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edupunkn00b · 3 years

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When The Bad Guys Win, Ch. 2: Little Brother

When The Bad Guys Win - Big Brother - Little Brother - [ AO3 ]

Part of the History | Matchr Universe

Rated T: WC: 4588

CW: referenced past assault, referenced past assault on child, hospitals, references capital punishment, assault, swearing, minor character death, blue+orange make grey

Logan Sanders knows what to do when the bad guys win.

---

Logan removed his faux eyeglasses as soon as he was out of Patton's sight.

Once downstairs, he slipped through the back entrance of their lobby, holding down the handle as he slowly let the door close, releasing the latch only once the door was fully in place. The muffled click was barely audible to his own ears and would have been imperceptible to anyone else in the building.

If anyone had happened to be awake and wandering the lobby at two o'clock in the morning, that is.

Logan scooped up a few pebbles from the greenscape just outside the exit, depositing them in his pocket for later. He jogged the four block distance to the D train and bought a Metrocard from the bodega with a C- health department rating closest to the station. He paid with cash.

Before climbing the steps up to the station, Logan stopped as though to tie his laces, slipping half the pebbles into his right shoe. The tiny stones rolled around inside as he walked, rubbing against his toes, his heel, the ball of his foot… not sufficiently painful to prevent him from running, but uncomfortable enough to give him a noticeable limp, changing his natural gait. He sprinted up the steps, swiped his card at the turnstile, and waited for the train. There was one other person already sitting on a bench, slouched back, muttering under their breath. Logan turned his head toward them but flicked his eyes up, checking the lights on the cameras trained on the platform. One was out, but the other two appeared to be functional.

Logan tugged at the red cap on his head and paced the length of the platform, hands in his pockets, whistling loudly. He'd made two laps up and down the platform, catching the eye of the other waiting rider, smiling and giving them a quick wave. He leaned over the platform, looking down the tracks in the wrong direction, checking his watch.

"The train comes from the other direction, dude," the other rider finally said. Logan turned with a bright smile, tilting his head and waving his hands vaguely toward his mouth. They stared at him for a moment before they shook their head and pointed the other way down the track. Sucking their teeth, they said, "That way, man. That way." They muttered under their breath, "Fucking tourists."

Looking in the other direction, Logan broadened his smile, giving them a thumbs up. He paced the platform again, only getting halfway back to where the other rider waited before the train finally arrived. He entered the mostly empty train car, the only other passenger a homeless woman sitting in the corner. She eyed him as he entered, relaxing somewhat when he kept his distance. Logan sat, counting the stops until 50th Street.

He quickly pulled out his drugstore Tracphone and booted up his TwoFace VPN™. One the icon turned green, he opened an incognito window on his TOR browser and logged onto Facebook with his Dr. Francis Stine account. He scrolled through until he found the heart surgeon who hadn't even blinked at his user name, instead quickly accepting his friend request over a year ago, shortly after he'd viewed Logan's, rather, Dr. Stine's impressive LinkedIn profile.

Scrolling through Dr. Roberts' wall, he found a selfie the doctor had taken with Al Pacino the time he'd come in for surgery. Logan shook his head with a smile. He always did like it when a fan's love overcame their logical thinking. HIPAA privacy rules aren't just there for the color-coded trash cans, Doctor...

He tapped on the picture, waiting impatiently for the large file to download over the pokey 3G connection, its speed made even more sluggish by his VPN's admittedly vital IP hopping. He looked up as the train approached a station. Three more stops. I still have time. The phone buzzed happily when it finished downloading the image and he quickly tapped it, checking the properties and pulling up the GPS coordinates embedded within.

Dumping the full coordinates into a Heroku app he maintained under its generic auto-generated name, he was able to narrow down the relative elevation—approximately 115 feet—where Dr. Roberts had taken the picture. Calculating quickly, assuming a standard 14-foot height for each floor, including, of course, crawlspaces and conduits for HVAC, communications and security equipment, as well as the fire suppression systems... that would put Mr. Pacino's fancy post-surgical suite somewhere on the eighth floor. Logan closed his browser, automatically removing his internet history from the device.

He stood as the train entered the 50th Street station, quickly putting away his phone and swapping it for two twenties. He walked toward the door closest to the homeless woman and her mouth tightened as she watched him. Just as he limped off the train, he folded the money to hide the denomination and pressed the bills into her hand. He bowed his head slightly, murmuring, "Goodnight, Ma'am."

Whistling again, Logan walked toward the exit, staying a few yards behind a man in plain slacks and a button down shirt who must have been in a different car on the same train. A Maimonides hospital badge dangled off his belt and his black Dansko nursing shoes were polished but well-worn. Logan grinned to himself, Going my way?

He kept a steady pace as he followed the man, being careful not to overtake him, still whistling loudly. After looking over his shoulder twice, with Logan grinning dumbly and waving the second time, the man appeared to relax. Muggers don't whistle when they follow you and killers don't draw attention to themselves.

Logan followed him all the way to the staff entrance of the main hospital building, still lagging a few yards behind. He didn't break his stride when the man stopped and tapped his ID against the reader affixed to the wall. Logan passed the man just as he'd opened the door.

That's when Logan tripped, falling on his hands and knees, his right thumb catching the edge of the door and keeping it open.

"Oh, shit, you all right?" the man bent down, offering Logan his hand to help him up. Logan bit his lip hard as he could, triggering involuntary tears at the sudden pain. His voice cracked when he answered.

"Um, yeah, I think...."

The man leaned closer and Logan reached for his offered hand, squeezing tightly and groaning as he leaned heavily into his grip as he pulled himself up. Logan's other hand brushed against the man's belt, disconnecting and palming his ID.

As he stood, Logan winced, still holding tightly to the man's hand. He shifted his foot so it was now keeping the door open behind the man. "Yeah, I'm fine. That was... that was embarrassing." He brought the hand with the ID to rub at his back, slipping the badge into his back pocket. He let go of the man's hand, bending down to brush the dirt away from his knees. "Yeah, I just gotta walk it off."

"Hey, if you're gonna get hurt, outside a hospital's the right place to do it, huh?" The man eyed him carefully, looking into his eyes and watching their movement. Logan hid a smile. Very nice. Get a good look at my brown contacts as you check my pupil reaction. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine. Thanks, I appreciate it. Hey, who says there are no more Good Samaritans?"

The man chuckled, then walked through the door and Logan moved his foot, allowing the door to close behind him with a loud clunk.

Logan counted to one hundred, then used the man's badge to unlock the door again. It opened onto the middle landing in a small, windowless stairwell. Keeping his head in a neutral position, he flicked his eyes around the space, locating the cameras. He found what was likely to be a dead spot between them and wiped the badge clean on his t-shirt before dropping it and kicking it down the stairs as he went up.

He climbed the stairs until he smelled the lingering odor of cigarette smoke and smiled. There is always one. He followed the smell and on the next landing, in the corner behind a heating pipe, spotted a small soda can with cigarette ashes around the open mouth. Logan tugged at the door, covering his hand with the hem of his t-shirt and it popped open, the latch kept down by several layers of masking tape. Bingo.

Modern hospitals were getting serious about security, and that included not just the physical security of their buildings, using things like timed locks, cameras, and RFID identification badges that could be activated or deactivated remotely. You never have to change the keys or codes when someone quits because everyone's access is personalized.

They also used technology in their attempts to ensure the security and safety of their people, leveraging those same RFID badges to track the comings and goings of their staff. Such systems have a happy side effect—from HR's perspective, at least—in that most systems will also trigger warnings that some staff are leaving the ward floor too many times throughout the day, taking too many breaks, badging in and out at the exits at unauthorized times.

So, what can staffers looking for a quick hit of nicotine do? Tape up the door on the stairwell so it won't lock. Then they can take their smoke breaks out in the stairwell and the supervisors won't ever know just how many times they've stepped away. Besides, who could possibly get in all the way up here? The entire building is secured. Someone would have to already own a badge just to get into the building. Then they'd have to be pretty fucking motivated to climb up twenty flights of stairs to get in. It's fine.

Logan chuckled. Yes. Yes, it is just fine.

He walked purposefully through the open door. He was at the far end of a ward. No-one was in sight. The halls were quiet and the nurse's station dark at this pre-dawn hour. Logan mused that this was likely just the secondary station. It appeared to be a standard post-surgical floor, without critical patients who might require more constant vigilance. Besides, the networked monitors in every room would allow a single nurse to watch over a large number of patients at one time. Modern hospital work policies simply didn't require as many staff minding the halls as they used to.

Taking a moment to look around, Logan spotted a door marked 'Staff'. He bumped against the door with his shoulder as he walked past and it opened freely. He glanced at the door frame and saw it was similarly taped over with masking tape. Pivoting, he darted inside, sending a silent thank you to the nicotine addict on the floor with a lazy disposition.

The lights had been out and they automatically clicked on with his movement. The walls were lined with lockers, and there were a couple of vending machines in the back and a small, crooked table surrounded by five chairs tightly packed around it. In one corner near the door was a small sink, the kind typical for hospital rooms, with a foot-powered faucet and a small rack of PPE mounted next to it. He grinned when he saw the box containing clear, anti-allergen gloves. Logan took a pair, quickly gloving up and pocketing another few sets. He walked down the first line of lockers, pulling up on each until he'd found one that was unlocked. Inside was a dusty thermal lunch bag and malodorous Nikes. Shaking his head slightly, Logan continued his search.

He was able to open three more lockers on that side, mostly finding only useless detritus left behind by someone who didn't care enough about the contents to even bother locking it up. The third locker did have a metal clipboard and he snatched that up before beginning his search of the lockers on the other side.

Half-way down the line, he hit the metaphorical jackpot.

Hanging inside the second locker he'd tried on that side was a long, white lab coat, along with a stethoscope. Logan stripped off his red shirt and cap, then wet them both under the sink before shoving them into the covered medical waste trashcan in the corner. Removing his shoe, he tapped out the pebbles into the regular trash can next to it and laced them back up. Next, he donned the lab coat, buttoning it up all the way to obscure as much as possible of the plain grey sleep shirt he'd been wearing under the red tee. He draped the stethoscope around his neck and picked up the clipboard. Thinking for a moment, he went to the back of the break room and found a large mug. Dropping in a tea bag from the box on the counter, he filled the mug to the brim.

Tucking the clipboard under his arm, he balanced the mug in his non-dominant hand, the heavy cup tipping precipitously. He pulled open the door and made his way down the hall and toward the elevators. As he passed another empty nurses' station, he snagged a couple of pens and a small stack of formal-looking papers from the counter, securing them in the clipboard.

Standing in front of the elevators, he flipped through the papers, humming. He'd tucked one pen behind his ear, another shoved in his pocket, open, with the nub facing down and rapidly leaking dark black ink in the pocket. The third was gripped tightly in his hand and he made notations in the margins on the second page in his clipboard. He only had to wait about ten minutes before someone came along, nodding at him and murmuring, "Doctor."

"Hm? What was that?" he asked, looking up with his very best impression of a distracted deer in headlights.

The nurse laughed, "I was saying hello, Doctor."

Logan blinked a few times before smiling, forcing himself to recall that time Patton had caught him and his boyfriend making out in his bedroom, triggering an instinctive flush on his cheeks. "Oh, um, hello, sorry, I am little preoccupied today." He let his eyes linger on hers for a moment, bouncing down quickly to her lips and her breasts, then returned his attention to the clipboard he held close to his chest.

"Um, Doctor, are you taking the elevator?" she asked, stepping closer, an amused grin forcing its way across her face even as she pressed her lips tightly together.

"Mm-hm, it's slow today." He didn't look up but heard her small laugh.

"Let's try pressing the button, then."

He looked up at her words, eyebrows closely knit together as he watched her approach the elevator call buttons. She smiled at him, a barely suppressed laugh adding a lilt to her voice. "Going down?"

"Oh... I suppose I am a little too distracted, then." Logan smiled at her again, taking a sip of his 'tea' and letting some dribble on his lab coat. He scoffed, "I could probably use some sleep. I guess I'm pretty lucky you came along, huh?"

She giggled and turned toward the elevator when it dinged, the doors whispering open. He followed, dropping his pen on the way, then his clipboard. She shook her head, holding the elevator door open for him. "Thank you, um, thank you," he mumbled, hiding his face behind the clipboard as though embarrassed. He spilled a bit more tea on the floor as he moved to the back of the elevator, attempting to get re-situated, holding onto one pen in his teeth, juggling the pages threatening to slip through the loosened crimp of the top of the clipboard.

"Can I press a floor for you?" She asked, watching him struggle.

"Oh…" he pulled out the pen, tucking the now saliva—and DNA—imprinted pen in his pants pocket while he surreptitiously wiped his still-gloved hands on the side of his jeans. "Eight, please… thank you!"

"It's my pleasure, Doctor. It looks like you can use all the help you could get tonight." She smiled, scanning her badge on the RFID reader embedded in the panel. She waited for it to turn green, then pressed 17. She repeated the process for 8.

Logan huffed out a small laugh, face still buried in the clipboard. "Yes. But I've found that 'the Lord will provide.'"

---

When the elevator doors opened on the eighth floor, Logan poked his head out, looking from side to side, noting the softer lighting, thick carpet and dark wood paneling along the bump rails in the halls before stepping off the elevator completely. The rooms on this floor were spaced further apart, with only two on either side of the hallway closest to him. He strode quickly down the hall, turning right, intending to explore the floor with a series of right-hand turns until he found the room he was searching for.

Logan felt a happy jolt in his stomach when he saw the two police officers standing on either side of one of the doors at the end of the second hall. He continued his steady pace, glancing down at his clipboard before looking up at the room number, as though confirming he was in the right place. "Evening, Officers," he murmured, reaching for the door.

"Wait, Doctor, stop…" the officer on his right called out as he opened the door.

Swallowing quickly, he partially suppressed an annoyed-sounding sigh, "Yes, Officer, what is it? I know why this patient is here but he still deserves to be treated."

"Well, no, it—" the officer pointed at Logan's lab coat. "Your pen is leaking."

"Oh!" Logan moved his clipboard to the same hand as his tea, freeing his right hand. He looked down and tugged at the lab coat and sucked his teeth. He brushed at the stain while letting his left hand tip, spilling the contents of his cup down the chest and pants of the officer to his left.

"What the fu—" the officer leapt back, and Logan's eyes narrowed as he watching the man's hand jerk up to his gun, flicking the strap open before catching himself and blowing out a sharp breath. "Watch it, doc."

Logan's eyes flew open, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I've just been so clumsy today. Here, let me..." Logan approached the officer, brushing at his clothes, feeling the Kevlar armor under his shirt. The officer quickly stepped back again.

"It's fine Doctor, it's fine. I"ll go find a hand dryer or something."

"Oh, Nurse Kaye down on three always keeps a hair dryer for her patients under the nurses' station. You know, the one down by the good coffee machine." Logan smiled brightly at him, but the officer's attention was still captured by the large, cold wet spot covering the front of his trousers. Logan heard the officer next to him clear his throat.

"Yeah, Jake, you should probably go get that taken care of. It's three in the morning. This perp's not going anywhere."

Logan muttered as he shuffled his mug and clipboard between his arms, "Sorry, again. Excuse me." He opened the door all the way and slipped inside. The heavy door completely muffled the officers' voices on the other side and a hushed silence filled his ears, broken only by a quiet, periodic beep from the pulse-ox monitor next to the bed.

The slimeball was asleep, one wrist handcuffed to the bed rail.

A slow smile spread across Logan's face as he removed his lab coat, leaving it and his now-empty mug on a chair near the door. He approached the man lying in the bed, glancing down at the chart by his feet. "Mr. Utuado?" Logan, said, tapped sharply on his bandaged leg. The man's eyes shot open. "It's time to wake up, Mr. Utuado."

He stared at Logan with unfocused, blood shot eyes. He had bruises around both eye sockets and a split lip. Logan checked his IV bags. He nodded as he took in the automatic dosage machine, supplemental saline, and the tiny empty package of stool softener left behind in the trash can. "Is the morphine helping with the pain, Mr. Utuado?"

"How the fuck did you know they gave me morphine?" he spat. "And who the fuck are you? Are you supposed to be my lawyer or something?" Utuado eyed Logan's nondescript grey shirt and jeans with stuffed pockets. "You're dressed like a slob."

"Your doctors told me about your medications. Forgive me, I should've introduced myself. You requested a lawyer at the police station while they were—" Logan winced as he examined Utuado's injuries. He frowned and shook his head. "Well, I'm not surprised you're having some memory troubles. Those cops really worked you over, didn't they?" He patted Utuado's injured leg again, smiling sympathetically. "Don't you worry, though, we're gonna sue their asses for every cent they have."

Utuado's eyes widened and he licked his damaged lips. "Really? You think I could get money out of this?"

"Oh, definitely! Given the extent of your injuries... it doesn't matter what that brat has to say now... I won't let them get away with this without paying for it."

Narrowing his eyes, he asked, "What do you mean what 'that brat has to say now?' What'd she say?"

"Well, the kid says the webcam was on, but—" Logan scoffed, looking down at his clipboard and sitting on the edge of his bed, bumping the man's leg. He flinched but didn't say anything. "I don't buy it."

"The computer was off when I was in there, anyway..." Utuado muttered, looking away, reaching toward his leg.

A small smile tugged at Logan's lips. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah, and it was dark in the room when—" Utuado blinked, eyes wide as he looked up at Logan. His mouth fell open slightly.

Logan prompted him, "It was dark in the room when you..." At his silence, Logan pursed his lips, putting down his clipboard. "Remember, Mr. Utuado, attorney-client privilege rules apply anytime you talk to your lawyer." He smiled sympathetically again, gazing at his battered face and mangled leg. "You've been through enough. Tell me what happened."

And he did. Utuado's eyes tightened as he described the beating at the police station. "All I did was tell that officer she was pretty. And this is what she does to me? Bitch."

"Mm-hm..." Logan's voice was strained, his expression hardening, but Utuado didn't seem to have noticed. Logan saw the light on the dosage machine flash briefly. He prodded the man, racing against the temporary stupor he knew would soon follow the dose. "And what happened before the officer caught you."

"Well, you know, I'd just finished and—" Logan stood, taking out the small velvet bag he'd brought from his dresser at home. "Hey, you aren't recording this or anything, right?" Utuado's voice held a twinge of panic.

"No, of course not. That would be entrapment and any decent attorney would have that recording dismissed from evidence before the ink was dry on your hospital release papers." Logan smiled, eyes steely. "No, no, no, no. That's not what I have here."

Logan extracted a small hypodermic from the bag, and quickly pushed it into Utuado's IV line, bypassing the saline drip. "This is Pancuronium bromide." Logan smiled as the man's arm twitched. "Are you familiar with it?"

Utuado's eyes widened as the muscles in his arm contracted unevenly but before he could call out, his entire body convulsed, then went still. "It's a paralytic." Logan smiled and he gripped the blanket covering Utuado's injured leg, clawing at the contusion. "But it won't interfere with pain sensation." He stared into Utuado's eyes, watching the way his pupils contracted and expanded. "I know you felt that. Don't worry, though, the end will come soon enough."

Still smiling, Logan continued. "Given this dosage, after a few hours, your smooth muscles will finally stop functioning. I could leave you like this as you slowly suffocated. Conscious. Alive and aware of every sensation, unable to beg for mercy, right up until the very end."

Logan's smile disappeared. "Did she beg for you to stop hurting her? The little girl?"

Squeezing his leg again, digging his fingers into the wound, Logan watched Utuado's eyes. "I bet she did. I did. We always do.

"And I'm going to give you the same mercy you gave her."

Giving his leg one final twist, Logan wiped the blood from his gloved hand on the blanket where it had started to pour through the dressing. Tugging another clean glove over the first, he removed the other hypodermic from his bag. "I don't know how much time we have left otherwise, believe me, Mr. Utuado, I'd make this last longer."

Holding up the hypodermic, Logan smiled again. "This is potassium chloride." He shrugged. "It's in Gatorade. It's a simple compound, but our physiology is so fragile. A tiny imbalance in electrolytes can be... fatal."

He tapped at the fluid. "Even three or four cc's at this concentration directly administered via IV could trigger cardiac arrest. More than that and your smooth muscles will seize, causing horrific pain in your lungs, intestines, esophagus, urethrae... It's used in lethal injections, but even capital punishment laws require that it must be administered in conjunction with a painkiller." Logan's grin grew as he held his little bag upside down, shaking it to show it was now empty. "Alas, I'm all out."

Logan pressed the entire contents of the 100cc needle into the IV as he leaned close to the man's ear.

"You've hurt a child for the last time, Mr Utuado. I'll see you in hell."

---

Logan peeled off his gloves and shoved the soiled ones into the pocket of his jeans as he watched the light die in Utuado's eyes. He put on one last clean pair and then his lab coat. He picked up the clipboard and his mug, breathing in and out rapidly, bringing himself close to the point of hyperventilation. He threw the mug on the floor next to the bed, then rushed to the door, ripping it open, pleased to see that the officer he'd sent on a wild goose chase for a fictional nurse and her hairdryer was still gone.

"Officer! Officer!" he cried out breathlessly. "The call button's broken in here! I'll get a crash cart! Go, go, go, go! Get a nurse, he stopped breathing!"

The officer's eyes flew open and he rushed off in the direction Logan had pointed, the opposite direction of the nurse's station he'd passed on his way. Glancing one last time at the room, Logan felt his pockets for the velvet bag, emptied hypodermic needles, and used gloves. He walked through the door and toward the closest stairwell.

Logan walked all the way down to the sub-basement, following the growing smell of bleach and the faint tinge of burnt linen. After a few minutes, he found the laundry room. He stripped off the lab coat and checked the collar for stray hairs before stuffing it in a pile of laundry in a canvas cart. Still gripping the clipboard and stethoscope, he popped on his eyeglasses, pulling his hair forward in its usual style. He spotted a red stripe along the wall and followed it upstairs to an emergency exit, the key to disable the alarm taped to the side of the door. Smiling one more time at this evening's luck, he inserted the key and turned it before pressing gingerly on the push bar. Not a peep.

He walked through the door, keeping his back to the single camera aimed near the exit and headed to the M42 bus back home to Gravesend. He passed a urine-scented alley five blocks down from the hospital, with an over-flowing dumpster. He shoved the stethoscope and clipboard inside, puncturing a bag and letting its foul contents fall over his temporary props.

Logan nodded when he glanced at his watch under a streetlight. He still had time for his shower before he needed to be up for the NASDAQ, the actual market he was watching today.

And after he was clean, it would be wise to make some time for breakfast. He hoped Patton hadn't found his stash of Crofter's yet.

---

taglist: @mavenmush @demon9980 @crossiantgay @psychedelicships @justmeandmygayships @tsfanficarchive

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vegalocity · 3 years

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Spicynoodleshipping 16

Ship Prompts

16. A Naughty Kiss

I'll do it, but you gotta go to Horny Jail first because BOTH of you spicynoodle shippers wanted the sexy stuff

Also this is under a cut because it got a lil long.

Red Son had enough self awareness to know he had a bit of a hair trigger when it came to jealousy. If anyone even APPEARED to be flirting with MK he would feel his temper start to simmer beneath his skin. And god forbid someone try to slip him their number because he knew himself well enough to know he'd be zipping across whatever distance was between him and the offender and 'politely' inform them that he wasn't interested.

And MK wasn't! Red Son had zero insecurities in reguard to MK's position and what he wanted in their relationship, But bless his heart his partner was far too nice sometimes and hated turning people down outright, and that's assuming he would even notice that he was being flirted with at all.

But now that he'd been fully acclimated into their little motley crew of heroes, Red Son had found that every so often civillians would be attempting to get into his 'good graces' as it were. Sure it was a bit of an ego stroke to know that once mortals had generally stopped fearing him a fair few decided to desire him instead, but unlike MK he wouldn't hesitate once to stonewall every single one of them. But even with that, MK didn't really seem to... get jealous. It made sense, he loved the idiot but he had the self esteem of a brick wall and always seemed to get more... quietly sad whenever some fool of a mortal decided to try their luck with him.

And then there was tonight. He'd been dragged to one of MK and Mei's party haunts (He would never under any circumstances refer to the event as that hideous mispronunciation of 'Porty' no matter how many times it was used around him) and lingered at the bar near the antigrav area. Someone slid up beside him, some girl with electric pink hair and a backpack shaped like a rabbit plushie, and offered to buy him a drink, Red Son had been about to tell her to get lost, but he saw a flash of orange in his periphery that drew his attention. MK was watching him, everything about this woman's body language was saying she was hitting on him after all. And it made him wonder...What would a Jealous MK even look like?

…Maybe he was still a bit evil after all. He made eye contact with MK and smirked. Then leaned into the girls space and accepted the offer. The girl's attempts at flirting were easy to bounce off of, she was easy to please with vague noises of assent and body language that implied that he was paying attention. He wasn't paying attention of course, he subtly shifted his angle, and she'd moved with him thinking that she was the center of his focus at the moment, and that just gave him a better vantage point of MK as he pretended that this woman was in any way appealing. He sipped at his new drink idly (some fruity cocktail with a colorful blinking light dropped in the glass to match the aesthetic of the club) and watched his partner closely.

Watched as MK's expression contorted from that dreadful quiet sadness to realization, to frustration, and settling on a determination he generally only reserved for the battlefield. He watched the way the lights danced across MK's form as he angled his body in the antigrav and propelled his way to the edge of the dance floor, touching down at the edge softly.

“Red! Hey Red!” ohhh that was a tone that meant trouble. For a moment Red Son worried he might have pushed his luck and he'd just set himself up for a fight, but when MK reached the bar he immediately slid onto the stool beside Red Son and slid his arm around his shoulders. “Who's your new friend? Hi! I'm MK!” The woman made herself scarce rather quickly, and once she was gone Red Son was being tugged away from the bar (having just enough time to put down his drink) and directed toward the attached arcade.

“You know you almost had me going there, Red, I was worried for a second.” they twisted around game booths and claw grabbers and Red Son was pretty sure MK was dipping into some of that Monkie Kid strength because his hand was like iron around his upper arm. “I should have known you'd just be messing with me though. So That's on me.” Soon enough they were in a little alcove nobody seemed interested in anymore, games that were outdated but not enough to be retro and pinball machines with dated IP themes.

“But all the same,” they stopped at a spaceship simulator game, complete with two turret guns and a bench. MK gestured for him to go first, and Red Son kinda wanted to see where he was going with this, so he complied, sitting down. He only had a moments hesitation before MK was sitting atop him, on his knees so he could be the taller one for once. “Seeing that girl undress you with her eyes was really pissing me off.”

MK's kiss was fierce, as if he could beat the memory away if he were forceful enough. He'd never seen this kind of energy from MK before, and it was... pardon his french, fucking sexy; a hand scrambling to get beneath Red Son's jacket, then his undershirt, at some point his hairtie had been removed and he wasn't even sure when that had happened but all that he knew was MK's free hand was now buried in his hair, and pressing gently on his head, as if Red Son would ever pull away from this.

He of course had to return the favor, while MK's hair wasn't the most pleasant to run his hands through while it was still stiff with product, that lovely waist was just begging for an arm around it to ensure their closeness. His remaining hand sliding the hem of MK's shirt upward to feel the exposed skin of his back.

By the time they pulled apart the arcade around them and the thrum of the music was dull in his ears and the flashing lights a bit blurry from where his glasses had slid down his nose.

“So yeah, I guess you succeeded in making me jealous, happy?” MK practically growled in his ear and if Red Son were a lesser man it would have made his bones turn to jelly.

“Very.”

Ship Prompts (Still Accepting!)

#Spicynoodleshipping #Vega writes stories too #letters to vega #ship prompts #Anonymous

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marauders70s · 6 years

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Hey anon! Thank you so much for the compliment. I’m a big fan of followers like you. Not to sound like a rebel or anything, but consider a VPN (hides your IP) and a proxy (hides your location and history) for more privacy. Great VPNs are available here, here, and here for free. Good free proxies are here, here, and here. Also, I love wolfstar and marauders <3 thank you again. Lots of love.

Join the Fic Celebration! | G U I D E L I N E S

YEAR 7, MAUNDY THURSDAY APRIL 12, 1979

“Shut up,” said Sirius lazily, carding his fingers through his long bangs to push them back from his face.

James only laughed and toed off one of his perpetually muddy trainers. It fell the few inches between his long leg and Sirius’ head and hit his gelled hair squarely.

"Oi!” Sirius barked, glaring up at James. James was floating three feet above the train bench, biting into his fourth fizzing whizbee, the sherbet ball dripping a bit down his chin as he broke the tart exterior.

“James,” sighed Remus, scooting further from Sirius so as not to be dripped on by lime sherbet on his open book. “We’ve told you not to eat whizbees on the train.”

“Or in bed,” added Peter helpfully. “You always get tangled in the curtains.”

“Or the rafters,” agreed Remus, turning a page of his book thoughtfully and scowling when James’ socked and rather smelly foot smacked him in the ear.

“Can’t help it,” said James grandly.

“You very well can,” Sirius said irritably, rubbing his head where he had been kicked. “You might have caved my skull in.”

“Would not,” said James breezily. “You’re too thick headed for that.”

“I’m thick headed?” Sirius asked incredulously. “You’ve got prongs sprouting out your swollen head.”

“You’re just lucky Lily’s not here, or she might deflate you,” Peter added, grinning up at James, who had now risen so high he was half flattened against the compartment ceiling and looking stubbornly like he wasn’t bothered by the fact.

“She would not,” James said flatly. “She’d come up and join me.”

"Put your shoes back on. I’m suffocating,” Sirius complained.

“You put them on.”

Sirius glanced at Remus, and they both grinned conspiratorially. They took out their wands.

“With your hands! Your hands!” James yelped as they both said:

"Waddiwasi!”

Both James’ fallen trainers ricocheted from the compartment floor to brain James hard: one in the ribs, making him yelp, and one between the legs, which made his face go so white he dropped suddenly out of the air, the spell knocked out of him. He landed face first on Peter, who made a funny crumpled sound.

"Sirius,” gasped James, his face very red.

The other three laughed and Peter pushed James upright to lean against the window, his hands balled in his lap.

“It was a low blow,” Sirius agreed, grinning.

“I’m dead,” James said dramatically, his voice slowly losing some of the tight pain. “You’ve killed me.”

“Only your ability to bear children,” Sirius retorted cheerfully.

“Yeah and we’re still confused why Lily would sleep with you,” added Peter.

James thumped him with a backhand slap across the chest, and Peter yelped like a wounded dog.

“Hey!”

“Yeah, it’s only true,” Sirius grinned.

James tried to kick him, but Sirius grabbed his socked foot and Remus leaned forward with his wand, running it along the soles as James twitched.

“Betrayal!” James bellowed. “Betrayed by my brother!” he gasped dramatically, managing to wrench his foot out of Sirius’ grasp and kick him accidentally across the jaw.

“OUCH,” yelled Sirius back, despite being very flushed and pleased with being called James’ brother. He had declined the formal adoption proceedings Aunt Mia had started, especially after James’ father had died at the end of last year. It had been too painful for her to try to adopt Sirius without her husband, and so he was only a son in heart, but not in name.

“And you,” yelled James, oblivious of Sirius’ thoughts. As always, James had a problem with volume control. He had taken Remus’ betrayal more seriously, as Remus wasn’t the constant wrestling partner, companion, and prankster Sirius was. “You’ve finished me off. The only loyal one here is Peter!” He flung his arm around Peter’s shoulder and leaned onto his shorter friend.

Peter flushed red at James’ unexpected praise and then grunted as James let his whole body go slack. Peter unceremoniously dumped him to the floor where James lay like a deboned fish.

"James,” sighed Remus. “What are you doing?”

“You’ve killed me,” James said, his eyes squeezed shut behind his glasses. He didn’t look remotely dead. His face was scrunched in concentration to lay still. James had a great deal of trouble staying still.

“Is this your funeral?” Sirius asked sarcastically. “As we stand over your grave?”

James’ eyes popped open as he stared up at the tangle of legs over the bench seats of the train compartment. He grinned delightedly. “Yes. Absolutely. Someone give a eulogy. Peter, as my only true friend, you’re first. Make it good. Make us all cry.”

“Er…” said Peter, glancing in bewilderment at Remus and Sirius.

"Wow,” said James, not waiting five seconds for him to begin speaking. “Not even a word? Not even a tear? Cold, Pete.”

“Give me a chance!” stammered Peter.

“Yes, well we better prepare James for burial,” said Remus with a straight face, shrugging out of his robes and draping them like a parachute over James so he was hidden in a shroud.

“Hey!” James’ voice was muffled and indignant from under the robes.

“Time to throw dirt,” said Sirius, also enjoying the baiting. He scattered crumbs from a half finished Cauldron Cake.

“Hey!”

“Lily will be crushed,” said Remus somberly.

“She’ll live,” said Peter.

“HEY!” yelped James, wrestling the hot fabric down over his face. It took his glasses with it and he squinted, blind, at the blurry figures above him. He could tell them by their coloring: Sirius with his black hair, Remus with his light brown, and Peter with his mousy curls.

“Should we give him flowers?” said Remus angelically, waving his wand over James’ head as he struggled to sit up. With a twitch, James was wearing a white lily crown.

Sirius kept him down with a firm foot, his lips twitching up in a half grin which climbed higher over his face as James tried to pinch his ankle and couldn’t find skin beneath his tall ankle high combat boots. "Don’t you think lilies are too on the nose?” asked Sirius lightly, letting James spring to a sitting position, fumbling for his glasses.

“Definitely,” agreed Peter.

“I’ll give him snapdragons,” said Remus, flicking his wand so the flowers shrank. They were still a pure snow white.

“Make them purple,” suggested Sirius. “They’ll really bring out his eyes.”

“Oh, but the white shows up so well in his hair,” sighed Remus.

James, who had reached up to yank off the wreath threw the whole thing at Sirius instead. Sirius’ mouth was open and he sputtered while James frowned:

“No, I don’t want purple snapdragons for my funeral, Sirius.”

Remus relented, offering James a hand up.

James took it, levering himself in the small space between the seats, and flopped down next to Remus, booting Sirius to the other side to sit by Peter instead, handing Remus his robes back.

Remus folded him with a wand flick and they filtered down to his bookbag to fold themselves inside neatly.

“What do you want?” Sirius asked in the silence, and it became very brittle, and very strained. The four looked at each other, suddenly wide-eyed and scared. There was a war on, after all. And three of them, at least, had joined up. They were of age.

James looked down, his brown eyes bright and hard, and the three knew without looking at one another he was remembering his own father’s funeral.

“Family plot,” he said at last, and quietly, into the suddenly changed and deepened atmosphere. “Next to my parents.”

His mother would be buried with his father. It made him sad to see her grave, already prepared, already engraved, the small hyphen waiting for the wand work to set the numbers in stone.

“White lilies?”

“No,” said James quickly. “Not unless…” and he hesitated, shaking his head too quickly, and they understood that he would only want them if she was dead too. If she was there.

They were eighteen years old.

“No purple snapdragons then,” Sirius said, his voice strangely hoarse the way it always got when he felt too much, no longer suave or cool or in control. “Got it.”

“I don’t care,” laughed James, and his laugh was like Sirius’ voice. Too trembling to be real. “I’ll be dead, won’t I?”

They all stared at each other in silence. Each of their faces was very pale. Across from each other, Remus and Sirius touched their knees together. Sirius swallowed. Remus cleared his throat.

“Anyway, pass me my shoes, wouldn’t you Peter? We’ll be there soon.”

Sirius lived in the basement of Godric’s Hollow, in what was once the guest suite. It had a bathroom and even a small sitting area with his bed against the back wall. His aunt and uncle had even brought in an occultineer to put in two windows, despite being underground, shifting light and views so he wouldn’t feel boxed in.

His bed was between the two windows, and he stared up at the stars, ignoring the way his skin felt against the cool sheets. Ignoring the way he was afraid to close his eyes. At the thought, he squeezed them shut defiantly. They popped open when there was a loud pop at the foot of his bed.

“Hey,” whispered a voice. “You awake?”

Sirius lifted a hand, relieved, grateful, in love. He flipped back the covers in welcome, and he smelled him before he could see him properly, the way Remus smelled of honey and tea and his skin of something hot and wild, like burning leaves in autumn.

“You came,” he murmured into his hair.

They were still keeping the relationship quiet. Not from James, or Lily, or Peter, of course. That would have been impossible. But Sirius did think it might be too hard for Aunt Mia to take, to come down and find them…

Well, if they kept their clothes on, they might pass it off as an innocent sleepover. The thing was, raising a son like James, it was very hard to pull the Serbian Sleeping wool over Mrs. Potter’s eyes.

“I couldn’t sleep,” whispered Remus, turning on his side.

Sirius slept on his stomach, and his arms were up under his pillow. One of his hands was gripping his wand. But he turned his face to Remus.

“Me neither.”

“Is it because of the train?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

There was a silence.

“So…if I had to…plan…the funeral,” Remus said this in a series of stops, of jerky movements, like the words were being forced out of him with an imperius curse, but he couldn’t stop.

“My funeral?”

Remus swallowed, buried his face back into his pillow. It was his, even if he didn’t always sleep there.

“What would you want?” Sirius deflected.

“Books,” Remus responded promptly. It was obvious he had been thinking on it. “Readings from all your favorite passages. All of you.” And Sirius knew he meant James and Lily, and Peter. Maybe even Frank and Alice.

“Flowers?”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about a lot. Just about…about what will be said.”

And Sirius found his fingers beneath the covers. Knew Remus was thinking of his name on the public record. The registry he had been forced to sign on his seventeenth birthday. The one that kept him from applying for healing courses. The one that would make getting a job impossible. The one that made becoming a spy just…easier. Living off the grid easier.

He and Sirius had decided they would share an apartment. It meant nothing to Remus’ parents; they thought they were just roommates, just friends. And while it should have been a big step for them, having grown up living together it would be stranger not to be together than to share a room.

The silence was ruffled by their breaths. By Sirius avoiding the question he knew Remus was etching into him with his toes curling into his calf. A silent contest of wills until finally:

“What would you want?” and it hurt to hear Remus ask it aloud. Where Sirius would have to deny him outright.

“I dunno,” he shrugged, turning his face back in his pillow.

“Do you know if you want to be buried?”

“No,” said Sirius, too quickly. He had never liked small spaces.

“I don’t think I would either,” said Remus quietly. “Maybe if it was just…open. Under a tree.”

"A tree?”

“Like the passage to the Whomping Willow. It would remind me of that.”

"You want me to plant a new Whomping Willow over your dumb bones?” And Sirius fingered his lover’s ribs until Remus shrieked with laughter, clapping his hand over his mouth and glaring reproachfully at Sirius as he shrimped.

“Shut up,” he whispered, and Sirius relented, and they relaxed together in pieces, both watching each other, waiting to see if the other would make a move, towards tickling or romance or...

“Of course not,” Remus continued, as if there had been no interruption. He didn’t have his wand with his pajamas. It felt strange to be without it. But he let Sirius trace the inside of his wrist, where the guard to hold it usually went. “But maybe…my wand wood. Cypress. If I could have a magical trunk. One they might collect for the future.”

“Sure and just add a unicorn to it, right?” mocked Sirius. “We’ll just tie one to it. Make it easy for Ollivander.”

Remus knew he was mocking because he was uncomfortable with the topic, but he still swatted him, burying his face into the pillows in anger and embarrassment.

“Hey,” and Sirius also looked angry and uncomfortable. “Hey. Look. I’m sorry. I just-“

“I know.”

“I don’t have a place.”

"What?” Remus was confused.

“The entire Black family is buried in the same mausoleum. We have plates on the wall. From our birth.”

Remus clenched next to him. He understood what Sirius meant.

“You could…have a place…with me,” he said it slowly. Not unwillingly. Just unwilling to sound cheesy.

Sirius blew a raspberry into his shoulder and Remus laughed in spite of himself.

“You’re the corniest,” he told Remus, but Remus could hear the happiness threading his voice.

“I know. I’m cornbread.”

“Corn on the cob.”

“Corn hash.”

“Stop; you’re making me hungry.”

“Sorry.”

“There is one kind of corn we haven’t named.”

"Yeah?”

“What you are. The kind of corn.”

“Oh thanks. I’m a kind of corn.”

“Of course,” and Sirius flipped on his side now too, freeing up both his hands.

“What kind, then?” asked Remus in amusement.

Sirius reached forward, tickling hard as Remus jumped a foot in the air, shrieking.

"Popcorn,” he said smugly, and Remus had to apparate out mid-shriek when they heard James on the stairs.

“Would you two keep it down?” he grouched to Sirius, who was alone in a rumpled, stripped bed. The covers were on the floor, and he realized how it looked.

“Sorry,” he said, not sorry at all.

“Move over,” grumbled James, padding over to the bed. He glanced down at it, then at Sirius. “Is it clean?”

“Nothing happened,” Sirius assured him, a cheeky half grin creeping up his face.

“Not even hand stuff?”

“You could go back upstairs.”

“No. I’m boiling. Let me in.”

Sirius scooted obligingly over. The basement was the coolest part of the house, and April had been muggy.

“What we you laughing at then?” asked James comfortably, but Sirius knew him well and long enough to hear the thread of loneliness in his voice. He knew James had been in his room, thinking of his father.

Sirius lied for him then.

“Oh you know. Vegetables.”

James looked sideways at him in horror and then leapt out of the bed. “Sirius! GROSS!”

And Sirius thought his face would break from laughing.

See it on AO3

#m70sfics #drabbles #follower fun

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nuttydefendoryouth · 3 years

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How to Build a Boat Bench Seat?

DIY projects allow you to achieve the result that you desire. Utilizing your skills and artistic talents is related to this matter, and it’s also a way to save some bucks. With regards to this, many boaters can manage how to build a boat bench seat by themselves.

You may have wood for building boat seats. Some upgrades can be done by adding cushion and vinyl. Once you choose a design, you can start collecting materials.

If you’re groping for design ideas, this article will show you DIY boat bench seats that will surely please you. You can follow them to refurbish or renovate a boat.

Various boat styles showcase different angles and lines. Wide and deep hulls are the main characteristics of workboats, while sailboats are thin and long. Nonetheless, a wooden banquette would be fantastic on both of these vessels. Here are the steps:

Step 1. Take off Metal and Trim

A banquette is a bench along the wall. Therefore, you have to consider the needed space and shape for it. The center section of the boat is where you need to lay down this project.

To get started, you have to remove metal or trim but you must keep the pieces for reconnection later on. You may also need to take off logos and insignias that are still useful.

Step 2. Cutting the Chosen Area

Use chalk to draw a line on your chosen area then you can run the chainsaw over it. Cutting the area should be even and consistent. You may need to tidy up the cutting with a circular saw.

You have to be attentive while doing it as there may be some screws. These tiny pieces of hardware may be hiding underwood plugs.

Step 3. Cleaning

Get rid of the debris created by cutting since it can block from cutting the bottom part.

Step 4. The Bench Base

Use two pieces of 2×4 wood and place them 16 inches above the pontoon boat furniture with the support from screws for wood. This step is not only for building the base but hull reinforcement as well.

Get ¾-inch plywood to be added over the 2×4 woods with screws. This will strengthen the structural integrity that may have temporarily gone due to the cuttings that were made.

Step 5. Seat Back

You may recycle some wood that just lay around or V-groove soffit panels. Get measurement from the seat to the boat anchor for the preparation of the seatback.

To ensure that you’re going to create comfortable seats, add horizontal wood blocks that tilt at a slight angle. Install the seatback with 15-gauge finish nails.

Step 6. Seat Attachment

You may choose any suitable wood for the seat. Mahogany and tropical hardwoods like ipe are the best examples. Pre-drilled screw holes should be done before assembling the parts. Make planks for the bench size that you like and fasten them with stainless wood screws.

Step 7. Painting the Banquette

If you use recycled wood with some paint on it, you need to sand it before applying a new coat.

Step 8. The Last Touch for Refinement

You have to add a routed edge over the wooden seat. Then, you can put back the metal and insignia that you removed when starting this project.

The finishing touches will be covering the back panels with new paint, applying oil on the wood to have an attractive sheen, and sealing the original parts with polyurethane.

When thinking of comfortable bench seats for boats, cushions and vinyl may be the first things that come into your mind. You can skip buying ones for your aluminum boat and instead, make them yourself for customization.

So, here’s a guide on how to make a boat rear bench seat if you don’t mind sewing some seat cover.

Making a rectangular box frame is the very first step. Make three sides for the lower portion, and they will touch the transom and the floor. Its top will be able to flip and access the engine.

Make some plywood strips based on the measurement of the bench seat. You may have a shop cut it for you. Some 1”x1.5” pressure treated lumber, waterproof wood glue, and 1” staples are the things that you need to put the pieces together.

After forming the box out of the plywood strips, get rid of splinters by sanding. This process can also break the edges to prevent damaging the vinyl. After sanding, you can apply two coatings of paint.

Once the glue has dried, place it on the designated area in your boat. It’s sturdy and it won’t give you problems.

Step 2. Setting the Vinyl Down

You don’t have to put vinyl at the bottom of the box. An extra piece is needed to be wrapped under the seat. Just apply more effort in working for a nice appearance and allow a vinyl skirt to hang.

Make sure to leave a margin of about half an inch for sewing the edges. This is enough to match the cording’s size. Use the double-sided tape to hold the cording and make it curved without twisting or binding.

If you know how to use the sewing machine, you’ll be fine. But if not, you can ask someone to do it for you. When vinyl is sewn properly, you can install the bench.

Step 3. Cutting the Foam

Measure the amount of foam that you need, then mark it. Cutting can be done with an electric knife. Give ½” extra to ensure that the vinyl cushion is stuffed nicely. When you have the right piece of foam, glue it on the top of the box.

Batting should be added on the sides for some cushioning with the roughly estimated size. It gives the seat a fuller look. Use a Loctite adhesive to glue it and trimming is needed once it sits in the right place.

Step 4. Adding the Vinyl by Stapling

Stapling creates a serious grip and adequate strength to hold the vinyl in place. It’s best to use stainless staples. You can begin on the opposing side and work your way to finish tucking the whole piece of vinyl.

Just keep pulling, stapling, and tucking to obtain a neat result. At this point, you have finished a bench seat or a motor box for your aluminum boat.

As long as you have time, resources, and willingness to work, there’s no reason that you won’t try following the steps on how to build a boat bench seat. You can choose the color, design, size, and materials that you like from these two guides.

Some boaters want to customize the looks of their boats to represent their personalities. No one is stopping you from doing so! It can be a technique to give life to an old boat. Also, you can always make a bench seat in a set-up that brings comfort.

Did you find this article helpful? If yes, share with anyone who would need this.

It’s the time of the year again when being out on the water is the best place to be. In the heat of the summer sun, there’s really nothing like sitting on a pontoon boat to just drift on a calm lake or spend an entire afternoon fishing. Pontoon boats get a lot of attention during the summer months, and it’s only right to take preventative measures in order to keep the health of your boat in check. One of the easiest ways you can do this is by protecting the pontoon’s seats using seat covers. If you’re thinking about buying pontoon folding boat seat covers, here is a quick guide on what you should look for.

Material

Pontoon seat covers are made out of many different kinds of materials. The lowest end in the spectrum would be a simple plastic tarp. Although plastic tarps will do the job of covering your seats, they aren’t particularly durable. Plastic tarps are great alternative for quick-fix solutions, but they are not permanent options.

The next step up to plastic would be canvas tarps. Canvas tarps have long been used as a general cover-up material in boating. They are more durable than plastic in many ways. However, they are also more susceptible to mildew and mold. Canvas tarps today are most often referred to as marine vinyl. It’s still a good alternative if you prefer to use it, but canvas is also easy to stain. Either way, your canvas will definitely protect your pontoon boat seats, but they won’t last as long untreated. If you want your marine vinyl to last longer and protect your flip up boat seat better, you can treat them a waterproof and/or UV spray. The best materials for pontoon seat covers are vinyl blends or polyester. These materials are highly durable and easy to take care of. They are also more resistant to the elements; therefore, they can protect your seats better. Most vinyl blends also offer some breathability factors, so mold and mildew won’t have much room to grow in—even in the most humid conditions.

Size

You might automatically think that larger is better when it comes to pontoon boat covers, but that’s not necessarily true. Although a larger size will allow you to cover more area, it’s important to measure fit more than anything. Since pontoon boats are exposed to the elements continually, a fitted seat cover will do a better job in protection. Any excess room caused by an unfitted cover will just be excess room for more water or air to enter and damage your pontoon seats.

This is why it’s important to measure your pontoon seats before you go out looking for seat covers. This article discusses how you can measure your seat covers properly. Once you have the dimensions written down, you can then continue shopping for pontoon seat covers. Make sure you check your dimensions against the size of the covers before you purchase. It also helps to read reviews regarding the size of the cover from those that have purchased the same product before. You can also get information from the manufacturer of both the seat cover and your low back folding boat seat.

Other things to look for

Apart from material and size to consider, you might want to also think about a few other things before you buy a pontoon seat cover. First, you might want to think about ease of use and storage. When you’re not using your pontoon seat covers, where are they going to go? Can they easily be folded up and stowed away someplace on your pontoon boat?

There are also seat covers that might utilize the use of zippers or elastic. Some people prefer seat covers that will just slip over your pontoon seats. But there are others that are so fitted; you’d have to zip them up in place. There are seat covers that come with enclosures and others that don’t. It might not matter to some people, but style and color matter to others. You might find that a lot of pontoon seat covers come in a white color, neutral, or blue color. Whites and neutral colors reflect the sunlight better than darker colors.

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myhouseidea · 6 years

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The Hotel Maritim designed by Dom Arquitectura is located on Roses beach promenade wanted to renovate the entire ground floor. Updating the common spaces, while still maintaining their same existing uses. The hotel’s ground floor is divided into three areas: the hall and reception, the bar, and the terrace.

“We have conceived the reception and hall area as an open space, and we have designed the walls and furniture, through panels, slats and straight volumes. For the stairs and elevator access is we have used a panelling white lacquered dm in order to give consistency to the currently irregular set of walls and some doors. As we enter the hall, we find a wall separating the bar area, formed by vertical oak slats that accompanies us to the reception, and generates a large wooden frame, that highlights the sea views at the end. We have designed the reception furniture, including a bench with the same oak wood as the vertical slats, unifying materials. The reception furniture is combined with a white corian volume that forms the countertop.

The bar area is distributed to accommodate all the activities required by the hotel: meetings, dance, performances, and other events that require a lot of versatility. Therefore, we have created an open space with mobile furniture that allows and enhances flexibility and multiple uses, as well as, a relaxation area with sofas for reading, and a bar area with tables.

The last bay before the facade is designed as a continuation of the terrace, where we have used the same floor in ipe. Thinking about the extensive use of the hotel in summer, we have proposed a set of folding glass doors without frames, that allow us to leave the entire façade open, creating a semi covered area. Hence we have created an area that may have a bar related as well to the outdoor terrace, as if it were a large covered porch.

The lighting is made out of indirect linear leds lights, and adjustable spotlights combined as well with table and foot lamps with lampshades that create a warmer atmosphere and cosier spaces.

The terrace area with a wood ipe flooring, is elevated over the village’s seafront promenade, allowing a continuous visual connection with the beach and the sea beyond. The pre-existing stainless steel railing is eliminated, and a new glass railing is installed without stilts, accentuating this greater connection. We proposed as well a new horizontal awning structure, with three bays that allows us to have a large outdoor shaded area. Finally, in the same ipe wood, we form several fixed planters, with various plants that help us to separate spaces and create various zones, privatizing the terrace area from the existing pool.”

Architect: Pablo Serrano Elorduy Interior Designer: Blanca Elorduy Surface: 600 m2 Photo: Pablo Serrano Elorduy Date: 2018

Collaborators: Contract Deco – Lighting Grass, Pilma and Ego – Furniture

Hotel Maritim by Dom Arquitectura The Hotel Maritim designed by Dom Arquitectura is located on Roses beach promenade wanted to renovate the entire ground floor.

#commercial #Dom Arquitectura #hotel #Hotel Maritim

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architectnews · 3 years

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The Ranch Mine creates O-asis home in the Arizona desert

Architecture studio The Ranch Mine built a courtyard house for a musician in Arizona with white stucco walls and solar panels paired with a Tesla home battery for power outages.

The project, called O-asis, was built on an under-utilised, 1.6-acre site along a Phoenix mountain preserve.

O-asis has a roof covered in solar panels

Designed for a pianist by local firm The Ranch Mine, the house is intended to serve as a "respite from city life".

O-shaped in plan, the 4,090-square-foot (380-square-metre) residence is organised around a central courtyard.

White stucco and hardwood define the exterior

Heavily insulated walls are wrapped in white stucco, while recessed niches are clad in ipe – an exotic hardwood that is known for its durability.

Part of the property is surrounded by a rattlesnake fence for keeping out snakes made of weathering steel. The house lies low to the ground, rising only 12.5 feet (3.8 metres).

"Its strong horizontal form was designed as a datum for highlighting the dramatic shapes of the desert landscape," the design team said.

The desert house is protected by a rattlesnake fence of weathering steel

Almost everything in the house can be controlled wirelessly, including the lights, speakers, blinds and locks.

The team installed a rooftop solar array and Tesla Powerwall batteries, which act as a backup energy source during power outages.

An internal courtyard brings light and air into the home

Upon entering, one steps into an austere foyer. Just beyond, visible through a glass wall, is the open-air courtyard, which is adorned with a concrete bench and desert vegetation.

The courtyard brings indirect daylight and fresh air into the dwelling, with plants selected to create a different colour palette as the seasons change.

Walnut slats provide better acoustics for the grand piano

To one side of the courtyard is the main public area, which is lined with glazed pocket doors that usher in cool breezes and provide a smooth connection between inside and out.

The long, slender room encompasses areas for lounging and dining, along with space for a grand piano. Lining one wall are walnut slats backed with acoustic felt to improve the sound quality for its musical occupant.

The yoga room looks out over the landscaped garden

Concealed within the slat wall is a pivot door, which leads into the master suite. The sleeping area was kept intentionally small.

"The master suite turns convention on its head, limiting the size of the bedroom to just enough room for the built-in bed, using most of the space for the spa-inspired bathroom and retail-inspired closet," the team said.

A concealed door leads to the bedroom

The bathroom features a skylit vanity and a limestone-clad bathing area. The closet, rather than being enclosed, flows right off the bathroom. Warm-toned wood was used for shelving and cabinetry.

Other spaces within the home include a yoga room with cork flooring and an in-law suite with its own entrance.

The walk-in wardrobe is lined with wood

Just beyond the main living space is a swimming pool. Similar to the courtyard, the backyard features a long, concrete bench – this one containing a fire pit. The outdoor area serves as a great spot to take in the starry night sky.

Local firm The Green Room oversaw the property's landscape design, which is filled with plants native to the Sonoran Desert.

A concrete bench with a fire pit overlooks the pool

Founded in 2010, The Ranch Mine has completed a number of modern-style dwellings in the Phoenix area that embrace their context.

thers include the Pleats house, whose cladding takes cues from the ribbed exterior of cacti, and a courtyard home that alludes to Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings of adobe buildings.

Photography is by Roehner + Ryan.

Project credits:

Architect: The Ranch Mine Landscape architect: The Green Room Landscape Design Builder: Boxwell Homes

The post The Ranch Mine creates O-asis home in the Arizona desert appeared first on Dezeen.

#Architecture – Dezeen

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kathleenseiber · 4 years

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Inside Biology’s Black Box

This article from the March issue of Cosmos has been shortlisted for the 2020 Eureka Prize for Long-Form Science Journalism. The prize will be announced November 20.

A new device for bioengineering embryo-like structures is shedding fresh light on those earliest, most mysterious – and largely unobservable – moments of human development. Great leaps forward in safe, successful pregnancies and congenital defect prevention await, but so do a host of ethical questions.

The development of two stem cell groupings at 6 hour increments. Credit: Jianping Fu

I count six little ziggurats side by side, stolid and squat and obviously man-made. They are not going anywhere, but in between them things are on the move.

Circles of dots have begun to roil and rotate, angry blimps rising up among the static trapezoids, their contents swirling in a frenzy of disorder. Then, in each one, a ring solidifies and grows in the chaos.

It’s fleeting, and the jiggling hoop is soon churned back into the mass as the riot spreads unchecked.

These dots are human cells and their acrobatics are the beginnings of human life, though not as we know it. There is no womb, no pulsing maternal heart. Instead, the cells are born in an elaborate plastic chamber under constant video surveillance, and I am witness to their first two days of existence, compressed into a sparse 18 seconds by the wonders of time-lapse video.

The architect of this dazzling piece of cellular music hall is bioengineer Jianping Fu, whose field of expertise – mechanobiology – tries to understand how living cells change in response to physical forces.

Working from his University of Michigan lab on the outskirts of industrial Detroit, Fu is bringing the measured mindset of the machine-builder to the job of constructing life. He is one of an elite cohort of scientists trying to build a replica of the human embryo from the ground up to try to understand just how we are made – and where it can all go horribly wrong.

This area of science aims to alleviate the gamut of reproductive misery, from the anguish of infertility and miscarriage to gathering information about drugs like Thalidomide, which seem innocuous but have grave consequences if taken during pregnancy.

Fu’s bundles of cells, dubbed embryoids, could be used to screen drugs for toxicity in the womb. They might also unravel the mystery of why two out of every five pregnancies fail before 20 weeks. But these scientists, tinkering at the dawn of life, don’t know how far the cells can develop. There is talk their creations could one day provide a source of organs for transplant. The spectre of a baby in a dish looms ominously in the public imagination.

Which is why Fu’s bit of kit, written up in Nature in September and described by leading embryologist Ali Brivanlou as “a major advance in the knowledge of early human development”, is also an invitation for humanity to do some circle time on what it means to build a human.

The invention that’s created this excitement is a simple-looking chamber with three channels. In one, Fu places pluripotent stem cells, blue-sky building blocks that can become almost any human cell. They are immortal and can be frozen and thawed, forming a renewable resource that can be used for years.

Some of these are embryonic stem cells, originally derived from human IVF embryos. Fu also uses “induced pluripotent stem cells” – iPS cells for short – that come from adult skin cells re-programmed back to a primal state.

In the second channel Fu pours a liquid containing morphogens, the fertilisers that hurry stem cells on with the job of remaking themselves over and over. In the third, he lays a gel to support the growing masses, each one hived into its own mini-domain by evenly spaced support posts – the ziggurats.

In many respects there’s nothing novel about this. Researchers the world over are growing stem cells into structures that mimic the early embryo, before getting them to switch course in the first few weeks and become heart, brain or kidney cells.

These grow to make mini organs or “organoids”, about the size of a stunted chickpea, that are used to model diseases on the lab bench and test if drugs or gene tweaks might be a cure.

But Fu is aiming to make the whole shebang.

There’s no diverting cells off into hearts and brains – rather, he wants them to run their course and become something that resembles the early human embryo.

Fu has pushed these embryoids as far as anyone’s been yet and, true to his engineering pedigree, he’s done much of it by inventing a new 3D world for the stem cell colonies to grow in.

“Most excitingly… in this first set of experiments, is the fact that in a subset of those colonies we start to see some asymmetric tissues, asymmetric embryonic structures,” he tells me by phone.

Credit: Jianping Fu

Embryologists tend to get breathless about symmetry, or lack of it. After natural conception, when the sperm fuses with the egg to form the singlecelled zygote, there follows a cascade of dividing, with new cells budding outwards in a uniform ball which, at day three, becomes the 16-cell morula – Latin for mulberry, which it resembles.

But around day six there is a major break from the order of symmetry, as the front-to-back, belly-to-spine axis appears. Anyone aiming to make a human embryo needs to nail this. Fu didn’t just meet the milestone; he also produced the cells that become the amniotic sac – the fluid-filled bag in which the foetus floats.

“These asymmetric structures, basically they resemble the core of the peri-implantation human embryo,” he says.

Implantation. It strikes at the heart of this project. Somewhere between six and 12 days after conception, the human embryo nestles into the fleshy wall of the uterus. This is essential if the pregnancy is to continue. But when it goes wrong, it’s disastrous. Nearly three quarters of all pregnancies that miscarry by 20 weeks are a failure to implant. And the two months after implantation are when the embryo is most vulnerable to the effects of drugs or maternal infections that cause birth defects.

Given the gravity of these issues, you’d think an avalanche of research would have shed light on them. In fact, we know so little about the period it’s called the ‘black box’ of embryology.

The implanted embryo, key to the enigma of early life, is mostly invisible to science. The first reason is structural: the embryo is sequestered in a uterus beyond our gaze. The second is ethical: scientists have grown human IVF embryos for 13 days in the lab, but no one has gone beyond two weeks.

Endorsed by the UK’s Warnock Committee in 1984 and then by the US National Institutes of Health’s Human Embryo Research Panel in 1994, the 14-day rule bans lab research on embryos beyond that point.

It is around this time that a groove called the primitive streak appears in the embryo: among other things this marks a cut-off beyond which twinning is impossible. This is the defining line of the individual human which, some believe, is morally significant. The 14-day rule is enforced by legislation in at least 12 countries.

The reasoning is clear, but the effect is to keep the black box in shadow; science hasn’t had a way to illuminate it.

Now the spotlight falls on Fu’s plastic channels, properly called microfluidic devices. In Fu’s earlier experiments, only around 5-10% of his embryoids reached that asymmetry waypost. But in his lab just a short drive from the factory where Henry Ford christened the first of his Model Ts, Fu has rewritten the rules of embryoid production.

“With this microfluidic system, now we can generate such human embryo-like structures with very high efficiency, up to about 95%,” he says.

Fu’s system isn’t just meeting quality benchmarks, and this is where the parallels with Motor City’s early denizens become a little more pronounced. “It is a scalable system,” he says. “I would even say that now… it becomes a manufacturing system, depending on the needs, right? Depending on how many you need.”

Fu’s tone is measured, matter of fact. But on this moonshot to the dark side of our collective beginning he carries the interests of Everyman, so be reassured that he tells his tale with deep concern for our wellbeing.

What if we could develop a screening mechanism, that’s an adjunct to pharmaceutical development, that enabled us to provide a safeguard for a new drug?

When he says the system “will be very useful for high throughput screening”, that clinical parlance describes the potentially vast benefits to real embryos of testing hundreds of drugs on embryoids first. His work could also show why so many pregnancies miscarry – and improve our measly IVF success rate of 20%.

Indeed, his precision-tooled temperament may be a prerequisite for the kind of slog needed here, to get an embryoid to trace the footsteps of a real human embryo, in something the scientists call recapitulation. It is only by mimicking the true-life course that a dish-bound doppelganger can give test results that are valid.

And that is a big ask, not least because there is no gold standard; the ‘black box’ means there is no definitive embryo library to provide reference points for the journey. Then there are the endless variables in embryoid research: the physical layout of the device, when to add morphogens and chemical signals, and countless other tiny details.

Which is where Fu took his Enterprise into deep space. His embryoids reached the early phase of another critical developmental stage called gastrulation. When the furrow-like primitive streak appears at 14 days, it signals that the cells below, a little like the settling of ploughed earth, are falling into three layers: the ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm, respective precursors of skin and brain, muscle, and internal organs. Their emergence heralds the laying down of the body plan.

But Fu’s embryoids also showed something else undeniably human. Budding off from those furiously dividing balls were the barely discernible outlines of germ cells. These define the male and female sex – they are the cells that go on to produce sperm or eggs.

Megan Munsie is Deputy Director of the Centre for Stem Cell Systems at the University of Melbourne and has been entangled with the stem cell story for two decades, first as a researcher and now as an expert on policy and ethics. The appearance of these sex cells left a deep impression.

“This is a part of human development that we just really can’t follow,” she says. “The start of the germ lineage I think is absolutely fascinating.”

Nor was it the only aspect of Fu’s achievement that gave her pause.

“When we looked across his images I found them quite extraordinary,” she says. “In almost all the clusters in the wells the patterning was consistent, and as you can imagine in this area of biology there is often quite a lot of inconsistency.”

That cookie cutter reliability is essential if you want to screen a bunch of drugs for harmful effects; the substrate has to repeat faithfully across each test. One example, of course, stands out.

“Thalidomide, who was expecting that? What if we could develop a screening mechanism, that is an adjunct to pharmaceutical development, that enabled us to provide a safeguard for a new drug?” asks Munsie.

Barely a kilometre from Munsie’s office, across Melbourne’s verdant and expansive Royal Park, Andrew Elefanty is using stem cells to try to make bespoke blood for people whose bone marrow has failed, or is in overdrive making blood cells that don’t work properly – the leukaemias.

It is the kind of medicine that shows just how personalised the embryoid project could become.

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Credit: University of Michigan Engineering

In order to create the customised blood, Elefanty’s team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute takes blood samples from volunteers. The immature red cells are removed and, with the help of genes delivered in a virus, programmed back to a pluripotent state – they become iPS cells.

In crimson culture fluid in blue-capped flasks, these iPS cells are then urged by the team towards the embryoid stage. But, unlike Fu, the team halts development at the point of gastrulation, directing the cells to become mesoderm alone.

Why? Because it is that layer, as Elefanty shows me in a stunning photo, that fashions the seminal version of our biggest blood vessel, the aorta, in whose walls, at this rudimentary time, the red blood cells are made.

Duplicate Elefanty’s process with the blood of someone with leukaemia and the hope is that, one day, you could make healthy blood for them that’s a perfect match.

But I’m confused about something.

Since stem cells were first coaxed into tiny 3D brain-like structures in 2008, scientists have produced a cornucopia of organoids. All of these – mini brains, hearts, kidneys and even blood cells – can be made directly from pluripotent stem cells. Why, then, would you want to push them through the embryoid pathway first, which seems to be taking the long way round?

“The way that works the best, if you like, is if you try to direct them via a trajectory where you do actually try to replicate some of the steps during embryonic differentiation,” says Elefanty. “That’s the road map that you’re following.”

The whole process is artificial, but there’s something of a “nature knows best” adage at its heart. Elefanty is leveraging nature’s navigational toolbox, whose items have been checked off by the rigorous oversight of evolution, to make a better blood cell.

The embryoid pathway could also be a way forward for organ replacement.

Writing in Nature in 2018, stem cell pioneer Martin Pera and colleagues noted that mini brains, livers and kidneys made from stem cells are pretty basic, and that maybe we can do better.

“Initiating organ development in an environment as similar as possible to the developing embryo might… generate structures that more closely resemble mature, functional organs, for drug screens or even for transplantation,” they write.

Usable organs, however, both in terms of sophistication and size, would need the embryoid to be pushed much further along the developmental path than it has been. Elefanty points out two largish hurdles to that ever happening.

“If you don’t have the right cell type you can’t make a whole embryo. And secondly, what people can’t underestimate is the difficulty in reproducing the environment that is the same as the implanted embryo,” he says.

Here’s the rub. Fu’s whirling cell clusters are the right ones to make the headline act of the embryo, but are missing the supporting entourage: the trophoblasts that become the placenta, and the hypoblasts that go on to make the yolk sac, needed to nourish the early embryo.

These are critical kit in their own right, but they also play a key role in what is called patterning, which plots the layout of the body – for example, getting your liver and spleen in the right spot or crystallising the geography of the brain’s bumps and folds.

Here, however, the incoming breakers of science seem relentless.

In 2018, Japanese researchers cultured human trophoblast stem cells for the first time, raising the prospect of an artificially grown placenta. Another announcement last June, however, may have leapfrogged that altogether.

A group led by Xuefei Gao from the University of Hong Kong created something called “expanded potential stem cells”. With some clever chemical coaxing they heightened the potency of human embryonic stem cells and iPS cells – stem cells on steroids if you like. Crucially, expanded potential stem cells can make those missing bits – the placenta and yolk sac.

The final step would be replicating implantation, and in October 2019 the Salk Institute’s Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte led a team that created expanded potential stem cells from mice, some by reprogramming cells from the critters’ ears, to make what they say “could potentially be… fully functional synthetic embryos in vitro”.

Jianping Fu looks on as postdoctoral fellow Yi Zheng examines stained stem cells. Credit: Jianping Fu.

Equipped with placenta and yolk sac, these are primed to become fully fledged foetuses – and Belmonte successfully implanted the structures in a mouse uterus. Only 7% took and, after a week, they were badly malformed. But it is early days.

As the science rushes onwards it is hard enough to understand it, let alone pass judgment on how far it should all be allowed to go. There are ground rules in place. The 14-day rule is as bedrock as ethics gets, exerting global influence. But, for the purposes of regulation, is an embryoid an embryo?

In Australia it probably is, even though no one is pushing the experimental agenda at anywhere near Fu’s level.

Dianne Nicol is Chair of Australia’s Embryo Research Licensing Committee, which would make any such adjudication should the question arise. It hasn’t – yet. She originally trained as a developmental biologist and is now a Professor of Law at the University of Tasmania.

Nicol directs me to The Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002, which defines a human embryo as something made by fertilisation of a human egg by a sperm. But it goes beyond that, to things with a human nuclear genome that have “the potential to develop up to, or beyond, the stage at which the primitive streak appears”.

“That does seem to me to include these embryoids that have a capacity to develop to the primitive streak. And if that’s the case then we have a regulatory environment to deal with them,” she says, careful to stress she’s speaking in her capacity as legal academic, not Committee chair. Should the Committee decide similarly, research like Fu’s in Australia would require a licence.

The Act specifies that any research on human embryos must be done under a licence issued by the Committee, a second layer of scrutiny after review by an institutional ethics committee. The decision whether or not to grant such a licence would, almost certainly, take cues from philosophers who specialise in stem cell ethics.

One job for those professional thinkers is to look at why the primitive streak is a moral line in the sand, beyond the question of individuation.

The standard answer is that it heralds the arrival of ectoderm, which prefigures the nervous system, which transmits pain that will, way on down the track, be perceived by a conscious brain. So the primitive streak seems to mark a point beyond which harm could be inflicted.

I asked Insoo Hyun, a Professor of Bioethics and Philosophy at Case Western Reserve University in the US, if the moral weight attached to the primitive streak is justified.

“I think, from a secular point of view, it is very hard to defend that, because we’re not even at the point where we’ve got functioning neurons or any kind of capacity for experience or pain,” he says.

Hyun also notes that many versions of the 14-day rule are nuanced, specifying that culture of embryos cannot go beyond 14 days or the appearance of the primitive streak, whichever comes first.

That points to 14 days being relevant only because it coincides with primitive streak formation. But the whole embryoid project could rejig the developmental order – scientists could, theoretically, make the primitive streak happen earlier or later.

Adding to the regulatory imbroglio are the tectonic shifts we’ve seen in the ways of concocting human life, from test tube babies to reproductive cloning.

In 1996, biology superstar Dolly the sheep was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. Fashioned by putting DNA from a sheep’s udder cell into a sheep embryo – a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer – Dolly was proof of concept for reproductive cloning, which remains universally banned in humans.

Along with those reproductive advances, Hyun tells me, the laws that define embryos have shifted focus. “You’re seeing embryo definitions in legislation that have less and less to do with how it was created and more and more to do with what they can become,” he says.

You’re seeing embryo definitions in legislation that have less and less to do with how it was created and more and more to do with what they can become.

Which suggests, he adds, that the lawmakers are preoccupied with one big issue when it comes to reproductive technology: “Does the thing in question have the power to make a baby if transferred into the womb?”

When the moral rightness of something hinges on what it could become, you have what philosophers call an “argument from potential”. But such arguments, says Hyun, can get hoisted on their own petard as science advances.

What would happen if, following Belmonte’s work, you could program a human skin cell into an expanded potential stem cell that could ultimately make a baby under the right conditions? In that brave new world, would a flake of dandruff meet a requirement for moral protection?

And what of social potential? If regulation itself prohibits transfer of research embryos into a womb, should that allay concerns about what they might become?

Good ethics, of course, starts with good facts, and Elefanty reminds me that our capabilities are limited.

“There is still a considerable degree of concern over making embryos in a dish which will make viable organisms and so forth because that’s still got a degree of playing God associated with it,” he says.

“I think it is partly moot because I think the technology is nowhere near there.”

Elefanty could well be right. And no one is even remotely suggesting we could, or should, grow a baby in a lab. But the science is moving at speed, and so it may be prudent to get our ethical ducks in a row sooner rather than later.

Just in case.

This article appeared in the March 2020 issue of Cosmos magazine. You can subscribe to the magazine here.

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