#Done and dusted in a dumpster or donated!!!
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New shirt 🐯
#Jjk#jujutsu kaisen#Nanami#Gojo#Nanami kento#Gojo satoru#This OOC simply because nanami wouldn't have tried the shirt on AT ALL#Done and dusted in a dumpster or donated!!!#Anyways phantom parade remains superior in so many ways#The manga spinoff we should've had#My art#illustration#Artists on tumblr#Art
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Declutter in 2024 with the Aid of Our Junk Hauling Services
Have you noticed you have less and less space to entertain? Or maybe you can’t park your car in the garage. Or is your attic so stuffed with “stuff” that you’re afraid to venture up there? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you should know that decluttering is easier with the help of a dumpster rental and junk hauling services.
We should specify that we don’t do the junk removal for you. You, the homeowner, provide the labor, while we provide the dumpster delivery and haul away your junk.
If you’re the type to make a New Year’s Resolution, decluttering your house might be at the top of the list. But so often, we make resolutions and then fail to keep them because they require continual effort. But decluttering a garage, attic, or basement is one of those things that can be done in a long weekend, and you reap the benefits for years to come.
Keep reading for some tips on how to declutter your home and enjoy your space more in the New Year.
Tip #1: Set a Goal and a Timeline
Do you want to convert your attic into a bedroom? Maybe you want to turn your basement into a home theater. Or maybe you just want to be able to park your car in the garage. Decide what portion of your home you’re going to clear out – or go big and do more than one area.
Give yourself a timeline and a deadline. If you’ve scheduled home remodeling, you know you have to get rid of the clutter before work can start.
Tip #2: Sell, Donate, Keep, or Toss
Go through the area to be cleaned out and decide what to do with everything.
Sell. Determine what you might be able to sell and list it on Facebook Marketplace or NextDoor. If it doesn’t sell, donate it.
Donate. Donate gently used items that can still be useful to someone who doesn’t have the money to buy something new. Some charities will send a truck if you have large items.
Keep. Decide what is still in great shape and gets a lot of use. Keep those items.
Toss. Anything that is broken and has been sitting around for years should be tossed. You can also toss old magazines, stained or torn clothing, and other items no one wants or needs. When you have a lot of stuff, and a lot of big stuff, renting a dumpster and scheduling junk removal services will save you time and money.
Driving loads of junk and trash to the dump yourself can be time-consuming and use a lot of gas. By tossing everything into a dumpster that we then haul away when you’re done, you have more time to devote to getting your space exactly the way you want it.
Related Reading: How to Rent a Dumpster in 5 Easy Steps
Tip #3: Clean the Area
If you get rid of a lot of junk that’s been sitting in your garage, basement, or attic for years, chances are good that you’ve also stirred up some dust and disturbed some cobwebs. Sweep or vacuum the floors. Dust all flat surfaces. Sweep down the walls and then wipe them down. Clean the windows inside and out.
You’ll notice not only is the area decluttered, but it looks brighter. By decluttering, you just reclaimed space in your home that you can now use for something a lot more fun than storing old junk.
Call Now to Schedule a Dumpster Rental and Junk Hauling
To easily rent a dumpster and schedule junk hauling services, call or text us at 443-286-3284. In most cases, we can deliver your roll-off dumpster the next day, but we recommend calling 1-2 days before you need it. You can keep the dumpster for up to 10 days, and you simply call us when you’re ready for us to pick it up. We offer delivery and pickup Monday through Saturday.
If you’re not sure what size dumpster you need, if you tell us a bit about your project, we can make recommendations. We offer competitive dumpster rental prices to customers in Harford County and parts of Baltimore County.
Read What Some of Our Customers Have to Say
I have used J R Hauling Services residentially for the last two years!!! They are great! They come when they say they will!! They are helpful and fair in their pricing! I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for “debris removal”!!! -Shelley S.
JRs was super-fast getting me several dumpsters swapped out as we emptied my father’s house- we filled 3, 20-yard bins, at a very reasonable price. They even got us the last one on a Sunday morning, which I was not expecting to be able to do!
Every time I called, I got quick replies, and they navigated a tight driveway and generally close quarters expertly. Can’t recommend them highly enough- I hope I never need them for this kind of situation again, but I’d call them first, in a heartbeat! -Gary D.
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Dumpster Rental
Get The Clutter Out Of Your Space – Hire A Professional Junk Removal Service!
Living with less clutter can have wide-reaching benefits beyond having a tidier home. Clutter distracts us; it's a source of increased stress and frustration, accumulates dust and allergens, and makes staying organized more difficult.
On top of all that, it can take up valuable time and energy to sweep through your home and pay attention to the small details.
Hiring a professional junk removal service is an increasingly popular choice for people who want to declutter their homes without doing it themselves. These services offer a variety of solutions to fit your individual needs and budget.
Whether it's hauling away old furniture, appliances, or even just unwanted junk around the house, they can take care of it all in one go. Hiring a professional junk removal service can provide you with numerous advantages:
Save Time And Energy
Hiring a Junk removal st Pete service is an efficient way to get rid of clutter without having to spend hours or even days doing the job yourself.
The professionals will come in, quickly assess what needs to be removed, and get to work immediately.
Safety
Using professional Furniture removal st Petersburg ensures that the items being removed are done so safely and correctly.
A lot of the items may be too bulky or heavy for you to move and can potentially put your safety at risk.
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Professionals will have the necessary tools, experience, and equipment to get rid of large items in a secure way.
Save Money
Hiring a junk removal service means you don't need to worry about renting trucks or paying for disposal fees.
The company you hire will take care of all the costs associated with the job, and some even offer discounts.
Going Green
A reputable Junk removal st Petersburg will ensure that items are recycled or donated when possible, which helps reduce waste and increase sustainability.
Many services also specialize in eco-friendly practices such as composting and green waste disposal.
Peace Of Mind
A Dumpster rental service can provide you with much-needed peace of mind knowing that everything is taken care of and your space is once again clutter-free.
You will be able to enjoy the satisfaction that comes from having a neat and orderly home.
Improved Mental And Physical Health
Living in a cluttered space has been linked to increased anxiety and stress levels. By decluttering your home, you can enjoy improved mental and physical health. A junk removal service can help make this happen.
Conclusion
Hiring a professional junk removal service is an excellent solution if you're looking for a way to quickly and efficiently declutter your home.
Not only will it save you time and energy, but you can also rest assured that the job will be done safely and correctly.
So don't wait any longer – get organized today and hire a junk removal service to help make your home a safer and more enjoyable place to be.
Check out the Website for getting more information related to Junk Pick Up Near Me.
Find Us On Google Map: (Elite Hauling & Junk Removal)
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Clean Out Your Home, Inc 10 Photos & Eleven Critiques
These homes can have lots of junk and trash within the yard. This was extra of a renovations job situated in West Palm Beach. Mary was referred to us from her realtor who had seen our work at another job we did in West Palm Beach. Get extra details house clean out services about Minor house renovation sells in 2 days. An Estate Cleanup means removing desks, chairs, espresso tables and all types of trash throughout the home. Get extra information about Old Furniture Removed throughout Estate Clean up.
To empty a house quickly, we suggest renting a dumpster. At this level, all that should stay from your decluttering journey is the keep pile. Go ahead and put away the stuff that can stay in the room. It’s the objects that might be housed in a special house clean out services room that could presumably be problematic. With every thing sorted, you need to have a few piles of items that must be saved or donated. Take as many journeys as you have to get the gadgets to their last vacation spot.
We’ll find alternate retailers for something we can’t take for our charity companions so that you don’t have to worry about it. Janet Bernstein is the founder of The Organizing Professionals, which works with clients to declutter their spaces. She and her staff seek the guidance of and collaborate with customers to create spaces that enable individuals to guide happier, less confused and extra productive lives within the Philadelphia space.
We are experts in safety, efficiency and correct disposal. Are you downsizing and have no idea what to do with all of that stuff in your storage unit? We will load and eliminate your undesirable junk so you may have one much less factor to fret about.
Before hiring a rubbish disposal firm, it is important to seek out out their business popularity. Company web sites and social media tools are an excellent way to know an organization’s standing in society. Comments and evaluation sections are an excellent place to start out your search. These sections paint a great image of how the common public regards the company’s service.
To take away the unwanted objects shortly, professionally, and at an affordable value. Respecting the surroundings by recycling and reusing your discarded items. Unlike most junk out corporations that overwhelm landfills. An easy resolution is to use this free house cleansing price calculator that finds average prices based on components like frequency, cleaning type and pets. Animals could cause injury and extra work for cleaners, so they’ll need to be included up-front so as to calculate probably the most correct pricing list.
We will decide up the ineffective junk and carry it to our trucks with out damaging your property or belongings. A house clean-out entails cleaning the home windows, and floors, and dusting around the home. It also entails major cleanup, furnishings lifting and transferring, and junk hauling, relying on the services wanted and agreed upon with the shopper. Regardless of the property you may house clean out services have, our skilled junk elimination groups will present up and get the job done right in relation to removing your unwanted objects. There are dozens of reasons to dispose of your junk and clean up your yard. Preparation is also included within the reasons for a proper cleanup.
You could also be confronted with cleaning, repairs, installing new carpets, and/or painting. Sometimes the earlier occupants depart behind junk, trash, and gadgets they now not want. In different phrases, you’re also left to deal with junk removing and hauling. Cleanouts are probably to contain old mattresses, furnishings, clothing, and different rubbish. When a tenant is transferring out or is evicted, it’s good to have a number of serving to hands for an eviction cleanout job, as properly as junk removing for all rental properties.
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The past month feels like an eternity. An eternity filled with stress, painful flares, more stress, pushing beyond my limits physically, and let’s toss a tad more stress like a cherry on top. Original plan was to use the dumpster bag hubby bought to get rid of all the crappola we have around the house & very quickly realized we needed an actual big dumpster. Ordered dumpster delivery with pickup 7 days later, went through 90% of the house & tried to break my foot over the weekend whilst dragging things to the garage. Dumpster arrived as teen & I arrived home Monday after a monumentally stressful first visit with a new doctor. I made lasagna to eat that night and yesterday because I felt a flare coming on Sunday evening. The doctor thing sent me over the edge & although I’ve resolved that issue over the phone yesterday while doing laundry I’m still locked in this pain flare. ~ Today I managed to box up & ship a huge box to my grandkids, helped teen finish going through her room & do a bit in the craft/game room, and take out meat to make cheeseburgers for dinner. ~ That’s it. I’ve been on the sofa lounging. Trying to allow myself to rest while the Imodium works magic. All the dust from the insane amount of cleaning/moving of things has caused a nonstop allergy headache with slightly elevated temp. ~ Definitely need to feel better tomorrow because I haven’t much time left to keep the teen motivated to constantly (I’m sure that’s how she feels right now) go through all the accumulated junk and make 3 piles (donate/trash/keep). ~ As for my personal stuff, I have 2 bookcases and several boxes to go through before I’m done and I can easily do that over the weekend before dumpster is picked up. ~ #painflare #chronicpain #chronicillness #hypermobility #fibromyalgia #bipolar #adhd #anxiety #arthritis #enthesitis #chronicdiarrhea #hashimotos https://www.instagram.com/p/ChF17NcObTJ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
#painflare#chronicpain#chronicillness#hypermobility#fibromyalgia#bipolar#adhd#anxiety#arthritis#enthesitis#chronicdiarrhea#hashimotos
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Heya! For the tmnt ask game, idk if someone asked already, but 11?
Hiya!
11. What is one head canon you believe so strongly, you sometimes forget it's technically not canon?
oh boy oh boy i should not be this excited to share my ideas lol (there's,,, a Lot so buckle up):
(any iteration) Leo collects scented candles but rarely uses them.
(2003) Klunk is a girl (and one day she comes home pregnant so the guys have to deal with that) i should really just write a fic
(ALL) Mikey likes to cook but doesn't enjoy baking as much (cooking you can tweak the recipe; baking involves proper measurements, chemistry, and feels more restrictive to him)
(2003) Donnie can program at a basic level but it's April who is the programming expert. kinda feel like this one is definitely not canon but i digress
(any) Also I just feel like Don would watch medical dramas but doesn't know a lot about actual medical stuff. In Rise he actively avoids learning about biology/medicine.
(2003) Raph is just as into the superheroes around NYC as Mikey is but he started the teasing thing and now Don and Leo are in on it and "oh god i can't let them know i find it cool too." He lowkey enjoyed playing hero in Super Power Struggle - more than just cuz he didn't think Mikey could handle it. It got old after a while and he quit because it was kinda demanding.
(2003) Leo and Usagi keep exchanging swords at Christmas. Leo breaks his often but Usagi doesn't, so after a while Usagi just starts giving the swords back to Leo instead of letting them sit on his wall collecting dust. Leo doesn't notice.
(Rise) Raph goes through the dumpsters and finds old toys and fixes them up and donates them (someone else came up with this idea but i like it so much i've adopted it)
(Rise) Splinter still has access to his bank account from his Lou Jitsu days and that's where all their money comes from.
(Rise) Mikey eventually gets a job at Run Of The Mill Pizza. Leo might too but after the toaster incident™, Hueso limits his hours and puts him on the wait staff.
Despite being confirmed as canon in 2012 (and the Michael Bay movies?), i still love ADHD Mikey if done right. I think it definitely works for other iterations.
(Rise) Leatherhead used to fight in the Battle Nexus before escaping. He's this huge imposing morally gray mutant living in the sewers. And his bestie is Mikey :) (i never get old of Sunshine Boy adopting and rehabilitating villains and antiheroes)
I might reblog with more if they come to me
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an overture bold and beyond
for the Roswell New Mexico Big Bang (@rnmbb)
[AO3 link]
Jesse is dead, and Alex is left standing in the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions left behind by the events of Crashdown and the days leading up to it. With the dust settled, Alex and Michael pick through the debris--they've argued many times before, but the last one, in Michael's workshop, lingers over them, demanding...something, demanding to be seen, to be spoken, to be soothed. Through three conversations, they search for an understanding they've never found before, one that brings them closer together. (An episode 2x10 fix-it fic)
with art by @bisexualalienblast!
1.
The shed is as it always was and at the same time something else entirely. Small and dusty, smelling of wood, at night it would throw weird, spiked shadows from the tools and trophies adorning the walls, but during the day the light is pale yellow and pleasant against the pine. Ten years of light and absence have faded the posters that still shroud the walls. The floor is clean and swept and no amount of scalded memory could make Alex recall exactly where the blood used to be.
Dad is dead, and that means there is a life’s worth of unloading and sorting and dispersing to do of the things he possessed and left a mark on, and Greg has done enough, which means it falls to Alex. And it’s only fitting that the shed go first.
Still, where to begin? Should he get a dumpster for the antlers or a box to collect the tools for donation? Should he be cold and unfeeling, or should he pore over the cracks of his soul and salvage some sentimentality, some silver lining for the toolbox that built his treehouse, or the low bench that served as his bed on the safe and hidden nights, or.
For so long, this tiny, old, unused building loomed so large in his mind it blotted out any light that could shine on anything else. And then, through sheer stubbornness, he told himself it was just a building with such intensity that now, here, with the boogeyman six feet deep for good, it’s shocking all over again to find out that he was right.
It’s just a building. There are cobwebs so thick one corner is entirely grayish-white. The windows are grimy; the floorboards creak. Alex stands in the middle with his hands in his pockets. Somehow, he always thought there would be more screaming, like the soft and sweet-smelling pine might have captured the echo. It’s almost as unsettling as seeing a ghost, to stand at the center of his nightmares and not be haunted at all.
Greg would have come out here with him if he’d asked—but he didn’t ask. Greg would have hovered, looked at him all full of concern, like he thought Alex was being some sort of martyr for tackling this alone. Hell, maybe Alex thought that too, just a bit. Maybe that’s why it’s so bizarre to stand here and be...fine.
He’s fine. He’s too fine. He’s so weirdly, blissfully, mind-numbingly fine.
No grief. No celebration. Just a fineness so complete and immaculate it could be mistaken for emptiness if his head were a little clearer.
Alex takes in a deep, woodsy breath and blows it out slowly, making dust motes scatter and dance.
He left the door open intentionally, to hear if Greg shouted for him, for a quick escape, just in case, for a breath of fresh air. When a shadow falls across it Alex freezes, braces for impact, until he jerks his head up and sees the reason.
“Hey,” Michael says. A smile flickers across his face and then it’s gone, and Alex breathes through the blow of it.
“Hey.”
A beat passes. Alex chews on the inside of his cheek. They’ve been alone together once since their fight, and that was a hostage situation.
“Maria made me bring food over. I gave it to Gregory. Seems to be holding up okay.”
Was that true? That Maria made him? Or was it a cover, a thin, defensive veneer protecting him from—well, if he was really just here on an errand of respectability at the behest of someone more respectable, he could have—it would have been easy, the easiest thing in the world, to leave the food and slip back out without Alex ever having even known he was there.
Yet here he is, having sought Alex out. Should Alex let himself hope that this means something, that everything they were building, all closeness and understanding, wasn’t set aflame and burned to ashes in a furious, impulsive whirlwind?
He’s here. It’s something.
Alex has been practicing, since that last night they were alone together, since the bunker. He had a lot of time to think and could only hum the melody he found for his song so many times. So he’s been practicing what he’d say next time he saw Michael, what he’d say to make it right. To stretch out an open hand and not snatch it back, to allow himself to be reached for and not snap at it, all teeth. It all feels like a ridiculous fantasy now, looking at Michael’s quiet, expressionless face. He’s never known what to say. Maybe he never will.
Clearing his throat, Alex says, “Yeah, he’s, uh, made his peace, I guess. Still, we’re keeping each other company for now. How’s Maria doing?”
“Hanging in there. If it wasn’t for Liz…” Michael swallows and glances away.
“Yeah,” Alex replies hoarsely. Yeah. If it wasn’t for Liz, Flint’s body count would be up by one, and it would be Alex’s fault. Should have secured him better. Should have made sure there wasn’t a second key. Should have warned Charlie instead of going out the back. Shouldn’t have been distracted by his father. Should do something to stop him from acting again. Disaster struck. Justice done. Should…
“Hey. Alex,” Michael says, and Alex snaps out of his head to see him hovering closer, concern all over his face.
“Just,” Alex waves his hand, waves him off. “Just thinking about where we’d be without Liz. Not a pretty picture.”
“Yeah.”
Michael retreats just a pace or two back to the door. For a moment, Alex jolts like he could stop him from leaving, but then Michael turns to talk again.
“And…how are you?”
“What?”
“I mean. I’m not sad the bastard’s dead, but.” Michael leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms. “I’m not gonna break out the champagne until I know it’s cool with you, I guess.”
“Ha. I…I think the feeling’s a little more ‘lazy Sunday’ than ‘wild party.’”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Like…I can breathe easier now. I’m not ready to celebrate, I just want to drink it in, you know?”
“Sure. We can make it mimosas instead.”
At that, Alex laughs, a short and underused thing. He runs out of stamina quickly. Part of him aches to invite Michael in, to sit beside him on the bench and talk about all the things they aren’t saying. But how would Michael take that? Here, now? Alex needs more time to consider all the pieces on the board.
“And physically?” Michael steps back toward him, nearly pacing for the number of times he’s walked those three feet of floor. He touches his own forehead where Alex is cut in two jerky movements, one forward, one up. “No concussion or anything?”
Alex shakes his head. “Clean bill of health.”
“Good. That’s good.”
The awkwardness dances between them like the dust does, and Alex measures his breaths to keep calm. The light should make things easier; it couldn’t be more different from the dark underground of Michael’s workshop, but the tension between them is the same.
“You were right,” Alex blurts.
“I should go,” Michael blurts at the same time, and then the two of them are frozen again until Alex breaks the ice.
“No, don’t. Please. I didn’t get a chance to really say this when you found me, but I need to.”
Michael hesitates. Alex holds his breath. But then Michael sighs, shoulders lifting and falling, and nods.
Bracing himself, Alex continues.
“You were right.”
Michael makes another aborted noise of protest, but Alex barrels on.
“My father was lying and manipulating the way he always has, and I was so ready to think that he was defeated that I stopped trying to see through him. I wanted to be right so badly that I convinced myself I was, and I hurt you, and I could have hurt so many more people if Liz hadn’t been able to—if Isobel wasn’t there to hold off the fire—”
His voice falters and he closes his eyes, then forces them open. No hiding.
Michael works his jaw for a minute or so like he might respond, might get angry, but he takes so long to start talking Alex almost continues his speech.
But then Michael says, “You don’t have to do this. You’ve got no obligation to make me feel better or whatever. We both had a hand in making bombs this weekend, and I’m the one who knew what he was doing.”
“For me. You made a bomb for me.”
Michael levels him with a golden look.
“Yeah. I did.”
“To save me. And maybe I didn’t know what my father would use that piece for, but it was never going to be anything good. I just wanted answers, it didn’t have to be life or death. I’m—sorry.”
Alex hates apologies. Always has. After growing up the way he did, they always felt like a test, a test of his own commitment to forgiveness, to the value he chose for himself, the value his father never would have tried to beat into him. Or like an exertion of that same pressure on someone else, a desperate, pathetic cry for acceptance, for absolution.
And apologies were always particularly difficult between the two of them. Like each one granted might rip the bandage off all the old wounds that were never treated at all. But it was time, long past time, however, that they began to face these things.
Michael sucks in a breath and blows it back out in a huge sigh.
“Look,” he says. “It doesn’t make me feel any better to listen to you beat yourself up, okay? It’s not like you were entirely wrong; it’s not like I was making any strong effort to see things from your perspective. I…”
Michael flexes his left hand, then shoves it in his pocket, and another wave of guilt drags at Alex like quicksand. He can’t look away from that pocket even as Michael starts talking again.
“I still don’t understand. Why you would want him to change, why you would want anything from him after all this time and…everything. But there’s a lot I don’t get about family. And I probably would have told you giving up the piece was a bad idea no matter what, but I shouldn’t have to understand everything perfectly to listen when you’re telling me something’s important to you. I’ve been talking to Maria…” He pauses.
“It’s okay,” Alex prompts. It’s been months; there’s no point in pretending like what’s happening isn’t happening.
It would be easier if any of their endings felt like the end. If he could shake off the certainty of old habit that time would pass and gravity would bring them back together. Michael and Maria have a good thing. Alex is taking steps, trying new things. And yet…
Neither of them would ever say it. They’ll both push it to the back of their minds, paper over longing with something new.
Yet.
Michael says, “Maria isn’t sure if suppressing her powers her entire life is what she wants. And I feel like an asshole because we both know that I’m asking her to do something I might not be able to do myself in her shoes. So I’m trying to understand where she’s coming from, no matter how much it hurts. I’m putting in the work. In every part of my life, okay?”
Alex nods, not knowing what to say.
And Michael carries on, like he’s trying to lighten the mood. “Anyway, I figure I might at least try and earn those second chances you keep giving me, right?”
His tone is light and weightless, but it sends Alex’s heart plummeting into his stomach.
“What does that mean?” He asks, even though he already knows.
Michael shrugs. “Look, I should really get back to the hospital. Text me if anything comes up, okay?”
“Michael!”
“What, Alex?”
His voice spikes, then his lips press together in a harsh line, but Alex doesn’t wait for any attempt at an apology. No amount of yelling ever made him scared of Michael.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “And it may be out of line for me to say this outright. But. You’re nothing like my father. Never have been. Giving you second chances—I mean, letting anyone make mistakes and work past them—it’s nothing you have to earn any more than, I mean, I have to earn them, which isn’t to say I don’t know I have things to work on—”
“Alex, stop.”
Michael mercy-kills his rambling, and Alex inhales deeply and bobs his head once in a nod, and Michael drops his eyes to the floor.
“Gonna tell you something I’ve never said to someone who wasn’t comatose, so, uh. Be honored, or something.”
Alex nods to tell him to go on, even if Michael can’t see it.
“Look, I know you know what it’s like to grow up under shitty circumstances, so I won’t waste your time getting into it, but. Growin’ up, and then even when I was older, in high school and after, all my relationships had always been…transactional. Except you never saw the price tag and you just had to guess.”
A soft noise escapes Alex’s mouth, and Michael glances up then lets his eyes slide away again. Alex doesn’t say a word to interrupt him. Alex is tense with a strange mix, gratitude and regret at how little he knew, how little he still knows, about how Michael the boy makes up Michael the man, and how little Michael knows in return. How much he still has to learn.
All he wants is for them to be in each other’s lives to keep that learning going. But how to say that in a way that isn’t begging Michael to be pinned down by him?
Michael continues, “That’s why I didn’t believe you at first when you said people could just be nice for no reason. You were the first person who showed me there was another way, and then after you, I…stopped believing in it again. Partially ‘cause I knew I’d fucked up with you, so I didn’t deserve you anymore. That’s a kid’s way of thinking at it, but yeah. With Max and Iz, with Sanders, with Maria, and yeah, with you, trading favors is what I default to, and I’m trying to stop thinkin’ of it like that. I am. But trying to earn things, people, second chances...it’s the kind of habit that’s stubborn to break.”
“I’m trying, too.” Alex measures his breath again and wonders if Michael can tell he’s doing it, how obvious he is. Does he owe Michael at least as much vulnerability and courage as that took, or is that transactional thinking too? “I’m trying to remember that my morality isn’t always universal. I thought I was doing what was right, and in some ways I was, but I was acting in a world where everyone thinks exactly like myself, and that’s just not the real one.”
Michael stands up a little, then. His eyes sharpen. Alex doesn’t know what he’s going to say, so he keeps talking.
“I subsumed my moral compass in work, in mission for so long, that the second I started recapturing it…I lost sight of so many other things.”
“No. No, Alex,” Michael says firmly. Outside, the sun is beginning to set, the light deepening, the blurriness of early dusk. It smudges Michael’s edges; it softens him. It’s reminiscent of how he looks at dawn, a sight Alex may never see again, and his chest aches. And he aches for the fine, furious tremble, the certainty in that fixed jaw.
“Yes,” Alex disagrees. “Your faith in me is…” So many words are so loaded. Unearned? Undeserved? “It’s, um, an honor. But…I think I know who I am now. And I’m learning more every day.”
He winces as his own cheesiness, but Michael just softens, slouching back against the door, a flicker of a smile on his face.
The light is truly dying, now, and Alex looks around the shed. He didn’t get anything done he intended to tonight, but it can wait for another day.
He looks back at Michael and asks, “Is it hard for you? Being here again. I should have asked earlier, I…”
His voice dies off as Michael takes a step inside, looking all around himself before his eyes settle on Alex again. He’d stayed so close to the doorway and the open air the whole time they were talking. Inside, with the broad shoulders and strong hands that had been budding and awkward on his seventeen year old self, he takes up so much room there’s none left for the last of the ghosts.
“I’m okay,” Michael says. “He’s gone. Never gonna hurt me again. Never gonna hurt you again.”
“I know it’s just a building, but it seems like it should be more. It was the only place I felt safe, and then in one moment he tore that away. It’s hard to process that someone like that is just…gone. You know he used to tell us all about how his grandfather built this place with his own two hands? I just…”
Michael looks at him, then, and it’s the same like the shed is the same. Ten years of safety, ten years of hiding and neglect. He looks at him like he always has, the careful, creative study of men who named constellations.
He has a hammer in his hands. He holds it out to Alex handle-first.
“Yeah. This place sucks.”
2
Michael looks like shit. His eyes are ringed with purple shadows, both from sitting by Maria’s bed and from the sleepless nights present and future, his hair rough from where he’s been running his hands through it. Isobel rests a hand in the crook of his arm, close enough to him that he can physically feel her comfort. If it were Alex, he’d chafe at the pity, but at the same time he’d do anything to be in Isobel’s place, to be allowed that closeness, to be that part of Michael’s life where he knew how to provide any comfort but silent presence.
Isobel, however, doesn’t stick around long after they read Tripp’s journal, leaving them with a tousle of Michael’s hair. They’re left to the bustle of a busy diner, but the world seems to shrink all the same. Alex fiddles with the loose vinyl strings at the edge of the booth and searches for the right thing to say.
“So do you think they were? Cosmic?” He asks, watching the cover of the journal like it could tell him anything more than it already has.
“Does it matter? They’re both dead.”
“I. Yeah. They are,” Alex says, then leans back in the booth and lets out a carefully measured sigh, working his fingertips into the muscle of his right thigh, hoping to ease the persistent ache.
His head hurts, too, and he closes his eyes to give himself a break from the pressure and strain behind them. It blots out the journal in front of him. It blots out Michael’s weary, troubled face; it blots out his strong, whole hands folded on the table.
Tripp must have closed his eyes too. For decades, as the woman he loved was tortured and imprisoned and experimented on and left to die, to die in front of her son’s screaming eyes as Alex held him back from joining her.
When he opens his eyes again, he almost expects Michael to be gone, but he isn’t.
“How are you holding up?” Alex asks, tentatively. His hand inches across the tabletop like he might take Michael’s, soothe him where he’s begun picking at the skin around his nails, but he forces it back before Michael even notices his approach.
“Fine. I’m…ha.” Michael shakes his head. “Gotta be fine, right? Been here before.”
“Michael…”
“It’s true.”
“I know.”
Alex doesn’t apologize. It wouldn’t mean anything anyway, not here and now with all that’s gone between them. Michael’s eyes flicker up to him as if checking his reaction; his shoulders curl inward, making himself small.
“Don’t know why I thought this time would be different. But now I know, I guess. Common denominator. Should’ve already known, but I’m a dumbass like that.”
“No, you’re not, you’re—”
Michael ruthlessly cuts him off. “Shouldn’t you be asking how Maria is, anyway? I thought you were her friend.”
Alex blinks at him, cocks his head. But it doesn’t take a genius, or an expert in Michael Guerin, to see that for the deflection that it is.
He has been to the hospital to see Maria, plenty of times. It’s basically only hospitalization that’s kept him from bringing it up, from asking what she’s thinking. Michael and he are here, now, only feet between them once again like the feet between them in the tiny shed as they tore it down around them. No closer. Alex wants to get closer, but denial is the reliable companion comfort is not. So Alex focuses on his body and filling it, staying within it, staying present, while Michael bleeds the love of two people and ten years and one into the space between them, walking wounded.
“I am, but I’m your friend too. And to hear her tell it, she’s the one who broke up with you. So I think my priorities are okay for now.”
“Oh, we’re friends now, are we?”
That one hurts, but Alex just shrugs. It’s true that friends might not be the right word for what they are to each other. What they are has to be a word that doesn’t quite exist, at least not in the only language either of them knows how to speak. If Alex lingers too long on the potential of the languages either of them could know if it weren’t for the confluence of violence and neglect, he would be lost.
Michael flattens his palms and leans over. “Nothing to say? Really?”
Alex replies, “I don’t want to fight again.”
“Why?” Michael snaps. “Because you don’t want anything from me right now?”
At that, Alex can’t help but flinch, muscles locked up and frozen like a wolf inches from the teeth of a trap, and Michael flinches as well.
“I—I didn’t mean that. I—” Michael shakes his head. His face twists into something awful, something grieving, something inward. He rocks back, muted colors all but disappearing against the bright vinyl cushion behind him. God, Alex just wants to touch him. A hand on his shoulder, a hand on his hand. It’s the only way they’ve ever been able to communicate. But just because it’s familiar doesn’t mean it’s enough.
“No, you’re right,” Alex reassures. “You’re right. In your lab, I was wrong to come at you like that, and not just that, I was completely out of line not taking no for an answer—”
“No, Alex, no. You might have been wrong about your father changing, but we already talked about this, and I should—I should be able to control myself by now.”
A prickle of unease trickles cold across the back of Alex’s neck. He lowers his voice, though it’s probably too late to prevent any eavesdropping. “What do you mean? Control yourself? Michael, you’re one of the most controlled people I know. I hate that you’ve had to be, but from what you’ve said, the control you have over your powers is amazing. Admirable.”
Michael barks out a dry laugh. “My powers. But it’s more than that, it’s always been. You know that better than anyone; you said it yourself, and you were right. Fucking wasting my life, right? And now here I am, wasting this chance to be there for you because I can’t just get over some hurt feelings.”
There for him. Michael is the one with the freshly broken heart, and he’s coming down on himself for not comforting Alex about the death of a great-uncle he never met, a great-uncle who abandoned his mother when she needed him. A great-uncle who should have died somewhere his brother never could have buried him on family land, should have died where he stood, like Alex would, like Alex would if it was Michael, if it was his—
Alex shakes his head frantically at that, at Michael’s cold shutting down of his own pain as just hurt feelings. What a screw-up. Michael isn’t perfect either, but Alex was never taught to pull punches, neither with fists nor with words.
“Michael, do you want to know why I said those things to you last time we fought?”
“Because I wasn’t listening! ‘Cause you were pissed at me, I don’t know—”
“Because the change in my father had me confused and scared, and I was floundering for control.”
Michael opens his mouth, eyebrows scrunching together like he’s ready to argue, but Alex barrels on, staring straight into Michael’s eyes, knowing in his core that Michael isn’t going to look away from him.
“I thought that piece could be leveraged against him, and I didn’t care how you felt about it. I was hurting, and I took it out on you because you were an easy target. A safe target. I know in every part of my being that you would never hurt me.”
“No!” Michael protests.
“So when I tell you some garbage about you not deserving my faith in you, it’s gospel, but when I tell you I was wrong, it’s too much?” Alex demands.
To that, Michael has no answer. His mouth falls open, but nothing comes out, so it snaps shut again and he shakes his head.
“I’m the last person who’s gonna get on your case for not watching your mouth when you’re pissed,” he says with a casual shrug.
The ache in Alex’s thigh has radiated all the way up into his hips and lower back. In the kitchen, something clatters to the ground, the sound bringing the setting back in harsh relief, the very public diner loud and living all around them. Michael takes notice too, leaning back self-consciously, pulling his jacket tighter around himself.
Alex doesn’t know how to argue anymore; he knows he doesn’t want to. He can’t undo a lifetime of evidence built up inside Michael that he’s worthless with a few pretty words, no more than Michael could do for him over ten years. Trying is how they got here, at least in part. A good strategist knows when to retreat and try again another day.
Michael hasn’t said anything more, hasn’t probed farther for a fight, so sensing they’re done here, Alex takes the journal from the table to put it in his jacket pocket. But when his fingers touch leather something about the sensation makes him stop.
“Do…do you want to take it? I mean, he wrote about your mom, I…” He swallows, and continues, “I can’t give any part of her back to you, but if it gives you any comfort at all to read about her…”
“He was your ancestor. A Manes man. One who wasn’t a bloodthirsty bag of dicks. You should give it back to Maria or keep it if she doesn’t want it,” Michael says gruffly.
Not bloodthirsty, perhaps, but Alex is less sure that he was any sort of hero or any sort of comfort to Alex now. Tripp’s dog tags hang around his neck, warmed to the temperature of his skin but still palpably there, the feeling strange in a way his own never were. A reminder of what can happen if you believe in something but fail to act upon it.
“Yeah, it belongs to the Delucas. I wish Patricia had gotten to read it. I don’t know why Tripp didn’t...”
“And we never will. I’ll leave returning it to you. Can’t imagine Maria’s eager to see me at the moment.”
“You might be surprised.”
Michael just shrugs again and slides out of the booth, shoving his hands in his pockets when he stands.
Alex does a calculus at this point grown familiar, of whether he should nurse his drink for a little while longer so Michael doesn’t see how hard it is for him to stand, how painful to walk. So Michael doesn’t see him as weak. So they don’t have to have the awkward moment where Michael drives off while Alex calls an Uber or something because he walked here from the coffeeshop when Michael and Isobel texted him and now he can’t make the return trip. So—
“I got street parking,” Michael says.
“What?”
“My car’s right outside. Let me give you a lift home? We can stop by and grab whatever you need from your car and I’ll come back and get it, give it a tow or something.”
His eyes flick to Alex’s, briefly, then dance away. He doesn’t say it out loud, that he’s been able to notice that Alex is hurting.
“Or you can call Greg or Forrest or Kyle or something and I’ll get out of your hair,” he continues. “I know you don’t need my help—”
Alex grabs his wrist. He gets half cuff, half skin.
“Michael. I’d appreciate it, actually.”
The smile he gets is a half-bitten thing, brighter than the sun itself.
The sun sets in their eyes as they turn onto Alex’s street, and after ten minutes of silence, Michael speaks.
“I was out of line, spoiling for a fight with you back there. I won’t do it again.”
Alex doesn’t need to look at him to know that he’s golden, pure gold.
“We’re both on the remedial track for emotions and handling conflict. I understand, Michael.” He curls his fingers around the truck’s bench seat like he did when he was seventeen and they couldn’t hold hands in public. He can almost imagine there are grooves there that fit just him. “It isn’t second chances, or third, or fourth. It’s proof we’re learning how to make mistakes without ending the whole world over it.”
If he stole some of that from his therapist, so be it.
Michael’s voice is a little thick when he replies.
“That...that sounds pretty good to me.”
When they pull up to Alex’s driveway, he doesn’t get out right away, though he picks up his crutch and settles it over his lap, partially for a quick escape if he loses his nerve, partially for something to do with his hands.
Alex watches the lavender-gold sky and says, “It’s okay, you know. To be angry. I know I said the opposite, before, but…” he swallows harshly. “But it was hypocritical, and I regret it, and.” Horribly, tears prick at his eyes, but he has to get through this. “You deserve to feel safe. I don’t want to make you feel unsafe, ever. I walk around saying I’m doing the opposite like I deserve some kind of medal, but then I attack you, and I put you in danger—”
He chances a glance Michael’s way, only for the crack in his heart to widen at his hunched, defensive posture, curled around the steering wheel like it’s a shield to protect him where he’s most vulnerable.
Michael says, “You were the first person. The only person. Who ever made me feel safe. Who ever cared enough to make sure I had a place to go even if I didn’t trust you or if I pushed back on it. Who didn’t ask anything in return. We share a lot of the same pain from those days. But I don’t know if you know what that meant to me. I don’t know if you know how fucking hard it is for me to hear you talk like this now. I don’t know what you want from me.”
Horror creeps in at the edges of Alex’s vision. His lips are numb, but they still form, “Michael, you...you haven’t thought that you owe me for that for all these years, right? Please, please tell me you haven’t…”
“No! God, no.”
Michael looks at him, the sunlight turning his eyes to honey. His mouth is chapped, but it just makes Alex want to feel that roughness with his thumb, cup his jaw and feel the stubble against his fingertips.
Those instincts may never go away, but that doesn’t mean they have to suffer, even if they can never make being in love good for the both of them. A life where their jagged edges align in the way only they can for each other, where they find that perfect angle where nothing, nothing hurts at all when they sit beside each other...that’s all they need.
Michael turns away before he says anything more. The sun doesn’t turn, though, just limns his eyelashes in gold, casts his cheekbones in dramatic shadow, and Alex lets out a soft sigh from somewhere deep in his soul that Michael can be, from every angle, this unchanged.
“I don’t want to owe anyone anything. I’m tired of it,” Michael says, voice low and rough. “And I found out recently that some people in my life I thought I was racking up debt to I’d die without repaying had wiped my slate clean long ago. I can be wrong about stuff sometimes. I’m pretty smart, but I’m a big boy.”
He flashes a quick morning-mist smile, eyes quirking sideways to look at Alex as he does it, and Alex smiles back, shoulders dropping as some tension leaves him. Michael’s eyes flick down and away before he speaks again.
“But where do we go from here? You and me, I mean. We keep tripping over ourselves to make up for the last fight out of too many to count in our lives, but there’s gonna be an after, too. What’s that look like for us?”
Alex rests his hand on the bench seat between them, just so it’s there, in case Michael wants to take it. And Michael glances down, and the apple of his throat bobs, but his hand doesn’t inch any closer.
That’s okay.
“Do you want to come inside?” Alex asks.
“Huh?”
“Friends hang out, right? No starting over. Let’s start from right here. Still got a guitar you can use, if you’re into that. Or we can crack open some beers and watch Netflix or something. Anything you want.”
Michael faces him for real for the first time, his generous mouth parted in shock, but then his face goes soft.
“Sure, yeah. I’d like that.”
3
Alex meets Michael’s eyes from across a crowded room. His cultural knowledge suffered significantly while he was active duty, but throughout his life he’s watched enough rom-coms curled up on the carpet with Liz, Rosa, and Maria to know how that’s supposed to feel, and to know now that the movies never did the feeling justice. Michael slowly removes his hat, and Alex’s heart swells so much he can hardly stand it.
And then Michael is gone, somewhere and sometime before Alex has lanced himself of all the words that have built up inside his skull, pounding against his temples, spilling out his eyes and ears and mouth. Only Isobel remains, and she gives him a sympathetic look and two thumbs up, whatever that means.
Well, not just Isobel. Greg is here, and Forrest, and some coworkers Alex turned Maria’s way to keep traffic up at the bar. But the space Michael left is vast and empty, and for all Alex didn’t ask him to come, it hurts a little like rejection would have hurt if he had asked and Michael told him no or hated the song.
At least he can hope that Michael heard something of what he’s trying to say and will carry that with him, whatever happens next.
The song ends. His fingers stutter and linger over the keys; the spell shatters around him and the world rushes back in with applause. Forrest beams at him from the front row, and he smiles back a little awkwardly. Being so vulnerable so publicly…not really his thing. But maybe not all bad, not when it brings tears to his brother’s eyes and he kisses a man in the open, his father’s voice drowned out by ivories and drunkards and his own heartbeat echoing off his bones.
Forrest squeezes his hips and smiles up at him as the next person takes the stage and the night goes on around them. “I’m proud of you,” he says, just for the two of them to hear. “How do you feel?”
“I feel…good.”
He does. He does feel good, in a way that’s refreshingly distinct from the haze of okay he’s been drifting in for weeks.
“Buy you a drink?” Forrest offers, raising his eyebrows, hooking his thumb back at the bar. Maria is still at home resting, so she isn’t there to support and/or lightly judge him.
“Uh…”
Say yes. He probably should, right? Just see what it’s like dating someone in the open. But would it be fair to use Forrest like that, as an experiment?
“…Can I take a rain check? This,” he gestures back at the stage, “Was kind of a lot for me, believe it or not, so I’m not in a chatty mood. Is that okay?”
Forrest’s smile doesn’t budge. “Okay, man, sure. See ya around.” And he heads to the bar alone.
Alex’s shoulders drop, feeling a little disappointed, feeling a little like he isn’t as disappointed as he should be. Hands in his pockets, he makes his way over to the door, only to stop short when he sees Kyle at a table in the back. Sheepishly, Kyle lifts his beer at him in a salute—but that isn’t an explanation, so Alex beelines for him anyway.
“I thought you hated this shit,” he says mildly, without preamble.
“Oh, I do. The second someone starts in on some amateur poetry, I’m out. But I was just being a dick earlier, and that’s not what I do these days so…”
“Apology accepted.”
Alex glances around before sliding in across from Kyle. It’ll get awkward if Forrest sees him, but oh well.
“Hell of a performance,” Kyle says, going to flag down a waiter until Alex stops him.
“I’m not sticking around for long. But, uh, thanks.”
Kyle takes another long pull of his beer, and Alex raises an eyebrow at him.
He says, “You know, if I was so bad you have to drink to forget, you can just say so. My delicate feelings have been through worse, actually.”
“Ha! No, it’s…” Kyle trails off, staring at his beer instead of anywhere near Alex. “Eh. It’s part of the deal, but sometimes it still sucks to get slapped with reality. No matter how much you change, the people you’ve hurt don’t have to forgive you.”
“I…”
“No, don’t apologize. I get it. I was a big part of the reason you never would have sung that song in this town without the people that support you now. It’s okay that you still hesitate sometimes about me. Just, you know,” he shrugs with a small smile. “Sometimes I’m gonna drink about it.”
Alex leans across the table. “Kyle. You’re a good man. And my friend. Okay?”
Kyle’s shoulders drop an inch or so, and his face shifts with a more genuine, soft smile. “Okay.” Then he turns serious again, and continues, “But you know it’s going to be the same for Flint, right? First, that you can’t redeem someone who has no remorse—I had to make my own choice to be a better guy, to live by a better code, and no one could have done that for me. Second, that even if he does make that choice, the people he’s hurt have no obligation to forgive him. Michael has no obligation to forgive him, and you can’t force him to. You have to make peace with that now, before you start down this road.”
“I know. But thank you, for the reminder.” Alex lets out a long breath. “I don’t know if I can forgive Flint. But he’s a part of my father’s legacy, too. I can’t undo all the harm, but if I can reduce any harm in the future, if I can even do that much…”
“I wish you luck. But, man, just...don’t try and bear too many other people’s sins, okay? You’re not responsible for what Flint does. You gotta look out for yourself, too, you know.”
“Thanks,” Alex says. What else is there to say? He might disagree with Kyle both on what makes someone responsible and also the degree to which he’s already acting in his own self-interest. A truly selfless person would focus on what’s already within control in order to do the most good, not on trying to control everything they could. But if Alex doesn’t know how to live with himself and his choices at this point, he’s already lost. There’s a certain comfort and strength in that.
“Any time,” Kyle replies, saluting him again.
Alex leaves the table and leaves Kyle to it, making for the door and for fresh air. He’ll go home and have a beer there, maybe. Look at his keyboard and think of other songs to write, now that he’s gotten Michael’s song out of his skull.
Like all songs won’t be about Michael, somehow, always.
That thought might have been depressing six months ago, six years ago, in the middle of all the missing they’ve done. But now Alex lets the nostalgia wash over him, welcomes it as an old friend. As a part of him, natural, not something that needs to be fixed or cut away. Every song is about Michael because Michael is a part of him. Nothing wrong with that, no matter how their relationship keeps changing, even if Alex never gets what he wants. He can live with that.
He steps out onto the Pony’s empty patio. Most likely everyone is either still inside watching other performers go on or has already left in disgust at the whole affair. The glow of the string bulbs softens the night, turns the bar into a welcoming place, an oasis of light, makes it hard to take that last step off the porch and into the parking lot. That’s probably the idea. Maria’s savvy like that.
According to Max, Michael helped her hang these a few years back, and somehow he always comes up with replacement bulbs when they’re needed, always knows just what the fix is. It’s so easy to imagine him up on a ladder, deft hands weaving the cords around the wooden lattice, winding a perfect web, not too bright or harsh, just right. Alex sighs, and if it’s overly wistful, well, that’s a secret between him and the night.
“Everything okay?”
Alex jerks around at that voice. He’s heard it from nowhere before, but this probably isn’t one of those times, and sure enough, Michael lifts his head to give Alex a look of concern, head tilted to the side. That dramatic black hat, along with his dark clothes and curled-in posture, it makes him blend into the background, no matter how large he looms in Alex’s eye. He’s always been good at diminishing, at blending. Alex wishes he’d never had to learn to do that.
Alex forces his shoulders to lower, forces a smile to his face. “Yeah, you just startled me. Didn’t think anyone was out here, and, um, I thought you left. During the song.”
The silence stretches too long, too awkward as Michael rolls his shoulders in a shrug, does a familiar old nervous gesture of taking off his hat, running his hand through his hair, and settling his hat back down. Alex spent two weeks trying to find the chords right for that memory, the quiet yearning it awakes in him.
“Yeah, I—I don’t know,” Michael says.
He doesn’t lean against the wall; he doesn’t fold his arms in front of him. He has nothing in his hands. Alex can’t remember the last time he saw him so without a shield, and it takes his breath away.
Michael continues, “I know I wasn’t invited. I mean, uh, I think you didn’t mind seeing me too much, if I can read your face half as well now as I used to, but I wanted to respect that.”
“I didn’t! I didn’t mind.”
Silence falls again. Alex should say something more, should explain himself, shouldn’t let Michael walk away from this thinking he wasn’t wanted.
He blurts, “I thought about inviting you, but I—well, you heard the song, and with things with Maria still so recent and up in the air, I didn’t want to put you in a tough spot. I understand.”
Michael smiles at him, a look so soft Alex can hardly stand it. He licks his lips as if to check if he can still feel, still taste Forrest there, like that might be some sort of reminder that there are other things in life than Michael. He feels nothing, tastes nothing—but how much of the way Michael has always lingered on his skin and on his senses has been psychosomatic all along, because of how much he wished Michael would stay? No one could ever compare. It’s wrong of him to even try.
“You could have asked,” Michael says. “Let me know what it was about. I would have been here. I would have come. I’m happy—proud of you. For doing that, in there. I hope it was everything you wanted it to be. The moment you needed.”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I want to say I was doing it for me, but...it’s hard to tell. Something else I’m working on.” Alex shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets just for something to do with them. “It...it definitely meant something, though. I’m happy.”
“Then I’m happy, too.”
Alex shakes his head. “You don’t have to say that. You wanted so badly to be open with me, but I was never ready, and now that I am, it’s…” Too late. But he doesn’t say it, like filling the air with it might make it even more real than it already is.
“Alex. I lived in this town with your father for ten years. I got it. It hurt, and that hurt might have been screaming louder than the fear we both shared, but I did feel it too.”
The silence that follows has a hole in it where another apology might fit, but if they get started they’ll be here all night.
“Look, um,” Michael says, “Were you looking to get out of here or do you want to sit for a while? It’s a pretty nice night.”
What had previously been the truth—that the show had him feeling good but wanting privacy after willingly divesting it so dramatically—goes right up in smoke, and in its place is just the clean, simple desire to be in Michael’s company, close enough for their knees to brush under the small table, under the fairy lights, under the sky.
“I’m sorry,” Michael says. Alex sucks in a sharp breath.
He hadn’t expected the apology to actually reach the air. Hadn’t even wanted it to.
Alex has never liked apologies. What good is an apology? Greg used to apologize, sometimes, in hushed words when their father wasn’t listening. Flint and Clay never bothered, and Alex preferred it to empty words. Greg’s apology is easier to accept now, with the advantage of hindsight, coupled with action, but Alex doesn’t know how to react to Michael’s sorry.
Jesse Manes never apologized. Not for anything. And now he’s dead. Alex sits across from Michael. The slam of the Pony’s door as someone leaves, the slam of a car door as someone arrives, it all just sounds like hammers falling one after another.
How long did it take for Alex to stop flinching at the sound of military-issue boots approaching? At the shape a man’s shoulders made in uniform towering over him? At the snap and bark of a sergeant’s voice?
Michael’s shoulders are rounded. He always slouches so much.
Alex misses flinching, sometimes. He misses simple, unconditioned, weak prey instincts, universal signals of the vulnerable, of the frightened, so someone capable of comforting him might know how badly he’s in need of comforting—
“Alex?”
Michael’s hand rests in the middle of the small table, bare, his palm upturned like it’s just waiting for the weight of Alex’s hand to settle on top of it. It’s his left hand. Over ten years and one hundred hoarded golden hours, Alex loved the way that hand touched him, like it was all of Michael contained in one small limb. Hurt and hopeful, with a necessary tender lightness, with a shape that sometimes made his throat ache to look at it. Some days he couldn’t use it at all. But he never hid, never tried to cover that part of himself to make Alex comfortable. Maybe that’s why Alex reacted so poorly to the bandana he wore these past months. He made the mistake for so long of thinking that a baring of scars was the same as a baring of souls, and then he learned he was wrong. And then Michael’s scars were gone…
But the hurt still lingered.
Alex puts his hand in Michael’s.
“What are you sorry for?”
“Hearing you sing in there…you’ve got me thinking about how much time we missed. The part I played in all that, pushing you away time and again. Not trusting you, not talking to you.”
“We were just kids.”
“I know. Still. Kids hurt each other all the time, and worse than adults do, most of it. And I’ve done my fair share of that, too.”
Oh, Michael.
“The hurt kids do to each other, it’s not the same,” Alex says softly, as gently as he can muster. “I’m thirty years old. If I can’t look back and forgive the kids we were over the past ten years, what hope is there for me now?”
Michael shakes his head stubbornly. “I was old enough to know better. To be better. To use my words instead of just lashing out when I was hurt. Maybe you don’t remember some of the shit I said, when we used to fight over you leaving, but I do. If we’re turning over a new leaf now, sayin’ sorry just feels like the right thing to do.”
He makes himself look so small. The table forces the barest necessary space between them, but not so little Alex can gracefully lean across it to press their foreheads together, or to rest his hand against Michael’s heart, no matter how much he wants to, no matter how tightly he presses their hands together to make up for it. He wants to feel that heartbeat, let Michael feel his own, match themselves to the same vital rhythm.
But this is about new leaves, like Michael said. So Alex takes a deep breath and lets the words stretch and burn and breathe between them, strengthening the muscles that he let grow so weak for so long.
“Michael. Listen to me. When you were seventeen, homeless, and vulnerable in ways I couldn’t even comprehend, you threw yourself onto my rich, homophobic, military father to protect me. That takes more courage and goodness than it takes to throw yourself on a grenade. Trust me, I know.”
“But—”
Alex leans in, the table biting into his stomach, close enough now to feel Michael’s breath on his cheek and smell rain off the collar of his shirt. “I refuse to blame us—to blame you—for the way it broke us afterward. Okay? No more keeping score. We have the pieces—we can, maybe we can work together to put them back together. No matter what the final picture turns out to look like, even if it’s something completely different than we thought it would be at seventeen. Is that—would that be okay?”
Michael’s thumb passes over the back of Alex’s hand, a simple gesture that makes the hair stand up on his arms. All static, all electric. Alex aches, but it’s a good one.
“I don’t know if it’s too late for us. And you weren’t wrong when you said that things are still rough with Maria. It doesn’t even feel real that things could be over between me and her. And I saw the way Forrest Long looked at you.” Michael’s voice goes so soft Alex can hardly stand it. “If that’s something, you should let it be something.”
“I don’t know if it’s something. I don’t know if I want it to be.”
Alex’s words are distant even to his own ears.
Michael says, “That’s okay too. I’m just tired of pushing, tired of pulling. I want us both to be free, to, to just follow our hearts and see where we end up. I guess that’s my version of not keeping score. ‘Cause I know that you’re in here,” he puts his other hand over his heart, “No matter what our relationship is like. Fighting that just hurts us worse.”
Hope is such a painful thing. Michael told him that for years and years and Alex never quite believed him. But now that he’s asked to hold true to his own beliefs—that hope is necessary, that hope is a tool against yesterday, a compass pointed firmly in the direction of tomorrow—he wavers.
“It shouldn’t have had to be a fight,” he says. “You tried to tell me that you just needed space months ago, and I didn’t—couldn’t—didn’t want to listen. I wanted us to be okay; I thought if I atoned or whatever, we would be okay. But I wasn’t doing it for you. Digging for information, turning over every rock to find the ugliness underneath, that’s what I needed, not you.”
“But you were trying. I recognize that now, I do.”
“I—” Inches from arguing, Alex stops himself short. Patterns, it’s all patterns. They both have to get better at recognizing them, and that means Alex can’t do the same thing he’s told Michael is wrong, where he believes Michael’s assessment of him only when it suits the ugliest voices in his head.
So he says, “Yes. I was. I wanted to empower you the way I feel empowered when I have all the information at my fingertips, but I didn’t ask you what you needed.”
Michael leans forward. “And I should have told you outright that I needed space instead of trying to make you leave so it would make sense when you did—or just trying to hurt you for staying this time and not any other time when I really needed you to.”
Alex swallows hard and nods. He leans forward too. Michael’s hand is so, so warm in his. The two of them walk the same tightrope toward solid ground.
“I’m glad,” Michael says. “I’m glad that you stayed this time. You deserve to know that. I’ve been fighting to get free of the past; I know it’s unchangeable, but it’s always there, telling me all the ways I should have been better, and. Right now, in the present. Thank you. For being there this year.”
Michael smiles at him, a real smile, the kind of look Alex thought he might have imagined from across the bar, with music in his lungs. His eyes crinkle up, sparkling, face utterly transformed with what can only be utterly consuming fondness.
I love you. I love you. I love you. How could he not? How could he have ever convinced himself he was capable of stopping? Michael’s laughter is the joy of knowing someone. Alex hasn’t felt so seen and so unafraid since he was seventeen years old.
Maria and Michael just broke up a few days ago, and it wasn’t mutual. There are so many leaps Alex wants to take now that he’s taken this one, to see how they feel, to reshape and reaffirm his comfort zone now that some of his ghosts have been put to rest. There are so many reasons to wait, to make sure that this time they can get this right.
But what if Michael doesn’t know? Even at this stage down the long road of getting to know the man he loves, Alex knows how easily he doubts his own worth
He and Maria understand each other, as ever. He would give up his brain to see the future, too.
Michael’s face has gone soft and concerned the longer Alex hasn’t responded. Tingling spreads up Alex��s arm when Michael’s warm, rough hand tightens around his own, and the softness he feels helps unloosen his chest and let the words come out.
“No, thank you,” he says, fitting his other hand around Michael’s knuckles so Michael’s healed hand is cradled between his.
That touch lingers for a long moment. For most of their lives, Alex hasn’t been able to read Michael’s face, has second-guessed what he thought each little flicker meant, has held back from acting on what he thought Michael was telling him, no matter how achingly open Michael’s face was. Now, though, Alex just has no idea what is going through Michael’s head as he watches their joined hands, Alex’s fingers against Michael’s bare skin, the bandana abandoned somewhere before Michael even came to the Pony tonight.
“Should we...should we talk about this?” Alex asks, letting his finger draw gently against Michael’s middle knuckle. Michael’s fingers flex in his grip.
“Don’t know what there is to talk about.”
“I don’t know.” Alex shifts and clears his throat. “Just...anything you want to say. Anything you’re feeling. Anything you want to say to me specifically.”
Michael glances around. They’re alone on the patio, but Alex understands. The silence of the night and the muffled clamor of the bar on the other side of the wall give the illusion the whole world is listening.
Then, bluntly, he says, “It hurt. What you said. That you so obviously didn’t understand I might have a hard time looking at it for personal reasons, since I never asked for it to be healed. I thought if anyone understood that, you would.”
Alex’s knee twinges in concert. He itches to rub it, but his hands stay still wrapped around Michael’s.
Michael continues, “Hiding the healing had nothing to do with you, and if I was still pissed at your dad for causing it or at Max for healing it, that wasn’t really any of your business, either. That’s all.”
Deep breaths. Having all that out in the open is a clean thing, a necessary thing. Alex nods. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Michael nods back and lets his shoulders drop. “But Max is the person I need to get into it with, not you. Then he was dead when I really needed to, so it got all twisted up and stuck inside of me, and I didn’t say anything to anyone. I don’t blame you for not being a mind reader and coming to some wrong conclusions.”
It’s that—it’s that that leaves Alex floundering for a moment, that instant of Michael seeing his guilt and cutting through it with a few words. He leaves a vacuum in its place and all of Alex’s other feelings, so carefully compartmentalized, have to rush to fill it in. Michael lets the silence linger, but Alex can feel the quickness of his heartbeat in the small of his wrist.
“What about you? Anything you want to say to me?” Michael says. “‘Cause we’ve fought before, but for some reason we keep coming back to the bunker. Feels like maybe there’s something there.”
“I…”
That...yeah. He was right. So many times, they’d fought. When they were kids and everything was falling apart. Over ten years, among the pieces. The argument they had in the bunker was practically a level-headed disagreement compared to the fight they had before Alex’s last deployment, the worst one, the one that cut them apart for almost two years without a word to each other. Even that one had scattered like mist under the morning sun when they were in each other’s arms again.
And maybe that’s part of it. That their physical relationship has changed, that without the language of touch everything feels harsher and harder to forget. But the other reason lurks behind the walls in his mind.
He’s supposed to be better now. More peaceful, more understanding, more balanced. To preach forgiveness then lash out at Michael, the one person it’s always been safe to be angry with—it’s an ugly thing. Alex doesn’t want to hold it. Doesn’t want to be that. He’s supposed to be better now. It doesn’t matter how often a therapist tells him progress isn’t a straight line. It shouldn’t matter.
If he can fix this, make it like it never happened, maybe he can fix them.
Alex doesn’t want to look that feeling in the eyes. Has avoided it, so far. And how to say it? He doesn’t even know if Michael wants them fixed. Not the same way Alex does. And now’s not the time to ask that question.
“I just want us to be okay,” he says. Simple. Weak. He hates the sound of pleading inside his own skull. He isn’t used to it. It’s just Michael. Michael won’t use it against him, won’t hurt him, he knows this, but inside something turns and hides and covers its head with its arms waiting for the blow. To buy it time, he babbles, “Not talking about it feels like hiding. All the times we let arguments go in the past—I want to do things differently, to actually say I know what I did wrong and say that I know we, I, can do better, I don’t know, I just want things to be different, to change for good—”
“Okay.”
Michael’s voice is soft. So soft Alex wants to whimper.
“Okay, Alex,” he repeats. Now his other hand, hesitating just slightly, comes up to rest against Alex’s, so they’re holding onto each other as fast as they can with the distance and objects between them.
That’s it? Just okay?
Michael shifts their hands, slides their fingers together slowly, and gives them a squeeze.
Oh.
Okay.
“Were you wanting to get out of here?” Michael asks suddenly, dipping his head slightly so his hat hides his eyes.
“No, um. Actually, I think I’ll stay a while. It’s a nice night.”
He’s exhausted, but nothing could tear him away. Not now. And it is a nice night, clear and cool, the sky wide and velvet above them, in their little bubble of light.
“Cool,” Michael says. He leans back in his chair, though he leaves their hands connected, and he looks up at Alex again, eyes glimmering with a smile. “‘Cause I want to hear more about how you got into songwriting for real. You didn’t tell me about it when we hung out the other day.”
“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Alex replies, but his heart sings at the interest.
“Ok, sure, uh-huh. Well I’m going to go get us drinks, and when I get back maybe you can distract me and pull a rabbit out of a hat.”
“Between the two of us, you’re the one with the magic hands,” Alex says, only for his mouth to drop open when he realizes what he’s just said.
But Michael is already cackling, and the sound is so soothing to Alex’s soul he can’t interrupt, and he’s standing up to go inside, and it’s impossible not to notice how he doesn’t let their hands drop until the last possible moment, and then he’s sweeping his hat off his head with a dramatic bow and a cheeky smirk, and Alex can’t help but smile back at him.
He turns to head back into the Pony, and as Alex watches and mirrors the motion, he flexes his hands, rubs them together, then slides them into his pockets as if to hide the lingering feeling of touch for safekeeping.
And then Alex is alone, still smiling, knowing Michael will be back soon.
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Yams: How would you describe your sense of humor? Turkey: The stupidest thing you’ve ever done? Harvest: Do you hoard anything? If so, what is it?
Thanksgiving Asks
Yams: How would you describe your sense of humor?
Well, when I was in sixth grade, my English teacher was reading an excerpt from some book (I completely forgot which) and there was a baby in the story named Paul. Everyone thought that was funny because we had a Paul in class (Kid humor I suppose). Then, Paul the baby died and I was the only one who laughed saying ‘you died’. They did not find that funny. Fast forward five years and people are making dead baby jokes all the time.
So, my guess is advanced darkness.
Mun does not condone the death of children, even though I don’t like them.
Turkey: The stupidest thing you’ve ever done?
Oh, rA9, you want me to choose one?
I set my bed on fire looking underneath it with a candle.
Harvest: Do you hoard anything? If so, what is it?
I suppose I hoard many things (within reason). I’m a scavenger and crafter by nature, so when I see things that I think might be useful, such as a nice stick or rock, maybe an old tool that someone left to collect dust, I generally take it. I also like to look around the dumpsters for things people throw away (not so much now). When I lived in Nevada, I used to go to the dump and just search around while taking off the trash (we were not supposed to). Found a beautiful rainbow knit blanket that someone threw away (in one of those plastic blanket bags and everything). I still have it and it’s very warm. Wasteful people. Could have donated it.
I also hoard snacks. I buy them with every intention to eat them, but then I know they will be gone if I do, so they just sit up in my closet. There’s a couple of psychological reasons I can figure as to why I do this, but I’m no shrink.
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The Long Night Pt. 6
***Earlier that day***
Willow had just left Qrow after she stopped the fight. She couldn't stop thinking on how she was able to find him. She was walking to her next class when her best friend Terra Jakobs appeared out of no where.
Terra (smiling) : So you found your knight in shining white armor yet?
She leaned forward to put her head poking in the corner of Willow’s eyesight.
Willow just blushed at her question and then answered it.
Terra : So, does he know or is that pretty little head of yours planning something special?
Terra knew about the engagement between her friend and Tesla Born. She meet the man before and left him with a hand mark on his face when he wanted to get touchy.
Willow : He knows and he offered help.
Terra : Okay, but who is he because I have never seen him before?
Willow wasn't surprised by her friend’s answer. She never kept up with school events unless it involved something that affected her.
Willow : He is Qrow Branwen of team STRQ.
Terra : WHAT!
Willow (whispering) : Keep it down. Last thing we need is to give him more unwanted attention.
Terra (sigh) : You're right. He only has to worry about Tesla, Turbo, and god knows who else he already pissed off.
Willow : Yeah, well I told him to meet me behind the library and to bring his team, so they know what I have in mind.
Terra : Smart thinking, but poor planning.
Willow : What do you mean?
Terra : I mean, did you offer him anything. Like money, a gift or something to show some goodwill?
Willow : I saved him from getting his ass kicked by that gang of douchebags.
Terra : True, but that's not enough. Did you show some cleavage or move your hips side to side when you left?
Willow (blushing) : No... why would I even... he...
The more she thought about what Terra said what she could have done her mind went to a fast halt.
Terra laughed at her friend and dragged her to her locker.
Terra : Relax i'm kidding about that part. He will more than likely will because if he really didn’t care he would left you to your fate. What man would leave a princess with a horrible monster?
Willow finally composed herself in order to speak.
Willow : Well lets hope he meets me their. He may be my only hope.
***Present time***
Willow was outside of the library. She has been waiting for about an hour bearing both the cold weather and the stench from the dumpster. She was wondering where the hell he was or if he was just a lying.
She was about to leave when she heard footsteps. She quickly hid behind the dumpster and waited.
Tai : So, this is where we met this mystery lady?
Raven : Qrow, I hope you know what you are doing.
Summer : Guys come on. Let's give him a chance and then if he’s wrong we can laugh at him.
Qrow didn't listen to them and looked at his scroll for the time. She should’ve been here.
Willow (annoyed) : It took you long enough!
Her response got scared everyone.
They had taken their weapons out by instinct and were ready for a fight. That quickly changed when they spotted the white haired girl with her arms crossed.
Tai (drops guard) : Well, hello beautiful. My name is Taiyang Xio..
Raven grabbed his ear and pulled him away.
Raven : I'm his girlfriend, (points at Summer) Summer, and (points at Qrow) you already know him.
Willow didn't answer at first she just looked at them. She had to admit their reputation did not met her expectation.
She thought Tai would be a noble knight, not a guy who used cheesy pick up lines. Raven as a honorable spoken samurai instead of a rude, aggressive, woman. And she thought Summer would be taller.
Raven (waves her hand in front of her) : Hello! Remnant to dumpster hag! Yoou who!
That brought her back.
Willow : Oh, my apologizes. I was expecting something more "different".
Tai : No problem.
Summer : We get that alot.
Raven : What did you expect?
Qrow : Guys we came here for a reason lets remember it.
Raven glared at him, Tai and Summer smiled at the thought of what was about to happen.
Willow : Right, as you already know due to Qrow, I want to get out of my arranged marriage with the full benefits of my side of the contract, that me and Tesla signed.
Raven : Okay, so your asking for the impossible with no standing ground.
Qrow : She's not wrong. What your asking for is blackmail. And it has to be so bad he doesn't want to marry you.
Willow : You are correct. I don't have anything to offer you for that part, but what I can offer you is unlimited resources from the SDC. Such as money, dust, upgrades and that sort of thing.
That got their interests, but they still had some questions for her that needed to be answered.
Summer : Okay, that's great and all, but won't that make it shady if 4 new transfer students end up with top of the line gear as sophomores.
Willow : You do know we do sponsorships here in Atlas right? I am the unofficially the head of the company and can sponsor you.
Raven pushed Summer out of the way to speak.
Raven (excited) : What kind of dust are we talking about?
Willow : The most rare, refined, and pure kind. Nothing like any of the other kingdoms.
Raven smiled. It was unsettling.
Tai : So, what's our spending limit? 300? 100?
Willow : Unlimited.
Raven and Tai's eyes turned into dollar signs.
Qrow : So we use all this to find something on Tesla and what happens when we get it?
Willow : An anonymous donation into all of your checking accounts.
Summer : Excuse me Willow, but I need to talk to my team for a bit.
Willow : No worries. Take your time.
As STRQ went a bit further down the alley and huddled together.
Summer (whispering) : I don't know about this guys.
Tai (whispering) : Sum this is the once in a lifetime opportunity I was talking about! Taking out bad guys, saving the day, and getting payed!
Raven : He's right. We could live the high life for awhile and then find the dirt.
Summer was discouraged about the whole idea. It sounds like a dream come true, but this is Atlas. Businesses go to war with one another and they definitely won't let some teenagers do what they want without consequences.
She looked at Qrow.
Summer : Qrow what do you think? Since this was your idea.
Qrow : I'm not gonna lie this isn't going to be easy. This is big risk-high reward thing, so I sau we should go for it. We just have to be more careful going about and not use her credit card to the max.
Summer ; But can Willow be trusted? She is basically running a business as a 16 year old.
Qrow : When we talked at the bar she didn't sound like a tycoon, but a charity worker. The way she just flat out told me everything! No, boss would talk about something like that.
Summer nodded. When it came to personalities it was between Qrow and Raven.
They walked back to see Willow holding her nose.
Willow (curiously) : Wellll?
Summer : Alright, Willow we’ll do it.
Willow (hands together and smiling) : Thank you. All of you.
***Elsewhere***
Tesla : Hello gentlemen! It's been awhile.
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Crossthicc Fashions and Philosophies: Endowed Fleet, the Big Cyber-Barbarians and Punks
Had a bit of eureka moment a while ago regarding the fashions in Crossthicc, and I've had some ideas on the Endowed Fleet’s look. While im mulling over outfit fashions and cultural reasonings for some of the other factions, have my thoughts on it
My idea for their overall look?
In brief, their overall outfit style can be summarized as techno-barbarians with lots of furs and leathers, a fondness for longcoats and cloaks or capes, supplemented with scraps of worn out clothing from whatever they could scrounge up for that perfect punky look, and a lot of honor trophies from beaten monsters (or rarely, sapient foes that REALLY deserved it). And over all that, a mish-mash of different gear, personal computers, job-specific equipment, and body-enhancing devices that make them look like clunky cyborgs!
And all of that as an outgrowth of cultural attitudes towards recycling and salvaging as a spiritual duty to the animistic eco-systems of technological devices and created things that pervades much of their design sensibilities and outlooks.
In more detail? Okay then:
At their core, the Fleet’s beginnings were a mix of scavenger punks who assemble whatever they can find into a messy combination, and futuristic techno-barbarians, at least aesthetically. This holds true, and the look of techno-barbarians is CRUCIAL; i’m considering that the vast majority of their clothing is leather harvested from monsters and space leviathans they hunt while on the move, furs, and similar things. Carved bone is common for hard/solid parts of outfits or parts that require rigidity (supports for hyper gravid bellies or such?). softer furs used in a similar way to fish nets or very flexible outfits, or they farm giant spiders to make special silk in the same way.
Body part trophies may feature prominently in their outfits as medals, and honor markings; massive bones made all shiny or a monster’s skull for a shoulder pad; decorated warriors often look like something out of Monster Hunter. The body parts and heads of sophonts CAN be used in this way. Neo-Simfurian fleet members often have the skulls of many enemies worn on spikes as honorable trophies and implied threats. These trophies are treated well, often heavily carved and metal-plated, sometimes magically altered to recite the tale of their own defeats.
Teeth and bone materials are VERY commonly used as decoration; at the least they feature heavily in their outfits, dangling from necklaces, bracelets or implanted directly into the wearer’s skin, like with nose rings and studs.
Complicated gear is universal! Big, BIG guns and powerful melee weapons, personal computers and alchemizers worn on their arms as pseudo-shields, all manner of gadgets from jet-boots to multi purpose goggles, all incorporated into their outfits. It’s not uncommon for these outfits of leathers and fur-cloaks to have such powerful servo-motors and muscle-cables in them, or salvaged chunks of exosuits for limbs, that they count as low-grade power armor. (The idea of so much technology, gear and gadgetry on them that they can be mistaken for cyborgs - assuming they already aren’t - is a KEY part of their look.)
One wouldn’t think that leathers, furs and bones would make for poor armor or clothing in this setting, but two counter points. One, they are the most prolific self-augmented people around, and just LOVE huge bulky armor, mechs and powered armor, though all of the above are often decorated in the ‘waste nothing of your foe’ trophy adornment. Common to see warsuits with bone-plated bits, carved to tell a tale of heroic victory!
More importantly, from a materials perspective, the Fleet early on mastered the means of reinforced organic stuff (leathers, hides, bones and so on) via the use of secret chemical recipes that make them far stronger and about as useful as metal in terms of protectiveness; at the very least they serve as capable body armor, even with the more fearsome kinds of personal weaponry around. Leather that can take bullets, bones that work as well as plasteel for weapon construction, and of course, reinforcing those materials to support their hyper engorged figures and not burst from the strain of their powerful bodies. This process is efficient, but it's not very fast, so the tradition of salvaging clothes from whatever was available began there, patching up gaps and making do.
Weaving all those trophies into hair, along with ritually important hair styles of great complexity, is very common. The stereotype of a warrior MILF is a massive beast of a woman, usually a cyborg just THIS side of being fully robotic, with her gigantic hair worn in heavy braids and hundreds of trophy bones weaved into her hair. Sometimes, a necklace of skulls.
Tattooing, body paint and similar things are ubiquitous, though the individual traditions vary hugely from ship to ship, world to world, and then specific styles and fashions are exclusive to individual clans OF those ships and worlds. Tattooing and body paint follow their own complex rules and traditions, and are culturally important; you do NOT steal the designs of a clan you don’t belong to, as wearing them implies you have been accepted into their family and stand with them. Since most Fleetfolk belong to many clans at once, their tattoos can blend and create very striking designs. These patterns are also incorporated into ship paint jobs, and the resulting designs indicate which clan sponsors or ideologically dominates that particular ship.
A note on that point. While the Fleet is explicitly a Paragon-allied one, they’re not necessarily easy to get along with, and the ten-thousandfold clans don’t really institute dogma. The Fleet is fiercely individualistic. Nevertheless, each clan does dominate a broad mindset, because they’re not biological families: you ask to join a clan, or you’re sponsored, and if you pass the trails, you’re in. it’s a complicated and involved process, though, and you don’t really care to do this if you don’t already share a viewpoint with them. This means that ships with particular clan affiliations have different attitudes: clan Terror Beasts of Neo-Simfur was founded by the Dinobots and thus are significantly more warlike and inclined to intervening than, say, clan Crystal Star, founded by Rose Quartz’s family, who take a more patient and isolationist approach to problems that aren’t their fault in some way. And they can serve on the same ships! Inter-clan politics can get… Interesting.
(Do the different clans fight? Oh yes. Absolutely! But not to the extremes of total war; killing is absolutely forbidden, but conflicts happen all the time and are even encouraged, because they’re entertaining. IT gets worked out in honor duels, giant robot fights, and competitive epic quests. Usually all televised!)
Now you might as, where did this idea of emphasizing trophy stuff COME from?
Well, the Endowed Fleet, as a whole, has a strong tradition of regarding the idea of technology and use as a sacred thing; they believe all things have a spirit, and that technological devices, tools and anything sufficiently complicated MUST be its own spiritual ecosystem. Consequently, animistic ideas influence their multitude of religions, and gear is taken highly seriously; engineers have great influence and status, regarded almost as midwives, and recycling is a sacred duty. The machine must live, and continue to prosper, and to simply toss it away is unnthinkably cruel.
This spiritual outlook towards recycling, salvage and doing honor to the spirit of their equipment is one reason behind their emphasis on making clothes out of monster bits. It’s wrong to kill something and just leave it, and this applies to honored enemies, not just monsters. Honored enemy is a bit complex; they don’t take trophies from EVERYONE they kill, but its subject to personal interpretation. Some might take a trophy from a truly evil foe who they were glad to kill: they gain honor from killing them. Others take trophies only from foes that they felt were honorable, and it was a shame to kill them; they take trophies as a way of honoring this foe, and it is felt that as the warrior does battle and accumulates worth, their foes in some way are redeemed by being part of their legend.
Sometimes similar might apply to either creating personal weaponry or decorations for vehicles; you can’t really turn a spine into a hat (without the right body shape, anyway), but you can use it to build a sword or staff, grind down to make bone dust that becomes part of an alloy, or gird a motorcycle with. Battlewagon grills with old bones are common, usually after beating a foe by running them over REALLY hard.
Also note that the Fleet typically hunts giant monsters of kaiju-size… that are kaijus to giantess ladies that can vary from 20 to 100 feet on average. Many of the beasts they hunt, like old school whalers, are gigantic asteroid-sized monsters many miles across. They hunt them for meat and as rites of passage, so they’re not lacking for materials.
They supplement this kind of clothing by salvaging clothes nobody else wants; dumpster diving is routine for them while on fleet adventure, and they imagine themselves really good at salvaging clothes and adjusting them to fit another crewmate, no matter their body shape. The resulting outfits can be hugely diverse, sometimes a bit silly, and often just plain bizarre. It’s a little bit punk, a hint of pretty much any subversive counterculture fashion you can name, and mostly looks like they were hit by a tornado that stopped at a bargain basement donation store first. (These outfits also tend to have fashion attributes similar to Kingdom Hearts designs; lots of zippers, belts, and so on.)
Finally, it goes without saying that piercings like rings, studs, bars and similar things are very common, and usually done to extremes. They’re not a subtle bunch and they do everything to ridiculous lengths. It’s best for them not to get too close to magnets or risk serious injuries, maybe losing their ears.
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Declutter in 2024 with the Aid of Our Junk Hauling Services
Have you noticed you have less and less space to entertain? Or maybe you can’t park your car in the garage. Or is your attic so stuffed with “stuff” that you’re afraid to venture up there? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you should know that decluttering is easier with the help of a dumpster rental and junk hauling services.
We should specify that we don’t do the junk removal for you. You, the homeowner, provide the labor, while we provide the dumpster delivery and haul away your junk.
If you’re the type to make a New Year’s Resolution, decluttering your house might be at the top of the list. But so often, we make resolutions and then fail to keep them because they require continual effort. But decluttering a garage, attic, or basement is one of those things that can be done in a long weekend, and you reap the benefits for years to come.
Keep reading for some tips on how to declutter your home and enjoy your space more in the New Year.
Tip #1: Set a Goal and a Timeline
Do you want to convert your attic into a bedroom? Maybe you want to turn your basement into a home theater. Or maybe you just want to be able to park your car in the garage. Decide what portion of your home you’re going to clear out – or go big and do more than one area.
Give yourself a timeline and a deadline. If you’ve scheduled home remodeling, you know you have to get rid of the clutter before work can start.
Tip #2: Sell, Donate, Keep, or Toss
Go through the area to be cleaned out and decide what to do with everything.
Sell. Determine what you might be able to sell and list it on Facebook Marketplace or NextDoor. If it doesn’t sell, donate it.
Donate. Donate gently used items that can still be useful to someone who doesn’t have the money to buy something new. Some charities will send a truck if you have large items.
Keep. Decide what is still in great shape and gets a lot of use. Keep those items.
Toss. Anything that is broken and has been sitting around for years should be tossed. You can also toss old magazines, stained or torn clothing, and other items no one wants or needs. When you have a lot of stuff, and a lot of big stuff, renting a dumpster and scheduling junk removal services will save you time and money.
Driving loads of junk and trash to the dump yourself can be time-consuming and use a lot of gas. By tossing everything into a dumpster that we then haul away when you’re done, you have more time to devote to getting your space exactly the way you want it.
Related Reading: How to Rent a Dumpster in 5 Easy Steps
Tip #3: Clean the Area
If you get rid of a lot of junk that’s been sitting in your garage, basement, or attic for years, chances are good that you’ve also stirred up some dust and disturbed some cobwebs. Sweep or vacuum the floors. Dust all flat surfaces. Sweep down the walls and then wipe them down. Clean the windows inside and out.
You’ll notice not only is the area decluttered, but it looks brighter. By decluttering, you just reclaimed space in your home that you can now use for something a lot more fun than storing old junk.
Call Now to Schedule a Dumpster Rental and Junk Hauling
To easily rent a dumpster and schedule junk hauling services, call or text us at 443-286-3284. In most cases, we can deliver your roll-off dumpster the next day, but we recommend calling 1-2 days before you need it. You can keep the dumpster for up to 10 days, and you simply call us when you’re ready for us to pick it up. We offer delivery and pickup Monday through Saturday.
If you’re not sure what size dumpster you need, if you tell us a bit about your project, we can make recommendations. We offer competitive dumpster rental prices to customers in Harford County and parts of Baltimore County.
Read What Some of Our Customers Have to Say
I have used J R Hauling Services residentially for the last two years!!! They are great! They come when they say they will!! They are helpful and fair in their pricing! I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for “debris removal”!!! -Shelley S.
JRs was super-fast getting me several dumpsters swapped out as we emptied my father’s house- we filled 3, 20-yard bins, at a very reasonable price. They even got us the last one on a Sunday morning, which I was not expecting to be able to do!
Every time I called, I got quick replies, and they navigated a tight driveway and generally close quarters expertly. Can’t recommend them highly enough- I hope I never need them for this kind of situation again, but I’d call them first, in a heartbeat! -Gary D.
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Moving is hard.
You don’t realize how much ~stuff~ you have until you have to pack it all up and blister your hands transporting it from place to place. The movers got the majority of my crap, but holy shit—it’s like stuff is multiplying behind my back every time I take a load over to my new apartment.
So here’s my To Do List for the next three evenings (because I’ve gotta be out of my old place by Friday and I’ll be out of town on Thursday and I work during the day, soooo I have what amounts to maybe 12 hours left of packing and cleaning time and that’s horrible to look at in such stark terms, holy fuuuuuuu—).
Clean out the utility closet. Throw away hangers, move the coats and the pillow inside it to my new place.
Clean out the closet under the stairs. There’s a lot of linens and towels to deal with, plus some huge pillows from our old papasan chair, and a box of plates + a little end table. [I have determined what needs to be tossed and what needs to be kept, so this is just a matter of throwing crap away and transporting the rest.]
Clean out the laundry room. I’ve done most of it, but I still need to move out some old supplies (no idea where they came from honestly and I don’t even know if they’re mine at this point so I might just need to chuck ‘em).
I sorted out a bunch of my clothes I no longer wear; need to bag them up to donate, and then I need to wash the clothes I’m keeping because they smell like cardboard and bear a coat of moving dust, which isn’t ideal.
Throw out all the crappy hangers in my closets and remove all the extra random garbage that’s littering the floors in said closets. WHERE DID THIS RANDOM GARBAGE COME FROM??
Oh, and there’s one crystal unicorn in that closet that I need to carefully transport. [THE UNICORN LINGERS]
My bathroom has, like, five things in it, but they’ve gotta be moved, too.
Gotta move the last of my kitchen items. There’s maybe a box worth’s left of random junk that didn’t fit anywhere else on previous trips.
Gotta take the nails out of the walls and do a sweep for command strips left over from hanging art.
Related: Get the last bits of hanging art off the walls; there’s not much left but it still needs a bullet point. [I got all the art down except for 5 things I can’t reach w/out a stepladder. There’s so much art, that’ll be a trip all its own to transport.]
CLEAN OUT THE DING-DANG FRIDGE, UGH. Also the pantry and that one final shelf of my chocolate and other desserts. [Did half of the pantry last night. The daunting task of cleaning the fridge looms large.]
There are some final pieces of furniture I can’t transport in my car; will need to enlist Tom and his truck for assistance. It’s stuff like a bar stool/chair, a wire shelf-thing from the laundry room, a small shelf for the bathroom, and a metal flower chandelier (it’s awesome and weird and I refuse to get rid of it).
Throw away all the garbage I’ve uncovered/accumulated during the move. [I bagged all the garbage; it is ready to be hauled to the dumpster]
AND THEN I HAVE TO CLEAN THE PLACE, TOP TO BOTTOM, UNTIL IT SHINES. [I went ahead and cleaned the kitchen sink because it was filthier than I remembered.]
.
Stuff in italics is what I want to take care of tonight. Can I get to the rest tonight? Not likely. But we’ll see, and whatever I don’t get to tonight, I’ll handle tomorrow night. I sort of HAVE TO get all this done tonight and tomorrow so I can clean on Thursday in time for the move-out inspection on Friday.
I know no one is riveted by the progress of my move, but putting this list here is helpful for me, so thanks for listening. ♥xoxo
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What You Need To Know About Kitchen Demo
Any serious remodeling of a kitchen will have to go through a demolition process. The kitchen is central to your home – an essential place utilized for many important functions, from cooking and eating to washing and drying dishes. However, when demolition time comes around and your kitchen is about to go through the wringer, you may be wondering whether everything is prepared or not.
To avoid any stresses or worries about unforeseen possibilities during a kitchen demo, we’ll be going through everything you need to be aware of:
Before the Demo
Timeline
Before the sledgehammers start knocking down walls, you’ll want to ensure you have a proper timeline of the project. Having a timeline can assist in organizing the amount of work that needs to be done, as well as give an idea of how long the entire demo and remodel will take. You don’t want to unexpectedly be sitting around for a month with no kitchen when you thought it would have been done sooner. A timeline will keep you at ease and provide an understanding of the amount of work ahead.
Removal
Before the damage is done, you’re going to want to remove any appliances, cabinets, or drawers that will be in the way of the demolition process. You’ll have to determine whether or not the cabinets and drawers can be recycled or thrown away. The same will have to be done with your appliances unless you plan on putting them back in the kitchen after the demo is complete.
Temporary Kitchen
Due to the demo, you’re going to be without a kitchen for a while. In the meantime, you’ll have to create a backup plan to accommodate your kitchen needs. Find a spot where you can set up a temporary kitchen. You may have to make arrangements for meals in other places or create a meal plan that doesn’t require a stove. If you aren’t going to have access to your fridge, then perhaps you can find a new temporary location for it or invest in a mini-fridge.
Cover Everything Up
There can be a lot of dust involved in the demolition process, and the last thing you want is for it to enter other areas of the house. Use plastic to cover the openings to other areas of the house, such as the doorway or a pass-through window. If any appliances are remaining in the demolition zone, make sure those are covered, too. Dust can really get everywhere, so covering everything up and keeping the mess constrained to the demo area will make for an easier clean-up.
Garbage Plan
When the job is over, it’s essential to know what will be done about the materials that require disposing of. It’s important to decide what items are candidates for salvage and what you plan on doing with them. Are you renting a dumpster? Are the cabinets getting picked up by another service? Or perhaps you’ll be donating any appliances you don’t need. These decisions need to be made so you won’t end up being stuck with items you don’t need.
Conclusion
Kitchen demos can be a challenging process. That’s why it’s important you go with the best demolition services in New Jersey. All of your demo needs or desires can be fulfilled by our experienced and skilled team of contractors. Call today to ensure your renovations are completed as smoothly as possible.
from Bella Contracting Services https://ift.tt/F7UHdZB
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How to Get Rid of Junk The Easy Way
Everyone has junk. It accumulates every day, both in our houses and in our offices. Most of it is from what we regularly buy and keep around our homes. As time goes by, these items break or lose their importance or value. Things that once meant a lot to us now sit around collecting dust. If you're looking for helpful tips on how to get rid of your junk, you're in luck!
There are many different ways to get rid of your junk, but you want to make sure you do it safely and environmentally friendly. Removal services can help you do this. They will walk you through the process before they start working, and they will also give you advice on how to deal with junk around your home or office.
Make a Schedule for Junk Disposal
We get a lot of junk because we are lazy about cleaning it up. Experts say that if we make a timeline to do the work, it will be accessible during the removal process. The trick is to arrange time aside. We select one room at a moment that needs cleaning.
Value of Things
Before getting rid of your junk, it is essential to know what everything is worth. This way, you can figure out what to keep and throw away. Do this by yourself, so you have a better understanding of the value of each item. Once you're done, involve a disposal team to help get rid of everything.
Throw
Experts advise us always to get rid of something once we are done using it or no longer need it. Not every junk item can go to the junkyard, so it's best to throw them out. Always dispose of the waste that is not of use to anyone first. Some trucks can come and pick up these junk items for disposal.
Avoid Mess
It is always important to get rid of clutter. It can be a safety hazard since it can cause people to trip. It can also guide the development of bacteria in your home. If you're not ready to get rid of your clutter, you can pack it all up into one bag until you are. Call a disposal team or junk removal company to take it away for you when you're ready.
Recycle
Almost all of the junk around the house can be recycled. Experts say it's best to recycle any junk we can. It includes used package bags, used papers, and boxes. If we recycle these things, we will stop buying more packaging bags, boxes, and plastic bags. Some companies can help us recycle these items.
Donate
You can donate old items to charity. It is an excellent way to get rid of junk and help people who need it. Some organizations will pick up your donations. You can donate things like old couches, chairs, and beds. You can also donate clothes and bedding that you don't use anymore.
Waste Removal
If you’re looking for a way to dispose the junk the easy way then renting a dumpster is also a good choice. According to Precision Disposal of South Florida, dumpster rentals are efficient way to disposed of your junk. They offer 10, 15 25 and 30 yard dumpster rentals. If you’d like to visit their website, visit
https://www.treasurecoastdumpsterrental.com/
When you are prepared to get rid of trash from your home, these tips from our professionals will help you through the whole method. They will ensure that your junk is safely removed from your home and taken to the next destination.
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TrashOpera and break for Garbatising
{Soliloquy of Ludovico Trashenberg, ordinary member of Cockrats colony}
From dust we are born
To dust shall return
Journey of life
Awaits final turn,
In cosmic timeline
Its as brief as a flash
So I better rush
Raising pile of trash!
Competition for waste <wealth>
Is ultimate drive
At dirty-age phase
Of evolution of life,
It justifies
Any means to an end:
Hypocrisy, lies,
Harm to environment.
More garbage we get
More happy we’ve got
It’s as evident fact
As existence of God,
Countless piles
Are everywhere
But they are not mine!
Why fate is unfair?
I have intention
To reach success
I’d sell soul to Satan
Along the path
I never question
The direction I steer,
I follow the revelation
Of sacred voice which i hear
{Ludovico’s antennas start perceiving electric signal conveying speech}
Cocorats tune in!
To brain-polluting machine,
Clear mind is cardinal sin
In congregation of dirty regime,
Let ceremony of media stream
Into transmitters begin!
{STANDING OVATION burst as background noise of broadcast}
Flow of junk information
Is filling up your head
With simple explanations
Of difficult questions you have,
It carries conventional wisdom
About everything
Liberating from stress of decisions
And heavy effort to think,
Worries, doubts and pain
Will fade away
While you are entertained
By fairy tale,
We keep tradition
From ancestors in past
To bow in submission
To broadcast
Everything you should know
Comes from media net
Welcome to
Holy Propaganda Show
I’m your host Dictatorat
{Again STANDING OVATION, they rise and fade permanently during further broadcast, sometime other emotion appear resembling sitcom style}
Nature of Cocorat
Is trash pursuit instinct,
Clean environment is threat
To become extinct,
Long time ago,
Writes divine constitution,
God blessed this world
With global pollution!
Than our spices
Appeared for mission
To errect Trashopolis city
In these perfect conditions.
Prophets obtained
Derelict map
Which led the way
To island of dump,
Here God proclaimed
“Be junkful and multiply <fruitful>
You are going to reign
Over garbage you occupy!
Drag as much as you can
To this holy spot
To represent
Your love of God!
I’m gona rest
I’m already exhausted
But divine interest
Will be reinforced,
I put in charge government
To control the lab
Of sacred experiment
Which i set up,
Better comply
With righteous behavior
Providence eye
Maintains surveillance,
You are conditioned
To feel reward
When electric stimulation
Convey word of God!
Dictatorat
Will give proclamation
On my behalf
Standing Ovation!
Sermon today
Is going to preach
Virtues way
To get filthy rich!
There are in the wilderness
Treasures of waste
They wait hunter-gatherers
Of Tresheism faith!
Hurry up and move on
Into adventure
Bankorats bestow loan
To make trip arrangements,
Sail across
Pollutic Ocean
Avoding predators
With extreme caution,
Walk through the beach
Of the coursed land
Where’s no more garbage
Just palm trees and sand,
Follow the sign
Showing the course
Directly to mines
Of trecious resource,
Start digging and grab
As much as you can
After come back
Again and again
Again and again
Again and again
At the wild dumpster
Remember to pray
There are many monsters
Along the way
Countless scavengers
Have fallen on dirty alley
Carrying garbage
From the junk valley,
Dangers and troubles
Of Odyssey
Are nothing compared
To wealth you’ll receive
When you arrive
To Treshopolis border
Hardly alive
With post traumatic disorder,
Count the profit
You completed ordeal
After you settle
Bankorats dial.
{SIGN: Dirty Business District}
{Cocorats have to return the loan + interest to Bankorats, after this transaction is done they are left almost with nothing}
{Cocorat#1}
In Cocorat race
I compete and compete
But cant satisfy my ambition and greed
{Cocorat#2}
Life in Treshopolis is hard and unfair
I’m approaching edge of despair
{Cocorat#3}
I’m getting tired and sick
My pile is too humble to invite chick
{Dictatorat keep delivering proclamation}
Misery is essential
Part of this world
I offer salvation
To those who reach God
I have a dream
This dream
Is deeply rooted
In Trashopolis dream,
That one day
We’ll retire
From heavy working routine,
And go for vocation
To infinite amusement park
For eternal duration
And not coming back!
Various rides
Are everywhere you can see
Without lines
And entrance is free!
We are gona waste
Time just for leisure
On garbage surface
Too large to measure,
Gratification and pleasure
Are permanent at this place,
Im evidently talking about
The promise land
Which is above on the cloud
Heaven-Paradump!
I envision the day
When suffering stop
Once we build stairway
To climb on top,
And encounter God
On the gate
<SIGN on the gate: DumpsterLand>
If you are Cocorat
Who wants the admission
You must work hard
On construction mission
Only dirty labour
Is pass to get in
Lord our slaver
Denies those who stay clean!
I roar to call
Each Cocorat
With impure soul
And sewage in blood,
Your saint obligation
To join building process
And give for donation
All garbage which you posses,
Your great sacrifice
Is gona be justified
As soon as we rise
Pile of trash to the sky!
Follow what you’re told
Because the story is true
We would never use mind control
To take advantage of you.
Holy Propaganda Show
Finishes this episode
Return to slavery work
In the name of God
{Standing Ovation}
{Cocorat#1 in the street}
Similar story
Plays everyday
I start to worry
If we ever complete stairway
{Cocorat#2 replies}
It waits as ahead
You must believe
Dictatorat
Wouldn’t deceive,
You better trust
His prophesy
Or get accused
In clear views heresy
{Cocorat#1}
Yes you are right
I concluded in rush,
Somewhere hides
Pure souls sabotage!
What’s your esteem
How long is delay?
{Cocorat#2}
Just follow routine
God works in mysterious way!
Why do you always think
If there is nothing you know?
Answers on everything
Are in Holy Propaganda Show
While it entertain <us>
All problems are gone
Finish complain
And turn it on!
{Cocorat#1}
Again, you are right!
I’ll ignore contradictions
And let holy scriptures
To be my guide!
Life is complex
Why analyze?
If I can relax
And get hypnotized,
I’ll mindlessly flow
In media feed
And play humble role
In class pyramid,
While noble elite
Take care of my need!
They are entitled
To fruits of my labour
But I should be grateful
For crumbs from their table
{Cocorat#2}
I have explanation
For this situation
Poor will be first
In the line for salvation
{Both look at each other bewildered / dazed and confused, alike they are satisfied with this explanation, but its obviously something is wrong with it, but they can’t admit it to themselves}
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A post shared by Masterpiece Of Trash (@dirtyages) on Jul 29, 2018 at 12:32pm PDT
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Are you looking for the Best Kitchen Demolition Service near McAllen TX? RGV HAULING JUNK & MOVING, offer Best Kitchen Demolition Service around McAllen TX. Best Kitchen Demolition Service and Cost in McAllen TX |RGV HAULING JUNK & MOVINGMore information is at: https://junkremovalmcallentx.org/kitchen-demolition-near-me/Kitchen Demolition Service near McAllen TX: Are you looking for the Best Kitchen Demolition Service near McAllen TX? RGV HAULING JUNK & MOVING, will perform kitchen demolition in the exact places you need it, leaving the major structural pieces in place. Cost? Free estimates! Send us a message or call us today. Best Kitchen Demolition Service around McAllen TX. We serve McAllen TX and other areas. Get a Free Quote Now!BEST KITCHEN DEMOLITION SERVICE IN MCALLEN TXMCALLEN KITCHEN DEMOLITIONKitchen DemolitionKitchen Demolition Service near McAllen TX: One of the common mistakes you might make as a homeowner is trying to take on kitchen or bathroom demolition projects in your home or business on your own. You believe you are saving money, but without qualified remodeling experience and the right tools, doing your own demolition can result in unnecessary delays that end up costing you more in the long run.
Proper kitchen demolition takes a certain level of skill and knowledge to complete correctly. Not to mention, it can be physically taxing and creates a large mess.
Utilizing our skill and experience, our team at RGV HAULING JUNK & MOVING will perform bathroom or kitchen demolition in the exact places you need it, leaving the major structural pieces in place. Once the work is completed, we clean the area to remove dust and debris, leaving a clear space where your renovations can take place.The Dangers Of Non-professional Kitchen DemolitionSome of the issues that can arise as the result of an inexperienced demolition crew working on your home or business flooring can include:
● Removal of areas that should not be demolished
● Damage to pipes and wiring
● Injury to homeowner or contractor
● Delays caused by demolition of pipes or wiring
● Buildup of debris in your home
These risks are increased if you live in an older or historical home. By examining the kitchen or bathroom structure and the plans you have for renovation, we can help get rid of the parts you need removed without damaging anything else.How We Protect Your Property During & After DemolitionKitchen Demolition Service near McAllen TX: Demolition of a kitchen can be a messy process, so it’s important to hire a service that actively tries to help you keep your property clean. We protect your property in multiple ways, including taking precautions before we work on the demolition, such as:Bringing Aluminum Ramps: to prevent damage as we bring heavy equipment into your home or business.
Stopping the Spread of Dust: utilizing plastic sheets and painters tape to cover the areas outside of the work area.
Using Vacuums and Air Scrubbers: to prevent dust particles from spreading and recirculating in your indoor air.
Our process is also free of chemicals that can be harmful to your health. All of our removal is done with machinery, specialized tools and skill to ensure your family or customers are not subjected to the harsh fumes chemical solvents emit.
With a fleet of removal trucks that we use for our flooring removal work, we can make sure that the debris does not pile up in your home or on your curb. As soon as the demolition work is complete, we will load up any waste into one of our trucks and take it away for recycling.Do You Need Kitchen Demolition?With several decades of experience working in homes and businesses,RGV HAULING JUNK & MOVING knows exactly how to handle bathroom and kitchen demolition in the time frame you need it completed. We can send a full crew to ensure that your work is completed quickly and there are no delays in your renovation.Our licensed and insured crews work on residential and commercial spaces all over McAllen TX. Contact us today to schedule your in-home estimate for kitchen demolition services!RGV HAULING JUNK & MOVING Demolition CompanyKitchen Demolition Service near McAllen TX: Demolition Services in McAllen TX.At RGV HAULING JUNK & MOVING, a wide variety of demolition and rubbish removal services are provided. There are many ways to demolish a home structure, and our RGV HAULING JUNK & MOVING demolition company is experienced in all types of home demolitions. We are skilled in the right way to do a demolition project. With our expert demolition teams, quality work, excellent customer service, time efficiency and cost efficiency is assured. We can make sure everything is done up to code and safety standards by law, and promise to make the whole process as easy for you as possible.From pre-remodeling, to full on addition clearing we can make sure your demo job is done correctly, cleanly, and safely. Give your McAllen TX general contractor at RGV HAULING JUNK & MOVING a call today.Demolition Specialists for McAllen TX HomeownersKitchen Demolition Service near McAllen TX: As the demolition industry is an intensely specialized field, choosing the right McAllen TX demolition company for your project is very important. If you are looking for someone to take care of demolishing or removing your McAllen TX floors and slabs, you can trust RGV HAULING JUNK & MOVING Our demolition contractors get the job done right with your complete satisfaction of our services.Our McAllen TX Demolition Contractors Provide:
● House Demolition
● Junk Removal
● Home Renovations
● Concrete Demolition
● Demolition Work
● Home Remodeling
● Demolition Services
● Concrete Removal
● Home DemolitionTIPSStraightforward Kitchen Demolition Tips Kitchen Demolition Service near McAllen TX: Starting to feel like the heart of your home is more Kitchen Nightmares than Martha Stewart? Creating your dream kitchen starts with getting rid of the less-dreamy stuff you’re currently stuck with. Even if you’re hiring contractors to handle the remodel, making your kitchen demolition a DIY job is a great way to keep more money in your project budget. And just about any homeowner can do it. The job doesn’t require any specialized skills and you probably already own all the tools you need. Read on to learn how to demo a kitchen yourself. What Does Kitchen Demolition Cost?Hiring professionals for your kitchen demolition costs between $500 and $750 on average. But that number can easily run as high as $1000 if you have a large kitchen or are demolishing down to the studs.
For a DIY, assuming you’ve got a basic tool box on hand, the only expense is debris removal (we’ll talk more about this in the prep stage below). This means gutting your kitchen yourself can save hundreds in your remodel budget.Rent a DumpsterBefore you get to work, rent a home dumpster to clean up as you go. Between your appliances, cabinets, countertops, flooring and backsplash, gutting a kitchen will leave you with plenty of debris that your trash service won’t take at the curb. So, if you’re not up for hauling it to the dump yourself, a dumpster is the best solution.Clean Out Keep ItemsBox up dishes, cookware, dish cloths and anything else you plan to re-home in your brand-new kitchen. Store them in another room where there’s no danger of being damaged when the hammers start swinging. This step also gives you the perfect opportunity to declutter and get organized. Shut Off UtilitiesIt’s not safe to demo a kitchen while the utilities are still on.
Turn off power to the kitchen by flipping the appropriate switch in your breaker box. There’s usually a circuit map showing which switch controls the kitchen, but if not, just use trial-and-error. To turn off water to your kitchen:
● Look under your sink and find the two pipes running from the sink through the back wall or into the floor. These are your hot and cold water lines.
● Trace each line to the wall or floor, looking for a knob or lever.
● Twist the knobs or levers clockwise to shut off the water.
● Turn on both taps to make sure the water is off and to drain any water stuck in the P-trap.
If there aren’t knobs or levers under your sink, you can follow the lines into your basement or shut off water to the whole house at your main supply valve. This is usually located either in your garage or near your front water hose.To turn off gas to your stove:
● Pull the stove away from the wall and find the gas valve, which is usually a lever-style handle.
● Turn the lever until it no longer moves – usually a one-quarter turn.
● Switch on the burners to ensure that the gas is now off. If you can’t turn or can’t find the lever, call your gas company to shut off the supply. DO NOT try to force a stuck lever.Remove Appliances
If you’re upgrading to new models, you can toss them in your dumpster or check out our appliance disposal guide for other options, including the best places to donate them if they’re in good condition.
Store any appliances you plan to keep somewhere they won’t be in the way when demolition work begins.Important Safety Tip: Never remove a stove without shutting off the gas first. You risk starting a fire or even causing an explosion. COST
Kitchen Demolition CostKitchen Demolition Service near McAllen TX: Understanding your kitchen renovation budget is key to a successful project, and a main part of that budget is the cost of kitchen demolition.
There are a few different ways to estimate how much your kitchen demolition will cost, and we'll go over them one-by-one.ChimneyThe price of chimney removal falls within the $4,000 and $10,000 range. The final project cost depends upon several factors, including whether it extends into the basement, or whether it is bolted onto or built into the structure. Be prepared to pay additional fees to repair any roof damage that may occur during the chimney's removal.Demolition costs involved with kitchen renovationYou can estimate how much your kitchen demolition will cost by 1) determining the work you need done, and 2) tallying up the average cost to do each job.
This allows a relatively accurate estimation for how much your kitchen demolition will cost, regardless of the amount of remodeling you plan to do.Average Kitchen Demolition CostsDemolition Job Low-End Cost Average Cost High-End Cost
Kitchen Cabinet Removal $100 - $200 $200 - $300 $300 - $400
Countertop Removal $50 - $100 $100 - $150 $150 - $200For example, if you just want to replace the cabinets and countertop, expect to pay between $150 and $600 to have them removed.
If you plan on doing a complete kitchen gut and remodel, expect to pay between $320 and $1,390 for just the demolition.Hourly rates for kitchen demolitionSome contractors may choose to price the work based on the amount of time it takes them to get it done, rather than by the specific work they're doing.
On average, it takes between 10-20 man hours to completely gut a kitchen.How long your kitchen demolition takes depends largely on the size of the kitchen and the types of materials involved.
If asbestos or lead is present, it needs to be carefully handled and disposed of properly, which takes time.
If any unforeseen complications arise, like hazardous materials, your timeline will be extended.
Let's look more closely at an example of how a company might charge by the hour for the work they do and how to determine if it's a good price.
Say you have a 10 ft. x 10 ft. kitchen you want completely gutted out...
The contractor informs you that they can have 2 workers on-site to perform the demolition himself and one other worker and that he predicts they can have the job completed within one day.
The contractor also tells you he charges $30/hour for interior demolition.
Knowing how long a complete kitchen gut-out typically takes (between 10 - 20 hours), and that there will be 2 workers handling the demolition, you can estimate that the work will be done within 8 hours or so.
From there, you can deduct that your kitchen demolition would cost around $480 if you hire this contractor. This is within the lower-end range for the average cost of kitchen demolition and would be a fair price.Choose the right kitchen demolition contractorOnce you’ve gathered all the necessary information for your kitchen demolition, go to HometownDemolitionContractors.com to find highly qualified local demolition contractors.
We generally recommend getting quotes from a minimum of 2 - 3 contractors, but the more contractors you get quotes from, the better.Cost to Demo Kitchen CabinetsKitchen cabinet removal costs $150 to $1,000. This price only covers the cabinets. Pros bill for flooring, walls, ceiling and appliances separately. If they’re in good condition, you can recoup some of the expense by donating or selling the old cabinetry.Brick Fireplace & Chimney Removal CostBrick fireplace and chimney removal costs $100 to $10,000. Expect to pay $4 to $6 per square foot plus $500+ to have it hauled away.FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONSDo you design my kitchen for free?We currently offer free design services. We do ask that customers view our design process and gather some of the information we suggest you have prior to meeting with one of our salespeople. Then visit any of our stores (appointments are suggested) and our salespeople will help you design the kitchen or bath of your dreams.Do you come to my home to measure my kitchen?Our first meeting will be in our showroom. After our initial design meeting in the showroom, your designer will likely come to your home and take measurements of the space we are working in. In addition to taking measurements, our designers want to understand the space and how your family wants to use the space. Coming to your home is an important part of that process.How much does my kitchen cost?Kitchens can cost anywhere between $3,000 and $50,000+. Several things determine the price of a kitchen, including the size, type of cabinets, countertops, and accessories that you pick. Norfolk Kitchen and Bath is proud to offer products that fit into every different price point and look forward to understanding your budget and offering you the right products at the best prices.How long does it take to get a design & price?If you are looking for a quote on stock cabinetry we can give you a quote right away. If you are looking for special order goods or the design is more complicated than a basic kitchen it can take a couple weeks to complete a design and get you a price. Sometimes it takes even longer as we often redesign several times for our clients until they have exactly what they want.What type of payments do you take?We accept cash, check, and all major credit cards.CALL FOR US:
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● How To Prepare For Kitchen Demolition McAllen TXBEST KITCHEN DEMOLITION SERVICES IN MCALLEN TX
RGV HAULING JUNK & MOVING
REQUEST MORE INFORMATION. CONTACT US NOW!CONTACT US:
RGV Hauling Junk & Moving
CALL (956) 587-3410 JUNK REMOVAL
CALL (956) 587 3484 HANDYMAN
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CALL (956) 587 3487 MOVING
Best Junk Removal Hauling Company in McAllen, TX
Open Monday to Sunday
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Website:
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SERVICE AREA:
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