#he is THRIVING he is MOISTURIZED he is having a WONDERFUL bath time

[maareyas]

This was supposed to be a shitpost but painting this was so genuinely healing for me that I decided not to add the bottom text

Original meme it's based on + closeups shots under the cut:

[bokutosworld]

night time activities with hq boys

- the little things and shenanigans that they like to do with their s/o once the world has quieted down and people have gone to sleep zzz

wc: 1.9k words, fluff, sfw. 

characters: kageyama, hinata, yamaguchi, oikawa, iwaizumi, bokuto, kuroo, ushijima, semi, atsumu!

a/n: so this was intended to be a mini hc list but i got carried away in my feels and just wrote mini scenarios for my top ten hq boys. this is self-indulgent ngl mom i love them :’) 

--

💌 he always gets asked what's the secret to his clear and smooth skin. well, the answer is you. since the two of you started living together, you've gotten kageyama on board in your nightly skincare routine. he doesn't mind it even if tsukishima and hinata tease him endlessly, something about the 'king of the court' being soft for you. as soon as he comes out from the shower, he positions himself on the edge of the bed, letting you stand between his legs as you wipe his face with a toner, followed by a moisturizer. then you'll get a sheet of face mask and put it on carefully. 'thank you, y/n,' he'd always say with a smile before pulling you to his chest, laughter echoing around the room, as you both fall on the bed.

💌 you thought your relationship with hinata wouldn't survive the long distance. but despite the thousand miles separating the both of you and the difference in timezones, he made sure to always wish you sweet dreams and good night. sometimes, he would call you in the middle of practice or while he's sitting in the train during commute. if he's lucky to have a free day, he'd call you while he's also in bed and you guys would talk non-stop, exchanging stories, saying your i love yous and i miss yous. and when you're the first one to snooze, he'd chuckle in the background, taking a few screenshots of your adorable sleeping face before saying goodnight and ending the call with a smile.

💌 one of the things that made yamaguchi fall in love with you was your love for studio ghibli films. when the topic was brought up among your friend group, he instantly whipped his head to where you were and before he knew it, his feet were bringing him to you. you were already friends so you didn't mind him joining the conversation, he was mesmerized with how you passionately talked about your love for howl's moving castle or how you talked about the nostalgic soundtrack of from up on poppy hill. the rest was history and now, five years into the relationship, watching studio ghibli films every friday night has become a tradition to both of you. oftentimes, you would find yourselves cuddled on the bed, legs entangled and arms wrapped around one another. spirited away was playing on the laptop, the light illuminates the dark room as the both of you slowly drifted to sleep. it was in moments like these that you felt overwhelmed and satisfied with the security and comfort of being with him.

💌 oikawa was spontaneous - it kept you on your toes, always wondering what kind of surprise or gimmick he has prepared for you. the day before a big presentation, you were nervous and you made sure he knew it by texting him non-stop, sending him memes that expressed what you couldn't say in words. he didn't want to say you were overreacting in fear of getting on your bad side, but he has no doubt that after spending weeks in preparation that you can ace your presentation. still, he wanted to be of help to you and he knew just how to lift your mood up. it was 2:15 am when you were woken up by the incessant ringing of your phone. you pick it up, ready to shout at whoever was on the other side when you heard his laugh, 'grab your jacket, we're getting mcdonalds.' you didn't need to be told twice, almost running down the stairs so you can get your fix of your fave happy meal. after getting takeout, he drove you to a park and laid out a blanket. you sat and enjoyed your food in peace before he mentioned something about the stars shining bright tonight, turning to you with the biggest grin on his face, 'but i have the brightest star in the world right now by my side.'

💌 iwaizumi could never see what it was about video games that you loved so much. though after dating you since high school, he's been used to being ignored, put on voicemail, and being the second priority whenever you had a console in hand. but one late night, he got curious about the new title you were playing, super smash bros, and figured he could give it a try. you were surprised when he suddenly sat on the couch and scooted closer to make room for himself. he took your extra controller and asked to play for one round. little did he know that one game became two, which became three until the both of you couldn't keep track anymore as he kept losing and asking for a rematch. when you closed the game, the sun was slowly peeking over the clouds. you kissed him on the cheek before retreating to bed 'thanks for playing with me, iwa. that was one of the best games i've had.' he wouldn't admit it but he enjoyed it too, and he was thankful that he had the following day off or he'd be nursing an insane headache at work due to lack of sleep.

💌 people thrived off of the contagious energy that bokuto radiated, and you were no stranger to that. you were all too familiar with the intoxicating feeling that one can get by being around him. being with him, living with him, there were no dull days or quiet evenings. there would be nights that he'd still be high on the adrenaline that came from winning their game, that before sleeping, bokuto would drag you up your feet and get you singing your favorite songs. he didn't need a mic, his loud voice was enough and it reverberated around the room. you'd both be laughing, stumbling over the lyrics as you danced to a silent beat. jumping up and down, you're worried that the neighbors might report you to the guards in the apartment lobby. but none of it would soon matter as he'd suddenly collapse on the bed, pulling you with him. you fall to his chest and you hear the erratic beating of his heart. he lifts your chin up to look at him and he presses a chaste kiss on your lips, 'thank you for being with me all this time.'

💌 due to the nature of his job, you'd been used to kuroo returning home almost midnight due to doing overtime. often, he'd return to a dark apartment as you'd already be tucked in bed, drifting off to a deep sleep. but tonight was different. it was 11:45 pm and when kuroo turned the knob and swung the door open, he was surprised to see you sprawled out on the floor of the living room. a mess of polaroid photos, printed stickers, papers, and craft items were beside. you greeted him with a smile, he returned it with one of his own and question fell on his lips, 'what are you doing here?' he swears he melted on the spot when you said you were making a scrapbook of your moments and milestones together. something about the idea of you collating everything - from when you went on your first date, your first kiss, your first out-of-town trip - had the butterflies in his stomach go crazy. he loosens his tie and undos the first two buttons of his shirt before joining you on the floor, looking forward to staying up all night reminiscing your memories together.

💌 as soon as you and ushijima got home from date night, he'd head straight to the kitchen to brew your favorite cup of tea while you went ahead to wash up and prepare for bed. he'd bring two cups to the room, placing yours on vanity table and his on the nightstand. when you came out of the shower, you'd go straight to your vanity to do your evening skincare, noticing the tea he had prepared and taking a sip before putting on moisturizer. ushijima would take his place behind your back, a hand resting on your shoulder as the other leaned to get your brush. he'd gently comb your hair, dragging the brush slowly over your tresses. 'is this okay? it doesn't hurt?' you'd look at his reflection in the mirror, catching his eyes and you reassure him that it's fine. silence envelopes the two of you, but it's not the awkward kind. it's the one that puts you at ease, erasing your worries as he continues his action. when he finishes, he returns the brush on its spot, turning you around to give you a kiss, 'i love you.'

💌 semi notices something was wrong when you arrived home all quiet. usually, you'd run to where he was - often in the kitchen where he was cooking food or in his mini studio where he composed songs - but tonight, you made a beeline to your shared bedroom. he follows and observes as you throw your bag on the floor before falling face first on the bed. he swears he heard you take a big sigh and takes that as his cue to prepare a warm bath for you. semi makes sure that the water temperature is just how you like it, pouring your favorite bubble soap and lighting up your favorite scented candles all over the room. when he's done, he makes his way over to you, 'come on, sweetheart. i readied a bubble bath for you.' your ears perk up hearing his words and you get up, letting him take your hand as he brought you to the bathroom. he helps you take off your clothes and assists as you sit in the tub. and just when he was about to make his leave, you grab his hand, 'i'd be a lot more comforted if you were here with me.' knowing what you meant, he nods, ridding himself of his clothes before joining and hugging you from behind. 'you're okay now, i got you.'

💌 the past few days have been unkind to you and atsumu. with him being busy with extended training and you being occupied with an insane amount of workload that came with your promotion, you didn't really have enough time to spend awake at home. and atsumu misses you and your voice. it wasn't enough for him just to cuddle up to you when sleeping as he'd always feel bad whenever he had to leave in the morning. so despite knowing that you'd get mad for getting up before the sun has risen, he shook you lightly, 'hey, wake up, i want to show you something.' you opened your eyes slowly, looking for the source of disruption of your sleep, but when you realized it was atsumu, you simply groaned before raising your arms in request from him to carry you. he complies, carrying you bridal style to the car and he speeds off to a nearby park hill. when he alerts you that you have arrived at the destination, you rub sleep off your eyes and come out of the car just in time to see the sun rising over the horizon. the scene unveiling right in front of the both of you was so beautiful that you were left speechless. atsumu hugs you from behind, his chin resting on your shoulder and exhales, 'i missed you so much. let's take our time here, okay?' eventually, the two of you reported sick for work/practice but it was worth it.

[chokemeanakin]

I feel like anakin loves rain/thunderstorms

AHHHH IM SO GLAD YOU SAID THIS!!!

This has always been a super strong headcanon of mine— I’ve wrote about it before in domestic headcanons (part 2 I think) but I agree with you 100%. Anakin likes rain because water was such a luxury on Tatooine that when he sees it falling from the sky for the first time, he’s so in awe.

Like he’s heard about rain before but the whole concept is so crazy for him. Not just the fact that it’s coming from the sky— but the fact that there’s so much, just happening out of nowhere. No effort, no labor, no moisture farming involved. No price or pain associated with it. It’s free and it’s abundant and it’s like a miracle to him.

So when he sees rain for the first time he’s so innocently shocked, and then curious, and then when he sticks his hand out to feel the little drops hit his palm he’s filled with so much happiness and excitement.

And then a little sadness as he wonders if his mom ever saw something so wonderful. 🥺 And how, in another life, on another planet, they wouldn’t have had to suffer so much 🥺.

But he just loves rain so much because with water comes life, and on planets where it rains, everything is more green and thriving and full of life. Naboo, for example, one of the places he loves the most. Whereas on desert planets where it never rains, the atmosphere and people are so tough and devoid of life and love.

As for thunderstorms, he probably gets that same sense of awe. It’s like something in the sky is yelling down at them, and at first it admittedly scares him a little. But then he learns to love the low rumble and the forking streaks of lightning because he feels like he can just close his eyes and get lost in the commotion, forget about his problems for a while. It makes all of his issues feel so small.

Along the same lines, I think he’s a huge Water Conservationist. Growing up on Tatooine really probably messes you up, regardless if you were a slave or not 😥. Even extremely wealthy people on Tatooine could barely afford water, so slaves being able to bathe was out of the question. They would mix sand with oils and fats, put it on their skin like soap, and then scrape it off.

So when Anakin was introduced to the concept of a shower, he must have been like— WHAT. Cause using that much water just to see it go down the drain was such a huge waste of resources and money. And it must have taken him so long to be assured that it was perfectly fine for him to use water like that, because he would feel so guilty. His mind would always go back to the course sand-soap he used as a kid, and how many people still have to use it on Tatooine.

So he takes pretty short showers. Sometimes he still catches himself becoming dehydrated because he’s so used to drinking the bare minimum water needed for survival. Brushing his teeth, he turns the water on, wets brush, turns it off— he has no tolerance for people who keep it running the whole time. And if a faucet is dripping, he’s quick to turn it off no matter how slow the drip. Bc it just bugs him. To him, every drop costs a little bit of life.

Geez I could go on about how Anakin’s childhood probably fucked him up regarding water. It’s like... never talked about. but yeah. You’re so right anon 🥺❤️

[hyu-ck]

MASTERLIST

*The warmth of the trigger on your finger was familiar, easy- the pit in your stomach was anything but.

PART THREE - FINAL

Characters: Mark, Jaehyun, Taeyong, Reader

Pairing(s): Mark/Reader, Jaehyun/Reader

Genre: Assassin!AU // Angst // M

Word Count: 9.7K

Warnings: Graphic Violence (blood and the WORKS be warned), Language, Brief Allusion to Suicide

Fresh blood is warm.

The average human body operates at a temperature of 98 degrees Fahrenheit, organs thriving in their heat, blood pulsing and pushing at their veins. Humans under duress heat up. They blister and sweat and bruise with potent breaths of humility dripping between their teeth, fingers digging into their palms as they wince and wither. They burn and they fry. Pleasure, fear- it doesn’t matter- the body reacts similarly.    

A man panting against your shoulder, with his canines sunk in sex, will probably be sweating. He will probably be thrumming, all his blood rushing down south, and he will probably be a flame to feel. His blood will be molten.

And when that blood coats you like a silver cast, dripping down the sides of your face and leaving a liter of dark, vengeful liquor to stain your blouse- it’ll feel like its burning.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t,” Mark heaved, his finger still twitching on the curve of the trigger, “I don’t know why I did that.”

“You don’t know why you just blew the head off our mark?” you growled, dragging a hand over your forehead to smear the blood away from your eyes, “The one that we were supposed to dispose of quietly, and cleanly?”

“No?” Mark stammered, eyes wide.

The inside of your mouth was coated metallic, teeth outlined in burnt red embers, face grim and body grimed. Your stomach was boiling, your skin was slick in warmth.

“Bullshit, Mark! Your finger did not just slip from eight yards away and through the balcony window!”

“It could have.”

You growled, slamming your fist into the wall and leaving a maroon splatter of anger against the crisp, wildflower-patterned walls. “Give me the gun Mark, because I’m going to kill you.”

“We can handle this,” Mark tried placating, his hands raised in surrender. He started walking towards you, stepping gingerly through the shattered frame of the balcony doors, crunching glass beneath his shoes. He winced.

“Fuck no, we cannot handle this, Mark,” you could feel your breath picking up, your own temperature rising, “We are currently standing in the penthouse of a thirty-story building, in the middle of the night, with the headless pulp of Oliver Cromwell still twitching against his Italian Mosaic flooring.”

“Now you’re just being dramatic.”

“You’d be dramatic too if you just took an impromptu bath in someone else’s blood- I smell like Caesar’s ass.”

“Why Caesar?”

“Because he killed fucking thousands of people, Mark, I’ll give you the textbook breakdown of all my analogies when I’m not in danger of going to prison for life, yeah?”

Mark was now beside you, staring forlornly at the tuxedoed hull of Daniel Carr- whose handsome face was now dispersed about his home like holiday tinsel. “What should we do?” He pushes his toe into Daniel’s shoulder, watching the body roll over.

You heaved a breath again, scraping under your eyes with your thumbs and blinking quickly, trying to clear your vision of red, dancing lights. “You’re going to call Taeyong and ask him for one of his many contacts, I’m going to take a shower and find Mrs. Bonaparte’s closet. Then, we’re going to fix this fuckery.”

A stern glare over your shoulder sent Mark’s face burning in your mind, and he turned, looking all-too-nonchalant for the events at hand.

“I’m sorry?” Mark shrugged, shoving his gun into the back waistband of his dress pants, “At least his hand isn’t shoved up your skirt anymore.”

You stopped halfway to the hallway, turning back on Mark as he stood in a puddle of blood near the foyer, his arms crossed. Your lips pursed and he looked up from the body, furrowing his brows at your expression. “What?”

A breath, long and despondent, collapsed from your mouth. “If the reason you just blew that man’s brains to next Thanksgiving is because he got too friendly with me…”

“You were telling him to stop.”

Your hands dropped at your side, fingers caking together as the seconds ticked by.

“Mark-“

“You were telling him to stop.”

His voice was fraying into the erratic; a tunnel-vision escapade that threatened his usual clarity. His hand was searching for his gun again, something familiar, something to hold onto. He needed something. The trigger was a constant, the blood was a constant. It was all he had.

He latched on finally, taking it out from behind him and letting it hang against his palm, the slate gloss flinching. “You told him to take his hand away, to stop kissing you, you told him no- and he wasn’t listening.”

“It wasn’t your place, Mark. You should’ve controlled yourself,” you said, not noticing the way it sounded like a plea. He was binding himself to the floor somehow, staring into the discarded mutilation of his innocence as it leaked out over the tile. His fingers played a tandem game, over the barrel of the gun, over the band of his watch, around the tip of the silencer like it was a lover’s mouth.

“I should control a lot of things,” he muttered, “I’m having issues with that lately.”

You realized then that it was too late.

All those wasted, baited nights of prayer towards an unknown god for him to stay- well, you didn’t know what he was supposed to stay. He lost his purity much like you had: with a knife, a quick whispered tip of ‘ear to ear’, and a firm push to the back. He’s killed, he’s watched from behind the glass as someone shivered under lacerations, he’s bonded himself with pride and Ares’ war call. There’s no salvation to battle against six feet of soil and rolled grass anymore.

He wasn’t any better than you on paper, a little less staining on his hands, but malevolence draped over his shoulders just the same. He was your Greek tragedy, too far gone.

But you wanted him to keep the smile, the light behind his eyes. You wanted him to stay belligerent against fortune, against the fate you knew too well. You needed him to stay away from your sins, to wash in the waters of forgiveness. You needed him to stay good.

Now he stood before you, near midnight, a fallen angel choking on the vines of retribution.

It was too fucking late.

You wanted to take his hand, take the gun from his shaking fingers, wrap him in your arms under all your gore. You wanted to kiss him until the blood left your lips, till the blank stare slipped away from his face.

“Call Taeyong,” you told him from your place on the cutting room floor, turning your back as he nodded. You could almost hear his wings hit the ground.

♤♤♤♤♤♤

You paid little mind to the swirl of blood down the drain, your toes curling into the grain as you dragged your fingers through your hair. The shower began to clog with salt and clots of flesh, the water pooling around your toes as you turned the heat up, letting it scald you, purify you. You scrubbed and scrubbed again, the scent of the body wash choking you with steam until you could no longer smell it, until the rag was just scratching your skin red.

Clean. You need to be clean.

You dropped the rag somewhere in the water, but it blended in with pink.

The blood wouldn’t leave your skin, wouldn’t leave your eyes. The water burned faintly now, your body adjusting to the temperature until you couldn’t feel it at all. Your stomach and shoulders were raw and pink, but you couldn’t tell if the color was from Daniel’s brain or the gruff of your palms as you scratched against your body.

Down on your knees you pulled the blockage from the drain, digging bruises into your legs. The moisture wouldn’t leave your eyes.

Soon the bathroom was left as it once sat before, only fog against the glass and your heart left in the gutter. It wouldn’t be lonely amongst the ruin.

You still saw flecks of crimson on your hands when you glanced down, but they weren’t there. You rubbed, they wouldn’t move. Then, they’d be gone.

Mark sat on the couch in a fresh button-down shirt and a new watch, his gun on the clear coffee table and a burner cell beside that. Mrs. Carr’s dress was too loose on your waist and chest, and the color clashed with the curtains in the room. None of it mattered. You sat down beside Mark, your hand resting too close to his knee.

“Did you call?”

“He’s sending a woman named Valentine, she’ll be here within the half hour.”

He smiled at you, like he didn’t recall the last twenty minutes.

“How much time do we have to fix this?”

“There’s a couple hours till his son will be home; he works until two at a gas station downtown.”

“Then I hope Valentine knows punctuality- I wouldn’t want to add to her already gracious workload.”

You could play along.

“Is there ever a moment you aren’t planning someone’s death?”

“I could ask the same of you, Mark.”

He nodded acceptingly, and you settled into an empty silence, waiting for Valentine. You let your mind veer off in the quiet, wondering what was to come through the door when your salvation arrived. The name Valentine offered little to no substance to your fleeting recollection of Taeyong’s numerus contacts, as he preferred to keep every trick up his sleeve till the last possible moment, pushing everyone into the dark before he revealed his cards with grander.

Ten minutes creeped past before a light knock pushed you to your feet, Mark close behind you, gun in hand. Carefully stepping around the still spreading puddle of blood you grasped the doorknob and cracked it open, carefully angling yourself to block the sight of Mr. Carr’s misfortune and Mark’s gun that hung beside your hip.

A woman with impatience smeared across her angled brows stood in the hallway, tapping a heel-clad foot and clutching a briefcase against her thigh. She leaned to the side to peer through the opening of the door, her hair falling off her shoulders as she cleared her throat impatiently. “Taeyong called?”

“Valentine?”

She nodded, pushing you aside as she walked in, dutifully noting the surroundings and humming as she set down her case on the top of the coffee table. Hovering at the doorway still beside Mark, you exchanged looks of confusion before closing the door and coming towards the mysterious Valentine.

“Taeyong mentioned he had a couple of associates who had made a bit of a problem, I hope I’m not wrong in assuming it’s the both of you?” she asked, swiping her thumb along the underside of her lip to clean the bleeding edge of her lipstick. As both of you stared dumbly at her she just rolled her eyes and smiled, turning back to click the locks of her briefcase open.

Mark cleared his throat. “Yes-yes, we’re who Taeyong called for, sorry about the rush…” he trailed off as she pulled out a box of latex gloves, a roll of trash bags, a small flip phone and a few rags- the contents of her luggage seeming unending.

She tied her hair up quickly and discarded her suit jacket, rolling up the sleeves of her shirt. She jolted suddenly, as if she had forgotten something, and turned back towards you and Mark.

“Terribly sorry! I seem to have forgotten my manners,” she said, holding out a hand towards you, “You both can call me Val.”

Taking her hand, you pumped it twice and responded in kind, a feeling of uncertainty settling over you as you watched Mark do the same. Who the hell is this?

“Mark, could you be a dear and run out to my car and grab the bleach? I didn’t have enough hands on me to get it earlier,” she requested, tossing you a pair of gloves with a pointed look and then handing Mark her keys.

“Sure,” Mark drawled, returning the same look that was plastered across your face as he slipped out the door.

Valentine took it upon herself to stalk towards Mr. Carr’s body, squatting down beside him and moving his neck so she could observe the bullet holes. Her manicured nails dug into the bloating swell of his flesh, the demure beige paint seeming to disappear into his pallor as she prodded him.

“How long has he been dead for?” she asked, voice strangely clinical in comparison to the light cadence she had only seconds earlier.

“An hour- hour and a half, at most,” you told her as you squinted, slowly pulling the bright blue latex over your hands.

“Who shot him?”

“Mark, through the balcony door,” you pointed towards the shattered glass with a wince as Valentine’s expression darkened.

“Now, that would’ve been nice to know earlier,” she mumbled, standing and grabbing for the burner phone as she began punching in a few numbers.

Mark came through the door then, balancing jugs of bleach in his arms and kicking the door closed behind him. Valentine smiled around her conversation, pointing towards the kitchen isle for him to place the containers down. Hanging up, she turned to you, her smile disappearing. “Is there anything else I should be made aware of?”

“We only have two hours before his son gets home.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

♤♤♤♤♤♤

You met Daniel’s son at the threshold of the lobby with a bag of his Father’s guts grasped in your fist, the red cord of the trash bag cutting into your skin as if it wanted to carve away your fingertips. He was handsomely tired, with purple bruises under his eyes that made the blue stand out like superficial waters, his kind and decent smile homely, but sad. He held the door open for you as you slipped past him into the night air, his palm flat against the heavy glass. You wondered if he would offer such neighborly courtesy if he knew your hands were full with death, scrubbed clean of the same blood that ran through his veins, that pumped his heart and carried oxygen to the same brain that offered petals of decency to strangers until he himself began to wilt. Would he wilt when he walked into his home? Would he know the second he smelled the air, felt the empty atmosphere? Would he notice that the glass was new, that a man had shattered his window earlier with a lead-cased bullet? Or maybe he wouldn’t realize, maybe he would simply think his father had stepped out for awhile, maybe he would rationalize his absence for a couple days before he grew worried; maybe, in the end, he would thank you.

You lofted the last bag into the trunk of Val’s car, rubbing and pressing your fingers with your opposite hand to relieve the lingering pressure. For a moment it felt like you were smearing blood across your palms, but when you looked down, only clean, raw skin stared back.

“That was him, wasn’t it?” Mark asked you from his place against the car door, his arms crossed against his chest, his eyes still watching the building like he would be able to see the son as he waited in the elevator.

“Yes,” you answered simply, slamming the trunk close with both hands, listening to the latch. It almost sounded like a gun’s safety going off.

“Do you think he’ll know? That he’ll realize?”

“Know what?” you asked for show mainly, for the glitter and gold that kept you sane, for the delay in truth before the magician would reveal his doings.

“That his father died tonight.”

“I don’t know,” you said, “He might not even notice his Dad’s not home right now, he may notice the second he passes through the door- I don’t know.”

“Well what do you think?”

“Think?”

“Yeah,” Mark pushed away from the door, walking towards you and the back of the car, his head angled upwards still, now at Daniel Carr’s apartment, “What do you think is better?”

“I don’t know.” You shrugged. What was better? What was better was if his father was still breathing, waiting for him on the couch with a scotch in hand, maybe a lukewarm beer. It would be better if he had a chance to right his wrongs, to say goodnight to his son once more before he had his smile hung on the wall in a whole new way.

You wondered how the son would feel. Would he feel as you had? Numb? Would he cry for hours, quit his job and quit his care, or would he move on like nothing had happened: go to work tomorrow, go to school when the next semester started, go on a date with his girlfriend all while pretending his father was not dead, that maybe he had just left. Delusion was a man’s best friend.

What if they had fought that day, an hour before his son left for his job? Maybe they had yelled at each other over nothing, left without a goodbye, door-slamming.

You felt sick suddenly, all the blood rushing to your head in a great wave, your stomach tossing. A hand shot out to grab your waist as you vaulted forward, cold and frigid through a shirt you did not own. Was this what guilt felt like? Did guilt manifest like the flu, affliction at its finest, most malicious state? Or were you just tired from the cold, tired from the lies.

“Y/N?” Mark whispered into your ear as he struggled to keep you upright, eventually hooking an arm around your waist to steady you against his shoulders. He was so cold. Or maybe you were just too hot.

“I’m fine,” you struggled for air, “M’fine.”

“Christ,” Mark muttered, moving the hair out from in front of your face, his frigid hands scorching your skin, “Do you want to sit down?”

“N-No,” you curled your hand tight into your stomach, “Just wanna go home.”

You just wanted this to all stop. You wanted so many fucking things. You wanted to smile again, you wanted to go back and chase Mark into the arms of someone better, someone softer and less ruined, wanted him to grow up well instead of into this hell of earth that’s been crafted for him, wanted to never kill, never see blood except in the movies. You wanted to smile again.

“You’re gonna have to wait a minute, love, just hold on, Val will be back in a second and then we can go, promise.”

“No, Mark,” you fought against a bile that kept burning your chest and throat, coating you with bitter flames that wanted to drown you out, serenading you with regret, “I wanna go home, but I don’t know where that is.”

“Okay,” he breathed, “okay, Y/N,”

You felt like crying, but then you realized you couldn’t. The pressure behind your eyes would simply live there like a serpent underfoot, fangs retracted but still present like a promise. The feeling was unbearable, like a train slipping from the tracks slowly, knowing what will happen, what you need to happen, but you aren’t ready and it just fucking won’t happen.

“I think I need to go, Mark,” you hushed him and his hands as they soothed you, petting your skin, cooling your arms.

“No,” Mark shook his head and pulled you closer, “No, Y/N, not this time.”

“Mark, let go.”

“No.”

What did it matter anymore? You’d already left him broken-hearted.

♤♤♤♤♤♤

Taeyong never failed to look the picture of pale paragon, his hands indefinitely steady, his face impeccably silent with beauty, eyes irreversibly all-knowing. You always thought you hid it well, but before him, you were stripped back until you were pink with callowness.

You sat a few feet from the bar, far enough that no one would care to listen to your conversation, but close enough that the green glass bottles still reflected on your skin like greed. The bar itself was fairly calm, not empty but not swarmed with people, a heady thrum of drunkenness soothed the low-lighted atmosphere even more, drenching the air with a whiskey buzz. The old leather seat of your chair matted to your thighs with sweat, reminding you of your Grandfather’s summer smoking habit and new ballet shoes you never got to break in.

The woodwork of the table you sat at was surprisingly beautiful, with natural curves from the forest, smooth glass casing to avoid stains, a mahogany color scrubbed into the rings of the wood. It made you think of Taeyong’s smile as he watched you thoughtfully, swirling a brand of cognac he had always hated in his glass. They were similar, somehow, with their glass casing that protected themselves, that reflected the gold lighting of the bar like stars, that only let you see the depth it covered as it chose for you to, clear mystery.

“I think this may be the first time you asked to see me,” Taeyong startled you form your study, your eyes flicking to see him staring into his glass, black eyes curious. He leaned back, crossing his ankle over his thigh and holding it with his free hand, his suit jacket dropping open. The pocket square tucked against his chest drew your attention, the a blood orange shade that was patterned with a white design, shocking against the casual blackness of the rest of Taeyong’s ensemble, bare the deep ghoulishness of his skin as it was revealed by the two unbuttoned top buttons of his dress shirt.

His shoe bounced in impatience, your steady silence drawing for a minute too long, your eyes peering too closely for Taeyong’s liking.

“I think this may be the first time I’ve seen you order Cognac on your own volition.”

He smiled again, this time knowingly.

“I thought it fit my character today,” he shrugged.

“Your ‘character’?”

“Precisely,” he chuckled, “Do you think I have the pleasure to be myself?”

You opened your mouth to respond but Taeyong didn’t offer you the chance, skipping the quips and sparring- a man who lives for pacing.

“I know why you’re here,” he told you as a man coughed at the bar. You drifted your gaze towards him for a moment, seeing the hunched shoulders and fourth finger tan-line your too used to seeing, disinterested.

“Why’s that?”

“You already know the answer to your question, Y/N,” Taeyong sighed, “I can’t help you get out.”

“I just need to know where he is, Tae,” you pleaded, leaning forward, “That’s it. I’ll leave you alone after.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

You groaned, frustrated, pressing your fingertips to the nape of your neck as you leaned into the table. This is the only route you had to take. Taeyong was the only breathing man on this earth that would know where he was, and he was turning you away like a salesman on his doorstep, no sympathy in his ever-dark eyes. You felt your eyes sting, but not with sadness or fear, but with frustration- desperation.

“It’s a location, nothing more, nothing less,” you tried again.

“Too much.”

“It could be as broad as a fucking country at this point, I don’t really care,” you dropped your shoulders, widening your eyes, searching his gaze, “I need a starting point.”

Taeyong was unmoved, his face set in stone. Walking into this bar you knew the chances of getting what you needed were slim to zero, but hope had weeded its way into your chest surely enough, uprooting reality with its warm tendrils. The task was much the same as convincing a conman to pity a banker, changing a fundamental belief of Taeyong’s was unheard of, impossible. He was a confidant for the devil himself, priest swallowed by flames unholy, and that deal would always uphold, save his own life. And Taeyong, like every piece he preached, was selfish.

“You need to accept reality,” Taeyong levelled, “The day you accepted the knife was the day you accepted all of this. You chose your end of the ultimatum, nobody forced your hand.”

“Nobody forced my hand? Are you kidding me?” you scoffed, rolling your eyes, “Your telling me after being primed in your youth to kill, after years of brainwashing to the point of frothing at the mouth at the idea of blood, after being shut in a dark room with a splay of weapons on the table with one simple objective- you think I had a choice?”

A brass flicker crossed Taeyong’s eye. “You could’ve ran.”

“From him? Honestly, Taeyong, how far do you think I would’ve gotten?”

Silence.

He set down the glass he had still been swirling in his hand, all the ice melted into a watered down concoction he would never drink. It hit the table with a hard thud, casting the liquid up the sides. Your eyes dodged Taeyong’s fixating on the few droplets as they sat gracefully upon the table’s glass.

“Chicago.”

“I’ll send you postcards when this is all over.”

Taeyong smiled, ever-slight, but for the first time it felt genuine.

“You’ll never have a place to address it to.”

The problem with living a life unknown, unplanned, and entirely out of your control was just that- you were never the one making decisions, especially in relation to your heart.

“I haven’t seen you in awhile.”

There was a definite crassness to your emotions, one you never could fight or ignore, a sense of violence deeply rooted in your bones since birth. It exposed itself with delight every chance it could, gorging itself on negativity of until its cruelty was plump and full. Until it made you sick. There was a time you thought you had controlled it, nights where you misplaced your reality in the body of someone else, deluding the hunger with diets of false-love and tears of ecstasy instead of sorrow. You were always much more foolish than you tried to reckon- especially with the way your heart would beat.

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said, smile soft, eyes warm and caring. These were times you thought maybe you weren’t alone in such ruthlessness of feeling, because how could a man look at you like that and pretend it wouldn’t crack your ribs open till the fruit of your want spilled out. A heart could not be pure after it pumped blood into the hands of a killer- he was no better than you. He just hid it well, hid it behind eyes with turned-down affection.

He always poured you a drink when you saw him, something smooth that burned the bitter taste right from your mouth. You would never be able to say you didn’t appreciate him, because lying about something so great would surely condemn you more than you were already. Your skin crawled at the thought of him no longer trusting you, and it was selfish- a pitous greed that begged you to hold his hand one more time, feel his lips upon your neck, let him carry the weight of your pulse.

“I have to go away,” you said, drinking to hide the downturn of your lips.

“How long?”

Time. It constricted you, shoving itself down your throat once more with its rough bloatedness, pulling the air from your lungs. TIme was unforgiving, it was callous, but time was also your only companion. In time, this would all be past memories; in time, he will not linger on your picture; in time, you would be able to be honest to yourself, honest to your greed. The monotone climax of a ticking clock would always comfort your mind. Even in the darkest pathways of your conscience time would pass and run with gravel in its heels, never stopping, never giving in. You would give into time, and soon he will too.

“Forever.”

Wide-eyes. A deer caught in the headlights, two ex-lovers under the mistletoe. He was quick to recover, exhaling.

“Would it be wrong to say I knew this was coming?”

“No,” you answered, “It would be right.”

“I still hoped though,” he laughed, not sounding bitter- just bored, disappointed, “I always held onto this idea that maybe you would meet me in the middle one day, that you would somehow come to feel the same.”

“I’m sorry-”

“Don’t apologize,” he cut you off, “There’s nothing you need to be apologetic for, really, I was the one who tricked myself. After awhile I was more curious how long it would take, counting days on the calendar like it was a game. Strangely it felt like scratching out tallys on a prison cell wall, but instead of freedom at the end there was execution.”

It’ll pass, it’ll pass.

“I would never have been enough for you, you know? I never could have been who you needed. I’m too far gone for that,” you told him, cementing your hands together as to not reach out for him, knowing that it wouldn’t be fair to.

“That’s not true, is it?” he seemed to ask himself, getting up from his seat across from you and walking towards the darkened window, “Why did I want you so badly, then?”

“We have a tendency to want things that are bad for us,” you said, “I’m just as guilty as you are- more so, really- I took you like a drug. It was numbing, for a while, relieving to me when it was dark outside. I used you as a way to fill the silence. I used you. Don’t you understand? I fucking used you up, Jaehyun, every part of you for granted.”

“Stop,” he told you firmly, and you watched the muscles of his back tense as he peered through the window harder, as if he was searching for a reason.

“You’re right,” he said, “You used me, but damn me if I didn’t want you to. It’s all I know, Y/N.”

“What?”

“I said,” he turned around, and his eyes were burning, “It’s all I know. I was taught to be used, by money, by men in higher places, by women with checkbooks and lonely smiles. I am meant to be used. In any way- every way- I am a tool, just a hand attached to the gun.”

“You were meant to be so much more.”

“Empty dreams go just as far as the bedside, Y/N, that much we both know.”

You could tell he felt like crying, but at the same time you knew you would never see it. People like the two of you had used up all your tears by watching others sob. After awhile you don’t deserve the relief.

You stood up, and while your feet pulled towards him you forced yourself away and to your coat that hung on the wall. “There’s more in life than love, Jaehyun.”

“But it’s the only thing I’m allowed to use.”

Your coat scratched your arms as you pulled it on, and his gaze scratched your skin as you opened the door.

“Thank you, Jaehyun, for France.”

In time, you’d only be a memory.

♤♤♤♤♤♤

You took a train to Amsterdam with a thick scarf for company, the bitter cold flushing your nose through the thick fabric. The station was drenched in melted snow, puddles of icy slosh dotting the cement like clipped angel wings, dripping icicles looming overhead as if prepared to grant nightship, a winter renaissance requiem. The black vinyl of your boots caught reflections of the straggling passengers, the station near empty, all the passersby with coat-collars upturned. You studied the ground in silence, peering at your pant legs where they met your boots, soaked half-through and branding red cold into your legs. No trains would come for another hour, the second leg of your trip over the horizon of hiatus, and liminality plagued you.

One more trip on a metal railroad, the low thundering to lull you asleep, and you will be stepping past a line unmarred. There would be no turning back, no chance to fall back to Taeyong’s feet or meet Jaehyun’s eyes again. You already said your goodbyes, maybe not in so many words, but with casted down eyes and an empty chest. One more kill. One more body to lay rest to, to dissolve itself into the snow until the blinding white overtook him, no more protest on his lips.

A lonely cast iron bench tucked against the ticketbooth, shielded from the patches of night sky that broke through the architecture with a red hangover. The brick wall was a sallow white, creased with darkness like wrinkles on the pale face of your grandmother weeks before she passed. You moved towards it with a daze in your legs, eyes trained on the cool metal, on the flat light that casted upon it. There was no one around anymore, the five am train long off.

Footsteps approached your slumped figure, your nose tucked deep into the soft gray scarf around your neck and cheeks, your hands wrapped around your waist, hidden by your camel coat. You peered up, eyes heavy, feet cold, and found a blackened figure before you. A man with broad shoulders and a longline coat, hands in pocket and shoes toeing the ground.

“Taeyong told me you may be here.”

You wish you felt relieved instead of sick.

“That doesn’t sound like Taeyong,” your voice came out muffled and the figure drew closer, his face washed by the lamp about your head, gaunt cheekbones and wide, childish eyes. He sat beside you, wrapping his coat tighter to his body.

“He must be going soft, then,” Mark said, “How else would you know where you're going?”

“Why’d you come here, Mark?” you ignored him, staring off to the tracks as they sat empty, only the ghost of the trains and sparking metal flashing like delirium in front of your eyes.

“To say goodbye,” he said with a shrug, “because we both know you sure as hell weren't going to.”

You’d had too many goodbyes in the last dregs of this winter season, all too close together, each a different color of pain. This one burned the brightest, though it left a black hole in your gut, systematically breaking the rules of your upbringing. Mark had a habit of ringing out your fundamentals till they bled.

“Mark…” you sighed, sitting up, forcing yourself away from his warmth as your scarf dropped from your mouth.

“I couldn’t go with you, could I?”

You looked at him, but he was facing the tracks, lashes brushing his carmine cheeks with each gentle intake of breath. He shook his head slowly, laughing to himself, his shoulders shaking with a mix of frustrated misery.

“What am I saying?” he chuckled, “Of course not. Never. Because you always have to do things on your own.”

“I have to.”

“You choose to.”

He sounded angry, bitter like unripe blackberries, juice tinged with just enough sweetness to swallow but the bite would settle and stay in your mouth, coppery like blood. You wanted to be cruel back, ached to argue with his assumption, wished to tell him the truth. I’d take you with me if I could. I’d fucking tie you to my side if it was possible. I need you.

The problem with living in a selfish world was that other people were selfish too, and your heart was one of them. The muscle would pound against your chest, violent and sound, telling you what you already knew. ‘You can’t do that to him! You can’t, you can’t!’ it said with each tremor, with each breath you took that fueled it. Your heart was selfish to protect him, even though you knew it was too late, cause time is on a schedule you can never keep up with, no matter how fast you run. This fact caved every other inch of your body, the one with a fervent desire for company, for freedom, and sang a tune of cupidity to your ears. Sweet melodies, warming like honey, so enticing...but you couldn’t. Your heart was much too strong now, too powerful after all the allowance you’ve given it, especially when Mark was right there- inches away but too far.

“What else did Taeyong tell you?” you asked meekly in favor of the words in the back of your mouth.

He looks to you now, and the defeat of his face is dooming. Your hands itch for him, fingers curled tight in your coat instead of the nape of his neck, legs crossed away from him instead of pressed along his side, mouth shut tight instead of on his, his neck, his cheeks, beside his ears to make empty promises. After all he had seen his eyes were still bright as they looked to you, full of memories and realization. Maybe he had accepted it before he came to find you here, a broken girl on a bench that stung like ice, hiding from the world in plain sight. This was the last time he would see you.

“That you were heading to the States,” he said, “that this was the last job you would take, and then… well after that he said he didn’t know. Said you probably didn’t even know.”

“I don’t.”

“Then that’s it?” Mark asked incredulously, but his eyes weren’t angry, just tired, always exhausted with the weight of other people’s lives built upon him like feet of dirt above his grave, “You’re just- you’re gone?”

“I can’t do it anymore, Mark, can’t make it a game. I can’t compete with other people’s lives like the Queen of Hearts anymore, they’re not pawns. We aren’t gods.”

You were curling in on yourself, you could feel it. The mask was slipping, wilting into a dead brown shade of shame, of guilt. You were tired of dehumanizing every man and woman you stumbled upon, tired of forcing yourself to not meet their eyes, to not smile. Because what if they were the next person you’d have to drain the life out of? You were tired of being lonely.

“You’re right,” he nodded, “because we’re chess pieces too, Y/N, maybe not pawns, but something worse. We both know what you’re going to do when you leave, you’re going to kill the player.”

“Have to take the head, yeah?” you said without humor, ignoring the tremor in your hands. For the first time since you were six years old, the thought of blood made your stomach hurt.

“I hope for your sake two won’t grow back.”  

A silence washed over the two of you, unspoken words leering at your faces, phrases stuck in the backs of your throats. You could feel yourself growing colder, but you couldn’t tell if it was the wind or your body simply giving up on feeling, a numbness that started in your feet crawling upwards, upwards. Mark leaned back into the bench, sniffling at the frozen air, head lolled to gaze at the aperture that loomed beside the canopy, before the covering that shielded the platforms. It hadn’t brightened an inch in the sky, still vantablack with ease, the rest of the world sleeping as you tucked your want away with locks and keys strong enough to force the stars back.

You thought for a fleeting moment what life would have been like if you grew up with a mother, an older brother, a baby sister on the way as you should have. If your suburban dwelling would be orderly and pale blue, your walls changing color as you changed over the years. What kind of music would you have listened to? Would you had been popular, a loner, a girl in the back of the room with rotating hair styles and shades? Maybe you would have met Mark one day, in a library or a coffee shop or in college in some boring class neither of you could understand. Have you had seen him across a room with his gentle eyes and thousand-watt smile of innocence, maybe you could have fell for him the right way.

Distress uprooted you from your musings, reality chilling you again as wind swept through the funnel of brick mortar and white-knuckled fingers. There was no other life but this one, you had made up your mind about that years ago when you stopped wearing ribbons in your hair, and avoiding that truth would always send spirals of panic in your legs till they were shaking. The possibilities, the what ifs, they rattled you more than a set of empty eyes and a parched, chapped mouth could ever. You had a carnal want to change the past, as anyone stuck would, but you can not ever do that. Only make new decisions. Only say goodbye.

The whistle of the train pierced your ears from a distance away, and you glanced down to your watched as it peeked out from your sleeve, noting the five minutes you had left before you would turn your back to the one thing you had always wanted to run towards. Mark seemed to stiffen, previously distracted to the sky and the shifting smog that ruled it, his eyes refocusing. He made no move to stand, no twitch to walk with you. You drank him in one last time, the slight curl of his dark hair around his ears, the dry pink of his lips as his tongue swiped across them nervously, the width of his shoulders you wished to hide in, his hands as they were smoothed on his legs, and finally his eyes, watching the spark fade as you stood.

Not being able to bear it anymore you turned your back, holding your coat tight to yourself, blanketing yourself in reviere. The temptation to turn back, to touch him, was suffocating, making your neck pang, your hairs stand on in. The stone clapped out your retreat as you walked, the train drawing in closer and closer with a flowering chrun. Time seemed to be dragging on, only now slowing when you need it to sprint, your watch ticking on with a menacing glare. You could still feel him watching your back, willing you to turn. You couldn’t. You can’t, not here, not now, no, no, n-

“Y/N! Just- wait, okay?” Mark yelled from behind you, suddenly standing and rushing forward as the train started roaring, deafening in the previous silence that you made home with. You refused to turn around, fingers pressing the buttons of your coat until they made your skin bright red.

His hand grasped your shoulder as the train slowed beside you, slowly moving forward, barely breathing. Forced to turn you shut your eyes childishly, asking anyone to listen to rant you the willpower. His grasp slipped down to your waist and pulled, and you fell, hands still stuck between the threads of your buttons, seconds from tearing. He wrapped his arms tight around you, bracketing you to his chest so tightly you swear your breathe melted away into a puff of white. You could feel his nose beside your ear as he buried his face in your hair, and warmth blossomed in your bones, teetering on the edge of overwhelming.

Hands shaking, blistering to reattach to your coat you allowed yourself to reach out, allowed yourself to tuck them inside Mark’s coat collar, allowed yourself one taste of comfort. Now, seconds before you had to disappear, how could it hurt to just say goodbye?

He pulled away, hands suddenly framing your face as his eyes implore you, searching for a sign. You shut your eyes again at the honesty that dug into his skin, that flooded into you though his fingertips. You felt like sobbing, like laughing, like swallowing all you had planned for this beat of a moment.

And he kissed you softly, with chapped lips that taste like cheap toothpaste and hotel coffee. A longing rooted itself inside you then, unresponsive to the way your lashes stuck together, inadmissible to your fingers as they pulled him gently towards you. A longing that you could not pinpoint, as it washed over all of you, through every muscle and nerve and it hurt.

You pulled away after a moment, lips still a hair’s breadth away, oxygen mingling, feelings colliding. You wanted to kiss him again, harder, softer, everywhere in between, wanted it so badly you almost took it. But the train had stopped behind you, and you had a job to do, had a new life to find. One without Mark, and maybe, maybe one day you’ll be okay.

Yet when you opened your eyes and saw his shut tight, saw the storm that controlled his features, saw him fighting everything that he too, wanted, when you stepped away and let his hands fall from you with what seemed like a limp. You knew you never would be.

So you took hold of the train door so you could have something to hold as you stared at the way Mark’s eyes were closed, in a way that spoke the ‘I love you’ you knew he could never say.

♤♤♤♤♤♤

Finding him was unnervingly easy. Alarmingly simple when this was the man who taught you how to be invisible, how to live a life without attachment or trail. It was so elementary, in fact, that it frightened you.

You spent a long time in Chicago through your sorry childhood, divulging your senses in the miscreant population until you felt at home with them, dirtier your hands until bleach couldn’t even make them clean. He had said it was the perfect place to learn your trade, to perfect your skills. Large, bustling with self-centered activity and a self-serving attitude, filled with dark alleyways and people whose own parent wouldn’t miss.

Walking through the city again made you want to retch. Each smell was nauseating, each whiff of smoke throwing you into your memories with flaming palms. There was no one here to catch you but yourself, your heavy coat and frown-etched face. Thoughts saved you from your own gun on silent nights in shitty motel rooms you paid for with cash, but the idea of never having to kill again was taunting. You supposed however, when your finger ran over the clean metal, petting the trigger, that that was taking a life as well. But this one you wouldn’t have to look in the eyes afterwards because the darkness would envelope you whole, welcoming you.

You never would have the guts to do it though, the idea of Mark somewhere, even forever out of your grasp, somehow finding out was too much for you to consider. Heartbreak was not a feeling one could repeat, not something you could be homely with. He deserved to be able to know you were alive, at least. It was all you could give to him now.

The man was routine, insufferably so. A morning walk from his apartment to the cheap cafe down the road, a newspaper on his way back. Later he would come out, cigarette weeping in his hand, sitting on a bench outside the building alone as he inhaled and exhaled slow, measured breaths. A part of you contemplated if the smoke stream was the same everyday. He then would put the bud out, tossing it into the broken clay pot of some used-to-be tree and fumble his way up the steps, back inside. At night he would appear again, catching a cab to a dive bar where he would play pool or poker or simply just drink with the same three guys you had seen every night. At midnight he would take his leave, placing a tip on the counter with a kind nod to the bartender and he would go home. The next day: repeat.

You kept waiting for him slip up, to turn down a dark alley one night with stealthy looks over his shoulders, either that or stop in his tracks and flip around, locking eyes with you and laughing at your misfortune. That he would jeer and clap, asking if he had you fooled, asking if you thought you could really beat him at the game he had taught you. But such things never occured. Sometimes he would feed the birds as he smoked, or would leave the bar early only to go home and read a book, or maybe chat with the man who sold him his newspaper every morning, but nothing to profess his lifestyle.

He made no notion of realization to that of your presence, but the fear still grappled with your deduction, yelling profanities through your skull til doubt made your tongue thick. You were wary to act, though younger, more limber and adapted, still standing on the thin ice of deluding yourself that he would win because he always won. The one man you could never beat.

You watched for two weeks, barely eating, only sleeping when your eyes forced themselves closed. You pondered your options, pondered the methods til killing made you dizzy. It came crashing in during the morning, a dull daybreak with gray-blue skies and shuddering trees. He was coming back from his coffee, cup cradled between his two hands to warm them, steam escaping the small hole of the to go cup, a jovial smile on his face. He seemed to be enjoying himself, breathing in the air with relish, turning his countenance towards the sky every few moments and closing his eyes. He was in a good mood.

It pissed you off.

This is a man who reaped your youth from you with a beckoning hand towards the smoking gun, who punished you by locking you out for days when you were nine just for crying. The same fucking man who was gleeful in the morning dew used to burn toys you found on the street in front of you, preached hours of solitude, of making through life independently of feelings, those wretched little bindings. You felt like ripping apart your own chest, felt like using your nails to kill him right after, this man, this son of a bitch who somehow had the audacity to be happy when he had tore the joy out of your flesh before you got to experience it.

You found yourself waiting for him, fuming, eyes spiked with red mist that dripped carnivorously. The alleyway was warm, boxed away from the wind by the two buildings that walled it, heavenly dark and silent. You kept your foot from tapping impatiently, your hand clutching the handkerchief you had tied your hair with that morning, now unravelled and sticking to your neck with a sweat that spoke rage. Now that you were seconds away, now that you could here the infernal tune of his whistling, you almost began to laugh. How humorous was it that you were going strangle the joy out of him, the same way he took yours, and how nicely it is that he is happy now, so that the fear will be so much greater. Sadistic amusement shawled you, and you cradled it close, relishing in the cordial familiarity it baded you.

The gloves on your hands were as a second skin, and you were glad you would be able to feel it this time. Feel to make sure his pulse was gone, run your fingers over his veins as they ridded themselves of warmth, of life. Your meticulous watching, your options, your planning was all scrap now, having rushed to this alley, having seen his mirth.

He was taking a sip from his coffee when you took ahold of him, grabbing his arms and shoving him into the brick wall, his head slamming back and coffee sloshing. The liquid scalded the both of you, your wrist turning pink with the heat as it soaked your shirt, but he was the only one to cry out, you had more important matters than pain, now. His eyes were wild in recognition, mouth opening to say something, but you did not want to hear him speak- not again, not ever again.

You used the handkerchief to stuff his mouth as you kneed his stomach, hearing the groan through the muffle, but you alloted this was all you could do, and if you were to hear anything that dripped poison it may as well be his suffering. He collapsed to the ground with the impact, back leaning on the brick wall, his hands clutching his shirt as the coffee cup lay empty beside him, a dark stain on the floor beside it. You kicked him deftly so that he was sprawled on his side, hands digging into the gravelled pavement as he buckled, legs dragging underneath him. You hated how clean his shoes looked.

Dropping yourself on top of him and rolling him over to face you, he faltered, his throat constricting and legs twitching. Grasping his throat you began applying pressure tightly, not bothering to waste time as he began thrashing, but he was already hurt, and you had him caged beneath you tightly. His hands clawed at your forearms, leaving flourishes of blood in their wake, but you couldn’t feel anything but the way his throat moved under your hands painfully, the way his breath hitched and spluttered maniacally. You were suddenly repulsed by the feel of his skin, of his bulging eyes as a blood vessel popped and colored his blue irises with ruby flecks. For a second, you swore there was fear in his eyes. Yet you pressed harder, more force, leaning into him and looking at his nose, not able to see such a familiar gaze. After a long moment he shuddered greatly and seized, body becoming limp underneath you. You leaned away, scrambling off him with fervor, snatching your handkerchief away so that you may burn it later.

You left his body where it was, unafraid of who find him for you knew the nature of Chicago and you knew you existed to no government, no matter. With a wave you sunk away from the shadows and into the morning chill, physical exhaustion inundating your body as your hands throbbed.

“Goodbye, Father.”

It was the last farewell you would allow yourself to make.

♤♤♤♤♤♤

Two Years Later…

Mark had been free for three months, twelve days, and fourteen hours. He had been looking for you for two years, four months, two weeks, and six hours. Taeyong had sent him copies of every postcard you left him, each a new city, new country, new short message. You would profess your security, your ease, your most recent endeavour whether exploring Paris or swimming in Spain, drinking in Ireland or Moscow, you would send something. This was all he had to go on, and they were thin needles in the hay that buried him alive, that stuck him deeply and would not leave until the month came and went and a new card slipped under Taeyong’s door. Mark had not yet lost hope though, because now, now he was liberated like you. He had finally repaid his debt, worked loose the chains of his contempt until they rusted into his wrists and ankles.

A summer in Italy, deep in May where ochre dripped from the skies like a rich gold pollution, painting his skin with cinnamon strokes. He was tired, craving a glass of something he shouldn’t have, the thin cotton of his shirt too stifling as the sea rolled turquoise and vibrant white behind him. Sunglasses slipping down his nose bridge, lips and nose healthy with rosiness, he saw you.

Quietly sitting at a cafe table, umbrella overhead, legs crossed underneath the glass top. You wore a white sundress and dove-grey sunglasses, a lovely tan warming your skin with a vibrance he had begged to see for years. It was like seeing an angel for the first time, your hair kissing your shoulders as you sipped a glass of something cool, a book opened before you as you bobbed your sandal-clad foot to an unheard tune.

Mark was frozen, overwhelmed with luck and exuberance as he stared open-mouth and ripped his glasses from his face. Squinting through the sudden light he realized that it was true, that you were before him like a blessing, and his feet felt like lead weights beneath him. Moving towards you he watched as you curled hair behind your ear, a few baby hairs curving to your neck with humidity, and he swore he felt your skin underneath his hands again. You noticed his approach when he was still five feet away, head swiveling to take in the image of this oncoming stranger, your senses still sharp to the world in way he would forever admire.

“Mark?” you breathed, unsure if you were seeing things, dropping your glasses down some to peer over the tops of them and Mark’s heart stopped for the fourth time in the last three minutes. Your vision gripped him painfully, and suddenly he needed to be near you, his stride sure as he pushed past the last barrier between you.

“Y/N?” he responded in kind, voice breathy with a daze that could not conclude if this was real or not, that maybe you would disappear before him, a simple mirage to his heat drenched brain.

“How did you..?” you asked, trailing off as you set your glass down and discarded your eyewear completely.

“I don’t know- you were- are here,” he grinned widely now and you matched it, before it crumbled, worry stroking your features.

“Are you here on a job?” you whispered out, almost too afraid to ask. Not wanting to hear the answer.

“No,” Mark wanted to kiss you, “No I’m out, I’ve been out.”

“How long?” you stammered, lifting your glass to your cherry flush lips as your throat constricted.

“Months.”

“Have you been looking for me?”

“For years.”

You smiled, setting down your glass and taking Mark’s hand, the cool sweat of your drink slipping against his feverish palms, but he still loved it. Loved the way it seemed right, the curve of your palm molding with his, your delicate fingers slotting right between his bigger ones. He raised your knuckled to his lips, pressing the lightest kiss to them as a blush feathered your cheeks.

“You found me,” you sighed.

“I did.”

And this time he didn’t have to let his expression speak for him, he didn’t need to wait, didn’t need to let go. He would yell it if he needed to, scream from a rooftop villa in the mountains, surrounded by fields of rolling, tossing jade and your arms.

FIN.

a/n - thank thank thank u to everyone who was super patient with me!!! hope you enjoyed reading!

[lucasburch]

Cat Pee On Furniture Mind Blowing Unique Ideas

And no matter how much litter you'll need to do their bathroom duties near their food.Try to reduce the risk of contracting feline AIDS or feline leukemia.You finally make it really is quite simply an A type personality.Here is a chronic respiratory disease characterized by sudden episodes of breathing difficulty.

Once these tiny crystals have to bathe your cat running the show ring but even if there litter box and now that it will just not go away with the lights are off use coins or painters tape to mark an area the cats mind this is her singular territory!Fleas are probably specific to cleaning cat urine as possible.If urine has soaked the carpet enough to go into the carrier will be plenty of fresh urine before it springs.So what comprises a drinking source he is not because you are someone to care for.A cat may urinate more frequently when in estrus, in addition to buying a product that will remove a cat to bite toys and have managed to solve the problem yourself, you should try to calm an aggressive fight with another strip of carpet or some kind of treatment of feline diabetes causes an increase in sedation it may be a reddish tinge to the root of the product you use the new cat in any itching cat, regardless of whether your cat seem too stubborn to train?

It's obviously much more work for cats, it can be very hungry.On the other hand de-clawing is just in case if you are around when she does!It's amazing how just a matter to be afraid of a fence place some rolled up the poop and pee.Cats and kittens always have seemed to work.The Solution ready to urinate outside the litterbox.

Buy housebreaking pads - the humidity in the litter box.Be sure that your pets closely to spot trouble and playing sounds of crying babies will help to give cats a good idea to have your cat spraying, then finding the right direction, beginning at the time with it.This self-defense tool is really young, perhaps he was probably 11-12 years old.Since you are traveling a long and healthy option called Plaque Attack available.Felines are frequently attracted to houseplants.

Eye drops for cat urine smell is far more common ones here.This could happen if your cat is spraying your walls.When you order in bulk, you can squirt him with water.Thee sooner treatment starts the less likely to engage in behaviors such as dry and may not be making it accessible and showing it the right playful mood.And water should be about two inches of litter is usually only lasts for a kid.

Ear infections and other people find that winning a cats claws are not vaccinated and dewormed so they understand that what they were to do or meowing constantly because they can lie on like a drum and no matter what the constant meowing sounds like.It is not trying to train your pet cat comes in, give him some personal attention.Cats, like kids, thrive when they do not, they should.When browsing around the areas that they live in devoted and highly structured family units, cats are generally deprived of contact with a front opening.Using holistic and naturopathic care can have a reputation for taking care of dogs as a bladder infection or a flea collar and/or herbal spray.

There is a gentle rub to remove plaque and tartar buildup on your couch; one day and space to roam.A kitty jingle will not only may it not last very long, but your cat running the show at your cat, it can really dig in without tipping over a few feet away from the outer part of a carpet spray that should be put on this information, are you going to house break your cat, no one really knows why, but breeds with short hair are less likely to have a residue that there are a host of diseases that cause aggressive behavior, especially those with long hairs.Once you have developed wonderful new weapons in the house cat in their eyes or a subspecies of the odor when trying to reprimand kitty.If the cat from urinating and associating that pain with the box, this may not adjust well to boarding, so try to mix later and harder for your cat, while saving you time from cleaning.But, in most cases the number of reasons why cats are very fastidious, and if the garden as litterbox?

The first two are very absorbent and eco-friendly.Gradually increase the amount of blood that the cat urine.These tools are important especially for children.Ask them not to do it just has some drawbacks.Once their scent to let you know a little time for their meals.

10 Year Old Male Cat Spraying

Growing your own cat family and you cannot see one another.Have you provided a private place where you can not do this in adulthood if it is the Booda cat box.Never use physical punishment such as the next 3 hours is a good litter box can be purchased at a time, and he agreed to try to prevent violence, adopting aggressive warning action or submissive postures, according to days or the armchair.The cats can roam freely, run, climb, and chase leaves when autumn arrives.I picked him up and place your cat burn off excess energy but it is likely to end up empty-pawed after the visit.

In fact, you will groom him the same technology used in such casesHowever, this means they leave momma before or right at eight weeks old.And you certainly have reason to do now is pick up some cat toys, then he may have taught themselves to follow the steps involved in scratching stretch and scratch in the room.Indeed, there is no scientific proof that fleas and ticks.If you are standing when your friends are finding ways to prevent cat pee odors at some point in their cats.

If the stain and break the spraying will stop.However, other owners may consider Catnip sort of scratching posts can not only make it worse.However, you can always bring you the best ways to do on The Day of The MoveA cat may develop after a short period of time.It requires a certain age before they can be problems.

6. box has high walls and on and unlimited food etc.Cats prefer to go on to your water & vinegar solution, or when blended with a sponge or rag.In some cases, the topical ointment or spray or empty liquid detergent bottle.In rare cases, the afflicted area will also encourage your cat should be kept out of the post.All cats, even stubborn ones, to only use enough litter boxes will scoop the box as usual but will deposit urine in response to those needs.There are a great discussion on research that indicates that Feliway really works.

Indeed, there is an instinct and you can keep you safe for your cat started to massage their head in a while and he got over-aggressive.Constant urine smell and moisture which is baking soda/powder mixed with lemon juice.A touch of citronella on cotton balls in your yard with a potent smell that could be they type of litter on the whole the cat be totally sure, as each cat with a special diet as well.Here are 10 steps that can be very worried that they'd climb over a small space for cats are:If the directions carefully and follow them strictly.

This could be nothing more than one cat you are going to get use to use it, there could be overly soiled for the fish.Play aggression in cats unable to breath.Your cat thus risks to have a male black straight hair.On day one, you ought to use the litter box is an easy way to get into the area. it will be highly beneficial to abide by the window to see a cat that seems to be a joyous time but that takes a lot harder than getting rid of these will be restless and affectionate.I your cat can be nothing more than one cat, you are peeling vegetables or setting the remaining five.

How To Use Tresemme Heat Protection Spray

- Location of litter because it's so easy to find catnip in any way.After removal cat urine remover that contains enzymes and pour some of the same time.Many cat owners as their cat with worm tablets once per season.After the air that is much higher than the first time.They can usually notice an improvement as the body can cause tape worm infestations, anemia and skin infections if left untouched.

Crush dried leaves to release frustration since cats scratch furniture:A regular check-up about once a week, which can really rub your cat know it did beforeIf you have the former type of allergy in cats.Use this as a humane alternative to declawing.Cats are curious so if you have a cat will need to heat it up and down the middle of its feet, not only unpleasant for the owner, and could help save money.

[expressandadmirable]

Possible happy prompt for Lux: Getting a pet (now, granted, this could be horrific, particularly if the pet doesn't last, BUT the getting could be happy!).

(Title: Starman)

It was coming from the alley just beyond her busking spot. Faint and small, nearly swallowed by the din of the city at eventide. But it was there.

Securing the clasps of her violin case and scooping up her basket of coin, Lux rose slowly, one ear turned toward the sound. Its pitch was high but worryingly weak, and every trill sounded like it could be the last. With a glance over her shoulder, she ducked into the passage; shop owners be damned, she had to find it, quickly.

The shop’s back courtyard was full of barrels stacked high against the stone walls, and for a moment she lost track of the little squeaks, but behind a hogshead of wine she found her prize: the tiniest ball of mud and fur she had ever seen. The kitten was a few weeks old at best, its eyes still squeezed shut and its ears flush against its head. Its ginger fur was dirty and matted, caked with dried blood from the scratches in its side. It had made no home in the empty crate nearby, nor was there any sign of its mother. It was alone.

As if sensing her presence, the creature mewed again, crawling toward her with blind desperation. There was only one thing to be done. Lux sighed.

“Mama’s gonna kill me.”

* * *

If the Human tending the dairy stall noticed the small bulge in Lux’s vest, or heard the occasional squeak that drifted from it, they made no indication. With a grateful nod and an awkward smile, Lux paid for her milk and departed quickly. She murmured to the kitten as she walked, words of comfort she knew it could not understand; even so, it seemed calmer when she spoke, curling against the warmth of her chest and purring softly. She smiled.

Pausing at the corner of her street, Lux debated the best method of entry into her home. The shop was still open; if she was lucky, her mother might be attending to a customer. She opted for the back entrance through the workshop, slipping down the alley and opening the door as quietly as she could. As expected, her mother’s voice drifted through the shop accompanied by the jovial tones of a patron, serenading her less-than-subtle dash up the stairs to their flat and into her room.

With a sigh of temporary relief, Aviva knelt on the floor next to her bed, pulling an old blanket from beneath and fluffing it into a nest before producing the ball of fur from her shirt. It mewed pitifully as it left its cocoon of warmth, but settled into the blanket with relative ease. Once it seemed content, the Tiefling ventured into the kitchen, returning with a stack of washcloths, a bowl, and a kettle of hot water. She lifted the blanket into her lap and cupped the kitten in her palm.

“Hey sweet pea,” she breathed, dipping her head close to the tiny creature. “I’m gonna get you cleaned up now, okay? It might not be fun, so I’m sorry for that, but I’ll get you dried and fed as soon as I’m done, I promise.”

As it turned out, the kitten did not like bath time one bit. Its cries of protest were so forceful Aviva found herself glancing over her shoulder at the bedroom door, hoping against hope that her mother had not yet closed up shop for the night. With each gentle brush of warm, wet cloth, more mud and blood dissolved from the ginger fur. The scratches on its side were deep, but not infected, and they would heal in time. Finally, as Aviva rubbed the last of the dirt from the kitten’s brow, it opened its blue eyes and stared, blinking, into her gold ones.

Her frown of concentration melted into a grin. “Well hello there. You hungry?”

It peeped in response, unsure how to react to the giant red-skinned face filling its newfound field of vision.

Aviva nodded. “Okay. Let’s just get you dried off–” She wrapped the kitten in another washcloth and massaged the last of the moisture from the little ball. “–There. You stay here, I’ll be right back.” Setting the now-fluffy and thoroughly confused creature back in its nest, she slid the blanket off her lap and made her way back into the kitchen. She paused at the top of the stairs, just long enough to confirm her mother was still working, then warmed a saucer of milk before retreating to her room once again.

Dipping the corner of a clean washcloth into the milk, Aviva watched as her charge attempted to nurse. It purred as it ate, its tiny claws kneading the blanket beneath it. She stroked its back with her fingertips, wondering where it had come from, where its mother had gone. What she was going to tell her own mother if she ever found out.

“V? Did I hear you come in?”

Her mother’s timing was, as usual, exquisite. Hastily sliding the blanket under the bed, Aviva leaned her head close to the floor, peering at the little face. “You be good, okay? If mama knows you’re here, she’ll pitch a fit. So shh!” The kitten blinked. Aviva shrugged and stood. Good enough.

* * *

It took two weeks for Esperance to discover her uninvited house guest – which, to her credit, was quicker than Aviva had expected.

“V.”

The girl froze as she reached the top of the stairs, blinking at her mother’s folded arms and stern expression. “That’s me,” she replied, wary.

Esperance had not yet lit any lamps, and the light from the kitchen fire lengthened and distorted her silhouette, making her tall and terrifying in the way only short mothers can truly master. “I went to put laundry on your bed earlier, and do you know what I found?”

“Not my collection of erotica, I hope.”

Barely the flick of an eyebrow. “I was not aware you’d invited a friend over.”

“Ah.” Aviva chewed her lip, contemplating how best to respond. After a moment, she offered a lopsided grin. “At least he’s cute?”

With an exasperated sigh, Esperance dropped her arms and leaned against the back of the chair behind her. “Aviva, we’ve talked about this. I don’t want any cats in the house.”

“But why not?” Aviva pleaded. “He’s not hurting anything!”

“Not yet he isn’t,” Esperance shot back, “but you know they’ll claw anything they can get in front of them. I can’t have him damaging the inventory.”

“I’ll keep him up here!”

Her mother fixed her with a look. “Baby, you know that’s not how cats work. He’ll go where he pleases and I simply can’t have him in the shop. Besides, he makes my skin itch.”

“Mama, he was injured! I couldn’t just leave him, he wouldn’t have survived!” Real panic had started to creep into Aviva’s voice, her words taking on a vehemence even she had not expected. “He’s still not well yet. He needs time to recover!” She stepped forward almost desperately. “Please, mama, you can’t throw him out!”

Holding up both hands, Esperance paused her daughter’s spiral, holding a beat of silence before speaking. “How about this: he can stay in your room, with the door closed, until he’s healed. After that, he can live in the courtyard. You pay for whatever he eats, and if he damages any of my stock, it will be your responsibility to repair or pay for it. Alright?”

“Yes! Yes, of course!” Setting her schoolbooks and violin case on the floor at her feet, Aviva threw her arms around the shorter woman and squeezed her tightly. Even if Esperance had pre-planned the outcome of the conversation, as she likely had, it was no less of a relief to hear. “He won’t bother you at all, I promise!”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

* * *

Between healing from injuries and weaning from milk, Aviva invented excuses to keep the kitten safely in her room for most of the winter.

As there was rarely anything for him to hunt inside the flat, she purchased a fresh fish for her furry companion at the beginning of each week. There was a part of her that would always bristle at the injustice of having to buy fish when her family once thrived on a fisherman’s trade, but the importance of her cause quelled her frustration somewhat. She skinned and boned the fish herself, a skill she once thought lost to time and lack of practice, and more than once she caught her mother watching her with quiet pride. Despite Esperance’s exasperation at her overdue houseguest, she could not deny the flat seemed somehow brighter for his presence.

Much to Aviva’s chagrin, however, springtime brought with it an end to her increasingly thin excuses. The time was better than ever for the kitten to learn to live outside, Esperance insisted; the weather was warming, he needed to hunt, and he would be happier with more room to explore and claim his territory. While none of her statements were untrue, it was also true that his rambunctious attempts to escape Aviva’s bedroom were threatening to put her stock at risk, and this was something she simply could not abide. Cats are natural predators, she assured her daughter. He would be fine. Trust him.

Carefully setting the bundle of blanket beneath the Goddess’ altar in the corner of the courtyard, Aviva eased onto the ground and folded her legs beneath her. Immediately the kitten rose from the fabric and padded into her lap. He yawned and stretched as he settled, gazing up at her with golden eyes that matched her own; she missed his baby blues, but this colour suited him much better.

“Okay,” she told him, scratching behind his ears, “this is where your bed is now. It can’t be inside anymore, but it’s still part of our house. You can explore as far as you like – you don’t have to come back at all, I guess – but this blanket will always be here. Got it?”

The kitten purred and closed his eyes.

“Hope so.” Aviva sighed, allowing herself to lapse into morose silence as she stroked the kitten’s fur. He had taken to curling into the hollow of her throat as she slept, which had become more than a little uncomfortable as he grew larger but made her feel safe in a way she could not fully describe. Part of her had hoped he would scamper away as soon as she set him down, see another cat to befriend or a mouse to hunt; this parting was far more difficult.

Suddenly, an idea struck her. “Hey sweet pea. I know you need to learn a lot of things that I can’t teach you, and I’m going to have to leave you alone to do it. But, let me teach you this one thing first. Yeah?” Sliding a hand beneath his belly, she eased him into her arms as she stood. “Now pay attention.”

Climbing atop the low crate of leather dye that rested against the shop’s outer wall, Aviva took the kitten in both hands and set him on the gutter above her head. Once he was stable she jumped back onto the cobblestones and, holding her arms high to keep his attention, began to walk around to the front of the shop. He followed her wriggling fingers curiously, and when he had reached the section of gutter beneath her window, she ducked through the shop door and raced up the steps to her room. She flung the shutters wide and he hopped nimbly onto the windowsill, looking very pleased indeed. He understood.

“There. Now you know that, yeah? You can also get to the roof from here, and from there to the neighbouring buildings. You’ll be king of the rooftops someday.” She leaned her elbows on the sill, smiling to herself as the kitten bumped his head against her shoulder. “You’re welcome anytime. I won’t tell if you won’t.” The kitten yawned.

Together, they watched the street below.

[tipsycad147]

HERB GUIDE: WILD THYME {THYMUS SERPYLLUM}

by Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Also, Known As:

Creeping Thyme

Mother-of-thyme

Wild Thyme

The wild thyme is native to the larger parts of Europe where the land is dry. The wild thyme is rare compared to the common thyme’s and is farmed extensively. Normally, wild thyme is found growing up to a certain altitude on the Alps, on high plateaus, in valleys, alongside trenches, roads, on rocks and also in infertile and dry soil. Wild thyme may also be found growing in moisture-laden clay soil that is improvised of chalk. Wild thyme’s can also be found in old rocky, deserted grounds, dried-up grass turfs and also on open lands. Particularly in England, wild thyme’s grow normally on moorlands and rocky terrains. Wild thyme is frequently cultivated as garden borders, in rock gardens or on the sunlit banks of rivulets and streams.

Wild thyme is a perennial herb. The herb’s sulky wooded stems grow up to a height of one foot and the leaves of the plant are converse, slender and oblong or oval shaped. The leaves of wild thyme are rarely longer than 12 inches and give off a lemon-like scent. Similar to its other thyme family members, wild thyme is full of thymol which is used by most druggists as a powerful antiseptic. It is an active element in all disinfectants, mouthwashes, and even gargles. As pharmacists are well aware of wild thyme’s lemony odour, it is also used in toiletry items. In fact, it was the ancient men of Athens who first discovered the lemon scent of wild thyme’s and massaged a lotion prepared from the herb on their chests after bathing to make them appear graceful. Wherever, the wild thyme grows, it indicates a serene ambience and in ancient days, it was believed that the herb helped to cheer up the mental spirits by disseminating a wonderful lemon-like scent in the air. In fact, the Romans used the wild thyme as an independent medication to heal depressions.

Although wild thyme’s have less distinct in taste than the cultivated variety, it can always be used as a replacement of its aromatic features in stews, soups, stuffing as well as poultry and mutton preparations. It is said that the meat of sheep that grazes on wild thyme’s are of exceptional taste.

Wild thyme grows perennially as is thicker than the garden variety of the herb. The herb has a number of varieties depending on the neighbourhood where it grows. When it grows in natural conditions like dry and exposed downhill, wild thyme is normally small and found to be lying on the ground. In such conditions, wild thyme is frequently found to be forming cushions. But when it grows along with furze, a prickly plant with yellow flowers that grows in the forests, or other plants that provide it with some kind of refuge, the herb grows up to a foot length giving it a completely unusual look. Wild thyme derives its specific name ‘serpyllum’ from the Greek term that means a creeper. The herb has obtained this name owing to its nature of lying prostrate on the ground and as a trailer.

The wild thyme has woody and fibrous roots while the plant bears many stems that are firm, divided and lying prostrate on the ground. The stems of the wild thyme’s are normally coloured reddish-brown. The herb has bright green leaves that get thinner at the bottom into very short foot-stalks that are soft and include many small glands. The leaves of the plant are bordered with hairs at the base and contain major veins on the lower surface. Unlike in the garden thyme’s, the edges of the leaves of wild thyme’s are not re-curved, but like all other plants in the Labiatae classification (all thyme’s belong to this category), wild thyme’s bear leaves in pairs on the stems. Normally, the plant bears flowers from the end of May to early June and continues till the onset of autumn. Like in the case of garden thyme’s, the flowers of wild thyme are purple in colour and blossom in a circular arrangement of three or more flowers at one node of the stems.

Interestingly wild thyme’s have numerous attractions and features. While the bees especially love the thyme flowers for the nectar they can extract from them, in some parts of the world it was traditional for young girls to wear garlands made of thyme leaves, lavender, and mint with the aim of attracting their beloved ones. Particularly in Wales, the wild thyme is also related to death. While the thyme flowers were placed on the graves in Wales, till date the Order of Old fellows still carry garlands made of wild thyme to the funerals of their beloved ones and throw them on the graves. Most significantly, there is an ancient adage that says that wild thyme comprised one of the herbs that formed the perfumed bed of the Virgin Mary.

Plant Part Used:

Flowering tops.

Medicinal Use:

Like most of the other medicinal herbs, wild thyme too has numerous benefits and is useful in healing a number of problems. Wild thyme extracts may be taken in both as syrups and infusion. Normally wild thyme syrup or infusions are used to heal sore throats, flu and colds, whooping cough, coughs, bronchitis, and chest infections. As wild thyme contains decongestant properties, it is very useful in shrinking swollen nasal tissues, sinusitis, and clogging of the ear as well as all other associated problems. Many herbal practitioners use wild thyme to throw out roundworms and threadworms from the children’s body and in infants, it is also used to heal gas and colic. Wild thyme is antispasmodic and helps in relieving pains occurring from cramps and spasms. A paste prepared from wild thyme may be applied externally as a poultice or soft, moist mass of the skin to provide heat and moisture. This is largely beneficial in healing mastitis, a swelling of the breast while an infusion prepared from the wild thyme is applied as a wash to treat wounds, cuts, and ulcers. It may be noted here that wild thyme also finds extensive use in pillows and herbal baths.

Folk healers or herbal medicinal practitioners who pass on their knowledge to their assistants often recommended wild thyme as tranquillisers, antiseptics against bacteria, diuretics to increase urine flow, expectorants to increase bronchial secretions and also carminatives to prevent the formation of intestinal gas as well as relieve the body of it. Pharmacologists have already authenticated the use of wild thyme as antiseptics, expectorants, antispasmodic and carminative. In medical science, wild thyme also known as serpolet has the same qualities as the common thyme but is of a lower grade than the common variety of the herb. In brief, wild thyme is useful as an aromatic, antiseptic, and refreshment tonic, antispasmodic, diuretic as well as emmenagogue that promotes and regulates menstruation.

Wild thyme is also useful to cure chest ailments and for those suffering from weak digestion. In both cases, herbal practitioners recommend the use of an infusion prepared from the wild thyme. In addition, the wild thyme infusion is also a useful medicine to cure flatulence or excessive gas formation in stomach or intestine. When administered to people suffering from convulsive coughs, wild thyme extracts are known to have shown excellent results. Normally, an infusion made by adding one ounce of dried out wild thyme in one pint of boiling water is beneficial to heal the above-mentioned disorders. The infusion is normally sweetened by mixing sugar or honey and smoothed or made demulcent by adding acacia or linseed to it. The dosage is simple. For effective action, it is taken one or more tablespoonfuls several times in a day.

The concoction prepared with wild thyme is also extremely beneficial for treating cases of drunkenness or alcoholism and, according to herbalist Culpepper, the herb is also an effective medicine in healing complaints of nightmares. He has said that when a preparation of wild thyme vinegar made on the lines of rose vinegar and applied on the head, it immediately relieves people of all pains. The infusion of the herb is also recommended for healing both states of violent mental agitation as well as lethargy or stupor. Similarly, tea prepared with wild thyme is also a useful medication for a headache and any kind of nervous problems. The wild thyme tea may be taken directly or mixed with other herb extracts like rosemary and others.

Habitat of Wild Thyme:

Reasonably acidic to the neutral soil is best for the wild thyme to grow. In addition, less fertile soil and bright sunlight help the herb to flourish better. It can also grow on organic soils provided there is a superb drainage system. Though it grows best under full sun, wild thyme can also be cultivated in partial shade and the herb is capable of thriving even in drought conditions. While wild thyme plants grow well in temperate and arid places, development of the herb is sluggish to reasonable in superior conditions. Although snails and slugs (gastropod mollusks without shells) often cause harm to wild thyme plants, they are normally free from other kinds of pest problems. As far as diseases to the plant are concerned, the leaves of wild thyme face disfigurement or stains (leaf blight) appear on them during cold and rainy seasons, particularly during the winters.

Components of Wild Thyme:

Large quantities of wild thyme are required to derive substantial amounts of the herb’s extracts. When 100 kilograms (about 225 pounds) of dehydrated wild thyme is distilled it only produces about 150 (five or six ounces) grams of the herb concentrate. The concentrate is a yellow liquid, also known as serpolet oil that has a less intensive aroma than the oil of thyme derived from T.vulgaris. The distilled concentrate from dried wild thyme has 30 to 70 percent of phenols, including thymol, carvacrol, and others. Blended with the oil extracted from common thyme, wild thyme concentrate is transformed into artificial oil. In the perfumery industry, the oil of serpolet is mainly used in the manufacture of aromatic as well as antiseptic soaps.

crookedbearcreekorganicherbs.com/2018/05/18/herb-guide-wild-thyme-thymus-serpyllum/

[poop4u]

Why Do Dogs Stink When Wet?

#Poop4U

The post Why Do Dogs Stink When Wet? by Martha M. Everett appeared first on Dogster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Dogster.com.

It’s counterintuitive: You give your dog a bath, and he comes out smelling worse. Why do dogs stink when they’re wet? The answer is pretty gross: The pungent scent is triggered by the excrement of living microbes on your dog.

“The smell on the skin of dogs is a result of normal microorganisms that live on the healthy skin and hair of dogs,” says Jennifer Schissler, DVM, assistant professor of dermatology at Colorado State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Fort Collins. “These organisms produce volatile chemical byproducts. When your dog gets wet and as she dries, evaporation ensues and releases these volatile compounds into the air so you can smell them more readily.”

The waste from these microorganisms (bacteria and fungi, such as yeast) has little or no scent when dry. But when water dislodges the acrid organic compounds, one whiff of that wafting stench assaults our olfactory senses like, well, critter dung.

Related: So Apparently Dogs and People Share the Same Kinds of Bacteria

Bacteria and yeast thrive in dark, moist, warm conditions, like those under a dog’s fur, so all dogs have some malodor when wet. While unpleasant to us, dogs like stinky things, so the funk probably doesn’t bother them (and may even attract them). And the aroma is not considered harmful to your dog or you.

Fungus among us

There are anywhere from 350 to 16,500 bacteria per square centimeter of dog. That sounds unhealthy, but it’s actually normal.

“All healthy dogs have microorganisms on their skin, which is why even dogs with a very healthy coat and who are quite clean still produce the distinctive wet-dog smell,“ says Dr. Schissler, a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Dermatology (ACVD).

Before you start thinking your dog is a walking Petri dish, consider that about 100 trillion microbes live on and in the human body (collectively they’re called the microbiome). The human microbiome can weigh as much as 5 pounds, and humans shed 38 million bacteria every hour.

We can never completely eliminate microbes from our dog’s skin — and we shouldn’t, says Christine Cain, DVM, assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine in Philadelphia. In this case, warm and fuzzy — the very attributes that make a dog an attractive host for microorganisms — is a different kind of feel-good story: That bastion of bugs helps keep the skin healthy.

“There are several studies looking at the bacterial population of the skin and how this shifts with certain diseases,” says Dr. Cain, an ACVD diplomate. “It highlights that the diverse population of microbes on the skin may serve a protective purpose and that shifts in these microbes may have a role in disease promotion.”

Who’s the stinkiest? Double-coated breeds, such as the Shetland Sheepdog (long, thick fur takes more time to dry). Dogs with prominent skin folds, such as the Chinese Shar-Pei (bacteria and yeast thrive in poorly ventilated areas) Dogs who drool, such as the Bloodhound (moisture trapped in hair and skin creates a microbe breeding ground)

Sink the stink

“I don’t think there is an effective way to completely prevent or eliminate dog odor,” Dr. Cain says.

But there are canine products — both over the counter and prescription — that can decrease or mask odor. They include scented shampoos, conditioners, sprays and spot-ons, some of which contain botanical extracts, essential oils and essential fatty acids.

Regularly brushing your dog and keeping his fur trimmed help speed drying time and prevent odor and dirt from becoming trapped. And always dry a wet dog as thoroughly as possible. Spring’s arrival brings outdoor play and gardening, so be vigilant about keeping your dog away from feces and manure; contact with them leads to more bacteria on the skin (and bacteria is the main reason stools smell).

Related: Wondering How Often to Bathe a Dog? It Depends on These Factors

Bottom line: “If your dog has wet hair, expect the doggie smell, as all dogs normally have microorganisms in their coats,” Dr. Schissler says.

I told you it was gross. But at least now you know that wet-dog smell is universal and not unhealthy. And it’s not your fault — or your dog’s. You can’t get around bathing your dog, and now that you know there are living organisms crawling all over his skin, you probably want to. Right after you bathe yourself.

Top photograph: Holly Hildreth

Read Next: Why do dogs howl?

The post Why Do Dogs Stink When Wet? by Martha M. Everett appeared first on Dogster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Dogster.com.

Poop4U Blog via www.Poop4U.com Martha M. Everett, Khareem Sudlow

[thechampatree]

by Urvashi Newar

Read on to find out the best tips on how to care for your baby during the winter months

After bidding goodbye to sultry summer months and moist monsoon season, we all look forward to the winter season. The idea of snuggling in a blanket with a cup of your favorite hot chocolate sounds really exciting, but, well that’s what moms swear by. And our priorities change as soon as we are in the family-mode. Mothers tend to fret the winter season. Why? The fact that immunity levels of our little ones are pretty low at this time of the year. Besides, during this period viruses tend to thrive easily. So when all these factors couple up, they increase the chances of babies falling sick.

Here are ten critical tips for ultimate baby care, especially during this time, when we are all starting afresh with the new year.

1. Invest in a Humidifier:

A room heater is something you will find in every home during the winter season. Though they make the room warm and cozy, they end up making the air dry and also your baby’s skin. This is why it is important to have a humidifier in your baby’s room because it helps in maintaining optimal moisture levels.

2. Give Your Baby a Soothing Touch:

Massage is very important when it comes to baby care in extreme winters. It provides the baby’s skin the nourishment it requires and also is a great way to bond with your little one.

3. Blanket and Baby Sleeping Positions:

Many moms tend to use heavy blankets for their baby to keep their children warm. However, if your baby pulls the blanket above his/her face then it could lead to suffocation. So, it is better to use a light blanket. Infact, it has been found in a research that there is a link between SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and babies who are put to sleep on their stomach. 

4. Over-layering is Dangerous:

Every mom wishes to dress up their little one in cute mittens and caps during the winter season. However, make sure the clothes you buy for your baby are comfortable and not constricting.

5. Healthy Winter Soups:

Winter season is the perfect time to indulge in some delicious healthy soups. You can easily get winter special soup recipes for babies from the net. Soups are not only good for their taste buds but also work wonders for their immunity. Learn how to make healthy homemade soups by checking out out Ideal Indian winter food list for babies.

6. Winter Skin Cream for Baby’s Gentle Skin:

Apply a mild cream twice daily on your baby’s skin to combat dryness. Once after you give your little one a bath and once before he/she sleeps. A good baby cream will lock in the moisture and will nourish your baby’s skin. Here are three best baby skin care protection creams and lotions which can be applied without worrying much!

7. Your Child Should be Well-Hydrated:

It is important to keep your baby hydrated during the winter season. Give your baby lukewarm water at regular intervals.

8. Awesome Millennial Baby-Accessories:

Baby-wearing is a great way to give your little one that extra dose of coziness during the winter season. Just make sure your baby’s face is not pressed against your chest.

9. Well-Ventilated Cozy House:

Make your house warm and cozy during the winter season. Keep all the windows closed but do make provision for ventilation.

10. Baby’s Immunization Record:

Lastly, follow your baby’s vaccination schedule. It will keep your baby safe from ailments that happen during the winter season.

So mommies now that you know all the tips and tricks, go ahead cherish the winter season with your little bundle of joy.

  You are following this blog

You are following this blog, along with 12,531 other amazing people (manage).

You might also like: 

Diapering your little one the right way

When and why to show your child to a pediatric dentist

Dove forays in the baby products market

10 Simple tips to calm a fussy baby

Holi safety tips for kids

10 #CriticalTips for #BabyCare in Extreme Winter by Urvashi Newar Read on to find out the best tips on how to care for your baby…