed over the music, still somehow maintaining her ever-queenly countenance, “Disco Syd is back.”

Sydney yanked her sweater off and the tshirt underneath, then went for her shoes. Bianca beat her to the left sneaker, then thrusted her back down to the couch before she could get away with just the right one.

“Always with the shoes, that one,” she murmured to Mars before she chased after Sydney, thrusting the sneakers at him.

They were all there minutes later, in the beat and in the crowd, Bianca, Syd, Beau, Mars and even Amy- she was watching the lights circling up and around the room like racing fairies or shooting stars. Suddenly, the room shifted to the right as someone ushered a huge subwoofer to the stage: they’d already blown out a speaker. Bianca caught Amy as she stumbled into her.

“Is this real?” Amy’s voice was small and childlike above the bass.

“No,” Bianca replied coolly, grinning. “Are you scared?”

“No,” Amy smiled and shook her head, and kept shaking it until her shoulders and her hips followed. Her long, jet black hair, normally tied up in a scrunchie, swung back and forth across her back.

Bianca pulled out a bottle of sprite from her backpack and gave it a good shake before offering it to her. Amy had never been so thirsty. Before she could grab it, Mars appeared from behind, plucked it out of Bianca’s hand, took a swig and then stuffed it inside one of the sneakers hanging around his neck. His feet didn’t stop moving. Amy looked up in awe and swirled around to face him, matching him.

“Look at you,” he said, leaning down. “You are the music.”

“Do you like dogs?” she asked him, giving his suspenders a yank and releasing a peal of laughter when they snapped back against him. He brought his hands to his face and beamed down in admiration.

“My moms have three of ‘em.”

“What are their names?”

“Ace, Stinky and Harry.”

“Does Stinky stink?”

“No, Harry does.”

“I bet Ace is hairy.”

“Yeah,” Mars laughed and then stopped thoughtfully. “Actually, they don’t have any dogs.”

Beau and Bianca hung back for a minute now, watching the interaction with a sense of nostalgia and taking turns stepping out of people’s way. “Did you redose already?” Beau asked her finally. She shot him a look as one of her sorority girlfriends came squealing over, 65-75% of her ass hanging out of her short shorts, a rope of light snaking up one leg and around her waist. They exchanged excited words, nose to nose until the girl found someone else to scream at.

“Yeah,” she answered quietly, scrunching her curls back up into place. The humidity in the place was making them frizzy.

“Oh,” he replied, relieved. He pulled a pill out of his back pocket and held it up to his face, debating whether the crystals were big enough to fuck up his stomach, then realized that he didn’t care. The first pill seemed to have worn off in an hour, and just being himself was starting to make him sad.

“Where’d you get that?” Bianca asked without looking at him.

He hesitated. “A friend.”

She didn’t respond. Bianca had been getting her drugs from the same guy for years now, he went personally to Europe every summer to stock up. She would never put trash in her body.

He smirked knowingly and gave the capsule a flick, carefully twisting it apart.

There was maybe about 200 milligrams, he thought.

“Ladies first,” he offered. She didn’t hesitate, snatching it, shaking most of the crystals under one acrylic pinky and sniffing. She couldn’t stand the taste.

Beau could. He grabbed her hand and sucked the remainder from her dainty finger, pulling her into an embrace.

It took Amy a while to find Sydney.

She was having a different type of high, curled softly on the floor next to the speakers, wearing only her bra and no shoes. The stranger laying next to her had been talking about the ocean for a while now, but all she could seem to understand right now was the music. This has got to be it, she kept thinking, but she kept floating higher and higher. Amy managed to scoot in between her friend and the ocean-talker, warm, soft, molding herself into a curved shape to fit perfectly between them on the floor.

“WOW, YOU’RE SMALL, SYD. SMALLER THAN ME.”

“There’s no such thing as size,” Sydney croaked back, repeating herself as Amy leaned over to hear her. More words came bubbling up, but did not escape.

“RIGHT? EVERYTHING IS JUST DECEPTION, ISN’T IT BEAUTIFUL?”

Sydney finally figured out how to open her eyes and sat up, turning to Amy and crossing her legs. The girl was so tiny and beautiful, tiny features decorated in glitter, corduroys reaching up to accentuate the tiny small of her waist, one sharp, defined hip poking through the fabric.

“YOU’RE NOT SMALL, YOU’RE BIG!” the ocean-talker proclaimed suddenly. “YOU’RE THE NEXT BIG THING! THE BIGGEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD! YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!”

Amy rolled over on the floor and laughed until she became upright on her knees, doubling over, laughing, laughing.

As soon as she stood up, the room swung diagonally from her perspective and she struggled to find her knees under her. The bass boomed under Sydney’s bare feet, her favorite.

“What’s up, party girl?”

Bianca found her on the couch again, snuggling in towards her and needing no answer. Up, up she floated. Mars hadn’t stopped dancing for hours, Bean was now on the floor in front of the stage, pretending to hear everything his girlfriend was chattering just so he could continue watching all the beautiful shapes her mouth made.

“I fucking love you, B,” Sydney said finally.

It had been somewhere between 20 minutes to four hours and they were walking to Bart, or in Mars’ case crab-walking, shifting his weight from foot to hand to foot to hand next to a gentleman with green hair and a snapback. The party was over and Amy’s parents were out of town for the weekend, leaving a big empty house up in the hills with a swimming pool and a very full liquor cabinet. Bean was coming down again and wishing Bianca had at least let him get the pack of cigarettes out of his car’s center console. The beauty seemed amused by everything, keeping her arm linked though his as her heels wobbled more every minute. She was watching Sydney up ahead, a barefoot angel in the dark, the streetlights and the moonlight taking turns illuminating her bare shoulders as she swayed back and forth to either side of the empty road.

“What are you doing Syd?” she called out.

“Dancing!” she replied.

“There’s no music though!”

“Shows what you know

[cant-icle]

Congrats on 200 followers! I have a prompt: in which early game Akira is very stressed™ because it's taking 5evr to clear out Kamoshida's Palace, and Shujin politics/rumors are getting to him despite his best efforts to not let them, and things are rather awkward with Sojiro so he's worried that even the tiniest slip up will get him kicked out, and budgeting is hard between paying for gear, transportation, food, baths, and laundry -- and Ryuji tries to make him feel better. Preferably sfw please

(i banged this out during lunch 2day cause i felt guilty ๏_๏)

“Hey man, y’wanna stop and grab a bowl of ramen with me?” Ryuji asks, a grin on his face, and tries to keep the grin from dropping off his face into a disappointed pout when Akira shakes his head. It’s not personal, he knows it’s not personal, and maybe he’s been getting a little too invested in his brand-new friend—shit, it’s only been a couple of weeks, but he’s been trailing around Akira like a puppy hoping to go out for walkies or to play fetch. Maybe the guy needs some space?

Ryuji tries to give him some. He really does.

But Akira’s the first friend he’s had in so long, and after a day of radio silence he texts again, this time for training. Akira accepts this invitation—maybe he just hadn’t been hungry that day?—but something’s off; they barely run for ten minutes before Akira’s bent double, both hands on his knees, heaving like he’s just run a marathon.

“Dude,” Ryuji says, concerned, “you alright?”

“Yeah,” Akira pants, “just—probably not the best idea to run on an empty stomach.”

“Uh, yeah, no dude, your body needs fuel!” He thinks he sees Akira’s shoulders hunch just a bit at that, and he’s still pale when he stands up. “Here. C’mon. Let’s go get somethin’ into you so you don’t feel so awful—“

“I really can’t,” Akira mutters. He won’t look at Ryuji; his arms are crossed over his chest, and he keeps shifting back and forth like he wants to get away but is too polite to leave. It makes Ryuji feel like he’s missing something, something real important, but all he can do is choke out a forlorn “hey, okay man, uh, see you tomorrow?”

At least Akira still smiles at him when he leaves. Maybe he is being too pushy.

Or, maybe not; he comes across Akira at lunch, pacing, with both fists buried in his hair; he’s on the roof talking to Morgana, and he hasn’t noticed Ryuji propping the door open, halfway out. “No, but what if—the subway pass is crucial, I can’t walk here, and laundry and bathhouse are crucial too—no, listen, I know, but we’re using up our medicines fast too, and we need to make another palace run in the next two days, because if we can’t secure the infiltration route then we’ll need another day to rest up before we give it another shot, and we’re getting really close to the deadline, Mona, I’m on probation, if he expels us I’m gonna be out on the street—“

Ryuji backs out of the door and closes it gently at that; he sits at the bottom of the stairs with his elbows on his knees and his head resting on the wall, deep in thought.

This whole Metaverse shit is a lot more complex than he thought, huh? He’d just go home tired and aching and take a long bath, eat some dinner, and head to bed; sounds like it’s a lot different for Akira, though. He hasn’t asked about his situation yet. Maybe he should, cause if he’s trying to budget his subway pass against his bathhouse money, things’ve gotta be shit for him.

The next day he shoves a bento box into Akira’s chest as they pass each other in the halls. “Ma made too much dinner,” he calls over his shoulder, a delighted feeling bubbling in his chest at Akira’s baffled, grateful look. “Meet me on the top floor for lunch!”

He does, and he eats every bite, and when he says that it’s the best meal he’s had in weeks Ryuji’s heart clenches.

So he brings lunch again. And again. And drags Akira out for beef bowls, and pays for both of them. He’s got some extra cash, anyway, it’s no big deal, and when he explains where the leftovers are going his ma is more than happy to make enough for three.

And maybe he sees the bags under Akira’s eyes getting darker, and maybe he sees Akira start to move a little stiffly after another long afternoon in the Metaverse; so maybe Ryuji sits him down on the stairs in front of him and kneads the stiffness out of his shoulders and neck until he’s limp as putty and half asleep, leaning back into Ryuji’s chest. It makes him feel good, being useful like this; it makes him feel like he’s able to support Akira, and not just tag along behind him.

And then they wreck Kamoshida’s Shadow just two days before the deadline. They’re all beat after the fight, riding on dregs of energy and euphoria, and Akira looks like he’s almost dead on his feet; He wavers a bit with every step, enough that even Ann squints at him with suspicion until Ryuji bolsters him with a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll walk you home,” he says, a solid declaration and not an offer.

Akira smiles at him, something small and sweet, unspeakably tender and open, and rests his head on Ryuji’s shoulder the whole train ride home.

[mongoose-bite]

Would you be willing to have a crack at Ereri w/ both 109 & 184? XD

Happy New Year!

With 200 prompts, doubling up a few does seem to be the most efficient way to deal with them.

109: “Why are you naked?” 

184: “Can I touch you?”

~~

“Definitely hardware issues,” Isabel said, as she peered over Levi’s shoulder at his ailing computer. It wouldn’t even boot properly, instead emitting a sad series of sounds that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Star Wars set.

“Okay,” Levi said. “If I go to the library and hide out overnight I can rewrite my paper-”

“Just get it fixed!”

“Last time I sent this shitheap away it took four weeks to get it back,” Levi grumbled.

“My dad can fix it in an hour to two,” Isabel said confidently. “I guarantee.”

Levi paused. He didn’t know much about Isabel’s father except that he was a ‘huge nerd’ and worked in IT. “Why would he fix my computer?”

“I’d tell you it’s because of the goodness of his heart but frankly, he loves this stuff. He’ll be spending his weekend messing about in a machine anyway, so it may as well be yours. Just-” she paused. “Just don’t hang around while he’s working on it.” Isabel had a weird, pained expression on her face, but when Levi pressed her she didn’t explain.

Still, it was worth a try, which is why he found himself in an unfamiliar part of town ringing an unfamiliar doorbell with his shoulder, his computer cradled in his arms. Isabel had texted her father and Eren had agreed to help as predicted.

The door opened and Levi was struck by two things. One; Eren Yeager was younger than he’d expected, and two, Isabel was completely right to characterise him as a huge nerd. He had brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, an extremely ratty Linux t-shirt and a pair of desperately unfashionable shorts with too many pockets completed the picture.

“Levi, right? Isabel’s mentioned you before.” He met Levi’s eyes briefly, but directed most of his attention to the computer in his arms.

“Hi. Um, it’s-”

“Hardware issues. Isabel told me. They’re my favourite.” Eren flashed him a real smile and Levi was momentarily struck by how well it suited him. “Well, let’s get started.” He lifted the computer out of Levi’s arms, and carried it further into the house, Levi trailing uncertainly behind.

“Can I watch?” he asked, despite Isabel’s warning. He was curious.

“If you like,” Eren said cheerfully. “Help yourself from the kitchen.”

Levi made himself a mug of tea and made his way into what was clearly an electronics lab, half-finished electronic projects and racks full of components lining the walls. His computer was, he noted distantly, already in pieces on the main table, but most of his attention was taken up by Eren’s bare arse as he bent over the table, the overhead light shining on the dips and hollows of his muscled back.

Levi nearly dropped his tea as he gaped like a fish for a few moments.

“Why are you naked?” he blurted out.

Eren turned slightly, and then returned to work. “Didn’t Isabel tell you? Static from your clothes can damage the components. Also, it gets pretty hot in here.”

Levi did think it was quite warm.

“You don’t have to hang around, if you’d rather not.”

“I’ll stay,” Levi said making a beeline for an old couch pushed off into the corner. He set his tea down on an upturned milk crate next to a stack of electronics magazines and instantly forgot about it. Eren had abs. Nerd or not, he used a gym, clearly.

Levi crossed his legs, changed his mind halfway through which way he wanted to cross them, and felt like an indecisive cricket as he squirmed on the couch. Luckily, Eren seemed engrossed in his computer and didn’t notice.

“How old is this hard drive?” Eren muttered.

“Legal,” Levi said, his mouth engaging long before his brain had noticed. “I’m nearly twent- oh the dick. I mean, disk.” Maybe if he wished hard enough he’d have a heart attack and die on the spot. “I don’t know.” He wasn’t sure he could remember his own address at this point.

Eren peered at him over his glasses and oh, Levi had hardware issues now.

“Are you all right? You look a bit warm.”

Was that an opening? Levi had no idea. He wanted to be smooth more than he ever had in his life before. Maybe make a little joke about paying him back for the work on his computer, seem confident and grown up. Maybe he should mention his grades? Eren liked intelligence, probably maybe. Why hadn’t he worn tighter jeans? Say something! Eren was still waiting for a response and looking mildly worried and Levi had visions of him walking over and putting his hand on his forehead to see if he was sick.

“Can I touch you?” It wasn’t Eren saying that, it was his own traitorous mouth.

Eren looked at him for a long moment, and Levi held his breath.

“One thing at a time,” Eren said eventually, and went back to work, although he might have been smiling a little.

Isabel asked Levi later if she’d been right. “Was it a hardware problem?”

“The hardware was great,” Levi said dreamily, while his best friend regarded him with suspicion.

[thursdays-fallen-angel]

200. “Please pretend to be my girlfriend/boyfriend.”

Anon, I am so sorry this took so long. Hope it’s worth it.

hs!au, jock!Cas and nerd!Dean, minor homophobia 

Dean’s phone starts to ring halfway through the season premiere of Dr. Sexy, and under normal circumstances, that would be more than enough reason for him to ignore everything to do with his phone until the hour is up. Despite that rule, though, his curiosity is piqued by the fact that someone is calling him, which isn’t something that anyone but his family does.

And then he sees the contact filling his screen, and Dr. Sexy gets paused.

“Hey, uh, what’s up, Cas?” He winces as soon as the words are out—can he really not even keep his cool long enough to answer the damn phone? Sure, he’s already sort of awkward around Cas, and sure, this is the first time his relatively-new-ish friend has called him, but that’s no excuse.

“Dean,” Cas says, and even though he normally manages to make Dean’s name sound intense, there’s a different sort of pressure behind it right now, which is enough to have Dean sitting up straighter on the couch. “I need to ask a favor of you. Are you busy?”

Dean eyes his paused program. “Not really. What’s up? What do you need?”

Cas takes an audible breath in, then says all in a rush, “Please pretend to be my boyfriend.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Dean isn’t sure if the swooping in his stomach is happiness or mortification. This can’t really be happening. Right?

“Cas, I...”

“Please, Dean,” Cas hurriedly interrupts. “I’ll do anything. Whatever it takes. I’ll owe you. I’ll bake you a pie every weekend between now and graduation. Anything.”

“This isn’t, uh.” Dean clears his throat, and nervously adjusts the way his glasses rest on the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t some kind of prank the football team put you up to, is it?”

Because while Dean doesn’t want to believe that that’s the case, he can’t ignore the fact that that’s a possibility. His friendship with Cas is already unusual, and not favorable by most of Cas’ friends—the words ‘jock’ and ‘nerd’ don’t often go together, despite how much Cas clearly doesn’t understand the typical decorum of high school cliques. Cas is on the football team and the soccer team, and plays varsity for both. Dean, by contrast, is the kid who’s friends with half of his teachers and vying for the title of valedictorian.

In short, they don’t mesh. And football players are dicks.

On the other end of the line, Cas is too quiet. Dean only notices it belatedly, and when he does, his stomach sinks. “...Cas?”

He’s listening so intently that he thinks he hears Cas lick his lips. “Dean. Do you really think so little of me?”

Dean flinches. “No, I—I don’t. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t think you would do that, I’m just—” He inhales shakily. Cas is silent. “Why do you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend?”

Cas’ answering sigh crackles over the speaker. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re questioning this,” is the first thing he says. “I shouldn’t make you feel bad about it. Sorry. I’m asking you to do this because I’ve gotten myself into a mess.”

“What kind of mess?”

“The kind where I accidentally came out to half of my relatives.” Cas sounds wry as he says it, and casual, as if the fact that he came out isn’t at all meant to be the point of his statement, as if that part is a given, already established, and it’s most definitely not.

Cas...

Cas is...

Maybe the fact that he’s angling for a fake boyfriend and not a fake girlfriend should have been Dean’s clue.

His friend continues on with his explanation, oblivious to his internal meltdown, “I defended gay rights to my very conservative uncle, and in the course of the ensuing argument, I also implied that I have a boyfriend. Which brings me to my current predicament.”

Dean chokes out, “Implied?”

There’s yet another beat of silence. “Alright, I may have said that I have a boyfriend whom I’m very happy with. And now they want to meet this boyfriend, because they’re confident that I’m lying. Which I am. Because I’m... well.”

“Single.”

“Yes.”

Dean takes a deep breath. He can hardly believe this. He can’t believe what he’s about to do. He turns off the TV, giving up completely on the last of his Dr. Sexy, and says with more confidence than he feels, “Alright. Tell me what you need me to do.”

~

Half an hour later, Dean is pulling his car up along the curb in front of Cas’ house. Cas’ large house, he can’t help but note. With its brick facade and white posts on either side of the entryway, it’s ridiculously cliche, and also incredibly terrifying.

Apparently in addition to missing the fact that Cas is gay, he also completely missed the fact that he’s loaded.

His nervousness doubles in strength.

He sends Cas a text as he makes his way up to the house, and the other boy opens the door before he even has to knock. And god damn, Cas looks good. His hair is as perfectly tousled as ever, but instead of being in form-fitting jeans and a t-shirt or varsity coat like he typically is when he’s at school, he’s in—well, jeans, still, but nicer ones, paired with a button-down shirt that’s just the right shade to make his eyes look so blue there’s no way it’s not illegal.

“Dean,” Cas greets, and he sounds... breathless? His eyes rake over Dean’s form, which prompts Dean to shift his weight nervously. “You look... You look great.”

It’s not true—Dean put on an argyle sweater to meet Cas’ request of dressing nice, and maybe he spent ten of his twenty minutes getting ready on his hair alone, making sure every strand laid correctly, but of the two of them, he’s not the one worthy of ‘great’. Telling himself that, however, doesn’t help to tame his blush as much as he was hoping. He knows that arguing the statement will only draw the conversation out longer, though, so he tugs at his sleeve and accepts it.

“Thanks, Cas. So are we, uh. Are we doing this?”

The reminder of why he’s there visibly dulls Cas’ mood, his shoulders slumping slightly. “Yes, I suppose we are.” He pushes the front door back open where it had drifted shut behind him, and offers a hand out to Dean. Dean hesitates only slightly before he takes it, and once he does, Cas is pulling him across the threshold, and there’s no going back.

Dean toes off his shoes before they get too far from the front door, letting them join a lineup of many others, and then Cas slips an arm around his waist and guides him further in. Dean’s heartbeat is so loud in his ears that he almost misses the soft words Cas whispers into his hairline.

“I’m sorry for this in advance, but don’t forget that I am extremely grateful, and will find some way to make this up to you.”

It sounds ominous, and Dean’s stomach twists even as he mutters in return, “You fucking better.”

They’re stepping into a living room before Cas can say anything more, and a dozen sets of eyes are immediately on them. Most of them look judgmental, some shocked, and one—Cas’ brother Gabriel, of course, the only person here Dean has met before—just looks downright amused. It’s utterly silent in the room, everyone clearly having stopped talking when they saw Dean and Cas, and that makes it awkward as hell. Dean doesn’t know what to do, or say, so he looks to Cas for some indication—

“So, you must be Dean,” someone in the room says, and Dean’s head snaps back around to identify the speaker. The man (older, balding, mildly revolting to look at) has a tight grin on his thin lips, though the expression is really more of a sneer, than anything. It matches the false positivity in his voice disturbingly well. “Castiel here has been telling us a lot about you. The boy who has led my nephew into a life of sin.”

Dean’s stomach plummets, but Cas only heaves a sigh and says, “Zachariah. I’ve already asked you to stop saying that. This is not ‘sin’.”

Zachariah’s lip curls in distaste, and the tension in the room somehow manages to thicken. “We’re each entitled to our own opinions, Castiel.”

Cas’ teeth grind audibly, and Dean shrinks into his side. It only takes a moment for it to pass, though, as Cas quickly takes to ignoring Zachariah so that he may introduce Dean to the members of his family who are present. Three uncles, two aunts, a smattering of cousins, and two of his four siblings—Gabriel and Michael, who is apparently the oldest. Even if most of them are obviously dicks like Zachariah, they all at least have manners, and greet Dean in return cordially enough.

(Interestingly enough, Gabriel turns out to be the weirdest of them all about it, saying after Cas ensures Dean remembers his name, “Oh, this is rich.” Dean frowns, not sure what the hell it’s supposed to mean, but Cas merely kicks his brother in the shin and drags Dean along, depriving him of the opportunity to find out.)

Once Dean has been told everyone’s names—and forgotten probably half of them—he and Cas  squish together in the last remaining open seat. It’s halfway between an armchair and a loveseat, and while Dean would normally freak out over that kind of proximity with Cas, he doesn’t have much to lose right now, since they’re already pretending to be boyfriends. And if being pressed against Cas helps to steady his anxiety, too, well. That’s just a bonus.

They’ve hardly settled into the chair by the time Zachariah grows impatient, reclining back in his seat on the couch and eyeing the two teenagers opposite him with a smug grin. “Well, Dean,” he begins, “how long have you and Castiel been... doing whatever it is you’re doing?”

“Uh.” Dean shifts, fully aware of how tense Cas is at his side. The only positive is that not everyone in the room is actively staring at him—the aunts are whispering to each other, Gabriel is texting as quickly as his thumbs will allow, and the cousins (Uriel and Hannah being the only names Dean remembers among them) have clearly lost interest. But even with his audience down to half, it still takes far more courage than he cares to admit to say, “What we’re ‘doing’ is called dating, in case you somehow missed that, or don’t understand the concept.”

Cas sucks in a sharp breath. Gabriel sounds like he nearly chokes in an effort to contain his laughter.

Dean wets his lips. “And to answer your question,” he continues, the hard glint in Zachariah’s eye not enough to deter him now that he’s already going, “we’ve been together for almost six months. Since the beginning of the school year. Neither of us wanted to go to homecoming, so we went to the movies, instead.”

And they had; Cas had been asked to the dance by Meg Masters, but when he discovered that Dean both hadn’t asked or been asked and was going to be alone while all of his friends and classmates were out partying, he ditched Meg (who he admitted to not really wanting to go with, anyway, despite how baffling that notion was to Dean at the time), and insisted on hanging out with Dean instead. That was the start of their true friendship, and when they got milkshakes after their movie, sitting in a dim booth in the back corner of the Roadhouse, Dean had also come to realize just how hard he was falling for Cas.

It’s easy, then, to call that the start of their relationship.

Michael asks, then, only slightly less derisive than Zachariah, “Are your feelings for my brother genuine, or do you simply know that he comes from money?”

Cas makes a sound in the back of his throat like he’s going to interrupt before Dean has to answer, but for whatever reason, Dean doesn’t want that to happen. He agreed to come here and help Cas out of the mess he’s gotten himself into, and it that’s going to happen, then Dean can’t just be silent and let them both be stepped on. And Cas’ family really are dicks; he deserves better than this.

“First off, I didn’t know Cas ‘comes from money’ until today.” Cas winces almost imperceptibly, probably, if Dean had to guess, because that’s something he’s clearly kept a secret. Dean might give him a bit of shit for that later, but for the time being, he doesn’t give a damn, so he ignores his friend’s reaction. “And I don’t care who has money and who doesn’t. That’s not what makes a person. I have plenty of other reasons to love Cas, I don’t need that one.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Cas says lowly, sounding almost strangled, “Dean.”

Dean glances at him, unsure of how he earned that reaction—but then he realizes what he said, and the color abruptly drains from his face. He feels queasy. “I... I mean...”

There’s an unspoken question in Cas’ eyes, but far more than that, as well, and Dean doesn’t even know where to begin decoding all of it. He can’t tell what Cas is thinking, and not knowing what Cas is thinking right now is utterly terrifying. Gabriel lets out a low whistle, but even that doesn’t break their stare.

And then one of the other uncles, Raphael, breaks the silence. “What do your parents think about this relationship? About your sexuality?”

Dean looks over at the man and balks. He’s lost his momentum. Standing up to Zachariah and Michael was easy, because of nothing else, he could tell himself he was pretending, but now he’s said that word, as both he and Cas are keenly aware “I, uh... I mean, they...”

His blatant hesitation is like blood in the water, and Cas’ family latches onto it with a vengeance. Most of them look amused, like the question may as well have already been answered, and Zachariah sits forward with a sick sort of excitement in his eyes.

“Do they even know that you’re dating Castiel? Or has your guilty conscience insisted on keeping that fact hidden?”

Gabriel makes a derisive sound. “Guilty conscience, Uncle Zach, really, that’s the best you can do? Get off your goddamn high horse—”

“His parents probably don’t even know he’s a queer,” Zachariah adds, ignoring his nephew completely. Between the pressure of his stare, how close to home his question hit, and the fuck-up Dean just had with Cas—Dean needs to regroup. He can’t do this.

He quickly extracts himself from Cas’ side, mumbles an, “Excuse me,” and hurries out of the room and back to the front door. He steps into his shoes and slips outside, pointedly ignoring the outbreak of an argument he can hear in the room he just fled.

Christ, he shouldn’t have come here. He shouldn’t have agreed to this, shouldn’t have gotten himself involved in this charade.

He leans against the railing of the small front porch and tries to focus on his breathing. Despite how much he’s starting to regret his current situation, it’s still not enough to make him ditch Cas. Maybe it should be. He’s already embarrassed himself, and probably made his friend’s situation worse, to boot. Why should he stick around?

He sighs and hangs his head. For Cas.

A few moments later, the front door opens and closes, and although Dean doesn’t look over his shoulder, he knows from the cadence of the footsteps that it’s Cas. Because of course it is.

Cas steps up to the railing beside Dean and mirrors his position, posture slouched and elbows resting on the wood. There’s a stretch of silence, and then Cas says, “I’m sorry for making you go through that. I had hoped that they would let your presence pass without harassment, but in hindsight, that was stupid of me. I should have known.”

Dean shakes his head. He can’t look at Cas, and studiously keeps his eyes trained on his hands. “Why’d you ask me to do this, man?”

He sees Cas shift in the corner of his eye. “I... I don’t know. I panicked, partially. I would probably consider you to be my best friend, and certainly my favorite. You’re the kind of person my parents would like—theoretically, at least. Kind and smart and charming. And I…”

He stalls, prompting Dean to finally look over at him. His heart is beating too loud, he feels too warm, and the things Cas is saying are sounding a lot more genuine than Dean would have ever expected them to. He swallows thickly and prompts, “Cas?”

“I just… I thought…” Cas closes his eyes for a brief moment, steels himself, and then pins Dean in place with an unwavering stare. “I thought it would be most believable if I pretended to date someone who I would be happy to actually date.”

All of the breath leaves Dean’s lungs in a rush. “Oh.”

“Dean, I’m sorry. I know you don’t feel the same about me, and what you said inside was out of context—”

Dean doesn’t need to hear any more than that. Operating on nothing more than instinct and following the spark of euphoria in his chest, Dean grabs Cas by his perfectly-pressed shirt, closes the distance between them, and crushes their lips together. It’s harried and crooked and far from perfect, but Dean couldn’t care less. Especially when Cas makes a choked sound in the back of his throat and starts to reciprocate. One of his hands slides up to cup Dean’s jaw, and then they’re steadier, more centered, and Dean couldn’t imagine it possibly being any better.

He has no idea how long they spend like that, but he doesn’t care, either. He only knows that when they part, his lips are tingling and his lungs are aching, and he’s never been happier in his life.

Cas grins, expression bright with awe and the most genuine excitement Dean has ever seen his friend wear. It has his heart skipping a beat, and the only thing that keeps him from kissing Cas again is the fact that the other boy is speaking.

“Dean,” he says, fingers curling into Dean’s hair, “will you be my boyfriend for real?”

Dean mirrors his expression without hesitation. “Hell yeah.”

Even if dating Cas means more exposure to his family and all the hell that apparently accompanies them, Dean couldn’t care less. It’s worth it. For Cas.

[call-me-eds]

Weak

Fuckboy! Bill has his claws deep in Stan.

Weak (Part Two)

Masterlist

           “No, no, no, stay here,” Bill laughed, pulling on Stan’s waist while he tried to get out of the small college dorm bed.

           “I have to get to class,” Stan shook his head. “And so do you.”

           “Why can’t you just skip with me? That girl that sits in the front always gives me the notes, anyway,” Bill shrugged.

           “That’s why you’re getting a C and I am getting an A,” Stan picked up the shirt he had packed, anticipating another sleepover in room 3067 in Walsh Hall. He slept in Bill’s single room every other night. His roommate loved it, and his friends didn’t know. They would never stop with the jokes, the comments, and the questions on how Stan Uris pinned down Bill Denbrough, one of the douchiest and most sought after kids on campus.

           Now, Stan knew that he didn’t actually pin down Bill. For all he knew, Bill was still hooking up with other people, but Stan tried not to think about the exchange of germs when Bill was panting above him almost every night.

           “Are you really not coming?” Stan asked, slowly getting dressed and hoping that Bill would change his mind and show up to class for once.

           “Nah, I’m not feeling it today,” he grabbed the hat on his bedside table and threw his arms behind his head, looking just like he did last night before Stan climbed on top of him.

           “You’re never feeling it,” Stan said.

           “I’m feeling you,” Bill winked. Stan tried not to smile, but Bill had an effect on him that he would never admit. Bill could be, chose to be, and was really good at being an asshole. He was that way with Stan at first, especially because the first time they hooked up Bill was drunk off of his ass and pissed that he couldn’t shoot one cup in his game of beer pong.

           He let Stan in on some things, though. Like his weird love of Star Wars and his ability to name any renaissance painting’s artist and year of publication. But when Bill actually showed up to Political Science 200, he pretended like he had never seen Stan a day in his life, much less taught him how to roll a joint and how to give a halfway decent blowjob.

           “Just stay in bed with me for once,” Bill begged.

           “I can’t miss,” Stan shook his head. “We have our test review and-”

           “You practically wrote the test, come on,” Bill smiled. Stan considered it, he really considered it, for a few seconds, before he picked up his backpack. “Jesus, Uris, I thought I was finally making you cool,” Bill sighed.

           “I’ll see you around,” Stan said.

           “Well, you’re still coming over tonight, right? To watch Scarface?” Bill sat up a little bit and Stan, once again, tried to hide his grin. He wasn’t too fond of showing Bill his emotions, he didn’t want to seem too eager.

           “Yeah, I’ll see you later.”

           “Jesus, oh my fuck,” Bill was trying his hardest not to finish before him and Stan had barely started.

           “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Stan asked, gripping Bill’s thighs harder and sinking his teeth into his lower stomach.

           “No, just you,” he grunted. He grabbed Stan’s arm and yanked up to his level. Stan ran his hands through Bill’s messy hair and moved his hips in tight circles, whining softly.

           “Take off my pants,” Stan breathed into Bill’s mouth. Bill choked on his own tongue before ripping the plain brown belt off of Stan.

           “I can’t believe that little Stanley Uris who sits in the front of the class makes me harder than-”

           “Stop,” Stan laughed reaching his hand towards the box of condoms that laid on top of Bill’s dresser. He didn’t bother them putting them in the drawer, because of ‘convenience,’ but Stan thought it was just a part of the façade that was-

           “Big Bill!” Stan bit down on Bill’s lip when there was a sudden and unexpected bang on his door. He waited for Bill to tell their intruders to go away, but instead was met with Bill shoving him off and frantically throwing him his clothes.

           “One second!” Bill yelled, pulling on his hat and tossing a few notebooks onto his bed. He opened the door and his friends that were all stronger and more relaxed than Stan were standing in the hallway.

           “We’re going to play a pickup game, let’s go,” one of them said, throwing a basketball into Bill’s chest.. Bill noticed a few of them peer inside and exchange looks upon noticing Stan being inside.

           “Yeah, okay,” Bill nodded, trying not to show his ragged breathing.

           “But what about-”

           “We can finish our project another time, Uris,” Bill said harshly. Stan didn’t think that Bill would tell all of his friends about his current hook-up right then and there, but he didn’t expect Bill to kick him out.

           “But you’re the one who invited me here,” Stan reminded him, trying not to physically melt under the stares of those in the hall.

           “How about you just finish it up?” Bill said, checking his watch.

           “We made plans,” he reminded Bill with more truth in his voice. Maybe a little more emotion, too.

           “I told you, Uris, I can’t do it,” he said.

           “What, are you gonna cry, dude?” one of Bill’s friends said, making the rest of the group erupt into laughs, Bill included.

           “No, I just really wanted to work on this,” he shook his head.

           “Seriously, man, give it up. It’s not that important,” Bill said. The look in his eyes was all the confirmation of the double meaning that Stan needed. “Let’s go,” Bill grabbed his room key and the group started walking towards the front door of the building.

           “But-”

           “Later,” Bill squeezed Stan’s shoulder as he walked by, leaving Stan alone in the hallway.

           He shouldn’t have been stunned, but he was. He didn’t expect one thing from Bill, but he was still hurt. Stan was angrier at himself for letting himself get effected by the asshole and not being able to let it go. He trudged back to his room, thankful for the emptiness until Richie got out of class.

           “Home so soon?” Richie walked in and interrupted Stan’s few moments of peace.

           “Yeah,” Stan nodded, not looking up from his book.

           “What happened?” Richie asked, taking off the bowtie Bev made him wear for their business presentation and pulling on a sweatshirt.

           “Nothing,” he snapped and Richie looked up, a small smile on his face.

           “Did Stan not get laid?” he grinned. “I thought this guy was banging you into oblivion every chance that he got. Pure, perfect Stanley Uris didn’t get his equipment polished, so now-”

           “Shut up, Richie!” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

           So he didn’t. Stan didn’t talk about Bill or to Bill for the next month, which just about killed him. Bill actually showed up to class, but Stan ignored the kicks against his chair and raced out of class every day so he could avoid him.

           It wasn’t until Stan was hesitantly walking back to his dorm, careful to avoid slipping on the snow, that Bill was able to catch up to him. The loud crunching of snow approached Stan, and soon Bill was standing right in front of him. He kept an earbud in his ear while he talked.

           “Hey, what’s up, where have you been?” he asked Stan.

           “Working on our project,” Stan rolled his eyes, not even trying to step around Bill.

           “Oh, come on, dude, you’re upset about that?” Bill asked. Stan didn’t say anything and Bill sighed.

           Stan wanted to say that he was hurt by the fact that Bill said he was unimportant and that he refused to even tell his friends who he was. Granted, Stan’s friend didn’t know who made him sexually satisfied for the first time in his life, but that was all per Bill’s request.

           “Just come back to my room. We can talk it out in there. Or something else,” he smiled. Stan cursed that smile. That stupid smile could convince Stan to do anything, including push aside his feelings and self-worth.

           “Bill-”

           “Come on. I’ll do that thing that you love,” he winked. That stupid wink made Stan throw everything his brain was telling him out the third story window in Bill’s room.

           “You were a dick,” Stan told him. Bill laughed and Stan felt angry that he wasn’t being taken seriously. “I’m serious, Bill! You were rude to me, and I didn’t deserve that.”

           “I know, I know that,” he sighed. “Just keep your voice down, come on,” he said nervously.

           “Okay,” he nodded. Stan didn’t want to cause a scene either.

           “Just come back to my room. We can talk. We don’t even have to talk, we can just relieve some stress that I am sure we are both feeling,” Bill grinned.

           Stan Uris was brilliant, but he was human. He didn’t always make the right choices for himself. Bill Denbrough was manipulative, beautiful, and could get with anyone he wanted. He was an asshole, and not emotionally available at all to Stan, but Stan didn’t care. He was holding onto the hope that the Bill he saw in the bedroom, the one who stroked his hair and could do more than a handful of card tricks would one day come out into the world, even though he wouldn’t even come out to his friends.

           “Okay,” Stan said. That seemed to be the only word he used when Bill asked anything of him.

           “Great. I’ll go to my room. Head up there in about fifteen minutes, and make sure that no one sees.” So without an apology or anything other than a feeling of defeat, Stan headed up to Walsh Hall room 3067, but only after making sure that the hallway was empty and no one would see him going anywhere near Big Bill Denbrough’s room. That was for the elite, for the powerful. And the only thing more fragile than Bill’s ego, was Stan’s ability to stay away from him.

[carolcooks2]

Who doesn’t love bread fresh and hot straight from the oven?… It never lasts long here which means not so much waste … which is always a good thing…isn’t it?

Covid-19 has meant for many like me that they have honed their bread baking and cake making skills which is great…

As it is Homemade Bread Day today I have gathered some of my tried and tested recipes together for you…I hope you enjoy it!

My first recipe is for Pretzel Bread which was a first for me as the method is one I hadn’t tackled before and it came out really well and was a great hit with everyone…

Pretzel Bread.

All I knew about pretzel dough was that like beigels the dough was boiled before baking and this gives it that characteristic deep brown crust and pretzel taste…

It was lovely a little sweet my tester said it tasted like currant bread sweetness not horrible he liked it and the salt was a foil for that methinks but with some ham and mustard in a sandwich it went down a treat…

I have however tweaked the original recipe and would use less sugar…1 tbsp instead of 3 tbsp.

Ingredients:

2 and a quarter tsp of instant yeast.

1 cup of lukewarm water

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp milk…I used full-fat milk

4 tbsp (2 oz) melted butter

1 tsp sea salt

3 cups of all-purpose unbleached flour

Baking Soda Bath:

4 quarts(8 pints) water

Half cup Baking Soda

Pretzel Topping:

2 tbsp butter melted

Coarse salt for topping.

A lined baking tray.

Preheated oven 200 degrees

Let’s bake!

Combine your yeast, water, and brown sugar in a bowl and stir to dissolve sugar.

Melt the butter and then add to the milk then stir into the yeast mixture to combine.

Add the salt and flour 1 cup at a time and stir to combine then once the dough has come together knead until it is a firm but slightly tacky dough. If you need to add more add a little at a time.

Put the dough into a greased bowl and cover with a cloth and allow to rise about an hour and it should have doubled in size.

Once the 60  mins are up put your 4 quarts of water in a large pan and bring to the boil then add your Baking Soda…DO NOT ADD IT ALL AT ONCE OR IT WILL ALLL FIZZ OVER …add a little at a time I added it a tsp at a time.

Then punch your dough down to remove the gas and divide it into two portions…Add one portion to the boiling water and turn after 60 seconds and give it 60 seconds on the other side remove with a slotted spoon to drain and make a small cross in the middle and sprinkle with salt. Put on a lined baking tin…

Repeat with your second piece of dough…When cutting the cross I made mine too big as this dough once boiled is easier than a normal risen dough to cut through.

Boiled Pretzel Dough

Sit both pieces of prepared dough on a lined baking tray and put it into your preheated oven…200 degrees.

Cook for 23-25 mins turning the tray around halfway through the cooking…

I was quite amazed at how it coloured up and just looked the colour of a pretzel that lovely deep brown…

Pretzel Bread

When you remove it from the oven brush with the melted butter and enjoy it!

My second recipe is for some lovely finger rolls again a first with a process I hadn’t used before…

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Finger Rolls

Round Rolls

This is a lovely easy recipe and I sometimes make finger rolls or round rolls depending on how I feel or what I am cooking they make lovely hot dog rolls.

Although my images show white and use white unbleached flour I do sometimes mix the flour with wholemeal or go the whole hog hubby is getting to like wholewheat bread so now I have stocked up today on my flours the next loaf will not be white…

Let’s Cook! Bread!

  Ingredients:

5 cups of flour. I used unbleached, Bread flour.

2 tbsp of instant yeast

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

2 cups of warm water

1/4 cup of cooking oil. I used Olive oil.

This is so quick and easy.

Add 4 cups of flour with all the other ingredients and mix to combine…just get your hands in there it’s the best way.

It will be sticky but hey ho we are bread making.

Gradually knead in the last cup of flour and knead that dough for 5 minutes.

Put it in a bowl and cover with a damp cloth and leave to prove for 30 minutes(for) me but it is warm here it may be a tad longer for you.

It should double its size, punch it down and divide into two or as I will next time make one large loaf.

Shape both pieces to fit into your oiled bread tins and leave to rise until dough reaches the top of the tin approx 20/30 mins.

Bake at 440F/ 200 C for approx 40 minutes.

Allow the bread to cool slightly then remove from the tin and put on a cooling rack you now have two lovely loaves of fresh bread.

If the crust is too hard then cover with a clean, damp tea towel to soften.

Enjoy!

Not all bread contains yeast like this lovely ...Buttermilk Bread…

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of lukewarm water.

1 cup of Buttermilk.

1 tbsp quick yeast.

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

6 1/2 cups of unbleached bread flour.

Let’s Bake!

Mix water, buttermilk, yeast, salt, sugar in a bowl. Add the flour. No need to knead..lol

Just combine all the ingredients together..lightly cover the bowl and leave to rest/rise for 2 hrs.

The bonus of living here is dough rises quickly...I love using yeast now.

You can use the dough immediately, store covered in the fridge for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 weeks.

If you are using now preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Dust the dough with flour and very lightly knead, shape into a round. Cover and rest for 90 minutes.

Oh, and I made a cut into the top of my dough just like a cross.

Bake in the middle of the oven for approx 40 minutes until golden brown and delicious.

Remove from the oven and brush the top with melted butter.

Leave to cool before slicing.

Enjoy!

Flat Bread:

Flatbreads

1/2 cup water.

1/4 cup of milk

2 cups flour.

1 tbsp Baking Powder.

2 tbsp oil

1/2 tsp salt.

To make flatbreads.

Sift dry ingredients together. Add liquids and mix thoroughly…I used my food processor and it took literally 2 mins…. if that and formed a ball. If it is too sticky add little more flour. Divide into 8 pieces. Flatten with the heel of the hand and roll out very thin.

My first attempt at this and I didn’t roll mine out thin enough to start with practice makes perfect with all bread but I have never had any which is inedible just maybe a funny shape…lol

Heat pan and cook 2/3 minutes each side turn over with tongs or fish slice and done… finito..ready to fill…easy peasy.

My last bread recipe today is Crock Pot or Dutch Oven Bread…This loaf was cooked in a dutch oven and I was pleasantly surprised how much the crust was like ones I have purchased in bakeries.

Probably from the steam produced using the dutch oven method…

Ingredients:

4 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

 2 1/4 tsp of rapid yeast

2 cups of lukewarm water

1 tsp of olive oil.

Let’s Bake!

In a large bowl add the flour and salt whisk to combine.

Make a well and add the raid yeast granules and the lukewarm water then with wet hands bring the mix together. If it is too sticky add a little more flour and likewise if too dry add a little more water a tsp at a time…This will vary as it depends on the flour used.

Cover and leave in a warm spot to double in size again this depends on the temperature where you live it can be anything from a 1hr to 1 1/2 hours…if it is very warm mine takes a little less time.

Once risen using your hand or a dough scraper work the dough loose from the sides and working around the edge bring the sides to the middle.

Cover and leave to double in size again about 1 hour it rises slightly quicker this time.

Once risen transfer to a lightly floured surface sprinkle the top with a little flour and shape and fold the dough under itself several times then pinch the seams together. Coat your bowl with the olive oil and put the dough in the bowl cover and leave the dough to rise once again.

Then put on the oven and set the heat at 230C/450F and put your dutch oven into the oven to heat up for 45-1n hr. By the time this has heated your dough should have risen.

NOW VERY CAREFULLY REMOVE THE HOT DUTCH OVEN ONTO A TRIVETT…It is hot then turn out your dough onto a lightly floured surface and carefully put in the dutch oven.

Put the pot back into the oven and cook for 45 minutes then carefully remove the lid and cook for a further 15-30 minutes …

Remove from the oven and cover with a cloth to cool for about 15 mins before slicing and enjoy…That’s all for today …Happy Bread making..xx

 Homemade Bread Day…November 17th 2020… Who doesn't love bread fresh and hot straight from the oven?... It never lasts long here which means not so much waste ...