#them: detachable peen?

[mushiemellows]

Got drunk enough tonight that I told my parter the entire cliffnotes to Staying Right Here WHOOPS

[sarahowritesostucky]

Art: @hopelessartgeek

📖 "Medically Necessitated" Ch 3

Rated: Explicit Pairing: Bucky x Steve Tags: a/b/o, age gap, past rape, rape recovery, trauma recovery, pregnancy, medical trauma, hurt/comfort, mentions of CSA, religious fundamentalism, first time, gender dysphoria, male omegas are intersex (peen & vagine) Summary: After a medical emergency brings him into the ER, Bucky escapes the religious cult he's been raised in. It's up to Steve, nurse practitioner and omega sex & repro specialist, to see him through a medically supervised heat.

Wait! I haven't read an earlier chapter! Story masterlist

3. Bucky

Steve unexpectedly switches from being Bucky's attending physician, to his dedicated heat Support.

It’s funny: the stereotype of alphas is that they’re always these domineering, bossy, even selfish people who walk all over other designations to get whatever they want. But Steve’s whole life pretty much revolves around doing for omegas. Meeting their needs.

There’s his volunteer work at the shelter and at ASHDOM, there are the single omega neighbors in his building who all know he’s a pushover and who come to him first whenever they need furniture moved or can’t get out to the store because they’re in heat. And there’s his job, which usually sees him working a bare minimum of sixty hours a week, often many more.

He does nothing but cater to omegas.

Of course, he’s paid well for it. Nursing is a chronically underfilled field to begin with, and omega specialized healthcare is even worse. Especially when it comes to staffing alpha practitioners. Steve knows for a fact that his salary is several grand higher than any of his his beta coworkers doing the same job, simply because of the additional therapeutic value that his designation can offer.

He’s a federally licensed heat partner, is certified in trauma and crisis intervention, and he’s one of the only alpha nurse practitioners providing omega reproductive healthcare in the borough. It makes his days long and his caseloads heavy, but that’s okay because it’s more than a job to him, it’s a moral imperative, something that’s been drilled into him since he was six years old and play-dominating all the other kids in his kindergarten class: you must take care of those who are weaker than you.

Steve’s been working on the OOBGYN ward around trauma patients for more than five years now. He knows the protocols, he knows how to keep himself under control and keep his patients safe. So it’s not exactly the shining pinnacle of his career when he has to page his subordinates—the nurses he trained for Chrissakes—to come and help him the fuck out with a patient he’s mishandled.

Steve would’ve highly preferred it be Hope (she’d give him less crap about it), but it’s Sharon who shows up first at the door. She comes into the room, no nonsense, holding a 1cc syringe at the ready. She’s unseen by Bucky, who’s still keening and purring where he’s got his teeth buried in Steve’s shoulder. Steve gives her a terse nod, and Sharon brusquely walks over and shoots the sedative up Bucky’s nose before the omega even knows what’s happening.

Ninety seconds later, he’s out like a light. “Midazolam,” Sharon says.

Steve nods. That buys them at least thirty minutes to get everything set up right. Bucky’s mouth has detached from his skin, and Steve carefully lowers his limp form back down onto the bed. There’s blood smeared on his lips and chin—Steve’s blood. Steve swallows hard and ignores the answering pulse of blood in his dick. He’s all keyed up, body thrumming, primed to fuck or fight.

Sharon’s a professional, so she doesn’t look at his crotch, but she does wrinkle her nose and give him an unimpressed look. “What the hell, Rogers?”

Steve avoids answering, embarrassed. “Come on. Help me transfer him. Clock’s ticking now.” He climbs off the bed and Sharon undoes Bucky’s IV. They bring up the bed’s side rails and unlock the wheels, then begin the slow process of pushing him out of the room and down to one of the on-ward heat suites. “Don’t lecture me,” Steve warns, not in the mood to have his rookie mistakes pointed out. There are plenty of them.

He forgot blockers. He intoned. He scented. Fuck, did he posture? He probably postured. He certainly got too close, let the omega get his fucking mouth on him. Christ. Steve shakes his head at himself. He’d let his soft spot for Bucky put him in a vulnerable position, and now a traumatized patient has latched onto him right at the onset of the first heat he’s had in years.

Those are not the things the hospital pays Steve thousand of dollars extra for.

Well … actually they are, but they weren’t supposed to be in Bucky’s case. Steve is his attending. He’s not supposed to take on the role of alpha support, too. It’s not allowed.

“Who should I be paging?” Sharon asks as they wheel the bed down the hall and around a corner.

“Get Banner,” Steve grunts, not happy with it. He doesn’t want to give up the case to another doctor. All his instincts are screaming at him to keep Bucky as his, to keep the control and authority he has over the omega’s medical care. But he’ll get in big trouble if he doesn’t sign this off to another physician before they seal themselves up in a heat suite.

“Is he on call tonight?”

“Yeah.” Banner is a good doctor, a beta, and a great human being. Steve trusts him more than almost anyone to do what’s right for Bucky as his attending. “Give him my case notes and Bucky’s treatment plan,” he tells Sharon as they arrive at a heavy door with a small, shuttered window. “And get a hold of Sam if he’s around. Tell him I have questions. Tell him the kid latched onto me.”

Sharon raises an eyebrow. “You mean … your neck?”

“No, not my neck,” Steve snaps meanly. “I mean physiologically.”

Sharon shoots him a peeved look from her side of Bucky’s bed, but she doesn’t say anything. She knows that Steve’s not mad at her.

He’s furious with himself for letting it happen. It’s embarrassing. Steve’s supposed to be experienced. The second that Bucky started posturing and losing language complexity and calling Steve ‘Alpha’ over and over like that, the second he’d started keening like that, Steve should’ve put distance between them. He should’ve been well out of the room by the time the kid began scenting and slicking, not still sitting right on the damn bed, letting him do it all over his scrub pants.

They wheel into the suite and Steve looks from Bucky’s lax body over to the suite’s low bed. It’s just an institutional grade mattress on a box platform, large and durable and easy to clean. It’s sterile and standard, just like the rest of the room. Nobody’s brought up any nesting materials yet.

If Steve had done his job right, Bucky probably wouldn’t have hit heat until tomorrow. The hospital staff would have already received the requisition forms and prepared the suite especially for Bucky’s stay. Instead, it’s empty and stripped bare, sterilized from the last omega who used it.

There’s a fridge stocked with water and calorie dense snacks, a four piece handicap-accessible bathroom with a walk-in tub. There’s the large platform bed, and there’s a breeding bench over in the corner. Steve glowers at Sharon when he sees it. “Why is that in here?” he snaps. “Jesus, Sharon, get it out.” He glances at Bucky, irrationally afraid of the kid waking up and seeing it.

“The last patient booked into the room was Ace,” Sharon says, unamused. “You sure you want it out?” She nods at Bucky’s prone body. “He’s dynamic dysphoric. You might need it. I can fill out a req for the seeding machine if you—”

“No,” Steve bites out, trying hard to remain professional and not yell at his head nurse. “No. I’m not doing that to him.”

Steve knows what Sharon’s thinking: light sedation and heavy restraint, complete mechanization of Bucky’s heat. It’s what a lot of doctors would do, once they got a look at Bucky’s case file and issues. Just to get the whole process over with in less time, with less effort.

But Steve can’t stand the thought of forcing Bucky through his treatment like that. It would terrify and humiliate him. Steve would rather work through every step with Bucky than force him onto that bench. “Get it out of here,” he orders.

Sharon doesn’t argue, just removes the bench and herself from the room. When she returns, Steve is staring at the naked vinyl mattress with distaste. There’s nothing soft or safe or warm here. He doesn’t want Bucky to wake up to that. “Stay with him,” he tells Sharon. “I’m gonna run down to supply and get room prep.”

He leaves her there with strict instructions not to touch Bucky. Now that the kid’s latched onto Steve as his heat partner, he won’t take well to physical contact with anyone else. “Fucking stupid, Rogers,” Steve berates himself again as he takes the elevator down to the supply room.

He grabs a pushcart and loads it up with an assortment of blankets that the hospital offers. He throws in a bunch of squishy pillows too, then heads over to grab a presenting form from the selection of different mounting pillows. He chooses one in a forgiving foam material. It has detachable cuffs in front, which after a moment’s hesitation he decides to bring along, just in case. He grabs a soft microfiber cover for the form so that it’ll feel warm and comforting against Bucky’s body. Steve doesn’t want to leave a single hard fucking edge in the entire heat suite, if he can help it.

He does spare the sex toys a glance, but it feels wrong to select anything now. If Bucky needs it later Steve can talk to him about it, have one of the nurses req whatever items Bucky wants.

He moves fast, anxious to get back to the suite and make sure that he's right there by Bucky's side when he wakes. He stops at the pharmacy and swipes his ID badge against the dispensary that stores samples of all the heat technicians’ scents. He scans his fingerprint when it prompts him, then types into the keypad that he wants to withdraw two vials. The machine whirs and delivers the manufactured amounts of Steve’s own pheromones. Steve swipes them up out of the slot without any patience and starts shoving the cart back towards the elevators.

Sharon raises her eyebrows at the heaping amount of supplies that Steve rolls in with. “O-kay,” she says, and heads for the door. “I’ll fill Hope in. Banner’s on his way. He said maybe twenty minutes. Sam’ll be on morning shift and I left him a message that he should come by.”

“Good.”

“Steve?” She turns and looks back at him once she’s out in the hall. “This is also part of your job. Don’t beat yourself up too hard, kay?”

It’s on the nicer end of the spectrum of things Sharon would say, and Steve forces his face into a grateful sort of wince. “Thanks, Share.” He shuts the door behind her and flicks the switch on the wall that locks the door and lights up the red occupied light outside of the suite. He presses the intercom button. “Check.”

“Check,” Sharon confirms from her side. “I requisitioned you guys’ meals for the next seventy-two hours. Banner will call in once he’s here. … Hope’s paging me. Good luck.”

“Bye.” Steve releases the button and turns back around. He looks at Bucky, who’s still unconscious on the hospital bed. Steve walks over and chews his lip, regretful that they’d had to use a sedative. He knows the boy probably won’t be appreciative of that when he wakes.

Steve is aware that he’s got dried blood on him. He can feel it, tacky and starting to crust, pulling uncomfortably whenever he turns his head. He grabs the first aid kit from the room’s small supply cabinet and takes it into the bathroom. The mirror over the sink shows it all, and Steve winces at the mess. It looks worse than it is, probably.

He wets a gauze with antiseptic and bites the bullet and slaps it onto the spot where the skin is broken. He clenches his teeth and hisses at the sting, cursing quietly. A few, careful wipes and it’s mostly cleaned off and he’s able to see the individual teeth marks. Steve’s lips quirk despite himself. Kid had gotten him good.

It’s close to his glands, and Steve wonders if Bucky was consciously aiming for it. Probably not. Steve knows the boy was probably raised to try to force himself into sexually desiring omegas and betas only, probably females, and never alphas. Guiltily, Steve feels a little bit of a thrill at the idea of getting to be Bucky’s first sexual encounter with an alpha. He’ll be the first partner Bucky’s ever had to help satisfy his needs in a natural way.

He doesn’t count the people who assaulted Bucky. Even if they were alpha (and he has reasons to believe they were), they don’t count. They’re dirt, less than nothing to Steve. He’s going to make sure he wipes them out of existence from Bucky’s mind. He’ll make them less than nothing for the omega too, given enough time to take care of him the way he deserves.

Sighing, he gives his bloodied neck a few more careful wipes. It’s not bleeding anymore and he doesn't bandage it. He needs to leave that part of himself open and available to Bucky. If it’s something the omega wants, then Steve isn’t going to keep it from him. Steve’s been bonded a few times over the years, usually in sessions with his neediest patients. Detoxing off the high when he discharges them from care is never fun, but he knows how to get himself through it. If Bucky wants that connection with him, he’ll be more than happy to allow it.

Steve just wants to make him feel safe and good.

He puts the first aid kit away and starts making up the bed. He puts sheets on it, then roughly dumps all the blankets out into a kind of spread out pile. Still open for rearrangement, though. He doesn’t know if Bucky will want to nest it himself when he comes to. He lays all the various pillows out around the perimeter of the mattress. The mounting pillow gets set up by the head of the bed, out of the way. Steve doesn’t want to do anything that Bucky might interpret as demanding or coercive. Not right off the bat, at least. This is all going to go according to what Bucky wants and needs, not Steve.

Sharon buzzes through the intercom, announcing that she’s leaving bath towels outside the door. Steve retrieves them and sticks them in the bathroom for later. He checks the fridge, which is indeed stocked with water bottles, high-sugar fruit juice and cups of peaches packed in syrup, little portions of cheese and two ounce packets of almond butter—all good things for an omega to nibble on through a cycle. He pulls out the almond butters and sets them on the counter to warm up. He roots through the supply cabinet until he finds a box of the little spray caps that fit to the pheromone vials. He opens one, pops the cap on, then goes about spritzing it on various places on the bed. He doesn’t go too nuts, not wanting to overwhelm the omega when he—

“Steve?”

Steve whips around so fast, he almost trips over his own clogs. He sees Bucky, pushing up to sitting in the hospital bed and looking confused. “What happen’d?” he asks groggily, rubbing his face.

Steve sticks the vials in the fridge and hurries over to Bucky’s side. “Hey,” he says soothingly. “You got a little frantic back there, buddy. The nurse gave you something to calm down so we could get this room ready for you.”

Bucky seems to become more aware of his surroundings, and that he’s no longer in his hospital room. He looks past Steve, all around the heat suite. Then his attention fixes on the large bed. Steve sees his nostrils flare and his pupils shrink to pinpoints. He begins to shake his head a little. “No,” he whispers. “Please. Steve, please don’t make me.” He whimpers and his hands fly to his stomach, a cramp clearly passing through him. “Oh man,” he whines, distressed.

Steve had expected this. He’d wanted to have Bucky on the larger bed by the time he woke up, all snuggled and safe in a cocoon of soft things. He reaches out and touches the bed instead of Bucky, fingers stroking the boxy weave of the hospital blanket that covers Bucky’s leg only inches away. “It’s going to be just fine,” he tells him. “We’re in a private suite. It’s like your own little hotel room, see? You’ve got everything you need right here.” He points out different things. “There’s snacks in the fridge and the tv’s got all the streaming apps you could want.” He smiles. “Hell, the bathtub has jets.”

Bucky’s eyes do flick over to the bathroom’s open door, if only for a moment. But he’s quickly back to whimpering and wrapping his arms around himself. “No,” he says, staring at his knees instead of Steve. “S’wrong.” He shakes his head and mumbles quiet words to himself: gross, pathetic, unnatural. Horrible, wrong words that break Steve’s heart.

Steve feels that familiar flash of anger zip through him at the reminder of how horribly Bucky’s been treated his whole life. But that’s not productive, so he squashes the anger down and instead tries to think calming, soothing alpha thoughts. He long ago learned in his training that when helping an omega through their heat, an alpha’s thoughts influence their physiology, and their physiology influences their actions. Everything Steve does in this room now has to be geared towards helping Bucky feel safe and taken care of. Everything.

“Hey,” he says, sitting down on the very edge of the bed. Bucky seems hyper aware of his proximity but he doesn’t tense up or try to move away at all, which is a good sign. Steve lets his hand drift closer over the blanket, towards Bucky’s knee. “When you met with the counselor, with Clint? Did you guys talk about it? About being male omegas, your cycles?”

Bucky’s face looks pained and he still won’t look at Steve, but he nods smally. “Yeah.”

“I’d bet money that Clint didn’t use any of those words you just said, when he talked about it. Do you think those things about Clint?” This, at least, seems to get through to the kid. He peeks up at Steve, and Steve gives him a gentle smile. “I’m friends with him, ya know. He’s a cool guy. I actually think you two would get along.”

Bucky shrugs, unwilling to engage. He’s pouting still and Steve wants so badly to pull him in against his body and surround him with the pressure and reassurance of a hug, but he knows he has to do this on Bucky’s timetable. The omega is calmed out of the frenzy he was having when Sharon sedated him, but a cc of Midazolam up the nose tends to do that.

“I’m alpha,” Steve says gently. “So of course I can’t know what it’s like to go through a heat, not personally. But I’ve helped a lot of people through theirs. They’ve told me all kinds of things. Some sort of dislike it. Most enjoy it to some extent. But nobody has ever told me it’s wrong or unnatural.”

It’s a lie. Steve has had one or two other patients who felt the way that Bucky feels, dysphoric patients who were traumatized by abusers in similar ways, but Steve also knows that that’s not what Bucky needs to hear right now.

“Hey,” he says, finally sliding his hand far enough over the blanket that his fingertips brush Bucky’s lax ones on the bed. Bucky’s eyes fly up to him. “I know you can’t just change your viewpoint overnight. I get it. But it’s important that you understand that nobody else shares those negative thoughts about your body or about heats. I’m certainly not thinking them.” He tilts his head forward and asks, “What did Clint say about it, when you guys talked?”

Bucky is reluctant to tell him, but eventually he murmurs, “He said it’s intense, but it’s just our bodies’ way of feeling good. … He said it’s better when you’ve got somebody with you to help.” His cheeks are getting flushed, probably a combination of embarrassment and the effects of his heat. “He said he’s married to his husband and they love each other. That makes him like his heats.”

Steve nods. “Yeah, Phil. He’s a sweet guy. He’s actually one of the hospital administrators. We all go out for drinks together sometimes.” He’s trying to normalize everything, trying to make Bucky see that being omega and having heats is just another part of life that people go through, either on their own or through someone they know. “I have to say, I’ve always been a little bit jealous of the week of heat leave you guys get every month. It seems pretty awesome.”

Bucky looks at him like the words ‘heat’ and ‘awesome’ being used together don’t compute. His face flushes darker, and this time it’s almost certainly from embarrassment. “It’s gross,” he mumbles, looking away from Steve with a little scowl. He pulls his hand away from Steve’s on the bed and tucks his legs up under the blanket, hugging his arms around them. “Being like that, needing sex and having no control over yourself,” he says, spitting the words out like they’re bad, contemptable things. “Like an animal. S’pathetic.”

Steve sighs. Bucky’s got a long road of therapy ahead of him, that much is obvious. “It’s okay for you to think that, Honey, but you gotta know I’m gonna keep telling you how wrong you are.” Bucky looks back up at him at his assertive tone, and Steve nods. “I’m alpha, so I think omegas are lovely. And I’ve always thought it’s amazing what your bodies can do. It’s primal, sure. It’s powerful. Beautiful.”

Bucky pfts air between his teeth, disagreeing.

Steve lets his hand cover one of Bucky’s where he’s gripping his knees. “Especially to somebody like me. Seeing an omega in heat is a beautiful, natural thing. And every time I get to be with someone, when they let me help them feel good, it’s just the best thing.” There’s reverence in his voice instead of lust, and he can see the emotions passing over Bucky’s face as he takes that in. The disbelief starts to morph into a sort of cautious acceptance. Or at least that’s what Steve hopes it is. “I’m sorry you had people telling you otherwise for so long,” he says. He dares to curl his fingers over Bucky’s hand, and something loosens in his chest as the omega lets him. “Now you’re in the real world, though. Now you get to see how much everybody thinks you’re normal. Just another part of life. A great part of it, in fact.” He gives Bucky’s hand a squeeze. “So, will you let me spend your heat with you, Omega?”

Bucky’s irises flare and his lips part. Steve would be willing to bet the kid has never been called ‘omega’ with anything other than vitriol. And now Steve has said it like a title of honor. Bucky swallows thickly. “... Okay,” he says, voice barely there. Afraid maybe, but trusting. He’s trusting Steve, and that makes something golden and warm flare deep in Steve’s chest. “If it’s you,” Bucky adds meekly. “Only you.”

Steve smiles sadly. He’s not sure if Bucky fully remembers everything that’d happened in his hospital room earlier. “Yeah, Honey,” he reassures him. “I’m gonna stay with you the whole time. Just you and me.” He squeezes their fingers together. “It’s gonna be nice. I promise.”

Bucky blushes and squirms and won’t meet his eyes again, but he’s clearly pleased. He turns to look back over at the large, low bed. “Can I …” he starts, hesitant. “Can I go over there?”

“Of course, Sweetheart. It’s yours.” Steve pats the back of his hand comfortingly and then pulls away, getting up to go over and root around the fridge and make himself seem unobtrusive. “Why don’t you nest around a little bit? Make the blankets how you like.”

Behind him, Bucky is silent. Then Steve hears him get off the hospital bed, followed by the soft rustle of him climbing onto the suite’s bed. “... I don’t know how to nest,” comes quietly from behind.

Oh god. Steve lets his eyes slip shut for the barest second, at that heartbreakingly vulnerable admission. Once again, he’s struck by the intense urge to squeeze Bucky up in his arms, tight and secure and possessive forever. Focus, Rogers. He inhales deeply and fixes his face back to a cheerful neutral. He turns. Bucky is sitting in the very middle of the bed, legs folded under himself, looking like a lost little duckling in a sea of blankets. “Sure you do,” Steve says encouragingly. “It’s whatever makes you feel good. Whatever feels right.” He gestures to the various blankets and pillows. “Just start moving ‘em around. You’ll find what works.” He watches hopefully as Bucky bites his lip and considers his advice. He tentatively reaches for one of the pillows and switches it with another, fluffing it. Steve’s chest warms. “That’s it,” he encourages. “See? You know what to do.”

Bucky’s cheeks get more flushed and he tucks his lips in at the praise. There’s more confidence to him as he starts to pick up different pillows and move them, stuffing the edges of blankets around in various places.

“Rogers,”

Steve whips around towards the door at the sound of the intercom. He glances back at Bucky, who has tensed up at the interruption. “Keep working on it,” he urges kindly. “I have to step out for a second and talk with your new attending. I’ll be right back to see what you’ve done.” Bucky whines low in his throat, displeased at hearing that his heat partner is leaving him. But he obeys and goes back to arranging the blankets, and Steve is so proud of him. “Good boy,” he praises, then goes to step out into the hallway.

“Doctor,” he says respectfully once he’s out in the hallway with Banner. “Thanks for coming in. I’m sorry about this.”

Bruce smiles benevolently, if somewhat sleepily. “Happy to help. I gave his chart a look and read through your notes. It sounds like you made the right call to switch to his support.”

Steve shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah.” He knows that Banner could very well scold him over his mistakes, but instead he’s just letting it be. It’s a relief. “He just woke up from the sedatives a few minutes ago. I’m talking him through some nesting now, getting him settled in.”

Banner nods and brings his clipboard up to look at it as they talk. He scans Bucky’s chart, flipping between the pages. “Acute symptoms started about forty minutes ago?”

“Yeah.”

“What symptoms did you observe?”

Steve feels his neck get hot, and he brings a hand up to rub at it. “Um, well he slicked all over my pants.”

Bruce’s gaze falls assessingly to the large wet patch on Steve’s right thigh. He nods and writes on the clipboard. “Anything else?”

“Aggression, impulsive sexual touching, scenting, verbal regression, posturing,”

“The whole nine yards,” Bruce murmurs, nodding and finishing up with his writing. He looks back up at Steve. “Nothing to cause concern though?”

Steve shakes his head. “No. He rated his pain for me earlier. Just seems to be experiencing a typical level of cramping.”

“That’s good. Given the state of his infection days ago, I’dve been worried of something more severe.”

“That’s really cleared up,” Steve says. “A lot of the inflammation we saw there was actually his body rejecting the hormonal implants. Once we removed his suppressant and IUD, things really calmed down.”

Bruce nods, still flipping through the pages. “Okay. Still make sure to palpate his stomach. And conduct an internal before things get too wild in there.”

Steve fights back a wince. “Doc, he’s a very recent rape victim. I don’t think he’ll tolerate the speculum.”

“Then don’t use one,” Bruce says plainly. “If he can’t accept your fingers and you need a script written for benzos, we can do that.”

Steve tenses at the reminder that he’s no longer Bucky’s attending. He’s not the one who gets to make the decisions for Bucky’s care anymore. “Okay,” he agrees, anxious to get back into the suite and back to Bucky. “Not yet. But I’ll let you know.”

Bruce agrees and they part ways, and when Steve has locked himself back into the room, he turns and is met with the sight of Bucky working away at what’s quickly becoming a textbook nest. Steve beams. “Hey! look at you.”

Bucky spares him a glance, but then he huffs and he’s back to working away at getting the blankets just how he needs them. He’s like a cat: focused, satisfied and then frustrated and then satisfied again as he tries to get everything just right. It’s adorable. “They smell like you,” he mumbles, not looking up from where he’s working away. He means the blankets.

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah I scented them. Is that okay?” Steve waits for Bucky’s approval. When he gets a quick, silent nod, he’s satisfied. “This looks real good, omega” he approves, watching Bucky nitpick the final little details of the nest. Steve doesn’t miss how the mounting pillow hasn’t been moved from its spot at the far end of the bed. He bites his lip, thrilled that Bucky hasn’t rejected it. He could’ve tossed it from the nest entirely, but instead he’s kept it. Steve’s under no illusions that the kid doesn’t recognize the item for exactly what it is. When Bucky stops nesting and starts squirming, Steve holds his breath and asks, “Omega?” He waits for Bucky to look him in the eyes. “Can I come into your den with you?”

Bucky’s eyes go a little fuzzy at the request, dazed and pleased at being pursued by an alpha when he’s ripe like this. “Alpha,” he says plaintively, in lieu of an answer.

Steve hums and steps forward. “So good,” he praises. “Bucky, can I take my clothes off?”

“I …” Bucky’s eyes flick over him nervously. They land on the wet patch on his scrub pants and hold there. “Oh,” he breathes, face going slack.

“Yeah,” Steve touches the spot where Bucky had slicked all over him. “You remember that?” he asks. “Rubbing your bottom on me?” Bucky emits a high keening sound, distressed, but Steve shushes him and tuts. “No, baby. It was so amazing. You made me really happy when you did that.”

Bucky’s eyes flick up nervously. He looks like he can’t believe it. “I did?” he asks.

“Of course. It’s what your body’s supposed to do. It means you're healthy and aroused. That’s completely normal.” Bucky frowns a little, clearly still having intrusive thoughts about his nature. He whines and shakes his head, displeased, and Steve hurries to take a step closer to the low mattress. “Hey. Look at me, Honey. Please?”

Bucky squirms in place, rocking his hips in little unconscious movements. He looks up at him, and there’s awareness in his eyes. Awareness and fear. Steve can see how Bucky is perfectly aware of how differently he’s acting now, because of his heat. And it’s scaring him. “Steve,” he says, voice trembling. “Please. … I don’t think I can do this.”

“I’m right here, Buck. It’s okay. This is safe, remember?”

His lips tremble and a single tear falls down his cheek. “What’re you gonna do?”

Steve tries to give him the most reassuring look he knows how. “I’m gonna undress,” he says gently. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to have sex with you. We’re just gonna have some skin contact to start. Is that okay?” He waits for Bucky’s unsure nod before he pulls his scrub top over his head and tosses it aside. He’s wearing a white tee shirt underneath and he quickly removes that as well. Then Bucky’s inhale sounds, sharp and audible, his lips parting as he sees Steve’s body bared to him for the first time. Steve hums, pleased at the reaction, and pushes his chest out. He lets Bucky look his fill. The way the omega is sitting there, breathing open-mouthed and rocking faintly in place as his need builds, makes Steve’s balls feel heavy and full. He toes off his clogs and socks, then hooks his thumbs in the elastic waistband of his scrub pants. “You can undress too, if it’s what feels good,” he tells him. “I only want you to do what feels good for you.” Bucky just sits there and stares as Steve's scrub pants fall and his cock is revealed, half hard and obvious underneath his briefs. He rubs himself once from over the fabric, watching how Bucky's eyes track the movement. "Gonna take these off," he warns, not wanting anything he does to feel like a surprise to the omega. When he straightens back up from taking off his briefs, his cock hangs thickly between his legs.

And Bucky's eyes are riveted. “Oh,” he breathes quietly, all modesty and shame momentarily forgotten as he stares at Steve’s alpha body. “Steve,” he whispers.

Steve smiles, feeling incredibly tender towards the young omega. Bucky won’t be the first virgin he’s ever supported, but he might be the most vulnerable. Steve puts one knee up on the mattress, carefully cataloging Bucky’s reactions with every move he makes. He lowers his hands down into the mess of blankets, brings his other knee up, crawls forward slowly. “I’m coming into your nest with you, omega,” he says softly. “Your den. Where you decide what happens, right?”

“... right,” Bucky breathes, distracted.

Steve’s lips curl. “Can you undress for me now?” Bucky makes a small, hurt sound in his throat, but he listens and pulls off his hospital gown. Steve’s dick jumps against his thigh as he finally gets to see the boy’s naked body. “Oh, Sweetheart.”

Steve saw him that night in the ER, of course, but he’d been bloodied and bruised, wracked with seizures and burning up from infection. Steve hadn’t been able to look at him as anything other than an emergency that night. Bucky had been a body, broken and hurt and needing to be repaired, and Steve had done his job. Now, it’s amazing how much of a difference there is. Bucky is clean and healed and Steve can really look at him.

He has a natural tan to his skin. He's toned, with long, lithe limbs and muscles that are still partially hidden by a layer of baby fat. His chest and arms are strong, especially for an omega, but his hips round out nicely like they should, and his thighs are thick and welcoming. His belly is slightly distended, swollen from his heat. Everything about him makes Steve’s mouth water and his pulse thrum hard in his veins, pleased.

Bucky’s body is that of a fully-matured omega male, already having prepared itself for pregnancy and childbirth despite the years he was forced to take suppressants. Steve breathes a sigh of relief to see it. “Bucky,” he says honestly, wanting him to hear the arousal in his voice this time. “You’re so beautiful. Look at you.” He reaches out as if he’ll touch, but he doesn’t. “You’re perfect.”

Bucky flushes deeply at the praise and at being so closely scrutinized. There’s still a tension in him that’s unnatural, a wariness that serves to remind Steve that the omega was violated barely more than a week ago. Steve knees up closer to him and mirrors his position, sitting back on his heels, maintaining that small distance that reminds Bucky that this is his choice. He reaches out and puts a hand on Bucky’s hip, sliding it up his side.

Bucky flinches, and then he keens in distress when he sees the hurt that flashes on Steve’s face. “I’m sorry,” he says, looking ashamed. “Alpha,”

“Hey, no.” Steve tuts and curls his fingers in at the soft give of Bucky’s waist. “No, baby. Don’t apologize for this. You got hurt, and it’s scary. You don’t have to hide any of that from me. I want to know how you’re really feeling.” He reaches with his other hand and cups Bucky’s neck. He feels around and pushes in when he finds the glands there, hot and tight and swollen beneath the skin. The scent of fresh slick hits the air when he pinches down on it, and Bucky whines loudly. “Shhh sh sh,” Steve hushes. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Bucky whimpers and trembles, but calms down quickly with Steve’s hand massaging at his glands so pointedly. His eyes slip shut for the briefest of seconds, showing his trust in Steve, and something very close to a moan leaves his lips. It’s quiet, barely there, but Steve hears it. “Steve,” he murmurs, eyes still closed. “Oh …”

“What do you want to do, Honey?” Steve asks. “You want to get on your back? Why don’t you do that and feel those soft blankets against your body, huh?” He encourages Bucky to lie back and is incredibly relieved when the omega goes without a fuss. “Good boy,” he coos. “That’s just right. Yeah, isn’t that nice? Did such a good job on making this nest, Omega,” he praises. He sits back and crosses his legs and gives Bucky a moment to settle in. “There you go. Mmhm. Bet that feels real good on your skin, doesn’t it? Don’t worry now. I’m not going to touch you for a little bit. Just want you to get comfy in your nest. You gonna do that for me, Sweetheart?”

Bucky nods, scent calming more and more as he realizes that Steve isn’t lying, that he’s really not going to fall on top of him and force anything on him. His eyes open and flick over Steve’s face uncertainly. “What do I have to do?” he asks, emotionally vulnerable now but still with a degree of lucidity in his voice. It lets Steve know that he’s still dealing with his patient: a trauma victim. Bucky isn’t lost to his heat just yet.

Steve starts up a low, comforting rumble in his chest and keeps his hands on the tops of his own thighs. “Nothing you don’t want to,” he reassures him. “We’re here for you, Bucky. To make you feel good, and safe, and pleasured. I’m not going to do anything to you if it doesn’t make you feel all of those things, okay?”

Bucky almost looks like he’s going to cry at hearing Steve’s kind promises. He looks like a child who’s afraid to trust, who’s had promises that they’ve believed in yanked away before, many times. “Are you sure?” he asks, fearful.

Steve smiles sadly and grips his own thighs to keep himself from reaching out. “So sure,” he says. “Let’s just sit here together for a minute, okay?” He looks up at the ceiling and speaks to the StarkPhone assistant, “Hey Jarvis: play ‘sexual healing’ playlist.”

“Playing ‘sexual healing’ playlist.”

Steve looks back down to Bucky just in time to catch him wincing at the stupid name of the playlist. They share a chuckle over it, and then the music that Steve uses for people like Bucky starts to fill the room. There’s not actually any Marvin Gaye on it. Far from that, the instrumental music is somewhere between ethereal and sensual. It’s enticing, soothing, and Steve has always found it to be a good fit for patients who need help relaxing into their heats. “How’s that?” he asks Bucky, smiling down at him.

“Nice,” he says, inhaling slowly and letting his eyes slip closed as he relaxes, and exhales.

Something deep in Steve’s chest unspools at that huge sign of trust. This is good. This is going really well. “Okay,” he murmurs. More quietly than last time, he says, “Jarvis: dim lights to thirty percent, soft orange glow. Adjust room temperature to patient’s basal body temp, minus twenty degrees.”

This time Jarvis follows the commands without replying. The room becomes warm and glowing and comforting, like the inside of a womb. Steve sits still and allows Bucky to take time to relax fully. The omega’s scent is improving, softening and ripening into a healthy tone. Steve’s body responds to it, but he ignores his own reactions and watches Bucky intently. In the low light, his body gleams beautifully. The faint sheen of perspiration that coats his skin makes him look delectable. Steve wants to taste him so badly.

“I’m gonna get something,” he says quietly, not wanting to disturb Bucky from how he’s relaxing. “Not going anywhere, just a second.” Bucky makes a vague noise of assent, eyes staying closed. It makes Steve smile fondly.

He goes to the supply cabinet and gets a bottle of unscented oil. There’s a pin valve on the bottom of the container that he locks onto one of the pheromone vials. He squeezes in some of his pheromones then pops the vial back off, giving the oil bottle a good shake to properly emulsify everything. Having Steve’s alpha scent rubbed all over his skin will help relax Bucky, and it’ll help calm some of his body’s inflammatory heat reactions down.

Steve climbs back into the nest and sits next to Bucky’s prone body. He lets his eyes rake over the rise and fall of his chest and the smooth planes of his belly. He stares at what’s visible lower down; a small thatch of dark pubic hair just above his penis, everything else naturally bare and smooth. Steve can’t see his actual sex from here, but he can see the shine of slick that’s leaked out of it, smeared onto his inner thighs and gleaming in the room’s low light. It’s enticing to say the least.

Steve knows he’s not supposed to judge his patients’ bodies, but there’s no denying that Bucky is ideally attractive, right down to what’s between his legs. His little cocklet is short and soft. It’s fattened up thick but not erect. That’s to be expected. It’s rare that Steve sees a male omega who is able to get fully hard. Their bodies don’t produce the right hormones for it, especially during their heats. Bucky’s uncircumcised, the head of his little dick fat and flush beneath the foreskin. Steve knew all of this already, but somehow it all still feels novel. He’s looking at him differently now. Not as a doctor but as his alpha support, as someone who’s going to make love to his body, if Bucky wants it.

When he looks back up to his face, Bucky’s eyes are open and he’s watching him with an inscrutable expression. “Are you okay?” Steve asks.

Bucky nods silently. “I …” his eyes flash down to his dick and then away. “Um…” He squirms and presses his thighs together, ashamed. “It’s not, um, I’m not …”

“No,” Steve says firmly. “Bucky, no. You’re so perfect, Honey. You literally look like the classical sculptures of male omegas.” Bucky seems to be slightly reassured by this, which Steve knows is a minor miracle. He can imagine the sorts of things Bucky’s been insulted with over the years, all the ways his so-called family has told him his omega body is wrong. “Can I touch you a little, Sweetheart? Are you gonna let me touch this gorgeous body?”

Bucky shivers, eyes wide. He seems stunned that Steve likes the way he looks. “Okay,” he whispers.

“Good boy,” Steve praises. He squeezes out some of the oil and rubs it between his hands. It’s a dry massage oil, designed for omegas who’re in heat, their skin overly sensitive to stimulation. Steve reaches out slowly, telegraphing his intentions. He lets his hand sink down to rest on the top of Bucky’s thigh. He feels the omega shiver from the touch. He squeezes, digging slow and deep into the muscle, then releases the pressure and rubs firmly up and down, over and over. “Is this okay?” he asks. “Me massaging you?” It’s one of the most common techniques he uses for trauma victims, and Bucky seems to be responding to it favorably, if the lazy, pleasured look on his face is anything to go by. “Mm? Good?”

Bucky nods, staring at him through heavy lidded eyes. “Yeah,” he croaks. “It’s nice.” Between his legs, his little cocklet is just barely peeking out, a thin bead of moisture pearling at the slit . Steve notices with a slight smile, but of course he says nothing.

He brings up his other hand to deepen the massage. “That’s good,” he praises. “That’s what we want.” He keeps up the massage, doing one thigh and then the other, then moving down to his shins. Bucky makes a painfully erotic sound once Steve has pulled his foot into his lap and is digging fingers into his arch. Steve hums, continuing on.

Eventually Bucky seems calm enough that Steve sets his feet aside and encourages him to spread his legs so that Steve can move to sit between them. Bucky seems to know what’s coming, keeping his eyes pointedly closed as Steve eases his hands back up his legs, over his knees, and then up to the tension in his inner thighs. “Shh,” Steve soothes, rubbing back and forth. “Relax, honey. I’m just gonna examine you. Eyes and hands only, I promise. Take deep breaths.”

Bucky tries to listen, it’s obvious. But his breath still hitches when Steve brings both hands to his lower stomach and begins palpating the area. He peeks down at Steve, “What’re you doing?”

“Just checking,” Steve murmurs, focused on what he’s feeling underneath his fingers. “It’s normal for your uterus to swell during heat, but I don’t want to feel any hard spots.” He hears Bucky grunt in embarrassment, probably at being reminded of his own anatomy. “Shh, you’re okay. Everything seems fine.”

“... Steve?” Steve looks up and sees Bucky’s pinched expression. “Um, remember when you said I might not be able to have children?”

His heart squeezes at the obvious vulnerability in Bucky’s voice, how brave he’s being by asking. “We were worried about that, before,” Steve admits. “But your body’s been responding well to the treatment.” He notches his thumbs in at Bucky’s hipbones and strokes him softly there. “We still have to get your cycles regulated, but I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be able to carry a pregnancy just fine one day.”

Bucky’s cheeks flush and he looks a little overwhelmed at the words. “... one day,” he repeats meekly, and Steve smiles gently at him.

“Yeah Honey, one day. Not today. Not until you’re ready.” This seems to ease Bucky's fears, and his scent sweetens into something even richer than before. He smells like he feels safe, and that makes Steve preen in satisfaction. He’s making his omega feel safe. He rumbles low in his chest and watches how Bucky reacts to the sound. He slides his hands down to Bucky’s knees and encourages him to bed his legs up. “Can I see the rest of you?” he asks.

Bucky trembles and tenses, but he nods, shifting the tilt of his hips as he draws his knees up for him.

“Good boy,” Steve praises, knowing how hard it must be for Bucky to reveal this part of himself to anyone, let alone Steve. “That’s so good, Bucky. Thank you.” He strokes Bucky’s calves, soothing him. “Close your eyes if you need to. I want you relaxed for this.”

Bucky whimpers but he does let his eyes slip closed. He’s trying. He’s being so brave and strong and it melts Steve’s heart. Steve takes a moment to get some more of the massage oil on his hands. He leans over Bucky and smears the oil on either side of his neck, right over the glands, giving him his scent. He puts some just below his nostrils as well and Bucky moans softly. Steve sits back. He looks down.

Bucky is pink and healthy looking, swollen from the heat and soaked with a healthy amount of slick. Steve pushes gently on his shins to get him to bend his legs more. This tilts his pelvis up and exposes him to Steve’s view.

Bucky looks like any young male omega should. He lacks a clitoris because his body developed that part of his anatomy into a penis when he was in utero. His sex is fairly similar to a female's, with pronounced outer lips where he would’ve formed his testicles, if he hadn’t developed ovaries instead. Steve’s breath catches a little when he sees the boy's muscles clench, a thick gush of slick seeping out of his cunt. Jesus wept. Bucky whimpers and squirms, but Steve hushes him, telling him that he’s good, he’s fine, his body’s doing what it’s supposed to. “I’m going to touch you, okay?” he says softly, giving Bucky the chance to refuse. “I’m going to put my fingers inside to feel you.”

While it’s clear that this is very upsetting and hard for Bucky, he still seeks comfort in Steve, trying to be good for him. “Alpha,” he breathes, eyes clenched shut and face screwed up. He reaches down, searching for Steve’s hand.

Steve gives him his left one and squeezes their fingers together. “Right here, Honey. It’s just you and me, in private, taking care of each other. Nothing bad, right?”

Bucky nods tightly. “Y-yeah. Right.”

Steve smiles up at him, pained but so, so proud of how well he’s doing. “C’mere,” he coaxes, scooting up in the sheets and pulling on Bucky until he has the boy’s hips up in his lap. “There you go. That’s so good, Omega. You know just what to do. So smart.” Bucky responds to the nonsensical praise, his whines losing some of their stress and instead becoming more seeking, questioning things. Steve makes it his mission to soothe those sounds with his own. “I’m going to touch you now, Buck. Two fingers. It shouldn’t hurt, but if it feels uncomfortable at all, you tell me right away and I’ll stop.” He waits for Bucky’s nod before continuing, then traces the edges of his folds, gathering slick on his fingertips. Everything externally looks good, and the little Steve can see of his delicate entrance looks normal, if a bit heat swollen. The remains of his recently-torn hymen are still there, healed but jagged edges of soft tissue that evil, vile rapists created. Steve grits his teeth and forces his thoughts away from that, not wanting to think about what they took from Bucky, not wanting Bucky to become upset from an unpleasant shift in his scent.

Any physical trauma to the vaginal tissues will have healed in an omega his age by now, Steve knows, but that’s just the physical. Physical wounds always heal the fastest, and hurt the least. There are other, deeper hurts that Steve needs to help him with.

“Okay,” he whispers, setting his fingers to Bucky’s entrance. “A little pressure, no pain. Remember what you do if there’s pain?”

Bucky’s face pinches where he’s lying with his eyes firmly closed. “Tell you,” he murmurs, and Steve praises him with a deep rumble of approval.

“That’s right. Good boy. Okay now, deep breath.” He waits for Bucky’s chest to rise in an inhale before he applies pressure, and slips into his body.

Bucky’s lips part and he gasps, but it’s just reflex. He lets his breath out and sighs, making a little sound in his throat like he’s surprised that it actually didn’t hurt. “Oh,” he says.

Steve hums, pleased. “Nothing bad,” he repeats. He crooks his fingers, feeling with purpose along the omega’s walls. It’s tight inside, incredibly hot and tight like a virgin omega’s cunt should be. Steve keeps his arousal to himself as best he can, though he knows his scent will give some of it away. At least Bucky is keeping his eyes closed to relax, so Steve doesn’t have to worry about the boy seeing the undoubtedly devastated expressions of arousal that flash across his own face.

He’s alpha, and even though he’s undergone extensive training, there’s no helping certain things. Steve’s cock is hard and it’s not going down any time soon. He swallows thickly, focusing on the exam he needs to be conducting. Carefully, watching Bucky’s body and face for any flinches, he strokes and feels along his internal walls. Nothing abnormal stands out to him, though when he uses a different technique to feel closer to the entrance, he does notice the enlarged slick glands that he’d known were there.

They’re much better than they’d been on that night in the ER, at least. No longer raging with infection, able to be touched without causing extreme pain. Steve feels and identifies the structures, impacted from years and years of illegal suppressant use. Carefully, he eases into using more pressure, rubbing firmly.

Bucky groans and presses his hips down. “Oh god,” he complains, brow scrunching a little. “What is that?”

“Pain?” Steve asks, but Bucky shakes his head.

“Sore. Oh. Like a bruise.”

Steve hums knowingly. “You have four glands here, two on either side. They’re how your body gets wet, but right now they’re probably impacted.” Bucky makes a hurt little sound in his throat and asks what that means. Steve explains it to him. “There was a lot of old infection in them and that all needs depressed now that your body’s producing slick again. I’m gonna massage them to try and get the bad stuff out, okay?”

Bucky’s chewing his lip, making it red and swollen and very tempting for Steve to just crawl back up his body and kiss the abused flesh. “... okay.”

Steve decides to do the anterior two first, as they feel harder. “Here we go,” he murmurs. “If it hurts more than slightly pressing on a bruise, tell me. Don’t ignore pain. I’ll stop if we need to.”

Bucky nods tightly, expression strained. But he whispers, “I trust you, Alpha,” and Steve’s heart swells two sizes bigger in his chest.

A few minutes of firm, focused touching on the glands is all it takes to have them releasing. Liquid gushes over the back of Steve’s hand as the pressure gives and Bucky moans in relief. The smell of old, stale infection hits the air, sour for a moment before it dissipates. Steve uses his free hand to rub soothingly over Bucky’s lower belly. “Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Against the sheets, Bucky nods his head blearily. Steve turns his hand and finds the posterior glands, and works those until they release as well. The amount of slick is incredible, and Steve knows that it must feel so much better for the omega now that all that poison is out of him. There’s immediately more room inside his channel, the glands back to being soft and spongy like they should be. Steve gives them a few more gentle strokes to be sure that all that backed up slick is out. “Good,” he rumbles low in his chest, proud of how well Bucky handled that. “That’s just lovely, Honey. Good job.”

Bucky peeks his eyes open, looking down to where Steve still has his fingers buried inside his body. His entire face is flushed and he’s breathing open-mouthed. “S-steve,” he slurs, searching Steve’s eyes out with his own. He’s a little wild, a little needy, and Steve responds, removing his fingers from the drenched clutch of his cunt and coming up to lay over his body instead. He puts his face close, giving Bucky eye contact and reassurance and an open invitation to scent him. “I’m here, Buck. I’m right here with you. What do you need?”

Bucky grunts with discomfort and hides himself against Steve’s neck, which of course Steve allows, turning his head to the side to give him better access to his glands. He cups Bucky’s head with his clean hand, encouraging him with deep, soothing sounds. “That’s good, that’s just right, Honey. Do what feels good. Whatever you need.”

Bucky keens, embarrassed but clearly loving the reassurance Steve’s giving him. He latches onto Steve, mouth on his glands and legs around his waist. He humps up against him and sucks needily on his glands. “Mmph, mm…”

Steve can’t help the guttural moan that escapes him at such contact. It feels so good. “Okay, Sweetheart, okay,” he pants, eyes squeezed shut as his dick throbs and blurts out precum against Bucky’s stomach. “Yeah, okay.” He loses control for a few seconds as his hips press down on Bucky’s soft body, but he reigns it in after a few thrusts.

Bucky complains with a noise, humping up for more as he mouths over Steve's neck. His teeth scrape and then catch, and then he bites down on Steve’s glands. Hard.

Steve grunts loudly at the flare of pain. The skin breaks and his scent wafts into the air, strong and different from before as Bucky’s saliva gets mixed into the wound. He hears Bucky’s muffled sound of enjoyment as his mouth fills with the taste, eagerly suckling for more. “... oh, fuck,” Steve moans. He digs his fingers in against Bucky’s shoulders and pants, trying to hold on, to stay calm.

He knew this might happen. Patients with needs as complex as Bucky’s are prone to biting. They naturally seek out the connection and pleasure of a bond, instincts overriding their minds as they seek the comfort they so desperately need. Bucky chirps happily at the burst of pheromones that he’s gotten, rubbing his face back and forth in the blood. “Alpha, Alpha,” he breathes, clinging onto him and humping up, getting his slick all over Steve.

Steve practices his breathing to try and stay calm. He pets Bucky’s shoulders and his hair, taking deep, grounding breaths. He’s careful not to pull away, not to deny Bucky access to any part of him. The pain from the bite is gone and the euphoria is setting in, making his skin tingle, his balls throb. He can feel his knot becoming erect. Bucky is rubbing his cunt along the length of his cock, and even with his training and his certifications and his long-practiced self control, even Steve has limits.

“Hang on, Honey. Hang on now,” he says, voice low with forced calm. He shifts on his arms over Bucky so that he can get a hand at the back of the omega’s neck. He squeezes. Bucky instantly goes limp, mouth releasing from Steve’s skin with a moan as he goes slack against the blankets. Steve pants for a moment, just calming himself down. “Okay,” he says, eyes closed. “Okay baby. Just ... just gimme a minute ..."

He's been bonded to seven people in his life. It never gets easier.

The euphoria is wonderful, all-consuming, an intense physical pleasure that’s different from pure sex and is very emotional—like doing narcotics and molly at the same time. It makes it very hard not to lose his control and simply fuck into the nearest available orifice. Which right now is Bucky’s soaking wet cunt. Grunting, he forces himself to pull back. He rolls off of Bucky and gets off the bed.

Bucky’s keening protest is near-instantaneous. “Alpha!”

Steve rumbles loudly to calm him down. “Stop. Omega. Be still.” Bucky whimpers but listens, and Steve sits down on the edge of the bed. He reaches out and grabs Bucky’s hand, giving him a comforting squeeze. “Talk to me,” he coaxes, waiting for Bucky to calm down enough to communicate. “How you doing, Sweetheart?”

Bucky looks pleadingly up at him, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes. “S-steve, I’m—I need…”

Steve’s heart clenches in sympathy. It’s not easy for an assault victim to say that they need to be fucked, especially when they have as much shame and dysphoria surrounding their gender as Bucky does. “Hey,” he says lowly, leaning over and sliding his hand up Bucky’s chest. “It’s okay to ask for what you need. What do you need, Baby? Tell me.” Bucky trembles and shakes his head, upset, so Steve cups the front of his throat and presses slightly, just enough to be dominating. “Tell me now, Omega,” he says, using his Voice to make it easier for him. “Tell Alpha what you need to feel right.”

Bucky moans and thrusts his hips up uselessly. He looks to Steve, relief in his eyes. “Alpha,” he croaks. “You, please. Want you.”

“Want me how?” Steve presses, not in his Voice but still domineering. He lets his fingers dig into Bucky’s glands, sees Bucky’s blood-stained lips part in a sigh of pleasure. “You have choices,” Steve says. He’s regained some of his control now, is more clear headed as he tells him, “We don’t have to have sex if it’s not what you want. You can use my hands, or my mouth. There are toys. I can have the hospital staff bring—”

“No!” Bucky whines loudly and squirms against the hold on his neck. Both of his hands fly up and grasp at Steve’s wrist. “No, no, Alpha, please. I need… I–I n-need it.”

Steve frowns, debating whether he should push and make him say it. After a moment of watching Bucky struggle and plead uselessly, he decides that no, he’s not going to force him to voice what it is he wants so badly. They both know what it is, and the last thing Steve wants is for Bucky to feel any sort of shame right now.

Only pleasure. That’s what he’d promised.

So, taking a deep breath, Steve gives himself over to his role a little more. He’s got Bucky’s consent, or as much of it he’s able to, given the state he’s in, and now he needs to be what Bucky needs him to be. He needs to be his Alpha. “Stay still,” he orders firmly, giving a little jostle to Bucky’s neck where he’s holding him. “I’m gonna get something. Don’t move until I come back.”

Bucky whines in complaint the entire time that it takes Steve to pad over to the fridge and back, but when Steve returns, he still hasn’t moved. Steve rumbles approval in his chest for Bucky to hear. “Good boy,” he praises, sitting down on the bed and helping Bucky to prop himself up, too. “Here. Drink.” He guides the water bottle to Bucky’s lips, helping him even when the omega brings his own hands up to hold it. Steve doesn’t trust the poor thing not to spill it all over himself. Steve gulps down what Bucky doesn’t finish, tossing the bottle off to the side somewhere. His eyes stay on Bucky, trailing up and down his naked body. “You’re so beautiful, Buck,” he murmurs, reaching up to trace the side of his cheek, his temple.

It’s true. Bucky’s whole body is flushed and tense. He’s sweaty, trembling with his need for touch and stimulation. When Steve cups the front of his throat again, the omega’s eyes slip shut and stay shut. He purrs. Steve rumbles in response and uses the moment that Bucky has his eyes closed, relaxed, to stare selfishly at his body.

His little cock is thickened, a perfect, fat little nub that’s almost thicker than it is long, chubbed up and leaking little droplets. But that’s nothing compared to the mess that’s coming from his cunt. He’s soaking wet down there, a combination of shiny clear slick coating his thighs and the sheets, and thicker arousal creaming right at his entrance.

Steve growls as he’s slammed with the hot urge to stick his face down there, tongue deep inside his cunt and swallow everything the omega has to give. He looks away for a second to get himself under control. When he looks back, Bucky’s eyes are fixed on him. “Omega,” Steve grits, forced control darkening his tone. “I want to try something. Something to make you feel good. But I need you to tell me if you want it.” He watches Bucky carefully, watches his mouth and his eyes, feels the thrum of his pulse underneath his hand. He scents the air to gauge his reaction as he says, “I want to put my mouth on you. I want to eat you out. I want to make you cum that way.”

Every sign that Bucky could possibly give him that he wants it, he does. He jerks in Steve’s hold and keens, hands grappling all over Steve’s hand at his throat, up his wrist and his forearm. “Yes!” he gasps, crying a little bit in shame. Steve scents the smokey tint of it in his scent, polluting what should be nothing but pleasure and acceptance. Bucky is ashamed that he wants an alpha to touch him this way. “Sweetheart,” Steve coos, thumbing away one of the tears. But he leaves it at that. More tears follow. Steve knows he can’t expect miracles today. Bucky can cry about it if he needs. He can squirm and flush and cry while Steve pleasures him with his mouth, so long as he comes.

That’s what therapy’s for.

Steve pushes him back to lie flat on the bed. He bends over and kisses him, keeping it shallow and gentle even when Bucky gets a little bit desperate and tries to get more. Steve tuts and pushes him back into the blankets. “Be still, ‘mega,” he commands gently. “Alpha’s gonna make it better, you’ll see.” He pulls some of the soft things in from the edges of the nest, rucking them up close around Bucky’s head and shoulders, making a tight little barrier where he can feel held, safe and snug. “Okay,” he says, satisfied by how Bucky goes a little lax in the cradle of the blankets. “Yeah, there we go.”

“Alpha,” Bucky says softly, looking lost. He’s completely dependent at this point, so incredibly vulnerable that it makes Steve's cock ache.

“Sweet boy,” he murmurs. “It’s gonna be okay. Alpha’s gonna make you feel good now, okay?” He waits for Bucky to give him a slow little nod. He pecks one more kiss to his bitten-red lips, then starts trailing down his body, one kiss at a time. He’s sorely tempted to waste some time sucking at the omega’s chest. His little pink nipples are so perky and flushed, and Steve just knows he could get his breast buds to swell up so beautifully if he only paid them some attention.

But Bucky hasn’t consented to that, and Steve hasn’t asked, and he has to be very careful of treating Bucky’s body in only the ways he gives consent for and can tolerate. Bucky’s been through so much pain and he’s been forced into things no omega should ever be forced into. His experience now has to be positive. It has to.

Steve sinks down between his legs and stares at his wet cunt. He’s pulsing with arousal, his entrance contracting rhythmically, pushing out more of that cream. Steve releases a guttural moan at the intense smell of it. “Fuck,” he breathes. There’s no amount of training that could help him resist this.

He covers Bucky’s cunt with his mouth, lapping across his slit. The taste of his arousal is sharp and amazing, made even more so by the fresh effects of the bite to Steve’s bonding gland. He groans against his mound and holds him down roughly at the hips when Bucky jerks wildly.

He’s crying out, sobbing wordlessly and thrashing up against Steve’s mouth. “A—Alpha!” he gasps, sounding like he’s protesting as much as he is begging. “Oh, oh, oh!”

Steve tongues into his hole furiously, over and over again, fucking him with the muscle. He can feel Bucky fluttering around him, his body trying so hard to clamp down onto something. Steve hears the growing displeasure and desperation in the boy’s keening cries, so he reaches to push his little cocklet down flat and starts thumbing rapidly back and forth under the head.

Bucky screams and starts to come.

As soon as Steve realizes what’s happening, he moves his mouth up and takes his cock in his mouth, replacing his tongue with fingers in Bucky’s cunt. It throbs and pulses around them, milking him, drawing out the orgasm. Bucky’s hips grind up against Steve’s face and hands, and Steve can only work him through it, listening to his desperate sobs and wishing he could be kissing his face, too, whispering encouragements into his mouth as he falls apart so sweetly.

“That’s it,” he says when he’s finally let Bucky’s cocklet slip from his mouth. He’s speaking against the swell of his belly, still rocking fingers inside him as the boy twitches through the waning pleasure of his climax. “That’s it, Omega. Take it, take it. Just feel it.”

Bucky’s sobbing quietly and shaking from his core as Steve finishes guiding him through it. “S-steeve,” he keens, upset and needing reassurance. He pulls at Steve’s shoulders, urging him back up his body. Steve goes obediently, eager to calm him down now.

“Shh sh sh,” he soothes, kissing all over his face and then down to his neck. He sucks his glands on one side, pinches with his fingers on the other. “Good, you’re so good Omega. That was perfect. Alpha’s so proud of you.”

The scent of Bucky’s shame is stronger now than it was before, but it eases up the longer Steve goes on, reassuring him with touches and words and chest-deep rumbles that he’s done exactly what he’s supposed to, that he was good to take his pleasure that way and that his Alpha is so, so happy with him now.

“So good,” he kisses into his skin, scraping his teeth over the swollen glands but restraining himself from anything more. “So good for me, Bucky.” He comes up to lie over him and look down at his face. He’s beet red and tear stained, and he’s never looked more beautiful to Steve. Steve smiles softly as they both calm down, and he thumbs at his wet cheeks. “Did that feel so good, Sweetheart?”

Bucky’s lips tremble and he nods and cries a little bit more. “Yeah.”

Steve coos. He kisses him, calming him down. When Bucky’s scent is almost free from that shame and embarrassment, he pulls back and smiles down at him. “Do you have any idea how perfect you are like this?” he asks softly. “Any idea how much I want you right now?”

Beneath his body, Bucky shudders. He looks wonderingly up at Steve and whispers, “No.”

Steve hums, then lets the sound develop into a mature rumble deep in his chest. He gets off of Bucky, pulling back and getting up on his knees, sitting back on his heels. He watches Bucky, keenly aware of how the omega’s attention drops right to the proud jut of his cock between his thighs.

Taking a deep breath and trying his very best to wipe any trace of an opinion out of his voice, Steve asks, “What do you want now, Omega?”

Art: @hopelessartgeek

A.N. This ended in a stupid spot because it was getting too long. More to come!

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[creativefuturesza]

How to Use an Automated Masturbator For Men

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If you are interested in purchasing an automatic penis stroker for men, you can check out the Solo from Lynk Pleasure, the XBIZ-featured male stroker, and the Lelo F1S V2. All three of these products feature SenSonic technology, which is a patented system that uses sonic pulses to trigger peen.

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from Automatic stroker https://automaticstroker.com/how-to-use-an-automated-masturbator-for-men/

[fersrsbizniz]

Beast Wars episode 2!

Otherwise known as

and then some.

Hm, yep that does look like a long way down.

And maybe this is something that more learned transformers people can help me out here with…like are they partially magnetic? Because Dinobot’s legs become his arms by full on detaching. And his head/chestplate just bounces down. Or is this more of a thinking too hard about it, it’s CGI nonsense, just have fun with his little hissy growl kind of deal?

I just ask because Optimus’ transformation is very smooth in comparison.

And the fight begins. It starts off pretty straight forward, and shows off some humor (I’d question if there was a glass jaw but they’re all metal, badum tis) and then we get the flip flopping of who has the upper hand. Although this is our first real look at how Dinobot differs from the other Predacons.

The main camp (that we currently see) haven’t shown good sportsmanship in any capacity, whereas we get a save where an easy win could have been gained. Not trying to categorize them all one way or the other like they want to do to each other but I do have to wonder if things would have played out differently with a less backstabbing bunch. Anywho, some pretty honorable stuff…and then he happily states he wants to end his opponent brutally. Yep, I remember why I liked this guy so much. A little bundle of contradictions. Still wondering what I liked about Cheetor but I’m sure time will tell. And I really don’t remember Rattrap being this adverse to helping out but maybe I forgot his growth or something.

(I also sigh heavily as I mentally note again how phallic that particular angle was. Seems my senior seminar mentality is still there, ready to debate about the guy wearing whale peen skin in Moby Dick but I digress)

For some reason when Waspinator transformed I expected him to say “waspinize” and I have no idea where that thought came from. But, anyway, let’s see how well Megatron handles this duel—not well if the length of the show’s run is anything to go by lol

“Save yourself” wow, already saying that to an “enemy”. Love it. Whatever Optimus Primal and Dinobot got going on is my jam and they need to do that more often in shows. They just do.

Hey…hey…Megatron. You ALSO let them escape with your choice of firing. Being unable to recognize your failings does show signs of an incompetent leader, just sayiiiing. Being right about energon doesn’t negate that.

And while I understand Rattrap’s misgivings, that was still an asshole move to send Rhinox after Dinobot and I’m glad Optimus told him to chill out. I know this chill out attitude can cause more trouble than it’s worth sometimes, but this time it was the right call. Not that they know just yet but that’s irrelevant lol.

Megatron goes stomp stomp.

No Rattrap, unsafe firing practices does not automatically make Dinobot an enemy (currently—he’s not exactly saying he’s your friend or anything either) but it does call into question his status as a thoughtful warrior who thinks his moves through. And shows he’s not quite yet the leader material he thinks he is.

The ensuing Predacon vs Maximal fight goes generally as one would expect. Although, there was quite a chomping that happened to Optimus’ leg. And of course, Dinobot’s tail changing the missile’s course.

The I owed you my life deal. Uh huh.

And now the war has a name, Beast Wars!

…why did you have to name it with that much energy, Optimus? You don’t know you’re in a tv show. Your leg is injured on top of it. Conserve your strength.

You’re going to need it.

[throwinggrapesoffthebalcony]

preface to LAVENDER SOAP

You can feel apocalyptic in a number of ways, even while living in peaceful times. But what many times looks like peace, isn’t. And so a piece may arise during our own suppressed apocalypse. That was the case with Lavender Soap and my life in 1996. Very few places have had the energy to influence me as a writer, to feed into my tendencies, and even fewer places that could provide a sense of peace, that I was only ever able find in the water; buoyant saline, under the warmth of the ray’s of the sun. Even in storm, or the dead of winter, it was a tranquility, a sanctuary, that I could never find on land. Depending on your life, it’s a beautiful separation.

The epoch and the hotel was very different then, it was at peace tucked into the trees. It wasn’t decimated  by this new cheap world yet. The perfect air was still influxed with the smell of foliage and perfume and of old materials, plaster ruined and repaired a thousand times, regrouted with the tiles left intact, the aging glue of wallpaper is sweet. Decor should be timeless during our lives. Life is so short after all. It was a hotel imbued with and not completely claimed by the past yet, with the past, absorbed into the walls and woodwork and tapestries. The faint voices, rapes, murders, sufferings, and suicides of a more glamorous past, saved like metal oxide on tape in the walls; played when the atmosphere is right. The first element that effects me are women I’ve been involved with sexually and their particular fashion and our conversations, the other is the inspiration of architecture; this necessity to remove and protect ourselves from the elements of nature. And the third being that wild energy of nature itself, weather, thermal dynamics, etc. I’ll save the commentary about the energy arising from the earth and surroundings for the preface for SSHS, which was more influenced by the raw energy of a geographic location and life’s tragedies than it was about architecture. And writing that piece was never about silence for me, while Lavender Soap was born, not in the clash of an apocalyptic scene, but in the very opposite, in the midst of the most pleasurable quiet, not an absolute silence, but a perfect quiet. The sound of air moving through trees, the sound of a rotary telephone ringing, faint voices speaking somewhere, the existence of humanness, not intruding on your life, when it doesn’t need to. That was a time when I think everyone had their own scenario, there were bounds, and knew that your scenario wasn’t their scenario; which is called sanity. Perfect separation of lives, we were humans not insects. And because of this, meeting someone was always much more interesting than now. Lavender Soap is, besides being a psychological piece delving into my experiences at the Chateau, it’s also to a great extent a retrospect, and a regression to my childhood. It was in a childhood bedroom that I perfected disassociation, disconnection, and detachment in, out of necessity, for survival. A house of continual violence, week after week, year after year, leaves you with nowhere to go but down. Fantasy and pictures, allowed me to drift off. A calendar out of date, a hopeful month of lavender fields is where all of my loves stood. They never take you up. Sleeping with my weapon of choice, a tapered necked ball peen hammer. And with the faint smell of WD40 and rust the angels never come to save you from the screaming. A movie about war, that’s pretty in a way, is the only way I can remember that film.

In 1996, experience wasn’t found on a cell phone. I was young and if you wanted to feel something or experience something, you had to shower, dress and traverse whatever plane you were on. And from one location to another, so much could happen, and in-between there was discovery, moments. Forget the set pieces, that’s not what this life is made of. This life is made of moments. In my opinion, that curiosity is what the young are absolutely lacking in today’s world, that and not feeling like individuals. There was a conversation that I read, I think around that same time, where a film editor, I think Murch, if not, one of the other prominent film editors, was talking about editing on a Moviola. And because of the linear nature of working with whole strips of 35mm film, he would have to pass through a lot of footage that he hadn’t previously considered, and that he would have, if working in a non-linear manner have never encountered. And there, he would find moments that worked more profoundly than what he was intending to use. And I think that lack of an analog approach in living, has people missing the more profound encounters, the accidental encounters, encounters more enlightening than what they might experience with a premeditated itinerary. But wait, they had an exchange on tender; what a fucking joke. I feel sorry for them. I’ve never fallen in love with this new digital era, a work of spite and bitterness, a reaction to a world that didn’t feel inclusive enough, so it’s become a strategy of slash and burn. And how do you tell someone to fuck off so they truly listen in today’s era? Must it be an apocalypse for the stalkers. Are people always drawn into that state of darkness. And it’s so easy to lose sight of the jungle you’re in, when the modern world disguises the archetypes so well. The weeks become months and the months become years and years become a decade, while I was creating the philosophies of a man facing death, even while undeservedly healthy, and unfairly able to fuck.

Arriving at the hotel in 96’ was serendipitous, or fateful, whether you want to believe that life is steadfast or whimsical. It felt whimsical when I met a couple of cute girls named Hanni and Sunny at Beverly Connection one evening; one lovable, the other the type to want to watch, then try to explain what each of the other really wanted. I jotted down a few impressions I had of them at the time. They told me that they had this special place they wanted to show me. I thought they were full of shit. But one evening they picked me up and took me to the Chateau Marmont. The weather was terrible that night. I was dressed for the woods. It was a quiet place, empty, with an entrance of willow branches hanging dank over the drive. We sat in the living room and even while I tried to concentrate on the conversations we were having, I was only half there, while the other part of me had already wandered off into the hotel, amongst the spirits and whispering lips. Sunny called, with the concern of the other on mind. It was against her religion to have sex before marriage, and she was confused as to whether oral copulation was sex. I gave the wrong and less comforting answer. Of course it is. People go stagnant just as places do. I went looking for Hanni where she worked at Milk and Honey as a hostess. I saw her through the windows, but the place was busy and I didn’t want to get her into any trouble, so I continued on my walk. I didn’t see them much anymore, but I kept going back to the Chateau. It was just as quaint during the afternoon as it was at night. On most nights, it was desolate, like a huge spaceship had hovered over and removed every last trace of guests. This was before they began to monetize the mythos of the place, and run it like a circus. The hallowed courtyard had eyes in 1996, and then in 2006 it had the eyes of a cheap set looking for anything edible. Drug dealers intwined with movie moguls and music producers. When first arriving there, there was peace, and I would explore the floors unimpeded. I felt strangely allowed. One afternoon that week after the two girls had shown me the place, I went and stood on the landing on the shady side of the hotel. I could have stood there for centuries. I thought about a life with her, while still in love with what I couldn’t have. I wasn’t apart from those feelings yet. They choked me up, but I would never cry. I probably set the record for being on the verge of tears, while they dried. The people were more reclusive and weird then. With so many people in those rooms, so few went about. They come out for air. They ask each other, never asking you. Even while asking me, would be the quickest way to find something out. Strange quirks with some of these who reside here. Notes I wouldn’t even have to look back upon to remember. I didn’t know about the inner workings of Hollywood yet, even while I was already pitching ideas, but wrote literature and not scripts. I didn’t know there were those perpetually green-lit, only needing content, and those perpetually in the red light. But on the surface, everything was crystal clear, with my young primo lenses at the time, seeing even the minute texture in anything like glitter in the dust. I suppose speculation has always been a turn on. But the place was an immediate enchantment, and people were actors, so forgiven, and no idiosyncrasies of the fauna would keep me from going back. I loved the place. It gave me a chance to linger in that aesthetic. There were occasions when I’d stay in the living room until dawn, undisturbed, when I could have stayed and ordered breakfast if I’d wanted to. Hollywood and this hotel had already had a long history before I arrived. The materials, the curtains and rugs and upholstery was already soaked to the bone, damp with the secretions of the body, the blood, the saliva and vaginal fluids of the past. In the present, you can smell the distinction of a vagina from a mouth perfectly. But through time, it becomes this amalgamated scent, so fine and subtle that it could be bottled as perfume; an aphrodisiac for the intellect. I want to stay and live here, but it costs a fortune. Check out time is like another death, the woman who spreads the sheets might be the perfect fuck. Dreaming in a bed that saw the golden age. The ghosts of a thousand whores arise. But that was the wet part of the dream. They all say the same thing, they all dance the same way. They all want to stay in this world. This, while everyone claims to live in a higher plane. They want freedom without the label being emblazoned upon them. Today’s perfect. That’s just a desirable label and we all have desires. You wish you could turn them all into someone someone would have loved. On the landing on the shady side of the hotel, the rush of thoughts has me without sight, the sun penetrating my eyes. I wouldn’t even know what a strange thought was then, always in the wine. I went into the shadows falling over me. The strange trees don’t know my past, but it seems that they love me. She was cold, goosebumps on the skin, she never warms. She’s not of this world. But this place is like heaven’s turnkey, and here I can dream, that I’m living a spectacular life. My every thought here like a disco in the dark light. It’s coming up river with the blackness gleaming to take my life. In the past one only had to return to civilization. Now, there is no civilization to return to. Modern society is like a plague that has no brains. That dies out, not by heat or cold or is prevented by the razor wire of another man’s desires for peace of mind. Death is the only peace. Just as I was told of my literary pursuits, that all the hours were wasted, and to think about the fact, that all those I admired in that craft, are all dead, and so was the craft. I was sitting at a drive-in theatre. Hail memory. Prefaces are life, when a form of death has already occurred.

On the subject of soap balls, they were always perplexing. My grandmother, a strange woman, born in New Braunfels, Tx, who never opened her presents, wouldn’t let me wash my hands with them. They were decorations, to be dusted and sniffed for their essence. One lathered by mistake and placed back into the bunch looked funny, and you wondered if she’d notice. They looked like dull gum-balls in a decorative bowl, and I’d acquired a taste for soap, or at least I wasn’t as disgusted as they’d wanted me to be. You can frustrate the hell out of a nun that way, by loving it, and asking her for more. But I was curious as to whether they were different flavors. I couldn’t tell; perhaps because sometimes smell and taste are inseparable. Perhaps their mystery lays in their not being of a practical shape, and round always tends to represent the erotic, like ovaries, representing the female anatomy. But there’s also a aspect in the work that I didn’t consciously think about until after writing the piece. And that was that in the victorian era, in the psychological journals, they often considered masturbation an attempt at suicide, or a suppressed death wish. And even while much of what they believed in then is laughable, maybe the act of masturbating with lavender soap was my fragrant wish to kill myself. I don’t know if I’m trying to cum or kill myself in the present either. My theory is that it keeps me from being desperate and at the mercy of women, when they aren’t readily available to me.

Dark blue was a piece I was more in love with writing, a story about a woman who’d committed a sin, that caused me to become an exile to femininity. When you can no longer trust women, there’s no longer a church to visit, there’s no safe place to hide. Dark Blue wasn’t as spontaneous as Lavender Soap, it was more evolved, I wanted to think carefully about it, I wanted some past world to be impressed. I wanted to stay immersed in a calm exile. Those who could even judge literature, now were few and far between. And because Dark Blue was also set at the Chateau, it was slowly being devoured by this more delirious work. It was like one stage of my life devouring another. And I wasn’t even in that careful mood to make a copy of it before I began cutting it up, and making fodder of it for a pop piece. I’ll probably extract Dark Blue from Lavender Soup and make it the subtle, psychological piece I’d wanted it to be; another conversation piece, the finite texture of dark blue polyester, a comfortable face and beautiful thighs, and a line, ‘I can’t believe you’d ever do this to me.’ You never expect a woman to be a criminal. It’s subtly frightening. You take the time to stare more deeply into the mystery of a pair of eyes. And when you can no longer believe in the feminine, when that door too, says deception, when it says enter at your own risk, it leaves you with no sanctuary at all in this world.

Lavender Soap was a chance to dwell on audiophilia and woodworking, even though much of the elaborations ended up on the cutting room floor, when it began to feel like This Old House. I think in every field, there’s an equilibrium with our humanness. And I think that wood and glass and analog technology was something that we can never rise above. There was no dissonance between it and the human body. We evolve technology, but the whole while we’re devolving. Like an individual, as a society, we cannot admit to wandering onto the wrong path, out onto a branch that leads to our demise, and while looking back at our past selves in arrogance, at our own expense. They’re already like zombies, and I think 5G will finish them off. Lithium, lithium, lithium. War, an OLED screen, and a sickening.

There was that first period of time exploring the Chateau when LA was magical, then I moved to D.C. and New York for a number of years. And as I did, many of the stories I’d started in my notebooks about or taking place in that setting were put on the back burner, while I was experiencing more of the in between and writing what I considered more significant novels. I’d visit Los Angeles on occasion, and the first place I’d want to get to was Venice, then after that, the Chateau Marmont. There were no marriage vows on the east coast, so I moved back to Los Angeles around 2006. I’d seen the Chateau become a less mysterious and more clamorous place during my visits but that was confirmed when I started going there frequently again. The magic was gone, for sure. And that magic was peace and quiet. Literature was becoming a dead beast, that had no place in this frivolous nature. I myself was disenchanted. I met a girl named Emma while I was living up Larrabee. I thought, maybe. And for the record, it was unfair to her that I quickly had such high expectations. I wanted a family. She said I was too smart for my own good and proceeded to eat my heart out. But I admit, I had her on the most perfect day of her life. No one will remember her so fondly. And so, at this breaking point of my life, I’d gone to a bicycle shop down Robertson and bought a chrome Bianchi Pista, trying to remain relevant and alive. I belonged in nature with a risk to life and limb; this was a crazy city now, homogenized, ceaseless, hungry. It was a point in my life when I had to seriously contemplate a return, a return home, or to academics, even while I despised its limitations, and had already fallen in love with studying outside of those restraints. I needed to give hard thought to returning to create some stability for myself, a life of normalcy, even if in some nowhere place. I already knew I’d been on a blacklist for some time by then, and well aware of the futility of trying to make it, while there are those determined to keep you down. But I kept writing, even without those motivations. And so I was riding around with that last chance to return on my mind, like always being conscious of death. The new technology had everyone riddled with something more invasive than neutrinos that just pass through everything. I was trying to shake off the stogy thoughts of literature and avoid the lack of patience that had infected everyone. And disappointment only aggravates your pride. You want to prove something, so you slip even in the bright sunlight, further into the heart of darkness. I’d try to ride through it, and write through it; the dystopian nightmare that everyone had feared would come, if they had their way, and they had their way. Without an exit strategy, the delusional self-induced Berkeley type archetypal bitch, had a plan. The illusion of an alternate world onto the real world. It had me dreaming of a landslide or a flood or a ball of fire heading right for us more than ever at the time. The freeze of disappointment settles on the brain. The billiard balls cease to scatter with infinite possibilities. You have to begin to look for your moments, then get the hell out before they burn down around you. But I would ride and when moving at the right speed, I could still say, that it was the place I first fell in love with. I played dead riding with no hands. I brought my old notepads out and began burning into Lavender Soap on a silver airbook. And again I’ll save this subject matter of writing tools and how they effect the process, for SSHS; the pen as opposed to a laptop, as opposed to a typewriter, etc. etc.

Why my father or anyone else for that matter was so miserable is about a past we cannot know. My father lived a life before I was ever born, I can’t judge him. It’s just the sight of an underwater knife and old scuba gear; everyone dives and that’s their life and no one else’s. And despite the terror in the household, he made an effort to educate me. He was a musician, so I was dragged around to Jazz festivals, which I always found fascinating, even while never being my favorite genre of music. More importantly, he loved film, and would take me to see first rate films while I was still at an impressionable age. It was Texas at a very different time. I don’t think he would in today’s world ever be able to sneak me, as a child into movies like The Godfather, The Deer Hunter, or Apocalypse Now. At least without being escorted by the police past the ‘no such thing as gender’ restroom doors, which the icon of the beast and word androgyny. Apocalypse Now is still my desert island movie, it was like candy to a child’s mind. I leave it in the DVD player for months at a time playing on a loop. It’s a movie I never tire of watching. I love when someone hates what I love, so maybe it’s a way to turn the stalkers off. Let them dwell in what will break them. It’s based on a book called Heart of Darkness, which is also one of my favorite works. It’s about the primordial model that we can’t get away from. We can build empires, then die over the wrong look. And when you’re a child, you see everything so differently, your eyes move to different parts of the screen, you take a different path through the film. You may not understand the poetry yet, or the subtext, or every word uttered, but you see another layer of beauty, that an adult might miss. And so your memory of certain elements are vivid. What’s written on a helicopter as it lands, ‘death from above’, and lavender smoke in the air making the ravages of life so pretty; like makeup on the whorish face of humankind. Then all the years have gone and it becomes like a masterpiece of background noise to a life in the continued, but post modernistic bloodbath of tribal animosities and nepotistic tendencies. The Heart of Darkness was a perfect model, because it’s the only model that makes any sense. We will die of a spear in the modern world. That dark model dwells in the modern city, and she’ll fuck us when she wants to. The end is always a bright pink clit coming down with bitterness and animosity. I can’t wait. 

When I first arrived in Los Angeles, we were consumed by the talk of lenses and cinema and the craft of filmmaking, when the craft was religion, and not political correctness. We knew our lenses. How’s political correctness done as an industry?, you may ask. Fairly well it seems. The advertisers don’t give a fuck what they’re selling or what Greco Roman history they’re destroying. They’re mercenaries. They’ve not replaced civilization with anything that will last. But now, nothing’s supposed to; not even history. Once again we can’t escape the analog nature of ourselves and how other methods aren’t as conducive for the flesh or for externalizing our fascinations for the world to see. Our inability to get away from that period will see us shrinking as human beings. We won’t be strong enough to fight off the virus. Analog is more evolved than digital, and I call this the ‘prism effect’; if you’ve ever seen a prism penetrated by sunlight, and how it separates white light into a spectrum of colors, it’s a beautiful sight. Now imagine the energy it takes and the technology to do what the prism does so simply, and without the need for batteries. We’re trying to digitize and synthesize nature until it resembles nature again, or sounds analog again, or feels like flesh again. Why? So someone can shut it off when they’ve lost control. The digital age has allowed a bunch of really strange and ‘awkweird’ people to rule over earth; and as it’s turned out they’re not immune to the thirst for war and destruction or terror. They just like to fuck things up from a distance, and don’t believe in repercussion. But someone at a pseudo think tank can cost so much life then walk to Starbucks to get a cup of coffee. We’re all vulnerable to nature. 

We can try to escape to places like Topanga or Malibu, but they want to stay connected. They don’t want the natural world to take place, even with all the natural beauty that still exists. Off the grid, makes them nervous, they’re so used to spying on everyone’s every move. It’s become their addiction, their lithium. I’m not your lithium. And it was during a time I was trying to escape, living out old Topanga road that something that might be considered trivial happened, but that in my mind was like some completion to an era of my life, like some forgiveness to put that part of my existence to rest. It was an afternoon that my girlfriend at the time and I made a stop at PC Greens along the Pacific Coast Highway, headed for a beach higher up. She waited for me while I ran in to buy a few things. And there, roaming around the store, was Martin Sheen. An old man now, but with the same face and voice. I looked into eyes I felt I knew well. I’m never one to bother actors, I know they fight for their private lives as well. But when heading for the checkout he came towards me like an old friend, and he was in a sense. And like perfection, what was playing and what was he singing to me? ‘The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.’ And he sang it as if disappointed, but as if there were time. We can’t know each other’s lives, but it was a beautiful sentiment. I went back out into the sun, elated, as if spared. Interesting. The wind took us up. We could have dissolved at that point with the waves breaking over us. Never complete, never finished.

And now, on another now. I leave the menu screen on flickering for hours, with the droning sound of the helicopter over fiery palms sweeping across my life, before I can bring myself to hit ‘play film’ again. 

-Alan Augustine

Los Angeles, 2020

[expositionaljazzskeleton]

the gangsey as things my friends have said part 2

gansey

"Thats what music is. It's a lot of self hatred wrapped up in a little violin"

"you sound like your shoelaces are tied together"

"it's like Safeway but stronger. The safest way."

"So [Henry] likes mooing to you via my phone apparently"

"I need a favor involving olives"

"sorry to disappoint, cannibal"

"don't belittle my teeth"

"when the bees are inside you, you understand them"

ronan

"[Blue], just lay on the floor and we'll all smell you"

"bread is made with frogs. the muffin man is just the muffin frog. next time you're eating a PB&J, watch out for some frog toes."

"Swallow me, daddy Leviathan"

*quietly* "fuck cycle"

"they always ask who I'm throwing... but they never ask who's throwing me :("

"it's teeth are hands?? I'm so proud of you!"

"nipple assassins"

"you should try slapping a crab sometime"

adam

"I'm the drop cloth. dibs on that"

"I have a kink for 45 dogs"

"kill me on your favorite salad"

"I am the l e m o n f i n d e r"

"I swear I've developed a cowboy persona"

"erlenmeyer flask? you mean beakern't?"

"tarot decks are just school nurses"

"the future is meaningless but the pasta is now"

"connect your spine to Bluetooth"

noah

"you can't slorp without knowing the consequences"

"panic! at the hot crossed buns store"

"the light at the end of the tunnel is a train. Heaven is a train"

"wasabi 2: wasabi - the spicening"

"we're all just... hands"

"why do olives make you feel like a shark?"

 “Wiz Khalifa.... is short for... Wizard... Khali... Khalifornia!”

blue

"kill the baby and drop the bird with your hammy hands!"

"posse pentacle pass the tentacle"

"where's the rollercoaster? oh this is my fridge!"

"chicken noodle soup: shit just got personal"

"begging the moon to straighten your spine"

"does big suck on small peen result in detachment?"

"stop wizard-splaining"

"it's my waluigi genes coming out. My walui-genes."

"the 3 genders: male, female, fear"

henry

"your dad is Kermit, right?"

"why does this washing machine fucking SLAP"

"is your leg the fruit she likes?"

"I like electric boogaloo, but have you considered, domestic boogaloo?"

"TUNIC OR DIE"

"picture this: the middle of the desert. Now picture this: total anarchy. Are you intrigued?"

"not getting vaccinated is the equivalent of a spawn kill"

"yknow taking care of bees..... heroine bees"

"beekeeper on the top, party on the bottom"

"I'm a mall santa by day, hospital twerker by night"

[armory-rasa]

Costume leatherworking 102: rivets and hole punching

(Part 1, if you missed it)

Still covering the basics of leatherworking -- today I'm going to show you process for punching holes and setting rivets, the tools you need for both, along with the different types of rivets and their pros and cons.

PART 1: PUNCHING HOLES

You can punch holes with a handheld punch, although that limits you to holes that are within ~1.25” from the edge of the leather:

Or you can have more freedom to move around with a mallet + hole punch combo:

Hole punches can be sold individually, with each different sized hole on a different stock, or as a kit with various sizes of detachable heads. The latter is much cheaper, and though the heads will bend/break occasionally, they are ~$1 to replace. Tandy's mini punch set will stand you in good stead for a very long time.

When it comes to mallets, you have your choice of wood, plastic, or rawhide—wood is the cheapest and will do fine for tooling/stamping, but it's very light and can be hard to punch holes with. Plastic and rawhide mallets come in different weights, for light and heavy work. The lighter the mallet, the more force you have to whack it with, and more force = less control. Lighter mallets are prone to “bouncing,” and stamping off center of where you'd been intending to hit, or striking the leather twice and creating an “echo” indent. Rubber mallets (of any weight) also have a bounce to them, which is why they're not ideal. Metal hammers can damage your tools and destroy your work surface.

The heads of your stamps/punches will start to deform where the metal hammer strikes them:

And if you have a marble/granite work slab, the force of the blow, focused onto your tool, can transfer straight through the leather and fracture the stone beneath:

Anyway, before you can start punching your holes, you need to establish where they'll be, so using an awl and your pattern, mark their locations:

And then, making sure to keep a cutting board between your project and your work surface, punch them out:

Bagtrio with holes punched:

Kili bracer with holes punched:

The Kili bracer is also a good example of the versatility found in hole-punching implements, because you're looking at four different tools there, each serving a different purpose. Small round punches are usually for rivets (larger round punches for eyelets), chisels are for attaching pyramid spots or other decorations with tines that bend under, oblong/slot punches are for running straps through, and in this case, the oval punch is being used for lacing.

If you're punching holes in a strap or a belt, they'll be a little larger to accommodate the tongue of the buckle (3/16”~13/64”, why the hell has America not switched to metric yet), spaced about 1/2”~3/4” apart.

And for the love of god, make sure you punch them in a straight line. Nothing looks shoddier and more amateurish than a line of holes that's wobbling all over the place:

I'm firmly of the belief that leatherworking is not hard, it just takes attention to detail, but the number of leatherworkers who are willing to send shit like that into the wild blows my mind. I'd be frankly embarrassed to hand that to a customer, and I judge the hell out of leatherworkers who do.

So: please do not. Take an extra moment to make sure you're lining up your holes correctly.

*

PART 2: ATTACHING RIVETS

Attaching rivets comes after hole-punching, because you can't punch rivets directly into the leather—there is no rivet gun for leather that does the whole operation in one fell swoop. You have to pre-punch your holes, and then set the rivets.

The most common type of rivet consists of a post (of various lengths) and a cap (of various diameters), and these can be either rapid rivets, where the post side is left kind of unfinished and therefore meant to go on the underside where it won't be seen, or double-cap rivets, where it looks the same from both sides. (The caps are the same for both types, and interchangeable, only the posts are different.)

The post length you need is determined by the thickness of your leather—the tip should only be poking past the surface a little bit, enough that you can snap the cap on without difficulty and together they fit the leather snugly. In the following picture, you can see the indentation in the rivet post, which is where the cap snaps into place before you set it. The indent should sit as close to the surface as possible, neither below it nor too far above it:

If the post is too long, it will slide sideways when you try to set the rivet, which is both unsightly and insecure. If the post is too short, it won't have enough lip to hold onto the cap, and the cap will be prone to popping off.

General suggestions:

One layer of light (4-5 oz) leather: XS post

Two layers of light leather: S post

One layer of heavy (8-9 oz) leather: S post

Two layers of heavy leather: M post

Two layers of extra heavy (10+ oz) leather: L post

Most functional rivets are going to be S/M posts—long posts are really long, and even two layers of 9-10 oz leather are liable to slide sideways and screw up when you try to set them. (In which case: haul out the pliers, wrangle it off, and try again.)

Cap size doesn't matter, it's purely aesthetic—any size cap will snap onto any length post, so simply choose the size that balances best with the other design elements in your project. You can mix and match at will, and leatherworkers frequently do. For instance, in the Kili bracers, the thinness of the leather necessitated XS posts for the decorative rivets, but the slightly larger S cap size looked better with the pyramid spots:

(All those little guys are only going through one piece of leather; they're not holding anything together, they're not doing anything except being shiny. The only functional rivets there are the ones holding the straps on. And decoration is a perfectly valid use for rivets—the metal makes a nice contrast with the leather, makes the whole piece more interesting, and rivets are cheap (~three cents apiece) so it's not going to break the bank to bedazzle your armor a bit.)

After you've pre-punched your holes and picked your post length and cap size, you will pinch the post & cap together with your fingers (they'll make a satisfying little click), and then finish securing them with a rivet setter and mallet.

This person is using an anvil as the base to hammer onto, but if you have a granite block then the anvil isn’t necessary, you can hammer the rivet directly against the stone.

Rivet setters have a concave rounded end and come in different sizes to match the cap size. Too small will leave unsightly dents in your rivet cap, too large will leave unsightly dents in the leather surrounding it.

Tandy sells medium rivet setters (which is the cap size for both medium and long posts) and extra-small rivet setters (for XS posts), but none that match small rivets, which is baffling and inconvenient. For a while I had an S size rivet setter that I got in Japan, but then I lost it. I bet you can find them on Aliexpress, I just keep forgetting to look.

Post-and-cap rivets will work for the majority of applications—if set correctly, they are plenty strong (and get stronger still if you add more), and very unlikely to pop apart with use.

However, you can never be 100% sure that they set correctly, because you can't look under the cap to see how well it's being held on, so for projects where a certain rivet has to be very strong, where it's going to have a lot of stress put on it and it can't be allowed to come apart (combat armor, saddle tack, suspension bondage gear), there are a few other options:

Chicago screws – threaded post and a cap that screws onto it. Quick and easy, requires no tools, though you will want to put loctite or something inside it, or else it will unscrew itself with use. It has the benefit of not needing to be hammered, so if you find yourself needing to put a rivet in a place where you can't get a hammer at it, chicago screws are there to save the day. More expensive (~10x the price of post-and-cap rivets) and very limited in the post lengths/cap sizes available.

Rivets & burrs – usually made of copper, consists of a solid post (unlike rapid/double-cap rivets, which have a hollow post) and a burr, the thing that looks like a washer. You use a special setter to peen the end of the post down over the burr. Used a lot in saddle tack and I've seen it a bit in LARPing armor, not common in costuming. The posts are exceptionally long when you buy them because they’re intended to be trimmed down to size before you peen them. Rivets & burrs are the strongest option out there.

Tubular rivets – consist of a hollow tube that is open at the tip, and you use a special setter than splits it into six sections and curves them over backward, like the petals of a flower. They can be a pain in the ass to set (they are even more finicky about proper post length than rapid rivets are, and require you to keep the setter rigidly perpendicular), but once they're set they are guaranteed not to come out, and they are not much more expensive than rapid rivets. The underside can be sharp and scratchy, however, where the post has been split, so often you'll want to glue a small piece of suede or fabric over the back to cover it, and keep it from chafing/snagging on things beneath it.

*

THE END

[wyrmguardsecrets]

It's honestly hilarious to me on how these big guilds and projects have acted the way they have over the past few years, whether it be flexing their e-peen, dicking over others, and being treacherous shitbags, only to be absolutely SHOCKED that people got sick and tired of it. I know a lot of you are detached from reality and think we all serve at your own pleasure, but, the people can only take so much abuse before they get fed up. Let them eat cake!

[breathingknowledgesblog]

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[hhemeraa-a]

shipping meme !

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING FOR YOUR MUSE SO PEOPLE KNOW HOW SHIPPING WORKS ON YOUR BLOG. REPOST. DON’T REBLOG.

tagged by: stole from like... 4 different people  @dcsidcrium​ / @portalipsis​ (I think?) / @celestialspitfire​ (I think???) / @lunaciies​ (I think?????) tagging: follow ur heart

WHAT’S YOUR OTP FOR YOUR MUSE?:

         A kick to the nuts. HA - I’m kidding.  I currently do not... have... an otp for Myles... I mean, don’t get me wrong, I ship Troy and Myles harder than I ever want to admit, but it’s no fun playing in a sandbox all by myself, so I try not to think about it too hard.             But my OTP would probably be anything that involves Myles and happiness. I actually want him to admit that he loves someone and my life will be complete. 

WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO RP WHEN IT COMES TO SHIPPING?:

        ¯\_(ツ)_/¯            What won’t I RP is a shorter list, but because of how.... emotionally difficult Myles is, a majority of any ship needs to be plotted to some extent or else you are at his mercy which means that any ship success rate goes down to about 2% unless the planets are perfectly aligned. With that said, I’m pretty open to all the genres, even those taboo ones you don’t think I’d be into but I am. 

HOW LARGE DOES THE AGE GAP HAVE TO BE TO MAKE IT UNCOMFORTABLE?:  

         I refuse to (romantic) ship with anyone under 18 (muns or muses) and Myles very rarely will ever be interested in anyone between 18 - 21. With that, so long as everyone is a consenting adult, age ain’t nothing but a number. Plus Myles likes ‘em older. He won’t make age an issue if your muse doesn’t make age an issue.             Some of you have muses that are hundreds and thousands of years old, so? It’s a non-issue.

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WHEN SHIPPING?:

        Myles? Hell yes.           I said prior, but Myles is extremely difficult to ship with unless it’s plotted and there’s chemistry involved. 90% of the time, he is playing to emotions that benefit him in a situation, but doesn’t actually feel romantic inclinations towards someone.  He can be friendly and have one night stands, but if someone asked to be his boyfriend, he’d mean laugh in their face and walk away.             But to answer this question - yes, I am. Only because it takes a lot for Myles become attached and actually have feelings that aren’t just surface value. If he’s gotten to this point (unless it’s the rare 1% where he just instantly clicks), we’ve probably RP’d or plotted a lot and I’m starting to get real fuckin annoyed when people drop the muse or disappear right after all the work we’ve done. I’m tired of it, Myles is tried of it, and [we] I’ve become much more weary about being the one to commit when someone else hasn’t. 

HOW FAR DO STEAMY MOMENTS HAVE TO GO BEFORE THEY’RE CONSIDERED NSFW?:

         Idk, usually if there’s a peen out, I’m pretty sure that counts as nsfw. I’m bad at tagging things and 50% of the time my written nsfw isn’t tagged, but that’s only because 1) my blog is tagged as nsfw so browse at your discretion, 2) all images will always be tagged with nsfw, 3) this thread isn’t for you, so why are you reading it lol (I’m half joking, half not) 4) I’m pretty sure my partner knows that it is nsfw.             Unless my partner wants things under a read more or has specific things they want, I sin proudly and openly. 

WHO ARE OTHER MUSES YOU SHIP YOUR MUSE WITH?:

CRACKS KNUCKLES. I COULD HAVE MADE THIS SHORT BUT SCREW THAT. If I forgot to add you, I’m sorry! 

@portalipsis​  - this has been a real slow burn and probably the only healthy thing Myles has in his life that doesn’t involve explicit fighting or manipulation on Myles’ part. I think it’s very cute in that Myles is kind of aware how Chris feels and is being Extra patient with him because he likes to watch the boy squirm. ALSO Porthos writes smut fanfiction of Hemera and mails it out to people.  Don’t think he forgot. @heavensson​​ - Sorry Spike, but you’re trapped with Myles’ gross ugly affections because no matter what you do to try and get rid of him, you know it’ll just turn him on. Semi-complicated considering Troy is involved in this odd companionship and they can’t really get rid of each other.  @etlascivus​ -  >:3c   Demon’s sneaking into Myles’ room at night claiming him as their own only for Myles to get a boy crush on him. Another complicated and involved relationship considering Myles hasn’t really put together what he feels for Asmo. While I wouldn’t say it’s love, Myles’ attachment quirks are starting to come in strong and Asmo tends to do or say the right thing at the right time to put this uptight bundle of emotion at ease to the point where he doesn’t mind (or has completely forgotten) about the mark on his arm. @corpusdxlicti​ - You mean Myles’ future husband?? Myles will end up feeding off this relationship because of how emotionally detached Vincent appears to be as Myles is 99% more inclined to let himself like someone when they don’t like him back.  Not that this is the case here, but Vincent’s seemingly complete emotional detachment gives Myles the room to dance around in his own emotions - little does he know that Vincent is low key (high key?) possessive/jealous and I AM READY FOR THIS.  @dcsidcrium​​ - the first girl Myles probably ever kissed. Dating his best friend and secret unrequited love. Nikki is the sister Myles never asked for and will defend her to the death all the while cussing her out in the same breath.  He’s also probably shot her more than a few times. A++ friendship. @kashiings​ - Archer you little shit. A verse of its own, Archer is (was) Myles’ best friend in childhood and also first (boyfriend?) although there were clear miscommunications about what they were and it really tore a hole in Myles after Archer went off and got married. Despite all this, Myles is teetering on the edge of loyalty and abandonment, remaining by his side even after he comes back in Myles’ mid-twenties.   @inionnaforaoise​ - Started off as purely professional - these two are frienemies to a fault. The type to drive by and flip the other off under the table while at a very professional meeting or “accidentally” shoot the other in the arm in the middle a fire fight and shrug like ‘oops’. At the same time, they’ll share a drink together and mean laugh about people they hate. If we’re not counting demons with lady bits, she will probably be the first (and only) girl Myles ever sleeps with.  @whiteliily​ - Ash is a national treasure and these two has this weird high school boy crush going on where they just... nervously laugh around each other. I honestly think that Ash is the only muse that has made Myles openly blush without trying.  Even considering Myles’ emotional stuntedness, Ash has been real forward?? Which is pretty disarming for Myles and it’s weird because Myles is like??? Happiness??? Without?? someone??? suffering?? idk man, Ash is great, Jazz is great. This whole thing makes me happy inside.  @bestiadeluna​ - Mally is that friend that Myles flinches around all the time because she’s probably punched him in the arm so many times out of playfulness that it bruised because she’s so much strong than he is.  She’s the drinking friend that shows up on his couch once a month and eats all his pie, or brings someone over so that he can explain what a cuck is much to his dismay.  They don’t hang out often, but when they do, it’s like they saw each other yesterday and someone is bound to either get hurt or in trouble.  @fluffmiester​ - Space Papa. Apparently Rrii has taken Myles in as his son and while Myles is ok with it, he’s going to take every chance he gets to twist Rrii’s words into something gross.  It’s how he shows his affection Rrii, I swear.  @svagefaith​ - Myles’ bitter ass soulmate from hell. The only way these two are going to get on the same page is if some outside event forces them to admit their feelings, but so far the universe is just staring at them like “y i k e s”. They would make amazing friends, but being bound to each other is causing more tension than it’s worth and both are too stubborn to back down, even though they’re both quietly attentive their needs, their emotional connection keeps missing. They’ll get there.  @carnivorarium​ - ZIP because Myles needs more strong independent wolf ladies in his life, although he will always bother her about why she’s single. He’s going to be that annoying younger brother that digs through her stuff and leaves all her tampons out on the curb because he was feeling annoying and she will probably be that older sister that drop kicks into his room while he’s making out with someone so that she can scare the shit out of them in her final form. 

DOES ONE HAVE TO ASK TO SHIP WITH YOU?:

         Yes, although if we have a thread going/there’s chemistry, I’m sure we’ll both reach out to each other about it naturally. 

HOW OFTEN DO YOU LIKE TO SHIP?:

         I love it!  But I don’t believe shipping is purely romantic and includes platonic things and enemies.   I have very few romantic ships and that’s often up to Myles to decide that. Friends and enemies are great though, so I’m always down to talk about different possible relationships. 

ARE YOU MULTISHIP?:  

         Yes! And multi-verse unless it’s discussed. 

ARE YOU SHIP OBSESSED OR SHIP MORE-OR-LESS?:

        Meh - romantic things are nice, but like I’ve been saying, this is completely up to Myles and he’s not inclined for romance. So I’m a ‘more or less’ kind of person. If I really like a ship we have going, I’ll be very obsessed hahaha

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SHIP IN YOUR CURRENT FANDOM?:

         Fandom? Don’t know her.            HA. ok. Um.... well, I used to be really into Deimos and happiness.  I’m still committed to this, but some people within the fandom really ruined the character for me to the point where even after I tried to make a blog to save my feelings, all I see is bitterness and disdain. They say time heals all wounds buT HERE I AM.  STILL BROKEN. Sometimes I write on his blog and I’m filled with such nostalgia... but I hate shipping him with Cain which is my ultimate nOTP but since the fandom is made up of pretty much Cain’s and Helio’s, my time on that blog is.... minimal. 

FINALLY, HOW DOES ONE SHIP WITH YOU?:

        My favorite ships always start as an accident - either though starters where we just see something click, or an ask where something funny happens.  Just write with me or approach me about it!  Chances are if you want to ship, you’re going to know something about Myles’ personality that you/your muse likes. If you come to me in hopes to finding a ship without any prior knowledge of him, you might have a bad time.             It’s really easy for things with Myles to get toxic fast, so unless you’re prepared for a slow burn, idk if this is the right place? But again! Just reach out, I absolutely love discussing relationships and plotting, it keeps me alive in my waking hours. 

[suckitsurveys]

Ready for a new survey? Sure lemme know when you find one.

How awkward are you? A lot to very.

Are you currently in love right now? I am.

Favorite fast food joint? Popeyes.

What would you do if your ex contacted you? I would ignore it.

Do you still have feelings for your ex? Nope.

What was the last tv show you were watching? Bob’s Burgers.

Last time you had anal sex?(if ever) Wow you just don’t hold back do you? I’ve never had anal sex in the definition of a peen in my butt.

Do you use military time? The program I work with on a daily basis is in military time and I HATE it. I just cannot get the hang of it. I have a little cheat sheet for it on my desk, haha.

Vodka, whiskey, or rum? Rum.

Ever tasted a flavored condom? Yes.

Do you know CPR? No.

How much do you care about your best friend? A lot, of course.

Do you watch Dr. Phil? Cash me not watching that, how bow dah?

What age would you like to have a child? Never is good.

420? I will take 420 dollars, yes.

Are your parents wealthy? My father is comfortable.

Biggest fear? Having my little fears used against me. 

Your nickname? Hannah Conda.

Pick one state you’d love to live in? Hawaii. I hear it’s expensive but hello weather.

How many pets do you want? And of what? I would eventually like some more kittens and a doggo. 

Xbox or Playstation? Whatever.

Have you ever asked someone out? Nope. 

When do you want to get married? July 24, 2017.

Can you play a musical instrument? Nope.

Ever went camping in a tent? Yes sir.

Do you like thunderstorms? Yes.

Do you ever masturbate? Man, TMI, but I am reeeeealllyy gunna miss my detachable shower head at my old house..

Ever got so high you freaked yourself out? Yeah, just recently in Michigan over New Years. We had brownies and I guess I ate too much which is weird because the couple of times I ate some before that was the exact same amount so I don’t know what happened. I was SO dizzy and I couldn’t even walk. Yikes. I slept it off but I was so worried I was gunna sleep through the New Years count down. 

Does money make you happy? Yes and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.

Ever felt so hopeless about love that you wanted to die? Nope.

Ever went away to college? Nope.

Ever had a family member who was a best friend? My sister kind of is. I say kind of because she sometimes tries to be my mom which I do not need in a sibling. 

Your favorite breakfast food? Hashbrowns.

What do you wish right now? That there were magically more crab legs in my house when I get home.

Do you have feelings for anyone, if so who? Mark.

Is the last person you kissed a virgin? Lol definitely not.

Did your last kiss take place on a bed? Yes.

Do you believe that the last person that you kissed cares for you? I know he does.

Could you stay in the same relationship for over a year? Try over 5 years.

Do you like to cuddle? I do.

Will you be in a relationship in the next couple months? Yes I will.

Who last texted you? Ellen.

Are you texting anyone right now? I mean, Ellen hasn’t responded to what I said and I guess I could continue the convo with Kayla buuuuttttttttt I’m lazy.

Have you held hands with somebody in the past four days? Yes.

Who makes you the happiest? My niece.

Have you ever let someone be your everything? My niece is my everything.

Do you have more guy friends or girl friends? Girl. 

Did you like your middle school life? Lol.

Is your hair up or down right now? Down.

How is your day going so far? It’s alright. Nothing special and nothing horrible.

What are you doing tomorrow? Working and then maybe packing up some more stuff and bringing it to the apartment.

What’s your favorite color? Purple. 

Do you believe that everyone deserves a second chance? Nope.

Once a cheater, always a cheater? No.

What kind of mood are you in? I’m a little annoyed at this wireless mouse.

Your ex tells you they want you back, what do you say/do? Irrelevant. 

Do you have someone you can talk to anything about & it wont be awkward? Yeah.

Do you cry a lot? Lately.

Are you someone who loves having fun? Yeah, of course.

Do others judge you? I’m sure.

Does it matter? Nope, their opinion of me is none of my business. 

Do you care too much/not at all/just enough? I care enough.

First thing you do when you wake up in the morning? Check the time, or pet my cat who is usually there when I wake up.

How many hours of sleep did you get last night? I don’t remember.

Are you legal to drink? Yes. I have been for awhile.

What color shirt are you wearing? It’s grey.

What are you saving your money up for right now? House things and rent.

Is there any chance you will kiss the person you have feelings for? Everyday.

Could you go out in public looking like you do now? Yeah I’m technically in public. 

Do you have any jewelry on? I do.

Are you in a relationship? Yes.

Have you ever kissed anyone whose name started with a J, S, Z, N, L? J and L.

Have you ever kissed the last person you texted? I have not.

Do you think people think bad things about you? Like I mentioned earlier, I don’t really care.

Will you be in a relationship next month? Yeah.

What pissed you off yesterday? I was pretty happy all day actually.

Have you kissed more than ten people this year? Nope, just the one.

Think of your last two kisses, were they with the same person? Yes.

Do you wear shoes in the house or take them off? I take them off.

Today, did you see ’that someone’ who makes you smile? I didn’t see my niece today but I will see Mark tonight.

Can you honestly say you’re okay right now? Nah, I’m annoyed and overwhelmed.

Is anything bothering you? ^

If the last person you kissed, saw you kissing someone else, would they be mad? Oh yeah. I wouldn’t do that, though.

Have you ever liked someone you didn’t expect to? Yes.

Do you know anyone that smokes weed? Yes.

Are you missing someone? I am. Everyday.

What was the first thing you did this morning? Snuggled back into Mark’s arms until 6.

The last person you kissed calls you. What are they calling you for? I would be super worried if he did that since we never call each other.

Do you have a Facebook? Yes.

When was the first time you kissed the last person you kissed? July 24, 2011.

What does your last text say? "Yeah, I can definitely see that”

Who was the last person to text you? Kayla.

Who was your last phone text before you went to sleep last night? Ellen.

Last person you kissed? Mark.

In the next 48 hours, will you hang out with a guy? I live with a guy, so.

You’re locked in a room with the person you last kissed, problems? No. I wouldn’t exactly be too happy about being locked in a room though. 

Do you believe everything happens for a reason? Yes.

Was you last kiss drunk or sober? Sober.

Where do you wish you were right now? At my apartment sitting on MY NEW COUCH.

Do you think high school relationships can last? Some do.

Does anyone have feelings for you right now? Yes.

Do you have someone who you can be your complete self around? Yes.

Is there someone you wanna date? No. I am engaged.

Why did you stop liking the last person you liked? Before Mark? He was a dick.

Do you like to be called babe or baby more? Mark calls me both. I like babe better though.

Has anyone ever told you you have pretty eyes? Yes.

Is there one person you look at and automatically smile? Yes.

What is the last song you heard? I’m blanking right now.

Do you hate being the first person to start a conversation? Not always.

Is it okay if you kiss people when you’re single? Of course.

Do you have alcohol in your house? Yeah.

Have you ever kissed someone whose name starts with an S or a C? Nope.

Has someone smacked your butt in the past week? Yup.

Last place you fell asleep other than your bed? The couch in my dad’s basement.

Are you nice to everyone? I think so.

Was your last kiss, standing up, sitting down, or laying down? He was laying down and I was knelt down next to him.

Do you like horror or comedy? Comedy. 

Will your next kiss be a mistake? Nope.

Do you think you’ll have a Valentine this year? Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, and I did. 

Do you like someone whose name that starts with a B, K, C, J, D, Z, N, X, R? Nope.

[priyastandon]

A legend called Balramji Dass Tandon

The untold side of a stalwart called Tandonji/ The human behind the politician 

When a nonagenarian passes on peacefully, after a life well lived, there is a sense of peace, fulfillment and thanksgiving. 

But with the passing on of this great soul known to the world as ‘Tandonji’, I found that there were so many people who wept uncontrollably and whose hearts pounded in grief. I am amazed, touched and humbled to meet the hundreds of people who have poured into our home; called up, sent messages, e-mails and the like because he had  touched their lives in such positive ways. 

The personal connect that he had with people is beyond comprehension. It seems that the entire Punjab was his family. So what was it that made him different from the rest? Was it his political position or stature or work ethic or was it something else? 

I think most of all it was his humility and his persona of ever-exuding love that made him stand out. He helped people; just anyone and everyone who came his way. He even went across party-lines and walked the extra mile to help. ‘Seva Parmo Dharma’, was what he truly embodied. He was always concerned about the last person in the line. 

There have been countless people who I have met in the last few days who have narrated numerous stories of Tandonji helping them at various junctures, which none of his family members were aware of. There were 18 organizations/ individuals, to which he had been sending monthly cheques for the last twenty years. Last year he sent them a lump sum each, saying that God’s call may come anytime … so he advised them to put the amount into fixed deposit and keep using the interest. He even refused to take the hike in salary given to the Governor’s, saying that in the twilight years of his life, his needs were limited and he was satisfied with what he was getting. In the last few years, he said to me many a time, “I have lived my life. Whatever time God is giving me now, is a bonus!” Such was his sense of surrender and detachment from all things worldly. 

As his daughter-in-law, I got the chance to watch his persona from a non-political vantage point. With his children and grandchildren he has always been strict, yet full of love. When I got married, Dad was in a little passive period of politics. My first-born was the delight of his grandfather and all evenings were spent playing with him. When I had my second child, Dad would often say, ‘Ram-Lakshmana ki Jodi’. Every evening was spent watching video recordings of the ‘Ramayana’ made by Ramanand Sagar. I wonder who enjoyed them more, the kids or their Grandpa! Another thing he enjoyed watching on TV was wrestling. He was passionate about it, for he had indulged in the sport in his youth. 

When he was made Minister of Local Bodies in 1997 and was allotted an official residence in Sector-2, my youngest was just a year old. Dad told me that he would shift into the official house, if only we shifted along with them. Such was his attachment and fondness for his grandchildren. And so it was! 

Having an amazing memory, he could recite verses from the Ramayana and the Gita as simply as nursery rhymes. He enjoyed a game of Cards and Chess now and then. My youngest would often play with him, but would always lose. One day he won a game of chess with his grandfather. So, elated was he that he got it documented by telling Dadaji to write and sign a paper that ‘Satyam won a game of chess while playing with me!’ 

As one gets on in years and the children and grandchildren get married, the family gets connected to more and more people. He always referred to all the extended families as ‘Mere Parivaar ke log’. Besides this, the entire Punjab was definitely his family and so were many others who came into touch with him. I feel that he was a father to them all, like Bheeshma Pitamaha, and he loved them all as his children. 

It is said that the best way to teach is by example. He has been a living example of how to live a life full of values. While editing his biography, ‘Balramji Dass Tandon - Ek Prerak Charitra’, written by my husband Sanjay, I too got an opportunity to hear from Dad and understand better, how much he had worked in the freedom struggle in 1947; his earlier years as a ‘Pracharak’ in the RSS; his travails as one of the founder members of the Jan Sangh along with Vajpayee Ji and Advani Ji. 

On one hand my father late Justice MM Punchhi, often told us of the hardships faced by the Hindu refugees that came from Pakistan during the partition, because he was one of them. On the other hand, I got to know from my father-in-law, the other side of the story. He told us that trains would come from Lahore to Amritsar station loaded with dead bodies, with blood dripping out from them. He along with his companions would offload them with their bare hands, to look for any possible survivors. The very thought of this, makes my hair stand on end. He told us that the young RSS volunteers would goad people from middle class homes to prepare dal and chapattis, which these youngsters would go and distribute amongst the army and the refugees. They would carry tea for people to far out areas and generally give support of any kind they would ask for. 

I came to know of how he was lodged in jail for nineteen months during the emergency, and wasn’t sure if he would ever come back. The family too has stood by him in these hard times. It is one thing to read or write about them, but another to live through such trying times. 

Perhaps going through so many hardships made him strong. He had nerves of steel; he had the courage of conviction; but his heart was soft as butter. I remember him shedding tears profusely while watching the movie ‘Baghbaan’. Because strong family values are something he was very passionate about. He believed in, “Matru devo bhava, Pitru devo bhava …” He would always talk about the importance of the role of a woman in binding a home by her qualities of adjustment, intelligence and sacrifice. He emphasized strongly, the learning of the mother tongue and imbibing the values of the Hindu culture. He was most concerned that anyone who visited our home must get something to eat and drink; and this cordiality extended particularly to all the staff, security personnel, drivers etc that accompanied the various biggies that dropped in every now and then. This tested many a time, the might of our hospitality prowess. 

It was Dad’s father who started the tradition of the family sitting together in the Mandir at home, on every Sunday to read from any scriptural text and sing bhajans. So strict was dad about this being followed out, that it has become a habit; and we all look forward to it. Our children are the fourth generation into this. 

Even when his mortal remains lay in the freezer-casket at our home and an unending stream of visitors came to pay their last respects, I heard him say, “Priya beta, zara dekh lena, bahar bhi sab ko kuch khaane-peene ko mil jaaye. Koi bhi aise naa jaaye beta ...” With a lump in my throat I nodded, for the words refused to form … 

When I looked at him, as he lay motionless on a cross-section of wood and straw; his face shinning with the ghee and honey that had been poured in; wrapped in the Tri-colour, as the Army gave him a gun salute, and a farewell with full state honours, my heart was in my mouth. Looking at my husband Sanjay, lighting the pyre, my heart went out to him, who had lost not only a father, but a mentor, a friend, a guide … verily the man who was his hero. My tearful gaze shifted to my children as they stood beside their father and I thought, “My children have been blessed to have had two illustrious men as their grandfathers. One reached the pinnacle of his career as the Chief Justice of India. The other became Governor of Chattisgarh. Both expounded and lived by strong values and ethics. God doesn’t make the likes of them anymore. After He made them, He broke the mould. And we have been fortunate to address them both as ‘Dad’ …What a legacy!” 

As I looked around the sea of humanity that had come to pay homage, I realized that, everyone has to go one day; but what a glorious life and what a glorious end! And what a glorious send off!!! 

The humility, love and care that he has dispersed generously is apparent as more and more people are coming in from far and near; narrating how he helped them in difficult times of their lives. Not only have we lost a father, the entire Punjab has lost a father figure. The void can never be filled, but we can surely pay homage to him, by walking his path. 

To do something for the country and society, one has to give up the soft cushion he sits on and walk on the hot and cold sands. 

Thank you God! Thank you, for blessing us with a legacy that makes our hearts swell with pride, yet humbles us with its enormity. The responsibility to carry forward what he has left us with is huge … He has led by example. God give us the strength to emulate. 

In Dad’s words- He mere Ram! He mere malik! Kripa karo mere malik! Kripa karo! Kripa karo!

This article was published in DAILY WORLD. A concise version was published in Hindustan Times. A very small part was published i The Indian Express  on 25.8.18

[itsworn]

Flattening out the curves with a bolt-on A-body suspension kit from BMR

Kelly and Mindi Lanford love their 1968 Chevelle. It was never built to be some all-out Pro Touring ride but that doesn’t mean the couple doesn’t enjoy blasting through a curvy mountain road every now and again. They wanted the Chevelle to handle better but they didn’t want to do any cutting or welding, and they certainly didn’t want to go broke doing it. The solution they found was BMR Suspension’s Level 2 Handling Performance Package (PN HPP012). The kit fits 1968-’72 GM A-bodies and comes in either red or black hammertone.

For about $2,200 you get a lot of performance goodness, including lowering springs, upper and lower front tubular control arms, rear control arms, new rear differential bushings, front and rear sway bars, and Bilstein shocks for all four corners. Add in a bunch of new hardware and it’s everything you need to greatly improve your classic Chevelle’s handling and general road manners.

While BMR offers more aggressive handling packages, the Level 2 kit is perfect for those who want improved handling in a simple to install “one stop shopping” kit. The polyurethane bushings in the BMR kit won’t deform and deflect like the factory rubber ones but they are still compliant enough to absorb road noise. All the bushings are greaseable so the system components won’t squeak, and the differential bushings (PN BK044) are designed to handle the high compression loads of aggressive launches and hard acceleration while still providing plenty of articulation. So let’s take a look at what’s involved with getting a ’60’s muscle car updated to 21st century handling standards.

1. The ’68 Chevelle was in great shape but it was bone stock in terms of the suspension, and handled like a 50-year-old ride.

2. Before the new widgets could go in place we needed to ditch old parts. First up was dropping the stock shocks.

3. OK, safety disclaimer time. There’s a lot of stored energy in the coil springs, so care needs to be taken when removing them from the car. You can skin the feline many ways; the safest being a set of spring compressors. Or you can use a floor jack to hold the lower arm up, then detach the upper arm from the spindle and lower the bottom arm slowly until the spring is fully extended. The choice of how you do it is up to you.

4. With the springs gone, Colt Mills could go ahead and remove the upper and lower control arms.

5. BMR’s upper A-arms (PN AA033) are equipped with CNC-machined, nickel-plated, dual-offset cross-shafts with heavy-duty stainless bushing retainers. They come pre-assembled with new polyurethane bumpstops, new ball joints are included. The greasable 95-durometer bushings add a solid, more responsive feel over the stock rubber bushings. BMR’s bushings are internally fluted, which allows grease to evenly coat the inner sleeve. These flutes also direct grease to the outer edge of the bushing, keeping the thrust surface lubricated.

6. A-arms are one of the most important, yet overlooked suspension components. They are the direct link between the front wheels and the chassis. Any deflection causes a change in alignment, which results in poor performance and driving feel. Fabricated from heavy-duty 1.25-inch, 0.095-inch wall DOM tubing with laser-cut, CNC-formed plate steel braces for extra strength, deflection is eliminated.

7. Quality springs are critical if you want your Chevy to ride nice, have the right ride height, and handle well. BMR’s lowering springs (PN SP030) are made from chrome silicon high-tensile spring wire and are cold-wound on a CNC coiling machine. This ensures every single spring is exactly the same. Each spring is compressed solid, twice, which guarantees they won’t sag. Finally, they are stress-relieved at 750-degrees and then shot-peened. This makes for a spring that BMR warranties for life against sagging. Before shipping out, a CNC load cell measures each and every spring. The linear-rate springs we installed featured a 1-inch drop, perfect for our street-driven Chevelle.

8. With the arms and spring in place we could compress the lower arm upward (using a pole jack) until the upper ball joint could slide into the spindle.

9. Ride, handling, and control are what a shock absorber provides. Compromise in one area and it may create a problem in another. Bilstein’s patented design reduces the need for compromise. The rising rate valving of the front Bilstein shock absorbers (PN BSN-24-131506) in the BMR kit provides the necessary damping to react quicker to road conditions without sacrificing ride comfort. This combination of valving and high-pressure nitrogen gas keeps the tires in constant contact with the road.

10. Stock sway bars have low torsional spring rates because they are manufactured from small-diameter bar stock or tubing. BMR Suspension’s front and rear sway bar kit (PN SB028) was designed by factoring in the vehicle weight, application, motion ratio, and coil spring rate. The 32mm front sway bar provides a 400-percent increase in sway bar rate over the stock bar and is cold-formed to better resist torsional fatigue, which means it will retain its “memory” far longer compared to hot-formed bars. The bushings used are 88-durometer, low-deflection polyurethane pieces with internal fluting for better grease distribution. The new bar mounted to the existing factory points on the frame.

11. And just like that the front was done. Installation wasn’t rocket science and the nine components installed drama free, plus they look great.

12. Like the front, the rear suspension on our ’68 Chevelle was super clean and very stock.

13. After disconnecting the stock shock we could lower the driver-side end of the 12-bolt housing enough to get the stock spring out and the new one in place.

14. The stamped steel factory arms are fine for cruising around town. But when subjected to loads from turning or launching hard they can twist and distort, which causes unpredictable handling and wheelhop. The soft rubber factory bushings do nothing to help deter this. After supporting the rearend with a pole jack we unbolted the lower control arm. We found it easier to the complete the driver-side before tackling the passenger-side.

15. The upper arms of the Chevelle’s triangulated four-link arrangement can be a bit tough to get to, but having the Chevy up on a lift helped.

16. The hardest part of the whole install was removing the bushings from the 12-bolt housing. Specific tools are available for this job but you can also use an air hammer and a chisel. By folding the sides of the bushing sleeve inward, the bushing and sleeve were able to be hammered out. Once the bushing was removed we went ahead and installed the upper control arm, part of the Rear Suspension Kit (PN RSK017), at the frame side only. The non-adjustable upper control arms are manufactured from 1.625-inch diameter, 0.120-inch wall, DOM steel tubing, strong enough for any compression load.

17. These bushings (PN BK044) are how the control arms directly connect to the differential, making them crucial to a proper functioning rear suspension system. Manufactured from 90-durometer polyurethane, BMR’s bushings kits are a huge improvement over the dry rotted, worn-out, soft rubber factory bushings. Best of all, they are made to fit and have zinc-coated steel inner sleeves to resist rust. After a few smacks of the hammer our bushings were firmly in place.

18. Also part of the Rear Suspension Kit were the heavy-duty 1.50-inch diameter, 0.120-inch wall DOM steel lower control arms. These are far stronger than the stamped steel stockers and will help eliminate wheelhop and unpredictable handling due to arm flex and bushing deflection. Like the other BMR arms, these contained greasable (95-durometer) polyurethane bushings.

19. The adjustable reinforcement braces really helps to strengthen the Chevelle’s chassis and they triangulate the forward end of the lower control arms to the frame. It’s made from 1.0-inch diameter, 0.156-inch wall, steel tubing. Again, it installed without any hassle or drama.

20. It was then time to install the rear 1-inch solid bar stock sway bar. Many times, Chevelles and other A-bodies did not come with a rear sway bar. Adding one is a great way to increase your car’s handling capabilities. The new rear bar is a 200-percent increase in bar rate over a stock bar, which should help flatten out the big-block–powered Chevelle in the turns. It attached to mounting points on the lower control arms using supplied Grade 8 hardware.

21. It was then time to unbolt the upper shock mount and toss them into the refuse pile.

22. In their place we installed a pair of Bilstein gas pressurized shocks (PN BSN-24-009294) that are valved to match the fronts. These shocks are a very cost-effective way to improve both the handling and ride of an early Chevy.

23. And just like that our rear suspension rehab was completed. The 11 main components took a few hours to install and we’re happy to report everything fit the way it was supposed to. The only thing left to do was align the suspension and go find a twisty road somewhere.

Sources

BMR Suspension 813.986.9302 bmrsuspension.com

Photography by Pete Epple

The post Flattening out the curves with a bolt-on A-body suspension kit from BMR appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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[expositionaljazzskeleton]

the hargreeves kids as things my friends have said

I know I used some of these for my raven cycle post but I couldn't resist

Luther

I want another Clementine but they've all been juggled!

contrary to popular belief, your hands are NOT wrenches.

You got snow? don't worry about it. all I need is my chair and I'll take care of it.

No, [Allison], I'm not doing a line of smarties off your buttcrack.

Don't belittle my teeth!

I have... milk sadness.

There's a lot more gay popes than I thought there were.

remember that thing we did yesterday? yeet the moon.

How do you smoke weed? oh you SMOKE it!

They always ask who I'm throwing... but they never ask who's throwing me :(

Diego

What's it called... English? is it English? Fuck English.

You don't tell a lady to keep her spear in the trunk.

Chickens are fine. I don't think they have feelings.

What, you have boneless water where you live like some kind of fancy person?

Hell yeah ladies get on this scarf dick

You can't slorp without knowing the consequences.

We're just... hands

I swear I've developed a cowboy persona.

The cheese has little knives, the milk has daggers, ice cream has poison, and the yogurt has a disk sander, and if you don't have a strong stomach membrane that's lactose intolerance because they try to kill you.

My aunt Rosalie could kick your aunt Rosalie's ASS

Allison

Hashtag baddie cowboy emoji sunglasses emoji

I need a favor involving olives.

Sorry to disappoint, cannibal

not getting vaccinated is the equivalent of a spawn kill

Beekeeper on the top, party on the bottom.

Nothing says "hail satan!" like a Yankee candle

s... something just... dabbed in there....

in AND out burger? that seems excessive.

Yknow, shirt genres?

What DOESN'T sound like a bathtub?

Klaus

Dom brain takes over and there are no survivors. Not even me

I'm the lover! dab on me!

That's a bone, bitch!

When was i... New York!!

Y'all ever smoke Fall Out Boy?

The 3 genders: male, female, fear

I'm a mall Santa by day, hospital twerker by night

picture this: the middle of the desert. Now picture this: total anarchy. Are you intrigued?

Stop wizard-splaining

My sexuality is Nickelodeon slime

Juice is temporary. Sauce is forever. My brother said that. he's dead now. the juice got him

The West Virginian mountains could fuck me

live your best life. eat your own ass

I don't know what God tastes like but pussy tastes like good fuckin food

have you ever seen the human centipede?? THAT WOULD BE THE BEST ORAL SEX EVER!

[Allison] just lay on the floor and we'll all smell you

Its teeth are hands? oh I'm so proud of you!

does big suck on small peen result in detachment?

The best way to ask someone's sexuality: what's your favorite flavor of crotch?

Five

I promise I will never call you a beanie bitch

Pack the wife and kids and go watch Mt. St. Helena erupt

The rectangle and the rhombus fell in love and made a baby named the square and then they eventually commited suicide

Are you implying that all other spas are run by robots?

I don't want your styrofoam spheres!

Blue highlighters will never amount to anything.

Fine print is for wimps

Its called a prayer circle, dumbass

Out of all the animals that would dab, the Clydesdale horse is not one of them

Only white people are legally allowed to play ultimate frisbee.

The shamrock shake gave me ptsd

Just casual arson, I guess

If you give the baby LSD, maybe it'll be happy.

Dying alone, GONG. Now there's a bell in your head.

Ben

Uranium can't be transuranium... unless it wants to be and that's fine

I want a Graham cracker taped to a rock as my tombstone

Everyone is just an allele goodwill

Wildfires kill people, [Klaus]!

Have fun getting shanked by the bathroom clown

You're worth negative corn chips

I don't trust buildings with upside dowm handicap signs

bikes are causing discrepancies amongst the skeleton mating habits

The light at the end of the tunnel is a train. heaven is a train.

posse pentacle pass the tentacle

kill me on your favorite salad

why do olives make you feel like a shark?

Vanya

that's what music is. it's a lot of seIlf hatred wrapped up in a little violin.

string quartet? you mean fourplay?

well, it's not MY half lemon...

we do NOT want bananas in our cellos.

when the bees are inside you, you understand them.

you should try slapping a crab sometime

are....... are you conquered?

Have a vengeance against the sight reading. This piece killed your father.

Alright. lime screaming over

What the fuck? it's not even whale time!

You sound like your shoelaces are tied together

Just let the fingers have a little dancing fun!

You gotta pour your sheet music

I love the sound of smooth jazz and distant screaming

I don't deserve fingers