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callmeelle22 · 3 years

Text

Blue Dream VII

Pairing: Iris West x Barry Alen

Rating: E

Chapter Word Count: 9, 034

Summary: A series of sporadic dates between Iris and Barry turn into something more, a story in its own making.

Chapter I: Primetime

Chapter II: It's Cool

Chapter III: Anything

Chapter IV: Comfortable

Chapter V: The Way

Chapter VI: Say Yes

Chapter VII: Brave; They fuck with the rain like a soundtrack behind them, like a song that swells and stretches, telling their story, but you're so brave; stone cold crazy for loving me; yeah, I'm amazed; i hope you make it out alive, a song that rises and rises, that sounds too good to be real, that might destroy you, but only in the best way. (Read below or on AO3 linked on the chapter title.)

Chapter VIII: Blue Dream

Brave

Broken hearts are made for two

One for me and one for you

Tell me have you heard the news

We are now in love

Fall break from school is scheduled during the last three days of the last week of October. Before she can take some time off, Iris has midterm articles to write and grade. Barry is busy testing DNA samples or whatever it is CSIs do so they don’t see each other for several days after he leaves her house the morning after Wally’s party.

On the Wednesday of Fall Break, the first day off, Iris lets herself sleep in until almost 10, and then she packs up her bag, stuffing a notebook, a couple of pens, and her laptop in, before dressing comfortably in a pair of dark leggings, and a white oversized CCU hoodie she stole from her brother. Throwing on a pair of white low-top Chuck Taylors, Iris heads out to Jitters. It’s a rainy day, and other than workers who’ve no choice, not many people are out. A storm is brewing for later in the night, the sky dark and cloudy, but for the moment, it’s just a steady rain that has Iris walking carefully to her car and driving a lot slower, thanking her lucky stars that she finds a parking spot right in front of the coffee shop.

Back in high school, especially once her dad had gotten her a used car during the beginning of senior year, Iris and Linda would come to Jitters to do homework or stare at the college boys who would come in. The coffee shop has expanded since then, buying the small antique store that had been next door and adding more seating and a bar that specializes in alcoholic coffee brews. It’s still one of Iris’s favorite places to work because now the manager is a young Black woman with wild curly hair always dyed in one bright color or another and a soft spot for mid to late 90s R & B female singers. The shop is comfortable, with couches and overstuffed chairs in mismatched browns and beiges and blues set up near the walls and windows and several tables, two- and four-tops, taking up the space in the middle. Two of the walls are exposed brick and the others are painted stark white and feature framed prints in wild colors. It’s changed since she was a child, but Iris likes to think that she’s changed with it, that as this integral part of Central City has grown and added light and color and comfort, so too has Iris.

Today, her plan is to outline at least two entire stories from interviews she’s completed over the last couple of weeks before she even thinks about leaving the coffee shop. She settles into one of her favorite spots, a soft navy armchair behind a small circular table. She sets up her laptop, her notebook with her notes, her pens, and once a waiter drops off her brown sugar latte and a chocolate muffin, she lets the sound of the rain, and the Erykah Badu playing on the speakers, get her into her work.

“Hey, beautiful.”

Iris looks up just as Barry stops beside her. She’s been at Jitters for just over three hours now, and her shoulders are cramped and she’s coffee high and hungry. The rain is still pounding down, so hard that it looks like it’s raining sideways, and Iris curses her inability to get any work done in her own home. Besides all that, she’s reeling. She’s just outlined a story of a man explaining the story of the woman he’d loved his entire life: from growing up together in a small city in North Carolina, to becoming best friends and de facto siblings when his parents died and her dad agreed to foster him; from not dating but seeming like it in high school, to falling for other people in college; from having other spouses and children to one night of passion before they found their way back to each other when she decided to leave her husband after his wife died. It was a ride from start to finish, such a roller coaster of feelings—of love and pain and joy and heartbreak—that make Iris feel a bit heavy with them, a little loopy with them.

Barry stands to the side of her, towering above her, in as simple an outfit as what she’s wearing, a pair of black joggers and a white sweatshirt. She’s startled that he's there because she figures that he should be at work, but her heart does tick up at the sight of him. That is, until she lets her eyes rake over his lean frame. He looks a little...down, like a physical manifestation of the story she’s just outlined. His hair is messier than usual and his eyes aren’t carrying their usual sparkle, in addition to the darkening bags that frame them. He’s also a little stubbly, his jaw covered in a fine layer of coarse hair, his pallor a bit ashen.

(Iris will also admit that she thinks he looks sort of, well, good, like this; but that’s neither here nor there and she feels terrible—and maybe a bit perverted—that she’s lusting after him when he’s obviously going through something.)

“Hey,” she responds softly, and she stands up to assess him further. He seems so much taller than her like this, when they’re both in sneakers. She hasn’t seen him since the morning after Wally’s party a week ago when he dropped her back off at her car after spending the night at her place. They’ve talked a bunch and FaceTimed once, but she’s missed him. She reaches up into his hair, rubbing at his scalp a little until his eyes close and he lets out a soft little moan. She keeps at it and then touches gingerly at his face, at some of the moles dotting his cheeks, at the stubble he’s grown. He reaches up to stop her, eyes still closed, and it startles her a little bit. She goes to pull her hand back, but then he holds on to her wrist to bring her hand down and presses a kiss to her knuckles.

She’s never seen him like this. He’s always so open and, maybe not happy, but never so melancholy. There is always a pep to his step, as her grandma used to say, a smile on his face that always said that he feels some sort of contentment in his life. And obviously, people are allowed to have days like this. But it does something to Iris, to see him this way. She wants to lash out at whoever has made him look like this, like he’s drowning in emotions that he can’t easily pull himself out of.

“Bear, you okay?”

He nods, a little woefully, and he catches her eyes again. She bites at her lip as she stares back at him and, on impulse, she leans up to kiss him. It’s just a little more than a peck, something to tell him that she’s there with him; but he takes it a step further, kissing her harder, biting at her lip enough that there’s more pain than she’s expecting. She moans at him and he pulls back, breathing labored.

“I’m sorry,” he speaks. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s fine,” she says. “You didn’t hurt me. Well, a little, but I didn’t hate it.”

That gets a more real smile out of him, and he thumbs at her bottom lip. “Hmm, I guess my good girl is a little bad.”

Iris rolls her eyes and gives him a look, sobering for a minute. “Bear, what’s up? You okay?”

He doesn’t answer her question. Instead, he nods at her table and asks, “you get a lot of work done?”

She eyes him, wanting to ask again. But she knows how she is when she doesn’t want to talk about something and so she lets it go. For the moment.

“Yeah. Or, at least, I’ve done most of what I set out to do.”

He nods, casts his eyes out of the glass, looking at the rain for a moment, watching it fall in heavy sheets. Normally, Iris likes the rain. It’s soothing and she enjoys how it makes the world take a moment to slow down. When she was a little girl, her grandma (her dad’s mother who grew up somewhere at the bottom of Georgia) used to say that when it was raining, and particularly when it was storming, that the Lord was doing His work and that it was the time to be still. They’d have to sit quietly, usually with the TV and the lights off, and just be. And while life doesn’t allow her to drop everything because it’s started raining, there is always a hushed feeling that comes over her when it rains, something tranquil, but also a little turbulent, a little uncontrollable, quite like the very rain she’s reveling in.

“Wanna come over?” he wonders, voice unsure.

She nods readily. “Okay, yeah. Sure.”

He goes to return her mug and plate while she packs her bag back up. He meets her at the door, opening up a large umbrella and throwing an arm over her shoulder to lead her out into the rain. She walks with him past her own car as he takes her a short black away to where his Jeep is parked. He helps her into the Jeep first, watches as she tucks her bag under the seat, and then closes the door before walking around to the other side.

They ride to his house in silence. He lives far on the south side of town, a good twenty or so minutes from downtown if they hit the highway. Instead, he takes the streets, adding another ten minutes to their drive. Iris doesn’t mind; as she said, she likes the rain, and in this big Jeep, tires sluicing easily through the flooding roads in a way her car definitely can’t, she’s enjoying the ride. He had silently connected her phone to his car’s Bluetooth, so she took it to mean that the music choices were hers. She contemplates finding something that he might like, but she figures he likely wouldn’t even be paying much attention. So she decides on one of her slower playlists, ones with songs that dip and fade, that take listeners on a journey of highs and lows, and she lets it play. The lyrics tell too much, so i guess that i should mention; that i am in no condition; to put you in this position; i might fuck this up, although with the heavy weight on Barry’s shoulders right now, she can’t tell if she’s talking to him or vice versa.

He takes them past one of the major shopping districts in the city, past the Apple store and the Michael Kors shop and the one restaurant her dad took her to when she graduated college where pasta dishes run nearer to forty dollars. These shops, and the nicer mall and a couple business buildings that rise as tall as those downtown, lead into longer stretches of road where trees interspersed with beige or cream apartments begin to take up where businesses once stood. He turns into the familiar subdivision that she remembers; it’s a little older than some, which makes sense if his parents were able to buy and pay it off before they were gone. That also means that none of the houses are the same cookie-cutter versions that tend to make up most subdivisions these days, where houses are identical save for the color and the trim and what children’s toys litter the front yard.

He presses a button on his visor and the garage opens as he maneuvers the car so that he can back up into the driveway. He stays in the driveway, though, the music cutting out—but whatever the case, you're my favorite mistake; more than happy to make you—when he turns the ignition off. She waits for him to come around with his umbrella and he half picks her up to pull her out, holding on to her as he walks her through the garage.

She’s as quiet as he is, taking in her surroundings, trying to get a better sense of who he is by what he’s got going on in his house. There isn’t much in the garage; there are a bunch of boxes neatly stacked on one wall, a couple bicycles in another corner. There is a wall full of tools and a couple tables that have science looking tools on them, like a microscope and several bunsen burners and petri dishes, though nothing looks as if they’re currently being used.

He leads her through a door that opens up into the kitchen as he presses another button to close the garage. His house is as cute on the outside as it is on the inside, although she wonders how he might feel if she were to call it cute. The kitchen is large, done in white, gray, and green, with steel appliances, gray marble countertops, and the look of a place that doesn’t get a lot of use. They both stop to toe their shoes off right outside of the kitchen where a couple other pairs of Barry’s shoes lie. His living room is pretty big: a wide space that features a real stone fireplace as the focal point and a large screen television situated above it; a huge sectional in a slate gray with a few throw pillows; and a big square wooden coffee table. It’s masculine and clean without being gaudy or too bro and Iris wonders if he did this himself because even if she never knew her, she doubts a woman who loved flowers as much as his mother would decorate her living room this way.

The dark curtains on the windows are open wide and Iris can see the backyard but the rain coming down in sheets keep her from being able to make out much besides the patio with what looks like a grill and wicker furniture. Iris remembers being told that his dad had been a doctor and his mom some sort of university researcher and the house matches that.

Barry lets her hand go to tug his sweatshirt off, revealing a plain white t-shirt that rises up over his taut belly. She doesn’t avert her eyes, giving herself permission to track how the sweatpants hang off his slim hips and how he isn’t so much sculpted as he’s hard and tight, with just the beginnings of abs. He catches her staring and he smirks at her before dropping down in the corner of the couch, one leg spread out along the seats of the chair.

“Come here,” he tells her, and she moves toward him, sitting so that her back is pressed against that hard chest and his arms are wrapped around her. She grabs a hold of his forearm with both her hands and settles her head in the crook of his elbow. She’s surrounded by his scent, lemongrass and clean cotton, and for a while, the only sounds are his breathing and the pounding of the rain. He touches her, the hand she’s not holding on to stroking up and down her thigh. Her leggings are pretty thin and she feels his touch fully; if she concentrates enough, she can feel those beloved calluses on his hands. He rubs his hand towards the juncture of her thighs and then over her hip and then back again, and like always, his touch ignites something in her, even as she’s wondering how she might be able to help him out of whatever funk he’s found himself in.

“You ready to tell me what’s up?” she wonders a while later.

“Hmm,” he hums, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Not yet. Tell me about your day.”

She shifts so that she can look back at him, noting the way his eyes have darkened a touch, become grayer like the sky outside, and it’s different from the bright blue-green she remembers from the day of the festival or the wicked blue-gray they always are right before he pushes hard into her.

He blinks down at her and licks his lips slowly. It’s not an explicitly sexual act, even if her body thinks it looks that way, and Iris finds herself lost in it, in whatever he’s emanating. It’s erotic in that it’s intimate, a whirlwind of whatever hurt made him seek her out at Jitters, of whatever still lies unexplored between them, of the attraction that doesn’t ever seem to dissipate.

When she pulls herself out, she tells him, “I was working on a story today. One that made me feel a little bit like how you might be right now.”

“Yeah?”

Wanting to look at him more comfortably, she uses his pause so that she can turn around fully and seat herself on his lap, straddling him. His hands automatically go to her hips, one sliding inside the waist of her leggings so that he can touch her skin.

“Tell me about this story,” he requests. She knows that he’s asking so that he can think about something other than what’s on his mind, so she does, giving a little more than she would originally, working out how she might want to tell the story in her blog.

“It was a couple,” she starts, “that grew up together, in the country. They bonded by playing together in the lake, climbing trees, and playing pranks on each other. And then they start to grow up. Their swimming becomes fraught with tension, the bathing suits showing the same skin, but more, ya know, both of them recognizing the differences, cataloging them, thinking about them, remembering them. They don’t act on it, because they’re friends, and he doesn’t actually understand what it means, that he’s 13 and he keeps dreaming about her at night, waking up with a wet bed and a pounding heart. And then his parents die and her dad, who’s a do-gooder in the community and had been his parents’ best friend, takes him in. Now they’re siblings, but of course not. Regardless, it makes it all harder and odder because she sleeps right down the hall from him, their shared bathroom always smells like her, and he understands now, that he likes her smile and the way she speaks and the curves she seems to develop out of nowhere.”

Barry squeezes at her and she pauses as he asks, “And what about her? How does she feel about him?”

“Well he doesn’t know it, but she’s there too. At first she thinks that she’s just conflating it, confusing their friendship. Because she doesn’t laugh with anyone else like she does with him and she never has as much fun with anyone else as she does him and she never feels as comfortable with anyone else as she does him. He’s her best friend. But she sees him, one night, in his room where the door hasn’t fully closed and he’s, well, he’s masturbating, touching himself, eyes closed and moaning, and for the first time outside of the books she’s read, she feels something. And she knows it’s not just because she’s seen him naked because she’s kissed boys before, she’s felt them hard under her before, but something about this feels different for her.

“But she doesn’t act on it. And he doesn’t either, because remember, he only thinks this is one-sided. They graduate. They go to the same college. But their majors are different and their friends are different. She joins a sorority; he gets into a couple of clubs. Their paths separate, even if they still laugh and talk and be when they’re home for the holidays. Then she gets a boyfriend.”

“She never had a boyfriend before this?” Barry questions.

Iris shrugs. “Sure. But it was high school and the beginning of college. They were mostly hookups that didn’t last. This guy is serious. He’s a couple years older, got his own place, and eventually she moves in with him. Heartbroken, he gets a girlfriend too, one of her friends. That doesn’t last long because she figures out that he’s a little bit in love with the main girl, and then he moves on, to someone sweet, someone who’s been not so subtly hinting that she wants to go out with him.”

Barry seems to be engrossed now. She can’t say that the dark look he was sporting is completely gone, but she can see that he’s not as deep in it, interested in the story she’s weaving.

“They go on to marry these people, even if their hearts are not fully in it. His wife has a kid first, her baby comes next. And meanwhile, they’re still friends. Her dad is still his guardian, so to speak; they are together for whatever holidays they don’t spend with their spouses’ families. They still laugh and talk and be. They still look a little too long and want a little too much.

It comes to a head one Christmas. The gods or fate or just some movement on their parts mean that they both go home to her dad’s house with their spouses and children coming in the next day. But her dad is called in to work so they order take out and watch movies in front of a fire. And they laugh and they talk...and they hug and they kiss and they…

“Be?” Barry tries, a tiny little smile on his face.

She matches it. “Yeah. And it’s beautiful, transcendent. But they’re married. To other people. With kids. So they vow to forget it, to never bring it up again. A couple of years pass. They don’t laugh as much, don’t talk as much. She’s having troubles in her marriage. He is too. He actually consults a divorce attorney because he thinks that it’s unfair to both him and his wife, to live like this. And then the wife dies in a car accident.”

“Oh damn,” he mutters.

“Right,” she agrees. “He’s wracked with grief and more than a little guilt, because he loved her but was never in love with her and she had no idea he was going to leave her.”

“What about her? The one he loves?”

“She’s there for him. She consoles him, cares for him, takes his kid when it gets too hard. Her husband doesn’t like it though. Thinks she’s doing too much, thinks that there’s another reason she’s over at his so much. Later, he learns that this wasn’t a new accusation, that even before she and her husband got married, the husband would question their closeness, would wonder what, if anything, had ever happened between them.

“Eventually she gets tired of it. Her kid is older, in their teens now, and she leaves her husband, packing her things and her kid’s too and moving back in with her dad for a while.”

“And what happens between them?” Barry wants to know.

“He and his son come over more. They hang out more, the four of them, going to dinner and to the movies and to the arcade together. And when their kids are gone, at sleepovers or game nights with their friends, they laugh again, talk again. Fall in love again.”

The ending is implied. Iris closes her eyes when she’s done, letting Barry continue to rub at her back, his fingers so so warm on her skin.

“It's a happy ending,” he says, eventually. “But getting there was a little...depressing.”

Iris chuckles softly, lightheaded again at having gone through that again. It likely didn’t make Barry feel any better, but she’ll take the win that it took his mind away from his own problems, if only for a little while.

“Yeah, it is,” she agrees. “But it reminds me that just because it’s not easy and just because it takes some time, it doesn’t mean that things aren’t worth it.”

He nods, slowly, thinking.

“What about things that are...easy? That come like breathing? That start as a simple dance and just, just keep going?”

She stares down at him and she knows that this is rhetorical. She can see the question in the depths of his eyes, feel it in his hands still kneading her flesh. It would be easy to retreat, to tell him that nothing is ever easy, even if the reality is that it is because they are, because they fall into each other so effortlessly, that she’s terrified. There are always hiccups, obstacles, and the fact that she can’t find any keeps her on edge, waiting, anticipating trouble she knows must be coming. She doesn’t want to believe it, wants to stand firm in them—stand firm in the lyrics she keeps hearing, if you decide to stay, know that there is no escape; there's no one here to save you—and she holds onto that as he asks,

“Don’t you think it’s worth it, Iris? Even if it’s this easy?”

She can’t speak, but his eyes are imploring her to answer. Pleading with her for a response. And however terrified Iris is, or however much Iris tells stories, she is not a liar. So she nods and whispers to him, “yes.”

Without waiting for her to say anything more, he kisses her. He squeezes at her waist and leans up to capture her mouth. She meets him with his same fervor and it’s different, this kiss. She knows the passion of his mouth when he’s high, the boldness when he’s teasing her. But this is new, this is fervor, warmth and agony and doubt and pleasure, all wrapped up together.

(Something also tells Iris that there is another word for this, that this is the part of the story where feelings would be laid on the table, where hearts would be splayed open and she’d say it, or he would, and the other would respond in kind, with declarations of adoration, of infatuation, yearning, of any other word that means what she can’t say yet.

But she feels it, what she’s wanting to say, what she thinks he is saying, in this kiss. It is slow and nasty, all tongue and mouth. Her eyes flutter closed at the feeling, at how he licks into her mouth and then sucks on her bottom lip, at how he licks against her tongue and then holds her face to bring her closer to him. She feels it, she feels it, she feels him…)

He stands, holding on to her, and she wraps her legs around his waist, tightening her arms around his neck as he carries her through the house. The kisses don’t stop, though they become shorter, more mouth now, and he takes her down a long hallway past several doors until he turns into one at the end of the hall. She makes a quick note of the light gray and burnt orange decor, the side tables holding books and knickknacks, the one window that spans nearly the entire wall, but she focuses most heavily on the king-sized bed on which he throws on her, the soft comforter half hanging off the bed.

Her clothes come off first, Barry pulling her sweatshirt over her head and yanking her pants over her hips. He comes out of his own clothes as she discards her underwear, and then he’s between her thighs again. But she wants something else first so she taps his shoulder to flip them and then she’s hovering above him.

She gives him a kiss, slow and sweet, and then she makes her way down his chest, kissing as she goes. She loves the feel of his skin against her lips, likes how his skin tastes as she presses tongue kisses on him. His belly clenches and unclenches under her ministrations, and by the time she’s looking back up at him from her position near his crotch, she can see the way his chest rises and falls with his heavy breathing.

She reaches for him, wrapping her fingers around his dick. It’s long like the rest of him, and thicker than she would have expected just looking at him. It’s a pretty dick, the base the same color as him, the head slightly pinker. It’s a little veiny, but the skin is smooth, and already he’s starting to leak. She lifts her eyes to find him watching her, his own gaze hooded. In her peripheral, she sees his hands grip the bed sheets and she revels in how she hasn’t even done anything and his control is starting to slip.

“Tell me what you want, Bear.”

She says the words softly, but Barry doesn’t miss the cheek that lies under it, if the slight smirk he gives her is any indication.

“Your mouth,” he says. “I’ve been dreaming about that pretty mouth wrapped around my dick.”

She shudders at the tone of his voice, at the vision of her on her knees for him. She likes it.

“I bet you have too,” he guesses.

Without a response, she licks him, holding him at the base and running her tongue up one side of him. She does it again, and then one more time, acquainting herself with the taste of him and the satiny feel of him on her tongue, and then she adjusts and covers the whole of him.

“Fuck,” he breathes out.

She hums around him and she sucks him down, taking him until he hits her throat. Then she pulls back until just the tip remains. She licks around his head and sucks him there, letting the spit pool in her mouth, letting it mix with his own wet. She opens her mouth and lets it slide out, dripping down onto him, and her own body starts to drip at his wrecked whisper, “god, baby, look at you.”

She adds her hands, palming his testicles in one and rubbing her spit down the length of him with the other. She finds a rhythm, sucking him down, inch by inch, hollowing her cheeks as she goes, and then stroking his back up. Barry keeps his hand clenched in the sheets, but he cants himself into her mouth, rocking his hips lightly. She’s getting into it, loving the way he responds to her.

“Come here,” he says, suddenly, reaching for her, and she pulls back with a soft pop.

“Barry?” she furrows her eyebrows in question.

He gives her a gentle smile and grabs at her arm; Iris moves at his request, crawling up his body.

“But you didn’t finish,” she says, pouting a little.

“I know. I want to come when I’m inside you.”

She’s mollified by that, and he settles her on his lap.

“You were so good though, baby,” he says, kissing her. “My good, good girl.”

He reaches down to touch her, slipping his fingers easily into her sex. He groans into her mouth at the feel and he pulls back to ask,

“Is this all for me? Did you get wet sucking me off, good girl?”

She nods, rocking her hips against his hand, against his sex still hard beneath her. “Can, can you…?”

He tilts his head at her, fingers still caressing inside of her. “Can I?”

She huffs out a small laugh because he’s always fucking with her. “You said you wanted to come inside of me,” she reminds him.

“I did, didn’t?” He takes his time removing his fingers, eyes on her as he does. Even with the window curtains wide open, the dark sky has the room dark

(and she doesn’t dismiss the fact that the window faces the side of someone else’s house, where they could be seen if the neighbors were so inclined to watch)

and his eyes look a little like molten lead in the faint rainy light like this. He goes to reach over to his bedside table but Iris stops him.

“I want to feel you,” she says.

He licks his lips and she doesn’t mistake the twitch of his dick she feels under her. “You sure?”

“Yes. I’m on birth control. And I trust you.”

He nods once and again, and then he takes her by her hips and slides her down his cock.

After, Iris decides that this time is the single most erotic experience of her life.

They fuck with the rain like a soundtrack behind them, like a song that swells and stretches, telling their story, but you're so brave; stone cold crazy for loving me; yeah, I'm amazed; i hope you make it out alive, a song that rises and rises, that sounds too good to be real, that might destroy you, but only in the best way.

She rides him, and he’s so full in her like this, so deep in her like this. His back is against his fabric headboard and she’s so close to him, her knees jutting into the headboard, her thighs holding around his hips, her breasts rubbing against his chest, nipples pebbling with each brush on those hard planes.

She holds on to him with her hands holding the back of his neck, softly scratching at the nape. But he’s touching her, always touching her, his hands caressing her spine, and then holding her waist, and then squeezing her hips. He guides her: keeps his favorite pace, smooth and languid; bring her up to the tip and fucks her back down; shows her how he wants her to roll her body when he’s full in her, so her clit is brushing the soft hairs on his pelvis, the sensation incredible.

He uses his mouth too: to kiss her throat, deep tongue kisses that’ll leave marks she knows she’ll have to cover up; to whisper against her mouth, “see how easy this is; see how good, baby; fuck, see how good this is; yes, yes, yes, my good girl.”

And Iris feels so caught up in it. She can’t stop looking at him, loving when the lightning slashes across the room and illuminates those eyes, the constellation of moles on his skin, his wet, pink mouth. Her body hums with pleasure, soaking her thighs and his, tightening around his dick as if it never, never wants to let him go. She voices her satisfaction, in soft sighs and heavy pleas, and his name on her tongue like a chant, or better, a song, “Bear, Bear, Barrryyy.” They’re so close, her skin sticking to his wherever they’re touching, chest to chest and ass to thigh. She feels full and whole and filled...with him and with desire and with, and with love, the thought of it making her shudder and close her eyes.

“No,” Barry whispers. “Don’t. Just let it, just let it...stay here with me. Can you do that for me? Be brave for me?”

She nods, head heavy as her body starts to reach its climax, as her body loosens at the same time that it tightens and she has to fight to hold on to him. “Yes,” she moans again, holding his gaze again.

He touches at her face, holding her cheek and staring back. “Good girl.”

She doesn’t know whose climax triggers the other. She just knows that at the same time that her body explodes, fluttering wildly around him, he comes too, so hard that she feels him throbbing against her walls, that she feels him filling her up with his cum.

He doesn’t let go of her right away. He just holds her, hands at her hip and her face, and then he kisses her, cementing what they’ve just done, cementing what Iris feels for him.

“It’s the anniversary of my mom’s death,” he says, out of the blue. “And when I went to visit my dad earlier, I found out that he’s sick, something with his heart, and I’m-I’m reeling.”

It’s been a long while since they separated and Iris climbed off of him to pad into his bathroom and warm a hand towel under warm water to clean them both. They’ve been lying in his bed, only half under the covers as they let their bodies cool. It’s quiet now, so quiet that Iris has thought he’d fallen asleep; she’d almost fallen asleep. But when he speaks, she blinks wide and then turns her head to face him.

“14 years today,” he adds. He’s looking up at the ceiling as he talks, but Iris feels the hand that’s settled at her waist tighten, the move bringing her closer to him. She understands that he just needs the contact, so she turns so that she’s all the way curled on him, one of her legs thrown across him, her arm tossed over him too, hand settled on his heart. It’s beating slow, steady, and so she strokes his bare chest, right it.

“How’d you find out?”

“I was still at school,” he tells her. “It was a Friday and some of my friends had convinced me to go to a football game, so we were there pretty late. Games could run until 11. I was 17 so I had my own car. It was an old car; we’d bought it from a guy she worked with. By this time, my dad had been gone for a couple years, and my mom was always working late at the lab, so when I got home around 10:30 that night and the lights were out, I wasn’t surprised.”

He shifts a little and continues. “I took a shower, put some leftover pizza in the microwave, and just as I was sitting down to eat, the doorbell rang. It was the police looking for her next of kin to tell them what had happened.” He sighs heavily. “I got lucky. The courts let one of my friend’s parents take me in until I graduated a few months later. I was able to get a work study job in college to pay my bills since the mortgage was already paid off.”

He says it all like he was lucky, but there is nothing lucky about losing both of your parents in that matter, even if one of them was still physically alive. Iris knows from experience that he doesn’t want pity, doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for his story. But she can’t help the way she wants to comfort him, and so she lets herself do that, tightening herself around him, snuggling even more into his chest.

“How are you feeling about your dad?” she asks, mumbling against his skin.

“Devastated. He looked like, like, I don’t know, like he’s giving up. I don’t get to go see him too often, every couple of months, really. And he looked so different from when I saw him last: smaller, frailer. I think there might be something he’s not telling me. Like he’s been sick longer than he says he has.”

“Is he supposed to get out soon?”

“Another couple years. But I don’t know if he wants to hold on that long.”

She feels them first, the tears. She tries to hold him even tighter, tries to crawl into his skin almost, trying to stem his pain. He doesn’t cry for long, just a few sobs, and then he’s inhaling deeply and wiping at his eyes. But it must be enough because he sounds a little hollow when he says,

“And truthfully, I’m not so much sad as I am mad, that he seems to be giving up. On getting out. On me.”

She hums, not dismissively, but because she understands. “Wanna know a secret?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes, I hate my mom.”

He sort of jerks up at that. Not fully, he looks down at her, eyes widened in shock. However inappropriate it might be, she finds herself laughing a little at his expression. Then she explains.

“I know that addiction is not a moral failing. I know that she struggled right up til the end. I know both of those things as completely as I know anything else. But sometimes I wonder why my dad wasn’t enough, why me and Wally weren't enough. I wonder what she was trying to find in those pills that she couldn’t find in us, and I get so pissed that she let it take her away from us.”

She’s startled when he moves. He pulls himself from under her, letting her fall onto her back, and then he’s hovering above her, holding himself up on his elbows. He falls into the spread of her thighs, his sex nuzzling comfortably against her still warm center.

“I’ve seen some of the worst effects of addiction,” he says, “when their bodies end up on a slab of metal and it’s my job to dissect the things around them, to even sometimes help detectives dissect their lives to figure out what happened. And something I’ve learned is that it’s always, always about them. Never about the people they love.”

He searches her face, brushing a piece of hair back from her forehead. “And whatever your mom was or wasn’t thinking, you are enough. You are more than enough, Iris.” He leans down and gives her a kiss, deep and dirty, and she moans in frustration as he pulls back from her. He gives her a grin, one more reminiscent of the Barry she’s used to.

“Repeat after me,” he commands. “I, Iris West…”

“Really, Barry?”

“Yes, come on. I, Iris West…

She sighs, but says it. “I, Iris West…”

“Am more than enough.”

She licks her lips then, blinks, works to not let the tears that have suddenly gathered in the corner of her eyes escape.

“Am more than enough,” she whispers, finally.

Barry’s smile turns fond. “Good girl.”

She shakes her head because she doesn’t know what else to do besides kiss him. Which she does, deeply, reaching down to grip him in her palm. She pauses, just for a moment, to tell him “you know that you are enough too, right?” and she kisses the look of awe off of his face. It’s a long while before she stops kissing him, and then it’s only to moan into his mouth, to let him whisper his dirty somethings into her ear.

“What are your plans for tonight?”

They’ve just shared a shower. Barry is throwing on another pair of sweats and a hoodie and Iris puts her own leggings back on, sans underwear, and thumbs through Barry’s closet for another sweatshirt to put on.

(There’s no reason that she can’t put hers back on, but she’s feeling particularly sentimental and she wants to take something of Barry’s with her, something that smells like him, that feels like him.)

“None, really.” She pulls out a red sweater that reads Central City University Track & Field and throws it on over her bra. “Why? You kicking me out.”

Barry rolls his eyes. “Of course not.” He glances down at the watch on his wrist. “Wanna get dinner? And then go with me to my tattoo appointment? It’s at 8 tonight.”

She smiles at that. “Sure.”

They take the highway back downtown. The rain is still beating steadily and there is still the occasional rumble of thunder, the sporadic flash of lightning. He parks a bit further in the arts district, in front of a restaurant specializing in wood-fire pizzas and craft beers. This time, she knows to wait for him to come around and open the door for her so that she can walk under his umbrella. Once he locks his jeep, he grabs her hand, and they walk the couple doors down and into the restaurant.

The place is brightly lit, in direct contrast to the dark sky and even the faint light that had been on at Barry’s place. The weather assures that it isn’t densely packed, just a couple booths of families and what looks like a couple, so they’re seated quickly and easily. They eat fast since they’ve only got an hour before his appointment. In the meantime, they both keep the conversation light. It’s been a day, for the both of them really, and Iris doesn’t think that she can cry twice in a day.

After he pays, she goes to the bathroom and he tells her he’ll wait at the door for her. She goes in and it’s as brightly lit as the rest of the place and she quickly does her business and washes her hands before heading back out to where he knows Barry is waiting in the little space between the outer door and the door to the restaurant.

She walks through the place and out of the restaurant door, likely too quickly and without really looking. She takes several steps, straightening out Barry’s sweatshirt again, and then she’s bumping into what feels like a solid wall, almost falling backward. A quick hand reaches out to catch her, the hand large, easily wrapping around her forearm.

“Shit,” she says, shaking her head to clear it as she looks up. “I’m sorr..Scott?”

He doesn’t move back right away and so she has to look up, up at the man holding on to her. Scott Evans is the literal definition of tall, dark, and handsome. He’d been her editor when she’d work at CCPN right out of college, and she’d had the biggest crush on him. Tall with dark caramel skin and a neatly trimmed beard, he’d been the one to help guide her in the ways of mass story-telling. They’d gone on one date and Iris is not actually sure why they’d never gone on another.

“Iris West.” He says her name slowly, his grin widening at the same pace. He gives her a once-over, slow and heated. “How’ve you been?”

“R-really good,” she says, stumbling a little at that grin. Even if she doesn’t actually regret never seeing him again, Iris can admit that a man this good looking makes her a little tongue-tied.

“Yeah? I’ve been catching your blog when I can. It’s some good shit, West. I can see why you left our little paper.”

“Please,” Iris rolls her eyes with a little laugh. “There’s nothing little about Picture News.”

He shrugs, humble all the way. “Still, I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks, Scott. I appreciate that.”

“It’s the truth.” He looks down at her, swiping at his lips with his tongue, and she suddenly realizes that they’re still too close. She steps back fully from him, glancing over Scott’s shoulders to see Barry watching them, his expression unreadable.

“Um,” she speaks, catching his attention. “I gotta go Scott.”

“Oh yeah; of course. We should get together soon. Maybe do dinner.” Scott looks back out of the window where rain steadily pours. “It’s still raining out. Can I walk you to your car?”

Her eyes don’t leave Barry’s and he tilts his head, waiting for her answer. “Scott, I’m not alone.”

He turns as if he’s just realizing that Barry is standing there. Barry is still quiet and only lifts his eyes to look at Scott when he mutters, “oh, hey man.”

Barry nods. “What’s up?” Then he looks at Iris. “You ready?”

“Yeah, I am.” Her voice is soft, cautious, and she throws one more glance at Scott. “It was good to see you.”

He graces her with that smile again. “Yeah. I’ll see you around.”

Barry takes her hand and they walk back to the truck. They’re on the road again, driving to a neighborhood near her own. For a second, she thinks he’s going to take her home, but he passes the road to her apartment and goes on to a neighborhood featuring several bars and little shops that cater to the college crowd. He pulls into the parking lot of a place called Black Gold, the lights inside near as bright as those in the pizza place.

Again, she waits until he comes around and turns as if to get out. He stops her though, holding the umbrella high, standing in front of her open legs. He does his thing, his stare like he's trying, and succeeding, to get inside her mind.

“That your ex-boyfriend?” he wonders.

She shakes her head. “Ex-boss.”

His expression doesn’t change. “All your bosses look at you like that?”

She swallows at the sudden feel of his hand on her thigh. The rain is pounding and drops fall on them, but she’s not noticing it. Instead, she’s caught in the storm that’s returned to his eyes, in the feel of his hands inching steadily toward her center.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” she says, instead of responding to him.

One corner of his mouth lifts, and the confident, bordering on cocky, Barry is looking at her now, even if that sparkle hasn’t returned quite yet.

“Nah,” he says. “Not jealous. You’re here right now. And you were with me earlier, moaning for me, coming for me.”

He slides his hand between her thighs and because she is, almost literally, always thirsty for him, wet for him, her legs spread easily. He fingers at the crotch of her leggings, and she knows that he can feel her warmth through the thin material. He thumbs at her until she gasps against him, finding her clit in a way that reminds him that he knows her body better than she knows it herself.

“He ever touch you like this?” Barry asks, voice a whisper above the rain. “Make you whimper even without getting your clothes off?”

She is whimpering, as he keeps his thumb on her clit, rubbing on her in slow circles. That’s all he’s doing: touching her with one hand, looking at her with those eyes that tell as much as they conceal, with his voice a deep rumble that rivals the thunder. He might be turned on, but he’s proving a point, naming himself as someone who, well, who owns her, even if she recognizes that no man should claim any power over her.

Heat spreads through her, a low, simmering sort of heat, but it’s enough that her folds grow slicker, start opening like the flowers of a petal waiting to be plucked. He keeps rubbing at her, staying on her clit, staring in her face, so much that she can’t hold his gaze. Because it feels better than it should, and her wet is soaking through these too thin leggings, and her breaths are coming in longer, coming in heavier.

“Tell me he hasn’t, Iris,” he says, commands, and Iris throws her head back, legs widening at their own volition, hips canting against his hand. “Tell me.”

“No,” she moans, eyes fluttering closed. “He never even touched me at all.”

“Tell me it’s just me,” he adds and she’s too far gone to note the pleading in his voice. “Tell me no one has ever touched you like this.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “Just you, Barry, shit, just you.”

“Good,” he groans. “Good, good girl.”

Even if touch is the word he’s using, Iris understands that it’s more. She understands that they’re both wrapped up in uncertainty, never too sure of where they lie in others’ affections, never too sure of where they lie in life at all. She understands that he’s asking her if she feels it too, if she’s there with him, if this too easy, this too natural, feeling is a first for her too.

He’s asking if she’s brave enough to tell him the truth, if she undertands is meaning-understands that I'm no walk in the park; all these scars on my heart; it’s so dark here-even as she’s wondering the same, as she’s feeling the same, wondering if the churning feelings of abandonment make her unworthy somehow. Wondering if he’ll come to see that unworthiness.

Barry leans forward, just a touch away from her mouth, eyes blazing.

“There’s only you too, Iris,” he says, unprompted. “I swear I’ve just been waiting for you.”

He closes the distance to kiss her and that’s enough to take her over. It’s not a powerful orgasm, not like usual, but it does make her shut her eyes tight, make her limbs seize up as she rocks her hips through it. She breathes out, and she can’t stop the little laugh that comes out.

“You really are a dick,” she muses, opening her eyes slowly.

“A polite one, though,” he says, as he stands straighter and holds his hand out to help her down from the car. He holds the umbrella high over her. “See how I’m making sure you don’t get wet.”

“You didn't think of that earlier.”

His grin is devastating but it doesn’t hide the plethora of emotions in his eyes: the simmering lust, the faint traces of insecurity, the grief that’s been hovering all day...the love she doesn’t think he wants to hide anymore.

She hikes up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek, and then she walks beside him into the parlor, words flashing in her head like a sign, but if you’re a warrior, there’s nothing to fear; nothing to fear.

And later that night, as she cuddles up next to Barry is his large comfortable bed, she listens to his soft breathing, the sound a melody to the rain still pattering against his windows. She listens and she stares at him, taking in his features, softer than they were before, the stress of today easing away with every second he’s lost to sleep. A flash of lightning lights the room, and it catches her eyes again, the new tattoo, the purple ink bright on his skin, covering the space from a lily on his shoulder to just over his heart. It goes dark again, his room blanketed once more, but in her mind’s eyes, she can still see the vibrant ink on his skin, the pretty drooping petals of an iris.

Cause you're so brave

Stone cold crazy for loving me

Yeah, I'm amazed

I hope you make it out alive

#westallen fanfiction #westallen #barry x iris #iris west #strangers to lovers

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icanhearyouglaring · 5 years

Text

anything you can do, pt. 2

summary: There’s nothing wrong with a little healthy competition between frenemies (a meet in the JL-AU) wally/artemis. b99-inspired. a/n: second part of a gift i’ve been preparing for @rachelisanerd. here is a link to pt. 1 also available on ao3

As luck would have it, Tigress doesn’t have to wait long to rub her lead in Flash’s face. The very next day, she gets to let her smug grin do the gloating as Aqualad goes over the mission plan to rescue some scientist from the Cult of Kobra. Flash pretends like he doesn’t notice her watching him, but the way his pen digs into the paper on the table in front of him tells her she is right where she wants to be: under his skin.

“Tigress.”

Tigress quits gloating (for now) and snaps her attention to Aqualad.

“Yes, Boss?”

“Stop calling me boss. You’ll keep watch at the south end of the base,” Aqualad says, pointing to a shack on the side of the mountain on screen. “You’ll be out of range for the mind link, but you’ll have eyes on the entire field from that position and we can’t have any surprises. As we will be under radio silence until we clear the mountain, you will not be able to contact us if there is trouble outside.”

“Got it, Boss,” Tigress says, nodding.

Aqualad internalizes his sigh and moves on.

“Finally, Flash, you will stay at the vantage point with Tigress. If something troubling arises, you run close enough to reestablish the mind link and let us know what’s happening outside. For the most part, we are not expecting any interference from beyond the confines of Kobra’s base, but we do not know when the Shadows are expected to make the trade for the doctor.”

“Quick question,” Nightwing says, raising his hand unnecessarily high. “Does Tigress get the point for spotting the Shadow or does Flash get the point for telling us about them, or do they both get points? No points?”

“Is this something that needs to be discussed right now?” Aqualad asks, not surprised in the slightest that it came up.

“There were a few complaints after the last mission so I thought it might be better to clear these things up before we go. I’m saving you a headache later,” Nightwing explains.

On Tigress’s left, Rocket snorts and whispers, “Someone’s a sore loser.”

Aqualad addresses everyone at the table. “We should hope that neither wins a point and the mission goes uninterrupted.”

“Like that’ll happen,” Superboy scoffs, leaning forward in his seat across from Aqualad. “I say Tigress should get the point.”

“No way,” Nightwing says, shaking his head. “Flash is the one doing the leg work, literally. He should get the point.”

Superboy snorts. “Spotting a Shadow takes more skill than being the human equivalent of a walkie talkie.”

Tigress doesn’t miss the way Miss Martian’s glowing eyes narrow at Superboy. She also doesn’t miss the way Superboy balks and sits back in his seat. Tigress briefly contemplates asking for a point for not missing a damn thing at this meeting.

“Hey! I thought we were friends,” Flash says, crossing his arms.

“Enough,” Aqualad says sternly. “Let us agree to play the point situation by ear and focus on the mission. If I see this bet getting in the way of the team’s performance, I will shut it down.”

That quiets the room, but it doesn’t mean the arguments stop. As Aqualad moves on to detail the logistics of the mission and the importance of maintaining a good relationship within the team, Miss Martian, using her alien-equivalent-of-a-walkie-talkie powers, lets everyone know their dutiful leader is less neutral than he appears.

Aqualad bet me a monitor duty shift they’d tie, Miss Martian says.

Wow, shut that gambling ring down, Zatanna says, hurt. All sub-bets are supposed to be placed with me.

We are not tying, Tigress says.

Flash agrees. Yeah, no ties. We’d have to do a sudden death round or something.

All in favor of sudden death being stealing the Batmobile? Nightwing suggests.

Abso-fucking-lutely not, Tigress says, before anyone can raise their mental hands in favor of sending her to hell.

Ditto, Flash says. Been there, done that, never want to do it again. The nightmares aren’t worth it.

“If anyone has any questions related to the mission, you can ask them on the Bioship,” Aqualad says, standing up (and snapping everyone’s attention back to him). “It’s time to go.”

-o-

“Oh, nice,” Flash says, leaning over to watch Tigress unpack her gear, “you brought the big bow.”

“Did anyone teach you how to be a lookout?” Tigress asks, organizing her equipment against the wall of the shack. “Were you absent the day they taught that you’re supposed to be quiet and actually look for things?”

Flash sighs melodramatically as he leans against the wall. “I have been looking, and according to the infrared scanner on my goggles, the only things around here are cute little woodland creatures and us.”

“Still failing at the whole quiet part,” Tigress notes, picking up a pair of binoculars and trying to do her job.

“Oh, come on, T. Humor me,” Flash says, zipping to and fro in the shack before plucking an arrow from her quiver and holding it towards her. “You and I are always getting stuck with the fringe jobs. You have to admit it gets boring after awhile.”

It does, but contrary to what he says, she doesn’t have to admit it.

“Did Nightwing smuggle you caffeine just to spite me?” Tigress asks, taking her eyes away from the trees to give Flash a look. “How can you be bored already? We’ve been here less than five minutes.”

“Well, you’ve been ignoring me the whole time,” Flash notes, tossing the arrow between his hands at too-high a speed.

Tigress rolls her eyes. “You know that arrow could fill this shack with smoke if you keep that up.”

“Noted.” Flash quickly places the arrow back where it belongs.

Tigress returns to scanning the treeline and sighs, “God, you’re like a puppy.”

“I am pretty cute, aren’t I?”

He is, but that is so not where she was going with that.

“You’re needy,” Tigress explains, checking another route for any movement. “You need constant attention. You have a ridiculous amount of energy. You eat so much.”

“Hey, I can’t help that last one,” Flash says, and Tigress has to imagine the pout on his face as her eyes catch some movement in a far clearing. Just a deer.

“Yeah, yeah, your metabolism, whatever. You’re still distracting.”

“Distractingly hands-shit–”

Tigress takes the time to put her binoculars down, turn, and investigate his curse. Her eyes widen as she catches him cowl-less and smiling at her.

Tigress’s breath catches in her throat for a half-second before she yells, “Don’t do that! We’re exposed out here!”

“Calm down. I was hearing feedback,” Flash pulls his cowl back over his face and adjusts his ear piece covers. “So much for being quiet...”

The tense silence between them is broken by the sound of an owl hooting in the distance, and it is only then that Tigress snaps back into the moment.

“We’re on a freakin mission. How could you take off your cowl just like that?” Tigress asks, scowling behind her mask as her foot bounces against the floor.

“It’s fine,” Flash shrugs and shakes his head. “It’s just us. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” Tigress counters, roughly turning back to her lookout duties. The binoculars refuse to remain still in her shaking hands. “There are a million reasons why it’s a big deal. It defeats the purpose of having secret identities. If someone sees your real face... First, they find your face, then they find your name, and then they find you. Or worse– they find the people you care about.”

Flash steps closer. “I know the reasons, T.”

“Then for such a smart guy, you are incredibly stupid. You won’t catch me flashing my face around anytime soon.”

Flash snorts. “Come on, Tigress, we both know that’s not your real face behind that mask.”

Tigress stills before she lowers her binoculars and turns to face him again. The smug look she’d expected to find isn’t there. Instead, she’s struck by the small, knowing smile he sends her.

“You knew?” Tigress slowly asks, her eyes locking with his.

Flash nods. “I had a feeling– and I recognized the glamour charm. Zatanna made one for Aqualad so he could come to Guardian’s bachelor party sans gills.”

Tigress fights the pressure building in her chest. Flash has managed to evolve from distraction to major life disruption. It was only a matter of time.

“If you tell anyone, I will use you for target practice,” Tigress says sharply, turning back to look through the binoculars and away from Flash.

“I won’t say a word. You can trust me. Scouts honor.”

Flash leans against the window frame and watches her. This goes on for a full minute, and with every passing second, Tigress finds herself wishing for the silence to end. Why couldn’t they just go back to picking at each other?

Tigress snaps, “Stop looking at me. Do your job.”

Flash sighs and walks over to the only other window in the shack. He lowers his goggles and does as she says, but the silence eats at them both.

Tigress puts her binoculars down and catches him looking at her again. “Seriously, it’s like I can hear you thinking about it. What do you want? A medal? World’s Greatest Detective?”

“No, I just have questions.”

“Will you drop it if I answer one?” Tigress offers.

Flash launches into a string of questions. “Are you actually that tall? Can these charms change height? Who chose this disguise: you or Zatanna? Do you ever take that thing off? And is your hair really that color? Or have all of those ginger jokes you’ve been hurling at me since we met come from personal experience?”

“I said one,” Tigress groans, even though she asked for it. She goes back to looking out the window before four quiet words slip past her lips. “I might be blonde.”

“Hmm,” Flash says, practically appearing at her side and appraising her mask-covered profile, “I can’t see it.”

“That’s the point,” Tigress says, narrowing her eyes at the blurs coming into focus in the distance. “Q&A over. We have trouble.”

Flash straightens his stance. “Where?”

“Northeast quadrant. There’s movement in the trees, heading towards the east entrance. I can’t tell from here, but it looks like two people. You need to– no, wait, it’s too late for that. If Aqualad’s on schedule, they could be coming out of there any minute now.”

Tigress tucks her binoculars back into their pouch before she grabs her bow and plucks an arrow from her quiver.

She sends a quick look to Flash before she turns back to the trees and aims. “We have to stall the Shadows before they get to the mountain.”

Tigress lets the arrow fly and watches it arc through the air until it lands just to the right of where she last saw the Shadows. There is a three second period of silence before the arrow explodes. The sound echoes through the valley.

Now they all know they are not alone.

Tigress shoulders her quiver and latches her bow to her back before she turns back to Flash and says, “The Shadows should change course to investigate. We need to stall them.”

“On it,” Flash says, and before Tigress can blink, she’s in his arms and they’re zooming through the woods.

-o-

“Nice one, genius,” Tigress says, a bit breathlessly, as Flash puts her down at the edge of a clearing. “Half of my gear is back there.”

“You won’t need it,” is all the warning they get before they catch sight of the blades flying in their direction.

Too close.

Tigress starts to turn around to let her quiver take the hit, but Flash shoves her out of the way and most of the blades end up in the trees behind them.

“Ouch,” Flash says, pulling a shuriken out of his arm, “that stings.”

“You okay?” Tigress regains her footing and pulls her bow out in an instant.

Flash nods. “Just a scratch. I’ll be fine.”

“Where are they?” Tigress asks, scanning the treeline.

“One o’clock. Just one,” Flash answers, his goggles glowing. “The other one is still heading for the gate.”

Tigress launches her arrow at the center of the field and a cloud of white smoke fills the clearing.

“I’ll keep this one busy. You go after the other one,” Tigress orders. “You can’t let them reach the doctor!”

“I’ll be right back,” Flash calls out, jogging backwards into the forest. “Keep your comm on.”

“Got it.”

Tigress fires another arrow into the cloud of smoke, and this time, it sends the smoke into the air, leaving her target exposed. The figure at the edge of the clearing gets clearer as it runs right towards her. Tigress launches an arrow at the feet of the figure, but they jump in time to avoid the netting that releases from the tip. As they descend, they fire another barrage of shuriken at Tigress. Tigress rolls out of the way and pops up with her bow at the ready. She shoots at the ground between them and a sonic wave knocks her opponent off of her feet. Tigress moves in on her prey, slowly walking towards the fallen assassin. Hmm. The grinning cat mask in front of her confirms her hunch about her opponent, as if the sais and shuriken weren’t telling enough on their own.

“Don’t move, Cheshire,” Tigress says strongly as she aims her arrow at Cheshire’s mask. “It won’t end well for you if you do.”

Cheshire stands up as she appraises Tigress, and everything about her, from her fixed posture to the stagnant smile on her mask, sends a chill up Tigress’s spine. Her reputation may proceed her, but no one could have warned Tigress about the unnerving feeling of facing Cheshire in the flesh.

“Cute,” Cheshire says, easily twirling her sai in her hands. “Wish I had time to play, kitten, but I have bigger fish to fry.”

Tigress steels herself and narrows her gaze at her target. “Don’t move. Last warning.”

Cheshire keeps twirling her sai. “My partner says Aqualad’s out there. It’s been awhile since I’ve had some fun with him. I think it’s time for a rematch, don’t you?”

“I told you to stop moving,” Tigress says, releasing her arrow without hesitation.

There is strong satisfaction in watching someone try and dodge an arrow that releases a boxing glove before impact. Tigress has to work to tame her grin as the glove gets a good half of Cheshire’s mask and sends it flying into the dirt.

Cheshire’s face pinches as she bares her teeth at Tigress and charges, a mess of wild black hair and loose green fabric. Instead of the sai, or the sword, or the sudden screeching emanating from the valley, it’s the dark, determined eyes shining in the moonlight that have Tigress’s full attention.

It registers in slow motion, a feeling akin to an off-centered gear clicking back into place somewhere deep inside, and Tigress can’t do anything but lower her shot and let Cheshire tackle her to the ground as she realizes exactly who she’s fighting.

“Jade?” Tigress gasps, her mind snapping back into action as she instinctively blocks Cheshire’s incoming punch.

“What?” Cheshire–Jade– snarls, going in for another hit.

Tigress manages to free her legs out from underneath Cheshire and kick her back into the dirt.

“Jade,” Tigress repeats tightly before she sits up and asks, “is that you?”

“Who are you?” Jade says from the ground, breathing hard from the strength of the kick.

Tigress quickly takes off her mask and tosses it to the side. The million reasons to keep it on are outweighed by the million and one reasons to take it off for the woman in front of her.

“Jade, it’s me,” Artemis says, ripping the glamour charm from her neck and letting it fall to the ground beside her mask.

For a long moment, the only sounds in the clearing come from the wind rushing through the trees.

“Artemis.” Jade looks at her like she’s a ghost, and Artemis knows her own face must mirror her sister’s because for the longest time–

“I thought you were dead,” they say, breaking their stunned silence in unison.

Jade holds eye contact with Artemis as she stands and holds her side.

“Dad said–” Artemis’s voice fails her, as do her legs as they refuse to move. “Dad said you were dead.”

“He’d like that, wouldn’t he?” Jade says, stopping just a foot away from Artemis. “I can’t believe you’re here right now. I’ve been to your grave.”

Jade holds out a hand and Artemis takes it and it feels so wrong. Artemis stands and faces her sister, hoping with all her might that this is not some trick.

“I had to disappear,” Artemis chokes out, never having thought she’d have to explain herself to Jade. “He wanted me to replace you. I didn’t– I wouldn’t–”

“You couldn’t,” Jade says darkly.

“You– How–” Artemis’s question is cut off by the voice in her ear.

Miss M neutralized the Shadow before I got there. On my way back to Tigress.

“I have to go,” Jade says, looking back and forth between the mountain and Artemis.

Jade presses her hand against her ear as she starts walking backwards, towards the edge of the clearing. “On my way.”

Artemis takes a step forward. “Jade– you–”

Jade shakes her head, picks up her mask, and continues sinking back into the treeline.

“Don’t worry about Dad,” Jade says, quickly donning her mask. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Jade, wait!” Artemis calls out, echoing the last words she’d spoken to her sister so long ago. “Don’t go...”

Her heart sinks as Jade disappears into the trees and it takes every bit of strength she has to not collapse to the ground right then and there.

Jade is not dead. She didn’t know her actual life could feel like a bigger lie than the one she constructed for herself. She’s so consumed by the thought that she doesn’t even hear Flash stumble through the trees.

“T? What happened?” Flash asks, slowing to a stop beside her. “Did you get yours?”

Artemis doesn’t dare look him in the eye. Instead, she focuses on what she can see: the tear in his suit and the blood on his arm.

“Give me your arm,” Artemis instructs, mechanically pulling a wound dressing from her belt.

“It’s no big deal. I’m already healing.” Flash cranes his neck away from her as he extends his arm towards her. Artemis doesn’t need to look at his face to know his eyes are closed. “Where’s your Shadow?”

“Gone.” Artemis presses the dressing against his cut and applies pressure. “Cheshire uses poisoned blades. You might burn through it, Mr. Metabolism, but it’s going to take awhile for the wound to close.”

“Cheshire? Was that– uh, you know your glamour charm is off, right?” Flash trails off uncomfortably.

“You can look at me,” Artemis says, checking that the dressing will hold. “It’s fine. I don’t need it anymore.”

He keeps his eyes shut. “The reasons–”

Artemis cuts him off and looks up. “My reasons aren’t reasons anymore.”

Flash opens his eyes, takes a good long look at her, and frowns. “You’re shaking. What happened?”

“Oh,” Artemis says, looking at her hands, “I am. Yeah, that’s– uh, that’s probably the shock.”

“What happened? What do you need?”

Tigress, Flash. We have the doctor in the Bioship. Heading to the pick up location. Confirm your status, Aqualad’s voice buzzes in their comm lines.

“Zatanna,” Artemis whispers, crossing her arms as she tries to quell the shaking. She shuts her eyes tightly and tells herself to get it together, but she can’t. “No one else. I need Zatanna.”

Flash responds to Aqualad. “Not ready for pick up. Had a run in with Cheshire near the south entrance, but she got away. Heading back to the shack to collect our gear.”

Cheshire? Are you two okay?

“Yeah, we’re fine. Just a little cut up, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. You guys should get the doctor out of here in case she called for backup.”

Cut up? Cheshire uses blades laced with jellyfish poison. Did either of you get hit?

“Maybe once, maybe three times,” Flash says, drawing out his answer. “I’m starting to feel it. I would be grateful if Zatanna could pop in at the shack with one of her antidotes.”

Sure thing, Zatanna chimes in. I’ll wait for you there.

“Great, thanks,” Flash says. “The rest of you can get out of dodge. We’ll use the nearest Zeta-Beam to meet you at the Watchtower.”

Alright, Aqualad relents. Be careful. Kobra’s men are fanning out into the forest to secure their perimeter.

“Got it. Flash out.”

“Thanks,” Artemis says, opening her eyes. “Did you really just call off our ride?”

“You didn’t want the whole team around right now,” he explains, before he nods in the direction of the shack. “We should start walking.”

“Right,” Artemis says, nodding. After a second, she adds, “Are you okay? I only saw one cut.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It was just the one. Had to play it up for the boss.”

Artemis snorts lowly. “He doesn’t like it when we call him boss.”

“Then it’s a good thing he can’t hear us,” Flash says, tapping on his comm.

The forest is rocky, but not enough to slow them down. They follow a trail up the mountain, and though Flash tries to play off every little slip or sway, Artemis makes sure to stay within arms length of him, in case that poison is affecting him more than he cares to admit. Her slight worry subsides the minute he starts talking again.

“So,” Flash starts slowly, “now that I can see the blonde, I have to admit it. It works for you.”

“Thanks,” Artemis says shortly, walking past him to lead the way.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.

“Nope,” she answers quickly, but the word leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

“O-kay,” Flash says, not pushing it further.

They walk in silence for awhile longer, giving Artemis ample time to regret her decision. Jade said she’d take care of their father and something tells her Jade’s definition of taking care of things hasn’t gotten any more tame with age. If anything, she wouldn’t be surprised if she found out tomorrow that Sportsmaster had been broken out of Iron Heights only to have his ass kicked right outside the prison gates. She’s not sure Jade’s reached the point of patricide, but what does she know, right?

When the shack comes into view, Artemis abruptly stops walking and turns around. Flash nearly walks straight into her, but stops about an inch away before he takes a step back. Artemis knows that the second she sees Zatanna, she will break down, so this has to happen now.

“Actually, yes, I want to talk about it.” Artemis says, exhaling loudly. “I need to– I should practice saying this.”

“Okay then, think of me as your practice dummy,” Flash says, jerking his thumb at the lightning bolt on his chest.

There’s a joke there, an easy one, but Artemis lets it go unsaid and gets straight to the point.

“Right, well,” Artemis stumbles over her words before she shrugs her shoulders back and says, “first off, my name is Artemis.”

Flash extends his hand towards her for a handshake and says, “Nice to meet you. I’m Wally.”

“Wally.” Artemis pauses. “Really?”

“Hey.”

“Okay, okay... uh, next thing. When I was seventeen, I– uh, faked my own death,” Artemis says, speeding up towards the end.

Flash stops shaking her hand as his grip tightens.

“You what?” he asks, eyes wide.

Artemis pulls her hand away as she hurriedly shrugs and explains, “Well, it was either that or kill someone.”

“What?” Flash repeats, waving his hands at her.

“This is why I need practice,” Artemis says, wincing as she throws her hands in the air. “Forget it. Let me start from the beginning. My name is Artemis. My dad is a bad guy. Literally. He’s Sportsmaster. My mom is an ex-con. She was Huntress. I had a sister. I have a sister. That’s Cheshire.”

“Okay,” Flash says, holding a hand to his head as he paces back and forth. “Okay, okay, okay.”

“Stop that.” Artemis swats at him. “It’s really complicated, okay?”

“Okay!” Flash yelps, unintentionally throwing water on the grease fire that is this conversation.

“Stop saying okay!”

“I don’t know what else to say!”

“Stop yelling!”

“You stop yelling!”

“Both of you: piz ti!” Zatanna whisper-shouts at them from the door of the shack. “You’re going to get us caught. Now get in here.”

Zatanna waits to unzip their lips until she’s done applying antidote to Flash’s wound and Artemis is finished packing her gear, much to their silent and much-mimed protest. After Artemis’s first three weak words (Cheshire is Jade), Zatanna looks at them both and promptly throws their plan into the wind. Instead of taking them to the nearest Zeta Point, she opens a portal, pushes them through, and they end up sitting in a line on the couch in the living room of Artemis’s apartment.

Artemis places her pack on the coffee table before she stands up and turns to face her supposed best friend.

“What the hell, Zee?” Artemis says, waving at her sparsely furnished living room. “Why’d you bring us here?”

Flash’s “Is this your place?” goes largely ignored as Zatanna stands up and grabs Artemis by the shoulders.

“Jade is Cheshire?” Zatanna asks, her bright eyes boring into Artemis’s.

“Yeah,” Artemis exhales.

The jitters she’d been feeling since seeing Jade fade, giving way to an aching emptiness in the pit of her heart.

“Cheshire is Jade,” Artemis repeats, her voice wobbling.

Zatanna’s eyes steel as Artemis’s eyes fill with tears. As she engulfs Artemis in a hug, Zatanna slowly leads them toward her bedroom door.

“Stay here,” Zatanna says, as Artemis buries her face in Zatanna’s shoulder. Zatanna is the only reason she’s still upright.

Artemis kicks the bedroom door shut behind, hoping it will muffle the pained sob that claws its way past her lips. That one and the next one and the next one.

-o-

Artemis’s swollen eyes open painfully slow, giving her time to use her other senses to gather her surroundings. The faint smell of coffee in the air coaxes her into full consciousness, partly because she craves it and partly because Zatanna is still snoring next to her and she doesn’t remember setting the timer on the coffeemaker before falling asleep. She slips out of bed, careful to not wake Zatanna, who’d so gracefully taken on the role of human tissue dispenser for the night.

Artemis tiptoes her way to the door, opens and closes it without so much as a click, and heads towards the light emanating from the kitchen. She stands in the doorway for a moment, taking in the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the sight of Wally pouring himself a cup.

“You’re still here?” Artemis asks, stepping into the kitchen.

“Oh, yeah,” Wally says, twisting around to face her. “No one told me to leave and I fell asleep. That is a really comfortable couch. You want a cup?”

“Yeah, thanks. I didn’t think we’d be so long. Oh shit,” Artemis groans, rubbing her palm against her temple. “Aqualad–”

“Taken care of,” Wally interjects as he pulls another mug from her cabinet. “I told him we’d debrief later. Took a little creative license with the reason why.”

Artemis takes a seat on the barstool by the kitchen counter. “What’d you tell him?”

Wally laughs to himself as he fills her mug and holds it out to her. “You had bad clams for lunch.”

“Thanks,” Artemis says, rolling her eyes and taking the mug in her hands, “if only. Is it weird I wish that were the reason?”

“Nah,” Wally says, shrugging as he leans against the countertop across from Artemis.

“What a night,” she mutters into her mug before taking a sip.

“It wasn’t all bad.”

Artemis snorts. “Easy for you to say.”

Wally places his mug on the countertop and “Look at it this way: we rescued the doctor. No major injuries. Mission accomplished.”

Artemis leans forward, rests her head on her hand, and flatly asks, “What else you got, Mr. Brightside?”

“You have a sister again, and well, I don’t know about you, but I made a new friend,” Wally says, smiling as he takes a sip of coffee.

Can’t argue with that, Artemis thinks, pursing her lips as she watches him. He’s made himself comfortable here, rifling through her cabinets with his cowl down and taking a nap on her truly exquisite couch. She likes that he likes the couch, for some reason. The thought makes her sit up straight and take a long swig of her coffee. The coffee is watery, not at all as strong as she’d like it, but it’s still nice. She cradles the mug in between her hands as she speaks again.

“So, Zatanna shut us up before I could finish practicing,” she starts, looking up from her mug resolutely. “Do you think we could try again?”

Wally nods and puts down his mug. “I’m all ears.”

Artemis exhales softly before she starts over. “The abridged version is that my mom, Huntress, got sent to Lockhaven and my sister, Jade, started to tag along with my dad on his jobs. Jade was a natural at it. That kind of life suited her, obviously.”

“One night, my dad came home without her. He said Jade had made a mistake and gotten herself killed for it.” Artemis snorts, restlessly tapping her fingers against her mug. “I should’ve known that was a lie. Jade never made mistakes. I should’ve known.”

“Dad started training me after that. I had to be better than Jade, but I couldn’t– that wasn’t me,” Artemis says, her mind flipping through the harsh memories of early training days and late night crime sprees.

“I ran into Zatanna during a stakeout, and when she asked me what I was doing on top of the museum, I literally couldn’t stop myself from telling her the truth. She cast a spell on me,” Artemis says quickly before she stops tapping her fingers, looks to the bedroom door, and softens her expression. “We’ve been friends ever since.”

“Uh-huh,” Wally says, entirely for Artemis’s benefit, as his level of actual understanding could be qualified as so-so, tops.

“When I was seventeen, my dad started to suspect I was throwing fights and trying to get him caught. And, well, I was, but I didn’t want him to know that. It wasn’t pretty when he confronted me about it. After that, he said I had to get my act together or I’d end up just like Jade.”

Artemis watches Wally’s eyebrows pinch, a subtle movement made plain by the pure amount of effort he’s putting into keeping a straight face.

“When I told Zatanna about what he’d said, we came up with a plan, she made me the glamour charm, and everything kind of spiraled out of control from there. I set up a fake job to ruin. With a little acting and a lot of magic, we convinced him I was dead and that was the end of it. If Artemis was dead, he wouldn’t come after me. I wouldn’t have to claim him. I wouldn’t have to worry about people doubting me as a hero.”

“When I look back at it, I see there were several, less-severe solutions to my problem, but Zee and I were scared and under no adult supervision so we went straight for the nuclear option,” Artemis laughs humorlessly. “After we did it, I visited my mom and told her the truth. She still had a year left in Lockhaven, but she– she supported my decision. I think she only did it because Jade was dead. I lived with Zatanna until she joined the League, and then I got my own offer. Dream come true, really. I had to tell Batman the truth, and Black Canary knows, and Green Arrow knows, but besides them and my mom, no one else knew before today.”

Artemis crosses her arms and nods, mostly to herself, as she says, “That’s it.”

“Of all the reasons you’d have a glamour charm, I never would have guessed it being what you just said,” Wally says, exhaling softly. “I really thought you were just Nightwinging to the extreme.”

Artemis can’t help but snort. “Does Nightwing know you’ve adjectivized his name?”

Wally smiles. “Not yet. Should I tell him soon?”

“I don’t know. He might think you’re treading into his territory,” Artemis warns, unfolding her arms to grab her mug once more.

Wally rolls his eyes. “Pfft, he doesn’t have a monopoly on wordsmithing.”

They share a light look as they take sips from their mugs and ease back into the heavier half of the conversation before them.

“Hey, uh, Artemis?” Wally asks, placing his coffee mug down on the countertop.

Artemis looks up from her mug. “Yeah?”

Wally leans against the countertop and looks her in the eyes. Even in the low lighting, she can make out the faint freckles spanning the edges of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

“You don’t have to worry about people doubting you. You’re, uh, one of us. Have been for awhile. You’re– I mean, the numbers don’t lie. You’re a great hero and–” Wally takes a breath. “Look, what I’m trying to say is this: if you decide to tell the League, the only thing that’ll change for us is your name, and your face, and your hair. But who you are will be the same. That’s all that matters.”

“Thanks,” slips out before Artemis can put more words together to express how much she really means it.

Wally smiles. “And, if your dad does find out, he’s going to have to fight a whole lot of people before he gets to you.”

Artemis smiles as she leans in to take another sip of her coffee. “Well, what do you know? Flash and substance.”

Wally laughs into his mug.

Artemis’s nose wrinkles as she nears the end of her drink. “And sub-par coffee making skills. I’ll make the next pot so you can see what real coffee tastes like.”

“Everything’s a competition with you, isn’t it?”

-o-

No one asks any questions when Flash and Zatanna return to the Watchtower that morning with a blonder, darker Tigress. They don’t have time to ask, really, because Tigress takes off her mask and explains it all the same way she did to Flash (albeit a bit more coherently). When Nightwing tries to break the tension by asking who won the point for the mission, Flash makes a show of lamenting the result and calling it a tie.

-o-

TBC...

#young justice #artemis crock #wally west #spitfire #my writing

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rainsonata · 6 years

Text

When He Smiles

Fandom/Pairing: Elsword; none Rating: K+ Word Count: 2,575

Summary: Being Grace Grenore’s son means seeing a part of her every time Mad Paradox looks at himself in the mirror. The resemblance becomes more apparent when he sees Dominator smiling.

*Note: A friend requested MP thinking Dom was mom, loosely based on this fanart by @MOSOSO_.

A deafening silence welcomes him in its arms with only the sound of his breathes rising in time to the clock in the room. His body ached when he stretched his legs to discover they couldn’t reach the end of the mattress. With his head resting in a bundle of pillows, it took Paradox a moment to realize his body was small again when his tiny hands curled into tiny fists.

His hands were cold and sweaty when he grabbed the blankets from underneath, turning sideways to stretch his back and neck with a crack. Paradox opened his eyes when someone pressed their palm against his temples. The contact was brief, but it was enough for him to feel his forehead burning in contrast to their icy touch.

His heart froze when he heard a soft voice utter, “He’s still running a fever.”

There was delicacy in their words, chosen with care as if afraid to speak. At last, he found an ounce of bravery and peeked from under the layer of blankets to see a tall figure clad in white, sitting at the edge of his bed. Silver hair fell over their pale face, soft features laced with a familiar tranquility.

Opened shutters blinded his eyes when he looked up, forcing them shut as he pulled the covers over his face to shield himself from the strong rays. It was hard to see the figure’s face with the light hindering his vision, but there was a frown tugging down their lips. Their face caught Paradox off guard because he recognized their distraught.

“You should be asleep.” They blinked long eyelashes, like white feathers at the end of the pens Asker never let him touch. “Did I wake you up?”

Paradox shook his head.

Their lips moved, but he didn’t hear them. They were still when Paradox sat up and crawled over to their lap to scrutinize them. Their eyes widened for a brief moment, only to shrink back to gaze at the time traveler with a trace of sadness. It was an expression he recognized, one they worked to hide, but there was always a hint of it when he was with them.

“Mother,” he sobbed.

The years he spent away from her, scrambling to uncover every book and document he could get his hands on before Dynamo lost power and forced him to leave the Nasod library. After everything she had done for him, the least he could do was spare her from her terrible fate. When that wasn’t enough, he worked with low lives like Wally to unlock the codes he thought would help him go back.

Had his efforts at last borne fruit? Or did the Goddess exist as that stupid priest claimed and gave him mercy? Dignity be damned, perhaps he would succumb to his wishes and accept that sort of pity. Could it really be her?

Something caught up in his throat, forcing it down in a hard swallow that didn’t make it any easier with his body running hot. He was running a high temperature. There was confusion overwhelming the time traveler when his mind was clouded by a million thoughts and emotions.

Paradox looked up in shock when they wiped his cheeks with a lavender colored handkerchief, pulling it away to give him a soft smile. When did he start crying? His mind grew numb as more tears fell, unable to stop.

Covering his face, he burst into tears, gripping their white jacket. They smelled like fresh ironed clothes and detergent, a distinctive scent of pine leaves and coffee on their clothes when Paradox buried his face into their neck. There was an awkward pat on his back with an augmented pause before they decided to pull him into a hug.

Their familiar warmth welcomed him home, but there was something off putting about it he couldn’t place his finger on. No matter how he tried to reassure himself it was her, there was self doubt when Paradox clung to them, afraid they would slip away like the mist in his mind that clouded his judgement. He was awake, but drowsiness lingered. Paradox tried wiping his tears away, ignoring how red his face was going to be.

There was a rough, bumpy texture when he pressed his lips on their neck, a leathery complexion that made Paradox stop breathing. The scar on their neck peeked underneath the turtleneck their wore to hide it. When he placed his hands on their chest, he was greeted with a flat surface, shoulders too broad to belong to Mother even if he was smaller. He pulled his head away to see eyes mirroring his, pupils too bright to be organic, but made of artificial lens and wires.

“You’re not her,” Paradox breathed.

In what should have been rage and feelings of betrayal, there was a gap in his chest when Paradox came to the realization. His body shook, shame replaced the shock when he identified the figure to be Dominator. What he had was a mirror of himself, what could have been him, in another timeline perhaps. There was a bitter aftertaste in thinking of his counterpart as another. There was no turning back with what he had done to his own body, or what was left of it anyway.

“Did you enjoy the show?” Paradox coughed, “Did I entertain you long enough?”

Was the universe that cruel to toy with his emotions, or was he so demented that he couldn’t tell the difference between Mother and his counterpart? A cruel laugh escaped from his lips as his body shuttered, Dominator’s eyes growing big when his body distorted and rearranged themselves into his true form. Sharp nails dug into Dominator’s skin with Paradox clinging onto him.

“If you mean crying for her in your sleep, no.” Dominator said with a tight smile, “I can hear your wails from my lab.”

Dominator was careful not to touch the time traveler and worked to gently pull him off, but with little success. If Paradox was angry at him, which was reasonable for him, was he hoping to get some blood out of Dominator? There was a surprising lack of tearing so far.

Paradox ignored the obvious opening to lash back at Dominator, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of admitting his own shortcomings. So what if he cried in his sleep and bothered the scientist? Good! That’s what the asshole got for pretending to be Mother! Paradox fumed when Dominator looked down at him and had that look on his face, the one reserved for pity. He didn’t need pity from himself!

“If you have enough energy to be mad at me, then you don’t need me, right?” Dominator pretended like having extra weight on him wasn’t an inconvenience and checked Dynamo for the time. “I told Lusa you didn’t need that much medicine…”

That explained the drowsiness. It was like his limbs were made out of iron when he tried lifting them to pull himself apart from his counterpart. His long hair fanned down his back and whipped Dominator in the face when he turned his head around. They were in his room across from Bringer’s room.

Paradox asked, “How long was I out?”

“A couple of days,” Dominator replied with a click of the tongue, an expression of distaste. “I see you overworked yourself again. You’re worse than I am.”

The time traveler chuckled, “Funny you say that, considering you need people reminding you to eat or sleep.”

Paradox studied Dominator’s face with scrutiny when he identified the bags under the other’s eyes. His sleeping habits were as bad as they were when he was Mastermind, where falling asleep at his desk was the norm. Doom Bringer was the only one among the three of them to have a regular sleep schedule.

Dominator’s face turned red, coughing to cover up his embarrassment, but who was he fooling? It was cute how easy it was to make the other fluster like a teenager.

“Why did you call me Mother?”

Of course the nerd couldn’t ignore the impulse to ask. Always full of questions, never learning when to keep them to himself. When he looked at Dominator, there were no hints of pity or mockery, but rather, there was curiosity. Paradox wasn’t as quick to give the scientist an immediate answer.

“You have her smile.” Paradox’s voice drifted away with his initial rage, fading away as quick as it came.

Dominator blinked in surprise by his answer, but there was understanding when he nodded. He touched his face at the sudden self consciousness of his facial features, touching his lips with delicacy. It had difficult to real his emotions when he traced his hand down his face before looking at Paradox again.

“I should leave,” Dominator said with hard pressed lips. “You should get rest before the medicine wears off.”

“Stay with me,” Paradox shook his head.

There was a misunderstanding. He wasn’t mad at Dominator any more. Being angry was tiring and a waste of energy, something he had discovered too late. The lines forming his body glowed white, his vision gone hazy as he turned back to his child form. He was still on Dominator’s lap, but he didn’t move, scared of himself when he at last found his voice.

“Let me sleep off the medicine first before you give it to me again,” he said.

How often did Dominator come by to administer his medicine if he knew when it would wear off? The ruffles in Dominator’s clothes and the cowlick sticking out of his roots weren’t from falling asleep at his desk, but from staying close to check on him. Mother wasn’t here, but he had someone watching over him.

Even if it was momentary, he caught a glimpse of how peaceful Dominator looked when he closed his eyes with a gentle expression that was not unlike her’s. The time traveler nestled his head into Dominator’s shoulder and closed his eyes with a smile. Even if Dominator wasn’t her… he could live with his counterpart’s equally radiant smile.

“Is it working?” Bringer smirked when he was glared at by the scientist, “Am I not allowed to ask how you two are doing?”

“You gave him too much medicine,” Dominator said.

What did the damn brute want? Dominator glared at Bringer, whose lips were curled up at the scene of what looked like a child curled up with their parent. It wasn’t that he hated the brawler, or else he never would have agreed to live with him, but there was something irritating about Bringer catching him at a vulnerable moment. It made him feel self conscious, embarrassed to admit he wasn’t the most emotionally opened person even when it was with people he trusted. He could already imagine Bringer being smug about him giving in to his emotions for acting motherly, or whatever parental term his counterparts insisted he was.

There were no objections from when Dominator accused him, but blood rushed to his face and tinted his cheeks pink. Abashed, his eyes averted to Paradox, who only stirred to turn his face into the pillows at the sound of their voices. He had one hand on the bed to support his weight when he leaned over to see Paradox’s head poking out of the covers.

“It hit him that hard?” Bringer with a hand at the back of his neck, “Didn’t mean to do that.”

Dominator shook his head, “He just needs to sleep it off.”

Was his face feminine enough to be seen as Mother or was it the medicine hindering Paradox’s perception on things? A deep frown formed on Dominator’s features at the idea of being mistaken as a woman. He felt his face, unsure on how to feel about being told that he looked like her. At least he didn’t look like Asker, he scowled at the memory of the man who called himself Father.

“You’ve been glaring at the wall like it stole your coffee,” Bringer cocked his head to the side. “What’s on your mind?”

His comment made Dominator look up in alarm, not too different from a phoru in the face of a Panzer Buster. While he had impulsive tendencies and came off as aloof or standoffish, it was moments like this that caught Dominator off guard and reminded the scientist that Bringer was no fool. Bringer’s lips were pressed into a hard line; there was weight in his words. His eyes glowed when he gazed at Dominator. There was no pressure for an immediate answer, but there was a sense of urgency and concern when Bringer placed his hand on Dominator’s shoulder.

“You’ve done more than enough,” Bringer’s voice was gentle. “I can take over from here. I promise I’ll give him less next time.”

“He thought I was Mother,” Dominator blurted.

“You do have nice eyelashes,” he teased.

“Shut up,” Dominator snapped, but grinned. “And you have my eyes.”

“Narcissist,” he laughed. “Does it bother you?”

Dominator thought he could put his past behind him at last after figuring out what he wanted. It was natural to miss someone who loved them in the past, but there was no point in staying locked in a past that wouldn’t come back. With Paradox living among them, it became clear that the time traveler wasn’t one to forget or let go of things he cared about, Mother included. Like it or not, finding Mother was something Paradox wanted and that wasn’t about to change no matter how hard Dominator wanted him to.

“I think it means I need to stop babying him,” Dominator sighed. The number of times Paradox snuck into his room to sleep in his bed was enough to have the scientist no longer question the sound of a portal opening to his room at night.

Bringer pushed Paradox’s bangs to the side to see his sleeping face. “You guys look comfortable.”

There was an awkward silence before Dominator said with reluctance, “He’s making it hard to move…”

For someone his size, Paradox was heavier than he looked. It was impossible push the time traveler away without disturbing him. He mumbled their names in the same breath, a tiny figure in a sea of whites and violets from the blankets tucked under the mattress to keep him warm.

“Of course,” Bringer chuckled when he stood up to leave. “I’ll be in the training room if you need me.”

Paradox rested his head on the pillows propped against the bed frame with Dominator lying down beside him, the time traveler huddled beneath the blankets that rose with each rising breath. It was almost alarming how still he was when asleep. He hugged Dominator’s arm with the prominent frown from the time he was awake was replaced by a sleepy smile. After all that fight he put up, seeing the time traveler relaxed was a relief when Dominator placed his hand on Paradox’s temple to see that it was still warm.

“You’re a real pain,” Dominator sighed at Paradox’s sleeping form. “Hurry up and get better so I can get back to work.”

The time traveler didn’t reply, not that he was expecting one. If Paradox wasn’t sick, he was sure the literal man child would have cackled at his statement and agree with him. Troublesome as he may be, he and Bringer may be the closest thing he had to family.

Author Notes: Hi, it’s official that I can’t write MP without making him cry in some shape or form. Although the fanart has Dominator with long hair, I decided to keep his hair short because his hair was already like that in another fic and I wanted to keep that continuity.

#elsword #eltag #add (elsword)#mywriting #elsword fanfiction #i had the biggest feeling of deja vu writing this #not a bad thing since i realized how far my writing has come #new SOT looks great you guys #loljk but seriously MP needs a hug or two #or maybe a few dozens

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queenofcats17 · 6 years

Note

Muhahah! Incoming prompts!! -Monster sammy and the projectionist play tag! -"what the hell is a cosplay"? - susie and Sammy fluff (sammy gets lonely and plays some banjo/ukele, susie hears and decides to join him)

“GET BACK HERE! I WANT MY MASK BACK!” Sammy howled as he chased after the monster that had previously been known as Norman. Norman made some static noises that sounded like laughter as he streaked through the labyrinth on level 14. Sammy had been preaching and Norman had gotten bored of it, so he’d stolen Sammy’s mask and started running. It took Sammy a moment to register that his mask was gone, but once he did, he was righteously pissed. It was hard to run when you didn’t have feet, but Sammy was managing to do so fairly well. He was actually keeping up with Norman.

“NORMAN!” Sammy shrieked. “I WANT MY MASK!” Norman laughed again and ran faster. The Butcher Gang watched the two monsters run in and out of the labyrinth.

“What are they doing?” Alice asked, walking up behind the three of them.

“Norman stole Sammy’s mask,” Edgar said, kicking his feet back and forth. “We’re betting on how long it takes for the two of them to fall down and start wrestling each other.”

“You actually think that’ll happen?” Alice raised an eyebrow.

“Sammy is very possessive of his mask,” Charley said. “You know how he gets.” Alice shrugged and sat down to watch as well.

“I say the next time they get into the open, Sammy trips Norman.” She said. Sure enough, the next time the two men got into the open, Sammy tripped the projectionist, tackling him to the ground and beginning to wrestle him for the mask. The music director came out on top, holding the mask high in triumph. Norman just sighed. It had been fun while it lasted.

“What the Hell is a cosplay?”

Wally and Norman looked up from working on their comicon costumes. Sammy stood in the doorway, a mug of coffee in one hand, the other on the door. When Sammy had asked what they were doing, they’d replied with ‘cosplay’. Sammy obviously thought there was more explanation that was needed.

“It’s when you dress up as your favourite character and pretend to be them!” Wally said with a big smile. “Norman’s gonna be Doctor Strange and I’m gonna be Spiderman!”

“You’re trying to talk to me, I know you are,” Sammy said. Wally frowned slightly, tilting his head to the side.

“He’s just messing with us,” Norman assured him. “He knows perfectly well who the characters are.”

“I know they’re characters from your weird comics, but I don’t know who they are.” Sammy took a sip of his coffee.

“Hey, how good are you at sewing?” Wally asked. “‘Cause I’m having some trouble with the finer details of this.” Sammy set his mug down, looking over Wally’s costume. He crinkled his nose.

“Where did you learn to embroider?” He asked.

“My mom.”

“Move over. I’ll take care of this.” Sammy said, tearing out most of the embroidering details before starting over. Wally watched on in awe as Sammy began to sew in the details.

“I didn’t know you could embroider,” Wally said.

“I’m a man of many talents,” Sammy said with a small smile.

“You want to come with us to the convention?” Norman asked. “You might not know all the characters, but I’m sure you’d be able to find something you like there.”

“We wanna share this with you!” Wally said. Sammy considered this for a moment, pausing in his embroidery as he screwed his face up in thought.

“Yeah, alright.” He said after a moment. “But you can’t make this weird, Wally.”

“What? Me? Make things weird? Psh! I’d never!”

It was late on a Friday, and Sammy was alone. Susie was busy at some voice actor’s conference an hour or so away, and he hadn’t seen her in nearly a week. The week had been very quiet in the studio, which honestly worried Wally a little, even if he would never admit it.

“You okay?” Wally asked, poking his head into Sammy’s office. “You’ve been pretty quiet this week.”

“I’m fine,” Sammy said. “Don’t worry about it.” He didn’t even snap at him the way he usually did. He just tapped at his desk languidly with his pen, one hand supporting his head.

“Okay…Just, uh…You can talk to us if you want to.” Wally closed the door and left. Maybe he’d talk to Joey about this. Joey might be able to help. Sammy sighed, glancing down at his banjo. Maybe he could play a little song to make himself feel better. Music never failed the cheer him up. He picked it up and tuned it absentmindedly. Once he was sure it was in tune, he began to play.

“Starry, starry night. Paint your palette blue and grey.” He hummed, strumming at the banjo strings. “Look out on a summer’s day, with eyes that know the darkness in my soul. Shadows on the hills, sketch the trees and the daffodils. Catch the breeze and the winter chills. In colours on the snowy linen land.” He smiled to himself, singing louder. “Now I understand, what you tried to say to me. And how you suffered for your sanity. And how you tried to set them free. They would not listen, they did not know how. Perhaps they’ll listen now.”

His voice drifted out of the office and into the hallways, making everyone stop what they were doing to listen. Sammy hadn’t sung for anyone for a week now. This was a good sign. The singing even reached Susie Campbell, who had just gotten back from the convention. Joey had called her to tell her Sammy was acting weird. She’d been on her way back anyway, and so decided to stop by the studio. She made her way downstairs and paused outside his office.

“Starry, starry night, flaming flowers that brightly blaze. Swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue. Colors changing hue. Morning fields of amber grain. Weathered faces lined in pain. Are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand” Sammy sang.

“Now I understand, what you tried to say to me. And how you suffered for your sanity. And how you tried to set them free. They would not listen, they did not know how. Perhaps they’ll listen now.” Susie answered, opening the door. Sammy paused in his song, looking up at her.

“For they could not love you. But still, your love was true. And when no hope was left in sight on that starry, starry night. You took your life, as lovers often do. But I could’ve told you, Vincent. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.” Susie continued, walking in to sit beside Sammy. Sammy smiled and the two of them started to sing together. Susie laid her head on Sammy’s shoulder.

“Starry, starry night. Portraits hung in empty halls. Frame-less heads on nameless walls. With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget. Like the strangers that you’ve met. The ragged men in ragged clothes. The silver thorn of bloody rose. Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow. Now I think I know, what you tried to say to me. And how you suffered for your sanity. And how you tried to set them free. They would not listen, they’re not listening still. Perhaps they never will.”

#bendy and the ink machine #sammy lawrence #susie campbell #norman polk #wally franks #alice angel #the butcher gang #fanfiction

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 years

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BOING BOING GIFT GUIDE 2017

Here's this year's complete Boing Boing Gift Guide: dozens of great ideas for stocking stuffers, brain-hammers, mind-expanders, terrible toys, badass books and more. Where available, we use Amazon Affiliate links to help keep the world's greatest neurozine online.

Gadgets + Gear

Books + Music

Home + Kitchen

Toys + Games

Naughty + Nice

Gadgets

CORY

Edu-Toys Night 'n Day Mechanical GlobeElenco's Night 'n Day Mechanical Globe uses a system of translucent, exposed gears to rotate an internally illuminated globe that displays the seasonally adjusted, real-time night/day terminator as it spins.[Read More]

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XENI

iPhone 8 PlusNow on its eighth numbered generation, the iPhone remains my entire creative studio and almost everything I need to do my work: it replaces my fancy camera, my audio gear and everything else I had to lug around. This thing really is everything. I go big on screen size and storage capacity, with that in mind: the Plus, and 128 GB.

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Audio Technica AT-LP60Forget those vinyl-destroying, vintage-inspired all-in-one units. They're all crap. The Audio Technica AT-LP60 is a fantastic beginner (or revivalist) turntable for the price. Its built-in pre-amp means all you need to do is plug it any powered speakers with an audio input.You won't find a better turntable than this for under $100 unless you hit the second-hand market.

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Flitt Flying Pocket Selfie Camera Drone ($100)I honestly didn't expect that this tiny fold-up drone would perform as well as it does. It does a great job of hovering in place, and is easy to control with a smart phone. It's the first drone I can fly without crashing it into a wall or getting it stuck in a tree.

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ROB

Kano Computer KitBuild your own computer and learn to code art, music, apps, games and more with the Kano Computer Kit, an introduction to the bare metal you just won't get with crap-laden commercial machines. Hundreds of schools use them, and Includes everything you need, including the Pi that acts as its brain, case, speaker, wireless keyboard, RAM, and cables. And unlike most edumuacational computer gear, it looks absolutely cool as heck.

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JASON

An airbag for your motorcyclistDo you love your motorcyclist? This simple, tether activated airbag inflates less than .10 of a second after a rider becomes separated from their bike. Helping to secure the neck, and protect the torso and internal organs, the Helite Turtle, is a top choice for next-generation motorcycle safety.

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Kindle E-reader loaded with free classicsFor $50, the entry-level Kindle E-reader is priced right, and comes in black or white! This model has a 6” display and the battery lasts for ages between charges. (If you want to get fancy, go for the Kindle Paperwhite with a built-in reading light so you don't bug bedmates.) Load it with free classic books from Project Gutenbergbefore gifting!

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MARK

Igloohome Deadbolt2 ($238)The Igloohome Deadbolt2 has a programmable keypad instead of a keyhole. It took me about 20 minutes to install on my door. You can send your friends or other people single-use PINs. The smartphone app can also be set so the door unlocks when you touch the keypad - no PIN needed.

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Mixcder Wireless & Wired Over Ear Headphones ($80)I bought these relatively inexpensive headphones for my daughter, who wanted wireless headphones for when she paints and sculpts. These are comfortable, have good sound quality, and pair easily with an iPhone.

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PacSafe Transit Travel Hoodie ($130)The thing I like about this pocket-covered hoodie is that the interior pockets have little line drawings indicating what you should put in them - pen, eyeglasses, tablet computer, phone, passport, earbuds, wallet, etc. I like having a garment that tells me what to do, it keeps life simple while traveling.

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Elf ear earbudsOnce hard to find, these low-end but unique earbuds are now at Amazon. For elves who can't quit their record collection even for a moment, they're still, sadly, only available in lily white. But cheap, at just $13.

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ROB

Raspberry Pi 3 Model BThe best $35 you can spend on a wee yet straightforward and accessible barebones computer, Raspberry's Pi is now in its third generation and lives atop a vast and growing ecosystem of accessories, cases and general craziness to have fun with. The latest flagchip model has a 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core CPU with twice the Pi 2's performance, integrated WiFi and Bluetooth, and backward compatibility with earlier models.

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XENI

Black & Decker CHV1410L 16-volt Lithium Cordless Dust Buster Hand VacStill the best selling hand vac for keeping your office, home, workshop or hackerspace tidy. CHV1410L has strong suction, and a bagless dirt bowl that's easy to see and empty. Holds a charge for up to 18 months when it's off the charger. High efficiency Lithium ion chargers protect it by automatically shutting off when the battery is charged, so you can store it on the charger.

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ArduboyBeautiful 1-bit graphics in your wallet! Arduboy is an open-source platform to create and share games and the hardware is made to the dimensions of a business card. Best of all, this tiny toy is only $50. Want more? The PocketChip, at $70, plays Pico-8 games with a dazzling 16 colors; the dev community is more mature and there are countless games already.

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Second-gen Apple iPad Pro 12.9-inchWith the lastest 12.9" model I've changed my mind about Apple's biggest iPad. Its unmatched pencil latency and powerful processor leave Microsoft (and even Wacom) trailing, while markedly improved third-party applications make Photoshop less critical, at least for me. Finally.

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Books and Media

MARK

The EC Artists Library Slipcase (Vol 3 $54)This high quality box set of four hardbound books has 904 pages of the very best comics of the 1950s. Volume one of this series is out of print and sells for over $250. Volume three is just $54. With art by greats like Wally Wood, Joe Orlando, John Severin, and George Evans, this set is a must-have for comic book aficionados.

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CORY

Canadaland Guide to Canada (Published in America), by Jesse Brown and friendsBrown finds plenty of hilarious awfulness in Canada's past and present, especially in the way that Canadians talk about themselves when they expect Americans might be listening to them. From Justin Trudeau (who talks about refugees abandoned by Trump but takes no action to improve their lot, because he's too busy taking away the citizenship rights of naturalised Canadians with objectionable politics, greenlighting climate-destroying pipelines for the Tar Sands, and making the most of the sweeping surveillance powers he promised he'd abolish after taking office) to Rob Ford to Quebec separatism and the long, deplorable traditions of drunken, racist Canadian leaders who are remembered as wise, even-handed leaders, Brown punctures ever bubble that Canadians have ever blown over the border toward our American cousins.

I laughed aloud at many of these jokes, and they got under my skin, in just the same way that a perfect Samantha Bee rant will. This is a book of weaponised jokes about a country that has spent more than a century burnishing its credentials by blithely asserting its moral and temperamental superiority to its erratic and flamboyant southern neighbour -- and every shot hits its mark. [Read more]

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Briggs Land Volume 1: State of Grace, by Brian WoodStories matter: the recurring narrative of radical Islamic terror in America (a statistical outlier) makes it nearly impossible to avoid equating "terrorist" with "jihadi suicide bomber" -- but the real domestic terror threat is white people, the Dominionists, ethno-nationalists, white separatists, white supremacists and sovereign citizens who target (or infiltrate) cops and blow up buildings. That's what makes Brian Wood's first Briggs Land collection so timely: a gripping story of far-right terror that is empathic but never sympathetic.

Briggs Land builds on the empathic -- but not sympathetic -- portrayals of far-right separatists in Wood's seminal graphic novel DMZ. It's timely: the Trump era has been a moment of uneasy glory for white nationalists and their fellow travelers, who, having long craved the spotlight, aren't entirely sure what to do with it.

Briggs Land is also in development as an AMC TV series, further evidence of its zeitgeisty nature. Being a Brian Wood comic, it's also gripping as hell, a nonstop crime novel that involves rogue FBI agents, ruthless skinheads, closet racists and overt ones, doting parents who also happen to be unspeakable monsters. [Read More]

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CORY

Kindred (Graphic Novel), adapted from the novel by Octavia ButlerKindred is the story of Dana, an African-American writer married to a white man in 1976, who finds herself being violently yanked through time and space to the side of her distant ancestor, Rufus, the son of an enslaver who lives on a plantation in antebellum Delaware. Rufus -- a self-destructive, traumatized and spoiled child -- periodically puts himself in mortal danger, and when he does, Dana is torn from 1976 to save him, and is stranded in the violent, totalitarian south until she experiences mortal terror, whereupon she returns to her present, only moments after she left. Luckily for Dana, mortal terror is a commonplace occurance for black people in Delaware in the 19th century.

Dana's relationship to Rufus, and to Rufus's freeborn, African-American friend Alice -- whom Dana knows to be her ancestress -- is wrenching and claustrophobic, as she is enlisted to help Rufus sexually assault and eventually enslave Alice, revealing the deep violence lurking in Dana's own distant past.

For many years, Dana and her white husband, Kevin, are stranded in history, together and separately, and this affords Butler a chance to add yet more nuance to her tale, weaving in the point of view, privileges and horror of a white ally who, nevertheless, enjoys a measure of safety his black wife cannot claim.

The graphic novel adaptation is extremely faithful to the Butler novel, and does brilliant things with color-palettes, using different tones to demark the present and past, and also the belowstairs and abovestairs places in the lives of the enslaved people. The lines are vigorous and rough, conveying emotion and urgency.[Read More]

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MARK

The Magic Machine: A Handbook of Computer Sorcery ($4)This 1990 BASIC programming book is long out-of-print, but is still valid and a great way to explore fractals and artificial life. I loved this book when it came out and just bought a replacement for my lost copy. Use copies are cheap on Amazon. Get it for a smart kid in your life.

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DAVID

Voyager Golden RecordIn 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and 2, on a grand tour of the solar system and into the mysteries of interstellar space. Attached to each ofthese probes is a beautiful golden phonograph record containing the story of our planet expressed in music, sounds, images, and science. It’s a message for any extraterrestrial intelligence that might encounter it. And now you can experience on Earth as a lavish 3xLP Box Set or 2xCD-Book edition.

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DAVID

The Photographs Of Charles Duvelle - Disques OCORA And Collection PROPHETDecades before the term "world music" became common parlance, Charles Duvelle was traveling the globe recording the sounds and sights of indigenous people around the world. To enable us see the world through Duvelle's eyes, Sublime Frequencies' Hisham Mayet in collaboration with Duvelle released this magnificent tome contains field photographs from 1959-1978, a deep interview, a report he prepared for Unesco in 1978, and two CDs of music that will move you.

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Art Sex Music by Cosey Fanni TuttiThe stunning memoir of musician, artist, and cultural provocateur Cosey Fanni Tutti is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of avant-garde music, performance art, underground culture, radical living, and female empowerment. Best known as co-founder of pioneering industrial groups Coum Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle (famously called “wreckers of civilisation” by a British MP), Cosey has also explored the fringes of sex, music, and creativity as a pornographic model, video artist, electronic composer, and, yes, writer. This is her story so far and it’s a doozy.

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DAVID

Little Book of Wonders: Celebrating the Gifts of the Natural World by Nadia DrakeNational Geographic contributor Nadia Drake’s science writing sings with knowledge, rigor, and her own infectious curiosity. This slim and delightful book is no exception. A lovely miniature wunderkammer of Earth’s magical places, startling phenomena, and amazing wildlife, it pairs beautiful photos with Nadia’s poetic and informative captions that spark the imagination and instill a sense of wonder about our world.

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DAVID

Dalí: The Wines of GalaFirst published in 1978, Salvador Dalí’s The Wines of Gala is a stunning and strange guide that groups wines “according to the sensations they create in our very depths” such as “Wines of Frivolity,” “Wines of the Impossible,” and “Wines of Light.” Featuring more than 140 of Dalí’s surrealist illustrations, this is the most bizarre, sensual, and sensational book about viticulture and libations that you’ll ever experience.

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CORY

THEFT: A History of Music, by James Boyle and Jennifer JenkinsTheft traces millennia of musical history, from Plato's injunction against mixing musical styles to the outrage provoked by the troubadours who appropriated sacred music and turned it into bawdy songs about wanting to have sex with hot teenagers (a trick Ray Charles repeated hundreds of years later!); from the racist outrage over rock and roll's challenge to white supremacy to the fights over sampling and the exploitation of African-American musicians who were ripped off 40 years ago versus the interests of their musical progeny whose sample-based music has been distorted and even outlawed by the same musical corporations that screwed the R&B artists, in the name of defending those artists (!).

Jenkins and Boyle are two of the staunchest defenders of fair use and remixing -- their first comic, Bound by Law, was a kind of Understanding Comics for the legalities of fair use -- and it shows: Theft is as laden with visual, textual and musical references as a Dizzy Gillespie solo, an early Public Enemy wall-of-sound, an illegal Girl Talk mashup.[Read More]

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CORY

The Free, by Lauren McLaughlinIsaac West is a mixed-race kid who never knew his dad; he and his sister have raised their alcoholic, abusive mother as much as she's raised them. But Isaac has a plan: his little sister Janelle is smart, better than he'll ever be, and he's going to get her out of their mutual hellhole and into a private school -- and to make that happen, he's graduated from petty theft into grand theft auto, under the supervision of his high-school auto-shop teacher, a cut-rate Fagin who trains and oversees a gang of junior car thieves.

It's this teacher who insists that Isaac should plead guilty to beating a man comatose in a car-heist that went wrong, though the kid who actually did the beat-down was the teacher's cousin, a hulking giant of a kid who has already got a conviction under his belt and faces being tried as an adult if he goes down.

For Isaac, it's an easy choice: spend 30 days in juvie, complete his rehab program, and in return, he'll get enough to send Janelle off to private school. All he has to do is survive, and he's been doing that all his life.

From here, McLaughlin has all the elements for a tight, claustrophobic novel that veers between the terror and camaraderie of incarceration; the brutally honest drama therapy group that Isaac must attend if he's to be released; the mounting danger to his sister and all of the repressed feelings and guilt that weigh Isaac down.

While there's some revenge and redemption here, mostly what there is is unblinking reality, a willingness to confront the impossible without denying it. The kids in Isaac's world are in trouble, and that trouble isn't going to get better for most of them, and maybe not for Isaac. Some of those kids are pretty terrible, but even at their worst, they're still kids, and still rounded people with their own virtues and stories.

I don't know when I've read a more empathic novel, and it's been a long time since I read one that was more sorrowful and joyful at the same time. [Read More]

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The Complete Elfquest Vol. 4Fresh out in November, this volume contains some of the most exquisite and touching episodes of Wendy and Richard Pini's Elfquest saga, a great alternative to genre fantasy and its grim 'n' gritty modern counterparts. One of America's best indie comics, it's illustrated by Wendy's wonderful artwork – even at its most lighthearted, unanswerable questions of identity, family and freedom lurk between the lines. (Newcomers should not feel they have to start at the beginning, but it sure helps.)

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CORY

The Hardware Hacker: Adventures in Making and Breaking Hardware, by Andrew "bunnie" HuangThe book draws heavily on Huang's own hardware projects, which have included substantial manufacturing in south China, with many hard-won lessons about how things can go wrong and how to make them go right. This is more than a checklist or memoir: it's nothing less than a masterclass in modern manufacturing, and even if you never plan on manufacturing anything, reading these chapters will explain the material world around you like few other texts.

This dovetails neatly into a meditation on the differences between Western and Chinese approaches to "intellectual property" and the way this has informed the manufacturing processes whose outflows are all around us. In these chapters, Huang proves himself to be a thoughtful and incisive critic of law as well as technology, and the thorny questions he raises show up the normal discussion on these subjects up for a shallow scrape over the surface of something deep and difficult.

Huang uses these broad legal and technical passages as a foundation for the second half of the book, which lay out the detective work that Huang did to realize his various hardware challenges, from stick-on soft circuits to an insanely clever device that circumnavigates the law through tight and unsuspected secret creeks that allow him to enter territory that no engineer has ever seen by legal means.

The book concludes with its most speculative and future-looking chapter: a disquisition on the similarities (and differences) between computational bioscience and hardware hacking, based on his work with his "perlfriend" -- his perl-hacking, bioscientist girlfriend -- on hacking genomes. [Read More]

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New York 2140, by Kim Stanley RobinsonIt's 2140 and trillions of dollars' worth of the world's most valuable real estate is now submerged under fifty feet of water, resulting from two great "surges" where runaway polar melting created sudden, punctuated disasters that displaced billions of people, wiped trillions off the world's balance sheets, and turned the great cities of the world into drowned squatter camps.

But it's 2140, and the cities are coming back. The combination of financial speculation, desperate refugees willing to do anything to find shelter, and new technological innovations are spawning "SuperVenice"s where boats replace cars and high-rises connect to each other with fairytale skybridges, and pumped-out subway stations become underwater leisure clubs. No SuperVenice is more super than New York City, where the boats ply midtown Manhattan's skyscrapers and everything from Chelsea down is an intertidal artificial reef where, every now and again, hundreds of squatters die as the buildings topple.

The forces of finance are deeply interested in the intertidal zones. These great cities were once the world's ultimate luxury products and now they're marine salvage, waiting to be dredged up from the tidal basins, dusted off and monetized. Yeah, there's millions of inconvenient poors hanging out in them, but they're a market failure, producing suboptimal rents on some seriously distressed assets that need a little TLC, capital infusion, and ruthless securitization to bring them back.

Robinson is a master of turning stories about zoning disputes and local politics into gripping, un-put-down-able adventure tales (his novel Pacific Edge remains the most uplifting book in my library). New York 2140 is a spectacular exemplar of the tactic: the financial shenanigans form a backdrop for submarine drone-wars, black-ops kidnappings, private security assassinations, non-state actor cyberwar and economic terrorism, buried treasure hunting, and big, muscular technologies from giant dredging barges to aerosolized diamond sprays. [Read More]

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WAKE UP!, by Rick Lieder and Helen FrostLife is a continuing cycle of newness, then growth, and then gone: then birth and growth again. Photographer Rick Lieder started thinking about that theme of new life and new beginnings several years ago, and WAKE UP!, published by Candlewick Press, is the result. Working with his collaborator, poet Helen Frost, our book is about opening eyes—our own, first—and pointing to the world that’s right here, containing us all. Helen and rick are both based in the US Midwest, so we started there, with a world that we didn’t need to travel far to explore, only wake up enough to actually see. [Read More]

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Penguin Galaxy Boxed Set, introduced by Neil GaimanLast October, Penguin released its Galaxy boxed set, a $133 set of six hardcover reprints of some of science fiction's most canonical titles: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin; Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein; 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke; Dune by Frank Herbert; The Once and Future King by TH White; and Neuromancer, by William Gibson.

The series is curated and introduced by Neil Gaiman, whose essay on the charm and value of science fiction appears at the start of each of the handsome volumes. It's a fine essay, placing each book in its historical context, and turning a writerly eye to their construction and techniques, as well as some of the memoir that makes Gaiman essays such fine reads (see, for example, his 2016 essay collection The View From the Cheap Seats).

As nice as that essay is, it's eclipsed by the gorgeous design, courtesy of Spanish designer Alex Trochut, whose impressive CV includes a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package. Trochut does away with fussy book-jackets and prints his titles straight onto the books' boards in stylized, embossed gold leaf type -- with clever type-art for every cover. [Read More]

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Brutal London: Construct Your Own Concrete CapitalBrutal London: Construct Your Own Concrete Capital tells the stories of nine of London's greatest brutalist structures (with an intro by Norman Foster!), including the Barbican Estate, Robin Hood Gardens, Balfron Tower and the National Theatre -- and includes pull-out papercraft models of these buildings for you to assemble and display. [Read More]

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SHADE THE CHANGING GIRL v.1: Earth Girl Made Easy, by Cecil CastellucciLoma Shade, as her own unique character, was a way of being steeped in the world of Shade the Changing Man, while being its own thing. Some people say that Shade the Changing Girl seems to be a direct sequel of the Milligan run. I say not so. I’ve always approached it as a kind of side-quel. Creator Cecil Castellucci wanted to take care to have nods and echoes to them both, but to be able to stand narratively on its own. It was a way of striking out in a new direction while plucking elements from the Ditko original and the Milligan run.

Our Shade the Changing Girl is a way of changing the changing.

The body of a teenage girl was a great place to start that change. The body of bully was the way to take it to the next level. The idea of a real alien, who moves like a bird in human form was the best way to express it. Add in Marley Zarcone’s wongld. They are blooming and bursting with feelings and big body changes. They are confident and awkward. They are experimenting with identity. They are constantly changing.

When we are teenagers, we are figuring out how to become who we are. To throw down and figure out what it really means to be human and to break free from our parents and to think for our selves. This is why Castellucci loved writing Shade, because as an alien, she mirrors our own growth in this world. She can see the quotidian with eyes that we can’t see the world with. She has to figure out how to transform herself from who she was to who she isn’t. And through her we dive deep into her attempts to discover the meaning of humanity. Loma Shade is changed profoundly by being this mean girl and having to navigate the fall out of living in Megan’s body and in her world. [Read More]

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Paper Girls 1, 2 and 3, by Brian K Vaughanhttps://boingboing.net/2016/12/14/brian-k-vaughan-and-cliff-chan.html https://Paper Girls stars an all-girl cast of newspaper delivery kids for a fictional Cleveland newspaper, circa 1988 -- they are instantly and wholeheartedly likable, like the Goonies or the cast of Stranger Things. They convene on November 1, when the mean teenagers of Cleveland are still out an about and making mischief, picking on the likes of them, and they band together in mutual self-defense.

Then things get weird.

The girls are assaulted by a group of costumed teens, who rip off a Radio Shack walkie-talkie that one of them saved for months to buy. The girls chase down these goons, ending up in a partially built house, whose basement holds a spaceship of some kind, or maybe it's a time-machine -- and after a flash and a bang, they emerge to a transformed neighborhood, overcast with a tornado out of which flap huge, monstrous dinosaurs ridden by lance-wielding, argot-speaking warriors who kill and kidnap all they meet.

Before long, the girls are hurled into a mystery tale of Vaughnian complexity, chased through time and space, meeting ambiguous heroes and villains, including several who may be clones of them -- or older versions, or neither. (Don't foreget books Two and Three) [Read More]

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Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults, by Laurie PennyIf you've followed Penny's work, you'll know that the thing that sets her apart from other enraged columnists is her empathy: her ability to understand the self-serving rationalizations, radioactive bullshit, and emotional damage that drives men to threaten her with rape and murder for pointing out that things aren't exactly fair.

But while Penny is perfectly capable of understanding her ideological opponents -- better than they understand themselves, without a doubt -- she doesn't offer them any sympathy. This sympathy -- no less well-informed, no less analytical -- is reserved for people who are getting the shittiest end of the stick: trans people, people of color, poor people, disabled people, other women. Even when she feuds with them, even when she is laid low by anger from her allies, she does the hard work to look past her own hurt feelings, to the missteps that let her to a place of conflict.

Penny is a bridge between two modes of political writing, a hybrid that gets the best of both and offsets their deficits: on the one hand, she's clearly in the Hunter S Thompson gonzo tradition (her adventures running down violent neo-Nazis in Greece are a match for anything HST wrote about Hell's Angels or police detective conventions); on the other hand, she's got the scholarly habit of finding and presenting an issue from every side, even the ones she disagrees with. But while the gonzos reduce their opponents to caricatures, and while scholarly work can dissolve the point of view into a view from nowhere, wishy-washy and free from any kind of thesis or real muscle, Penny is able to forcefully convey her point of view, and back it up by showing that she understands exactly what her opponents are thinking, and why, precisely, they are full of shit. [Read More]

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Lizard Music, by Daniel PinkwaterLizard Music is a novel about Victor, a kid who falls asleep while doing a model airplane and wakes up when the local TV station is going off the air, who discovers that the true late-night programming comes from humanoid lizards who live in a secret nearby volcano and worship Walter Cronkite.

Victor travels to the land of the lizards with the Chicken Man, a recurring Pinkwater character: a kind of hobo figure whose pet chicken is wise beyond her years and dander. What happens next will... Well, it will make you weirder.

No author has ever captured the great fun of being weird, growing up as a happy mutant, unfettered by convention, as well as Pinkwater has. When I was a kid, Pinkwater novels like Lizard Music made me intensely proud to be a little off-center and weird -- they taught me to woo the muse of the odd and made me the happy adult I am today. It's one of those books that, in the right hands at the right time, can change your life for the better and forever. [Read More]

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Landscape With Invisible Hand, by MT AndersonIn 2002, MT Anderson blew up the YA dystopia world with Feed, his zeitgeisty, prescient novel about "identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains" -- in his latest, Landscape with Invisible Hand, Anderson takes us to a world where neoliberal aliens have sold Earth's plutocrats the technologies to make work obsolete and with it, nearly human being on earth.

Now we all have to live with that reality: former superstar luxury car salesmen, bank tellers, teachers, programmers -- everyone except for a tiny elite of financial engineers, really -- have been replaced by technology sold by the vuuv (that's the alien race) to the world's 1 percenters when they inducted the human race into the galactic prosperity sphere.

Landscape is told as a series of acerbic, short vignettes -- latter-day Douglas Coupland riffs -- in the voice of Adam, a teenager living in a rotting suburban home amidst the remains of his rotting suburban life, scrounging for rice and beans and painting, painting, painting, the only escape he has. Each chapterlette opens with Adam describing a painting that sets the scene, part of the blasted, wasted dystopia that 99% of the human race lives in while sneering aliens and financial executives tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, get jobs, and stop looking for handouts. [Read More]

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Stories of Your Life and OthersTed Chiang's writing is rare and precise, weaving threads of science fiction into something so haunting and humane I've woken up dreaming about it more than once. Here you can read most of his published work, including the novella that was recently filmed as Arrival and is currently in U.S. theaters. But my favorites are the Borgesian "Tower of Babel," about an engineer breaking through the vault of heaven, and "Division by Zero."

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The Power, by Naomi AldermanIn The Power, a day dawns, not so long from now, in which every 15-year-old girl finds herself with the power to deal out electric shocks, emanating from an unsuspected organ called "the skein," which rests along the collarbone. What's more, any woman can do the trick, once a 15 year old shows them how.

Chaos. Glorious chaos.

The world's sex-slaves kill their pimps. The women of Saudi Arabia foment revolution. Women whose husbands beat them strike back. Girls whose fathers rape them find themselves able to defend themselves -- with lethal force, if it comes to that.

Concerned parents ask to have their boys separated from the vicious girls who stalk them through school. Mean girl cliques take on a new, deadly overtone. Law and order teeters.

Against this background, a cast of characters: Roxy, the daughter of a ruthless British gangster; Joc, the daughter of an ambitious midwestern politician; Allie, a much-abused foster kid whose foster father has a surprise in store for him, and Tunde, a Nigerian lad whose workshops of storytelling through digital photography just took on a new significance.

Through these characters, a plot as intricate and fast moving as any thriller, with lots of grace notes and seeming detours that converge with the main storyline, giving it energy and velocity.

And throughout, when you're finished, the realization that there was so much more going on, stuff I can't discuss without spoilers -- a story within the story that is chilling, thrilling, disturbing. [Read More]

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Archangel, by William GibsonFrom the start of its run in 2016, Archangel went from strength to strength, packing in so many goddamned O.G. cyberpunk eyeball kicks per page that it felt like some kind of cask-strength distillation of all the visual and action elements that gave the original mirrorshades stuff its dark glitter.

Now that the comic's run is done, the five-issue tale is revealed as a masterful, beautifully plotted war story set in three different wars: WWII as we know it, WWII as it might have been, and a distant all-out nuclear conflagration that may or may not have been an inside job.

This is a time-travel story, but it's one that sets out to break the genre's conventions: it opens with the ruthless son of America's power-grabbed president-for-life traveling back to Berlin at the end of WWII to murder his grandfather and take his place. Take that, grandfather parodox.

Hunting the president's son and his goons is "The Pilot," a USAF ninja in a camouflage suit who must prevent Junior from destroying another world without giving Junior the chance to detonate the belly-bomb all US armed-forces members must have implanted when they enlist. Thankfully, it has a 30 foot range.

Archangel is visually stunning, with all the dark romance of war-torn Berlin as a setting: deviant cabarets, black marketeers' dens, chop-shops, makeshift Soviet command-posts and secret airfields. Then there's the futuristic world of Junior and the president, seen in a cramped bunker in which a rogue scientist is scrambling to support The Pilot from the distant future and a different timeline. [Read More]

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Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches, by John HodgmanMy first impression of Vacationland was that I'd found a modern version of Steve Martin's classic Cruel Shoes. Hodgman is so very witty, and as he sets up his memoir -- the story of how he was a weird kid raised by loving but largely unconcerned parents -- he has so many tinder-dry asides and beautifully turned sentences and jokes with long fuses that unexpectedly detonate paragraphs later that I was really getting ready to relive my own childhood.

Right as I was getting comfortably settled into Vacationland, I discovered that Hodgman had smoothly transitioned me into some really profound emotional truth -- it's where he starts talking about his mother's untimely death and how he reacted to her terminal illness -- and then back into that dry, comedic mode, slipping the knife in and pulling it out so smoothly that I hadn't even noticed until the blood started to drip. That kind of maneuver requires both a steady hand a very sharp knife, and Hodgman has both.

This sneaky book pulls that move over and over, using comedy and narrative confidence to make important points about privilege, self-delusion, parenting, death, birth, cities, alienation, love -- the whole gamut.

All without ever losing the comedy, which is funny stuff, and it's not a spoonful of sugar that helps all that serious medicine go down, it's perfectly blended into those serious themes.

This isn't a book like Cruel Shoes: it's the book Cruel Shoes gets to be when it grows up. [Read More]

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Home

XENI

Sport-Brella XLPortable wind, sun, and rain shelter that's easy to set up. Can you open an umbrella? Can you drive a couple stakes into the ground? You got this, then. Haul it to the beach, outdoor gatherings or events, camping, sports, and you feel like you have a little private room outdoors. Comes in 6 different colors. Provides UPF 50+ shade. Opens to 9 feet wide, has a metallic undercoating for additional sun protection, internal pockets for stakes, valuables, and gear, plus top wind vents and side zippered windows for efficient airflow. Water resistant, weighs only 11.5 pounds. I first saw someone else on our local beach use it, and asked them where they bought it. Amazonned one for myself. Now I use it nearly every weekend, and love it.

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3" Glass PyramidMade of "optically clear crystal" and three inches tall, Amlong's Crystal Pyramid is the best Crystal Pyramid. My bacon is fresh, my airspace dangerous, and my undertakings favored.

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MARK

OXO Good Grips Solid Stainless Steel Ice Cream Scoop ($15)The old ice cream scoop we had wasn't really an ice cream scoop. It was a disher, and was more suited for scooping mashed potatoes than ice cream. When the trigger mechanism on it finally broke, I happily got rid of it and replaced it with the OXO Good Grips Solid Stainless Steel Ice Cream Scoop($15). This surprisingly heavy scoop is made from a solid chunk of stainless steel with a comfortable rubber grip, and comes with a pointed end that digs right into hard ice cream, especially if you run hot water over it. It's supposedly dishwasher safe but why put it in the dishwasher? Just rinse it and dry it with a towel.

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XENI

Brondell SourceI bought the Brondell Source in 2015 and it alleviated allergy symptoms; here's the latest model, adding a touchscreen, remote control and an adjustable air quality sensor. Rids the air of dust and dander and tiny particles you don’t need to be breathing—but also filters volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Three-stage advanced purifier system includes certified True HEPA and Granulated Carbon technology. Glowing light indicator tells you when it’s working. One time my dog farted a particularly noxious plume and this thing kicked into high gear with an emergency red glow. That’s when I knew I’d be giving it a five star recommendation.

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Lynx Sonoma Stainless Steel Countertop Natural Gas Smoker ($2500)This capacious, ultra high-end smoker has a digital control panel, smoker chip box, an instant-reading meat probe. It's got built-in Wi-Fi, of course, so you can monitor the process wherever you are.

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JASON

Wise Owl Camping HammockThe comfort to weight ratio of a good camping hammock is off the charts. Durable and easy to set up, you'll be happy anyplace you can find two appropriately spaced trees.

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Cuisinart 14-Cup Food ProcessorThe latest model of the best food processor for people who are serious about broadening their happy foodie horizons. Shove entire fruits and veggies into the giant feed tube. Listen to the 720-watt motor fill a 14-cup work bowl with steel slicing and shredding discs. It still comes with a free recipe book.

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Toys and Games

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Rainbow SlimeA glittery additive mixed with kid-safe Elmer's glue, Rainbow Slime is what you make of it. Fun when forming and flexible when dry, the results are beautiful, weird and extremely cheap at $6 or so.

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JASON

The Intellivision Flashback ConsoleRemember the unlucky kid with the parents who got them an "Intellivision" instead of an Atari? Make someone that miserable again! With games no one can remember except maybe that OK one with a snake that couldn't touch its tail but isn't SNAFU, the Intellivision really sucked.

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DAVID

Ejector Seat Button For Your CarA perfect stocking stuffer, this very clever eject button fits into most automobile cigarette lighter sockets. Unfortunately, the product listing clearly states that it's "designed for show only." It is a functional cigarette lighter though so I guess they mean it won't actually trigger your ejector seat.

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Swish card gameA beautiful and deeply compelling card game, Swish is challenges your spatial perception to find matches of balls and hoops on transparent cards. It’s a wordless game of pattern recognition that has entranced my entire family including our youngest child, age 8.

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Bulk Generic LegoYou can get 1000 random pieces of off-brand building bricks for less than $30, guaranteed to "fit tight" and come with "less filler" than the even-cheaper bulk buys.

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Palomino Blackwing 602 Pencils ($23/doz.)This is a faithful reproduction of the Eberhard Faber original, which is no longer being made. Blackwing 602 have dark, soft lead (the motto printed on the pencil reads"Half the pressure, twice the speed") and features a unique eraser holder. I've been using them for years.

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JASON

Make your own Crazy Aaron's Thinking PuttyThe one thing my 10-year-old enjoys more than making her own floam or slime is playing with Thinking Putty. Textured quite like the legendary Silly Putty of yore, Crazy Aaron's putties come in a rainbow of colors and styles. This set lets you design your own! I am pretty sure Mark could be easily distracted by a can of magnetic Thinking Putty.

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Copic Ciao Marker SetAt about $200, a full set of 72 Copic markers is a pricey proposition. But that's because they're the absolute best, with perfect colors, easy blending, and a big brush tip good for detail and wash alike. Dip an elbow in the water with a relatively inexpensive 12-marker set; great deals on partially-used sets can also be found haunting eBay.

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Because cats are totally down with the Dark SideYoda and Chewie as mice for your cat to attack, because all cats align with the Dark Side. Except for Loth-Cats for some reason, but I wouldn't exactly trust them either.

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Star Wars Viewmaster gift setI am not sure how the whole putting gifts in a sock thing works, but this Darth Vader themed Viewmaster Viewer looks like it'd fit in a traditional Christ inspired gifting sock. Star Wars Viewmaster reels are always pretty sweet. This also makes a good Hanukkah day 4-7 gift for kids who can pull off the entire 8-day challenge. My kid starts getting a hug after day 3.

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You sank my holiday experience!While it doesn't look much like the genre-defining 'This game isn't as much fun as a commercial made it look' toy of our youth, Electronic Battleship is now more exciting looking while boastin' the same old lows in game-play disappointment! Eeeeelectronic Battleship is no more fun than regular old Battleship, which is also a pretty god damn boring game. This is an excellent gift for someone you do not like, but want to appear you gave a cool gift at opening time.

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Prison Life RobloxKnow a kid that just can't behave? Maybe a co-worker? Make sure they understand a life of crime will come to no good.

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Mysterious and Indistinct ShirtFabulous yet classy, the Mysterious and Indistinct Shirt is a premium youth tee and "wears rough and tough for kids who play the same way."

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MastermindInvented in 1970 by an Israeli telecom expert, Mastermind is still the terrific game of strategy, logic, and deduction that you might remember from childhood. True, the packaging lacks the Bond-inspired photo of the dignified man and woman that appeared on the original box, but the game is just as elegant and addictive.

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Largemouth bass sandalsYou will look amazing in sandals that look like gasping largemouth bass, seriously (max size is a Men's 10, so only the dainty of feed need apply, e.g., not me). [Read More]

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Blank Playing CardsMake your own games! Or just stare at them. Whatever.

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Naughty + Nice

MARK

Wink Plus ($79)In William Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch, Steely Dan III from Yokohama was the name of a stainless steel sex toy. The USB-chargeable Wink Plus vibrator from Crave is probably not what Old Bill Lee had in mind, because it is quite small, but it is made from stainless steel, and packs quite a vibrational wallop, with five intensity levels and two patterns.

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Wolf Crotch UnderwearWith a "convex design, large space and breathable," the 3D Wolf Head Crotch Underwear "make man looks sexy and wild" and can be yours for as little as five American dollars.

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Spend your holiday season TwistedThe Twisty Glass Blunt is a brain-hammer. Fill the glass chamber with your favorite herb, screw in the brass mouthpiece, and you are prepared to smoke a lot of weed. Perfect for a day at the beach, or an outdoor music festival, the Twisty Glass Blunt is an absolute favorite. I've got the mini as well.

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Poop emoji Santa HatWar on Christmas? Christmas seems to be integrating into todays meme-filled emoticon world. Now your Santa can proudly display his favorite emoji, or perhaps this is mean to signify something else.

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https://boingboing.net/2017/11/25/giftguide2017.html

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resplendentgoldenwings · 7 years

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All That Remains, Chapter 2: A Thin Line

rating: teen

characters/relationships: Iris West, Barry Allen, WestAllen

summary: Iris Ann Russel West hates Barry Allen.

warnings: none

beta: asexual-fandom-queen, she’s awesome

chapter 1: You Were Supposed to b Happy

Iris Ann Russel West was pretty sure she hated Barry Allen.

"That's perfect Barry." The ten-year old beamed under Mrs. Graham's praise. "Class we should all try to be more like Barry with our math homework.

Iris' eyes narrowed, but she was watching him, so she saw the slump of his narrow shoulders as the teacher urged the rest of class to be like him.

Barry made his way to his seat as Mrs. Graham wrote another problem on the chalkboard, ¾ x 5/8, convert the answer into a decimal.

Barry Allen's scrawny, white arm shot up, and Mrs. Graham chuckled at that. Iris rolled her eyes.

"Barry you can't answer all the problems, you have to leave some for your classmates." Mrs. Graham's voice was warm and gentle when she spoke to Barry. Iris rolled her eyes.

Besides being perfect at math, he was always watching her and looking away and stammering. It was weird, he was weird. He'd given her a caterpillar once.

"Iris come up to the board to solve the problem."

The girl ground her teeth in frustration. She'd been so busy glaring at Barry that she'd forgotten her strategy for avoiding math problems, act casual and keep your head down.

"Yes, Mrs. Graham."

She also hated math. It wasn't like the other subjects. She was good at those, reading, history, science, art, gym. Math was her only problem ever since fourth grade she'd been struggling, but had still managed to get a C in math. Now in fifth grade she was actually falling behind, and this was a problem. An F' in math meant no summer trip.

There was always something new with math which should have been exciting, but as soon as she started to grasp one thing the teacher introduced another. And while she worked on the new one she forgot the old one, but then you always needed the old one for something else.

Iris was pretty sure she could convert the fraction into a decimal, but she couldn't remember the all the steps to multiply fractions. Did you cross multiply? She was fairly certain that division was involved somehow.

She tried to do what she remembered, but half way through the problem a couple of kids snickered. Her stomach dropped to into her shoes, and her face flamed hot with embarrassment.

"Iris," Mrs. Graham prompted her.

"I-I don't remember." She admitted before glancing back at her classmates to see Barry Allen watching her.

"It's alright Iris. Class, can anyone help Iris with her problem?"

Barry Allen's skinny, white arm shot up again. Mrs. Graham laughed that delighted chuckle and called him to the board.

Iris stood and watched as he erased her work and completed the problem explaining it perfectly in a clear, high, voice.

"It's easy." He looked at her beaming with pride and Iris only glared and stomped back to her seat.

She definitely hated him.

So when she found herself sitting across from him, Barry grinning like an idiot she almost got up and left the room. She hadn't exactly been excited by the idea of staying after school, but she needed to pass math. When her parents told her Mrs. Graham had arranged a tutor she had accepted. Her new bike, the trip to stay with her mom's family in So-cal for a month that summer none of it would happen if she failed math. Still, she hadn't known Barry Allen would be the tutor.

She glared at him and his smile faded.

"Iris, Barry your parents will be here to pick you up at four-fifteen. I'll be doing my own work, but if you have any questions just ask. Why don't the two of you start with yesterday's homework."

Iris sighed and pulled out a paper filled with glaring red X's.

Iris sighed and pulled out a paper marked with glaring red X's. Barry looked over her paper appraising it and Iris squirmed in her seat waiting.

“Barry, Iris.” They both looked up at Mrs. Graham. “I’m gonna step out into the hall for a moment. I'll be right outside." Cell phone to her ear Mrs. Graham went into the hall.

"You're really smart."

Iris frowned, "I'm failing math."

"And you're doing great in everything else. The story you read in english class was really funny, you had the best history project, and I marked off your science quiz, a hundred percent. You're really smart."

Iris felt herself smiling a bit.

"Mrs. Graham just teaches it too fast."

"You don't have a problem with it."

"And we're gonna make it so you don't have a problem with it either." Barry said sitting up really straight and giving her an encouraging smile, green eyes warm. "You're really smart, this will be easy. You'll see."

Mrs. Graham came back into the classroom then.

"Let's get to work."

The hour went faster than expected and Barry didn't do anything too weird or even annoying. His eyes lit up when he talked about math, and he explained it better than she'd expected, better than the teacher. He had fun studying tips. He liked to use colorful pens, stickers, make little doodles in his notes, stars, rainbows that sort of thing. It was kind of fun.

He was still weird, but maybe if he weren't such an annoying show-off, she wouldn't hate him quite so much. Their moms seemed to get along just fine. The two women stood chatting far too long for Iris who was ready to be at home to watch tv or play or read.

When they did finally leave, and her mom asked her how it went, she replied it was alright. Francine West merely chuckled.

She stayed after twice a week for a few weeks, and Iris felt her hatred of Barry Allen starting to melt. Besides her math grades steadily improving it turned out he wasn't quite as weird as he seemed when you actually talked to him.

When Nora asked Francine if she minded watching Barry, one evening tutoring moved to the Wests house and not long after tutoring became study sessions.

She started to notice things. Like Barry didn't mean to be an annoying show-off. When he said math was easy, he meant it to be encouraging, not that he found it easy. He didn't like it when Mrs. Graham compared him to the other kids. It made them dislike and bully him even more.

She also started to notice the way his green eyes lit up with excitement when he talked about science and that sometimes when he smiled; Iris found herself unable to resist smiling back at him.

He wasn't doing so very well at history something Iris found confusing. History was like one big, long story some parts of it were more interesting than others, but it wasn't hard. So she helped him with history, and he helped her with math. Study sessions were at her house or his, and that sometimes meant staying for dinner.

Somehow they started playing together after school, biking around the neighborhood on warm spring weekends with Wally in tow. Iris decided that she liked some of his nerdy interests. She told him one day that she wanted to be a writer when she grew-up and let him read a story she'd written about a girl who was a cowboy. When Barry presented her with an illustration of her cowgirl on horseback wielding a lasso -with her same complexion and curly hair- that he'd drawn and colored himself Iris realized that Barry had somehow become her best friend.

What she didn't realize about the ache in her heart at leaving Central City and him for a month that summer, about the unsettled queasy feeling in her stomach and her fervent secret, wish that he would come with them to California, was that she loved Barry Allen.

#The Flash #WestAllen fanfiction #Iris West #Barry Allen #WestAllen

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ramajmedia · 5 years

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Seinfeld: The 10 Worst Things Elaine Ever Did, Ranked

One of the ways that Seinfeld revolutionized the sitcom was letting its female lead – Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ unmarried, cigar-chomping feminist Elaine Benes – get in on the cast’s wacky antics.

Until Seinfeld came along, women in sitcoms were relegated to roles like the nagging wife or the buzzkill receptionist. Of course, there were exceptions, from Lucille Ball to Mary Tyler Moore, but these women had to give themselves strong roles – no one was giving them to them. Instead of standing at the side and rolling her eyes at what the guys were doing, Elaine was there alongside them. Here are The 10 Worst Things Elaine Ever Did, Ranked.

RELATED: Seinfeld: 9 Best Elaine Benes Quotes

10 Putting the Soup Nazi out of business

All throughout “The Soup Nazi,” the characters will do whatever it takes not to bother the titular soup maker – Jerry even breaks up with his girlfriend when she gets banned from the soup restaurant – but Elaine drums on the counter and tells the Soup Nazi he looks like Al Pacino. She gets herself banned and then, when she comes across his recipes in an old armoire, she uses them to put him out of business.

The Soup Nazi might have been strict, he might have stricken fear into all of his customers, and he might have been a terrible salesperson, but at the end of the day, he was just a small business owner and those soups were his whole livelihood. Just because he hurt Elaine’s feelings, she destroyed his business.

9 Using an ink pen that made Mr. Pitt look like Hitler

Mr. Pitt had already told Elaine not to use an ink pen while she was working for him and she’d completely ignored him and continued using one when it exploded all over her desk. As he tried to clean it up, he accidentally smudged a little bit of black ink on his upper lip and – paired with his beige-colored riding gear – it made him look an awful lot like Adolf Hitler.

And then she didn’t even tell him! She knew what he looked like and she let him walk out the door and go straight to an important business meeting with that black smudge on his upper lip.

8 Breaking up with Tony because a rock-climbing accident disfigured his face

Seinfeld fans remember Elaine’s one-time boyfriend Tony as the guy that Jerry called a “mimbo” (a “male bimbo”). George was obsessed with him and they went rock-climbing together. While George was trying to get Tony one of the sandwiches he made, he forgot to tie his rope up and Tony ended up falling a great height, head-first, onto a rock.

This accident got Elaine to admit that she didn’t want to date someone that she deemed unattractive, and with Tony’s face getting disfigured by his rock-climbing incident, she had to confess that she no longer found Tony attractive and didn’t want to be with him anymore. She immediately started working on a breakup strategy.

7 Making a priest think he was going to die

David Puddy was Elaine’s on-and-off boyfriend for several seasons of Seinfeld, but the twist with this couple was that, unlike other on-and-off sitcom couples like Ross and Rachel or Leonard and Penny, we didn’t want them to end up together. At one point, Puddy disgusted Elaine by painting his face like the Devil to show off his fandom at a New Jersey Devils game.

RELATED: Seinfeld: 10 Times We Were All Elaine

Then, he yelled at a priest and petrified the poor guy. Later, Elaine visited the priest to see how he was doing, but because she was dressed a little like the Virgin Mary, it only terrified the priest even more.

6 Eating a piece of wedding cake worth $29,000

In the episode “The Frogger,” while George was busy trying to preserve his high score on an arcade game, Elaine was in trouble at work for eating a piece of wedding cake she found in J. Peterman’s office. Since the cake was from King Edward VIII’s wedding to Wallis Simpson, it was worth $29,000.

The wedding threw the British Empire into a tailspin due to a British monarch wanting to marry an American socialite who’d already been married and divorced before. And pretty much all that remained of this historical event from 1936 was a piece of cake and Elaine ate it.

5 Coughing all over Peggy’s stuff

This was a great response to slut-shaming. Elaine’s co-worker Peggy – who she worked with when she wrote fanciful narratives for the J. Peterman catalog – refused to go in the bathroom after her, because she’d seen a number of Elaine’s male acquaintances come in and out of the office and she thought she was dirty.

So, Elaine responded by going into Peggy’s office and coughing on her doorknob, rubbing her stapler all over her armpit, and sitting on her keyboard. Peggy, of course, was horrified by this – it was a classic example of Elaine getting some pitch-perfect revenge against one of her many enemies.

4 Getting Babu deported

We don’t see Jerry on the road a lot in Seinfeld, because a comedian sitting in a hotel room isn’t as interesting as when he gets involved in cockfighting rings and bootlegging operations with his wacky neighbor. However, there were some hints that he often spent time on the road, like when Elaine was collecting his mail.

One of the envelopes contained Jerry’s Pakistani friend Babu’s visa application, but since Elaine didn’t notice this, Babu missed the deadline and got deported. Once again, Elaine’s negligence led to the destruction of somebody’s life. It was something of a pattern in Seinfeld.

3 Buying Jujyfruits on the way to see her boyfriend in the hospital

This is a classic Seinfeld moment, but it was also pretty awful. Elaine was supposed to be meeting a guy at the movie theater, but the usher informed her that he’d been in a car accident and had to be rushed to hospital.

Instead of rushing off to the hospital to make sure he was okay, she stopped off at the concessions stand to buy a box of Jujyfruits. When she eventually got to the hospital with a mouthful of Jujyfruits, the guy realized what she’d done and decided to break up with her right there. It’s fair to say he made the right decision.

2 Kidnapping a dog

To be fair to Elaine, she didn’t do this alone. She enlisted the help of Kramer and Newman and they did most of the dirty work – Newman grabbed the dog and Kramer abandoned it at a random house upstate. However, it was all based on Elaine’s idea.

RELATED: 10 Things That Only Real Seinfeld Fans Would Own

The dog was keeping her up at night with its barking, so her response was to put together a team to kidnap it (or would that be dognap?) and take it far away from the city. Since the dog got a piece of Kramer’s shirt from Rudy’s, they all ended up getting arrested.

1 Thinking about murdering the phone guy

In the episode “The Maid,” when Elaine was having her phones replaced because Kramer’s fax machine made her old ones whir and beep constantly, she considered murdering the phone guy. He was working on the phone lines and she was standing behind him, idly playing with a candlestick. In a voiceover narration, we heard Elaine thinking to herself, “I wonder if anyone knows he’s here. If he just disappeared...would anybody notice?”

All she needed was a few moments with her own thoughts to start contemplating committing a murder. At the end of the scene, she tells him, “You know, I could’ve killed you, and no one would’ve known.”

NEXT: Seinfeld: The 10 Worst Things Jerry Ever Did, Ranked

source https://screenrant.com/seinfeld-elaine-worst-things/

#screenrant

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jamiekturner · 6 years

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Gadgets For Men: The Best Men Accessories That You Can Buy

Buying gadgets for men is really difficult.

Maybe it’s something personal, but whenever my birthday is close and my friends ask me if I want a gadget or another, it gets difficult to say clearly that I want one or another.

This happens as well when my friends and I want to get something for another one of our group. Why? There are simply a lot of possible gadgets for men to choose from and the decision is really difficult.

Gadgets help to make life more exciting, whether those gadgets are sports related or hobby related, they help to make life a little more interesting.

For those who enjoy having gadgets around to play with, there are a variety of them available.

This showcase of must have gadgets for men will help you find something new and interesting to buy for yourself or to give as a gift.

These fun gadgets for men are suitable for all kinds of individuals. There are gadgets here to keep a variety of men happy. These gadgets are cool and different and great for entertainment.

Whether you are looking for tech gadgets for men or another type of gadget, this collection of gadgets will help you to find just what you are looking for.

If you need to buy a gift for the man in your life you might be wondering just what you should get him. If you need to buy a gift for someone who seems to have everything they could ever want, you will find something special for him in this showcase of fun gadgets for men.

You can find the perfect gift for any man in your life right here. Whether you are shopping for a birthday or holiday, you will find a gadget here that will bring a smile to the face of the recipient.

Gadgets help to make life more fun and there is a variety of gadgets showcased right here in this collection of choices that are great for men.

Leather Wallet and Card Holder for Smartphones

Simplify what you carry with a leather pocket that’s secretly a wallet: Wally hides your essential cards – so you can leave your wallet at home. Trademarked “Wally Pull-Tab” design provides easy access to your cards, and ensures they stay securely hidden out of sight.

Removeable 3M sticker securely adds a card holder to most smartphones and devices. Also works to add a credit card and ID holder wallet to most cases like OtterBox, LifeProof and more.

No RFID blocking means it’s NFC and tap-to-pay compatible, and the 3M adhesive makes Wally easily removable. Compatibility: Fits any smartphone or device with a flat (not curved) area the size of a credit card.

Tile Slim – Phone Finder. Wallet Finder. Item Finder

Another one of these gadgets for men is this one.

As thin as two credit cards, Tile Slim easily slides into your wallet, purse or pocket—anything you want to be able to find quickly.

Use your smartphone to make your Tile Slim ring when it’s nearby, but out of sight. If your Tile is within Bluetooth range, it will play a loud tune until you find it. Can’t find your phone? Simply double press the button on your Tile Slim to make your phone ring — even on silent!

The app automatically records the last time and place it saw your item. So, if you left it somewhere, you know where to look first. Mark an item as lost, and every phone in the Tile network automatically begins looking for your lost Tile device. When it’s found, the Tile app privately notifies you of its latest location.

Smart Car Charger

ZUS is a smart car finder and USB car charger. It charges up your mobile devices at their max speed and finds your car with the companion iOS/Android app. Say good-bye to time-consuming searches for your car at the mall, stadium, outdoor event or a busy neighborhood.

ZUS comes with a one-year warranty and we provide friendly customer service that can be easily reached seven days a week. For optimal use, your original cable or a third-party certified one (such as MFi).

Download the free iOS / Android app to locate your car’s parking location in crowded parking lots. Not suitable for underground or covered parking lots due to requiring GPS signal. Need to work with phone compass. ZUS’ USB ports use smart device technology to identify what mobile device it’s charging in order to send it the fastest charge possible.

Best Money Clip and Front Pocket Wallet

Carry your cash and credit cards in your front pocket without that awkward looking wallet outline. Very easy to take your cards and ID’s in and out. Designed for both the minimalist, and the style conscious. Comfortably hold up to 5 cards and 15 bills! Perfect for any serious traveler!

Very lightweight and professional. Black cash clip is Made with Real Genuine Leather & card holder out of Military Grade Carbon Fiber. Battle-tested Nylon Stitching ties it all together. Feel security and peace of mind with this tactical, anti-theft technology. Never fall victim to an e-pick pocketer.

RFID Blocking Wallet for Men

Great look and feel while resistant to wear and tear for a long life with a sleek Bi-Fold design of Genuine Smooth Leather. For added style and durability, our men’s wallets feature a superior quality lining which does not contain any materials to artificially stiffen it as in other brands.

Widest RFID blocking range. This RFID Wallet has been tested for HID i Class 125 KHz (security & Metro Transit cards) up through 13.56 MHz (credit cards). No need to pick and choose what cards to carry!

Guardian Travel Gear’s bifold wallet has plenty of space with 8 credit card slots, 2 concealed slots, 2 currency sleeves, and 1 one flip-out ID window. All protected against RFID scanners. Great for the everyday commuter or traveller.

Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook

Introducing the world’s first microwave-to-erase smart notebook. The Rocketbook Wave provides the freedom of a traditional pen and paper notebook, while instantly blasting your notes into the cloud using your smartphone.

And when you use Pilot FriXion pens with the Wave notebook, you can erase your notes using your microwave oven and reuse your notebook. Go ahead and re-read that last sentence.

Erase and reuse your Rocketbook Wave up to 5 times using your microwave when you use any FriXion pen by Pilot. Pilot FriXion pen ink turns clear at 140 degrees F / 60 degrees C, and the Rocketbook Wave is specially constructed to be microwave safe. Each Rocketbook includes one FriXion pen and you can buy more on Amazon and in retail stores.

Download the Rocketbook app for android or iOS. Blast your notes to Google docs, Dropbox, iCloud, Evernote, Box and email.

Polar A300 Fitness Tracker and Activity Monitor

One gadget for men is the the new A300. It combines the best of the smart heart rate training features you have come to expect from Polar along wtih daily activity and sleep tracking to give one a complete view of their day. Customize your A300 to fit your style with changeable wrist bands in vivid colors.

Waterproof fitness monitor motivates you to reach your daily goal by tracking your steps, distance, and calories burned 24/7. Vibrating inactivity alerts help you keep moving throughout the day. Automatically tracks your sleep time, quality of sleep, and sleep patterns. Compatible with H7 Heart Rate sensor for continuous, accurate heart rate.

Spire Mindfulness and Activity Tracker

Requires a compatible iPhone or Android smartphone. Spire measures your breathing and provides feedback for a more focused and calm day. When your breathing indicates tension, a gentle notification reminds you to stop and take a deep breath.

The included smartphone app can guide you in short, simple exercises or mini-meditations to increase focus, calm and productivity. Clip the Spire stone unobtrusively onto your pants or bra to track steps, calories and respiratory patterns.

Incorporates wireless charging, up to 7-days of battery life and thoughtful washer-proof design. Spire measures breathing to give you insight into your state of mind. It is not a mood tracker or medical device.

Electric Back Hair Shaver

The mangroomer professional do-it-yourself electric back hair shaver is the newest and most advanced back shaver available for men to quickly and easily eliminate their back hair. It features the professional handle that extends and locks at any length you choose by engaging the professional lock button on the handle, enabling you to create your perfect custom shaving length.

The extreme reach of the shaver measures over 2 feet in length when fully extended, allowing you to reach even the most difficult middle and lower portions of the back. The professional has new rechargeable battery power for quick-charging and operates at optimum power between charges.

Additional new feature includes 100% non-slip rubberized grip, handle and body to create increased control at any shaving angle and maximum maneuverability.

The professional premium blade design delivers superior smooth shave results and measures 1.5 inches in width for maximum coverage and fewer strokes. Sleek, lightweight and compact design fold flat for storage and travel. Accessories included are new protection cap, cleaning brush, ac recharging adaptor and instruction booklet.

Bike & Motorcycle Phone Mount

This mount will perfectly suit your bike and your phone will never fall out being securely fixed by all its four corners with our safety rubber belts. Holder fits any device up to 3.9″ wide and fits all handlebars from 0.2″ to 1.6″ in diameter. No tools for installation required.

Simply adjust and secure your phone to any angle and position that suits your preference and enjoy the comfort of your ride! The bands wrap four corners of cellphone of any size even when in lifeproof case. Use your mobile screen, buttons and mic jack for music. No need to unmount your smart phone or iPod to use it. Keep your hands on the handlebar.

Mpow Bluetooth Receiver, Streambot Hands-free Car Kits & Wireless Music Adapter for Stereo System

Get high quality audio sound than the Bluetooth 3.0 version, both in playing music and answering calls. Built-in battery provides up to 10 hours’ play and talk time, 120 hours’ standby time, only takes 1.5 hours to fully charge it. Can connect two bluetooth devices at the same time. Bluetooth range reaches up to 30 feet in open space without obstacles.

Compatible with most Bluetooth enabled devices like smartphone, MP3, tablet, etc, ideal for home or vehicle audio systems. You can answer phone calls or control music on the receiver. Change volume, play/pause/skip music, answer calls, redial the last called number with ease.

This receiver doesn’t turn on automatically, Please long press the ”Multifunction Button”button about 3 seconds,when it turned on the blue light will flash,then connect it with your Bluetooth devices.

Bluetooth Headphones Wireless Neckband Headset

Neck-Behind wearing style provides a comfortable fit and easy button control in light weight. Bluetooth 4.1 ensures crisp, skip-free stereo sound. CVC 6.0 Noise Cancellation reduces outside noises.

The magnetic design greatly decreases the burden on your ears when not in use. To protect the earbud cable against the damage of pulling force, please pinch the earplugs instead of the cables when pulling earplugs out of the shark-like magnet which can ganrantee the lifespan of earbuds by using it in the right way.

Bluetooth Earphones with built-in microphone allow auto switching between music and calls. You can control all functions of music and calls easily via the buttons on the headset. Enjoy a cheerful chat with your friends while you are doing your office work, housework, gardening, or particularly when you are driving along the fast lane.

Amazon Echo

It is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more—instantly. All you have to do is ask.

Echo has seven microphones and beam forming technology so it can hear you from across the room—even while music is playing. Echo is also an expertly tuned speaker that can fill any room with 360° immersive sound.

When you want to use it, just say the wake word “Alexa” and Echo responds instantly. If you have more than one Echo or Echo Dot, Alexa responds intelligently from the Echo you’re closest to with ESP (Echo Spatial Perception).

Amazon Echo provides hands-free voice control for Amazon Music—just ask for your favorite artist or song, or request a specific genre or mood. It provides hands-free voice control for Amazon Music—just ask for your favorite artist or song, or request a specific genre or mood.

Fitbit Blaze Smart Fitness Watch

Another one of these gadgets for men is Fitbit Blaze — a smart fitness watch that helps you maximize every workout and every day. With advanced technology in a versatile design, this revolutionary device is built to track your workouts, monitor your performance stats, and gauge your progress.

PurePulse continuous heart rate and multi-sport modes enhance every exercise, while next-generation features like Connected GPS and FitStar workouts on your wrist help you take your fitness to the next level.

All-day activity and sleep tracking and call, text & calendar notifications help you track your day with ease. And interchangeable band and frames and customizable clock faces on the hi-res color touchscreen let you personalize your style for every occasion.

Fitbit Blaze syncs wirelessly to 200+ leading iOS, Android and Windows devices using Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology. Notifications: Text and call via Bluetooth 4.0 Syncing to mobile devices requires Bluetooth and Internet connection.

Syncs with Windows Vista and later, Mac OS X 10.6 and up, iPhone 4S and later, iPad 3 gen. and later, and leading Android and Windows devices.

Electric Foil Shaver for Men

Experience the world’s most efficient and comfortable shave with a breakthrough Series 9 shaver; noticeably different. The SyncroSonic shaver head has 4 specialized cutting elements, each performing a specific and different task:

Intelligent Sonic Technology with 40,000 cross-cutting actions powered by sonic micro-vibrations to remove more hair than any other shaver.

Direct and Cut Trimmer aligns and cuts hair growing in different directions.

HyperLift and Cut Trimmer lifts and cuts flat-lying hairs from problem areas like the neck and chin area.

2x OptiFoil for the perfect finish, closer than any other shaver.

The world’s only 5-action, alcohol-based Clean and Charge Station hygienically cleans, charges, and lubricates the shaver. Plus, it selects a cleaning program and dries the shaver at the touch of a button.

The integrated and skin-friendly precision trimmer slides out of the back of the shaver for easy and accurate sideburn shaping.

Sphero 2.0: The App-Controlled Robot Ball

Meet Sphero – the app-enabled ball that does it all. Intelligent and well-rounded, Sphero lets you play, learn and explore. Create obstacle courses, upgrade family game night with multiplayer fun, or learn to program with our free SPRK lessons. This virtually unstoppable companion is waterproof, pet-proof and ready for any adventure. It’s time to upgrade your play.

Choose from over 30 apps and launch a whole new world of gameplay. The result is limitless possibilities for new types of connected play that meld the virtual and real worlds for a fun gaming experience.

Control Sphero, turn your living room into a video game with augmented reality apps or upgrade family game night with multiplayer games. Sphero is also pet-proof, swims and is ready to roll wherever you go.

Samsung Gear VR – Virtual Reality Headset

Mobile virtual reality is finally here. With the Samsung Gear VR, you can play amazing games, watch Hollywood’s best movies in your own private cinema (or even on the moon!), socialize with friends new and old, be at the center of a suspense thriller, and so much more. The Gear VR drops you right into the action—and it’s only from Samsung & Oculus.

Compatible with following phones (software update from your carrier required for S6 edge+ and Note5) – Galaxy Note5, Galaxy S6, S6 edge, S6 edge+, Galaxy S7, S7 edge

There are amazing new things to do in Gear VR. Try hundreds of games, apps and experiences.

If you liked this article with gadgets for men, you should check out these as well:

iPad Accessories You Should Get For Your Tablet

The best drones with camera for cool aerial photography

Top photography gadgets and accessories to buy

The post Gadgets For Men: The Best Men Accessories That You Can Buy appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing http://www.designyourway.net/blog/tech/gadgets-for-men/

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