#my aunt got arrested and called the cops on my grandmother | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ellaintrigue · 4 years

Photo

Photo credit: Julio Cortez/AP

George Floyd's fiance pleads against the violent protests: https://www.thedailybeast.com/george-floyds-fiancee-pleads-…

YES, racism is alive and well. So is sexism, rape culture, and homophobia, but you don't see the Me Too movement hurting people and destroying property...

YES, George Floyd was murdered. But this goes far beyond racism. I never deny racism, the recent murder of a black man by two white guys in a pickup was clearly racist. But this is an issue of MEN. And POLICE. Cops have always killed people, it's all a matter of what gets the most publicity. I see a photo collage going around of black people that have been shot recently by cops and I find it offensive. Where are the white, Asian, and Hispanics that have also been shot by the police? What about the recent shooting of a white woman? We are all equals, right? https://apnews.com/57b423dcf5e54bdb801d7ea564416a0a

Foolish liberal hypocrisy. Meanwhile I am seeing younger democratic socialists applauding the looting as capitalism being put in its place. What the hell? You see the first article above, George Floyd's loved one said he never wanted this. And what exactly is the relevance to his death? What did Target stores do to George Floyd? How is the guy walking down the street with a backpack of stolen liquor bottles contributing to justice?

This is bullshit of the greedy and the brainwashed, race issues and social topics have been long lost. The majority of the protesters seem to be males enjoying violence. Which again, is what it comes down to.

While a huge feminist, I have no problem admitting that men have their own separate laundry list of issues. Difficulty speaking out, and difficulty getting help for whatever problems they may have because of the stigma of society where men are still not allowed to admit "weakness." I see it in my own father who has outbursts from being overwhelmed by various things. Having to be a tough guy and a financial supporter to a disabled wife but unable to accept or seek support himself.

There are A LOT of angry men out there. Shit, they're justified for the most part! I would definitely not want to be a man. And that is where the position of authority comes in... overcoming your struggles as a male youth and becoming a cop or correctional officer.

There are so many great cops out there! But, I haven't met many of them. Because not everyone overcomes their past and becomes a good cop. Whatever they grew up with or were born with makes them relish power, control, and violence.

I, a lower class (former middle class) white woman, have been victimized by the police. If you think that's a fucking joke because I'm white, refer back to the original point: POLICE VICTIMIZE PEOPLE OF ALL AGES, RACES, GENDERS, ETC.

A few years ago I read an article about a rapist cop. He raped more than one woman, but when they reported it, they were dismissed because he was a cop. His peers made sure he was above the law. So then he rapes an older black woman, someone's grandmother. She raised hell and he finally got in trouble. Was she listened to because she was black? HELL TO THE NO, women are treated like shit. A black woman? I've seen black women treated horribly my entire life. It's just how it is.

But no one felt like bringing this pig to justice, because, well, white male cop. Cops obviously deal with criminals and folks they will naturally regard as lower class, and none of these folks are going to be believed over a cop. From dating men of questionable backgrounds, I have heard horror stories of prisoners being beaten by cops and correctional officers and all kinds of shit. But who is going to believe some felon over a police officer?

May marked the 4 year anniversary of my ex-boyfriend almost killing me. It was hell, I struggled all month. My mom having cancer, the anniversary, the pandemic, now everyone running around setting shit on fire because they want free TVs... HOLY FUCK. PTSD trigger much?

I've wanted to talk about that, but I felt I couldn't, because, well, he's stalked me since. How did this happen? People think I was a battered woman but that's not true. Women stay with abusive partners and I did not. I got with this guy knowing he had a record, as others before him, but did not expect the onslaught of mental illness. The guy before him was bipolar and would shut down, lay on the bed and just be totally mute or sob. This new guy, after about 3 months into a relationship, would have manic episodes that would lead to suicide attempts. Over time I found out that he was a diagnosed bipolar, and rumored (unconfirmed) schizophrenic. I begged and begged for him to stick to taking meds, which clearly helped over the course of months, but he would stop taking them because he felt he "didn't need them," which is the cruelest cliche of the mentally ill and why so many don't function at all.

So I ended up having to call the cops on him multiple times in the course of 3 years when he lost his shit. Not once did he ever harm me, although you can see, and I can see, now, that it was unhealthy and dangerous for everyone involved regardless. The first time I dealt with the cops over him was when he got a DUI in my truck with his friend. but the friend was driving. I woke up at midnight to this chaos and remember a black female cop intimidating me and screaming at me because I was standing near a beer bottle on the ground and I was "hiding evidence." Which was bullshit since the driver had already been arrested. Who the fuck cares about a random Bud Light bottle lying in my yard? The DUI was in Ocean City. Whatever.

The same fucking night my shitfaced, manic boyfriend logs onto my computer and reads like 7 years worth of texts between me and a male friend, accusing me of fucking him. After a long night of dealing with the other drama it was like hell never ended. He's on my computer, looking at everything I have and accusing me of cheating. Never met the dude, never tried to be with the dude, but that seemed pretty moot. Even if your partner has nothing to hide, you shouldn't be going through their shit. IF YOU DO NOT TRUST THE PERSON YOU ARE WITH, LEAVE THEM. IF YOU HAVE ONGOING ISSUES WITH MANIA OR PARANOIA, GET HELP.

Well, perhaps I seem a hypocrite in protesting violence against women, and I did something I'm not proud of: I punched the fuck out of him. He then got up and put my shotgun in his mouth. He didn't pull the trigger but obviously that scarred me for life. I called 911 and they chased him down in the woods and took him to the mental ward in Salisbury. I dealt with 3 male cops that were kind to me and said I did the right thing by hiding the gun afterward and calling 911. My neighbor also helped me, which I am incredibly grateful for.

I should have left, hands down. But because I never felt physically threatened by him: I felt I was helping him, he could get better, and I kept trying. I have never been a woman that wanted a "project" as some people want, where they find someone to fix or better as a person. But I loved this man and tried my best, stupid as I was.

He was fine for months after that, another huge factor in me staying. We were just boyfriend and girlfriend, enjoying life, until he had another manic episode. Once he went 6 months with no signs of anything at all. Again, at this point in things, I have nothing to candycoat in my life. I am an open book, and in 2018, came out about being raped by a man in 2011, and got judged harshly. I've had to accept that no matter what I say, I will be questioned and put down because that is how victims are treated.

So in 2015 he came home late at night, screaming the FBI were in the bushes and smashing things. He accused me and a family member of conspiring with the government against him and stripped half of his clothes off, threatening to kill himself. Just like that, he would go from a calm person that worked all day to a raging maniac in the most literal form.

I called 911 and was in tears by the time two very tall male cops showed up. That is the main thing I remember, I am 5'2 and these men were both over 6'0 and stood way too close to me. My boyfriend was running around screaming utter nonsense and one cop talked to him, another talked to me. The two men ID'd me and laughed at the fact I always wore lipstick, in the pic and in real life, a habit since I was 14. Then they told me they weren't going to do anything with my boyfriend, who was still screaming and stomping around. I said, "but he's clearly unstable and threatening to kill himself." Both of the cops stood roughly two feet from me, and the heavyset olive skinned officer moved in even closer, shining his flashlight in my face, his breath bearing down on me, and said, "if you call 911 or anyone again tonight, you will both be arrested."

I felt scared of them at this point and they told me my option was to leave my home, leaving my boyfriend there. They asked me if I had family in the area and I said no. "Well, we can't help you then. Plus we want to go and get dinner," the thick one said, before laughing with his partner, who was a thinner blond man. So they waited until I got in my car and left, then they left, leaving my ex still standing screaming in the middle of the yard.

I had nowhere to go, so I went to his aunt's house and spent the night. At one point in the night I heard my boyfriend's truck screech through Berlin, looking for me, but knew I couldn't call 911 anymore because I WAS threatened. And cops can do what they want, no one is going to listen to some white trash chick with a crazy boyfriend.

I called 911 one other time before things got truly worse (I know, right). I got one of the cops that I had dealt with when he put the shotgun in his mouth and he threw him in the mental ward after a brief car chase.

By spring 2016 my boyfriend wasn't working, binge drinking, and seeming off on a regular basis so I somehow managed to drop him off at a homeless shelter despite him initially standing in a Wendy's parking lot screaming I was out to get him.

Finally, in May he became increasingly manic before literally waking up one morning with this weird hollow look in his eyes and screaming the worst threats against me and his family I had ever heard. First I tried to be calm, then I tried to run from him when I thought he wasn't looking and he ran after me and jumped on me. And that was the first time I felt actually afraid that he would hurt me. I thought he would hit me. Instead, he dragged me through the woods by my ankles so hard my leggings were pulled down and became filled with dirt, leaves, and sticks, threw me on the porch and then dragged me into my house. He tortured me for 1-3 hours. I think it was between 1 and 2 hours. Years later I sat down with a shrink and told her, I can't remember, I truly can't. I just remember the intense fear and shame of what it would be like for my dad to come into my house and find me dead. The doctor pursed her lips as she listened to me and reassured me that people with PTSD often have trouble remembering details. In fact, I couldn't piece together how bad the whole thing was until 2018, around the same time I talked about being raped, because I had repressed memories so hard. There was a point where I vividly remembered everything both men had done to me respectively, including a lifelong physical injury I had also blocked out. Like, I knew it was there, I just never allowed myself to think about why.

Instead of killing me, thank fuck, my boyfriend left me lying on a plastic floor mat he had just put a cigarette out in that he been holding over my eye and walked out of the house, stealing my truck. So I called 911, in a sort of daze I seemed the most worried about the stupid truck. But I really couldn't comprehend anything at that point. I shouldn't have bothered calling, because ding-dong, who is at the door, but one of the cops that essentially kicked me out of my house in 2015, leaving me to wonder if my boyfriend would kill himself or burn the place down. The thin, blond cop. The first thing I noticed was his eyes when I spoke to him that day. His pupils were tiny pin-pricks and it was shockingly noticeable. He looked like he was blind or something, because he had wide blue irises with these teeny tiny pupils. Frankly it was creepy, but wasn't relevant to the situation. I told him my ex went nuts, then stole my truck. He starts screaming at me and asking me what I wanted to do, and why the hell did I call. I completely shut down and just felt scared of him. Thinking about telling him about the assault just evaded my head, all I could think was that I was being cornered and I had to get away. He walked around the yard looking at other shit my ex had torn up, yelled at me some more, then left. This cop was almost manic and I was afraid he would arrest me for annoying him.

I finally got my truck back with the help of my grandmother after watching my boyfriend acting insane in front of his boss, who he had driven to. The man got a restraining order against him that week after seeing the violent instability and I made our breakup official at the same time. I knew I was done the second he dragged me through the woods. That was the first time he had ever put hands on me and the torture session would be the last. (I was lucky in that he had tossed me around and suffocated me in a headlock, etc., rather than getting a knife or something... it could have been so much worse.)

At this point, regardless of what people around him did, my now-ex was clearly gone mentally. Not sure how or why it got that bad, but all of his issues just imploded on him at once, almost overnight. So 2016 to 2018 he stalked me and made my life a living hell. He called me and I was afraid to disconnect my number right away because I felt it was a way of tracking him/how dangerous he was any particular day. After screaming for him to leave me alone and calling the cops even more times failed, I felt I had to be nice to him to keep him at bay, or when he started coming into my job, so I wouldn't make a scene. I finally got a domestic violence order in 2017 and stood before the court and described my assault so the judge to decide if I had just cause.

About a month after that, my ex called me threatening to kill himself so I felt super happy about calling 911. Finally they would put his ass in jail. A cop in his early 20's showed up, flirted with me, called his boss and they told me that there was not enough cause to jail my ex. The cop told me to "just talk things over" with my ex and then left after staring at my tits through my sweatshirt.

More time goes by, more bullshit, afraid to go to work, afraid to come home at night. Mace didn't make me feel safer, guns didn't make me feel safer, having coworkers didn't make me feel safer. My dad was screaming at me that I had brought this all on myself by being with a nut for so long. I felt like a hunted animal. My boss complained about me calling out of work over this. Finally my ex's other ex-girlfriend who he was with after me comes into my job, says he assaulted her, and that he was dangerously obsessed with me and my boss finally took me seriously.

I couldn't do anything about phone calls or online harassment. He would message me online telling me he hated me and stuff and I would just block him. Then, one day in September, during Ocean City bike week, he showed up on a bicycle, cornering me in the parking lot of my job as I walked to my shift. I was in utter terror and for a moment he looked like he would attack me again but I just kept on walking, and did not pause. My coworker wanted to know why I was being confronted and I said "THAT'S HIM, THAT'S HIM. I'M SO SORRY, NIKKI, I'M NOT CLOCKING IN RIGHT NOW. I AM CALLING 911."

Two cops showed up, a male and a female and ID'd me, and looked at my DV order. I asked if it was okay for me to lift the sweater on my front seat up to get my purse and the male cop brushed that off, acting like I was a non-threat. But I knew I had to move slow, because, well, cops shoot people. White, black, male, female, non-bindary-gender, whatever.

They saw I had all my paperwork in order then they started fucking yelling at me! They told me they really didn't have time to look for him since it was Bike Week and they were busy! I don't know what else they said to me, I think they were confused about what phone number I used the most because I had 2 at that point. I broke into tears and the male cop said "you don't have to do none of that." I walked back into the store and they came back in again, and my coworker told everyone later on how nasty the cops were too me. I knew it wasn't just me but it was good to finally have a witness this time around.

They looked around for my ex at two known locations then gave up, I had called and asked. 3 days later he attacked his other ex, the one that I had spoken to and they arrested him on both that and my DV order. He was jailed for several months and since then his stalking has been infrequent aside from him popping up on Tumblr this winter to make fun of my cat dying. Because I left him, for assaulting me, he now, in whatever the fuck is left of his mind, wants me to live a life of hell. During one phone call he screamed "YOU WILL NEVER BE HAPPY UNTIL I'M HAPPY."

I'd love to count on him staying gone, but I know better. His brother added me on FaceBook not too long ago and I said hi, and he said "you know you're the love of my brother's life, right?" I told him I wanted nothing to do with my ex. "Not even friends?" I told him that my ex tried to kill me then made my life hell and he said he didn't know and the conversation ended.

I'm not afraid of my ex's brother. I don't think he added me purely to help my ex. This man isn't crazy. This man didn't try to kill me, and isn't going to. But the sheer mindfuckery of it: how can you try to get back with the woman you abused? How can you use threats to try and get back with her? Another time my ex called me and screamed over me posting pictures with my last ex, mocking it. Why would I be with him, instead of the guy that abused me?

...Why would I want to be with a guy that I felt safe with that never abused me? Golly gosh, no idea. But it's all just a headfuck that I will be scarred by for life.

Summary: Cops and the severely mentally ill are capable of ruining the lives of anyone, of any color. 🤷‍♀️

#PTSD

3 notes · View notes

mistletien · 5 years

Text

boy the last 21 hours has been a bunch of FUCK SHIT

well really this all started Saturday night but if you also want to be technical then Friday was the beginning

so my younger brother is 17, he’s out with this 28 year old woman, he only has a learner’s permit, BOTH of them are filled with weed and meth that he both fell asleep at the wheel and hallucinated to the point he winds up totaling her car in a ditch

like he informed us his actual goal was to OD on meth and I guess take this girl with him since he likes her

he was hospitalized and as soon as deemed okay shunted off to jail to await whatever the fuck was going to happen but oh boy our mom was not going to let that happen if she could prevent it

our mother had been trying to get him out of jail via either cash or property bail bonding and tried to put up both her boyfriend’s AND my grandmother’s houses/land without either of their consent

she was turned down by the jail because she did not have authorization to do so since none of these places were in her name and she did not have either property owner there to allow it

she called my grandmother Saturday night trying to get her to bond my brother out ( “he’s just a kid, he’s scared, he doesn’t need to be in there” [this is his THIRD drug charge and arrest in under a year he may be a minor but he knows what he’s doing and only wants sympathy and knows his mother would do anything for him])

my grandmother says no since she could lose her land/property if he does not show up to court and I am currently LIVING THERE

also she is in a nursing home in another city in another county as well as on opioids for pain control

but fuck me I guess, mom wants her baby to “not be scared, he doens’t need to be in there”

our mother throws a hissy fit because she didn’t get her way and ignores us until lunch time Sunday when my aunt, my grandmother, and I were out spending the day with my grandmother

my mother calls right when we were about to take my grandmother back to the nursing home “can you go visit Scottie? he’s scared and wants to see someone and I have to work”

my grandmother is guilted with that and agrees to see him

my mother had been waiting there and before my aunt shut her car off my mother was trying to pull my grandmother out of the car “the bond papers are all set up you just have to sign them” and is guilted into bailing my brother out

so we have Scottie with us after waiting two plus hours for the bonding process to go through, there was a lot of issues since Scottie was on probation for drugs on two other instances before this DUI

the cops told him “we legally shouldn’t be letting you out” AND PROCEEDED TO LET HIM OUT ANYWAY (because he’s a scared white boy and you know how that cis white male privilege is)

Scottie was going to be arrested as soon as his probation officer is told about this today because legally he is to be arrested for what he did

but to avoid going to our mom’s house (who we found out was doing meth WITH him as well as her boyfriend being the source of the meth and weed in his system) he asked to be sent to the hospital on a psyche hold and began lying about suicidal intentions

I have spent the last 14 hours in that hospital with my aunt since Scottie is a minor and cannot be left alone and I had NO RIDE HOME other than her until my cousin got off work at 7 am

we don’t know what’s going to happen

Scottie is going to go to jail if a facility isn’t found for him in three days and honestly? at this point he needs to go and so does our mother

the last 21 hours have caused enough anxiety I puked up blood again

if he goes to jail the bond is revoked and the property is safe but until I know he either is going to show for court or is jailed I don’t know when or if I’m going to lose my home

I’m still frazzled about that and very likely will be until he’s sent to jail but another reason is our mother showed up around 11 pm last night after leaving work early trying to get money from either my aunt, Scottie, or I for MORE DRUGS and I was SUPER FUCKING PISSED

she proceeded to try twice to get money and then got mad when my aunt refused to give our mom her credit card (she wants to be able to go to work whenever she doesn’t have to babysit Scottie anymore)

I’m claiming myself an orphan and refusing to have any dealing with any of my family for all this until I know I will be safe and have a place to stay until I finally move to England with Jak

and even then contact is going to be the bare fucking minimum

#ark whines #long post #drug mention

3 notes · View notes

insanely-creative-things · 5 years

Text

Chapter 1: The Origins of Big Hero 7

m.fanfiction.net

Big Hero 7

Origins

*A flicker of black and white starts up for a while, static noises barely blocks out a voice*

Umm…Hello? Can you hear me?

*the flickering and static stops as it shows a 14 year old girl with dyed blue hair and purple eye contacts*

Can you hear me? Oh it's working!

*The girl sits on the chair in front of the camera. She smooths out her sea green skirt as she clears her throat,*

Hi! So…after some thinking I decided to make a video diary so I can remember what I said. After all, who knows when it'll come in handy right? Oh right! I forgot to introduce myself! My name is Cora Mizichio.

*Cora chuckles slightly before continuing*

So I guess I should start with my life and such. Let me warn you though, it's kind of a long and wild story.

*she pulls out a phone and starts showing pictures*

I have lived in San Fransokyo for my whole life with my Dad, Mizuchi and Grandmama, Kaguya. My mom, Akemi passed away when I was a baby.

*image of a blonde hair woman smiled warmly before switching to Cora and her family. Her father being Goliath in stature and her grandmother dressed in a kimono with a cane*

Then my family found out that I'm incredibly intelligent for my age. I suppose hacking into your father's computer to send a birthday card at the age of 4 does that. My Dad is very sweet and an old softie, but is very protective of me and wasn't sure that I should go to school. So I was homeschooled, it was fun being taught by Grandmama and such about Marine biology, but…I felt kind of lonely…

After all my studies, I actually made a habit of bot fighting disguised as an unknown cat-masked competitor under the name 'Nekodomo'. It earned good money since at the time Dad hadn't gotten any luck with jobs due to his height. But it was my very first night of bot fighting that I met him…Hiro Hamada

*she flips the photo to a young Asian boy her age, with messy raven hair, large almond brown eyes and a tooth gap in his smile.*

I've never had very much luck when it came to making or having friends, so if I someone told me that I would end up dating this guy I would had laughed. But yeah we did. I was paired up with Hiro in one of those special bot fighting events like the duo duel. We won, but than the cops were coming and I was so scared of getting caught that I couldn't move. But then the next thing I know Hiro grabs my hand and we were running like crazy before the cops even spot us! I have no idea how long we had been running, but to be honest I didn't really care because I was still awe-struck by the fact that Hiro had save me from getting arrested and we didn't even know each other at the time. But that was all about to change, because as we were finally approaching a safe distance from the cops, it was at that moment where I tripped and fell flat on my face, and at the same time broke my mask. Thankfully Hiro picked me back up and we started running again, with me leaving my broken mask behind. Once we finally stopped and knew we were safe, that was when Hiro and I actually first met face-to-face. Now I have to be honest with you, I've never really known if the whole 'Love at first sight' thing was actually real or not, but it's the only thing I can describe how I felt when I first looked into Hiro's eyes. It was there when we properly introduced ourselves to each other and after that, we started seeing each other more. And it was only after 4 months of hanging out together, that I finally got to meet his family, and he got to meet mine.

*The picture now showed Hiro with a woman holding a calico japanese bobtail cat and a young man on either side of him.*

The woman on his left is his Aunt Cass, she runs a coffee shop called the Lucky Cat Cafe. The young man on his right is his older brother Tadashi. And the adorably cute kitty-cat Aunt Cass is holding is Mochi, their family pet. They are really cool people, and they always asked how I was doing and such, and Mochi is such a sweet kitty that he always tries to cuddle up to me whenever I come over. Hiro and I actually became an official thing one night when I saved his butt from Yama's minions. And boy were they surprised! Aunt Cass actually bounced when Hiro told them that I'm his girlfriend! Dad and Grandmama met them that night too, while dad wasn't too happy at first about me dating, Grandmama convinced him…after hitting him on the head with her cane.

*Cora giggled at the memory*

Anyway, After a slight misadventure where Hiro and Tadashi landed in jail and Cass had to bail them out, Tadashi actually took Hiro to SFIT, San Fransokyo institute of Technology that same night. Hiro told me that he met Tadashi's friends. There's Gogo: the cool biker chick, Honey Lemon: the stylish Chem genius, Wasabi: Laser neat freak, and Fred: the secret Billionaire super hero geek. Afterwards Hiro and I actually applied to SFIT by entering the showcase! Hiro made these miniature robots he called Microbots which he can control via head transmitter, I on the other hand did super strength suction cup shoes that can stick on any surface. We both won and we…were gonna celebrate until…a huge fire broke out in the showcase building and Tadashi ran back inside to help Callaghan, a teacher at the school….he didn't make it…

*Cora turned quiet, looking at her hands as she takes a deep breath*

Hiro wasn't himself for a while. I visited him a lot since the fire, and I mostly talked and tried to comfort and be there for him. Then came the day Hiro stubbed his toe and Baymax came along.

*A picture of a white inflated figure came to the picture*

Baymax was Tadashi's project, a robotic nurse to be more specific. He heard Hiro say ow and activated to help him. Then one of Hiro's microbots started acting weird, and Baymax followed the direction it went! It was then we found a guy in a kabuki mask controlling the Microbots. But they were destroyed at the fire right? Once Hiro pieced together that it was the kabuki-masked man that started the fire to steal them, which in turned killed Tadashi…Hiro decided to build Baymax some armor which…well

*the next picture showed Baymax in protective gear*

We traveled down to the port where we saw him take some type of machine out of the ocean. But then it turns out Baymax called the gang to help us, but sadly the guy in the mask saw us. We barely escaped with our lives that night! Thankfully Baymax being a walking marshmallow, also makes him an inflatable raft too. Afterwards we got to Fred's mansion and discussed over what to do next. Side note: it was weird to see that Fred is a billionaire.

*shows portrait of a young Fred and his parents in classy attire*

Hiro and I then built ourselves armor to fight the guy in the mask. Honey lemon got this cute chemistry purse to pull out what she needed, Gogo got some sick skates to zoom past us, Fred got a killer Kaiju costume that breaths fire, Wasabi got awesome laser blades on the backs of his hands, and I got my aquatic camouflage suit with squid strength suction cup shoes! And learning back from his previous work, Hiro turned Baymax from a stay puff marshmallow with bicycle gear to an awesome superhero!

*the next photo shows Baymax in his red armor*

After training and flying around the city we got down to business. We flew to Akuma island where the masked guy was, and it was there we learned something interesting. Krei and some government officials had something called 'Project Silent Sparrow'. It backfired when the portal sucked everything in, and the pilot was stuck. But then the masked guy attacked us! We tried to fight back but….

*a small clip showed Fred jumping only to be punched away *

We bombed, big time.

Hiro and I got lucky to get the mask…but the person was not who we thought….

Turns out Callaghan grabbed the transmitter and used it and the Microbots to protect himself in the fire…leaving Tadashi to die….

It was then that Hiro took out Baymax's health care chip and ordered him to kill Callaghan…

*Cora took a deep breathe before standing up and leaving the room, she returned back with a glass of water and started drinking it. Once she was done She then continued.*

Thankfully the gang got Baymax back to normal but Hiro was furious. He just left with Baymax…but we eventually met up with Hiro at his place, with a video of Tadashi…it was also when we showed him what we discovered. The pilot was no random person Krei hired. She was Callaghan's daughter, and Callaghan was out for blood.

We got to Krei Tech where Callaghan got his portal running. Hiro then learned what we needed to do to beat him; instead of the mask, we take out the Microbots, then he'd be powerless. But despite that, the portal was still open, and ready to tear itself to pieces. Then Baymax dropped the biggest bomb on us, Callaghan's daughter was still alive in there.

Hiro and I got on Baymax to rescue her. We found her pod but Baymax's thrusters were wrecked from the debris…

Baymax…he got us out by rocket punch…but stayed behind in the portal…

It's been weeks since then…

Krei agreed to keep our identities a secret, Callaghan is in prison, and his daughter is making a steady recovery at the hospital. And the news had been exploding over 'the mysterious group of heroes' that saved the city.

Hiro and I had been doing good, we talked to the gang a lot and we actually reapplied to SFIT again.

*Cora then looks at the clock beside her and gasped*

Oh man it's almost midnight! And first day of class is tomorrow! Anyway, thank you for listening! And…Baymax…I don't know if you can hear me..but Hiro has been doing good. We all miss you…especially me and Hiro...wish us good luck, cause who knows what happens tomorrow.

*Cora smiles at the camera before turning it off.*

A.N: After some thinking I decided to post my fanfic of Big Hero 7 over here. My editor is Wolfwitchhuntress. I hope you enjoy this story just as much as Fanfiction.Net. Love you guys!

#Big Hero 7 #Big hero 6 fanfic #BH6 OC #Cora Mizichio #Origin story

2 notes · View notes

brandonimhotep · 3 years

Photo

A North Carolina man died on Saturday after he broke into the home of a 73-year-old woman and was fatally shot by her 12-year-old grandson who was trying to defend her. Two masked robbers entered the home of Linda Ellis in Goldsboro at around 1am on Saturday, where they demanded money and shot the grandmother in the leg. Ellis' grandson fired back at the two intruders in self-defense and they fled. Khalil Herring, 19, was later found at an intersection a half block from the apartment. He was taken to Wayne UNC Health Care where he later died of his injuries. Police say they found evidence that Herring was one of the two masked men in the apartment. 'Preliminary evidence suggest Khalil Herring was one of the two masked intruders and was shot during the robbery,' officials said in a statement. 'A 12-year-old juvenile occupant of the residence shot at the suspects with a firearm in self-defense, causing them to flee the area'. Ellis was also taken to the hospital where her family say she is in a good condition. 'They came in the house, I open the door, I open it, and they came in there,' Randolph Bunn, who is Ellis' son and the boy's grand-uncle, told ABC 11. 'One guy had a gun. They just put me down on the ground... [Ellis] was in the kitchen, I don't know why they shot her. '[The intruder] just shot his grandma... He would have shot him too, he would've shot me too, he would've killed us all,' Bunn added of the 12-year-old boy's actions. Ellis' great niece Chiquita Coley added that she couldn't believe it when she received a call about the attempted robbery. 'My phone was constantly ringing, and ringing and ringing,' Coley said. 'I just couldn't believe she been shot because she's a good person.' 'Why would somebody come into her house and do this? It's got to stop,' she continued, adding that her aunt was much loved in the community. Charges are not expected to be brought against the 12-year-old, cops say, but the investigation is ongoing. Coley said that the young boy and the rest of the family is 'holding it together'. Police say they have yet to make any other arrests regarding the second suspect in the home invasion. Dailymail https://www.instagram.com/p/CVRMhy5glDX/?utm_medium=tumblr

0 notes

eyeswideopenliterature · 3 years

Text

what goes on

2/20/2021 -- A saturday, when she came back from the hospital. that day, we got a comfort box from hospice. my aunt and i hid the box, plainly, in the closet. the liquid morphine was at risk. we told papa where it was hidden, in which closet, and we both went home after a few hours. Nothing happened through the night.

2/21/2021 -- I went over after work, with a bad feeling, that the comfort box was not safe. to be honest, there aren’t many hiding spots left or that are realistic to keep my dad away from them. i moved the box, and noticed it was opened a little. it was not how I left it. i stupidly didn’t think to count the pills or vials that were in there. i just moved the box, put it into another box, with another delivery of morphine that just arrived, and hid it in a different closet. i sent pictures of it to my aunt so she could find it, i showed my grandpa where it was too. i went home. at aroun 1030pm, i get a frantic phone call from my grandpa, that he can’t find the box. i tried to explain where it was, but his eye sight is bad and he has real troube breathing with his end-stage COPD. i raced over there, and took a 30 minute drive and shortened it to 20. i found the box, right where i hid it, but my grandpa was so flustered he couldn’t think straight to listen to me to find it. i gave her the medicine, and decided, upon returning the box to its hiding space, remove all but one of the pain killers. i figured, if my dad takes one it’s better than him taking them all. i stay the nigh, and keep the other pain killers guarded on me. gram wakes up once in the night, and i gave her another one.my aunt saw my messages and drove back here from NJ at 2 in the morning.

2/22/2021 -- A monday, in the early morning, we both were helping gram be comfortable. she was calling the hospice hot line, like you’re supposed to, and she carefully read each of the labels on the medince from the white comfort box. non-chalantly, and calmly, i point to the instruction page that came with the box, and said that gram might need that one, pointing at the anti anxiety drug, since during the night, she woke up a few times in a panic. we looked at the pill bottle, and the label said there were 8 in there, but there are only five. the pain killers, quantity on the label, said 15. I gave my grandmother 2. My aunt just gave her one. Why are there only 6 left? we looked at each other, and i knew that first night, when the box was left so plainly, so easily accessibly in hopes for just my grandfather, was when it happened. i felt so sick, i didn’t say anything. my aunt told me to put the box back away in the closet.

i left for work. my aunt is here for a week, she took off from work. while i was at work, i called her to let her know we need to hide the box in one of our cars, locked up. she agreed, she moved the box to her car. she also told me, that last night, my dad called her, screaming and cursing, that he’s done with us, we can fuck ourselves, he hates all of us, for hiding the pills. not asking where they were to help grandma, not being rational or civil or like a human being. she hung up and blocked him. so he called, and lashed out, at her daughter, who is almost 1000 miles away. the hospice nurse came at 10:45am, to talk about dosage and what to expect and what to do. she also told my aunt that, legally, the comfort box needs to be out in the open, all the medicine together, at all times. the nurse then went over the pills individually and what my aunt and i wrote down on the time log of when she took what, and asked where are all the anti anxieties, and the rest of the morphine pre-loaded oral syringes? my father exploded into a rage, screaming, cursing, flailing like a cornered animal. the nurse saw everything, and my aunt even pulled her aside to speak frankly to her about the reality of the house. the nurse said, to call, if there is ever an issue and they will provide last minute medicines themselves on call. but they have to have the pills out, and my dad, since this is his residence, is allowed and legally prefered to be the one with unhindered access to the medicines. when she left, my dad erupted again, nose to nose screaming at my grandpa who is on oxygen, bending and spitting on my grandma as she’s in her deathbed calling her a cunt for letting those bitches hid the medicines. aunt donna said he threatened her, and no one would let her call the cops. so i called the cops. and hospice, and the social worker. i told them all. i told the cops that i was headed there after work. i told my job that i wasn’t able to return for a few days, possibly for good. i am now here 24/7.

when i arrived, the cops where here. two cops, two cars. my aunt was crying, being talked to, and i joined in. i wanted to tell the police we feared for our and grandma’s safety, that my father is explosive and unpredictable, and he was threatening my grandpa and my aunt. but, as police are supposed to, they were both unimpressed, unmoved, and unbiased. they said that because we hid the box, and didn’t tell him, that it was warranted that he would act that way since we weren’t here. we told them there’s a loaded rifle in the house, that belongs to my grandfather, and can we move it or unload it or-- the cop cut me off, barrading that she can’t take his gun, his second amendment, he’s allowed to have it...but i asked can she talk to him, to so she can maek sure it’s unloaded or stored properly, she said no. they were not helpful but we did submit a report. they said they can’t do anything, because there was no action, no punches thrown, no blood drawn, just words, and it sums up basically to an argument between brother and sister. they talked to my grandparents, and they both said they feel safe and fine and want nothing to happen, they’re fine and the cops can go. i noticed my aunt was drinking, and i saw how unswayed the police were, and knew that things weren’t fair before and werent going to be now. i have webcam from my camera running non-stop. i will record and document it all, so in case i have to call the police again, i have proof to show. after they left though, my grandpa told me, even if he was arrested, my grandpa would bail him out immediately, but he wants my dad to stay in his house, this is where everything will take place.

my aunt is wildly wine drunk, unleashing 57 years of repressed hate and bitterness and sorrow at my grandpa. spewing venom that was fermenting. she did what my father does - she got in his face and screamed, he needed to hear it, but my grandma didn’t. things are settled now. i will stay up the whole night on guard, to protect my grandma, even though both grandparents are the reason this is the way life is. they created and cultivated my father, allowing him to get this bad, enabling him so that when the police came, no one said anything, even though, as my aunt says, in the morning during the first fight when the nurse was here, my grandma clutched onto my aunt and said ‘’daddy is afraid of your brother’’. papa won’t admit it. everyone here is dysfunctional, including me. my aunt is sobbing on the couch, repeating, ‘’i will get you, i will get you...’’ i went over to her just know, to comfort her. all my life i’ve known her as put together and willignfully forcefully ‘buddhist’ and today it all crumpled away. she just said she was going to stab her father tonight, and i need to protect her from doing that. all her life’s trauma and hardship, all the deceit and the brokenness her parents put her through, is all coming out. i can only listen. she’s been laying on the couch, spouting hate into the air so my grandfather hears it. she’s saying he’s a womanizer, a phony, a liar and a degenerate.

i hope that this death happens quickly, and soon. for all our sake.

it’s been a few hours, and i huddled into the bathroom and smoked some weed, and called a long lost friend. after an hour, i went out into the living room/dining room where my grandmother and aunt slept. my grandfather walked out a few minutes past. he sat down at the dinning room table, and this is what the told me:

*he said that if ‘this’ happened with any other child or grandchild (meaning my dad’s rampant addiction) he wouldn’t change a thing - he would still protect and take care of them. i said i know. he said he will always take care of his family. i wanted to remind him that he had foresaken his family, but i bit my tongue.

*who promised you a fair life - was a quote some woman he knew used to tell her husband when they fought

*that my dad was probably molested in lock up. he never said it, but grandpa said he had a feeling. and that when he was little, and part of a little league baseball team in brooklyn or coney island, there was a coach / priest who also may have molested him, who got tried and convicted years later. to which, one day at the kitchen table, when my dad was in his twenties, my grandmother asked him if he was molested as a kid, and said that he could tell her, she pressed him to open up, saying that, very bluntly, she was molested as a kid by her older brothers two friends. papa made it a point to explain that she was trying to connect with my dad. but papa never knew that about her.

*that back in the day, papa used to drink a lot for a lot of reasons, one of which was bedroom issues with his wife. because of the molestation, she was not capable of being with someone in an intimate way, and this caused a lot of issues. one day, when she was sick, the doctor came to their apartment house on West 8th street to do an appendectomy, and the doctor told my grandpa that he knew my grandma was a virgin. he asked my grandpa if he wanted to have her cut. my grandpa agreed, and when my grandma awoke from her at home procedures, she didn’t do so well, she didn’t take the cut very well. after that, some days or time later, papa noticed the air conditioner was lose in the window. he inspected it from outside and knew someone tried to break in. he asked my grandma if she tried to move the unit, to which she said no, and he replied, not thinking at all, that someone tried to break in. papa told me that must have triggered her. she got scared, thinking someone tried to break in while she was with her two young children. that day, my grandmother was seen talking to herself in a mirror, but she was talking to her dead father. that night she had a nervous breakdown, and the doctor ordered 12 rounds of electroshock.

papa told me that his friend Big Sal would tell him that ‘’if that were my son, i’d hit him over the head with a baseball bat.” and papa believed him, because he was a big mean man. but when it’s your own son, it’s different. big sal never laid a hand on any of his kids.

the Arriba, was the help back then we see today. the halfway houses, the programs, the meetings, the outreach. my grandpa told me about how many young kids he saw from there die due to their addiction, their parents having left them. a few times he left my dad, and when he picked him up (saved him) he remarked at how bad he looked. papa asked, smugly, that dad hasn’t died yet for a reason. i explained, papa you and gram are that reason. each time you kicked him out or cut him off or locked him up, no matter how long, you always came back, and you always fixed him up. one kid from the arriba was killed, ordered by his father, because the father “couldn’t let your mother see him like this.”

papa explained how much he loved having a daughter, and how donna was fun to bring around the city and put on trains and she would talk and be content. and how my dad, whenever papa took him out, after 2 minutes would complain to go back. papa told me this a lot. it really sticks out to him. he also said, when i came along, a lot of his family praised him and my grandma for taking me in and raising me, because they saw how my dad was. papa said it reminded him, driving me up in the town car and watching my jump on the couch, of his daughter. there were once many good memories in this house. many dinners and parties, so many people. now there’s no one, and there hasn’t been for so long. and even if we wanted to call anyone, they’re all old too, some don’t know who they are, some are too old and poor to travel.

grandpa said, there is a missing piece. there’s something that doesn’t add up or explain why things got to how they got. when it got so bad. how it got to this point.

papa said, after so many meetings at arriba, he wondered if it was because he reaed the newspaper while at a baseball game, or wasn’t engaging and cheering at the hockey games that turned my dad into this. i had to remind him i didn’t turn into my dad, and i had my dad as a dad, so that blame is totally unneeded and unrealistic. it’s misplaced blame. it’s no guilt. it’s failure maybe. maybe the effort put in didn’t give the result, and that’s what hurts.

papa said he’s worried for my aunt. he said what she said hurt too, but it was going to come out evertually. he said, he used to get that rage when he drank, and say things like she did, and then he would regret it. he wonders how she’ll be in the morning, if he should talk to her.

papa said that women face too much violence, and they need to protect themselves even before anyone else. all he sees on the tv are shows about women being murdered, raped, kidnapped, assaulted, etc, and he can’t bare it.

papa said that he’s glad females are here, because we can clean grandma and help her to the bathroom. he wouldn’t feel comfortable to wash her. he isn’t even able to stand and walk by himself let alone carry her to the tub, but i didn’t remind him. he’s just realizing gram isn’t going to get better, that she is dying. he said he realized yesterday. he didn’t realize that nothing could be done, he thought they would figure out something, the powers that be. but the cancer is on her windpipe and it’s going to get worse. his lip shook when he said ‘’suffocating to death in pain’’, reiterating my plea that we need to move her where we can insure her safety and comfort, like a facility or aunt donna’s house in NJ. he wants to keep her up here though. my cousin tommy and i decided we will pay for it, but we need to get together and talk and research. our society doesn’t have this part of the life cycle user friendly like for expectants mothers.

grandpa said he hasn’t talked openly about his life like this to anyone in a long time. he said that he watched all his relatives die. and that when his father died, that moment, he regretted not asking him all the things he was ever curious about.

papa said that after gram dies, he’s selling the house and half goes to each of his kids. he won’t rent my dad an apartment, because he doesn’t want to control him. that his money, however little it is, is my dad’s last chance. emphasis on last. and that papa doesn’t know what he’ll do. he might go his own way or go with my dad. i don’t want to think about that now. when my aunt was screaming at him, she brought up over and over that my grandpa told my dad ‘’it’ll be just us two in the end’’.

papa said, not to be morbid or make a joke out of it, but when gram’s sister flo was here, dying of cancer too, in the livingroom on a bed, gram and another sister, rosemary, were taking care of her. gram was giving the morphine. rosemary yelled ‘’marge! stop you’ll make her an addict!” to which my grandma asked, ‘’rosemary are you fucking stupid?”

gram’s mother was horrible to the girls. she hated them, and was a prosititue. but she was so because he husband was an alcoholic, and back in those days things were different. gram remembers sitting outside a motel door in the hallway with a sister or two, while the mom was in the room with a man. some sisters were in denial, thinking the world of the mother, like flo.

papa said he was sad. he thought he’d die in this house too. he said it’s hard to see gram like this, because she always was so strong and full of life. she took care of everyone. he said the holidays won’t be the same without her. their 59th or 60th wedding anniversary is in september. he mentioned he was losing weight too. he was 162 and now he’s 158. that he’s getting thinner and weaker and he’s going too. he looks older in the light of the running machines and the far hallway light against the sunken dark rooms around us. he looks sadder too. i can barely look him in the face. i don’t want to see him cry. i understand all the hate and sadness my aunt feels, because i feel it exactly that way too. but i still feel i need to see both my grandparents out.

papa told aunt donna he was sorry for spending so much money on my dad, for his bullshit and treatments, enabling too. aunt donna said he never minded, but she brought up today that her entire inheritance went up her brother’s veins.

papa is out of one of his nose sprays, but he has his rescue inhaler. he’s still shaken b everything that happened. i reminded him it’s only been three days since she’s been back and all this happened in that short amount of time. i said i was shaking still too since yesterday.

aunt donna was saying, on the couch, in her drunken fury, like she said in the kitchen to papas face, that she wasn’t going to take care of him. that she hopes he dies, that him and her brother die together. i told papa i would take care of him. i would be here. and i wasn’t sure if i would be for my dad. i said that hardship will fall on me in time, and i hope i’m better than he was when he was faced with this decision.

he said the day of his 39th birthday (i think) was the day his life ended. he got back from the business, which was starting to take off, and he just got back from building a printing press somewhere. that’s the day my father got in trouble for stealing a car, and the whole drug addiction took off. as bad as he is now, he was REALLY bad back then. i couldn’t imagine all the times he got arrested, all the money lost, all the things stolen, all the promises broken. one time papa found my dad in the bathroom barely clothed, just shaking, sickly, from something he took.

papa said that, my dad told him, years ago, that ‘’i won’t get better or have a life until you’re gone’’. papa said it was the moment my dad realized how dependant he was on him. i wasn’t too sure. papa said ‘’your father never frightens us. he’s very good to us. i’m not scared of him, neither is your grandma.”

papa said it’s true what they say about marriage. it feels like when they die, a piece of you is being taken. he said it’s strange. it’s very uncomfortable.

papa said that, all that time ago, the last time i lived here, he was sorry about when he left me in the room crying, telling me it’s because my dad is a ‘’brooklyn guy and you don’t come at a brooklyn guy that way’’ when i confronted him about stealing my things. papa apologized, and said that was wrong. he shouldn’t have.

it’s 1:33am now. everyone is asleep and i drank half a bottle of water. i haven’t drank anything other than a large coffee this morning. i haven’t eaten today. i don’t want to eat.

2/23/21 -- i got up at nine. my grandmother needed some medication for pain. a home health aide came. a wheelchair was delivered. gram was sleeping in a chair, laughing at her dream. at 1045, my grandpa drove my dad to a fake medicaid appointment and to the DMV. like he did yesterday, and the day before that. i took this opportunity to scower my dad’s room, looking for the rifle that was brought up yesterday. i found a spare pair of keys to papas car, and some things of mine that went missing long ago. i found the gun, in papa’s closet, unloaded. relief. brief. while grandma was being bathed by a woman clad in a hazmat suit (because of the pandemic), i went to run errands. i got a lot of things from the baby aisle, ironically. just as cyclic, a bell is what my grandma uses now to get someone’s attention that she needs something - and when my cousins and i were toddlers, we would have a little bell to ring if we were sick in bed and wanted grandma. my aunt texted me, she said, gram grabbed her hand and whispered that there is a hand gun in the grandfather clock. i told them when everyone was asleep tonight i would make sure it was unloaded, and make sure no one else knew that we now knew. grandpa asked me to cash two checks of his, to pay for his own medications and what items gram needed. I got $300, and the trip to CVS was around $90. I paid for it myself. papa asked me to get cigarettes for someone without a name. i used his money for that. I gave the rest to him, worried that it would just go to my dad. it’s around 4pm now, and again my grandpa told me that he, again, and my dad ‘have’ to go to medicaid, for rent relief...or something...that will help. then papa got a text from my dad, saying they didn’t have to go today, instead the ‘place’ called and said come tomorrow. ten minutes later, my dad chimed in again, saying now they have to go to medicaid at 5. they ended up not going. papa’s breathing machine is off key with gram’s machine, the clock in the kitchen ticks loudly, the news is playing in the background somewhere.

aunt donna has been gone for two hours, about. i got off the phone with the doctor who did the liver biopsy, and the lung cancer is there too - squamous cell carcinoma. aunt donna texted me saying that gram keeps telling her ‘’daddy is afraid of papa’’.

today i’ve been drinking the leftover pedialyte and ensure. maybe this will help me be stronger, too. i smoked out the bathroom window, towels clocking up the doors, leaning halfway out the window in the winter. it felt like when i was a younger asshole.

i want to look for the handgun in the grandfather clock. is it my grandpa’s? does he have a permit? why did he lie to the police when they’ve asked him if there were any other guns in the house? why am i scared to open the clock? i hasn’t worked since i was a tiny kid, why would it go off tonight? gram shook awake, and i lulled her bac to sleep, only for her to shake herself awake, and she asked me why , why is she shaking so much? Searching for online for references of how to roll a bedbound patient onto a bedpan, when my grandpa rushes to my dad’s room and momentarily comes out to say that they’re going to the appointment tomorrow at 11am (apparently the staff at the local social services building at hard at work at 10pm).

that night, i smoked weed outside on the patio. i figured no more hiding anything, no more lying about anything anymore, everyone is just here for one purpose, and nothing else matters. i tried hard to listen to the conversation my dad and grandpa were having in the kitchen. lights on, dad buzzing all over, fussing over the sink. it’s funny how, out here in the rural nothingness, there is too much noise to hear what was going on inside, their perfected whispers. the stream at the end of the property was too loud; the buzzing flying bugs in the air were too loud; the backroad over the valley and through the woods echoed even more tonight.

2/24 -- this morning i was making my grandfather breakfast. he told me that he was taking my dad to medicaid. i asked if that was the social services building, to which replied, yes. he said that now, instead of 1030am, they have to be there at 1pm. papa didn’t want me to persue the matter, but i told him to level with me and just be honest from this point on since, hey, the jig is (so) up. i was asking about if dad could bring back a pamphet from the lobby of the building, just for my own sake, just to prove the legitamacy of this to me. papa got agitated, and asked me many times to drop it, hushing me, eyes darting towards his son’s room. i said that this had nothing to do with him driving, or anything, not even about my father, but i just wanted maybe, in the future, a business card from the so-called doctor’s office. papa’s response to that was ‘’the doctors are arabs’’...to which i still have no idea...does that mean they don’t believe in business cards? or is that supposed to mean they practice in some inexcusable spot like an alleyway or a house? i don’t understand... papa was getting so annoyed with me, telling me for his sake to just drop it, and no matter what we won’t believe he’s actually at the place, and he’s 53 years old we can’t call the place to verify he was there, but you can grab a pamphlet, if you’re at that spot, no? my dad came out, and asked if papa remembered he needed to bring him to the dmv (during the pandemic) right now because he had an appointment. i’ve never gritted my teeth so hard before, standing in this antiquaticed ranch, in this antiquatied delusional lifestyle, making sure my eggs are perfectly fluffed. i calmly pressed the matter, politely, asking about a pamphelt, or pleaing that it’s him i’m really worried about, and that the jig is up, and that i’m here for gram now be here for me in this way please, and he was so stubborn, so concerned if my dad was going to hear, and then get angry. he kept telling me it will start something, it’ll set something off, and now things are calm, and just for him to leave things be, and i will always villify my father no matter what proof he brings so there’s no use. papa was about to leave without eating his eggs and lightly toasted bread. he basically ran out of the house with my dad, after scarfing his eggs and toting his toast with him. it was almost 9:30am.

i watched them through the blinds when they drove off, stannding next to the grandfather clock tucked in the corner. i found the gun, loaded, and took the clip. i left the gun in its holster in the hidden compartment at the bottom on the inside of the grandfather clock. the bells dangled and rang off a little. the sound was so slight.

i sat outside, smoking my weed, soaking up the winter sun, staring into its blindness until my eyes saw colors that werent there, asking my ancestors to give my grandpa strength to change - because he can still be helped, compared to my dad. grandpa called, asking if i was ‘’okay now’’. i asked where they were, and he said they were at ‘’one of the doctor’s offices for the paperwork that medicaid needs for the rent’’. i asked if they could grab a business card, and papa told me not to start in.

it is funny, the redundancy. am i stupid? do i learn? am i just as cursed, just as damaged as the rest of them? what happened to my aunt just happened to me. she was assaulted with the realization that papa will no matter protect his son, and fuck the rest of us. he doesn’t truly fully admit to it...maybe he’s incapable to realize, maybe he’s brainwashed. i looked on at my aunt’s break down, like, oh you didn’t really realized, or you thought there was hope? you thought things couldn’t get any worse? the cognitive dissonance is thick, it’s layered. i thought that my grandpa wouldn’t lie anymore to me, that he would level with me, he would at least give me a semblance of he’s on my side too, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t. papa has said so many times in the last few days how much driving helps him, it’s good for him. the fresh air, he’s sitting, whatever. driving it’s the issue, do you see or do you think i’m dumb?

i smoked outside when gram and i were assuredly alone in the house. i remembered i had an adderoll in my wallet. i broke the blue pill in half and saved the rest in my wallet in my car. i thought that all things considered, i am the same. i took a drug, willingly. it’s ironic. but then doesnt that prove the blame doesn’t go directly to drugs but instead to a flaw in the person? it’s how you use substances or things, not the things themself. is this duality? my father is an addict and i smoke weed, just took a half an adderoll i’ve had for half a year. but it was still morbidly funny, to me, alone in the car. contemplative, and stoned, and hopefully soon to be focused/energized. when i got back inside, i noticed the tv switched somehow from cable to hulu, and was playing a graphic scene from Forensic Files. Mortified, stupified and struck by guilt, i bumbled to change the setting back, fuck me right. poor granma had to listen to a rape documentary, pretty much, while i got stoned outside on the patio, with the door slightly open.

they came back at 10:52...from the dmv, the doctor and the medicaid building. i faced the same thing that has always been here, again, nothing has changed and i thoguht that now maybe it would? interesting...

the lpn tells us she has a tuxedo cat too, to which my grandpa asked me if i knew that thats what his cat’s kind is called. i said, yes, to which papa said, “you know everything, don’t you danny”

when rebecca left, my dad emerged. he asked where she was, “she’s gone” papa said. “she’s gone or she left?” “she left,” papa said. dad was cracked out, i don’t know how else to put it. he is all over the place, super upbeat, yelling to himself, making random sounds, running to throw something out, shoveled a bit of snow, said it was hot and opened the patio door. papa said to him, oh look at what he’s doing, you see, with his eyes. papa told him to be careful and not get hurt. i hate to be the one to tell him this is a high from a drug. he’s tweeking, he’s on meth. he’s now hiding in his room.

papa asked me to have his pharmacy (that has a drive thru) to deliver his medication, because ‘’driving there is a pain in the ass”. but i thought you liked to drive, papa, or was that your own delusion, the missing piece to all this that you couldn’t see all these decades. that night when we talked late in the night, you told asked me, as you’ve asked before, as a point in your defence of my father, if he was doing drugs, wouldn’t he die, or why hasn’t he died yet? i had to remind him of the story he just told me - at arriba, or any of the times when papa picked my dad up after turning away from him. because papa, i explained, you said him, i said. all those times you stepped in after stepping away for however long, you came back when he was going to die, and you save dhim. it’s you. it’s been you as much as him this whole time.

aunt donna came back around 6, and i fell asleep when she took over. i didn’t realize i slept as much as i did, until the sun shone through the window, and it was a new day.

2/25 -- it’s 9:30, and again, like clockwork, papa is taking my dad to the DMV, to medicaid. but not to cvs or the bank, we have to do that ourselves. aunt donna told me that she believes papa truly lost his mind, and not recently. i’m going to get away from the house for the day, my aunt’s cousin is coming over, so the house is secured. papa and dad have barely spent time with gram, sitting with her or taking care of her. gram wants to see the dog, but only my dad can touch the dog and he won’t help her pet him, he’s too tweaky to stand still and try and realize what she’s asking for. it’s so sad, and it makes me so angry.

2/25 -- my aunt shooed me out of the house, told me i needed a day. i drove up to massachusetts to get gram extra strength cbd oil. then i spoke to the nurse to ask about getting her a medical card.

2/26 -- it’s 5:21am. sitting on the couch, feeling silently victorious because i found chapter 1 on a online store’s product preview, and last night when asked, i told my professor i had access to the text my aunt came to me, getting ready to leave, and said papa was going to take the key (one of two, the one i handed to her) at first i said sure, then i felt insecure, and explained that i didn’t feel right about it, because i felt it would then be easily given to my dad. aunt donna said that papa was feeling insecure, that was he really going to give it to your dad anyway? i mean, it is grandma’s medicine. okay, i said, give it to him. aunt donna asked me if i wanted to come with her to the village’s funeral home tomorrow morning. i said i wanted to come but i also felt someone needed to be here at all times. so shes going to go alone. i wonder if she knows gram wants her ashes scattered at the Brooklyn bridge. i want someone to be here always = unlike yesterday, when donna and her cousin who came to visit left to go shopping while i was shooed away, even though even then she knew i wanted someone always here. i guess because only us two had keys she thought it was okay. papa came in, heavy breathing like he does. “even the cat is getting old”, he huffed. gram’s nurse is coming here later, aunt donna told me, even though i knew. she said that gram’s not telling us the truth about when she’s in pain, and the nurse said to donna that the cancer gram has is one of the most painful ones you can have. she said small cell lung cancer and squamous cell carcinoma are the most painful, donna said again. aunt donna is going to leave to feed the cat at her house, and then come back in about 12 hours.

papa asked if we can get all of grams personal belongings out of the bedroom because he doesn’t want to look at them anymore. aunt donna told me that kimann was deeply disturbed and depressened to see the house like it is now, like they are now. she said she would come back as soon as she could. the dog shit on the floor because no one took care of him this morning, unsurprisingly, even though the two men in this house just sit around and not spend time with gram and don’t help clean or look after anyone but themselves. i had to explain to my grandfather that, if someone is awake in the morning, they should get in the habit of letting out the dog and feeding him. who is the parent? who is the adult?

papa and my dad went out again, this time to a methadone program, randomly in the middle of one of papa’s naps. my dad said it was time to go, he had an appointment, but came to ask for a ride twice before realizing his father was asleep, and deciding to try again later.

they got back especially to see the priest. he was set up for a visit through hospice, and everyone's known about his visit for days. i was sitting outside, smoking, when i saw him pull into the drive way. i stood and waited for him. first the dog started to bark frantically, then i heard squabbling in the kitchen through the window the faced the patio, then my grandpa came outside through the front kitchen door, looking confused, at the new arrival. he went back in, and not a moment later my dad came out, looking wild in his eyes, staring at the man who just stepped out, who was dressed in normal clothes. ‘’what do you want?” my dad snorted, then without an immediate answer (poor guy looked intimidated) he offensively and aggressively made the ‘’huh’’ gesture, sticking his neck out like a chicken. ‘huh?. “He’s the fucking priest’’ i said, letting out my held breath. ‘’oh okay’’, said the crazy man, walking back inside like nothing happened. ‘’well i’m not a priest, i can’t do priestly things’’. ‘’are you catholic? that’s all that matters.” he got in his hazmat suit and walked in, saying how he was here as an instrument of peace. yea dude, bet. this night, gram’s breathing was labored, rattling, puttering. the nurse said everyone experiences apnea, but in these patients it’s much more obvious. it’s normal. so are her violent twitches. that’s just her mind detaching from her body. this night, was very bright and blue. hunters around here call it ‘’blue hour’’.

((things to add previously -- when buddy bit the aide and then my dad, after being told to keep the dog in the kitchen, let him out and he almost bit the nurse // how grandpa pees in a container under his desk / kitchen table and is too lazy or entitled to dump it himself, or have his son do it // mike’s altercation the first night at iron furnace // aunt donna mentioned in her blitz that she wouldnt forgive what papa did between donna and marylou // gram asked me not to leave the many times // all the times i told my dad to not smoke in the house with 2x people on oxy // in the chair, she said she felt like she was going up // said she felt ‘’stunada’ // how gram said this didn’t give her a chance, she was healthy all her life and then was shocked by the news, she said, she couldn’t believe it, and now there’s nothing to do and it happened so fast // kristen is on her way, to help me with papa, whatever we decide to do or however we decide to help // papa doesn’t have a funeral or a wake, no service, doesn’t want to do anything so ashes are getting split, i’m going to scatter her over coney island and the bk bridge, like i remember her saying jokingly throughout my life when she would talk about growing old // grandpa peeing in a bucket under the kitchen table/his work desk // aunt donna said you can go, and gram said, eventually // i said gram take the meds it wont make u an addict, and she said lol not that it matters //28th morning papa said u never know, miracles do happen...// robert covering for dad when he almost lit something on fire when accidentally turning the stove top on // read to her the book of ruth from the bible that one day // b4 in the night how the lone turkey gobbled in the distance during blue hour)

2/27 - it’s that time before the sun comes up, but the moon is still full and high, and the nighttime here looks illuminated in blue, lit up brightly, everything bathed in black and blue and white snow. i was outside on the patio, looking in through the picture window. my lay still, and papa came out of his room. he walked to her bed, looked in like he was looking in a crib at an unwanted child, and walked away. my electra complex makes sense now - this is why i always date people who never give me affection, who i always have to ask if they love me. today we had two more cousins of aunt donna and my dad over, my dad was happy to see robert and joined us in the livingroom, smiling. i learned from him, as he spoke to robert, that when kimann came over the other day that the ‘’golden bird on the piano’’, a small cheap statue, ‘’flew off the piano across the room, right when kimann walked in here. we say it was her mother, marylou, who did it, she was here with us.” aunt donna said she was at the funeral home, and asked papa to come, but he said he had ‘’too much paperwork’’... when they left i asked my aunt why robert didn’t say hello, i told her that when they where in the house at first i didn’t recognize them or know who they were. robert didn’t say bye to me either. he apparently didn’t, at first, say hi to my aunt until a half hour into their stay. before they, all of a sudden, when the light rain came, started the car and got ready to go. she told me that robert doesn’t like confrontation, and he enables doreen’s son, bady. i said it must have been like looking into his future, being here. she told me that he let’s doreen’s son, Mikey, stay at his house, doesn’t work, and installed a filtration device so the 17/18/19 yr old can smoke in the house. maybe there’s a faulty enabling gene that runs in the men in this family. grams breathing sounds very rusty, her machines are all off but TMC is playing on the big out of date tv. aunt donna told me, by the note pads and pill bottles that sat on the dinning room table, that earlier gram walk talking about seeing people; marylou, a preist and a man in a prison outfit. i asked who marylou was, and learned it was one of her many sisters, robert and kimann and doreen’s mom. kimann took care of their mother, back when she died.

i was shooed out of the house again around 3 or 4, and went out to a village a little while away to get something to eat, something to drink, some space to think. i got a text from aunt donna about an hour or two later, saying that grams’ breathing is worsening. all afternoon, he breathing sounded bad - it rattled worse than last night, it sounded rougher, her breathing seemed less reassured. she was having the nurse come over, and wanted to let me know. i told her i’d be back soon, after the check came. later, she told me that the nurse said this is the start of the dying process, that she’s actively transitioning, and it will happen ‘’soon’’. the weather has been foggy all day, blankets crawl across the valleys, drippin down the mountain side like a spilled syrup. the moon is full, but it seems like it’s been this way for nights and nights. the night is windless. back at the house, the thick tense air is thicker and tenser. the sense of immersion is more intense than it has been. we are in it. all night she slept, and every 3 hours we drip the morphine into her mouth, shriveled around her bones, gapped open wide and not so wide at the same time.

2/28 -- everyone is asleep. i sat with gram, and spoke to her saying i was here, it’s okay. she woke up, and hasn’t all day. she took my face in her hand and said ‘’my baby’’, and asked me not to leave, asked me where i went, asked me again to not leave. her hand in my hand is hot, i feel her blood pounding inside her with such force the bed seems to shake. her neck pulsates, supremely, maybe it’s because of the tumor that’s creeping up her, maybe it’s her body trying to remain, maybe it’s just getting ready. i wonder if any ghosts of ancestors are around. gram didn’t really wake up when anyone else spoke to her from the bedside. she opened her eyes for me, and told me to get some sleep. i told her to not worry about me, and that she needed to just rest and focus on breathing.i put the stuffed animals from my childhood, i found buried in a box in the cold attic, next to her again, a brown dog she named chocolate and a fat round cow named spots. the sound of someone dying, is confusing. she is snoring, deeply, like she’s having a great dream, soothed by her sleep, resting for another day. between each snore is a long breath - it sounds like a door creaking open for ever, it sounds like metal straining about to break, it sounds like a machine in trouble, it sounds like rust echoing down a chasm. each breathe is so long, each moment scored with a different note of trying, of laboring, of surviving. i never knew lungs could draw so deeply in, giving such low notes of far-away sounding rasp. then she stops, is still, for a few beats, and it repeats. a mix between deep sleep and lights going out. i wish papa or my dad spent these nights with here, this last bit of time with her. they’re both staying away, keeping distance, and already living without her. 60 years of marriage, of taking care of the two of them, for this? cruelty of this home knows no bounds. when you die, your brain unleashes untold amounts of DMT, the dream chemical. i wonder what she’s dreaming about. i try to understand her mumbles and murmurs but nothing is strung together into sentences or anything i can put meaning into. she woke up a little, and said she needed the potty. then fell asleep. we can barely lift her on. i wish i was stronger. or had a man around to help with this. i broke my bowl. i’m going back out to the patio, but it’s not blue hour here. everything is pitch black.

papa woke up around 5, and looked at gram, sorrowfully. he said, this wasn’t supposed to happen, this wasn’t supposed to happen. he asked what a pill was for, why we were waking her up, and told him it was to stop her from being afraid. he said that she’s been afraid so many times, and no more fear, please. gram asked if she needed to pack, and i told her she was all ready the way she was. she said okay. tv has been off, and crackling. it sounds like joints popping or popcorn cooking. sounds of sub-base thuds, like junky cars with subwoofers and shitty dubstep are far down the road, but the song you can’t make out. gram said that there was water, and it was blue. there was a man with big pants on, and a circus. florie was there, and uncle alley and marylou too. the man with the big pants also had big black shoes - a clown maybe. she said there was a cloud. it was the surge (before death, as google says)

she has never snored, and now she has the most statisfying sounding snores, deep and bellowing. between each rumble is a long fading echo, rusty and raspy, like an engine that wont start or a door that keeps creaking. it lasts so long, falling down into her body, resonating deeply and downwardly. sometimes she doesn’t breathe at all for a few moments. but the snores and the wailing whimpers fill the house. she seems heavier now too, i barely could have lifted her when she needed to go peepee. papa and aunt donna are asleep upright in their chairs. the speakers next to the tv haven’t crackled or cackled again. i am afraid to talk to them, either to sound crazy to my aunt or invite something wicked. is it normal to be afraid of your dad having your grandmother’s ashes? he’s stayed away, lurking in the kitchen, listening in, all night. even when she breathes so that it feels like an emergency, or when she wakes up to talk about her dead siblings, he barely sticks around to listen. the speakers crackle as aunt donna says gram is shaking a lot.

it’s almost 9am, and gram woke up a little, when papa started to cry when he sat next to her. she asked why there’s so many people wearing coats and blinkers, halloween is over, after all. there’s a guy knocking on the wall, and the other guy will get rich. papa asked, chin trembling, if she liked caring for him all these years, and she said ‘’i felt bad for you. we had everything.’’. papa asked about the beach, if she remembers cony island. she pointed to papa and said he made a mistake. she said she was going to have a party and invite all the homeless so they can eat. then she stuck her tongue out and licked her bend finger like a cat. - she said she was threading a needle. where ever she is, it’s $75 to get your nails done. she keeps scratching her head. aunt donna and i gave her a bath, and papa said him and his son popped in to say they were going out and wanted to stop to see if a priest would come over. gram said, no, only on sunday. we told her today is sunday. she said, not counting this one. please (Jr.) not now. ‘’they’re trying to kill me!” joking. told us to ‘’back to your work ladies’’ when we scrubbed her head. she said that annoying white bird was back. an actual priest came today. i took this as a chance to sleep. i don’t know what they did or said, but i do know that she confessed to him, in privacy. i wonder what she said. papa went out with dad, he said that his son knew somewhere he could get a haircut, but returned without one. all day she had moments of subconscious animation, then revived periods of lucidness. she spoke about monkeys here and annoying men driving cars, or about dead relatives. about the man who won’t get the metal because he didn’t earn it. she joked when aunt donna gave her a bath; asking if the curtain was drawn (it wasn’t) and exclaiming that people would see her, even though we are in the boondocks. today has been a day of hallucinations, borders of the spirit and mind, and wise ass jokes from grandma. aunt donna handed me hair and nail gummy vitamins, telling me i needed to keep up my strength.

aunt donna left, said she would be back in 12 or 24 hours. i am alone, with the haunting echoing breathing, waiting to see if there will be another one that erupts from her caverns. her exhales sound like someone is holding a note on an old electric guitar for too long. it sounds wiggling as the air leaves her, traveling off like whisps of dandlilion seeds in a windy valley.

it’s only right before 7pm, and it feels like the latest night ever. the darkness seems thicker. the dark seems painted in darkness, everything lost in a thick sea of nothingness/blank/void/abyss. there was no blue hour this night.

3/1 -- she’s sleeping a lot. this morning. it was time for more morphine at 7, and i heard papa and dad leave through the front door. she woke up at noon for maybe 20 minutes, and wanted to sit on the chair. her legs didn’t work anymore. her eyes are barely open. she says she’s stunada, and she’s dizzy, and that she doesn’t want any more medicine. i’ll have to force her to take it soon. the breathing machine is on, humming and puffing. all throughout the night she was comatose, murmuring softly. aunt donna wanted me to ask the nurses, who just left, how much time. i didn’t. what does it matter? she doesn’t want anyone to touch her. gram wants to walk around. she wants to move, she says she’s restless, and she wants to get up. she asks for papa. papa sat next to her and she lulled back to sleep, back in the chair. he went back into the kitchen, and again she tried to get up. i asked my dad to help me get her up to walk around. she shook so hard, her legs barely moved. she’s back in the bed, refusing all medicines. she’s even covering her mouth now with both hands. she asks for papa, but he said him and his son have to go ‘’for the rent thing’’ at ‘’the second medicaid building’’ but theyd be back. i don’t say anything to gram. dad tells me she stinks and needs deoderant, why didn’t the nurses give her a bath. i watch them drive away. maybe she’s had enough, maybe this is her way to control the last bit of what she can. aunt donna got here about at 5pm. something must have struck her in her time away. she seemed frantic. she told me that all her friends said how wonderful i must be, considering what i’m doing, and my age. then with her finger in my face she told me to leave. she told me to go, that i’m being relieved of my duty. gram was still on the comode, and i felt like i was being force away. i left the house, watching gram leaning on donna, over a comode, ass out, and donna scooting back looking for wet wipes. i handed them to her, unable to turn away. she told me thank you, now go. so i did.

3/3 -- i returned at 7am. grandpa and his son left soon after without a word. kimann is still here and so is aunt donna. even though i told donna to message me if anything, and even though she didn’t, she tells me in a sleep stupor that gram was throwing up a lot yesterday and a little last night. that she forgot to give some pills, and gram hasn’t eataing in 6 days now. the nurse will be back today, and then another will come one day to make an assessment. gram threw up in a little white trash bin, all the water she just had came back up. it came from her nose, and from her eyes. she looekd so pained. i felt bad for gagging. gram is sitting on her chair, smiling. she seems with it. she’s not aggreviated or confused like when i saw her. she had her crochet blanket over her knees and watched her black and white shows. papa and dad came back, and then left just as mysteriously. when they came back, my dad was asking for scissors, to cut papas hair. papa said, a few days ago, as one of his many excuses, that he and my dad were leaving for a hair cut, and came back without one. i offered to schedule one for him, since he’s afraid to go just anywhere with covid, i even explained that government orders state social distancing and occupancy limits, so no place will be crowded. he keeps refusing. he also said, in passing, he hasn’t showered in three days.

two nurses came after one nurse left. aunt donna sobbed. one nurse said, when she asked how much time her mother had left, because it hurt to watch her like this, he said he thought she wouldn’t last the night when he was here last time, that Saturday. One can’t predict death, diseases like this are al a carte, you get something, everyone gets something different. they were going to have fentanyl patches delivered, since she kept throwing up the morphine pills. all she wanted, she said, was a tylonal PM. papa and his son left two more times today, seemingless for less time each time, and coming back, papa more worn and his son more chaotic, yelling throughout the house and repeating odd words over and over, loudly swinging open doors and crashing things on tables. His mom was asleep, and he barges in asking her if she’s awake, then walks out, annoyed, mumbling, and she wakes up, asking herself, why are they always aggreivating me? why must they always make me nervous? i sit quietly, because if i opened my mouth i fear that i won’t be able to shut up again. aunt donna hasn’t kept up with notes, or doses. she gives one medicine instead of what we talked about, but whatever. you can’t control eveything i suppose, and i can’t be here forever like a haunter.

papa and dad got back, and less than five minutes dad was yelling at papa, slamming the firdge door, changing the garbage begrudgedly, ignoring my presence as i walked into the kitchen. i ask papa if he’s okay, and my dad tells me he’s not talking to me. i don’t say anything, just standing there makes me feel powerful in a weird way. papa tells me to fuck off, and i do. i try to listen in and then stop, chosing to not care, because what am i going to change by knowing? i already know, already, so, let go, no? dad sits in his room all day and creepily darts around the house and yard at night. he doesn’t care for her, and i wonder if papa realizes he won’t take care of him when he is in this situation. maybe papa knows, maybe papa doesn’t plan on a slow process of dying, maybe he really wants to believe

3/4 -- no one was here this morning. i woe up to a phone call from aunt donna telling me to let the aide in, shes outside. papa comes back with dad, and its not even 8am. papa said he didn’t want to wake me, and i told him gram shouldn’t have been left unattended. dad smoked cigarettes and the aides all noticed. papa covers for him though, and when i tell him to not smoke in here papa comes to his defense, saying that my dad doesn’t smoke and not in here. even gram tells me he was smoking in the livingroom, but to not pay them any mind. papa went to go to the doctor, he said that tonight they have to go pay the tickets. whatever that means, where ever that is. he seems like hes having a harder time catching his breath than usual. gram said she wishes she could drink a whole glass of ice water. she hates water. i wonder if the body just craves it at a certain point of illness. she hasn’t really taken her medicine today but she’s eating a bit of everything. she asked for cheesecake. i made her pop sicles out of chocolate milk inside of an empty egg carton. since when did we stop having ice cube trays? she has to take lots a breaks when moving around. she has a lot of will but her body is deteriorating. she looked at me when she sat on the edge of the bed, panting, saying that if she doesn’t remember something, or seems confused, it’s because she has dementia. i asked her who told her that, and she has she’s known for a while. she has there’s nothing she can do, she just forgets. i’ve noticed a decline too over the years, albeit very slight, gradual. she’s on the chair now, dad has been yelling, quietly, in secretcy, to papa, while they dance around in the kitchen. as soon as i walk in they stop, he hides in his room, papa uses his hands to tell me ‘enough’ or ‘’shut up’’. aunt donna told me that she called papa and screamed at him on the tops of her lungs regarding allowing my dad to smoke cigarettes in the house. papa and dad left in a huff. papa said he was, again, going for a hair cut where my dad goes, but came back without one, saying everywhere they go is closed or an appointment is needed. i keep my mouth shut. i offer, again, for the 29th time, if he would like me to make him an appointment down the road in the village, and he still says no.

3/5 -- grandma is in pain, i can see it on her contorted face as she sleeps. at 1am she asked for lots of ice cubes and water. she keeps saying she wishes she could drink water, even though in her whole life she never liked it. she wanted to watch her shows, i thin the time for sleep has passed. there are no animals outside, it’s irregularly quiet tonight. i’ve been bitten to hell by spiders. 2 bites on my arm, one on my left big toe, another on my shin, one on my back. i’m not sure how, or where, or when they got to me. maybe through my coat or maybe while i napped on the couch. these bumps are massively swollen and itch so badly.

it’s 7am and papa came out of his room, and unexpectedly asked to be shown how to give gram her medicines. i told him she’s refusing all her medications, so there’s nothing to really worry about. he grabbed all the cups by her bed and walked to the kkitchen, in an attempt to help and clean, but he didn’t notice the cups were full, and he slipped a trail of coffee to the kitchen. i cleaned it quickly without telling him anything.

papa asked me if i knew about his mother. papa never spoke about his mother, and the only time he did was when he and i, years ago, went to eat at a restaurant that no longer is, and he drank some chianti and cried, reminising about how his mother, sick, tried to jump out the apartment window in brooklyn, saying ‘’i have to get to my baba’’...papa told me, through tears, the baby was him. papa said that one day, when he was coming back form work on Ave U, he gets a call from his brother or uncle that his mom hasn’t left bed in 2 days, that she’s been shitting uncontrollably for 5, and the doctor will be making a house call soon. the family doctor said she needed to go to a hospital, so papa carried her into his car and brought her to one, where tests were ran and she seemed okay. she was talking and awake, so papa left, the doctors said to him to come back around dinner time. when he did, his mother was in a coma, doctors saying all her organs are shutting down. she had been diagsnosed with a rare blood disease. and a nurse at the hospital, a high school friend of aunt donna, also had it, and the prognosis was not good - many people who have this, if not all, die young. his mother was in her 50s, so, still young, i suppose, like the 20 something year old nurse. papa is distraught, and goes back home. then, the next day, the doctor called him and asked him to come in, and papa hung up without asking why and sped over, thinking his mother was about to die, only to find her sitting up and talking, seemingly all better. she went on to live another 2 years, before dementia really destroyed her. the nurse died a few months after his mothe rleft the hospital. sometimes people get better, he said, sometimes you never know. i stepped outside to smoke when my cousin called. after we chatted, i remembred i had some adderoll in my wallet, and took one. i thought, i don’t need to sleep. i have so much homework to finish by today anyway.

gram wanted me to bring out her clothes, her jewelry box, her shoes and bras and odds and ends from her bedroom. she went through her tops, giving me all of them, talking about where she wore them. then the dresses. people don’t wear dresses anymore, she says. some of the gowns are beaded adn dazzling, adorned with deco designs or shoulder pads. some of them are very gorgeous and i meant it when i said i would wear these. she looked at her three draw beige jewelry box - going through each step meticulously with fingers that couldn’t grip. she wants me to have all her pins. pins are meant to be worn with dresses, she said. Then she started puking, wad of napkins to her mouth. lips trembling between heaves, only water coming out onto her seaform green silk nightgown. i grabbed things to clean her up, but she told me to do as she said, pointing with one hand to the bedroom and the other hand clasping. i was looking for a hidden bathing suit she wanted to give me, when i found, in a zip lock bag, in one of her draws, covered by night gowns. i showed her the bag of pins, all gold and shiny. she said that these was the good ones, and she forgot all about them. they are for me too. i look around the house and want to keep everything. not out of greed but out of what museums are made up of - the desire to collect, to keep, to hold on to pieces of history or experience or emotion. they don’t make dresses like this anymore, and these pins are half a century old, but what about the iron stoves in the basement, the solid carved wooden hutches, or the porcelain picnic cutlery? they don’t make any of this like they used to. even the people. i snuck a lorazepam in her daily regular pills, which aunt donna and i have stopped giving her since the nurse said, that saturday, that she was going to die sometime in the night. i messaged the nurse asking if it was okay to be giving or skipping these daily pills. i wish aunt donna kept up with the pills and the notes and the log. things aren’t over yet and we don’t need to put ourselves at a disadvantage. last night, when her and i were messaging, she said she wanted to be absent. the both of us, just leave papa and my dad to their own devices. to show them how they would fair, how they need us and how terrible they are as care takers. i agreed but said that gram would suffer and we should prevent that, even though, by principle, she is right, but it’s for no point. we already know, everyone knows the truth, even the rotating nurses. we don’t have to prove it to grandpa and dad themselves, at the expense of gram.

dad and papa left again, it’s not even 11am. going to drop my dad off at court about his tickets, papa getting a hair cut or going to get soda. i tune them out now. a volunteer called from hospice, asking if she could help. i want emotional support, but she couldn’t give that to me in the way that i needed it, and awkwardly we got off the phone. aunt donna will be here tomorrow, and i can leave, but i’ll want to stay.

grandpa called me, telling me they might need a tow, the car is losing compression. he also said the other car which has been in the garage for days was smoking and smelling weird. he said he’ll try to drive back here, if not he’ll get towed and then take the other garage car, and if that breaks down, well, whatever. i can hear my dad screaming in the background. i say, i can get you cabs, taxis, whatever, easily. he said he was going to do it thimeself. i don’t know if it’s the whole adderoll or my soul breaking down, but i’m shaking now too like gram was when she turned into the exorist.

**sitting at the kitchen table afterwards, with papa, how he was obstanant, not seeing his parts he played, not looking me in the eye when excusing my dad, telling me i will never understand until i have a sick kid, not seeing how hes forsaken everyone else, he admits my dad is a bad person and an addict but doesn’t admit that what hes doing (driving with papa everywhere) is part of it // during the fiasco, how dad stormed into the living room and yelled at me, saying how could i tell him what to do when his mother was dying from lung liver and brain cancer - gram doesn’t have brain cancer and she started sobbing, freaking out asking if it was in her brain, how dad punctuated each word, standing over gram, how she cried and sobbed on that death bed. how papa said nothing. how i was told i don’t do anything, how dad and papa had it all covered, since before i came, how i don’t do shit, how my dad doesn’t respect me, how this is why i’m alone and dont have a man that loves me, even though i had mike he was going to come after work to fix BOTH the cars, i called that off though, how i’m a liar and everyone loves him, how papa stayed quiet, how i can call the cops, how i sholdn’t be recording a video, how this is just our family and everyone always yeleld, dad asked gram if she remembered grandparents and aunts who were loud and always yelled, how papa shit himself on grams chair. how dad didn’t shut up, how he kept yelling. how dad stormed around and yelled, cursing, telling me how i put him in jail with 400 other black inmantes and he survived that so i can’t get to him, how i’ll never get him out of the house and how papa agreed, how aunt donna is a drunk and if he can’t smoke cigarettes in his own house then i cant smoke weed outside and depense gram medicine, i told him then he can do it himself BUT OH WAIT...all because i told him for the 20th time in 2 weeks to not smoke cigarettes in a hosue with 2 terminally ill people with degenerative lung diseases who are on oxygen. how papa said he talked to him, how dad agreed to go outside. how at night, papa told me he was worried me and donna would cause a scene and affect gram...meanwhile i told him well dad has been doing that and you’re not concerned about his impact, papa shook his head. aunt donna messaging him non stop and how papa read them to me, but didn’t have to because aunt donna sent them to me too, how she was doing the same thing dad does. how i wanted to stay and keep helping, i was prepared to stay. i didn’t trust them. i don’t like these two. i hate them. and their distrubed relationship. let them die together. papa asked if i would be here when he was going to die, because he doesn’t have much time left. i said dad is keeping me and everyone else from being ehre for you and gram. i said if he’s laid up in a bed like gram, i’ll try but dad, i mean, look. he knows, he’s okay with it. he just wants his son. the two of them do, gram and papa, they both just want their son. i remember how just before gram was crying saying she doesn’t want anyone to bully her son. how she feels bad for him. how she wishes we can get along and how dad made his snide remarks. how i wish i could kill him with my own hands right now.

3/6 -- saturday. morning. i’m going to leave. i packed up, donna and i set up an aide and a schedule. papa has the key. i wrote everything down on the dinning room table, papers taped down, pill bottles explained and colored, notepads ready, phone numbrs available. it’s up to them now. i can’t be here to fix this. i can’t be here to deal with him. there is nothing i can do. i’m being fought at every turn. no matter what i am the outsider her and always will be wrong. there is no rationality in irrationality. this is the life they made, and they want. so many times and years i’ve tried to break through with the truth, to help, to be the parent to everyone. but i can’t. this isn’t for me. as much as i want to be here to make sure gram dies peacefully, i cant. i would though, and that’s the fucked up thing. i am like papa - i would enable. i want to not consider the horrible consequences, i want to do the wrong thing for the sake of my sensitive heart, even if i hurt everyone else including myself. i am an enabler. i am dyfunction, the next generation. i had to peel myself away from the house. i drove around aimlessly. i realize i haven’t been eating or drinking water, barely sleeping. i got a big bowl of broth and noodles and chugged ice cold water. i have to let things be. i have to let go. but how. i don’t know how to not want to be there. i understand, papa, what you mean by you coudn’t let your son die and you had to help. i get it because i would do the same thing for you and gram, even though deep down i don’t think either of you deserve it. but the difference is that i walked away, and i will let you die the way you wanted to live. aunt donna got gram’s friend, who is also an aide, to come in mondays and wednesdays and fridays, each week, for a handful of hours. she said she works for god and doesn’t want payment, but wants to be here for her friend. awesome. take the fucking wheel, mary.

3/7 -- sunday is the day for total breakdown. cihponed from what really is wrong, and totally misdirected and exploded on something else, unable totally unable to control my emotions for the entire day, starting at 3am when i woke up, unshakably bothered, totally offronted, absolutely in shock. i sat on the couch until about 7 catatonically, wrapped in blankets, unmoving unblinking. just not okay. i managed to get some candles and plants. reward? i cried so much, my face mutated into danger and disgust in car rides, thinking, crying, dwelling. how do i let go? how do i have people to be a support system? i am just as dysfunctional. i am a product of my enviornment and culture - maybe not to the severity of my dad, but i am still forged from this shithole, i am still damanged, even though not completely useless. how do i let go? how do i make friends? how do i trust? what does it mean to emotionally bond easily? how does one have different level of involments, and expectations depending on the person interacted with??

3/8 -- it’s monday. today. more mental and emotional breakdowns.

3/9 -- i spoke to the hospice nurse and social worker, they called to check in and i explained everything that happened. the nurse told me that aunt donna told her that the aide we got just quit, the day after she started. aunt donna apparently said it was because mary felt very uncomfortable after her and i left. i called mary and got her voice mail but i didn’t leave one. the nurse also told me that, with the smoking, if it doesn’t stop, hospice will stop coming over. its the company rules and it’s some hospice law, that their workers not be in homes where oxygen tanks are being smoked around. we counted all the medicines, nothing seemed off. she recorded everything, like she does. the detailed and neat notes aunt donna and i created and curated are now messy and single lines of scribbles. again, i want to go and help, take over, take control and fix, and care, and do. but i can’t and i wont.

3/10 - papa called me today, asking if i can come over tomorrow while he is getting the covid vaccine. he said his son has to go with him, to help him to the place where theyre giving out the vaccine and to go to medicaid or the dmv or where ever too. he said that it’s an appointment. i said fine, i’ll go.

the nurse called me, kristen, to tell me that another nurse, an LPN, went there today and counted the medicine and it’s all off. she said that there are some pills that are gone, and then the morphine liquid, all of a sudden, since yesterday, there’s more. nurse kristen said she didn’t think to check the color of the liquid, and i said, who would have. so now, the nurse said, no one is allowed ot go there alone, the hospie staff, they have to go in pairs. and now they have to invlove the social worker’s supervisor and the police, since there is no record of the medicines and since she was there yesterday, the is so much wrong. i told her that i won’t go there unless hospice is there. i didn’t tell her it was because i know my dad and grandpa will blame me if the cops ask what happened to the pills. the nurse also said that they will go, either friday or monday, depending, and throw away the medicines, becaus rthat’s protocol. they’re going to be there, in pairs, perhaps, hopefully with the police and social worker’s supervisor on friday. i texted papa and told him i’m not coming tomorrow. i called aunt donna and told her to call kristen, filled her in a little bit, while trying to not be affected, but i was, i could barely speak, called her gram instead of aunt donna. she said this is a good thing, a best case, and to detach. i cried and cried and cried.

**how gram has so many craving, opposite of what shes ever liked.

#drugs #addict #addiction #dying #death #codependancy #trauma #ptsd

0 notes

wordsofcleo · 3 years

Text

“Enough”

***TRIGGER WARNING***

This is an old entry I wrote and never anticipated to share here on my blog. After a while, I decided to let it rip. So here it is.

PS: While I still have my struggles, I am no longer in this bad of shape. I am mentally healthier. These are, however, things from my past that I still struggle with from time to time.

Trigger Warnings: (sexual abuse, trauma, family trauma, and more)

“For a long time, I have wanted to die. It isn't the kind of suicidal urge to die that everyone thinks of. It's the heaviness you carry around every day of your life. It's the deep want to not exist anymore. It doesn't mean that there is a plan, motive, or even self harm. It means that every day, a life of not wanting to exist is present. It's miserable. It hurts to my core.

I wonder what my life would have been like if I had been paid better attention to as a child. When I was found with bite mark trails upon my arms and hands, what did my grandparents think? When I would bash my head into the walls of our home, what did they think? They got onto me for being obnoxious. They got onto me for acting out. My grandparents were good people, but what about my behaviors? Did they ever once stop to think about the pain I was expressing as early as age five? What about the Barbie dolls I shook violently, instead of playing with them like normal young girls would? Shaking them released some kind of stress within me. My family thought it was strange, and even funny. They never once put the pieces together to realize that something deeper was going on. The tantrums that I would throw that resulted in time out, and me bashing my head into the walls to discipline myself; what about that? I was just acting out in their eyes. What about all of the times I was being molested at that age by the family friend? No one put two and two together? Nope. I was just a child that was acting out for no reason. What about the times I stayed up all night long wondering why I wasn't good enough for either one of my parents? What about questioning why neither one of them were in my life? My grandparents knew they were great grandparents and provided me with everything my parents couldn't give me, so they wondered why I would be unhappy. Why? Why would Savannah be unhappy? As a final resort to be understood, I revealed my depressive poetry book to my grandmother in middle school. I realized that no one would catch on themselves, so I showed her myself. The reaction was blasphemous; it was as if something was wrong with me. I got into a doctor. I was finally diagnosed with depression at age eleven after all of those years. Someone had finally caught on, and it was all because I decided to share my poetry. I shared the feelings that harbored deeply within my heart. Only then and then only was it anyone's concern. I dyed my hair black, wore all black, and continued to self harm in ways that aren't even typical in the “self harm” book. I would deprive myself of things. Beat myself up. As an effort to be loved, I would date anyone I could in school. That led to a plethora of toxic relationships. In high school, I had a boyfriend that would beat me up with his boxing gloves. Pin me onto his bed and beat me with his gloves. He was strong, and I was not as strong as I thought I was. He degraded me. He told me I was just like my father whom had lived near him in the neighborhood for some time and gotten to know him. The last night he hit me and threw my bike in a ditch so that I couldn't ride home, I called my Youth Pastor to pick me up and take me home. I never looked back. Still, the trail of toxic relationships wouldn't end there, would they? No. At only fifteen years old, I developed an interest in my father's sister's adult boyfriend. He was thirty five years old, and I was fifteen. I thought older men were cool. Was that because I had daddy issues? You tell me. What was a fifteen year old girl doing lusting after an older man? What was an older man doing hanging out with a fifteen year old girl? He cooed me. He manipulated me. We had “therapy sessions” to talk about the hate I had towards my parents. He would soothe me and help me. Dropped out of school more than once, so I was home schooling on my own. He would “tutor” me where I needed help. That led to a sexual, consensual relationship. Too bad a fifteen year old girl can't consensually have sex with a thirty five year old man. My friends warned me that he was a pedophile and taking advantage of me. I got offended when they called it “gross” and “disturbing”. I can hear them now, “Savannah, you need to do something about this. It's not right. He's a predator.” Finally, in time, I listened. I confronted my dad's sister; my aunt, and I told her what I'd done. I admitted to her as if I was all wrong. I was a child. I took the blame for her grown, perverted boyfriend. She spit in my face and demanded I get off of the property. She told me I was a liar. Cops were called. They claimed they had to conduct an investigation in which they never even investigated. To this day, the cops in this town look at me as if I'm a piece of garbage. Over the years, enough courage was formed to leave a public review of my experience with them. They talked me down. They said it didn't happen. All they used was a polygraph test on my aunt's boyfriend. He was a pathological liar. He convinced me, and he could convince anyone. To the police of Port St. Joe, that was enough. The towel in my grandmother's home that had that man's bodily fluid on it was washed immediately by me, because I didn't want to get in trouble. There was no “physical evidence” they say. A polygraph was enough, wasn't it? Sure. They say I was uncooperative. I was “uncooperative” because I was underage and my grandmother would not allow me to take the polygraph myself. Why? I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and tachycardia at the age of fourteen. I was not yet on medication for it; that came later. Why would I be set up to fail a polygraph that monitors heart rate and sweat glands? Why did the police only use a polygraph for investigation purposes? They never once questioned any of the witnesses who firsthandedly knew of and witnessed things. They didn't care to ask; not one, and not once. The police failed me. The pervert continues to walk the streets to this day. I'm the bad guy, though, right? My friends witnessed us be together. They witnessed the intoxication I was put under after being given alcohol by the man. They witnessed the hickies on my skin. They were around him and I firsthandedly. That part didn't matter to the Port St. Joe police, did it? It didn't matter that they could retrieve text messages and phone calls either, did it? It wouldn't have mattered anyway, because the man had a way of speaking in code. He did that for a reason. Don't put anything out in the open, or else they'll catch on. Yeah. I'm sure it also didn't matter to the police that I was with this man so much privately that she had to tell him to leave me alone. When she did, the man requested that we still have our “time”, but in a public place. Does that right there not speak for itself? Again, the police didn't care. Protect the children, right? Fuck you.

As always, it never stops there. In 2013, I'm fifteen, and I meet an older guy named Tyler at the Adult School I'm going to. I'm going to the Adult School because I dropped out of high school, home schooling didn't work, and I need an alternative. Enough was enough. The man flirts with me and we start hanging out as friends in public places. We grow a bit closer, even though he never speaks to me much when we're together. One day he invites me into his mysterious home. He rapes me. There are guns around me, and I know if I fight back, he will kill me. Porn DVDs scattered all over the room. I know I'm his victim. When it's over, he hurries me to leave and locks the door behind him. I call 911. He's arrested, and they take me to questioning. They want me to be questioned in the same building as him. They warn me he's about to come down the hallway and will pass by me. Seriously? Why not protect me a little more? I demand they protect me. They put me into the Chief's office and close the door. That's all they could offer. How professional, right? When they question me, they ask me to define “sexual intercourse”. I've just been sexually assaulted, and they want me to define that, to a man. They choose a male to give me my questioning and statement giving after I've been raped by, you guessed it, a male. I felt the dirtiest I had for the longest time. I wanted to vomit, but nothing could come up. My body didn't feel like my own anymore. My life was useless in that moment. I was nothing more than a limp, used rag or piece of garbage. That's how I felt. Tyler admits to the sexual assault. He goes to jail, and later changes that statement for court. I refuse to go to court to look at my rapist, so I'm offered a plea deal. I take it. Before his probation is up, he sexually assaults another woman. The deal was if he broke his probation, he would go to prison. He raped a handicapped woman, broke his probation, went to jail, and got out again. Want to know what else? Just the other day, I ran into my rapist for the first time in seven years. Why is he in public? Why did he have a child with him? Why did he have a woman with him? Why was he able to shop at a public Walmart? How is he able to be around others freely? What if he is hurting the toddler child that was with him? You know he is. He's a rapist. They will rape whoever and whatever they can. They are sick bastards. How is he able to be scotch free? I'm sickened. I was failed too many times by the system. I'm pouring tears as I write this. Why has it been this way? Why isn't the system protecting children and adults; more importantly the children? I can't seem to understand.

When my questioning was over, they called my grandparents to pick me up. I was stunned when I saw my mother of all people walk through the door. My mother. Someone who had not been in my life. “They say you have to pack your things and come stay with me,” she told me in reference to my grandparents. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I rode in my mother's car, totally emotionless to my grandparent's home. It was the place that I'd been raised. The place that I had so many memories. It was all I knew. It was home. “We warned you not to hang out with that guy, Savannah. Since you don't want to listen to us, you can stay with your mother.” It didn't matter that I'd been sexually assaulted. What mattered most to them was that I had rebelled against their intuitions. I got hurt as a result. My entire world broke apart. I thought they loved me, and that I was their child. I was wrong. I packed everything I could take, and went to my mother's house. This is where my stepfather told me that I was the Devil's child, and I was rebellious. He told me I was mentally sick. He told me a lot. When I told him to shut up, he slung his glass of liquor and ice at me. Covered and perfumed with the wretched smell of alcohol, I again gathered my belongings and hit the door. All my mother could say to him was, “Stop.” It didn't work. With my bags carried on all sides of me, I walked a couple of miles more or less to my mother's mom's house. Again, someone who wasn't in my life. I explained the situation, and I hoped that she would help me. “That's just how he is,” she said, “hopefully he will get over it.” I asked her if she could help me, and there seemed to be little that she could do for me. At that point, I was burned out. I didn't care anymore. Again, I gathered my things and took the last resort that I knew; find some familiarity. I walked many miles to find a friend from elementary school. I hoped that she still lived there. They didn't expect me to show up, but they took me right in. I told them everything. They helped me. They consoled me. A couple days later, my grandmother called. She apologized and wanted to bring me home. I didn't accept the apology, but I wanted to stop living out of bags. So, I went home. It was painful and heartbreaking. I couldn't let go of what happened. At least I had the resources to try and get my life together at my grandparent's house. I tried my hardest, and kept my door locked a lot. I stayed isolated.

In the midst of all the abuse and sexual assault, I'd found my parents chatting on Facebook. I had previously picked my father up from a psychiatric hospital because he had no one else willing to pick him up. He called me, and I'd picked him up to take him to his mother's house. That day, he'd given me his Facebook information in case something happened to him, or he couldn't get to his social media. Later on, I checked it to see him and my mother had been chatting about my life. Although neither one of them had anything to do with me, they had all the time in the world to gossip and talk down on their own daughter. They talked about how I lied on everyone that had “hurt” or “assaulted” me. They claimed it was a cry for attention. They called me mental. As if it wasn't enough that they couldn't be in my life all those years based on their very own decision, they then wanted to privately degrade me. That's okay. I finally understood how they felt about me, and for no reason at all. I took screenshots, and to this day, I have them. I'm tired of people lying and claiming they never did anything. I learned to keep evidence of wrongdoing whenever and wherever I can.

When my dad's mother died a couple of years later, I showed up to the funeral. My dad was there. My aunt was there. My aunt's perverted boyfriend who took advantage of me was there. I was aware of all of that before going. I needed to pay my respects, but not only that. For some reason deep within my soul, I wanted to give my support to my father's emotions. It's hard losing people. I was there for him despite how he'd talked about me behind my back. I was there for him despite not being in my life. It wasn't about what he had done to me, but what I could do for him. Later on as I got older, that mentality changed. I no longer care.

When my dad's brother died after his mother, I showed up to the house with my husband to help clean for an estate sale. I wanted to help with no strings attached. Families suffer during loss, and it was something I could do. They knew I wanted to help, yet they had my aunt's perverted boyfriend there doing absolutely nothing but watching. When I pulled another family member to the side to bring that to the surface, it didn't matter. “I've come here to help, and you have him here. Why?” Oh, but it was no big deal. It was as if it was totally forgotten about. “Just walk around him. Ignore him,” she said. It was that day I realized that they really did not believe me at all. They didn't care. I finished helping, and that was the end of it. Many people showed me; blood and not blood, that they did not give two fucks about me. It's okay.

2016 came around. I was going to therapy. I had been doing great. For once, I was finally on top of the world. I had saved enough money to buy a camper to turn into a tiny home. It was my dream. I wanted to move out of my grandparent's home and begin my own life. I had a good job. I met my husband, Chase. He moved from Louisiana to Florida to be with me. We lived in the camper together. Eventually, he proposed. He was amazing and I loved him with all of my heart. I said yes. We sold the camper, my grandparents graciously let us move back in with them temporarily, and we worked hard. We worked hard and saved up for a home on land. I wanted to push forward and fulfill yet another dream of mine. Eventually, I married Chase and I got the home. I worked hard on it. On my off days, I put sweat into the house. It was a long process, but what made everything even longer is that my husband kept leaving me for no reason. We had a very happy relationship, but he was always so unhappy. He never had a reason for his unhappiness. He said everything was fine, and the next thing I knew, he was disappeared. It took hearing from his family that he'd made it back to Louisiana safely. Four times he left me. Three times I took him back. The emotional turmoil was never ending. Laughing, adventuring, vacationing, and doing so many other things together and then suddenly your love is gone. They're gone with no warning, and no reason. Just because they want to, they're disappeared from your life. You know they'll come back later, so you learn to forgive it. You think that maybe they're struggling internally and trying to find themselves. However, each time he left, I lost a bit of myself. After the fourth time, I had completely lost sight of myself. I had no idea who I was. I knew if he wasn't serious about staying gone the fourth time, I would have ended up with him once more in the same old painful toxicity. He insisted divorce, and divorce it was. I didn't agree on divorce until the day I visited him at work during our separation when he told me he didn't care about anything but what he could get out of a situation and smiled at me. I turned around and felt happy that I would never have to be involved with him again, but it still broke me. I knew all of the things I'd heard about him both from observers and others were true. It suddenly all made sense. I should have listened. Each time that he left me, it broke me so hard. For weeks, I could not eat. I could not sleep. I could barely breathe. Too many times, I wanted to die. I loved the man with all of my heart and soul. I'd never loved as hard as I loved him. In December 2019, it was over officially. We were divorced. And suddenly, I realized that I'd lost so much and been done wrong, and I was sick of it. I was left with a complete and utter void.

I lost my hometown to Hurricane Michael in October 2018, and my grandfather who raised me died a month later in November. As if the tragedy of natural disaster wasn't bad enough, I did not understand how to cope with losing my grandfather. For so many years of my life, we bumped heads. When he passed away, I wondered if his spirit would hold that over me. I wondered why it couldn't have been different. To this day, I wonder. To this day, I mourn. To this day, I wonder why he continued to be friends with his friend that he knew molested me as a child. The first time, it was walked in on. Soon enough, the family friend would be coming around more and more. That meant I was being molested more and more. Why did he allow him back around me? I was like a daughter to him, right? Why did he do that, then? Did he really love me? He was such a good man, but why was he that way? Why did he get offended when I brought it up while he was still alive and refuse that it happened the way it did? Does anyone really love me? Why do the people that claim to love me let bad things happen to me?

I am truly unloved. Those who claim to love me never truly love me. People don't know love. Love is a void to everyone around me. Almost 23 years later of these feelings, and I can't take anymore. Some will never get answered, and all of them will never be brought justice. I can't stand it. I can't stand this life. Enough is enough.”

0 notes

modernart2012 · 7 years

Text

I’m Friends with the (Monster)

@sumigakure Halloween Event 2017

Prompt 10: Normal Person meets Someone and finds out they’re a Monster

Word Count: 2107

Rating: T (for safety)

WARNING SPOILER FOR A WIP THAT INFLUENCES THIS FIC HEAVILY. IF YOU DON’T WANT THAT FIC SPOILED, SKIP THIS FIC.

On AO3

“Obito, you cannot be serious right now.” Rin sighs exasperated. “If this is the sign you're turning into Dr. Uchiha, tell me now so I can go get Shisui to do a refresher on ‘Normal Human Interaction 101’.”

Obito whips his head around from where he was stealthily peeking around the edge of the Uzumaki Special Collection Library, “Rin, there is absolutely something weird about Bakashi! Who else is that young and -and - aloof at University? This is the most prestigious University in the Elemental Nations and he’s walking around like he’s the greatest thing here!” He pauses and continues, “Also, Unce Kagami made that PowerPoint presentation you know.”

Rin boggles, but ignores that tidbit of information. “Kakashi is Dr. Benzaiten’s stepson. He’s a genius, and has probably spent enough time on campus to be comfortable. And even if he’s a little odd, well, he’s traveled all over and then some besides, he’s probably an amalgamation of different cultural norms.” She checks the time on her phone, “Look, I need to head to class. Dr. Senju and Dr. Kato are really strict about attendance at practicals; I’ll catch up with you later. Don’t get arrested, Chief Uchiha will flambe you alive and then Dean Senju will completely erase your existence from the space-time continuum.”

At the mention of his guardians, Obito has to pause to consider Rin’s point. Uncle Madara and Uncle Tobirama were both excellent parental figures, if easily distractible, but they often disapproved of any Uncle Kagami-esque shenanigans. Supposedly there was an International Incident involved, at least once, but Obito didn’t believe the University would give a PhD and then hire someone who caused such rampant mayhem even if the mayhem was in the name of Experimental and Theoretical Magic. It didn't matter, there was definitely something weird about Bakashi. And Obito was going to prove it!

Maybe. He’s got about an hour until his class with Professor Namikaze, and that’s his favorite class. He doesn’t want to be late. He goes back to nonchalantly trailing after Bakashi, who seems to be looking at nothing and eating through his mask. Which, why does he even have a mask that only covers the lower half of his face? The excuse of, “Protecting your mucus membranes from the elements is essential to proper health,” seems like a blatant lie, but Obito doesn’t know or want to know about what goes on in niche fitness nut circles to call Bakashi on it. And that asshole tries to tell Obito his (true! Verifiably true!) explanations for his tardiness are bullshit. Obito would like to call hypocrisy, thank you very much.

Bakashi is halfway through walking the Forest Quad Loop, after stopping a bajillion times to touch random knots of wood, or pet moss, or crunch leaves, or sniff a rock - at which point Obito had to seriously consider that Bakashi was onto him and just fucking around to mess with him - when a massive white wolf comes crashing through the forest. Obito is about to shriek in horror, because oh Fire God’s Eternal Flame Bakashi is gonna be eaten, when a terrifyingly strong hand clamps over his mouth.

It’s long - too long for anything natural - and scaled. Scaled like a pit viper from Kaze no Kuni. Which, since Obito has checked as part of his law courses, are non-native to any part of Hi no Kuni and illegal to import. There were rumors of Dr. Benzaiten having weird questionably-ethical experiments with human subjects and genetics and magic, but that was into ... regeneration? Can snakes regenerate body parts? Or is this an escaped prisoner with a weird magic trying to take revenge on Kakashi because Colonel Hatake is part of the Rangers of the Hi no Kuni military and killed someone important to this person? The Army Rangers do do a lot of high profile and clandestine stuff, it’s not outside the realm of possibility....

“What are you doing following the Princeling, mortal?” Princeling? Who? Bakashi? Maybe he is part of a LARP group? Well, he seems the type.

“I didn't realize people LARP’d on weekdays. You know what, I like this answer. This explains everything.” Obito lifts up and ducks under the arm, then shakes the man’s (possibly, the special effects makeup is some of the best Obito’s ever seen) hand vigorously. “Good day sir. I need to get to class.” The man seems astounded, like he's just experienced something impossible. Maybe he thinks Obito is part of the LARP?

Obito thinks everything is going just fine as he heads back towards campus when the LARPer dashes faster than his eyes can track into his way, this time brandishing a knife that outright bristles with barely leashed offensive magic. Something that is powered by the ... power of blood, to drain whomever it cuts of their life and/or bind that person to the wielder's will, if Obito is reading the runes right. “Do you have a permit for that?” It slips out his mouth faster than Obito can think about it.

“What?” Maybe he didn’t hear him clearly?

“That knife. Do you have a permit to carry a magical weapon with a black magic enchantment? Because it’s a felony if you don’t. Unless it’s for ritualistic or religious purposes and therefore covered by religious exemption, in which case you still need a permit, but it’s stamped specially and registered with the government.” There is an objective downside to living with a cop, and it is this: you learn bits and pieces of law that have no real use outside of a government office. Obito didn’t need to know the precise breakdown of the law regarding enchanted weapons or items with aggressive intent before he started studying pre-law.

There’s no light of dawning understanding with this fellow, and Obito suddenly has the sinking suspicion this might not be a LARP when he starts gathering magic like its cotton-wool. People with that level of magic know better than to throw it around in broad daylight without protective barriers up, and as far as Obito can tell there is no protective barrier to stop the blast from affecting any unwitting bystander. Gods all dammit, why does Obito always run into the psychos?

Luckily, there’s no law against carrying an pre-prepared protective barrier, concealed or otherwise. At least there’s a bright side, he’ll be able to tell Prof Kushina if it worked or not. It takes three reflexive handsigns to activate, but it ripples out in a wash of violet beautifully. Just in time, as the scaled man lets loose, and Obito means that quite literally. He’s never seen such a large Air and Earth combo before, slashing winds and jutting earth spikes rising and falling and rising in chaos. He’s buffeted about, but otherwise unharmed.

He’s bracing for the next wave when a voice rings out across the path. “What’s going on?” He glances sideways to find Bakashi and the massive wolf watching.

“Bakashi! Get out of here! This dude’s gone crazy; I don’t know how long this barrier will last.” Dr. Benzaiten would be out for blood if his stepson was even the slightest bit injured, which meant Uncle Tobirama would be displeased, and Uncle Kagami and Uncle Madara and Dr. Sarutobi and Dr. Senju and Dr. Ogata would be mad, and then Professor Namikaze would do his squinty-eyed smile that screamed “justifiable homicide” and then Prof Kushina would be pissed because her boyfriend was in prison which would make Aunt Mito displeased and Uncle Hashirama would end up taking it out on foreign policy decisions leading the whole world into war. Really, it’s in everyone’s best interest Bakashi get away now. At least if it’s only him, then everyone will think there was some sort of accident and there’d be no war, right?

He’s met by a blank and dispassionate stare. The wolf even gives him the same look, and Obito is officially done with everyone giving him that look, okay? Animals shouldn’t even be able to give that look! Where was the justice?! “Uroko, what are you doing to Obito?”

The scaled-man, Uroko, bows deeply, “My apologies, Princeling. This mortal here was covertly following you and I wanted to be sure of his intent. The Lady would be most displeased with me if her grandson was injured on my watch.”

There’s a lot to unpack there, and Obito’s mind leaps from idea to idea faster than he can rightfully track. Kakashi’s ... grandmother, this Lady, was powerful enough, or important enough, that she was having people with rare magical ability protect her grandson. And she’s probably a Queen, if Kakashi is a Princeling. Which meant this ... body guard, probably of a foreign country, given his unfamiliarity with the laws of Hi no Kuni - Tetsu no Kuni, probably, they’re the only place with a monarch and such pale coloration - his only job is to protect Kakashi from threats. Like a stalker. Which, what Obito had been doing was legally stalking. Oh Fire God’s flaming balls, Uncle Madara is going to kill him, then Uncle Tobirama is going to erase his existence for causing an International Incident. Is it too late to beg for mercy? It’s not too late to beg for mercy.

He opens his mouth to apologize, but what comes out instead is, “You’re related to a Queen?!”

Uroko puffs up, proud, “The Young Princeling is the direct grandson of the Fair Lady of the Wild Hunt, Queen Sayaka of the Seelie Court.”

Obito had been following along into that last one. Seelie were only legends, Fae who were supposedly kinder than their Unseelie relatives, or the High Fae who were the cruelest of the lot. There was no way Bakashi would be - except Bakashi is facepalming as if Obito has just been some inconvenient truth, and so is the wolf, which really is much bigger than it actively ought to get in the wild but would be explained by the fact it’s Fae, and - “The mask is to hide something unnatural, isn’t it?”

Bakashi pulls down his mask, revealing a face that is clearly non-human in beauty, then bares a wolfish grin at Obito. And he means that quite literally - that smile is full of wolf teeth. Obito eyes them speculatively, “How do you even make words?” He had no idea Bakashi has a mole by his mouth - does Bakashi even know he usually gets rice grains stuck in the same spot? Or is that coincidence?

Bakashi corrects his mask, scowling. “That’s what you take away from that?”

Obito shrugs, “It’s either that or fleeing screaming into the pond.”

Uroko interjects, “The pond is full of kelpies and kappa.”

Right. Murderous water horses and turtles. Fire God’s balls. “I will not be fleeing into the pond, then. I’ll flee to Uncle Kagami’s office.”

Bakashi raises a skeptical eyebrow, “Can you even make it back down the trod without getting lost?”

His mother had raised him on the old stories, and Uncle Madara had a knack for retelling them in new and interesting ways, so Obito knows what a trod is, and where it leads. And there’s no way he’s anywhere near a trod. “This is the forest bit of Forest Quad. I’m following the loop, there should be no trod anywhere near the loop.”

“Did you not wonder why no one came to investigate the massive amount of magic just now? That amount of magic is usually a sign of impending disaster.” If Bakashi gets any more sassier Obito is going to punch him in the face, bodyguard or no.

“Fire God’s flaming balls.” Obito has managed to follow Bakashi down a hidden path through the Veil Between Worlds into the realms of the Fae. Which would be impressive, but only if he can get back to the human realm without going insane, getting back to about the same time as he left, and avoid being preyed upon by a more Powerful Fae. “Uncle Madara is going to kill me.” If Uncle Madara is even still alive when he gets back; he’s probably just jinxed it and now Uncle Madara is going to live forever. Oh, Twelve Hells.

Bakashi checks his watch, “Look, we’re going to be late for Professor Namikaze’s class at this rate. Let’s go.” He starts walking confidently down the path, in a completely tangential direction to where they came from, were going, or should be headed to return to campus.

Obito checks his own watch and yelps because they really are going to be late at this rate. He speeds after Bakashi, but can’t hold back a grin. Rin is never going to believe this.

#sumigakure halloween event 2017 #prompt 10: normal person meets someone #finds out they're a monster #yro(h) verse #SPOILER HEAVY #set after Fae by Night #art writes

6 notes · View notes

5sos-kingsandqueens · 7 years

Text

The Dealer~chapter5~Calum Hood

THE DEALER

CHAPTER 5

JAYDE P.O.V

8 weeks pregnant ending of August beginning of September

I was woken up by the sound of my phone ringing over and over and over around 6 am on a Saturday. I was going to kill whoever was calling me. When I got pregnant I found that I needed to sleep a lot longer than I usually do.

I lifted up the phone and saw Calum's name flash across the screen. He wouldn't be calling me right now if everything was okay.

"Calum." I groaned into the phone. "It's 6am."

"I've been robbed." He said into the phone and I paused slowly sitting up to not get dizzy.

"What?"

"All of the drugs, all of the money, our t.vs, gone."

"Are you serious?" I asked. "Did you call the police?"

"Oh yeah "Hey, copper I got my drug and drug money stolen. That would blow over well. I'm sure they would arrested me as soon as they got here." He commented and I rolled my eyes.

"Well what am I suppose to do if you won't call the cops?" I questioned.

"I don't know but I don't have any money for anything. I won't be able to buy a train ticket to get to you for your doctors appointment." He said and I sighed.

"I will pick you up later today and you can stay with me until Monday and after work and our appointment on Monday I will drive you home."

"Thank you." He commented. "I have a job interview at Ashton's work for a security job at 9."

"Okay, I'll pick you up after lunch. I'm going back to bed." I answered before hanging up and rolling over onto my stomach to try and get back to sleep.

****

I slept for a few more hours before finally getting up to shower and make myself some breakfast. Driving into the city to get Calum was going to be terrible and I knew I was going to be stuck in a ton of traffic.

On top of that, today I wasn't feeling good at all. I felt bloated, I felt like I was going to vomit at any minute and my boobs were hurting. I wasn't sure if all of those things were related to being pregnant but I was gonna blame it on the pregnancy.

I quickly showered and ate some toast before heading off to Calum's. I knew I was going to be a little early but maybe I could stop at the book store to pick up some baby books for me to read. Of course I knew what any first time mom knew about pregnancy. It took 9 months and then it hurts like hell when you give birth. It was everything else that I wasn't sure about.

I called Calum over the car speaker system.

"Hi, hot stuff." I rolled my eyes when he answered.

"Hey, are you home yet?" I asked. "I'm almost there."

"Yeah I'm home." He answered. "You can get me whenever."

"Well, do you wanna go to the book store with me?"

"Sure." He answered. "But only because you're carrying precious cargo and I don't want anyone to get close to you." I laughed a little pulling up to his building.

"I'm here." I commented before he hung up and he came out a few minutes later. "Hi."

"Hi, baby." He commented.

"How did the interview go?" I questioned as I pulled onto the street to head to the bookstore. I really needed Calum to get this job. I could easily afford to support this baby but it would be so much better if there were two of us who would be able to provide for this baby because that's what it deserved. It deserved two parents who would be able to both contribute to it's life.

I had no idea what the future held with Calum. Of course I wanted to raise this baby with him but I didn't want to be with him. We were two very very different people. I had parents who were laid back and allowed me and my sister to do anything we pleased. We never had a curfew, we could sleepover our friends house whenever we wanted, they let us take their cars whenever we wanted.

Calum's parents were strict. They were always on him about grades and other things and maybe that was just because he was never good at school. I knew that Calum's parents cared a lot about his education and Calum didn't really care.

My parents were strict when it came to relationships and I think that's why I have been sleeping with Calum for so long. In high school, they told me to never date him. They knew we were close friends and have been since we were little but they didn't want me to date him. They were always preaching about how he would just use me for sex and throw me away. Little did they know.

"Interview went good. They said they're going to give me a call." He smiled and I smiled.

"That's good. This is an awesome opportunity and if it doesn't work out, then come to my office." I smiled pulling into a spot, grabbing my purse and keys and getting out. He got out as I locked the car and ran around to stand on the sidewalk with me.

"What type of books do you need?" He questioned.

"I'm just getting a few baby books. I think I should read up on what is happening to my body." I smiled. "I'm also getting the name book." I know it was very very early on in my pregnancy but I was still thinking about baby names. What person doesn't? I don't know about other's but I've had some names picked out for years now even though I had no intention of getting pregnant.

"I like the name Calum." I shook my head as I walked to the store. Thankfully there was a Starbucks inside so I went and ordered something for me and Cal, paid for it, and then made him stand in line while I went to try and find the books I wanted. I was somewhat close to where I needed to be and when I found a pregnant women I asked her if she knew.

"Next aisle over." She smiled. "I love how you asked me and not someone who worked here." I laughed a little.

"I felt that you would be nicer to me about it." I smiled. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." She smiled back before I went to find the books and Calum met me there.

"Here you go." He handed me my drink with a kiss. I searched for the books that I thought I might need. I bought the books of names and What to Expect When You're Expecting but I wasn't sure if I would need anything else. "You should start with these. I'll also give you the book I have. That one is about what you'll need for baby, how much things usually cost, and labor and delivery." I nodded feeling a little overwhelmed by it all. I carried the books to check out and paid before getting back into the car.

As soon as we got into the car, my phone began ringing over the bluetooth speakers.

"Hi, Julia." I smiled as she huffed on the other end.

"I don't know what the hell is wrong with some people!" She shouted into the phone making me chuckle a little. "Joy Hood and mom hung out today and all of a sudden I get a call and mom is angry at me that I didn't tell her I was pregnant! Joy Hood told mom I was pregnant when I'm not!"

"Oh. That's weird." I commented looking over at Calum who was beat red despite his tan skin tone.

"And then that got me to thinking. How would Joy know if I was pregnant? Why would I ever tell Joy that I'm pregnant before my own mother. That's when it came to me. Joy was talking about you. Because you're sleeping with Calum Hood." I was silent as I drove having no idea what to say to her. "Oh my god, Jay. Please tell me you're not pregnant."

"I can't." I answered.

"Jayde! How did this happen?" She questioned.

"The old fashion way. And just so you know, you're on speaker and I'm with Calum."

"Calum! I'm going to kick your ass! How could you get my sister pregnant?!"

"You act like I did it on purpose." He rolled his eyes.

"Oh my god. I'm coming over for dinner." She answered before hanging up and I knew I should invite my parents too because eventually, I would be getting a call from them.

Julia came first and thank god because if my parents got here first, I think I would have passed out on the floor. I had the pregnancy test and the ultrasound picture ready to show her when she got here. I was so thankful that when she actually saw us she wasn't mad because if she was I think I would have passed out.

"I'm gonna be an aunt!" She shouted hugging me. "Holy crap. She held the test and the ultrasound picture. "How far along are you?"

"I'm 8 weeks. I wanted to wait a little longer to tell you, mom, and dad but apparently someone's mom can't keep their mouth shut." I glared at Calum who just shrugged as there was a knock on the door and he went to answer it.

"Oh, Calum, Honey, nice to see you." My mom said giving him a hug and a kiss on the cheek before letting him go and coming over to me and Julia. "Hi girls." She smiled hugging us both. Calum shook hands with my dad before we all went into the rather small dining room area I had and sat down to eat.

"So um..." I started but wasn't sure how to get this out. "I have some news." I commented.

"About what?" My mom questioned.

"About what Joy said to you today."

"About me becoming a grandmother." She said and I nodded. My father looked rather alarmed at the conversation.

"I was going to wait to tell you but Calum and I are expecting a baby in March." I commented laying out the ultrasound pictures.

"Oh. Oh wow." My mother answered picking up the pictures. "How far along are you?"

"Eight weeks." I answered softly. I was an adult, who had a home and a job, I graduated from college, I wasn't sure why I was so afraid to tell my parents that I was pregnant. Of course I always thought that my married sister would have a baby before me but that's beside the point.

"Oh my gosh, Honey! Congratulations! I'm gonna be a grandmother!" She smiled hugging me. "You're gonna have a beautiful child." She smiled as we all sat back down and I was awaiting my father to speak his mind.

"When's the wedding?" He asked.

"What? There's not going to be a wedding." I answered. You didn't need to be married to have a baby. He should know that. He got my mother pregnant before their wedding.

"You think I'm going to allow you to have a child out of wedlock?" He asked trying to be stern making me wonder if he was only saying this because that's what other fathers would say to their daughter who got "knocked up" as Emily put it.

"You act like you can control me. I'm an adult who made a mistake and now I'm taking responsibility for it. I'm not going to get married because you think that will make my life easier. It won't." I commented. I sure as hell wasn't going to allow him to start treating me like a child now that I was grown and moved out. I was my own person and I could make my own decisions. "I didn't want it to happen this way. No one does. But it happened and I want this baby and you can decide if you want to be apart of its life but I'm going to be and I don't care what you say." I was stern getting my point across that no matter what anyone says, I'm going to be able to do this.

Whether Calum was here to support us or not.

#calum hood #calum imagine #calum edit #calum 5sos #calum fanfic #calum fanfiction #5sos #5sos fam #5sos blog #5sos edit #5sos imagine #5sos fanfic #5sos fanfiction #the dealer #chapter 5 #pregnancy

19 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 7 years

Text

Fic: Once Bitten, Twice Shy (ao3 link) Fandom: Flash, DC's Legends (characterization) Pairing: gen; some background hints of Mick Rory/Leonard Snart

Summary: Leonard Snart doesn't trust easy, but his aunt Noga - who some people call Nora - assures him that the man she married, Henry Allen, is a good one.

So when Len sees in the newspaper that Henry Allen has been arrested for killing his wife, he has only one thought.

"I'm going to kill him."

A/N: For @oneiriad, who requested this to be cheered up from the season finale. I...tried?

-----------------------------------------------------------------

When Len was very small, he liked to play tag with his aunt Noga. She was his mother’s half-sister – much, much younger than his mom, more of an elder sister than an aunt, a product of an affair which a rich white man who’d adopted Noga for his own when he found out.

He called her Nora, not Noga, because he said it was more “American”, but Len’s mother and grandmother cheerfully ignored him and continued to call her the name of her birth, though they permitted him to take her away so she could have what they called a better life.

Len figured it was because she was rich now. Respectable. But she was still his aunt.

When Len got a little older, and his dad went to prison and came back different, things changed. The rich man didn’t like his baby girl associating with criminals, so Noga couldn’t come around anymore.

One day, Len had taken the bus all the way to Noga’s house in the nice part of town.

“Can I live with you?” he asked. “I don’t wanna be at home anymore.”

She’d taken one look at his black eye and the ginger way he walked, and she’d let him right in.

They’d managed two whole days, Len hiding in Noga’s room and her bringing him food and stuff to read, before Noga’s father found out and kicked Len out, yelling that he wouldn’t ever permit his daughter to be associated with such filthy trash, that he’d get a restraining order, that Len would go to jail if he ever saw her again.

Noga had sobbed and begged, but nothing had helped.

Len had gone home, and his dad hadn’t been happy with him, either.

That’d been the first time it was bad enough for him to have to go to the hospital.

Len’s mother decided it was time to leave, even though she was so very sick by now.

Len will never be sure if her death a week later, diagnosed as either natural causes or, at worst, an accidental overdose of her medication, was natural. He doesn’t like to think about it.

He doesn’t think about it, for years and years.

It’s not until later – much later, when he has Lisa to think of and he’s gone to juvie and back once already – that he sees Noga again. She’s wearing a college shirt, some fancy place out east, and she’s holding hands with some big guy and smiling.

Len feels the shame in his thrift store clothing and his ragged jeans but – family is family.

He goes up to them and says to the guy, “You’d better be treating her right.”

The guy bristles a little – he’s a wealthy college white boy, after all, and they don’t take too kindly to young poor black men telling them anything, no matter how pale their complexion – but Noga recognizes him immediately, shrieking and wrapping her hands around him. “Lenny! Lenny!”

He hugs her back.

“You know him?” the guy says, good humor restored, though he’s still wary.

“My nephew,” she says, wiping her eyes. “Oh, Lenny – my dad said he’d sent you away!”

“He did,” Len says, puzzled. “Back to my house.”

“No – he said you’d left the city! And then Hagit died and he wouldn’t even let me go to her funeral and – oh, Lenny.”

Len softens. He’d never liked her dad anyway, and he has plenty of experience with bad dads. He guesses he can’t hold her long absence against her after all.

“Henry Allen,” the guy says, sticking out a hand. “We’re both pre-med, Columbia. What’re you?”

Len stares at him. “Poor,” he says.

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m poor,” Len clarifies. “I ain’t in college.”

“…oh.”

“You dating this bozo?” Len asks Noga, nodding at him.

She blushes, which Len takes as a yes.

“Don’t,” Len says. “Oblivious rich boys like this, they’ll just turn into your dad. Or worse, mine.”

Henry looks offended.

“Oh, no,” Noga says. “Henry’s nothing like that.”

Len snorts. “Yeah,” he says. “And your sis thought my dad was a nice good man, just ‘cause he was a cop, and look where that got her, huh? A grave, that’s what.”

“I assure you,” Henry says stiffly. “I am not abusive. And I am very much in love with Nora.”

Len arches his eyebrows, but he doesn’t say anything. No one can convince a woman in love that her man’s wrong.

Noga reaches out and grabs Len’s hands. “Come to lunch with us,” she says. “I insist. You can keep an eye on Henry.”

“Nora!” Henry protests.

“He’s my nephew,” Noga says, steel in her tone. “And he’s worried about me. He deserves a chance to see that you’re the good man I know you are.”

He’s still pouting. He’s used to being given the benefit of the doubt, a nice young man, upstanding and smart and follows all the rules. Police probably let him walk off crime scenes with a promise that he’ll come back later to give his testimony.

Hell, police probably don’t even stop him.

“If it’s a problem, Henry,” Noga says, pleasant as can be, “then perhaps Leonard and I should go to lunch by ourselves.”

Len loves his aunt.

“No,” Henry says hastily. “I’m happy to come along.” He takes a moment and visibly masters himself, swallowing away his annoyance, and he’s pleasant for the rest of the day.

Len has to give him one thing, though; no matter how often he goes to check on her, Henry – who becomes a surgeon, of all hoity-toity things, while Noga goes into chemistry – is madly in love with her.

He’s in love with her when they’re dating.

He’s in love with her at their wedding, which Len sneaks Lisa out of pre-school to attend – she gets to be the flower girl – and which Len’s dad never finds out about.

He’s in love with her, overwhelming in love with her, when their child is born. Lisa loves having a cousin who’s nearly her age, though she insists the difference between five and newborn is immense and uncountable and this makes her old now.

He’s in love with her when they buy a house in Central City – far away from his parents in the east coast, but in the city she loves best.

He’s in love with her when their boy, Barry, grows up, and he never hits him, not once. Lisa writes him letters – they’re pen-pals, once Barry’s old enough to learn his alphabet – because despite the fact that they’re in the same city, Len’s dad has forbidden them to contact each other.

Len visits only rarely – he’s often in prison, in those early years – but Henry never forbids it, even though Len’s a criminal. Len can see it on his face that he wants to, but Noga insists and he’s madly in love with her and so he agrees.

Sure, he’s on the phone with his cop buddy from down the street an unusually high number of times, but Len makes sure never to be seen by said cop buddy. He doesn’t want to welcome street harassment for his legal activities, and he knows how cops like to close ranks around their friends and think that harassment – little arrests here, traffic stops there – is just a way of showing their affection for their friends, and fuck the law and human rights violations involved.

Henry’s so in love, in fact, that Len starts to feel comfortable with him. The surgeon who spends his free time staffing a clinic for homeless and low-income patients; the father who makes sure to spend time at home to help Noga with the house and to play with Barry; the husband who loves his wife so much a blind man could see it on his face.

That’s what makes it all the worse when Len wakes up to Lisa running into his apartment sobbing, holding out the paper, and the front cover is Henry Allen being taken to prison for the murder of his wife, Nora Allen.

Len is very, very still and something inside of him is very, very cold.

“I’m going to kill him,” he says.

“Good,” Lisa replies.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s not easy, of course. Henry Allen is under strict police custody during his trial, and spends much of his first few months segregated from the prison population. Besides, Len doesn’t want to have him killed. He wants to kill him.

He’s got plans in motion, though. The second Henry Allen is released into gen pop, Leonard Snart is going to get caught for a minor violation that’ll put him in the can just long enough to make his feelings on the matter very clear.

But first, Len figures he’d better check in on his cousin. He remembers losing a mother.

Barry’s been taken in by the cop – of course – but Len knows how cops work. A cop radio, Lisa getting her friends to start shit, and he’s off on an all-night shift.

The house is pathetically easy to break into, especially once he’s cut the phone line.

Ends up being a good idea, because the cop’s daughter goes straight for the phone.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he tells her. “Cross my heart and swear to die.” He even does the cross. Lisa’s trained him good; she's only a few years older than these kids.

She stops and stares. “What type of thief are you?”

“A very good one,” he says. “Except for the fact that I’m not here to steal anything.”

“Yeah, and you’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell me, too,” she shoots back, edging towards the kitchen. Probably for a knife or a back-up gun.

Cute kid.

He rolls his eyes. “How’s Barry doing?” he asks her.

That makes her pause. “What do you mean?”

“You’re Iris West. Barry’s best friend since he was six,” Len says. “You walk to school with him every day. He must’ve mentioned his criminal cousin pen-pals at some point.”

Her eyes go wide. “Wait,” she says. “You’re –”

“Cousin Lenny?” Barry says, coming in through the door. “Cousin Lenny!”

He practically tackles Len.

“Ouch,” Len says, staggering back a bit. “Yeesh, kid, you got big.”

Barry is crying.

Len kneels down. “Hey, hey,” he says. “There we go. I’m here. Cry all you like, kiddo.”

“Why didn’t you just come in the normal way?” Iris says crossly. “I thought you were a robber.”

“Not stealing, so no robbery,” Len says. “Technically still B&E. And family or no family, turns out your dad isn’t the type to be a-okay with criminals coming in here where you are.”

Len didn’t actually ask Joe West for permission, but that was because he knew he’d refuse.

Sure enough, Iris wrinkles her nose and nods. “Yeah,” she says. “He’s overprotective that way. You’re Nora’s brother, right?”

“Nephew, but yeah,” Len says, ignoring the name.

“Good,” she says. "As long as you're not Henry's."

“Don’t say that!” Barry shouts. “My dad didn’t do it! It wasn’t him!”

Len blinks.

“Well,” he says. “Damnit. Now I’m going to have to change my revenge plans. Who did do it?”

“You won’t believe me,” Barry says. He's shaking.

“Barry has trauma,” Iris says with the sort of self-importance that kids that age get when they’re talking about grown-up stuff. “He imagined a man appearing in a bolt of lightning. He’s seeing a shrink about it.”

“I did see a man in the lightning,” Barry whispers, his lip quivering. “I did. It wasn’t Dad.”

“It was, Bear,” Iris says, not without sympathy, but with the sort of nose-in-the-air bullcrap that someone who doesn’t even remember her only experience with severe trauma can pull.

Len’s grown up his whole life being told that his dad wasn’t really abusive. He will never be party to that sort of gaslighting, not even when it sounds right.

“If Barry says he saw a man in the lightning, he saw a man in the lightning,” Len says firmly.

“You believe me?” Barry asks, shocked.

“If you’re sure it was that man and not your dad, then yeah,” Len says. "I'll give you the benefit of a doubt."

Barry bursts into tears again and hugs Len tight.

“You really think so?” Iris asks, sounding doubtful but also like she’s got a bit of belief still left in her.

“Two words,” Len says to her. “Special effects.”

She looks taken aback, like she never considered the possibility of someone manufacturing the effect. “Oh,” she says. “Oh! So it could’ve been something else, not something supernatural or magic?”

“Any technology that’s advanced enough looks like magic,” Len points out. “You take a television to someone raised in Amish country, they’ll think you captured an image of the people in a box.” He’s pretty sure that’s actually an urban legend, but whatever, Iris is nodding now. “I’ve used flash-bang grenades myself –” Once, and it was an accident. “– and there’s all sorts of people in Central who could’ve accessed some new tech that you and me don’t know about. We’ve got all those big old lab with the military contracts, after all.”

“That’s true,” Iris says. “Oh, Barry, I’m so sorry for not believing you!”

“It’s okay,” Barry says, wiping his eyes. “You think Joe’ll listen now?”

The way Iris hesitates is perfectly clear to Len.

The answer is no.

“Your dad ever hit you?” he asks her.

Her eyes go wide. “Oh, no! Never!”

“What about calling you names?”

She shakes her head.

“Good,” Len says. “If he ever does anything like that – and I mean anything, from yelling to controlling your money to saying you can’t do shit that’s perfectly reasonable for your age – you find a way to let me know, okay?”

“My dad isn’t like that,” Iris says. Her lip’s quivering.

“But he’s happy to tell Barry he’s nuts, isn’t he?” Len says pointedly. “Tell other people he’s nuts, too. You know what happens after that? First it starts with ‘you’re lying’. Then it goes to ‘you’re nuts’ or ‘you’re bad’ because the kid doesn’t change his story. Then it gets worse.”

“Worse?” Barry and Iris chorus.

Len’s lip twists in disgust. “Yeah,” he says. “A buddy of mine, he’s got some issues, but his foster parents got the shrink to put him on drugs that make him all dead inside. They like it better when he doesn’t have the energy to move or nothing, says it makes him less trouble. And if they can’t find drugs that’ll do it, they send you to an institution. A nuthouse. And they do real bad things to you there.”

“That won’t happen!” Iris exclaims. “Barry, tell him.”

But Barry – Barry’s shaking. “They said,” he whispers. “Joe and the state psychologist and the district attorney, they said I had severe trauma and that maybe it’d be better for me to be put under observation.”

“Where?” Len asks, deeply alarmed.

“I dunno. Some hospital.”

“I’m not letting that happen,” Len says. Iris has her hand over her mouth in horror, but she’s nodding.

“You can’t,” she says, tears in her eyes. “I saw One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest last week –”

“Iris, Joe said not to!”

“I went over to Lily and Louie’s house and we saw it there, because their parents respect our maturity. But, Barry, you can’t let them do that to you!”

“I won’t let it happen,” Len repeats, even though he’s also seen that movie and he really hopes it’s all Hollywood exaggeration. He’s not taking any chances, though. “Barry, you’re coming with me.”

“What?”

“You’re coming with me,” Len says. He hadn’t expected to have to, but damnit, he’s going to. “Iris, can you just say that Barry ran off? I’ll have my baby sister Lisa write you letters saying he’s okay and giving you a number you can contact us with.”

Iris nods. “You’d better,” she says.

“Barry, get some stuff.”

“It’s still in the bags,” Barry says. “I never unpacked…”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Iris waves them goodbye. “I won’t tell Dad,” she says.

“Tell him what you like,” Len says. He hesitates. “Actually, there is one thing you could do. Could you tell him this happened around 10 o’clock?”

Iris blinks. “Sure,” she says.

“Thanks. We’ll lay low till the heat passes – expect us to contact you,” he thinks about it, “on the first of the next month. Okay?”

She nods.

“C’mon, Barry.”

He drives him to Mick’s place, where Lisa is currently crashing. Barry runs over and hugs her, too.

Mick looks vaguely mystified. “I thought you were just gonna check if he’s okay?” he asks.

“I need you to watch him,” Len says. “Part B is going into effect now.”

“But –”

“Sorry, buddy. Just me this time. I need you to watch Barry.” Len hesitates, lowers his voice. “They were talking about institutionalizing him.”

Mick’s eyes narrow. He didn’t talk about his time being involuntary institutionalized much, but Len knew it was a sore spot.

“I’ll watch ‘em,” Mick promises.

“Good,” Len says, and goes to get himself arrested. He swings by the kitchen and gets some vodka first.

Chugging it is not the worst experience of Len’s life – he has too many to compare to – but it’s vile regardless.

Given Len’s malnutrition-derived underweight body, it doesn’t take long for his blood alcohol level to get up there. Len feels sick, but he’ll fail a test, and Mick is even now calling their favorite bar to get someone to testify that Len’s been drinking there all evening. They’ve already created the doctored footage – last week, thank god – so they’ll just slap it into their video camera recording.

It takes four attempts for Len to get caught shoplifting.

Seriously. How often can he stagger in and out of the goddamn door before they notice?

The police that come and arrest him behave just as he expects them to: they arrest him (violently), then they take his statement (drunk at a bar, didn’t realize he was doing it), and then they go check the bar.

By the time Joe West storms into the station, yelling about Leonard Snart having broken into his house and kidnapped his foster kid, Leonard Snart has been cooling his heels in the police cells for hours and hours.

Best alibi in the world.

It doesn’t take long for Iris to crack about the timeline, but by that point, the cops have checked Len’s alibi with the bar for the earlier time period.

“Sorry, Joe,” someone says not far outside of Len’s cell. “It wasn’t him.”

“Snart’s smart,” Joe argues. “Why’d he ask her to change the timeline?”

“Joe…”

“What?!”

“Joe, we have video evidence of him getting snookered in a bar in downtown during the period she says it’s supposed to have happened.”

“So it’s doctored!”

“Joe, you said yourself your kid was having trouble telling the truth.”

“What – no! That was Barry, not Iris!”

“You know how kids are that age, Joe! Barry lies all the time, Iris starts picking it up. He probably just ran away from home.”

“But – Iris –”

“I’m telling you, Joe. Traumatized kids lie, we all know that, and we also know how they can get people into it. Iris probably thinks she’s doing Barry a favor. I mean, you heard her! The poor kid got it into his head he was going to be tossed into a mental asylum.”

Joe scrubs at his face. “Yeah, I know. I guess he overheard us talking about putting him into a hospital for some supervision and misunderstood. But Snart’s where they got the idea! If we hold him -”

“We can’t hold him,” the other guy says firmly. “Not on Iris’ testimony. Her story keeps changing, and, well…it’s not going to hold up well in court, okay? I’m telling you now, no DA in the world will pen him for kidnapping.”

Len has thrown up like three times at this point, so he’s feeling sour.

“Hey, Detective!” he yells. “You got something against me, huh? Bet you killed the kid yourself and stuffed him down a hole somewhere and thought hey, that Snart guy, I can pin it on him. Bet you that’s what happened!”

The match hits the fuse.

Joe barrels into Len’s cell and grabs him by the throat, throwing him against the wall. “Where’s Barry?” he bellows. “Where’s Barry, you sick sonofabitch?”

“Barry?” Len chokes. “What about Barry?” He’s feeling really sick again. “What happened to Barry?”

“You know exactly what happened to Barry, you fucking –”

Len throws up all over him.

West steps back in disgust.

“Barry,” Len says groggily. “He’s – I think knew a Barry once. I never touched a Barry.” He feels his eyes fill with tears. It happens a lot when he’s drinking. “That hurt, man.”

By that point, the other cops have burst in and are pulling Joe away. “Damnit, Joe, you can’t do that!” one is hissing. “That’s police brutality!”

Damn right it is.

“I’m telling you,” Joe is saying. “He knows Barry. They were cousins.”

“What, with Snart?” another policeman scoffs. “Henry Allen and Lewis Snart lived on as far apart on the scale as you can get, Joe. You’re reaching.”

“I swear! Henry told me they were!”

“Henry,” the first policeman says skeptically. “Henry Allen. The guy that murdered his wife. That’s the guy you’re trusting with this.”

Joe falters.

Len can see the doubt creeping in.

Serves you right, Len thinks at him fiercely. Gaslighting Barry. Hope you like it when it’s your turn, motherfucker.

He happens to know that Noga’s dad had her birth certificate changed to list no mother at all in order to make sure that Len’s family would never be able to establish any claim to her.

Len hopes for Barry’s sake that Henry Allen is, in fact, innocent. But he’s not going to trust the justice system’s conclusions with it, oh no.

He doesn’t have long now, though. Len might only have been caught with attempted shoplifting, mitigated by his drunkenness, but with his record he’s still getting tossed in the clink. He’s betting a week, maybe two. Just to scare him straight.

Just enough time to have a little chat with Henry Allen.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Henry Allen is a broken man.

Len paid good money to make sure nothing would happen to him in prison, so he knows it’s nothing like that.

No, this is a man who’s lost everything: his wife, his son, his job, his standing in the community, everything.

The key question, though, is why.

Through his own actions? Through someone else’s?

Len makes his way straight to him.

Henry doesn’t look up until Len’s right in front of him.

When he does, he just looks tired and sad. “Hi, Leonard,” he says. “Here to talk about Nora?”

Len arches his eyebrows. “Did you kill her?”

Henry looks taken back, honestly taken aback, that Len doesn’t go straight for the killing portion of the events, much less than Len seems to be asking a question on the subject.

“The courts –” Henry starts.

“Fuck the courts,” Len says flatly. “And fuck the police, too. Did you kill her?”

Henry exhales. “No,” he whispers. “When I got there, she’d already been stabbed. She was trying to get the knife out, but that would’ve made her bleed out right away. There wouldn’t have been any hope. So I went to her - I held the knife in so that she wouldn’t lose any more blood – I was trying to save her –” He closes his eyes. “And in the end all I could do was tell her I loved her as she slipped away from me.”

Damnit.

Len believes him.

Len’s met murderers of all stripes. This man here has a good story, and he’s not a murderer.

“Okay,” Len says. “Right. We’re getting you out of here.”

Henry looks surprised. “You believe me?”

“Yes, I believe you,” Len says somewhat impatiently. “Not the point here.”

“I’m not going to run away,” Henry says.

“Why not?”

“People will take that as an admission of guilt.”

“They already think you’re guilty,” Len points out.

Henry presses his lips together. “I can’t,” he says.

“Why not?”

“Barry,” Henry says. “If I go on the run, who knows what’ll happen? This way he can come visit me sometimes.”

Len shrugs. “It’ll take me a few weeks to plan your break-out,” he says. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

It takes a week before Joe West gives in and comes to tell Henry Allen that Barry has apparently “run away”.

He doesn’t mention Len’s involvement, despite Len being careful not to be seen with Henry. Looks like Joe’s swallowed Len’s carefully manufactured story.

Henry comes back distressed.

Len sidles up to him. “So,” he says. “I’m getting out in a couple of days.”

“Oh? Oh! Leonard – you have to – Barry’s missing – if you could look for him –”

“How ‘bout I break you out and you can do the looking?” Len suggests.

“I couldn’t! What if he comes back?”

“What if he doesn’t?”

Len feels a bit bad playing this game, but he can’t trust that Henry wouldn’t trade Len’s kidnapping effort in to Joe West under the assumption that the cop would be a better foster father than a criminal and with the hope of some reduction of his sentence. Once Henry’s out, Len’s pretty confident that he won’t turn them all in – he’d never be allowed to see Barry again, and that seems to be the only thing that gets him moving anymore.

It takes two days for Henry to break.

“You’re sure you won’t look for him? He’s your cousin.”

“Not without you,” Len says firmly. “He only knows me so well; I will not be accused of kidnapping for you.”

Truer than Henry realizes.

“Fine,” Henry says, his head in his hands. “Fine! You win. I’ll go.”

“Great,” Len says. “Be at your cell promptly every evening for the next week. And I mean promptly. I want you to be the first on in, come nighttime.”

“But you’re leaving in two days!”

“Henry. Did I stutter?”

“Uh…”

“I was clear, wasn’t I?” Len amends.

“Yes.”

“Good. Do it.”

Leonard Snart is sitting in the Motorcar, having a stack of pancakes and exchanging glares with a handful of policemen, when the latest Iron Heights break out occurs.

There are said to be four escapees, three of them blooded Family men – and oh, doesn’t that make Len feel dirty – and one hostage, another prisoner, grabbed from his cell and held at knife-point.

After, Len gets up and gets onto his bike and drives out to a house in the middle of nowhere in the suburbs, where there’s a dusty blue sedan parked.

He goes inside.

“Snart!” Lil Billy exclaims, grinning all gap-toothed. “That plan of yours worked like a dream.”

“Of course it did,” Len drawls, slapping Billy’s hand, all friendly smiles like they didn’t all know he had a gun in his pocket and his other hand on the hilt. “I made it.”

“You’re good at what you do,” Grissini says neutrally. “Could be an asset.”

“I prefer to fly free,” Len says. “You get me what I want?”

Grissini snorts and gestures for Billy and Marino to go. “A set of plans and one hostage. Why’d you want this one?”

“He’s unpopular at large and he’s harmless,” Len says. “How often do you see that?”

Grissini purses his lips, but has to concede Len’s point.

Henry is dragged into the room looking terrified and shoved at Len.

“Much obliged,” Len drawls. “Be seeing you.”

“I’m sure too soon,” Grissini says dryly, but turns back to his poker game. They won’t move until the Family comes to pick them up.

Len makes a show of dragging Henry to the car.

“I hate you,” Henry wheezes.

“Yeah, yeah,” Len says. “I said I’d get you out, not that you’d enjoy it. They put you in the trunk or something?”

“No!”

“Then what’s all the fuss about?”

Henry shakes his head. “So I’m out,” he says. “You said you’d help me find Barry.”

“Yeah,” Len says. “First we go home and get changed, yeah?”

Henry’s shoulders slump. “But then we find Barry.”

“Yeah,” Len says again, then doesn’t speak the rest of the way to Mick’s place.

“What’s this place?” Henry asks, squinting at the apartment like it was infested.

“Safe,” Len says shortly. He won’t hear a word against this place; Mick’s had it for years, and it has always been one of the safest places in the world to him.

Then they go inside and Henry takes no more than three steps in before Barry leaps up from the couch and yells, “Dad!”

“Barry!”

There’s hugging and crying and ‘I know you’re innocent’ and ‘I’ve missed you’ and all of that stuff.

It’s very cute. Somewhat sickening and over-emotional, but very cute.

Len ducks out to the kitchen to avoid it.

Lisa and Mick follow in short order. Len hopes his face doesn’t have the same deer-in-headlights look they have.

“So what do we do with them?” Lisa asks.

“Cops’ll be looking for both,” Mick agrees.

Len sighs and runs his hand over his head, a gesture he normally doesn’t allow himself. “I was thinking they’d lie low. Mick, do we still have that place up in the mountains?”

“Sure,” Mick says. “Kinda in the middle of nowhere, though. Very back-to-nature off-the-grid-but-still-connected sort of thing; that’s why we got it.”

“You’d hate that,” Lisa tells Len.

“I thought we might need a place to lie low where I’d never go,” Len says with a shrug. “No one would ever look for me there. It used to be a smuggler’s joint, so lots of nooks and crannies, and a hell of an encrypted internet connection.”

“No schools, though,” Lisa points out.

“Actually,” Mick says, “there’s one down the ways. About three quarters of an hour out, which is crap, but it’s still a school.”

“We’ll need Barry’s records to fake the new ones right,” Len says. “Maybe he finishes this year homeschool; next year we can put him somewhere. Assuming it’s all going well in a year.”

Mick and Lisa nod. “School year,” Lisa notes. “Not a full year – barely six months, really; it’s the end of the school year.”

“Yeah,” Len says. “But that’ll be long enough, I think.”

Two hours later, they head out in a car, Barry and Henry curled up in each other’s arms in the back seat.

Mick knows all the ways to avoid the cops, and they make it to the place in peace.

“This place is a dump,” Lisa announces.

“It’s nicer on the inside.”

“It’s made of wood.”

“So’s the house in the suburbs,” Len points out.

“Too many trees.”

“We’re in a forest.”

Barry starts giggling from the backseat.

“Have you two considered a career in comedy?” Henry asks dryly.

“Shut up,” Len grumbles.

They go inside.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Against all odds, the set-up works surprisingly well.

Henry develops a fondness for fishing. He spends long days out by the stream out back, leaning back on the large rock next to the slow-moving water-mill that Len and Mick had initially thought was for decoration but which Henry had discovered was actually designed to serve as an electricity source, eyes half-closed and smiling.

Sometimes he even brings home fish.

Barry spends half the time on the internet sending emails back and forth with Iris and the other kids in his brand new online class – Len doesn’t ask questions, he doesn’t want to know – and the other half of his time running around the forest.

The other half – Barry believes in many halves – is spend as the ‘hub’ for some sort of network of people into the supernatural and preternatural and all that stuff. Len hadn’t been able to find any new military technology or thief work that could explain what Barry saw, so he’d returned to his original theory.

And Barry is obsessed with solving his mom’s murder.

Obsessed.

They have to take some precautions with their identities, of course: Henry grows a beard, looking quite proud of himself, while Lisa gives Barry a makeover.

He makes a surprisingly excellent redhead.

Len and Mick keep up their heists – first order of business, making sure they have no more connections to that Family group – and eventually move up the chain to bigger and better heists.

Barry really likes the Van Gogh sketch in his bedroom until Len tells him it’s real.

At that point, he loves it.

Henry tells Len that he’s a bad influence.

Len points out that his bad influence is why they’re all here.

Henry concedes the point.

He does put a pretty strict “no stealing until you’re sixteen” rule on Barry, which Len thinks is fair and Lisa thinks is hilarious.

Mick insists that teaching Barry to blow up safes isn’t criminal, it’s just homeschooling. In chemistry. Practical applications thereof.

Henry tries to lecture him but keeps breaking out in guffaws about halfway through.

Barry looks proud.

The months drag on, and on, and the next thing you know, it’s been a year.

Barry’s enrolled in the school down the way, which is less a school than a socialization mechanism for kids too far out in the middle of nowhere to be anything but homeschooled, and supplementing it with online courses. Henry’s taking classes online as well, continuing medical education classes, and Len and Mick and Lisa know they have a safe place to come if they’re ever hurt.

Len likes coming to the cabin, which bemuses the living daylights out of him.

On the anniversary of her death, they light a candle in remembrance of Noga.

The next day, Mick comes home with the strangest expression on his face.

“Barry,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“The man in the lightning…”

“Yeah?”

Mick swallows. “I think I saw him.”

Barry sits up straight. “You did?”

“How’s that?” Len says, alarmed.

“It wasn’t anything dangerous, Lenny, don’t fret,” Mick says. “It was just on the street. Zip of lightning, going through the streets.” He frowns. “I think he was looking for somehting.”

“Something,” Len says grimly. “Or someone?”

“What do you mean?” Barry asks.

“We still don’t know why your family was targeted,” Len says. “We always thought – well, Mick and I did – that someone’d gotten something wrong. But if the man in the lightning is looking for someone, well, why not you and Henry? Maybe he wants to finish the job.”

“But why us?” Barry says. “And – do you think he’ll find us?”

“What, here? Not a chance. But let’s avoid trips into Central for a bit, shall we?”

Barry pouts. “But it’s nearly summer break. What am I going to do?”

Len thinks about it.

He come back the next day with custom-made passports and tickets to Europe.

“You are the best,” Barry enthuses.

“You are terrible,” Henry says.

“I have an idea,” Len says.

“Oh god,” Lisa says.

But in the end, they go. They land in Barcelona and get a car and drive from motel to hotel and back. They visit castles and museums and fancy shops – Len and Mick take care to do their own form of shopping when the others are asleep – and Barry proudly takes over the role of navigator, spreading a paper map across his lap and supplementing it with computer print-outs.

He also functions as a guide tour, given how much research he does about everywhere they go.

Henry turns out to be marginally fluent in French, which is good because Mick knows Spanish and Lisa learned Italian in school, so they’ve very nearly got a whole run. Len is fluent in nothing but mime but ends up being the one who does 90% of their transactions anyway.

They go back to Central two months later, suitcases full and several museums calling for their heads on a platter.

“That was so much fun,” Barry says.

“It really was, slugger,” Henry says, ruffling his hair.

“I want to know what the plan was,” Lisa says.

“I’m getting to it,” Len replies.

He has pictures from all over Europe, now. He picks the ones from Spain, where Henry had shaved again because of an incident with a pig that was really best forgotten by all, and from Prague, where they’re all in the shade; Barry looks like his old brunet self in those.

He hires a patsy – Charlie is always happy to do him a favor, regardless of the reasonableness of it, and Len isn’t worried about him getting seriously hurt because Charlie is like a cockroach like that – and waits.

Charlie’s not good for much, but he’s a good salesperson when he wants to be, and he’s an excellent gossipmonger.

Rumors that Henry Allen has been spotted get no takers.

Len gives it a week, then tells Charlie to go with Option B.

It takes less than twenty-four hours after the rumors that Barry Allen has been spotted for the man in yellow to show up, grabbing Charlie by the throat and demanding to know what he knows.

“I don’t know much,” Charlie wheezes. “I just saw – the pictures –”

“Pictures?” the man in yellow snaps. He’s vibrating too fast to be properly seen on the video cameras Len set up in the bar he’d left Charlie in, but it’s obviously a man, in yellow, surrounded by lightning. “What pictures?”

“He sent them to his old school – for the yearbook – they’re in the bag –”

Flash of lightning, and the man is at the table, going through the pictures.

“Prague,” he growls. “What’s he doing in Prague?”

Flash of lightning, and the man is gone.

Running to Prague, if Len had to guess.

Charlie rubs his throat. “Hope you got what you needed, Lenny,” he says, good cheer restored almost immediately. “Are we still on for that date on Friday?”

Len sighs.

The sacrifices he makes.

He picks up the phone and dials Charlie.

“Yeah?” Charlie says.

“We’re on,” Len says. “As long as you realize that Mick will interrupt us about fifteen minutes in and drag me away because he hates you and wants you to die.”

“Oh, yes,” Charlie says. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Len doesn’t want to know. He really doesn’t want to know.

He has what he needs, anyway: knowledge of who the man in the lightning is really after and video proof of his existence.

Barry cries for an hour straight when Len brings the tapes home.

“I knew it,” he whispers into Henry’s shoulder. “I knew it.”

“You were right,” Henry says, kissing him on the head. He smiles at Len. “Thanks, Leonard.”

Len quirks a smile. “Don’t thank me yet,” he says. “We still need to figure out what to do about it.”

Barry pops his head up. “We prove my dad’s innocent, of course!”

“Innocence is overrated,” Len says. “Keeping you safe from this guy, Barry; that’s a lot more important.”

“I agree,” Henry says. He quirks a small smile. “Besides, Barry, remember: escaping from prison and kidnapping is also a crime.”

“…oh. Okay, maybe we don’t do that.”

Henry looks up at Len and Mick. “Thank you,” he says. “For believing in us. For helping us.”

Len shrugs. “For Noga,” he says, “I’d do a lot more. We’re gonna get the bastard that killed her, one way or another.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s Lisa that figures it out.

“Harrison Wells,” she says. “He either is or is connected to the man in yellow.”

“Why in the world do you think so?” Henry asks.

“I worked in construction,” she says. “More than the two of these guys ever did.” She nods at Len and Mick.

“I worked construction,” Mick protests mildly.

“No, babe, you did illegal labor construction.”

“Still construction.”

“Well, yes. But I got to sit in the nice cool office and listen to the architects and civil engineers prattle on all day, and that’s more valuable than you might think. For instance, I can tell you that there is no way that STAR Labs Particle Accelerator whatsit is being built legit.”

“Of course it ain’t being built legit,” Len says. “It’s Central City. Half of City Hall needs to be bribed before you can flip a light switch.”

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s being built too fast. Labor is labor, okay; but that thing is growing in leaps and bounds.”

“You drop a camera?”

“Of course,” Lisa sniffs. “What sort of girl do you think I am, offering suggestions without proof?”

She pulls out a tape. “Evidence that the man in yellow seems to be spending his nights building STAR Labs and –” she pulls out another tape. “– evidence of a yellow blur of lightning running into this very fancy little house over in the more isolated but still fancy suburbs, owned by one Harrison Wells. Running in, mind you, and not running out, only for one Harrison Wells to go out the next day by car to work.”

“Lise,” Len says. “You’re a genius.”

She beams. “And I’m not even in college.”

“I keep telling you,” Henry says, “if you want to go, let me know. We’ll find a way.”

She shakes her head. “I have a good job with the teamsters, Henry, but thanks.”

“Don’t let anyone think that college is necessary to be a genius,” Len says with satisfaction.

“No one who says that’s ever met you,” Barry says loyally.

“Now we just need to figure out how to stop a guy with a suit that lets him run a super-speed,” Len says, and smiles.

“Uh, oh,” Barry says. “Len’s smiling. It’s trouble time.”

“Don’t exaggerate.”

“Last time you smiled like that, we went sky-diving,” Barry says. “and the time before that, you and Mick robbed the Musée d’Orsay because you thought it ‘didn’t get enough love compared to the Louvre’.”

“Also because it rhymed, Lenny,” Lisa reminds him.

“C’mon,” Len says. “It’s a challenge!”

“It’s a death sentence,” Henry says quietly, and that makes them all shut up. “Leonard, please. I don’t want to lose you like we lost Nora.”

“You won’t,” Len assures him. “I promise I’ll be careful.”

He frowns, thinking. “Hey, Barry, you’re in that advanced robotics summer class online, aren’t you?”

“The MIT one? Yeah.”

“Could you propose a puzzle for them to figure out how to stop a speedster? I’ve got a few ideas, but some tech would always be good.”

“Oh, sure!” Barry says, enthused. “There’s a guy there – Cisco Ramon – he’s fantastic. He’ll totally come up with whatever you like.”

“Where is he?”

“Uh…Central, actually. But I didn’t meet him until the summer class, ‘cause he’s in regular school, you know.”

“Central is good,” Len says. “Let’s see what he can do.”

“It’ll be cold,” Barry says.

“Cold?” Lisa asks. “Why?”

“Cold is the opposite of speed,” Barry says. “Atoms go faster when they’re hotter and vice versa.”

They all look at him.

“I may’ve been doing some research ever since we realized that the lightning was actually because the guy was moving so fast,” Barry confesses. “I mean, we still don’t know if he’s using some sort of technology to do it or what, but…speed is speed, you know!”

“Looks like you’re not the only genius here,” Mick tells Lisa, reaching over to pat Barry’s head.

Barry flushes pink with pleasure.

Possibly also the juvenile crush he’s been nursing on Mick. Not much to be done about that; Mick is – well, Mick.

Barry also seems to have juvenile crushes on Lisa, Len, his old buddy Iris, and possibly also this Cisco guy. It’s just that age.

“Cold it is,” Len says.

“Tell this Cisco guy to make me something that matches in heat,” Mick says.

“That won’t help against a speed-suit,” Lisa points out.

“What’s your point?”

“Right, yeah.”

It takes about three months, but Cisco Ramon - who is, all joking aside, an actual genius - and Barry manage to put their heads together and come up with what Cisco describes as their masterpiece.

"Not to mention soon to be winner of the next young inventor Science fair award and scholarship, am I right?" he says, holding his hand for Barry to high-five.

"Hell yeah," Barry says, obliging. "Science bros for life, man!"

"They're lovely," Len says, examining them. "I love that you put them in gun form; that'll be very helpful."

"Just point and shoot," Barry says proudly.

"I'm sold," Mick says, and reaches for the red one.

They are not point and shoot.

Luckily, no house containing Mick is short on fire extinguishers.

The next two months after that are spent with Len and Mick explaining the nuances of what makes a gun a gun, and how to best marry those must-keep attributes to the cryotron powering the cold gun and the module that powers the heat gun.

"I love you guys and all," Cisco says when the guns are finally done. "Seriously, best family ever, Barry. But please can we call it something other than the cold and heat guns? They've got to have better names than that."

"How about you pick our superhero names instead?" Len offers. "Or supervillain. Just imagine -" he scoops up the cold gun and strikes a pose "- beware, it is I! the fearsome Coldwave!"

"Noooo," Cisco groans. "That doesn't work - the heat gun works on a wave system, not the cold gun! Like, Mick can totally be Heatwave, but you - you're gonna be - hmmm - oh, I know! Captain Cold!"

Len snorts. "Captain Cold," he says. "Cute."

"I like it," Lisa offers.

Cisco promptly turns bright red. He does that every time Lisa speaks.

She finds it adorable. Personally, Len would be over the moon if she dated someone as normal as Cisco.

Though he's going to keep an exceedingly close eye on Cisco for a good long time. Only so many times a man can get bitten before it sinks in.

"Well, names aside, they seem like they work now," Len says. "So let's just let me and Mick borrow 'em for a bit and - with luck - the whole business will be over and done with soon enough."

"Good luck," Cisco says, humor fading to be replace with solemnity that sits badly on his awkward teenage frame.

"Damnit, Barry," Len sighs. "You weren't supposed to tell him the details!"

"It just came up!"

Len rolls his eyes. "You're in, right, kid?" he asks Cisco, who nods eagerly. "Fine. C'mon, Mick; let's go get a man who moves like lightning."

Lisa sidles up to Cisco. "Hey," she purrs. She's only a few years older than Barry and Cisco, but those three years have given her some confidence that Cisco sorely lacks. "Think you can make me a gun, too?"

Len decides not to be here for that discussion.

The trap they have is well-set: more rumors of Barry, this time returned to visit. Recordings of his voice playing at certain locales; the man in yellow has been tearing up the city looking for him, when he isn't speed-building STAR Labs with a manic sort of passion that meant it was tied into his plans somehow.

He's ripping up the storehouse they've led him on a merry dance to - signs of Barry, signs of life, but also evidence of recordings. Of him, of Barry.

The man in yellow is realizing he’s being played for a fool.

He's furious.

Len and Mick look at each other and nod. It's time.

Len steps out. “Hello, there,” he drawls. “Do you have a preferred moniker, or should I just call you Harrison Wells?”

The man in yellow’s head snaps up.

“Well, well,” he drawls in the eerie reverberation that is his voice. “If it isn’t Captain Cold.”

Len blinks. “Now that’s interesting,” he says, eyes narrow. “Literally just thought of that name this morning. How do you know about it?”

The man in yellow scoffs. “Oh, there’s so much you don’t know,” he says. “And yet, I know all about you.”

“Really,” Len says.

“Oh, yes,” the man in yellow says. “Captain Cold. You’re a thief, always out for the score; the most cold-hearted of the Rogues.”

“Rogues?”

The man in yellow waves a hand. “Your little gang, whatever you’re calling them now.”

“How do you know all of this?” Len asks. “Spare an explanation for a curious soul.”

The man in yellow grins. “Oh, your story gets told for centuries,” he says.

Len pauses. No way.

“Time travel?” he asks.

“It’s good to see you have as broad a mind as I was led to believe,” the man in yellow says. “We share the same enemy – not yet, but soon enough. The Flash. He’s a superhero, a speedster like me; he runs this town.” His smile widens. “Not you.”

Len knows a cue when he hears one. He puffs up a little, pretends to get annoyed. “Must say I don’t like the sound of that. Superheroes.”

“Indeed,” the man says. “As one villain to another, I must say, it’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Eobard Thawne, and I’m from the twenty-ninth century.”

“What’re you doing all the way back here, then?” Len asks. “Seems out of place for you.”

“Oh, not at all! I went back to the twenty twenties to fight the Flash – and oh, what a glorious battle it was; I proved myself to be his true equal, his reverse – but I found I could not defeat him. So I decided to take him out when he was too young to stop me.”

“Barry Allen,” Len says.

“You are smart!” Eobard exclaims.

“Now that’s insulting. So you’re saying you killed Nora Allen?”

“Oh, yes,” Eobard says. “I was aiming for Barry, of course; he was only eleven. But I couldn’t get to him, so I went with the next best thing. I grabbed a knife from his kitchen and stabbed the stupid bitch right in the chest, between the third and fourth rib, and I thought that’d be the end of it – but then the brat went and disappeared!”

“Why does it matter?” Len arches an eyebrow and gestures for Eobard to continue. “Doesn’t that change the timeline enough?”

Eobard’s face twists into a sneer. He pushes down his cowl, revealing Harrison Wells. “Turns out I’m stuck here, in this godforsaken century. Irony of ironies, I need Barry to become the Flash just long enough to get me back to the future.”

“And that’s why you became Harrison Wells,” Len says, nodding. “That way you could manipulate him.”

“And create the Particle Accelerator which turns him into the Flash,” Eobard agrees. “You know, I see why you are so well-known; I must admit, I had always assumed that stories of your prowess were – exaggerated. You’re not much in action by the twenties.”

Len shrugs. “Well,” he drawls. “You know what they say: live fast, die young.”

And then he fires the cold gun at Eobard’s feet.

Eobard dashes around the blast, grabbing Len and hoisting him up by the throat. He tsks, a disappointed schoolteacher. “Now, now. That’s not nice. We could work together –”

Mick’s blast of fire hits him straight-on in the back.

Eobard shrieks and spins around, only for Len to get his gun back up and aim the cold beam straight at him, freezing his legs solid.

“You fool,” Eobard snarls. “You don’t know what I’m offering yet –”

“I don’t care,” Len says. “You say I’m the most cold-hearted of the – Rogues, you called ‘em? The guy who’s only out for the score?”

“Yes, and you’re missing out on –”

“I don’t care about the money,” Len says. “Call it an unintended consequence of time travel.” He ices Eobard’s feet again as they start melting.

“You? Not care about money?” Eobard seems honestly taken aback by the mere concept. Len must have a hell of a reputation.

“Not in this case,” Len tells him. “You killed my aunt.”

“Your – what? When?”

Len’s smile curls up into a sneer. “I think,” he says, “that in your timeline, they call her Nora Allen.”

Eobard’s eyes go wide.

Len ices him straight in the face.

A second later, Mick’s gun comes down, hard, onto the ice, shattering it.

They look down at the pieces.

“For you, Noga,” Len says.

“I think we should burn the pieces,” Mick says.

“…yeah, good idea.”

By the time they get back to the cabin, all the pieces of Eobard melted into a watery muck, Barry – with tears streaming down his face – and Cisco have already managed to cut the video tape in such a way that shows Harrison Wells using some sort of device to make himself go fast and then talking like a crazy person. They do cut out the part with the murder.

“Think it’s enough?” Len asks Henry.

Henry nods. “I’ll send it to Joe,” he says quietly. “He’ll – he’ll understand.”

Joe does understand, and he understands enough to go not only to the District Attorney but also to the media, turning Henry’s story – the wronged man framed and sent to prison, escaping to save his son and seek the man who did it – into a modern day Count of Monte Cristo.

Hollywood loves the idea, and Central City loves it all the more.

Henry ends up being cleared of the charge of murder and given only parole for the whole “escaping prison” (at least, not returning – it’s obvious to anyone who looked that Henry hadn’t escaped willingly) and kidnapping his own son points. No jury would convict him and the DA knows it.

Len’s willing to admit he might’ve underestimated Joe West. Just a bit.

He accepts Joe punching him in the face with decent grace, though.

They’re all celebrating, one dark and stormy night, when Cisco suddenly frowns.

“Hey,” he says.

“What’s up, Cisco?” Barry asks, going over to open up the skylight. There’s still thunder, but no more rain, and the loft is getting a bit stuffy.

“It just occurred to me – has anyone done anything about the Particle Accelerator thing Wells was talking about?”

“He was delusional,” Lisa reminds him.

“No, but, he actually was making a Particle Accelerator. At STAR Labs, remember?”

“So?” Barry says.

He pulls the chain to open the skylight.

“I’m just saying –”

There’s a giant flash of light and a great big boom, and Len can see out the window some sort of mushroom cloud right over STAR Labs – orange and yellow and – expanding –

“It’s coming!” he shouts.

“What?” Barry asks, clutching at the window chain.

And then lightning strikes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“But daaaaad,” Barry whines. “I need to go out and save the city! I’m the Flash!”

“You’re still fourteen, slugger,” Henry says firmly. “And you still have homework.”

“I did my homework!”

“At superspeed, which we both know doesn’t count.”

“But…”

“You’re welcome to stay and help out,” Henry tells Cisco. “Is that a new costume?”

“Yeah, I can’t quite figure out what a superhero called Quake would wear.”

“Is Quake really what you’ve settled on?”

“Well, Lisa vetoed ‘Vibe’ by laughing too hard…”

“Isn’t there a video game, though?”

“As fun as this is,” Len drawls, sweeping out, “I’m going out to bring home the bacon.”

“Like the bad Jew he is,” Mick adds, following him.

“I make plenty of money from my metahuman clinic,” Henry says with a sigh. “I even have interns! Well, I have Caitlin. My point is, you don’t need to go rob a bank.”

“Ah, but we want to go rob a bank. Need to get the city used to having at least one successful villain - well, anti-hero - set. Plus we help Barry out enough against the metas that aren’t handling their new powers well enough that I practically get a pardon every other week.”

“That doesn’t mean you should keep committing crimes.”

“It’s mostly against the Families nowadays anyway,” Mick says. “Profitable and popular.”

Barry looks up, wide-eyed. “Are you going up against Nimbus?” he asks. “Dad! I need to go help!”

“Barry,” Henry says. “How many times have I got to tell you – junior-league superheroing is fine, but no criminal behavior until you’re sixteen.”

#my fic #dccoldwave #mick rory #leonard snart #barry allen #henry allen #cisco ramon #lisa snart #iris west

62 notes · View notes