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gymwrites · 5 years

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Second Thoughts: A Fan Sequel to First Times

[Author’s note: There will be a final, longer part released soon, but wanted to get this out there. Thank you for the kind messages. May the new year treat you all just as kindly!

I wrote this chapter to: Bloodstream (Quartet Session) by Stateless.]

Links to: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5 (Part I), Chapter 5 (Part II), Chapter 6 (Part I), Chapter 6 (Part II), Chapter 6 (Part III), Chapter 7, Chapter 8 (Part I), Chapter 8 (Part II)

Chapter 8: Lights (Part II)

Laurie keeps insisting on accompanying them back to Team USA’s apartment block, but Aliya firmly resists. She points out that the girl should enjoy what’s left of the night, especially if this is her first time attending an Olympic after-party. Most gymnasts are still on strict competition training schedules and will begin retiring to their rooms in a few hours. There’s no sense in Laurie missing out on the fun while it lasts.

At least, that’s what Aliya tells herself is the reason for taking it solely upon herself to guide Aly back.

Having left a reluctant Laurie and an even more reluctant Eythora at the entrance, all that’s left to do is carefully usher a half-slumbering Aly down several flights of stairs, then into the elevator, and out into the chilly night air.

Aliya has walked many a girl home after a long night of drinking. There are those who complain loudly and incessantly, who insist they’re completely fine and berate their helper for assuming they need any assistance at all. Others are too sick to say much of anything, needing a pit stop every few minutes to empty out their stomachs. Those are probably Aliya’s least favorite experiences.

And then there is Aly.

“Aliya, you really don’t have to do this.”

Aliya glances over at Aly, her mouth tilting up in a smile. “I doing nothing.”

The girl sighs heavily. “Yes you are. You’re laughing at me.”

“Laugh must be inside your head, Aly.”

“No. It’s inside yours.”

In addition to being a continuous source of amusement for Aliya, their banter crucially helps keep Aly awake, and Aliya thinks they might make it back to their destination in good time. All she has to do is traverse the relatively short distance necessary, and not let herself get distracted by the whimsical, adorable antics of an inebriated Aly Raisman.

It is far more difficult than Aliya anticipates. At first, Aliya had tried letting Aly walk on her own, but she had lurched one too many times before Aliya decided it would not do. So she had slung Aly’s left arm across her shoulder and her own arm around Aly’s waist. This lets her act as a support for Aly while they press forward together, but it also inconveniently floods her senses with the nearness of her.

The evening sky is mostly clear and dotted with stars. A few wisps of clouds trail behind an unusually outsized moon. A quiet, almost lazy calm hangs in the air; it doesn’t feel as though lifelong Olympic dreams have been made and broken and cried over in numerous buildings and rooms scattered all over the Village. It’s as beautiful a summer night as any for a stroll. Probably too beautiful - it might afford opportunities for Aly to burrow in deeper, and make the permanent home she has in Aliya’s heart even more so.

Aliya has to stifle a laugh when Aly swings her free arm up to point to one of many identical overhanging lamps they happen to be passing under.

“Look,” Aly says in rapt wonder. “That’s the most gorgeous light I’ve ever seen.” Her words are slow and slurred, though not incoherent. Aliya takes that as a good sign. The girl would likely get hit with far worse headaches in the next hour, but it shouldn’t be so bad as to take her out of action the next day.

“It is just light, Aly,” Aliya replies. She fights a grin when Aly huffs at her.

“And I’m just a girl,” the girl fires back.

Aliya licks her lips, ignoring the way her heart jumps. Focus. She places another foot forward, then another, and gently nudges Aly to do the same. Aly complies, but is apparently still very taken by the lamp.

“It shines like the moon but is so much bigger and brighter.”

“Because it is more close than moon.”

“Things are always better when they’re closer,” Aly says sagely, expelling a dramatic sigh before craning her neck in an attempt to focus bleary eyes on Aliya.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Aly begins, then promptly trips over an uneven crack in the ground before she can finish the sentence. Aliya instinctively braces both hands on Aly’s forearms, holding her upright until she’s sure the girl has recovered her footing.

“Thanks,” Aly breathes, still clinging to Aliya like moss on a tree. Aliya nods tersely, pulse thudding in her ears. When she releases the girl to continue moving them onwards, the tingling on her skin left by Aly’s warmth doesn’t go away.

They only make it another several feet down the pathway before Aly again stops to stare fixedly at the next lamp post they’ve reached. The flickering light emitted by the fluorescent lamps seems to hold some strange, hypnotic power over her.

“You say I thinking something, Raisman?” Aliya reminds Aly, giving her another nudge with her shoulder. She’s strong, but she’s not sure she can manage hauling a hypnotized, or worse, unconscious American across the remaining few hundred feet.

“Right.” Aly shakes her head, as if clearing away a thick fog. She lets Aliya tug her along another few steps. “You’re thinking that I did this on purpose. That I’m upset about how we’ll never be together, and this is me trying to get your attention because I’m still and will always be crazy about you.”

The unexpectedly honest words roll out thick and fast, and they hit Aliya with an almost physical force. Either Eythora had spiked Aly’s drink with truth serum, or Aly’s ability to hold her liquor was even more abysmal than Aliya knew it to be. Aliya is also fairly certain there are other, far more efficient ways of getting her attention than intentionally downing a massive glass of hard vodka, but does not say so.

“I’m trying to leave you alone,” Aly continues pleadingly. “I really am. I didn’t even look at you during the all-around. And when I did, it was only because I absolutely had to.”

Heat pools in Aliya’s cheeks as she bites down a smile. She uses the hand wrapped around Aly’s shoulder to give the girl a brief squeeze.

“Da. I know this.”

“Do you know how difficult not looking is for me?” Aly demands haltingly, as if it is some big injustice she has been forced to endure. She shifts her body to more fully face Aliya, a pout formed on her lips. “God knows who wouldn’t look at you, Aliya. You’re beautiful. Not just on the outside,” and Aly swipes a hand clumsily through the space in front of Aliya’s face, before pressing it against her own chest and squeezing it into a tight fist, “but here, where I feel how beautiful you are on the inside… on my insides… and it doesn’t ever stop.”

The simultaneously awkward and passionate statement sends a familiar surge of tension thrumming through the air; it shifts and compresses the space between them, pulls them in closer, always closer. Aliya chances a glance into the plunging sea of Aly’s eyes.

“Znaiyu, Aly. I know,” Aliya murmurs in a low rasp. She forcibly steers her gaze away and up ahead, strange flutters in her chest. “Come. We are almost there.”

Gravity seems to work at an increasing rate the closer they get to the Team USA building. They’ve walked past a good number of other athletes at this point, and Aliya starts to worry about the attention they’re drawing. People talked in the Village, and things had a way of getting back to the wrong people - Aly’s over-controlling national team coordinator, for one. Though feeling the urgent need to return Aly back to Team USA’s apartment as soon as possible, Aliya finds herself wistfully wishing it was further away.

Aly suddenly doubles over at the waist, clutching at her belly and giving a little groan. Aliya tightens her grip on the girl, brows furrowing in concern. “Aly?”

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” Aly breathes out, in a manner that is decidedly not fine. She manages with difficulty to straighten up again, and gives Aliya a feeble nod to indicate they should keep going.

All up, it takes about twenty minutes to accompany Aly back, but it feels far longer than that. They stumble into the empty lobby of Team USA’s apartment block with no further incident.

Once Aliya helps Aly into the elevator, she watches, engrossed, as Aly bends down and squashes her face up against the numbered buttons for what feels like an eternity. The doors close with a heavy clang. For the next thirty seconds, the only sounds are the light humming of the elevator cooling system, Aly’s slow, labored breathing, and the throbbing warning inside Aliya’s head that a herd of Americans are going to spill into the enclosed space with them any second.

Unable to tolerate the suspense any longer, Aliya subtly clears her throat. “Aly.”

Aly squints at the buttons for a few seconds more before glancing back at her. “Hm?”

“Which floor? Tell me, and I help….” Aliya can’t remember the English word for ‘press’, so she mimics the motion in the air.

The girl waves away her offered assistance. “You can’t.”

Clasping her hands behind her back, Aliya sighs. “Why?”

“You were freezing, but you wouldn’t even wear my Team USA jacket.“

Aliya frowns at her, utterly clueless as to what that has to do with anything.

“These are Team USA buttons,” Aly says pointing at the elevator controls, and seeing Aliya’s face descend into further confusion, she lowers her head and clarifies in a serious whisper, “I’m saving you from touching Team USA buttons.”

Aly’s nonsensical words cause an intense affection to bubble up in Aliya’s chest. She does her best to choke it off by pressing her mouth into a hard, firm line. Aliya waits, still as a statue, while Aly scrabbles around and finally hits the button labeled ’13’.

Leaning heavily against the elevator wall, the girl straightens up and flashes a triumphant, toothy smirk at Aliya.

Aliya hurriedly looks away, her whole body flushing with heat. She concentrates furiously on their blurred reflections in the steel doors the whole ride up.

By the time the elevator hits the thirteenth floor and the doors draw open, Aliya is prepared for the moment she’ll have to deposit Aly in front of her apartment with nothing more than polite well wishes for event finals. As they stagger past Suites 1302, then 1303, 1304… 1307… Aliya repeatedly rehearses in her head exactly what she’s going to do (untangle herself from Aly) and say (an efficient ‘goodnight’ to follow the well wishes should suffice), and she will do and say it all in a calm and collected manner.

As she always does.

But when Aly halts in front of Suite 1309, and Aliya holds her steady as she fumbles around in her pocket for the key, Aliya already knows calm and collected is precisely what isn’t going to happen.

The time for ‘calm and collected’ would have been about a half hour ago, when Masha stopped Aliya at the door, a final caution marked in her eyes. Or when Eythora offered to take care of Aly, and Aliya could have just let it play out. It was definitely before Aliya drained a disappointing shot of vodka, and finally gave herself over to the reality that Aly Raisman will always be a part of every breath she draws, every whisper pressed to her soul, every end of her every beginning.

That’s why when the door swings open, Aliya quietly follows Aly inside without another thought, and Aly lets her, as if it couldn’t have happened any other way.

The time for ‘calm and collected’ is well and truly past.

#raistafina #second thoughts #first times #fanfic

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meanwhileinoz · 6 years

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20+ Easy Ways To Clean Your House That Takes Little To No Effort

Cleaning your house always seems like a neverending task. No matter what, you feel as though it’s going to take up more time than you bargained for. Plus, it seems as though whenever you clean, it just gets dirty in .5 seconds anyway. So, all in all, what’s the point? Instead of getting on your hands and knees to scrub for hours on end, there are some brilliant hacks online that make cleaning your house easier than ever.

1. Sweeper slippers, so you can sweep your home whenever you walk to the freezer to get yourself more ice cream.

BuzzFeed

If you have hardwood or tile floors, you have gotta have at least five pairs of these houseshoes. I just toss them into the wash without tearing off the sole to wash separately. Reason: the soles on mine by far outlast the tops of the shoes. They help control dust and animal hair. I like them. // Edited after thought: Pairs of these shoes were handed to out-of-state traveler friends (a fella and his two grown daughters). They sounded so thankful to have these microfiber houseshoes to wear, and they expressed at how cushy they felt.

–Penny

Get them on Amazon for $10.40.

2. If you have pets that shed (or if you shed) you need this easy-to-pick-up-hair broom for your carpets. It traps all the hair, all the time.

Amazon

This broom is awesome! I have two large breed dogs (that she’d like crazy) and hard wood floors that have to be swept daily. I don’t know how well it would work on carpets, but it does an excellent job sweeping fur, hair, and dirt up. The best part… You don’t have to clean the bristles like a regular broom. I just rinsed the broom when I was done and the little dirt that was on the bristles washed away! I hate having to pull dust balls and hair out of normal broom bristles.

Just note: The rubber bristles are not fine enough to clean under moldings (the small gap between the molding and the floor) for those areas, I still use a vacuum. I’m not sure why this broom has negative reviews.. I read a bunch of them and can not relate to any of the issues people complained about. I’m chalking them up to user error. As John Lydgate said “you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.

Get it on Amazon for $18.50.

3. If you tie two microfiber rags around a pair of tongs, you can clean those moldy refrigerator shelves that have been smelling like rotten chicken and spilled cold brew.

onecrazyhouse.com

This brilliant idea comes from One Crazy House. You can use any tongs you have in the house, and can easily buy microfiber cloths on Amazon for only $9.99.

4. If you have a ceiling fan, quit tossing dust around your room and use an old pillowcase to clean it.

homemakerchic.com

This idea comes from Homemaker Chic. Not only is it way easier than using a duster, but the dust falls right into the pillowcase so you’re not sneezing your brains out.

5. Use this spot cleaner to get even the toughest stains out of your carpets without scrubbing like a madman. Just blot it right on.

Amazon

I had terrible rust and oil stains all over the seats of my car when I bought it. I tried other cleaners to get it out, but they actually made the stains darker. I took it to the dealership to see if they could get it out and they flat out told me no, so I gave up and lived with it for almost 5 years. I tried this after it was recommended by a friend. I sprayed it on and literally watched the stain run right off my seat. It was amazing! I thought I was going to have to pay hundreds of dollars to replace the seats in my car because nothing else would work. This stuff really is awesome!

Get a bottle of this easy-to-use cleaner on Amazon for only $10.50.

6. Put vinegar in a zip-lock bag and place it over your showerhead for 1-2 hours to get all that rusty, dusty mold-ish stuff off.

BuzzFeed

7. Get into the cracks of your tiles or bathroom floor/shower with an automatic scrubbing brush, which takes the time and effort out of cleaning.

Amazon

Ok, I feel stupid writing this, but I hope it encourages you to buy this…. I just spent 2 hours scrubbing the ceramic tile floor in my 2nd bathroom. This is a room where my elderly, incontinent cat lives so… use your imagination. I leave pee pads and towels down, but she still does her thing. I clean her room consistently, and every few months I do a heavy duty scrubbing by soaking the floor and grout in Nature’s Miracle and start scrubbing. It takes hours because I can’t get the corners well, and the grout is such a pain to clean.

Well, this product is amazing. I used this for the grout lines, and I used the corner attachment for… corners. It was amazing. It got gunk and grime off the grout that has been there for years (I haven’t resealed this floor since it will have to be taken out when the cat dies). I even used these to scrub the cabinet doors, around the toilet, etc. and they were really, really great. you have to put the right amount of pressure on the brush, but once you do- it’s *wonderful.* See how stupid I feel, writing such a glowing review for this? I swear I wasn’t endorsed, I wish they would pay me to test products after this! Between my Rubbermaid Reveal power Scrubber and Nature’s Miracle my bathroom is cleaner than it has been in years, and in less time than it’s ever taken me to deep clean it.

Get it on Amazon for only $13.54.

8. Use your dishwashing wand for floors by putting vinegar in it to scrub your tiles/stone shower.

smartschoolhouse.com

You can also use it for the glass doors to get them perfectly clean, according to Smart School House. You can grab one of these on Amazon for only $9.38.

9. For those nasty, disgusting toilet rings, use a pumice stone to get the colors and stains out way easier and quicker (because who wants to spend time scrubbing a toilet, anyway?)

Amazon

The house I recently moved into had a hard water line in the toilet and it was no big deal for the first couple of months. I never really paid much attention to it. That is, until my mom said she would be coming over for a visit. Suddenly, the hard water line in the toilet was glaring at me, making me feel like a disgusting human being living in filth. I had to get rid of it. A kitchen sponge and a dish cloth were both ruined in my attempts. Finally, after countless hours of research and many sleepless nights, I had my answer: The Pumie. As soon as it arrived I was on my hands and knees scrubbin’ that bowl. After it was done I was stood over my toilet with the same posture as a successful climber reaching the summit of Mt. Everest. I had defeated the hard water line with The Pumie. The satisfaction I had by accomplishing this otherwise mundane task made me realize I had truly entered adulthood. But, I did not stop there. Hard water marks around the bathroom sink drain? Gone. Hard water lines around the kitchen faucet? GTFO. The Pumie is truly a marvel to behold and I will be eternally grateful for it’s help in vanquishing the hard water lines that would have made my mother disown me.

Get it on Amazon for $9.15.

10. After you clean your toilet rings, use these incredible toilet refreshers that help to prevent the ring from ever coming back again.

Amazon

These are the best in-bowl cleaners that I have found after trying many others. They keep the toilet bowl fresh especially on the toilets that are less frequently used in my house. I have found them to last a month or more. My father, a plumber, warned me years ago never to use those cleaners which you drop in the tank because the strong chemicals will eventually corrode the plumbing fixtures. Yes, I took his advice after some unwanted repairs.

Grab them on Amazon for only $1.98.

11. If you have a stainless steel fridge, Pledge will not only clean it but also polish it at the same damn time.

thediygirl.com

The DIY Girl, just spray the Pledge right onto the fridge and buff it off with a dry cloth. Grab a bottle of pledge on Amazon for only $4.19.

12. Clean your stove top in only 5 minutes by using some dish soap (like dawn) and hydrogen peroxide. Use a dish soap brush to scrub it off.

mythirtyspot.com

Hack from My Thirty Spot.

13. Clean any white sink easily and have it sparkling again by using baking soda and hydrogen peroxide.

lemonslavenderandlaundry.com

Hack from Lemons, Lavender, and Laundry.

14. Clean every inch of your keyboards by using this double sided brush.

Amazon

My laptop hasn’t been so clean since I bought it! Much better than compressed air cleaning. Using the rubbery end, you can even clean off the finger-tracker; and using the little brush, you get out all those annoying little crumbs and pieces of stuff that both impede your keyboard performance and make it look dirty. I wish I would have taken before and after pictures—the difference is astonishing! I was skeptical, but this little tool is worth the price.

Get it on Amazon for $4.95.

15. Use a lint roller on any lampshades that have a bunch of built-up hair and dust on them.

creeklinehouse.com

Hack from Creekline House.

16. Also, use a lint roller on any screens to capture all that pollen and dust.

handymanmagazine.co.nz

Hack from Handyman Magazine.

17. Mix baking powder and a flowery-smelling essential oil to spread all over your mattress. The scent will get soaked into it, and when you’re done, just vacuum it right up.

onegoodthingbyjillee.com

Hack from One Good Thing by Jillee.

18. Put your pillows in the washing machine while you let the baking soda sit in your bed so they smell brand new.

thehappierhomemaker.com

Hack from the Happier Homemaker.

19. Get rust stains out of your dishwasher by running a cycle of Kool-Aid.

wikihow.com

Hack from Wikihow.

20. Get weird scents out of your washing machine (like that horrible wet-dog smell) by running on an empty cycle with vinegar.

iheartnaptime.net

Hack from I Heart Naptime.

21. Clean your vacuum filters in the dishwasher to save time and get a better clean.

agirlandherneedle.blogspot.com

Hack from A Girl and Her Needle.

22. Also, clean your vent covers, filters, and anything else that’s easily removable in the dishwasher so you can let it run and do something better with your time while it’s cleaning.

onecrazyhouse.com

Hack from One Crazy House.

The post 20+ Easy Ways To Clean Your House That Takes Little To No Effort appeared first on .

https://postaddict.com/2018/03/09/20-easy-ways-to-clean-your-house-that-takes-little-to-no-effort/

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