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cowboisadness · 3 years

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Hang ‘Em High {Arthur Morgan x FemOC} Chapter 6

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x FemOC Summery: Belle Hawthorne is high society looking to escape her mean husband. A robbery by the Van Der Linde gang could be her chance. Can she escape his cluches and possibly discover what love should feel like?

Warnings: Animal death, mentions of domestic assault and abortion.

AN: This is a long one, hope you enjoy :)

. . . . . A few days had passed in the camp, many were busy either around camp or out on jobs to bring in money. Mary-Beth and Tilly explained to me what the jobs would entail, most of the time putting themselves in serious danger. Having enough to get by wasn't enough, especially for Dutch, occasionally giving smooth worded speeches to everyone like he was the Mayor of a grand town. He wanted more money, a lot of it for everyone to live a life of luxury. Arthur had recently returned from Strawberry to rescue a member of the gang i had not yet met, but had been warned about. Apparently the rescue mission didn't go as smoothly as planned. Arthur aimed to get him out of jail and out of Strawberry with minimum confrontation. The other guy had different plans. As I sat on my bedrole in my small tent stitching one of his shirts, the very man I'd been warned about approached.“I’m almost done with your shirt Micah.” i smiled politely at him, not wanting to get on his bad side from the get go but hoping to stay cautious while around him.He leaned against the tree beside my tent, lighting a cigarette as he did so.“So where did they pick you up from?” He looked towards me and it was then I realised everything he might say would be laced with venom. “Saint Denis. More of a rescue than a pick up.” I returned my attention to the task in hand. He blew out a cloud of smoke in my direction, the smell of cheap tobacco filling my nose. It was his way to invade my space without being too forward. I wouldn't let it bother me, what with the many social gatherings that involved being in rooms filled with smoke and smoking myself on those occasions. He let out a breath, a sigh, before pushing himself off the tree and walking away, but not before muttering words he still made sure I could hear. “Another deadweight to feed.” All I could do was chuckle to myself, cutting the thread in my hand with a knife. Deciding that he didn't deserve my effort to achieve perfection. By late evening I joined the others around the campfire, sitting next to Charles and Karen, the former handed me a freshly opened beer bottle. I was so used to expensive French wine, chilled in an ice bucket. I've gotten used to so much these last few weeks, living in the wild. The thought before would scare me half to death but I soon found it was different with a sense of family around you. Growing up i was taught the life of a gang of outlaws was a brutal one, the men being fueled and finding joy in murder, rape and theift, nothing more than monsters that have no care for anything other than themselves. I was never told that sometimes they could be people out of luck, born and raised without security and certainty, needing to do what they could to get by with the hope that they could one day, live without worrying when their next meal could be. These people around me all have terrible backstories and that's what brought them together, with the hopes of a better future as long as they fight for it together, even if that meant doing bad things.

I was the opposite, my life was paved out for me from the day I was born. To learn to be a loving and doting wife and mother. We never had to worry about our next meal, always knowing it would be fresh and grand. I was also lucky that my father wanted to teach me some of what he would teach my two older brothers, mainly hunting and how to care for our horses. I was so lucky, I was privileged. Javier brought out his guitar and started singing in his native tongue, some of us swaying to the tune. I heard of Charles and Arthur going out to hunt tomorrow, this was my chase to ask to join with them.I turned my attention to Charles, tapping him lightly on the arm for his attention to turn to me. “Everything okay Bella?” “I heard you and Arthur are going on a hunt tomorrow.” “We are. At first light. You wanting anything in particular?” “Is it possible that I join you both? I know how to use a bow, father taught me and it’s...it’s been a while...i’d love to hunt again.” I looked at him with pleading eyes as he took a swig from his bottle before turning to me with a soft smile. “Of course, always happy to have someone else along that knows what they are doing.” I couldn't play down my happiness, grinning from ear to ear and professing my thanks to Charles. I sipped the rest of my warm beer before saying my goodnights to the ones remaining around the fire and to Charles that I'll see him at first light. I tried my best to prevent a skip in my step as I made my way to my bedroll, excited for sleep and the day ahead. ….. The sun was barely making an appearance when I woke, stretching out my limbs before readying myself for the day, thankful to Sadie for offering me a pair of her pants she didn't want. Not only was I able to get out and do something I enjoyed, being amongst nature, but I was able to do something to help the camp other than repairing clothes and washing dishes. Making my way over to the coffee pot I saw Arthur was already there, sitting on a log near the now burnt out fire, coffee in hand. “Morning” He jumped slightly and turned to me, watching as I poured myself a hot cup. “You're up earlier than usual.” He turned his attention back to his cup as I sat beside him. “I’m coming hunting with you...and what do you mean earlier than usual? You been watching me Mr Morgan?” I took a sip, Arthur spluttered his, seemingly trying not to choke on the burning liquid. “What?...no...just...i'm usually first awake is all.” I smiled in my cup, hopefully hiding my slight giggle. A man of his size and how intimidating he can seem, he sure can get flustered easily, his cheeks turning a muted shade of pink. It was fun. We finished our coffee and made our way over to Charles and the horses, getting them saddled up. “You feel well enough to ride yourself Bella?” Charles asked, tightening the saddles girth so it fit snugly but comfortably around the horse. “I'm sure I'll be fine…” I looked over to Arthur, grinning “...I won't be falling off anytime soon.” “Take Johns horse, he won't be needing her today.” Arthur pointed over to the horse mentioned and I made my way over to sadde her. .….. The ride out into the heartlands towards Cumberland Forest was pleasant, the morning sun warming the earth and birds filling the air with their song. It was peaceful,the most peaceful I've felt in a long while. Still nothing of the attempted robbery or information about my disappearance had been read or heard of. Maybe Arthur was right, maybe Frank didn't care that i was gone, maybe he thought i was dead. I hope he did. We made it to the spot at Cumberland Forest and hitched the horses within the outskirts, hidden from view. Arthur let me use his bow, saying he was better with a rifle anyway. The three of us walked further into the forest, making sure to keep an eye and ear out for bears that roam the area. “Why don't we split up?” Charles suggested in a hushed toned as to not to disturb the surrounding wildlife. “Sure. Bella can come with me, might not need to use the rifle if she don't miss.” Arthur smirked. My expression one of mock disgust and punching him lightly in the arm. Granted I might be a bit rusty, it had been a couple of years since I hunted or even held a bow, but I'm sure once I get my mind focused it will be like second nature. Another thing I hope for. Charles moved further into the forest, me and Arthur moving closer to the Dakota river. The forest was tranquil and busy at the same time, the smell of pine and aspen filling my nose, the intense gaze of the sun being softened by the green blanket above, lighting everything in an orange hue. Any light that broke through the leaves lighting up in patches on the ground, able to see the suns daily path across the dirt from the sections of thick grass and various plants. Songbirds and sparrows weaving through the labyrinth of branches, hunting for bugs and seeds as they sang their love songs. For a moment it felt like we were the only people in existence as we walked in a comfortable silence. As we neared the river Arthur lifted his hand for attention then pointed ahead. Two whitetail deers drinking from the river. We crouched down, keeping out steps slow and light as we neared them. Once we stopped Aarthur looked to me, giving a nod for me to take my aim. I nocked the arrow, drawing it till the string resisted, keeping my chin low and feet steady, Arthur giving a soft whistle to get their attention. Two breaths and releasing on the exhale, the arrow flew to the mark, hitting the deer through its right eye, killing it instantly. I breathed in a huff of triumph as Arthur smiled at my glee. We made our way over, Arthur pulling on the animal readying to lift it. “Maybe i didn't need the rifle.” “Didn't trust me?” we smirked at each other, both pleased that we got a kill so soon. Arthur whistled for his horse as I gazed out at the river, hoping to see another distracted deer. He wrapped the animal in rope and secured it onto the back of his horse but we soon realised we were not paying proper attention to our surroundings as we should have. A guttural roar came from the thick forest behind us, too close for comfort. Before we had any time to react a mass of fur and teeth was bounding out of the treeline towards us, its black eyes trained on me. Fight or flight instincts kicked in, my legs pushing my back into a run, tripping over a river rock as I turned, planting straight into the river. I knew I couldn't get up quick enough, legs still pushing me backwards but failing to get traction, arms stretching out in front of my face like I could stop the beast with my own hands. Just as it was above me, staring down the cavern that was a throat, a crack of thunder rang out in my ears, echoing into the distance. The beast above me ceased and dropped on my legs, red splattered on my pants, shirt and no doubt my face.I looked at the stilled bear with wide eyes and then over to Arthur, rife in hand. My breathing steadying as I came down from the shock of what just happened and pushing the animal off me to stand. “Maybe you did need that rifle.” i giggled, looking towards Arthur, his eyes full of concern but a smile creeping on his face at my attempt to bring humor to the situation. I wasn't just covered in bear blood but soaked from landing in the river. I tried to shake off what I could and wring out the water from my shirt. Arthur walked over holding out a dry shirt for me to take. “I always carry fresh on my horse. Better than being soaked through completely.” I took the shirt and muttered a thanks, making my way out of the river and onto dry land, Arthur making a start on skinning the bear and whistling over Johns horse . The cold breeze hit my wet skin, making me shiver so I wasted no time in removing my drenched shirt, peaking over my shoulder to make sure he was distracted before also removing my camisole, now bare from the waist up. Pain shot up my side due to my hurried pace, letting out a quiet gasp, looking down at the still present bruise on my ribs, less angry, but persistent nonetheless. “There's trees right there y’ know.” My moment of pain must have caught his attention. Embarrassment flushed to my cheeks and I quickly pulled on his shirt and buttoned it up. It buried my small frame, stopping mid thigh, and it smelled like him, the faint hint of tobacco and gunpowder. “Scared.” “Why?” “Bears.” He huffed a laugh, lifting the bear hide and stowing it on johns horse. Both of us mounted up and started making our way to Charles' horse, silently deciding that was enough hunting for us today.Once there we built a campfire and I sat as close to it as comfortably possible, drying off my pants and sharing some fresh bear meat between us. We both were lost in thought, sitting in silence across from each other as we ate. I decided to break the silence with another request.

“Teach me to shoot properly?” it came out as both a demand and a question.He just looked at me while he chewed on the meat, the flames dancing over his face.“Father taught me how to handle a pistol, but i want to be sure i can protect myself...against bears...and people.” “You never went hunting after bein’ married?” I shook my head and sighed, looking down at the unfinished meat in my hands. “No. Frank wouldn't allow it. He would say the only things women are for are cooking, breeding and fucking.” “The more I learn about him, the more I wish I'd shot the bastard.” The anger in his tone was evident and with no hint of doubt. We sat in silence, the midday sun now high in the sky. He seemed to be lost in thought for a while before opening his mouth wanting to say something before changing his mind. I looked to him expectedly, wanting him to say what he wanted. His eyes locked with mine, knowing I was giving my permission to speak his thoughts.After a brief moment of silence, he finally broke it. “I...those...those scars ya have. They from him too?” So he did see. I hummed in response before giving him a proper answer. “My broken ribs weren’t from falling off your horse either. A lesson for flirting with the bastard on the balcony.” “Jesus” “He was so kind when we first met before getting married, always sending me gifts, flowers, jewelry. Written love letters and saying that he was building a stable at our future home, a homecoming gift for his sweetheart…” Arthur didn't speak as I paused, instead standing to retrieve something from his saddlebag before making his way around the fire to sit beside me, handing me a bottle of Bourbon. I smiled as I took it, opening it and taking a few gracious gulps, feeling the burning sensation trickle down my throat. “...He gradually changed after only being married for a few weeks. Dictating what i could wear and what hobbies i could indulge in, preventing me from seeing or talking to my childhood friends. Then the beatings would start getting worse... the assaults...eventually i couldn't sleep out of fear of what was to come when sharing a bed with him.” I took in a shaky breath, willing my tears not to breach. “Couldn't ya have returned to ya parents?” I shook my head before taking another swig and handing the bottle back to him. “I wanted to but...i was married off to him because my parents were struggling with the farmlands after three bad winters. Franks promised financial support in exchange for my hand. He even ceased all contact with them after only a month. I wrote letters to them but I never got one back. I have no idea what happened. Frank knew I wanted to leave so he promised to force a baby into me. That way, I'd have no choice but to stay with him.” I didn't know why i was telling Arthur all this, maybe because i knew it would help to get it off my chest, maybe because i felt like i could trust him. I didn't want pity, I realised, just a listening ear, someone to lend me their comfort for a little while.I hesitated before continuing. Arthur's eyes on me like I was a lost puppy, reaching out my hand for the bottle again he passed it to me without a word. I took another sip for courage, or so I couldn't feel the pain of reliving my horror. “I ended up falling pregnant. When I found out early on, I was more terrified in that moment than I had been in my life. He was elated of course, finally getting what he wanted. I knew he would be a horrible father, knew he wouldn't think twice about lifting his hand to a child. So I decided I couldn't let that happen. Had a doctor visit while he was on an overnight business meeting, some of his practices a known secret amongst many women.” Tears silently flowed as I stared into the growing flames of the fire. A hand placed gently on my knee for comfort and in understanding. “Did...did he find out?” “Told him I lost it. He shot my horse as punishment for being a failure of a woman.” “Bella...I’m sorry” It was barely above a whisper, anything louder and i might shatter like century old glass.He drew circles on my knee with his thumb as I wiped away the fallen tears. I made a silent vow never to cry over that man again, not to let him take up space in my mind. Absentmindedly I leaned into Arthurs touch, his shoulder meeting my temple, breathing in my first steady breath, Arthur wrapping his arm around me.

#hang em high #hang em high fic #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x oc #arthur morgan fic #rdr2 #red dead redemtion 2 #rdr2 fic #fanfiction

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bookworlders · 4 years

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the wedding date - chapter 8

percabeth fake dating!au based on The Wedding Date movie

part 1 | FFnet | ao3

note: this story contains adult content :)

Annabeth woke up alone.

And sore. She stretched and her muscles ached in protest. The light streaming in through the windows of Cabin 3 brought attention to the pounding in her head in addition to her sore muscles. Annabeth suddenly remembered why — actually more like two, three, and an earth-shattering fourth reason why her body ached so much this morning.

---

It was the briefest of post-hook up naps. Annabeth bristled as Percy roused her awake with light kisses up her jaw.

“Wake up, sleepy head. I don’t think you want to sleep on a stable floor, especially with those dance lessons in the morning.”

Annabeth tugged one of the tangled flannel blankets tighter around them, enjoying Percy’s warm weight on top of her, “Hm, someone’s been paying studying Leo’s itinerary.”

“I never thought I’d meet someone who can turn me on by saying the word ‘itinerary.’”

Annabeth grinned, rolling them over so she was on top of Percy. The blanket slipped down her back and she shivered when the chilled air in the stables hit her bare skin. She kissed him deeply, hands threading into his hair. She couldn’t tell if she was still buzzed from the bachelorette party or drunk off Percy. She only pulled away when her lungs were screaming for air. She stared at him.

“What?” Percy asked, “Why did you stop?”

Annabeth settled her hands on his chest, “Is this too much like prostitution? It feels like prostitution to me. I feel like I’m sexually harassing you, with the whole I’m paying you situation.”

“Trust me,” Percy replied between kisses on her neck, “I’m only doing what I want to do. Also, you’re the drunk one.”

“I’m not that drunk. Anymore.” Annabeth added.

“Good, because since you are paying me, let’s just say this is, uh, an intimacy charge. And it’s on the house,” Percy suggested, resuming kissing her. Annabeth obliged.

They gathered their clothes that they could find (Annabeth’s bra was lost to the stables forever) and stumbled half-clothed back to Cabin 3. Annabeth swore she saw Will sneaking into Cabin 13.

---

Her sore body alongside the pillows and blankets strewn all over the Cabin made sense if Annabeth’s recollection was correct. She and Percy had barely slept last night.

But Percy’s side of the bed was empty. She sat up, searching for her clothes in the bedding. She found her camp shirt hanging off the bedpost, but it was, shall we say, quite rumpled after their late-night escapades. She settled on a casual sundress that was at the top of her suitcase. Annabeth heard the rumble of Percy’s low voice outside, noticing the screen door of the cabin was propped open. She slipped on some flip flops and peeked her head out the door.

“Yeah, the wedding’s on Sunday. I’ll be back in the city by Monday morning.”

Percy was on the phone. “It’s going pretty great actually. We had a lot of fun last night, if you know what I mean.” He chuckled, switching ears. “Yeah, her friends are pretty cool. No, I don’t think they realize.”

Last Annabeth checked, none of Percy’s friends new about their arrangement, even their mutual ones like Rachel. Annabeth’s face flamed.

“I’m her plus one. Good work experience. Haha. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.”

Annabeth raised her eyebrow, crossing her arms as she waited for Percy to notice her standing out on the porch with him. Percy ended the call as he turned around and noticed her.

“Oh, hey, morning,” he said, an adorable grin sliding onto his face when he saw her. She was not amused.

“What the hell was that?”

“What?”

“Who were you talking to?”

“Oh, that was just—”

“Who are you blabbing to about our arrangement?” Annabeth lowered her voice, looking around the circle of cabins. It was still early enough that no one was milling about yet, but she pulled Percy back into Cabin 3, regardless, and slammed the door.

“Annabeth–“

“We sleep together once and you’re going on to the world about how I’m paying you to be my wedding date? I can’t believe you told someone! I am paying you to be discreet and this is not discreet.” She marched over to their bedside table, wrenching the drawer open a tossing a thick envelope at Percy, “There’s your fucking intimacy charge.”

Percy frowned, glancing at the cash inside the envelope, “What the hell is this? Well, now you are treating me like some kind of prostitute, if that was what you’re worried about.” He tossed the envelope onto their bed, “For your information, that was my roommate who thinks I’m at a wedding with a girl I’m dating. For real.”

Annabeth scoffed, “’Good work experience,’ ‘my friends don’t realize’?”

“My roommate and I were cast in As You Like It at Shakespeare in the Park! And I told him I don’t think your friends have realized that I’ve never been to a wedding before. It’s like you want this whole thing to fail. I have no stake in this wedding except to be here for you!”

Annabeth was about to retort when their door flung open and Piper barged in, “Oh, thank gods you two are awake! It’s time for the dance lesson, let’s go!”

Annabeth, arms still crossed and exasperated, muttered, “Piper, we’re in the middle of something.”

“You can finish up your something at dance class.”

“Come on, Pipes, I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet.”

Piper shrugged, “Well, you should have gotten up earlier, Chase. She grabbed Annabeth’s arm. “Oh, Percy, you’re coming too. Nico’s super hungover and hasn’t stopped throwing up and Annabeth is gonna need a dance partner.”

---

Annabeth was fuming, arms crossed and refusing to look Percy in the eye. Percy was also fuming, however she could feel him glaring at her head.

The rest of the wedding party were gathered in a makeshift dance studio in Cabin 7. The bridesmaids and groomsmen were going to join Piper and Jason after their first dance and open up the dance floor to everyone. Jason insisted on the wedding party taking a dance lesson from his sister, Kayla.

The bunks in Cabin 11 had been pushed aside to make a clear dance floor in the middle and the cabin’s décor had mirrors and bars along the walls already. Kayla had partnered them off and positioned them around the room — Piper and Jason, Reyna and Leo, Frank and Hazel, Thalia and Luke, and Annabeth with Percy as Nico’s stand-in, and Drew with Will who was standing in for Dakota, Jason’s friend from California who wasn’t flying in until tonight for the rehearsal dinner.

Kayla clasped her hands together, “Alright, everyone! We’re going to learn some ballroom basics so you guys can waltz to Piper and Jason’s wedding song. What is it again, guys?”

Jason beamed. Annabeth had heard them arguing about their first dance song for months, and it was clear that Jason had won. Piper rolled her eyes, “Tell her, Grace.”

“Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers,” Jason announced to the room.

“Only the whitest song in the world,” grumbled Piper.

“It’s the song that inspired Lover by Taylor Swift and since you wouldn’t let me choose that-”

“Let’s get started!” Kayla cut them off, thankfully. Annabeth could sense a fight starting if they continued. Taylor Swift was a soft spot for Jason. “First, we need to learn how to do a proper basic hold. That will be our base. Gentlemen, lightly take your partner’s right hand.”

The only thing that gave away that Annabeth had heard Kayla was the sharp exhalation through her nostrils. When Annabeth didn’t uncross her arms, Percy rolled his eyes, prying her right hand and taking it in his own.

“Now ladies, left hand slightly below your partner’s shoulder, and guys, right hand on her back. The holds should be very light,” Kayla continued.

“You’re gonna have to look at me for this to work, Annabeth,” Percy muttered, settling his hand on her back. “I don’t even understand why your still mad. I haven’t told anyone anything.”

“Shut up,” Annabeth hissed under breath, bringing her hand up to his shoulder, “I don’t want anyone to hear anything.”

Kayla was circulating the room, correcting each pairs hold. “Ooh, Annabeth, loosen up. You’re so tense. You don’t want to restrain Percy.”

Percy smirked, “You did last night.” He whispered in her ear.

Annabeth’s mouth gaped open. She stomped on his foot.

“That hurt, you’re being so childish,” Percy whined.

“What’s childish was your little kiss and tell stunt this morning.”

Kayla continued on teaching them the basic steps and counting, Percy and Annabeth bickering with each box step. They were actually pretty good at it. They were the first couple to nail down reverse and natural turns in the waltz, while most of the other pairs were struggling with who was leading.

“For the last time, Annabeth,” Percy said, spinning her, “I haven’t told anyone anything. Just believe me.”

Annabeth met him with silence, even refusing to look at him as he dipped her. Percy met her silent treatment in stride with their waltz.

“I’m surprised you’re actually letting me lead,” Percy said, moving them across the Cabin floor in time with the classical music Kayla had put on through the speaker, “I wouldn’t pin you as someone who lets other people take control after last night.” He guided them away from Thalia and Luke whose shoelaces had somehow ended up twisted together. Kayla was trying to unknot them.

“You don’t even know me, Percy,” Annabeth rolled her eyes.

“I know a lot more than most now.”

“And that’s exactly why I don’t want you spreading things around!”

“I haven’t said anything to anyone! Seriously, you just woke up ready to be pissed at me, didn’t you?”

“Might be because I woke up alone-”

“Hey, you two,” Kayla said, walking over to them after helping Piper and Jason with their counts, “Your turns look great, but I think I need to review the steps with the others a couple more times.”

Annabeth glanced over to where Hazel and Frank were struggling with their waltz. It may be that one of Frank’s strides were double of Hazel’s, “Fine. I could use a break anyway.” She dropped Percy’s grasp and strode to the other room in the cabin where Piper had set up drinks and snacks.

Percy followed her, scooching past Drew and Will who seemed to be tango-ing rather than waltzing and Reyna who was most definitely the one leading Leo around the cabin, “You can’t be mad at me forever, Annabeth. I’m not sure Nico will be able to deal with you stepping on his foot every five seconds.”

“Will you just quit it already?” Annabeth roughly twisting the cap off a water bottle off.

“You weren’t saying that last night.”

Annabeth choked on the water she was gulping down. She coughed, “You’re so goddamn frustrating!” She pulled a hair tie off her wrist and threw her hair up into a tight ponytail.

“Uh, Annabeth—”

“What! What now, Percy?”

“You, um,” he motioned to his own neck, flushing. Annabeth had a huge, purpling hickey above her collarbone.

Annabeth’s eyes narrowed. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, turning on the camera to view the evidence of her drunken tryst. She gasped. Percy swore she was exhaling steam from her nostrils, “Percy!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Look what you’ve done!

“Hey, you weren’t complaining last night!”

“The wedding is tomorrow-”

“Hey, you guys?” Kayla called out, peeking her head around the corner.

Annabeth tugged her hair back out of the ponytail, effectively hiding her hickey, “Hey, sorry, we’ll be back out there in a sec.”

“Actually, I think I’ll be a little while longer with everyone else. You guys can leave, though, you did great! I’ll see you at the rehearsal dinner tonight.”

“Oh,” Annabeth said. “Okay.”

Percy followed her back out into the main room of the cabin. Kayla’s dance lessons had since descended into further madness. Reyna and Leo had given up. Drew was in tears. Nico had finally shown up looking more gaunt than usual, and Will was yelling at him. Hazel seemed to nursing a bruised toe. Frank was fumbling with an ice pack and paper towels. Percy winced, he would not want a guy the size of Frank stomping around anywhere near his feet. And Piper and Jason were arguing in the corner with Kayla.

“Tell him, Kayla! We can’t waltz to Lover by Taylor Swift!”

“Actually-”

“It’s more waltzable than an Indie crap you want us to dance to!”

“Indie crap? What the hell did you just say to me, Sparky?”

Percy quickly followed Annabeth out of the cabin, he did not want to witness that argument. She stalked ahead, not bothering to wait up.

“Annabeth!” Percy sped up to meet her stride. She didn’t acknowledge him as she beelined back to Cabin 3. She pushed open the door, letting it swing back on Percy. He rolled his eyes, following her into the Cabin. “Annabeth, come on.”

She finally turned to face him. With the look on her face, he wasn’t sure if she was going to punch him or-

“What are you doing?” Percy pulled away after returning Annabeth’s fierce kiss.

Annabeth pulled her hair into a ponytail, exposing the hickey on her neck, “Getting you back.”

#the wedding date #mywriting #percabeth #fake dating!au #fake dating au #percy jackson #annabeth chase #heroes of olympus #fanfiction

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ezilyamuzed · 4 years

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Ten Years Gone- The Beginning

Description: Ten years ago, your world had changed. Ten years ago, you had met him, leading your life to never be the same again. Time is running out, but is it too late after all these years?

Word Count: 7775

Warnings: Language, Parent’s death, PG teen “cuddle” time.

A/N: This is the prelude of a new series. I was listening to Led Zeppelin's ‘Ten Years Gone’ while watching the early episodes of Supernatural and got some ideas... Enjoy.

Any grammatical mistakes are all my own, because I am human. Remember all comments and feedback are welcomed! If you want a tag in future posts regarding this series or other writings please send an ask! As always thank you for reading! Enjoy!

TEN YEARS GONE MASTERLIST

*Picture and lyrics used are not mine. Led Zeppelin is Amazing.

Changes fill my time, baby, that's alright with me In the midst I think of you, and how it used to be

Your legs were sprawled out along the back seat of your uncle’s ‘70 Chevelle as you hummed along to the guitar rhythm and stared out the window. The trees and scenery were whooshing past in a blink of an eye, but it all looked pretty much the same no matter where you were. The autumn quickly changing the leaves that were now falling to the ground. Trees, trees, dirt, and grass. Hey a rock. Sometimes you turned your sight seeing into a game to see how long you could stare out without blinking before you either got dizzy or your eyes dried out. Your record was to the second chorus of The Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker”.

“We almost there? I gotta piss,” you whined up to the front.

Your uncle Danny let out a laugh as he turned his head to the rear-view mirror to see your turnt up nose.

“We’re about 5 minutes away. You can hold it until then. If not, I’m sure there is a bottle or something back there.”

Although he was not longer looking you still give him an evil glare in response.

“You know it doesn’t work like that Uncle Danny.”

“Well if you’re going to keep talking like a rude little boy instead of the proper lady like I know your momma raised you to be, I’m going to keep treating you like it,” he replied back, turning the radio down as he spoke.

“She tried. It didn’t stick,” you rolled your eyes in a humph.

“If only she could see you now. Hell, 14, starting up high school…”

“Yeah, how many schools will I go to this year? The standard 4 minimum?” you added with sarcasm.

“One, smartass,” you could see him smiling as he looked to you in the rear view mirror. “I’ve worked out a deal with a buddy of mine while I go on a business trip.”

“Ya hunting plants, fruits, vegetables, or minerals this time?” You laughed at your own dumb joke.

“Don’t you worry about that missy,” he replied. “You just keep your head while I’m gone. No getting into trouble.”

“Who ya dropping me off with anyways? They in the business too,” you asked while making air quotes.

“Yeah, but recently he has stepped back a little. Actually, he’s been watching two teenage boys around your age while their dad also goes out on the road,” he replied before looking back to you again in the mirror. “And I don’t want to hear about you getting into no trouble with those or any other boys. Ya hear me?”

“Ew, no,” you face twisting in disgust.

“Yeah, you say that now. Soon enough though, you’ll be just like the rest of us and find that special someone that turns ya all stupid enough to want to spend the rest of your life with em.”

You rolled your eyes again as you slumped back further into the seat, keeping you eyes on the road signs as the passed by. Sioux Falls, North Dakota 10 miles ahead. Ten more miles until you can finally stretch out properly. Ten more miles until you might get to sleep in real bed, in a real house, something you hadn’t done for almost three years.

It had been an unusually warm fall that year. With your birthday approaching, your mom and dad were busy setting up everything for your party. Uncle Danny had taken you out to pick out whatever gift you wanted- a butterfly knife with dusty rose handles. He of course argued with you, but with his vast collection of knives that you had always admired, he agreed as long as it stayed a secret between the two of you. He even had an interesting symbol etched into the blade. It was a little star that looked like flames were coming out of every corner. He said it was extra protection, whatever that had meant. After grabbing ice cream he had driven you home, only too see the door wide open with no answer. He told you to stay in the car, but of course after a few minutes you stopped listening. It was your home. Why would you have to wait outside? That’s when you saw what he wanted to protect you from. Both of your parents, ripped to shreds by what looked like an animal. There was no animal in sight though. You don’t even remember exactly what else happened that day. There were sirens and people in uniforms everywhere. Neighbors of course being nosy and gawking at the scene. What you remembered was your Uncle Danny holding you close and telling you that everything would be okay. And you believed him.

Up until now, he had tried his best to juggle everything- his job and raising you were not easy tasks. You got into fights in school quite a bit, but with the fact that you were leaving it in a week or so to go to another, who really cared? There were nights when you were all alone, waiting patiently for him to return, always wondering in that back of your mind if this was the time you’d lose him too. He always came back though, a little beaten a bruised perhaps, but always with a smile.

Eventually he finally told you where he was going during all of his trips. Fighting ghosts and other monsters sounded ridiculous to you, but eventually you realized he wasn’t kidding. He was a hunter- he saved people. And that made him that so much cooler. Over the summer he had started teaching you how to shoot and what things to look for. You had already became really good with a knife, learning little tricks and that with the one he had bought you. He had an old notebook that was filled with drawings and descriptions that you tried to memorize, the ink wearing away with each use. You asked if you could join and help on a case, but he would always tell you that it was no place for a kid to be which was complete bullshit. You could handle yourself. You weren’t scared. But with all your protests, he would not budge, thus bringing you to here.

“About 5 more minutes until we’re at Bobby’s,” he stated while turning left down the road. “Hold on to your bladder just a little longer.”

You re-positioned yourself to stare out the window to see if anything was at least interesting around this guy’s house. Nope. Trees, fields, and a couple houses every once in a while. Great - middle of fucking nowhere U.S.A. You caught the sight of what looked like the after effects of a tornado. Cars and junk everywhere with a little house in the back.

“Welcome to Singer Salvage yard.”

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” you moaned.

“Hey, language.”

“Sorry,” you muttered before speaking up again. “But seriously, you are LITERALLY leaving me in a garbage dump. What the hell am I supposed to do here? Get tetanus?”

“No, you’re going to get an education and have a normal childhood,” his voice sounded angry. “Now I know it’s not pretty, but Bobby is a good friend. He will watch out for you and make sure you have everything you need.”

“I’m going to need a bath,” you mumbled under your breath.

When the car finally came to a complete stop and the dust from the ground settled you were able to get a better view of the place. It was alright, probably looked better on the inside. Well, at least you hoped. Still a shithole. There was another chevelle parked alongside it that was just like your uncles, but more on the run down side. Next to it, a sleek black Impala. That was probably Bobby’s car. Hunters always have a thing for muscle cars. Sturdy, reliable, fast, or “American made” as your uncle liked to state. Whatever the reason, they were nice to look at.

Two men walked out of the house with solemn looks on their faces with two teenage boys trailing behind. You followed your uncle's lead and climbed out of the car to the fresh air.

“Danny, it’s been a long time,” the dark haired man with a gruff voice stated while extending his hand for a shake.

“ Way too long Johnny,” he replied while shaking his hand before moving to the bearded guy with a baseball cap. “Bobby, thanks for doing this.”

“It’s no trouble at all. There’s already two hellions, what’s another?” He chuckled as he looked over at you staring down to the ground, pushing your chucks into the dirt. “You must be Y/N.”

“Yes sir,” you replied with a tight lipped smile.

“This is my boy Dean, he’s just a little older than you and my boy Sam who is just a bit younger,” John stated, while guiding the boys closer with his arm, although they clearly could care less.

“Dean, could you and Sam help Y/N inside?” Danny spoke up. “I know I’ve been making her wait to use the restroom, so I’m sure she’ll be grateful to know where it is.”

Dean nodded his head and grabbed at your two bags in the backseat before walking past you to go inside. Sam following. You rolled your eyes to your uncle and trailed behind to your new life- at least for now.

You were wrong about it possibly being better on the inside. Nope, it was a shithole too that was covered with books and empty liquor bottles. The decor covered by a pound of dust and cobwebs resembled something like a real house, something someone used to care about.

“Toilets over there,” Dean nodded down the hall while tossing your bags down before he flopped himself on the couch.

“Thanks,” you mumbled as you walked down the hall.

Surprisingly the toilet was at least semi clean, although there was enough hair trimmings in the sink to resemble a small animal.

After finishing in the bathroom you walked out to the living room area. Dean was sprawled out on the couch with a comic book and Sam was sitting on the floor next to him with an old worn down book. Out of place and unwelcomed were the nice ways of saying how you felt at that moment. After grabbing your book bag, you sat down at the kitchen table all alone, not knowing what else to do, but to stare at the walls.

“You boys helped Y/N find her way,” you heard your uncle's voice say as he entered the room.

Dean nodded as he turned the page on his book. Sam looked back at him, following his queue. Your uncle approached you, sitting himself down at the seat next to yours.

“See, it’s not that bad, right kiddo?”

Even though your head was down, you looked up to him through your lashes, rolling your eyes just a little towards the two boys.

“You’ll be fine,” he smiled. “Just give it a little bit and I’m sure you will all be getting along just fine when I come back.”.

“How long?” You asked although you could guess the answer already.

“Not sure kiddo,” he grabbed your hand and held it gently. “But I’m going to call every Sunday night after dinner time to check in on you. Okay?”

“Okay,” you nodded before wrapping your arms tightly around his neck. “Just come back to me okay Uncle Danny?”

“You be good Y/N;” he said as he returned your hug back before standing up again. “I’ll see you soon kiddo.”

He never promised that he would come back. It was a promise that he couldn’t make. He knew it and you knew. He always said that he would never make a promise to you that he couldn’t keep. That didn’t make it hurt any less.

You watched as he shook Bobby’s hand by the front door, turning to give you a loving smile before leaving out the door to go to the next job that awaited him.

“So, how about you boys actually show Y/N where her room is.” Bobby stated firmly, causing Dean to roll his eyes as he slapped the comic book shut. “You two know how it goes around here. We’re not savages. Now get going.”

“Yes sir,” the two of them mumbled as they got up from their spots.

Both boys each grabbed one of your bags, still not saying anything really directly to you as they walked up the stairs. Bobby was standing with his arms crossed watching them closely as you followed behind them.

“This one is where Bobby sleeps,” Sam informed you while pointing to a door. Dean and I are in this one, and you’re the last one down the hall.”

“Yeah, lucky you,” Dean scoffed. “You get your own room.”

“Lucky me,” you stated back with sarcasm. “I get to live here with you.”

Dean turned his head to you with a glare before he opened the door and switched on the light. It was a simple room, surprisingly organized and clean. It was almost like someone had cleaned it recently.

“This was Dean’s room,” Sam informed you, making you feel a little guilty about displacing him. It wasn’t like this was your choice though.

Dean tossed the bag he was carrying down onto the bed with a thud. Sam chose to use the gentler approach of setting the bag he was carrying on a chair in the corner.

“So what’s your story,” Dean asked as he sat down on the corner of the bed.

You shrugged, as you moved through the room, checking out the view from the window.

“You travel with your uncle,” Dean stated. “So where’s your parents?”

You turned and looked back to him silently, not really wanting to talk about the tragic backstory of your life.

“Okay, don't talk to us then,” Dean rolled his eyes as he stood up.

“Dead.”

He paused in his steps and turned to look at you, mouth agape. You returned to look out the window again before continuing, hoping you would see your uncles car any moment again to take you with him.

“It’s just me and Danny;” you continued as you looked over to them. “So what’s your story?”

“Mom’s been gone a long time and dad is in the business,” he stated with some sort of pride. “The family business.”

“Doesn’t a family business typically mean that more than one member of your family is doing it?” You snarked back.

“I’ve gone out on hunts before,” he stated in defense. “I’ve seen a ghost before.”

“Good for you,” you rolled your eyes again. “So why did he leave the two of you here then.”

“Dean got in some trouble on his last hunt,” Sam spoke up.

“What, did you act like an ass to the monster too?” You smirked to Dean.

“That’s a long story,” he said as he started rubbing the back of his neck. “So how long are you here for?”

“Who knows?” You responded. “Hopefully just a few days, maybe weeks.”

“And you’re like what 13?”

“Fourteen,” you corrected him. “I’ll be fifteen-.”

You stopped yourself short, not wanting to discuss or even think about the fact that you had a birth date like everyone else. It was a day you’d rather forget. You finished your sentence with the word “soon” popping off your lips.

“Are you going to be going to the high school with Dean then?” Sam asked.

“I guess so,” you shrugged. “So What is there to do around here anyways?”

“Read,” Sam replied with innocence, Dean rolling his eyes in response.

“There ain’t much to do, but there’s always something you can find to at least pass the time.”

“Like what?” You asked.

Dean laughed while nodding outside.

“Well, you like cars?” He asked as you gave him a side eyed glance. “We got tons of em out there.”

“What do you do? Try to fix em up or something?”

Dean shrugged as you all heard Bobby yelling up the stairs to start getting ready for dinner.

“Don’t keep him waiting,” Sam said as he walked out the door.

“Is Bobby strict?” You asked Dean who was still standing there, waiting for you to go downstairs as well.

“He’s alright, can be strict at times,” he replied back. “He does his best to make sure that we have some sort of normal in our lives.”

“What’s normal?” You rolled your eyes. “Being dropped off with some strange dude in a shit hole.”

“Give it time,” Dean laughed. “It’s not that bad. It’s better than staying in a crumby motel every night alone. ”

You paused your steps to the door as you heard those words leaving his lips. Motel and alone. Well that summed up the last three years of your life. Guess you did have more in common with these two boys besides being dumped off. If they could handle it, maybe it wasn’t going to be that bad after all.

The next couple weeks weren’t that bad. You had started high school with Dean showing you around. The fact that he became somewhat protective of you was probably why you didn’t seem to have any trouble with the other kids. The boys seemed to be scared of him, and the girls seemed to be in love with him. Each Sunday as promised your uncle would call to check in, consistently avoiding the topic of when he would be coming back. It was alright though. You had become so busy with your school work and hanging out with the boys that you didn’t mind it so much. Bobby’s house was slowly becoming your home.

“So to find the slope, you take the difference from the two Y points and divide by the two corresponding X points,” you stated to Dean as the two of you sat at the kitchen table.

“Why do I even care?” He grumbled.

“Well, slopes give you an idea of the rate of acceleration. Like in a car,” you stated. “Say you know that if you start at the end of the driveway and move to the other end in 60 seconds, you can determine how fast you were going.”

“Or I could just look at the speedometer,” he grinned.

“Smartass,” you laughed as you shoved his arm. “Okay, so you see a Rugalu, and they move from point A to point B in so many seconds. How fast do you have to move your ass to get the hell out of there?”

“Who says I wouldn’t stay to fight?”

You rolled your eyes to him again. Clearly at this point he was just being a smartass.

“Fine, you don’t run away. So how much faster do you have to be to gank him then Winchester?” You asked with a cocky smile.

“Just got to be faster,” he replied. “Who cares how fast?”

“Well, let me give you a little insight into physics and biology. You expel more than enough energy for a task, you deplete your energy storage. Making it easy for the other Rugulu to take you down.”

“Okay, point taken,” he laughed. “Math is important. So how did you become so smart in this shit anyways?”

“My dad was a science professor,” you shrugged, before realizing that you had mentioned him for probably the first time ever to Dean besides the fact that he was dead.

“And your mom?” Dean prodded a little further.

“History professor,” you replied while taking in a deep breath. “Guess it just rubbed off on me. Anyways, do you get it now?”

“Oh, I got it about a minute after you decided to try and help me,” he smiled. “I just wanted to see how far I could get you frustrated before you gave up.”

You smacked him lightly on his arm as he laughed in response.

“You’re a dick,” you laughed. “Why did you want to see me get frustrated?”

“Because I think it’s awesome that even when you don’t know how to help someone, it gets to you so much that you don’t quit,” he smiled. “That and when you realize that you did in fact help someone, your eyes kind of light up a little. You’re a good person Y/N.”

The way that Dean was looking at you as he spoke was so genuine; no one besides family had ever done that before. It made you feel something at that moment. What it was, you weren’t sure. You bit your lip nervously as he leaned over, pulling his text book back over to him.

“So question 4, find the y-intercept,” he read from the pages.

“You helping Dean with homework there Y/N?” Bobby stated as he entered the room with Sam, both carrying bags of groceries that could probably feed a small army. Or in this case, the Winchester boys for a weekend.

“Just making sure he gets it,” you smiled back while standing up to help them put the groceries away.

Peering into the bags, there was an item that you had told Bobby in secret that you needed that you didn’t see. He had either forgotten, or was too embarrassed to pick it up.

“Um, Bobby,” you muttered. “Ya forgot something.”

He looked at you with furrowed brows until it dawned on him. He mumbled ‘crap’ under his breath before exhaling loudly.

“I suppose you need ‘em soon,” he sighed, you nodding in response. He looked over at Dean finishing the last question of his homework and closing the book. “Dean, take Y/N and my car to the little corner store. Be back in twenty for dinner.”

Dean squinted his eyes in confusion as he grabbed the keys from Bobby. You rolling your own eyes that now Dean was going to be very well aware of the gross part about being a girl: your period.

You trailed behind Dean after Bobby handed you some cash, muttering an apology as you walked away. In less than 3 minutes, with Dean obviously ignoring anything that resembled a speed limit sign you were at the store.

“So what did you need? Make-up, hair stuff?,” he inquired as he followed you in, making you give him a funny look. “Didn’t know if all of the sudden you were trying to look like those other girls in the school.”

“I’d rather live forever in my comfy jeans and t-shirts then to ever be like them,” you snarked back, as you approached the feminine section.

Dean’s eyes followed where yours went, staring at the boxes of tampons with little flowers printed on them. It was not something he knew a lot about, but he knew enough. He reached over and grabbed a box, staring at the packaging.

“I don’t know why they try to make it all fancy,” he pondered out loud. “I mean, a girl can bleed for a few days and still kick your ass. They should have something more fierce on the box. Like a warrior princess.”

You shook your head with a laugh, catching on that Dean was trying to make this would be awkward situation into a joke.

“My dad used to say that they used these for bullet holes,” he stated while grabbing two more boxes. “We should probably stock up knowing our luck. Who knows, maybe I’ll need some.”

Your laughter died down as you followed Dean to the register when you saw a group of guys looking and nodding over to the two of you with smirks.

“Looks like Winchester isn’t getting laid this week,” the one stated out loud. “Unless he’s into walking the red carpet.”

Johsua Adams. A notorious prick that thought he was God’s gift to women. First day at school and he had already tried, and failed, to have you,the new girl cozy, up behind the bleachers with him. Dean just sat the products down on the counter, clenching his jaw as he turned to him with a grin.

“No, that’s what your girlfriend is for.”

Josh’s smile faded quickly, his face hardened now approaching Dean rapidly with you standing next to him. You felt Dean’s arm push you back by your waist, surprising you for a second until you saw what happened next. Josh yelled a ‘fuck you’ as he swung his fist towards Dean’s face, Dean almost effortlessly caught him by the wrist and twisted his arm behind his back.

“Now you’re going apologize for your remarks and you're going to go back to your little circle jerk,” he seethed, holding him steady as he tried to break free.

Josh’s friends all moved from their spot, clearly pissed off that their friend was being hurt. Dean shook his head stating ‘uh huh’ as he twisted Josh's arm more to make him yell out.

“Now I’m going to let you go,” Dean instructed the Josh in his ear, loud enough for everyone to hear. “And you all are going to leave me and my friend alone, or next time I won’t be so nice.”

Josh nodded his head, giving Dean the queue that he was going to comply. His friends all stared the two of you down hard with anger as they walked out of the store. You had almost forgotten the fact that you were in a store until you heard the onlooking cashier behind you.

“Your boyfriend there is a good guy,” she stated. “Those boys are nothing but trouble. It was about time someone showed them their place.”

You didn’t argue what she had called him: your boyfriend. Definitely not. Probably not ever. But she was right, he was a good guy. You handed her the money as you lead the way out the door to Bobby’s car. The two of you opening the doors and setting yourself in.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” You asked with enthusiasm, the whole act was something you had only seen in the movies.

“My dad,” Dean replied. “And Bobby a little. Why?”

“Teach me,” you said as your turned your body to him with intrigue in your eyes.

“What?” Dean exhaled audibly. “Why?”

“You really have to ask?,” you sounding surprised. “Come on Dean! There are tons of assholes out there like that, plus knowing how to take care of myself would definitely help with, you know...those other things that we aren’t supposed to talk about.”

“There is no way in hell I’m teaching you any of that,” he looked at you directly with seriousness on his face. “You haven’t had to know what it’s like to fight for your life; you’re lucky and blessed. And I will be dammed if I ever let you get mixed up in that shit.”

“It’s not like I’m not already mixed up in it Dean! Something supernatural killed my parents. Hell, I’m being raised by hunters! Do you really think I will ever just get on with my life and not have that following me?”

Dean growled lowly, as he shook his head.

“Fine,” he stated as he turned the key in the ignition to bring the engine to life. “But this is between us. If Bobby knew, he’d kill me.”

“I promise.”

“And leave Sam out of it too. That kid is going to be a doctor or lawyer someday.”

“No problem,” you agreed. “Thanks Dean, for you know, what happened in there.”

“ Anytime,” he said as he pulled out of the spot and drove down the road. “He had it coming to him anyway.”

“And I know why you’re scared to teach me how to fight Dean.”

He glanced over at you with confusion, making you smirk in return.

“Because you know I’ll be able to kick your ass,” you replied with snark.

“Oh darlin,” he shook his head with a laugh. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

The next week, Dean and you had figured out a routine on when he was able to teach you. Most of the time it was right after dinner when Sam would be caught up in a book and Bobby would pass out drunk at his desk.

The garage light was enough for you to see what you were doing, and far enough away from the house so they couldn’t hear you.

“Okay, so again,” Dean stated, making you follow his directions in the sequence as he rattled them off. “Left punch, right punch, left uppercut, and a right hook.”

You did as you were told, until he stated to go faster, and then faster again. Dean shook his head in disapproval as he watched.

“You’re locking your arms too much,” he said as he gripped your right elbow. “You’re going to break something of yours, not theirs.”

His hands moved to reposition your arm, tickling a little as he touched your skin; making you flinch back with a giggle.

“Ticklish huh?” Dean smirked as his eyes grew wide.

“You wouldn’t dare,” you laughed, as you noticed the devilish look in his eyes.

He reached over as you tried to move out of the way, and furiously tickled you all over in an instant. Your laughter echoed through the room as you tried to get away, but he was not stopping.

“Stop Dean! Stop,” you gasped out in between your laughter, tears now rolling down you eyes. “I’m going to piss myself!”

He continued with his own laughter as you twisted yourself and started to fumble backwards; grabbing onto his arms to bring him down as well as your back hit the ground.

“Ow,” you laughed again, Dean propping himself up on his hands next to your sides, staring down with a grin. “See what you did?”

“Rule number one,” he smiled. “Know your opponents weak spots.”

“Uh huh, and where’s yours?” You smirked as you started to tickle his rib cage.

Dean moved swiftly and pinned your hands down on the ground with a smirk. Your breath caught in the moment, with your chest rising and falling deeply to catch it. He stared down at you as you looked up to him. The feeling that arose was different, and by the looks on his face he was feeling it as well. He paused himself for a moment, before leaning down and pressing his lips onto yours gently. An act that surprised you at first, but it felt right. Your first kiss. Your first real kiss was happening with Dean on a dirty garage floor, but you didn’t care. You found yourself returning it, moving your lips along with his, opening them just a little as you felt his tongue glide across them. You didn’t really know what to do. It’s not like this was really covered in health class, but you glided your tongue with his, moving them together in sync. It felt smooth, sending a warm feeling down your body as you felt his hand now touching your face, bringing you closer and deeper into his.

“Whoa,” you heard Sam gasp aloud, causing you to both break away and look over at him in panic.

“What the hell Sam!” Dean yelled.

“So that’s what you two are doing,” Sam smiled. “You two are making out every night!”

“Get out of here Sam before I kick your ass!” Dean yelled again.

“Whatever,” Sam rolled his eyes. “Just don’t let Bobby, dad, or her uncle catch you. They just called.” They’re coming back.”

“He’s coming back?” You sat yourself up, knocking Dean back a little in your action. “When?”

“They said they’d be here after school tomorrow,” Sam answered. “So that probably means we will be moving on too.”

Dean sighed out loud and nodded as he stood up, shaking the dirt off of him before extending his hand to you to help you up. As you got up you felt the mixed feelings of dread and excitement. You were going to see your uncle again, but at the same time you were now probably going to lose Dean. You stared down to the ground as you followed the boys back into the house. Dean instructing Sam to keep his mouth shut about what he had seen. You went upstairs to your room, trying to ignore Dean’s glances as you shut the door and flopped down on the bed. The feeling of his lips still lingered on yours as you gentled touched them with your fingers. What was going to happen next?

You awoke from your deep sleep as you heard the sound of your door opening. Glancing at the clock it was just a little after midnight. You sat up and turned to see Dean walking in with a solemn look on his face.

“Hey, didn’t mean to wake you,” he apologized.

“Yes you did,” you smiled in the dark room, the only light peaking through the curtains from the moon outside.

“I just thought, since tomorrow we might be parting ways, maybe we should talk about what happened?” He nervously replied.

You nodded as he sat down on the edge of your bed, you sitting up straighter and pulling the covers up to your chest. You could see the hesitation in his face, unsure of what exactly to say. The silence was lingering, only growing with anticipation of what he was about to say fiercely within you.

“I’m sorry Y/N,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have kissed you like that.”

You were confused for a moment, but you laid your hand on top of his in reassurance.

“Hey, it’s alright,” you replied softly. “It was nice. Unexpected of course, but I don’t regret it.”

“I’ve just, I don’t know,” he paused again. “I just was trying to keep you away from knowing how I felt about you.”

“How do you feel about me?”

“I like you Y/N,” he confessed as he looked at you. “I mean, it's hard not to. You’re someone who genuinely cares about people, and I didn’t want you to get hurt when I had to leave again.”

“What makes you so sure that you will have to leave?” you asked. “I mean, maybe they’ll let us stay here for a little longer.”

“Doubt it,” he sighed. “You don’t know my dad. He won’t care. The only thing that matters to him is taking care of Sam and finding what killed my mom.”

“But what about you Dean? I’m sure he cares about you.”

Dean shook his head, you catching the sight of a lingering tear fall down his face.

“I was happy once before, not too long ago. I had a semi normal life away from them with someone I cared about, but he didn’t care and I couldn’t leave Sammy.”

“Dean,” you found yourself reaching for his face to look at you. You searched in his face to find whatever guilt he was holding back. “Tell me what happened.”

He sighed again as you dropped your hand down. His eyes searching for an easy way to tell you, possibly scared at your reaction.

“You know how Sam told you I had screwed up on a hunt? Well that isn’t true. I got myself in trouble and found myself at a boy’s reforming home. I got to go to school, do normal teenage things, and I had met someone there that I think I might have loved.”

You just found yourself nodding, although the last part hurt just a little, but you could tell it was still something he was still hurting from.

“Anyways, my dad showed up after months even though he knew where I was the whole time and made me come back. He was angry and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Then of course I thought of Sam. I’ve been protecting that kid my whole life. I couldn’t walk away from him.”

“I understand,” you whispered. “But Dean, you do know that you can be happy again. No one knows what tomorrow will bring.”

“How is it that you always know the right thing to say?” he chuckled softly.

“Because I’m awesome,” you smirked back with a soft laugh.

“Yeah, well I’m going to get back to my room before Sammy realizes that I’ve left,” he said as he started to get up, but you grabbed his hand to stop him.

“If this is really possibly the last night I get to see you, I don’t want you to go,” you confessed as you let your grip fall. “I don’t know exactly whatever it was that I felt earlier, but I don’t want to give it up yet.”

Dean looked deeply into your eyes as he moved to crawl under the covers with your assistance of pushing them back to allow him access. He laid his head down on the pillow next to you, gazing at you, moving the hair out of your face as you mirrored him. You nuzzled your face into his hand as he cupped your cheek. He was hesitant, but you moved your face closer to his. Biting your lip a little before you leaned in and felt his soft, full lips on yours once again. He followed your lead and before you knew it, you felt the same warmth as you did before now hitting harder as your lips moved together by the light of the moon. It was a feeling you never wanted to let go of as you pushed your lips on his harder. His hands now resting on you, one holding your head steady, the other caressing your hip. It tickled a little, the way his hand touched your skin, making you moan just a little, wanting more. His lips moved from yours, trailing along your skin and down to your neck as his hand moved from your hip to your heaving chest. Through your clothes you could feel him grasping your breast gently, not wanting to be rough. You didn’t know exactly what had pushed you in the moment, but you pulled away from him and lifted off your shirt to leave your chest expose to him. You wanted to feel his skin against yours as he watched you with wonderment in his eyes before crashing his lips against yours once more. His hands were now all over you, feeling every inch of you as you continued. His lips moving to discover new spots on your body and the pleasure-filled reactions they ensued from you. It could have been only minutes that it continued, but it felt like forever until the kisses and touches started to slow down. Dean looked into your eyes, as he pulled away with a deep breath.

“I think I love you Y/N,” he confessed. “And I don’t want us to do anything that neither of us are ready for just because we may never see each other again.”

“I think I might love you too Dean,” you smiled back. “And I agree with the one part, but I know this; we will see each other again. When we’re both ready, perhaps a bit older, things will be different.”

“You always know just the right thing to say,” he smiled again as he pulled you into his arms to lay your head on his chest.

“Goodnight Dean,” you yawned as you nuzzled into him.

Dean placed a kiss on top of your head, not allowing himself to fall asleep right away. He wanted to hold on to this feeling just a little longer as well because tomorrow, he knew it was all going to change.

“Jesus fucking christ,” you heard Bobby yell out loud, snapping you awake in an instant.

Dean sprung himself up from the bed, leaving you to cover yourself up with the blanket. A look of fear and panic in his eyes.

“What the hell is going on here?” Bobby demanded.

Dean held out his hand to try and calm him down, but it was not working.

“Bobby, it isn’t what it looks like,” Dean pleaded. “We didn’t do anything. We were just talking and I fell asleep.”

“Her shirt was off, and you just fell asleep?” Bobby looked at Dean with disappointment. “Do I look like an idjit to you? Now the two of you get dressed, in your own rooms. You have school and then your dad and your uncle will be here after.”

“You’re not going to tell them are you?” you asked in a panic.

Bobby glared at the fear in Dean’s and your eyes as you awaited his answer.

“I’m supposed to be watching the two of you, and Dean you know better,” he glared at him hard. “I for sure ain’t saying shit to them. But you listen to me, this stops now or so help me I will kick both of your asses into next Tuesday.”

“Yes sir,” you both nodded in reply, feeling a little sense of relief.

“Now get dressed,” Bobby stated as he walked out the door.

You took in a deep breath and exhaled out as you turned to Dean who was almost out the door.

“Dean?”

“You heard him, get dressed,” Dean said gruffly before walking out, shutting the door behind him.

Dean hadn’t said anything else to you as you silently ate your breakfast and on your way to school. He was completely ignoring you now, even when you tried to speak, he chose to go the other way or say something to someone else. How he was acting was hurt, but you tried to just let it go, knowing he probably was just protecting himself and you from what awaited when you walked through the door after school.

You saw your uncle and John sitting there waiting with Bobby. None of their faces really looked happy.

“Dad-“ you heard Sam say as he walked in behind you.

“Time to pack your bags boys,” he instructed. “We’re moving on.”

“Yes sir,” you heard Dean state as he started for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” You asked out loud, making them all look at you in disbelief that you would even question what was happening.

“Say goodbye to Sam and Dean, Y/N,” Danny stated as he stood up and gave you a small hug. “It’ll be awhile before you see them again.”

“This is bullshit,” you exclaimed. “Why do any of them, any of us have to go anywhere? What to live in the back of a car or a crappy motel, not knowing if any of you will ever come back?”

“Danny, settle down that girl there,” John advised.

“No, fuck you, ya prick,” you spat out, causing his eyes to widen in surprise. “They’re happy here, we all are. Bobby may not be our family, but he’s been here. He is at least trying to give us a normal life. Why can’t you just leave us alone?”

You felt guilty after hearing your words leave your mouth, as you looked up to your uncle. He had tried to be there, he just couldn’t. You now realized why he had brought you here in the first place. He knew he couldn’t do everything you needed. He was really trying to give you the life you deserved.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” you cried to your uncle before you ran out the door.

You plopped yourself down on the ground, tears flowing down your face. You heard the sound of gravel moving under someone’s steps, but you didn’t flinch.

“That was some speech you gave in there,” John’s rough voice stated as he sat himself down next to you. “I can see you’ve really become attached to my boys and this place.”

You just nodded your head, feeling anger and resentment towards the man next to you.

“Me too,” he confessed. “That’s why they’re coming with me.”

You looked at him baffled, not understanding why he was even talking to you after what you just said.

“Your uncle is a strong man. One of the best guys I’ve ever known. He is doing right by you in letting you stay. I’m not as strong,” he sighed. “I need them around. I look at them and on my weakest days I can see my Mary in their faces. It’s what keeps me going as I try to figure out what happened to her.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I feel like everything has been sugar coated for you for probably way too long,” he replied. “What happened to her, what happened to your parents, well someone has to stop it.”

“My parents…”

“We’re not sure if it’s the same thing, but we sure as hell won’t stop until we find it and kill it,” he answered back. “I know it’s a tough life for all of you kids, but you’re getting older now. You should know. Dean, he has been in this for so long, he knows what is expected. Sam, well although I’d like to keep him out of it, this has been his whole life. This is just what happens. You say your goodbyes and move on.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“You will,” he smiled.

You both heard the door of the house swing open and shut, Dean walking out with a green duffel bag with Sam behind him. He paused as he looked at you both, unsure of what was happening. John looked over at you and Dean staring at each other, as Dean put his head down and helped Sam into the car.

“They’ll be alright Y/N,” John stated, making you turn your head to him. “And so will you.”

He got up from his spot and brushed the dirt off of him as he walked towards his sleek black car.

“You boys all set?” He asked.

Dean nodded as he stood there with the car door open, looking at you with sadness in his eyes. John turned to see you doing the same as he opened up the drivers door.

“Let’s get a move on it,” he said as he sat himself inside.

Dean looked down again, before looking back to you. You mouthed the word ‘goodbye’ as he nodded and got inside the car. The trail of dust they had left behind took minutes to disappear, but as it went down slowly and was gone, you knew they were now as well.

John’s words with everything that had happened replayed in your head. ‘You will’ he said, and at that moment, you hadn’t realized or known just how true that really was.

Tags: (Let me know if you don’t want added!) @snffbeebee @waywardnerd67 @waywardbaby @dean-winchesters-bacon @jaylarkson @ladywinchester1967 @wildefire @i-hear-crazy-calling-my-name @hobby27 @iamabeautifulperson18 @19agbrown @sonotalice @drakelover78 @aloneanddesperate @pisces-cutie @biawol @jamielea81 @fallininjapan @justkending

#supernatural #supernatural series #supernatural fanfiction #Supernatural fanfic #ten years gone #ezilyamuzed #dean winchester #john winchester #bobby singer #dean x reader

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sciencenewsforstudents · 4 years

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Anyone can be a mentor. But not everyone can be a great one — at least not a great one for you. Only you will know who is likely to bring out the best in you. This person will need to have time for you, understand what makes you tick — and what ticks you off. That person must truly care about what happens to you, and show it in ways you can see. So here’s a check-list to help you find that coach to help you scale the heights.

Find someone who ‘hears’ you

Effective guidance requires listening closely, says Alberto Roca. He’s the executive director of DiverseScholar. This online program, based in Irvine, Calif., provides guidance and resources to students from under-represented groups. Mentors must learn what students want to achieve. They also need to realize that a student’s life and background might differ from their own. That information can then guide the mentor’s advice and actions.

Some students come to a mentor with clear ideas of what they need but may not be able to explain it clearly. Others may not even realize what areas they need to develop or strengthen. Listening carefully to what you say can help these coaches understand what you might need to succeed.

Sometimes a student might tell a mentor what they need “without even realizing that they are doing it,” observes Rachelle Oldmixon. She’s a psychologist in Los Angeles, Calif., and a medical writer. She described one instance where she was tutoring high school students. They were studying for a college entrance exam known as the SAT. One student had been struggling for weeks to get his ideas onto paper. At his last session after a sample test, he asked his mentor: “Why did I get a good score in the ‘supporting sentences’ section? I didn’t think I would.’” The student was referring to the sentences used to explain his reasoning or to provide data that justified his conclusions. The boy’s confusion gave Oldmixon a clue to his struggles. He had never been taught how to write an essay, she realized.

Careful listening can help mentoring relationships grow. Oldmixon says her own relationships with mentors as she was growing up were “a lot like friendship. My best mentors treated me as an equal. All of my ideas were valid.” Because of this, Oldmixon notes that the mentoring relationship may end up being a much closer one than what a student develops with a teacher.

Consider people who really love their work

Enthusiasm is contagious. People who love what they do often can make a compelling case why you might love that topic, too. These people also tend to love helping others see what makes their work so engaging. If they realize you find that field super-interesting, they often will be motivated to help you succeed in it.

Katherine Sebeck is a materials scientist for the U.S. Army in Michigan. Her eighth-grade physical-science teacher had a huge impact on sustaining her love of science. STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and math. That teacher, Sebeck says, “was the first confident, exuberant woman in STEM I met.” Best of all, she recalls, “She really taught me to be joyful about science and to have fun with it.”

Eugene Day works at Seattle Children’s, a hospital center in Washington state. His seventh-grade algebra teacher helped him love math. That teacher helped him realize “that sometimes even when I feel confused, I’m doing things right.” Building self-confidence at such a critical time, Day believes, helped him to become the engineer he is today.

Don’t rule out non-experts

In elementary and middle school, mentors often are teachers. Chris Thompson says he got lucky that his fifth-grade teacher turned out to be a fantastic mentor. “He would always give praise in such a way that made you feel like you really achieved something,” Thompson recalls. But he says his teacher’s disappointment was even more effective. That made it clear he knew how much Thompson could achieve. That disappointment always spurred Thompson to try harder.

Younger students often find teachers make a great first mentor — especially when those teachers love their field. That can make learning fun — and a student successful.

CREDIT: KALI9/E+/GETTY IMAGES

Today, Thompson is a developmental neuroscientist. He works at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

Mentors don’t always have to be adults. Older students can be mentors if they can listen and help a younger student with what they need. An older student who’s been in a science fair, for instance, might have just the right advice to help a younger student doing a science fair project for the first time.

Look for someone to help you be a better you

“Mentors should not impose their values on the mentees,” says Roca. A mentor, he notes, should not try to just make a student into a younger version of that coach. They should understand what you — the mentee — wants and then adjust their coaching to help you achieve your goals.

Don’t be afraid to reach out or ask for help

Many adults, including teachers and parents, can offer help in finding a mentor. “Some of the most effective [mentors] are those who are a bridge between a youth and another mentor,” says Jean Rhodes. She directs the Center for Evidence-Based Mentoring at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. Making that introduction might seem small. But if this fills a student’s needs, she notes, it’s a type of mentoring, too.

Lately, though, “we’ve moved toward encouraging students to find their own mentors,” Rhodes says. Her group works with middle-school, high-school and college students. It teaches them how to identify their own interests, identify mentors and reach out to those people.

Sometimes, all it takes is one email.

When Zarin Rahman was a senior at Brookings High School in South Dakota, seven years ago, she knew that she wanted to study how sleep affected teens at her school. She turned to the webpage of her hometown university, South Dakota State. “I found a professor whose area of expertise and interest matched my own,” she recalls. “I approached him via email and explained who I was and what I was interested in.” The professor replied immediately. And with that, a mentoring relationship was born.

Groups such as 4-H and the United Way also can help match up students and potential mentors. Both have national and regional mentoring programs. For girls and young women, there is the National Girls Collaborative Project and Girls Inc. The National Society of Black Engineers also offers programs focused on middle school and high school. Students may even find mentors through STEM professionals at local colleges.

#science #scied #sciblr #advice #mentoring #mentor

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splintersfeelings · 4 years

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A Story about my Father - first draft, 3/11/2020

I smiled a smile of relief, a relief born of a year of work and growth.

“I made it. I graduated. I’m going to be teacher.”

I want to remember the path I took here. Remember, remember, remembering…backwards, because the cause is always before, buried in the clues that had no meaning except in hindsight.

Like all stories, we start at the beginning. Away from this bright summer sun.

A little boy was born in a hospital into a loving family, followed by his two younger brothers. He was an energetic, playful kid, a bit of a prankster. The nuns never liked him in school, and he was always getting in trouble for his practical jokes. He learned his sense of humor from his own father. The nuns called him Felix, because in this place, it wasn’t enough for the colonizers to take money and lives – they also had to take people’s names.

I sat in bed, reading webcomics off my phone, basking in the artificial glow. A long day teaching, a short night to rest. How did I get here? What was I doing? Thinking back to all those mistakes, all those missed opportunities. Things that could have gone better, things that could have gone worse. Getting ready for another long day, I leaned over and shut out the light.

As I dreamed, I wondered if this was the right path for me. Sneezing, I popped a pill to manage my spring allergies. Ready to leave. Ready for another day.

A student cries during math. They’re afraid and unsure. They think they can’t do it.

But they can. The work is hard, I tell them, because we have high expectations in this room. We work on adding and subtracting decimals.

At the end, the student smiles.

He was happy growing up. Or was he? It was hard to remember. When his father died, it tore his family apart. The three brothers slowly grew apart over the years, pushed by a grieving mother. She wanted him to be the head of the family. But it was a weight that no one, especially not one so young, should have to bear.

The first day of student teaching.

He didn’t want to let it consume him.

The snow fell outside. I sat at home sick, waiting down the hours until it was time for my next dose of antibiotics. But all I really wanted was to be back out there, in that classroom, starting winter quarter, growing and learning and teaching. Giving back some of those opportunities that someone else gave to me.

He didn’t feel safe at home, where he knew there was abuse waiting for him. But there was no safety at school either. Not from bitter and jealous classmates. Not from the unsympathetic nuns. On a bad day, maybe the cold, hard slap of a ruler’s edge along his bruised knuckles.

What is a good teacher? The leaves were red, dropping from the trees onto the damp, Seattle pavement. I want to become a teacher that empowers students. I want students to learn to learn, to teach themselves. That’s a bit of an irony. A teacher’s goal is to make themselves obsolete. To put themselves out of a job. Build a world where everyone has access to learning, where everyone can learn from themselves and each other.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), making yourself obsolete as a teacher is a tough job. So – we work, we scaffold, we learn to speak oceans in 2 short sentences, we ask questions that are simple. So simple. And yet, they must carry the weight of the world.

He kept getting told that he was stupid. That he was lazy. Why didn’t he study? Why couldn’t he memorize? He was almost ready to believe them. Maybe he was stupid. But he didn’t believe them. Not even after they made him repeat a grade.

It wouldn’t be the last time.

STR? What is STR? I flipped through the website application. It would be good to move back to Seattle. My leave of absence had made me bitter. I was feeling sick of feeling stuck in grad school, of finding no passion in the research that had once excited me as an undergrad. What was the point of studying race, of studying injustice, of studying power, only to write papers that only 10 people would read?

I attached my resume and hit submit.

It wasn’t as if he wasn’t trying. But he just couldn’t sit down and read. When he looked at the words, they began to swim and blur together, and he’d simply doze off.

But his creative energy wasn’t put to waste. He developed progressively innovative strategies to cheat on his exams, writing scraps of paper and tucking them into shirt sleeves, books.

He only got caught some of the time.

When I got accepted to UW Early Entrance, I cried. It was a big oppurtunity, a chance to escape from the terror of high school. A chance to prove myself. I knew I had to go, because if I didn’t try, I would regret for the rest of my life. I was hungry to learn, to read, to solve, to grow. I just needed to place and the people to help me do it.

It was a big adjustment, moving to Canada. A strange place, with even stranger people. Hong Kong’s humid, tropical climate was a whole different world than the icy snow in Edmonton. He met the woman who would become his wife there, two diasporic roots. Interestingly, they would probably never have met back home – they lived in different worlds, one in Kowloon and one on the Island.

Many nights, he went to sleep hungry.

He repeated two more grades.

It was hard to practice English. But he’d already gotten used to being called stupid, and lazy. He didn’t need anyone else to tell him he mattered, because he knew it already in his heart.

But it would have been nice to hear it from someone else. Just once.

The thing I remember most about getting kicked out of school was the shame of telling my dad. I was worried about what he’d think about me. If he’d think less of me for finally failing to live up to his high expectations. But he surprised me by giving me a hug. He told me that he was proud of me, and that if I did what I thought was right I should have no regrets. This was the turning point when our relationship started to improve, and I learned to see him as a human being. Someone with their own, silent story. Someone with their own ghosts, their own demons, their own long forgotten battlegrounds.

His TOEFL scores were too low to get into University of Alberta, where his then-girlfriend was attending school. He ended up at the University of North Dakota. He had always loved tinkering, putting machines apart and putting them back together. He ended up studying computer science.

When I was in 3rd grade, I stopped writing. I didn’t do my homework beyond short, terse, one-word responses. My mom was distraught because she knew I was able to say so much more verbally than I could show in writing. She spoke to my teacher, who had noticed a similar pattern. What was holding me back from writing, when I was reading more than a year above grade level?

I didn’t know how to express it at the time, but writing was physically painful for me because of how hard I had learned to grip a pencil.

I relearned how to write cursive. My teacher let me type up homework assignments instead of handwriting them.

I had people who believed in me.

He graduated from UND in 3 fast years, cramming in coursework to make up for lost time. His student visa expiring soon. He advanced 400 dollars on credit, took a train to Seattle, and declared he would work for Bill Gates.

A week later he got hired at Microsoft, just before his student visa was expiring. He would stay there for decades.

In 1st grade, I was behind in reading. I loved my phonics group with all the other Asian kids, working on sounds and letters while the other students read easy texts. When I was graduated into the grade level reading group, I was upset at not being with my friends. But I grew quickly.

Even though I didn’t enjoy reading, I loved being read to. I had adults at home who read to me all the time. And I spent all that time listening, thinking, learning.

When he got married and his wife moved to Seattle with him, they knew they knew they eventually wanted to have a family. He wanted to raise a child who was loved, who was believed in, who was surrounded by adults who would help him reach his full potential.

The bright light shined in my eyes. First breath. Faces. He looked at this child. Who was this beautiful boy? Who would he become? There was so much going on. So much change. Would the boy become like him? Would he struggle the same struggle? Would he repeat as many grades? It’s scary, to have so little control over your body, to be exposed to so much beyond comprehension. A blur, a smell, a sound. Small, pudgy hands waving. You don’t need to cry. You don’t need to worry. You’ll learn so much here. I was passed to warm, waiting arms. Your path might be hard. But I’ll make sure it will be just a little bit easier than mine was. Because I’ll always have at least one person who always believes.

#creative writing #short story #colonialism #hong kong #adhd #learning disability #catholic school #education #teacher #family #love #father #son

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dailyaudiobible · 3 years

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05/09/2021 DAB Transcript

1 Samuel 5:1-7:17, John 6:1-21, Psalm 106:13-31, Proverbs 14:32-33

Today is the 9th day of May, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it’s a joy here to greet a brand-new shiny sparkly new week and we get to mark every time we get here. It's out in front of us and we’re going to live it. There's only one way to go and that's forward. And so, we’ll go forward into this week. But we come to the beginning of every week and just look out over it. Realize that it’s waiting for us and our decisions are going to tell the story. And, so let's be wise, let's listen to the voice of wisdom as we go into this week and one of the ways that we use wisdom is we seek out the counsel of the scriptures each and every day. So, continue to do that obviously, or there’s no point in being here. This week we will read from the voice translation. We’re just getting moved in, just a couple of days into this book of 1 Samuel and we've learned his origin story, the story of his mom, Hannah and his dad, Elkanah. They were devout, they went to Shiloh to worship God every year but Hannah didn’t have a kid and she prayed for a son. She received Samuel whom she dedicated to God and he was raised up there in the tabernacle, which is where God called to him directly. So, Samuel has grown up hearing the voice of God. He��s a prophet, he's becoming a priest. He's a judge and the people that were around him like the high priest Eli and Eli's sons Hophni and Phinehas, now they've all died. Hophni and Phinehas in the battle with the Philistines and Eli, he fell over dead when he found out that the arc of the covenant had been captured by the Philistines, which is where we pick up the story. 1 Samuel 5, 6 and 7 today.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for this brand-new week and we enter into and it's sparkly and shiny and we like that and we ask Holy Spirit that You guide our steps and that we pay attention to what the scriptures are teaching us. And we would slow down listen to the voice of wisdom as we walk further and further into this week. As we tell the story of this week a week in our lives will it be a week of selfishness, will it be a week of service? Will we be open to Your leading and guidance? These are all choices that we can make beforehand, which is what we’re learning that if we slow down and take a beat, wisdom is there, the guidance of the Holy Spirit is there, if we will slow down and listen. So, help us to do that very thing as we navigate all the issues of life this week. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it's the website. It’s where you find out what's going on around here.

Here in the United States, today is Mother's Day. And I realize that mothers are celebrated in different cultures on different days around the world. Today here, it's Mother's Day and paying specific attention to it because this is China's first Mother's Day now that Reagan has been born and so our celebrating that today and just one wish all the mothers … it doesn’t mean that every day can’t be Mother's Day. None of us would be here without her mother's nothing would be happening on this earth without our mothers. So, we certainly should have a day any way to stop and reflect and I'm certainly doing that now with my daughter but I’m thinking of my own mother who I’ve lost and I'm so deeply, deeply grateful and am continually aware of the empty space in my life that even though I know that she is safe in the presence of the Lord. I miss her and it doesn't really go away, I miss her. And so, these days help us to celebrate the mothers that we have, to remember the mothers that are no longer with us and to rejoice as motherhood comes and new life comes to the earth, and I guess we got all that going on in our family. So, happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers all over the world. We love you, we love you so much, we … well I guess the best way to say it is truthfully, we wouldn't be here without you and so thank you and may the Lord bless and keep you on this day in the name of Jesus. We as a community all over the world tens of thousands of us strongly say yes and amen to a blessing over our mothers today in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi family, I'm calling because I'm just so thankful. I'm mostly thankful for Brian and Jill, their faithfulness, their dedication to come to us every day. And the other reason is because I know you. When I think of your names, I hear your prayer requests, I hear your voice and it's like I know you to where I could sit down with you and it was like I could share with you my heart and we could just start a conversation without any hesitation because I know you. I want you to know how much I love you, how much I appreciate each one of you and how special each one of you are. I'm so thankful that God has brought us together and I want you to know that even when I hear your name that God brings to mind, I can remember the prayer requests that you've called in like months ago and then I'll continue to pray for that situation. So, I just want you to know. And this is Sally in North Dakota one who loves to worship, worship the One who loves us and keeps us in perfect peace.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family this is Audi from everywhere across America calling. Of course, I'm on the road as I usually am and I'm calling in response to Stephanie from Bangalore. Stephanie, thank you so much for calling and thank you for giving us an update. I've been praying for India. I know so many of us have been and it's definitely scary what we see on the news. And so, you know we're keeping you in our prayers. And so, I just wanted to tell you that we're sending love, we're sending resources, sending money, and of course more than anything sending our prayers. God, we pray that you touch the nation of India right now, that you would send healing, that you would send miraculous healing, across the country God. We pray that you would empower the leaders there to make wise decisions about how to support the people. And God, we pray that people would come to know you through this process. So, Stephanie, I'm praying for your family. I'm praying for you and praying for your church and praying for all of India. I also wanted to offer my own congratulations to China and Ben and everybody for the arrival of baby Reagan. We're so excited and happy that she's here safely and that China is safe as well. And I also, wanted to just shout out to a couple people. Eva from Munich I haven't heard from you for a while. Pastor Jenny. There's just so many people here that I've grown to love and I still remember you. So, I hope you're all doing well. And finally, I'll just say, you know, you know in this season I just think so many of us are celebrating with people as they exit kind of this time of COVID and they start having babies and they start getting married and they're just so many of us are still in the wave. So, I'm praying for all of us who are waiting for our joy. Love you family.

Hey guys my name is Charisse. I've called before, I'm from South Carolina. I've called in before to pray for other people but I need to ask for a prayer request right now. My uncle Joey, his name is Joey, is an alcoholic and has been one for a long time. He grew up in the church but was very rebellious. He grew up with six other siblings. So, he's had a hard life and he has finally made something of himself. He's a great chef but alcohol has kind of always been his fall back and it has really ruined his life multiple times and we really think he's hit rock bottom at this point because he keeps going back to it. And so, I just want to ask for prayers for him that he would turn away from that and he would turn to God. I don't believe he is saved. He refuses to even listen to us when we try to talk to him about God. So, yeah, please just pray for him. Pray that God would save him. Pray that he would be humbled. Thanks. Bye.

Daily Audio Bible family this is Benjamin the Sower calling. It's May 5th today. I want to thank you Brian for your talk today just about sowing and reaping and the harvest. The woman in Samaria. It is just a beautiful reminder for me about why I actually picked my name in the first place for the Daily Audio Bible. Yeah, just that I want to be a person that is planting seeds in people’s lives especially as I think about my neighbors and those around me that don't know Jesus, don't know about his love. So would you continue to pray for me and that I'm lifting you guys up to. It's just so cool that we can harvest what others have planted and vice versa. Angie, first time caller, thank you for calling in and being vulnerable. I just want you to know I'm praying for you as you seek to have a deeper relationship with Jesus. And just as you called I just I was thinking about how Jesus is actually the one that pursues us. God's love chases us down. He’s the one that grows that in us just as we experience him more, as He and His spirit produces fruit in us. You know I think of in Christ alone there's the song where it says “when fears are stilled and when striving cease, my comforter, my all in all, here in the love of Christ I stand”. I just encourage you to listen to that song and you know let it wash over you that it's not just about us trying to make things happen and us trying to get a better relationship with God that He is coming after us. Real quick, Stephanie from Bangalore thank you for opening up our eyes to the impacts of COVID around the world and India. We are with you. We are praying. Yeah, we love you. We know that God is working. Alright, love you guys talk to you soon.

Congratulations to the Brown’s and the Hardin’s for precious little Reagan who's come into this world. And congratulations to Brian and Jill for the next grandbaby coming a little bit later I think you said September another girl. This is Candace from Oregon. I'm calling on the day when Brian said as he's probably said a lot of times, that we are utterly dependent on God, that we already have everything, He's given us everything and because we're utterly dependent we don't have to worry about anything. No matter how messy your personal situation or even the thoughts in your head might be you can give them to God. You can take them all captive to Him who loves you, you know, so much from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. He knows all about it. He knows all about it and he has decided to bless us. Let's pray together. Lord, I just want to thank you for all of my brothers and sisters here who are listening and for all the prayers that you are answering Lord. We’re in a really troubled world and this is no surprise to you and it's really nothing new as we heard from the book of Judges. And you came Lord to our huge mess that we've made and you brought grace and mercy. Thank you so much.

Hello my name is Karla I'm calling from California. I would just love to leave this message for all of our community. I just want to say thank you so much for acknowledging Cinco de Mayo especially for our Latino and Hispanic community, Mexicans specialty Americans for acknowledging that. I just want to say thank you so much for your message today regarding the seed, the harvest. It means so much more the way that Brian explained it also. So, thank you for that. I want to send this special prayer to India and all of our Indian community. I hope that COVID does get better. You know, it's been a war zone here in California as well and I feel as if like we're just getting through this right now. Please know that God is with us and God will get you through this. I just want to say a special prayer and blessing to Brian and thank you so much for this resource and thank you for the word of God and praise Jesus and praise His Holy Spirit who guides us through every day life. I pray for everyone who is going through COVID right now for healing and especially for families that are going through this right now. Remember that God is a healer and that he is the ultimate physician in Jesus name. Thank you. Amen.

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allenmendezsr · 3 years

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themurphyzone · 6 years

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All Time Travelers Go to Heaven Ch 15

So the stuff with the Murphys is pretty much a combination of the scenes with the mother dog and her puppies and the couple that adopts Anne Marie.

Ch 15- Evening

Balthazar placed the bowls of shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes in the middle of the table, while Brigette cleaned up the stray pieces of cheese. Vinnie had gone upstairs to hang out with the kids, and judging from the laughter, they were having a good time.

He chose not to disturb them until dinner was ready. Besides, Vinnie had a far better disposition for kids than he did. Collecting Milo’s sweatervest from the dryer, he neatly hung it off the back of a chair.

“Cavendish, how did you and Dakota meet Milo?” Brigette asked. “If you don’t mind me asking. Did you adopt him?”

They adopted him all right, but not in the traditional way through dealings with the local CPS and the legal system. He couldn’t exactly communicate that to her though.

“Yes,” Balthazar replied. “A child shouldn’t have to be raised in such a brutal environment.”

And he was hiding behind vague statements again. This habit was almost as bad as his watch-grabbing.

“I see,” Brigette said as she washed a heavy pot. “And I’m sorry if I’m prying too much, but do you know if he was...abused?”

The last word hung in the air heavily.

Balthazar grabbed the sweatervest and refolded it just to give his hands something to do. These questions were starting to get a bit invasive for his liking.

“I...can’t say to which extent,” Balthazar said softly. “But it’s hard to tell at first glance.”

Brigette said nothing.

An awkward silence settled in the kitchen for a few minutes, Brigette rubbing the same spot of the sink with a kitchen sponge while Balthazar tried to refold the sweatervest so it didn’t wrinkle in the corner.

It was broken by the sound of a scream and a dull thud from the backyard. Brigette turned the water off, rubbing her hands on a dish towel. “You’ll have to forgive him,” she said with a fond smile. “My husband is always crashing into the backyard on his bike.”

Balthazar rushed outside to see a man sprawled in the grass, his bike overturned next to him. “Sir! Are you okay?” he asked.

He groaned in pain. “Mrs. Astric, my wildebeest ate my microscope,” he said dazedly.

“I can take it from here,” Brigette smiled. “Why don’t you get everyone else to the dinner table? Don’t worry about Martin, at least he was wearing two helmets this time.”

Balthazar said nothing as he watched her pull the two bike helmets off Martin’s head, hugging him gently. He had a cowlick like Milo. His short, brown hair was like Milo’s.

Even the nose and eyes were similar.

Balthazar forced himself to go upstairs before he could think too hard on the resemblance.

“-and that’s why you should never go undercover at a bar while you have food poisoning from the previous night’s Chinese buffet,” Vinnie finished.

Balthazar leaned against the wall, unimpressed. “Dakota, that story is highly inappropriate for children,” he said.

Vinnie responded with a mischievous smirk. “That’s not inappropriate. But I suppose I could tell them about the time you were dreaming about that Hildegarde woman and you suddenly woke up with your hand near my-”

He crossed the room quickly, hauling Vinnie to his feet and pointing him in the direction of the stairs. “No, we are not speaking of that! Downstairs, now!”

Vinnie shrugged nonchalantly, heading downstairs.

“Ahem, my apologies to both of you,” Balthazar said. “Milo, your sweatervest is ready. It’s hanging on a chair by the dining room table.”

“Great! Tacos, here we come!” Milo exclaimed, following Vinnie. He tripped over the second to last step and landed on his stomach, though he wasted no time in getting back on his feet.

“Don’t forget to wash your hands, both of you!” Balthazar shouted, prepared to catch and drag them to the nearest sink. Then he caught Sara giving him a strange look.

“So,” she began. “Are you two married?”

“W-what?” Balthazar sputtered. “No! Why would I marry Dakota?”

Sara shrugged. “Well, you two act like an old married couple. No offense.”

“A bit late for that,” Balthazar muttered.

“What? Some couples are all mushy and others banter. No biggie if that’s your schtick,” Sara giggled.

Balthazar shook his head in annoyance. Teenagers.

Martin recovered somewhat quickly, though there was an ice pack and paper towel tied to the side of his head. Sara ran up and hugged him. “Hey, dad!” she exclaimed. “Rough day at work?”

He chuckled at her enthusiasm. “Oh, this? I had another bike crash. Work wasn’t so bad. Bobby’s car got caught underneath a flock of migrating Canadian geese though. Poor man. So are these lovely folks all of your guests, Brigette?”

Brigette nodded. “This is Cavendish, Dakota, and Milo.”

Balthazar and Vinnie politely shook hands with him.

On the other hand, Milo’s head was caught in his sweatervest as he tried to put it on. Balthazar quickly helped him before he could accidentally stumble into any heavy or sharp objects lying around.

“Thanks!” Milo gasped.

“Don’t worry. I do the same thing,” Martin said. “Milo, right?”

As Martin regaled them with his own embarrassing stories, Balthazar was struck by how remarkably similar they looked. He wondered if some parenting instinct had already led them into recognizing their own son.

“So, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s eat!” Sara exclaimed, grabbing the tortillas from the middle of the table.

“Sara, what are we forgetting?” Brigette scolded gently.

Milo took his seat, glancing at Sara in confusion. “My hands are clean,” he said.

“No, not that. Prayer,” Sara muttered.

“I’ll lead,” Martin said.

Martin and Brigette closed their eyes and bowed their heads. Sara clasped her hands together, but she was more focused on the food than the prayer. Vinnie quietly poured himself a glass of soda, sipping it while he waited. Milo and Balthazar looked at each other awkwardly.

“Dear Lord, thank you for this wonderful meal. We’re truly blessed for having this time together. I ask that you watch over every person at this table. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen,” Martin said reverently.

Balthazar was just thankful he wasn’t long-winded about it. Time traveling typically left no time to attend to spiritual matters, not that people at the Bureau actually practiced religion. Most of the time, it was faked if they needed to go undercover during a particularly religious time period.

Sara was the first to the tortillas. She plucked two from the plate before passing them to Vinnie, then starting spooning everything else into them.

“Good choice in clothing, Milo,” Martin said. “Don’t really see that many kids wearing sweatervests.”

“Really?” Milo asked with a mouthful of lettuce.

Sara nodded as she took a large bite of her taco, not caring as the contents spilled out on her plate. “Considered nerd culture, dorky, and uncool years ago. But we reclaimed their honor now! Even if it’s still uncommon with the younger generations. Oh well. We should be trendsetters!”

“That’s an awful lot of work. I tried making tracksuits trendy a while back, but it only caught on with joggers,” Vinnie said. “Just try not to attract any weirdos with your fashion trend. It’s a fair warning.”

Balthazar tuned out of the conversation, uninterested in fashion trends among 21st century adolescents. He was more concerned about not making a mess with his tacos. Granted, eating neatly without splattering meat and lettuce everywhere was difficult but not impossible.

Besides, Mexican food was practically an invite for uncouth table manners.

“So Milo, where’d you go to school?” Martin asked.

Balthazar froze, opening his mouth to quickly fumble for a lie. Vinnie placed a hand on his leg.

A silent no.

They would have to back up whatever Milo said.

“Oh,” Milo said nervously. “I didn’t really stay at one school for long. Guess I just had to teach myself.”

Unfortunately, the file on Milo was long gone, buried somewhere in their old apartment. As a result, he was unable to recall if the papers inside included testing for literacy and arithmetic.

However, he never saw Milo have issues reading, so he’d probably learned at some point. But he had a sneaking suspicion Milo was self-taught with minimal support to hone his skills.

“We can recommend a few schools around here if you’d like. Danville may be strange to newcomers at first, but the teachers here are some of the nicest around,” Martin said.

“Ah, that won’t be necessary,” Balthazar said. It would be difficult to find the appropriate documentation that was necessary to enroll in a school. He would rather not give the Bureau a paper trail to track Milo down to a school facility anyway, or be in legal trouble for falsifying records.

He was already a criminal, and there was no need to lengthen the list of illegal stunts he’d pulled so far.

When Brigette gave him an odd look, Balthazar decided he needed to elaborate more to convince them. “Milo is still adjusting, and until he says ready to attend a public school, we won’t force him to enroll.”

There was a light slap on his leg, and Balthazar looked over to see Vinnie with a small smile directed at him. Martin and Brigette dropped the subject, and instead began talking about their coworkers.

It was a better fabrication than he’d thought.

Sara and Milo were the first to finish their meals, and they rushed back to the TV to watch the second Krillhunter movie.

“Do you want help with the cleanup?” Vinnie asked, already moving the leftovers to the counter.

Brigette nodded. “That would be lovely. Thank you so much!”

And that left Balthazar and Martin.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Martin said, patting the open couch cushion next to him so they could chat comfortably. Balthazar chose the loveseat that was slightly further away as a precaution. Martin didn’t seem to mind though. “Brigette has a soft spot for children. Can’t ever turn one down. If she hadn’t chosen to be an architect, well, teaching would be right up her alley.”

“You have a lovely family,” Balthazar said. And he meant it. Sara had her charms too, even if she was a bit eccentric.

Martin glanced at the floor. “There could’ve been another one. We would’ve had a little boy if he survived. Sara was so excited to have a little brother.”

He let out a humorless laugh, and Balthazar cast a glance upstairs. Their son was finally home where he belonged and they didn’t know it.

“She begged us to let her name him,” Martin continued. “Wanted to call him Krillhunter. I told her we were willing to take ‘Hunter’ into consideration. I wanted to name him Martin Jr. though. Brigette looked at me like I was crazy for that one.”

Balthazar couldn’t imagine Milo being named anything other than Milo. Both ‘Hunter’ and ‘Martin Jr.’ didn’t suit him at all.

“Labor was a long process. Seemed like an eternity because I had to wait outside the room. The staff didn’t want me in there with her. Afraid I would mess up the equipment because they had to do a C-section. And there was no time to call a babysitter for Sara. She was only four, and she kept asking me, ‘Daddy, can I see my brother now?’ She fell asleep on me, so I could only hold her and hope Brigette and the baby would be okay.”

Of course Milo was wanted. He’d been loved before he could set foot outside the womb. He would be so happy to hear this.

“Brigette was too exhausted to hold the baby. The doctor let me catch a glimpse of him, but he was adamant that the baby needed to be tested. Apgar scoring, blood tests, the usual. I only held him for five minutes before he was whisked away. It was lonely. Wife out of it, young child needing rest, personnel rushing around. I thought everything would be all right. Murphy’s Law spared this child during the nine months of development, that he was a little fighter and could take on the world one step at a time.”

Balthazar knew what happened next. The doctor passed Milo onto someone else at the Bureau, then told the Murphy family their son had died from complications after birth. The horrible act wouldn’t be caught for another thirteen years.

“The doctor came back, and told me our son hadn’t survived. He didn’t give us the option of saying goodbye,” Martin’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “I had to explain to Brigette that he was gone. She wanted to see the body, and I told her no. But Sara was convinced aliens had stolen her brother. There was a kind woman on staff that day who explained death better to a four year old than I ever could. I don’t know how much Sara remembers.”

Balthazar wasn’t sure how he could explain that Sara had simply identified the wrong culprits that day.

Martin took a shaky breath. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have dumped all that on you. You probably wanted a break from life, huh?”

“It’s difficult, but we manage,” Balthazar replied.

Milo was supposed to be asleep in Sara’s bedroom. She was more than willing to have a sleepover, and it took Balthazar and Brigette to convince them to go to bed once ten pm rolled around. However, there was still a fair bit of giggling and muffled noises from the bedroom above.

Vinnie was already laying down on the bed, watching as Balthazar took off his socks. “I heard your conversation earlier,” Vinnie said. “Guy never found it suspicious that the doctor never let him see the body?”

“They were sleep-deprived, stressed, and emotionally compromised,” Balthazar said, setting his watch and glasses on the nightstand beside him. “It’s understandable.”

He put on some borrowed pajamas in the bathroom, then laid down next to Vinnie. “I’ve been thinking of talking to Milo,” Balthazar said.

Vinnie turned to face him. “We’re doing this, huh?” he yawned. “He’s a strong kid. He’ll be alright.”

As his eyes fluttered closed, Balthazar wished he could be so sure.

#all time travelers go to heaven #milo murphy's law #balthazar cavendish #vinnie dakota #fanfiction

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liliannorman · 4 years

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Five tips for finding a great mentor

Find someone who ‘hears’ you

Consider people who really love their work

Don’t rule out non-experts

Younger students often find teachers make a great first mentor — especially when those teachers love their field. That can make learning fun — and a student successful.kali9/E+/Getty Images

Today, Thompson is a developmental neuroscientist. He works at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

Look for someone to help you be a better you

Don’t be afraid to reach out or ask for help

Sometimes, all it takes is one email.

Five tips for finding a great mentor published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

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paulorwell-blog · 6 years

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‘Women, you have to treat ‘em like shit’: An exclusive excerpt from SAD! Donald ‘Biff’ Trump Is President

Sad! Donald ‘Biff’ Trump Is President is out now. Below is an exclusive excerpt. To order a copy of the book, click here.

WOMEN: YOU HAVE TO TREAT ‘EM LIKE SHIT. ~ Donald Trump, New York magazine (November 9, 1992)

DONALD TRUMP, THE GRABBER-IN-CHIEF of this great nation, has shamed, slandered, and abused women, yet many voters just look away. Why? Does anyone defend Biff Tannen when he mocks Lorraine, sexually assaults her, or shoves her to the floor? No. Why should “Biff” Trump get a pass?

How are people who ignore the bad behavior of “Biff” Trump able to do the right thing in other situations? When presented evidence of a priest’s misconduct, they don’t say “Yes, he abused children but he gives a great homily, so let’s keep him on.” Apparently anything “Biff” Trump does is “just his personal business” or “water under the bridge.” And besides, “he’s good for the economy.”

Are our pocketbooks really more important than our morality? What does that say about us as a nation? Men, what does it say about us as men if we are able to silently overlook or excuse abusive behavior toward women?

It’s impossible to overlook Biff Tannen’s behavior. Throughout the Back to the Future trilogy, Biff doesn’t ask, he simply takes what he wants, from both men and women. His perverse masculinity confuses force with strength; he views women not as individuals, but as things to be taken, things that exist to serve his needs. It helps that both Biffs are over 6 feet tall. If either was a foot shorter, there’s no way they would get away with acting this way. At least not in public.

In BTTF1, young Biff Tannen personifies the worst fears of American parents who send their daughters off to school each morning. Oversized and oversexed, Biff is feared by classmates and cheered on by his sidekicks, all three of whom are yes-men, fixers, and hooligans.

Biff considers himself a “dreamboat,” but to a girl in his crosshairs, he’s a nightmare. In the scene set in the 1955 school cafeteria, Lorraine sits at a table with a friend and Biff pulls his chair directly behind hers, preventing her escape. Though he’s seated, he’s terrifying in action; he’s easily twice her size. He practically engulfs her; his arms snake around her as he pulls at her clothes. Back in the real world, female airline passengers have complained that “Biff” Trump’s hands were all over them, too.

But 17-year-old Lorraine sticks up for herself and tells Biff to leave her alone, even as his sidekicks encourage him from the next table. The word “no” isn’t in Biff’s vocabulary, though, and he declares with a sneer, “You want it, you know you want it, and you know you want me to give it to you.”

Later in the movie at the dance, things get even worse when Lorraine disagrees and slaps Biff. He grabs her arm and pins her in place with a look that’s as fierce as his grip—and releases her only when Marty McFly rushes over and yanks him off.

It’s an ugly scene, made even uglier by the fact that it takes place in full view of others. If you asked the older, successful version of Biff in BTTF2 to look back and recall his interaction with Lorraine the night he sexually assaulted her, perhaps you can imagine the casino owner describing it like this:

You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.

These, of course, are Donald “Biff” Trump’s words on the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape.

Thirty years later as either middle-manager Biff or car-detailer Biff, does he remember this misbehavior from his school days? If thirty years later the FBI went back and interviewed the other kids in that school cafeteria or at that dance, would they remember those events the way Lorraine does? For George, his memory of the parking lot incident would be as much about punching Biff as it was about Biff’s actions in the car.

But in the movie, the cameras were there and so were we. We saw it. We know what happened, just as Lorraine knows and will never forget, and we can rewind the movie and watch it again. If we don’t, our memory of it will fade because we were only spectators. Lorraine was the object of the abuse and her memory won’t fade—even if others doubt her.

Fast forward from 1955 to the alternate 1985 timeline in BTTF2, when Biff is a wealthy and powerful casino owner. According to Team Biff, he’s now a giant among men:

His power and influence made him the model of world leaders and heads of state. Marvel at Biff’s ongoing relationships with the rich and famous. We’ve all heard the legend. But who is the man?

That’s what we must ask ourselves today. Too bad it wasn’t Biff Tannen who had the following conversation on a radio show, because it would be far easier to excuse these words coming from the mouth of a fictional villain than from the future president of the United States.

Howard Stern: Will Dakota Fanning grow up hot?

Donald Trump: No. No.

Stern: She will not?

Trump: She will always be cute.

Stern: But she’ll never be hot.

Trump: She’ll never be hot.

Dakota Fanning was 11 years old at the time.

Trump sexualizing young girls is not a one-time incident—in a 1992 TV special, he speaks with a 14-year-old girl as she’s riding up an escalator, and he says, “I am going to be dating her in ten years. Can you believe it?”

“Biff” Trump’s sexual thoughts roll around like a loose cannon on deck. A very loose cannon. When his own daughter Tiffany was an infant—just a year old—he commented and gestured on camera about what her breasts might one day look like.

Many adults feel the need to give back to their communities through their PTA, Little League, or Girl Scouts. Not “Biff” Trump; the owner of the Miss Universe beauty pageant was too busy prowling around the dressing rooms of teenage contestants.

“You know, they’re standing there with no clothes,” said Trump, according to Rolling Stone. “And you see these incredible-looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that.” These young women later recalled feeling like “cattle” being graded by the rancher who owned them.

Now let’s compare the two men’s current marriages. Both Biff and “Biff” show a repeated and willful lack of concern about their wives, as if they were chattel, or even just cattle.

Lorraine Tannen is Biff’s abused, unloved third wife. Their relationship is usurious. If we look back at the video clip of the day they got married, we hear Biff saying “Number three’s a charm” as he pushes his tongue into Lorraine’s mouth, ignoring her discomfort and disgust. This, on their wedding day.

“Biff” Trump’s third wife, Melania, has recently displayed frostiness toward him in public, including incidents when she wouldn’t hold his hand. Numerous times she’s decided not to appear in public with her husband, or even travel in the same vehicle with him. It must be difficult for her today to hear explicit details of his times with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal—from a time when Barron was just an infant.

In BTTF3, Biff Tannen lounges in a jacuzzi with two women while his wife is in the building; Lorraine could have walked in on them just as easily as her son Marty does. “Biff” Trump gave Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal a tour of his New York apartment shortly after Melania had given birth to their son, Barron. Assured that Melania wasn’t in the building, Ms. McDougal asked about the staff. “Biff” told her “they won’t say anything”—as if they knew the drill, they knew the score.

Multiple wives and women, accusations of multiple offenses and denials from Trump, but sexual perpetrators almost always deny their guilt.

“You could have just walked away.”

These are Seamus McFly’s words of wisdom to his great-grandson Marty in BTTF3 after Biff goads Marty. This was meant to teach Marty that masculinity doesn’t require responding to violence with violence, to reassure him that no one would think less of him if he’d simply walked away.

But what about people who sometimes can’t walk away? Like your daughter, your mother or sister.

“Biff” Trump is in a position of dominance when he meets his prey; he’s the boss, a rich man, TV star, beauty pageant owner, or even president. Walking away simply isn’t a choice for many women. And what about the countless others who did walk away, those who did have a choice? How many are out there and have yet to speak up?

Ask “Biff” about his attitude toward women and he’ll tell you he was one of the first to promote women to high positions in a male-dominated field. This is somewhat true—but remember, when he promoted them, he was in charge, he was in control.

But when he’s confronted with a woman who’s his equal, not an underling, Trump displays ape-like dominance and an imagined superiority. When meeting with Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany and one of the most powerful women in

the world, “Biff” Trump refused to shake her hand. On another occasion, he flung candy on a table in front of her, saying “don’t say I never give you anything.” Trump referred to the Prime Minister of the U.K. by her first name, Theresa, instead of her title; he didn’t bow to Queen Elizabeth and later walked in front of her because he couldn’t be bothered to learn protocol.

And his stalky, leering performance during the second presidential debate33 with Hillary Clinton raised the hackles of many women watching.

Whether interacting with women in power or with more vulnerable women, “Biff” Trump reveals his utter lack of respect. He objectifies women; they’re merely things for him to use. More than a dozen accusations of sexual assault have been lodged against him.

Biff Tannen and “Biff” Trump are the same man. No introspection, no regret about their infidelities, no compassion, no sympathy for their partners. Serve the self, do it right now, and move on.

There is no chance the original Biff will ever address these issues, but in the real world, “Biff” Trump should. Brett Kavanaugh’s anger before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2018 and Trump’s demeaning responses to the accusations leveled at him over the years show how hard it is to effect societal change on this topic. Nearly 20 percent of American women have experienced rape or attempted rape during their lifetimes, often committed by someone they know, but false accusations are very rare. A man has no clue how the possibility of sexual assault can shape a woman’s behavior at a social gathering or when considering the safety of transportation options or public restrooms—or even walking down the street.

For the good of all American people, Trump (and Kavanaugh) must exhume and prioritize these issues, not deny and bury them.

Women exist only to serve men’s primal needs, after all. Biff and “Biff” both are devoid of morals and unbound by cultural norms. When it comes to interacting with women, they either don’t know or don’t give a damn what kind of behavior is acceptable—or even legal.

To order a copy of Sad! Donald ‘Biff’ Trump Is President, click here.

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fitnesshealthyoga-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/how-to-volunteer-teaching-yoga-yoga-for-senior-citizens/

How to Volunteer Teaching Yoga | Yoga for Senior Citizens

Since I started working with these senior citizens, I’ve learned some invaluable lessons about teaching yoga—and about life itself.

Three years ago, I was walking in Santa Monica and noticed a senior center and for some reason, I felt compelled to walk inside. Maybe it was because I’d just finished my 200-hour yoga teacher training with Annie Carpenter, who urged all of us new teachers to volunteer before trying to find a paying job. Maybe it was because shortly after that teacher training, I spent some time with my grandmother just before she passed away.

I wasn’t looking to volunteer, but my intuition urged me to walk into that senior center and ask the woman sitting behind the front desk if there might be an interest in having me teach the center’s residents yoga. The woman’s eyes lit up. She said they’d love to have me volunteer, and for the last three years, I’ve taught yoga and meditation to a group of seniors at Sunrise Senior Living Center every Monday morning. Since I started working with these senior citizens, I’ve learned some invaluable lessons about teaching yoga—and about life itself.

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See also 5 Signs You Have a Yoga Teacher Who Empowers You

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Lesson No. 1: The smallest movements can sometimes feel like the most advanced.

I work mostly with seniors who have memory impairments, and most are bound to wheelchairs—so we don’t do traditional yoga. I lead my students through seated yoga, which means we sit and breathe and then we do some minimal movements. Sometimes my students fall asleep. Other times I can tell their minds wander off. But I always try my best to keep them present in the moment, because even just a few moments of presence can have a profound impact.

Lesson No. 2: Life is fleeting.

Teaching my amazing senior students has taught me that age isn’t going to get away from any of us. We are all going to be older and slower one day, and when we get there, we may not like the fact that we’re older and slower. Spending time with my students is an important reminder to enjoy my life now, and it’s helped me recommit to my yoga and meditation practices over and over again, since those are the practices that help me get present.

The reality is that we’re all aging. People don’t like to talk about it, but it’s the truth. At the ripe age of 40, I feel some creaks and can’t do things I did at 30. Teaching my senior students has taught me to be more gentle with myself as I get older, so I’m able to practice as long as possible. Tiffany Russo, my SmartFLOW teacher here in Los Angeles, says you want to practice today so you can practice into your 90s. When I teach these seniors, it’s a reminder that I really can practice for the long haul. My students love being in their bodies and gently moving with the breath, and they’re a beautiful mirror of how I will hopefully be practicing one day.

See also 19 Yoga Teaching Tips Senior Teachers Want to Give Newbies

Lesson No. 3: Everyone has a story.

The seniors in my classes have incredible pasts. One was a well-known cardiologist at UCLA; another was a famous architect in North Dakota. I’ve taught former social workers and dental hygienists, teachers and musicians. All too often, we disregard our elders and focus instead on our peers. Yet what I’ve learned is that my students once had thriving careers and interesting lives and experiences that teach me so much. It’s an honor to help bring them to a place that helps them feel truly seen, which I’ve come to realize is all that any of us really crave.

See also How to Create a Solid Yoga Practice At Any Age

Lesson No. 4: Sticking to the basics can feel like the most advanced practice.

I try to have my students focus on following their breath while doing some sort of movement. When they inhale and raise their left hand, I show them how to move their arm in a way so they feel internal and external rotation and ask how it feels in their shoulders. We’ll do that five to 10 times with the breath on one side, then move to the other. When I do this with them, it helps me feel embodied in a way that I may not access when I’m practicing on my own.

See also Why is Yoga Needed in All Communities?

What I’m learning is that the basic movements are actually the key to helping students get truly present. I’m reminded of one moment early on, when I started practicing meditation with the group. I started out instructing them to keep their eyes open while I showed them colored paper, and asked them to imagine the colors on the in and out breaths. I brought in mala beads from my Five Star Hippie collection and taught them use the beads to repeat simple mantras as they meditated. Then, around three weeks in, I asked them to place one hand on their heart and one hand on their belly, and then to close their eyes—something that feels especially scary for many of my seniors, who struggle with memory problems. I asked them to just relax, keep their eyes closed, and to follow their breath.

Watching them in this moment—two dozen seniors in the room, all in wheel chairs, and everyone in complete silence—took my breath away. They were the most present they could be, which in turn created this overwhelming feeling of presence and joy in the room. I still get the chills thinking about it. To see something so basic have such a profound effect was the epitome of yoga to me.

See also How to Be a Yoga Leader in Your Community

Lesson No. 5: Connections through yoga can be made any time, and at any age.

I started with two students and now I teach two dozen students every Monday morning. Yoga brings community together—no matter what age, race, or gender. It’s been a beautiful thing to see my students get a little bit stronger every week, and a little more able to drop in and get present after every meditation session. And what’s most amazing is how these students have become a cherished part of my life.

About the author

Janine Forte was born and raised in New York, where she comes from a lineage of jewelers. She started out designing fine jewelry in 2007 and then segued into the world of fashion jewelry with a focus on eco-friendly materials. She currently lives in Los Angeles where she designs and creates in a studio by the beach. Her company, Five Star Hippie®, is an eco-friendly, spirit-inspired jewelry collection and each piece bestows a positive message that is meant to illuminate your body, mind, and soul. You can follow Five Star Hippie on Instagram and Facebook.

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#teach #Teaching Yoga #yoga asanas #yoga basics #Yoga Teacher Training #Yoga Exercises

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lentils-writes · 7 years

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Day 13: Deadwood AU

Pick your favorite TV show set in the past (or pseudo-past). Your ship is now the main characters.

(I don’t watch historical anything, sorry, also this is a nicer version of Deadwood, also watch Deadwood it’s amazing, also I’m sorry I killed Trip but like. it was him or Lincoln for Kara’s dead husband and I wouldn’t let Lincoln anywhere near Kara)

The coach comes to a stop in the center of town, close enough to be seen from the saloon front porch.

“Well, well, well, Sheriff,” Izzy remarks, chewing on a cigar. “If it ain’t your lady, arriving right on schedule.”

Melinda glares at her, but then stands up and makes her way over to the coach. She’d never admit to being anxious, but she is a little...apprehensive. A year ago, before she’d come to Deadwood, her old friend and business partner Antoine had died suddenly, leaving behind a wife and daughter. He’d asked her in his will to care for Kara and Ella should anything happen to him. So Melinda’s looked after her ever since, and been sending money to Antoine’s home in Texas once she left for Deadwood, but she always figured Kara would come out to Deadwood eventually. And now she’s here.

Melinda opens the coach door and helps first Ella and then Kara out. Ella’s about four or five, with brown skin a few shades darker than Kara’s and a miniature version of Trip’s easy smile. “Hi!” she says, grinning at Melinda. “Mama says we’re gonna live with you.”

“That’s right,” says Melinda, trying for a smile. “How was your trip?”

“Fine,” says Kara. She gives Melinda a small, nervous smile back. She never said much when Melinda was at Trip’s house, so that’s not unusual.

Melinda grabs the heaviest of her bags and says, “Follow me. The house is this way, it’s not far.”

It’s a nice house, Melinda made sure of that. She designed it and did much of the building herself (Mack and Phil helped with some of the taller parts). Kara perks up when she sees it. “Wow,” she says quietly. “It’s a fine house.”

“I hoped you’d like it,” says Melinda.

Once they’re inside and have Ella settled in what’s to be her room, Melinda shows Kara to another bedroom. “This one’s yours, if you want it,” Melinda says. “Don’t feel like you have to share mine.”

Kara looks a bit startled. “Oh.”

“I don’t want you to feel obligated to me,” Melinda adds. “Antoine and I were like siblings, which is why I figure he asked me to take care of you. But you don’t have to think of me as your new husband...or wife, I suppose.” She snorts. “Either way. I won’t push you for anything.”

“Thank you,” Kara says. “I...appreciate that.”

Melinda nods. “There’s some food in the pantry if you or the little one are hungry. I have business to attend to this afternoon, I’ll start a stew cooking for supper and should be home by then. If you should need anything before I’m back, my friend Daisy’s at the bank. She’ll help you out.”

Kara nods. “I might take Ella and look around a little later. She should be napping now.”

“Alright,” Melinda says. “Anyone gives you any trouble, they’ll have me to answer to.”

---

They fall into a strange rhythm together. Melinda wakes up about the same time Kara does, and they often eat breakfast together in companionable silence. Melinda often has some matter or another in town that needs her attention, but even if she doesn’t, she doesn’t bother Kara much when she’s at home. The other woman’s likely still grieving her husband and raising her young daughter, she doesn’t need Melinda in her space too.

Melinda doesn’t ask her to find a job, but she ends up using part of the money Antoine left her to become a bank partner with Daisy. “I need a reason to leave the house,” she explains. “See other people.” Melinda nods; of course she understands that.

Ella’s a sweet girl. She asks questions, but Melinda mostly doesn’t mind them. Somehow - to both Kara and Melinda’s consternation - she becomes enamored of Izzy, who seems to find her amusing and will sometimes watch her when Kara needs to meet with Daisy at the bank. “I won’t teach her to shoot,” Izzy promises with a wink. “Not until she’s bigger.”

She does start teaching the girl how to ride a horse though. “She needs to learn, if she’s gonna live out here,” she says when Kara tries to protest. “And old Ted here wouldn’t get spooked if you put a bomb under his ass.”

The horse in question is an ancient swayback gelding, who seems to spend his entire day half-asleep. Kara eyes him dubiously but says, “Alright.”

She’s not unkind to Kara at all - she smiles at her when she comes home, makes sure she has what she needs. She can’t deny she’s a little uncertain of how to act around her, though. If she were in Kara’s situation, she’d want her benefactor to keep a respectful distance, so she does. She doesn’t want Kara to feel like she’s pushing her for anything.

Then one night after Ella’s in bed, Kara’s washing dishes, and she’s handling them a little more roughly than usual. Melinda’s cleaning her gun and looks up, raising an eyebrow. “You alright?” Kara’s back is to her, so she can’t tell if she’s just being a bit clumsy or is actually upset

Kara flinches as if Melinda shot her and drops the plate she’s holding into the sink. Luckily, it doesn’t break, but it’s loud enough to be startling. “I’m fine,” Kara says, sounding as if it’s painful to get the words out.

“You don’t sound fine.”

Kara shakes her head. “You barely speak to me. Why would you care how I’m feeling?”

“Oh,” Melinda says. “Kara, come here.”

Kara turns to look at her finally, eyes narrow and jaw clenched. “I know this isn’t what you wanted,” she says, somewhere between angry and accusatory. “Your old business partner’s wife and child to look after. I’m sure you want a family of your own and having us forced on you fucked that up for you. That’s why you left for Deadwood so quickly after Antoine died, isn’t it? You couldn’t stand being around us, around me. Why? Were you in love with him and we reminded you too much of him, of what you’d never have with him?”

“Jesus,” says Melinda. “Where’d you get a fool idea like that?”

“Antoine wanted you to care for us,” snaps Kara, “but you left when his body was barely cold in the ground! I hoped it was just ‘cause you were trying to make a better life out here in South Dakota and things would get better once we were all together again, but you barely acknowledge that I’m here! Sure, you make me supper and smile when you come home but you don’t really talk to me! I feel you watching me, like you’re watching a wild animal and you’re not sure what it’s gonna do next. I ain’t asking for you to replace Antoine, but you could at least be friendly for God’s sake!”

Melinda blinks. That outburst was the last thing she was expecting. “Come over here,” she says. “Let’s talk. Quieter, so we don’t wake Ella.”

Kara laughs sort of bitterly, but she comes over to sit down in one of the other chairs. Once she’s settled, Melinda says, “You’re right. I’ve been standoffish. It’s nothing to do with you specifically, I just...I never really expected to have anything like this. It’s an adjustment.”

Snorting, Kara replies, “What do you mean by that, anything like this?”

“I don’t know what Antoine told you about me,” Melinda continues. “That’s why I told you the first day that I didn’t expect you to share my bed. I certainly wasn’t in love with him, that’s ridiculous. He was one of the few that know that I prefer the company of women.”

Kara’s eyes widen. “He didn’t mention that,” she says, more quietly.

“Well, now you know.” Melinda shrugs. “I kinda assumed I wouldn’t have anything long-term, maybe a night or two with a girl if I kept it quiet. I sure wasn’t counting on kids. It was fine, I had Antoine and the store to worry about. Then he was dead, and suddenly I got his pretty wife and little girl to worry about, and I didn’t know what the hell to do about it. I thought Deadwood might be good - a place where you might find another husband, maybe, and where I could clear my head and figure it all out.”

Kara tosses her head and almost smiles. “You think I’m pretty?” she asks.

Melinda snorts. “That all you took from that?”

“No, I just…” Kara laughs. “I spent the last year thinking you hate me, when you don’t at all!”

Melinda shrugs and says, “I never have. Just didn’t want you to feel like I expected anything of you. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel I did.”

“I’m glad you don’t,” Kara says. “I’d...I’d like to talk with you more often, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m not much of a talker, but I can try.”

“Doesn’t have to be much. Just want to feel like you give a shit about me.” Kara smiles, and for the first time it seems like she means it.

“I do,” says Melinda. “I’ll see what I can do.”

---

After that, she tries harder to talk to Kara. They usually talk a little after dinner and then some after Ella’s in bed. Sometimes it’s about Antoine, sometimes not. Melinda hasn’t really spoken to anyone about him since the funeral, and she finds that sharing memories is just what she needed.

She tries desperately to ignore the warm feelings that start to flare up in her whenever she looks at Kara. It doesn’t work well.

Fall draws to a close, and with it comes colder weather. The first night it’s cold enough to snow, Melinda’s preparing for bed when there’s a quiet knock on her bedroom door. It’s Kara - of course, who else would it be - looking apprehensive. “Could I…?”

Melinda nods. “C’mon in.”

Her bed’s big enough for two, but Melinda’s not used to sharing it. She tries to keep to her own side, not push physical contact if Kara doesn’t want it, but she wakes up the next morning to Kara wrapped tightly around her. “Oh,” Kara says, seeming embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Antoine and I - I guess I got used to that.”

“It’s alright,” Melinda says, smiling.

The next night, Kara curls up tightly as far away from Melinda as possible, until Melinda scoots close to her and runs a hand over her back. “No need to make yourself small,” Melinda says. “It’s a cold night. We could both use the warmth.”

Kara rolls over to look at her, expression unreadable, but she nestles against Melinda and murmurs, “Thank you.”

Melinda starts having dreams about kissing her...about doing more than kissing, too. She’s able to shrug them off, until Izzy says one day, “Y’know, she’s falling for you.”

“What?”

“Kara. She looks at you like a lovesick pup. If you’re not gonna do something about it, you should let her down easy. And let her know that my shoulder’s available to cry on.” Izzy waggles her eyebrows.

Melinda rolls her eyes and shoves her friend. “Don’t you dare,” she scolds.

“Then you better,” says Izzy.

One evening when they’re getting into bed, Kara slips in next to Melinda and then, almost shyly, presses a kiss to her cheek. “Goodnight,” she says, settling in.

But Melinda coughs and says, “Kara, can I kiss you?”

The only light in the room is the candle on the bedside table, so Kara’s expression is hard to read, but she nods.

Melinda leans up to kiss her, gentle at first. “That alright?” she asks.

“Please,” Kara says. “I’ve been...please.”

Melinda keeps it gentle and slow, not sure how Kara’s feeling, but the other woman kisses her back so eagerly that soon Melinda stops worrying about going slow. They go to sleep tangled together, content.

When Melinda wakes up, she wonders for a second if it was a vivid dream. But Kara’s lying there, eyes soft, and she says “Morning” like she can’t believe it either, and Melinda hopes if Trip is watching, he’s not angry. (She’s sure he wouldn’t be.)

#karamel #Kara Lynn Palamas #melinda may #isabelle hartley #fandom: agents of shield

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girlfromthesilentplanet-blog · 7 years

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Morningstar: A FBAWTFT Fan-Fic Prologue

To My Native American Mutuals/Betareaders/Translators

Thank you for collaborating with me, and helping me to write this fic. Thank you for your time, your effort, and your patience with me. I love you.

@istamaza

@unwarie

@young-soul-rebel

@trails-of-tears

@baapi-makwa

@chiefladybirdart

@apachefangirl1

To My HP/FBAWTFT Universe Consultant

Thanks for weaning me off my addiction to the Oxford Comma, and for answering all the questions about the HP universe I didn’t know I had.

@asktina

pottermore.com

To My Fellow White People,

As some of you know, I’ve been working on a Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts fan fiction over the course of the past few weeks. This fic is the product of a collaboration between me, and several mutuals who are members of the Native American community on tumblr. I started writing it because after JK began expanding the HP universe into the US, I (like many others) noticed she’d used a lot of lore from Native American cultures, but had included almost no NA characters. While all this was still unfolding, one of my [white] friends irl said that: “this [JKs appropriation] is why writers should only write about white characters. It’s just less of a hassle.”

I didn’t respond for 30 seconds because...you guys probably know why.

So, anyway, I was partially motivated to write and post this fic as a giant “FUCK YOU” to my [former] friend. I was also motivated by the fact that, in the wake of 400 years of NA oppression (more specifically the revival of DAPL by Lord Dampnut), there shouldn’t be any questions about whether or not we “want” stories about NA characters. We NEED stories about NA characters; and to create them, we shouldn’t feel self-conscious about asking NA writers and artists for help. It’s not our culture. Most of us have never been within 10 miles of a reservation. We never learned about NA history or culture outside of the movie Pocahontas. We can still write good NA characters. We just have to do our homework. I hope this fic helps teach some of my fellow creators/writers how to do that.

Without further ado, here is the Prologue to my fic.

[Content Warning: Aurors being Assholes, Illegal Pipelines, Imperius Curse, Badass Centenarians]

When the Man Comes Around

And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder... and I looked, and behold, a pale horse; And the name of him who rode it was death; And hell followed with him.

-The Book of Revelation

They traveled together under cover of nightfall; about a dozen of them. All experienced aurors, wands drawn, walking through the wild South Dakota winter.

Their leader was a young man by the name of Jensen. He’d been an auror for more than a decade. He was about 30 years old, tall, with blonde hair and stony grey eyes that now scanned the snowy horizon around them.

As the aurors walked into the No-Maj camp, a lone figure hobbled over. An old man with a winter coat and long greying hair, looked at them with dark eyes.

“Hello, can I help you?” he asked.

The Aurors looked at Jensen, who seemed unfazed. He looked somewhat contemptuously at the No-Maj standing before them.

“We are looking for Azubah Wakina, also known as Ten-Wands.”

The old man’s face shifted into a suspicious expression. “What do you want with the Akicita1? Are you from the government? This is a place of prayer. You people aren’t welcome.”

Several aurors raised their wands, but Jensen stopped them and addressed the elder.

“What can we offer you?” he asked.

The elder grimaced in disgust. “Are you trying to bribe me? I’m sorry young man, you’ll have to take your search elsewhere.” He turned and began to walk away from the aurors.

Jensen raised his wand. “Imperio.”

The elder froze. His face went blank.

“Show us where Ten Wands is,” said Jensen, coldly.

The Elder turned around, and shuffled forward out of the camp. The aurors followed.

Up on a hill, overlooking the rest of the camp, was a tipi.

Jensen motioned to the other Aurors. “Chaput, Boot, you come with me. Everyone else, surround the tent, draw your wands, be ready for my signal.”

Chaput took the Elder gently by the arm and pointed his wand at the old man’s neck. The three aurors entered the tent, Jensen at the front, then Boot, and Chaput with the Elder bringing up the rear.

A white-haired woman sat in front of the fire. Several eagle tail feathers hung from a braid down her back. Eleven wands were showcased in a stand that hung from the Tipi walls, along with a shield, a spear, and a broomstick that looked as though it had never been used 2.

The woman seemed to sense that someone had entered. She looked up from the fire, and without turning towards the aurors, spoke in Lakota.

“Is something wrong, brother?”

Jensen raised his wand. “Azubah Wakina, also known as Ten Wands?”

The woman turned to them and smiled slightly. “Hello, how sweet of you to visit an old woman like me.”

Boot raised his wand, his hand shaking. “Stay back.”

The old woman rose from her seat. She seemed slightly amused at Boot’s fearfulness.

“Before you take me away to face your congress, may I ask how you found me?”

Jensen motioned to Chaput, who pushed the elder forward. The elder’s eyes were glassy, and he looked confused and dazed.

Azubah’s face fell into a look of horror. Jensen smiled.

“Azubah Wakina, You’re under arrest for violating the International Statute of Secrecy. Any resistance on your part will be warrent a death sentance. Do you understand?”

Azubah ignored him, walking forward, and steadying the elder with one hand on his shoulder. She then looked past him at the aurors, her black eyes blazing.

“Do any of you have any shame for what you have done?”

The fire in the tipi suddenly dimmed. For the first time, Jensen’s face fell into a look of apprehension. Boot looked utterly terrified.

“S-stay back,” he stammered.

Azubah looked at him, and smiled. Suddenly, the fire in the tipi went out. There was a creaking and a great roar. The Tipi was ripped off it’s hinges, and immediately disappeared into the winter wind.

Multiple flashes of light exploded into the snowy air.

“STUPEFY”

“EXPELLIARMUS”

Several aurors screamed as a crack rang out.

In the thick falling snow and the mercilessly chilly wind, none of the aurors could see.

“WHERE IS SHE?” shouted Chaput, before he doubled over, hit by a stunning spell in the stomach.

Jensen lowered his wand. He knew that No-Maj from the camp would be arriving soon to investigate the noise. Azubah Wakina was gone, and the elder was nowhere in sight.

“FALL BACK!” he shouted, his words ripped away by the wind roaring over the plain.

Back at the camp, there was another crack. An elder suddenly appeared in front of the hospital tent, dazed, cold, and confused. Clutched in his hand was the eagle feather that had hung from the old woman’s braid.

Hundreds of miles away, in a log cabin in Arizona’s Mogollon Rim, retired Auror Misko Stone was sleeping in front of a typewriter. It was about 2:00 in the morning. In the cabin’s large stone fireplace, several large embers glowed.

All of a sudden, there was a crack. Misko started awake, his wand drawn. Standing in front of the fire was a white haired woman, covered in snow.

Misko lowered his wand in shock.

“...Akicita? What—”

Azubah smiled, “Hello, young one. how are you?”

Misko was utterly taken aback. “I’m well, I...wasn’t expecting…” his voice dropped off.

Azubah smiled a toothless smile, “Of course you weren’t. How is your story?” She looked past Misko at the typewriter on the desk. Misko looked at the blank piece of paper in the machine and sighed.

“It’s going...fine. I’m supposed to be compiling an outline for Kanuna. She��s more of a storyteller, and her memory is better than mine in my age.”

Azubah looked completely unimpressed. Misko sensed her disdain and changed the subject.

“So, what brings you this far southwest?”

Azubah gave him a piercing glance, “I’m almost a hundred and fifty years old, boy, I think I’ve earned the right to come and go where I please.”

Misko smiled. “True,” he said. He suddenly glanced down at the pile of newspapers sitting by the fire. “Have you been reading the No-Maj newspapers recently?”

Azubah shook her head. “Why would I? It’s all on their machines now. Can’t stand it.”

Misko looked troubled. “They’ve been writing about this...pipeline...in the Dakotas.”

“They want to build a black snake through which they can transport poison across our land; across our waterways. The No-Maj government has stepped in using ice water and hot lead. I’ve been...monitoring things.”

Misko chuckled. “MACUSA must love that. Why are you here now?”

Azubah paused. The chaos, horror, and cold of the skirmish at Standing Rock suddenly washed over her. She was exhausted.

Misko seemed to sense this. “Akicita?”

Azubah pressed a hand to her forehead. “Is there a place I can sit?” she asked.

Misko jumped out of his seat. “Of course,” he pulled a chair from beside the fireplace. Azubah collapsed into it. Misko grabbed his wand. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea? Cocoa? Giggle Water?”

Azubah winced. “Anything but Giggle Water, it makes my head spin.”

Misko waved his wand. The iron stove in the corner lit itself, and a kettle full of water floated down from a shelf and situated itself over the flame. With another flick of Misko’s wand, a blanket from another seat by the fire unfolded itself, and wrapped itself around Azubah’s shoulders.

Misko turned back to Azubah. “We should get you out of your wet clothes. I know Joel has some extra things in the bedroom, I’m just worried they might be a little big.”

“That’s fine, Misko. Thank you.” Azubah murmured.

Misko ran into the small bedroom that sat adjacent to the living room and began to rifle through a chest of drawers. In the queen size bed in the corner of the room, another man, about Misko’s age, stirred. His hair was long and grey, his face was covered in scars, and his nose looked as though it had been broken at some point in the past.

“Misko? What’appening?” said the man, sleepily.

“It’s the Akicita, don’t worry.” muttered Misko, and then he paused. “Joel, where do you keep your flannel again?”

“Top drawer,” said Joel. “Did you say the Akicita was here?” he opened his eyes, “What happened?”

Misko nodded. “Yea, she arrived about 15 minutes ago. She’s in a pretty bad way, I don’t know what happened yet. She’s in the living room.”

Joel roused himself, and climbed out of bed. Misko followed him, a pair of flannel pajamas in his arms.

When Misko and Joel entered the living room, Azubah was still sitting by the fire, wrapped in a blanket, with a weary look on her face. Joel raised his hand.

“Hau Akicita, mačhante čhetetanhan 3.” he said, greeting Azubah in Lakota.

Azubah smiled, “I knew I could count on a proper welcome from my southern brother.” She looked at the two men apologetically, “I’m sorry to bother you so late.”

Misko shook his head. “Don’t be silly, I got you some clothes from the bedroom.”

Azubah chuckled, “That’s very sweet of you, Misko. You really have mellowed in your old age, even if your memory has waned as much as you say.”

Misko opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it. He bit his tongue. Azubah chuckled.

Joel pulled up a chair and sat across from the old woman. “We’ve been following what’s been happening at Standing Rock. MACUSA released a statement a few days ago saying that Wizards weren’t allowed to interfere.”

Azubah let out a low, bitter laugh. “That sounds about right.”

Joel gave a tight smile. “Kanuna sent us an owl last week. Apparently, they’re watching her house. She’s gone to Tulsa to lie low for a while.”

Misko turned towards the fire, placing the flannels on the mantle. “I don’t understand why they would do this. Why now?”

Azubah looked at him, her brow furrowed, “Misko Awasajiw4 Stone, what I want to know is why you would be surprised by any of this.”

Misko stared defeatedly into the fire. “I thought things had changed, after everything we did...”

“Then your wishful thinking has blinded you.” snapped Azubah.

Joel rose from his seat, took the flannels from the mantle, and handed them to Azubah. In his right hand, he clutched his wand.

“Should I cast a fidelius charm?” he asked.

Azubah nodded, “Thank you, Joel.”

Before Joel left, he took Misko by the arm.

“Hey.” he whispered, gently.

Misko looked up at Joel. “Yea?”

“You’re the secret keeper,” said Joel.

“Okay,” murmured Misko.

As soon as Joel had exited the cabin armed with his wand, Misko walked slowly back to his desk and slumped into his chair.

Azubah looked back at the fire, wringing out her wet hair.

“Akicita?” murmured Misko.

Azubah looked back at him. “Yes, child?”

“Does it ever end? Ever?”

Azubah looked back towards the fire. “No,” she said, “and it makes remembering the past all the more important.”

There was a pause. The fire crackled. Shadows flickered on the ceiling, and Azubah sighed.

“When Tunkasila 5 called men out of the Black Hills, do you know what he gave them as their first gift? He told them the story of the world that came before them. He assured them that all would be well if they lived in harmony with the earth and with each other. But people are stupid. If they hear something they don’t like, then they do not listen. Both No-Maj and Wizards do this, as do white men, black men, and Indians.” 6 She paused. “Tunkasila is not here to tell us what we need to hear. So it’s up to us now.” She looked past Misko at the typewriter on the desk. “It is up to you, Misko.”

Misko looked down from the ceiling at the typewriter sitting in front of him.

Azubah quietly got up, took the flannels from the fireplace mantle and went to the bedroom to change. Misko barely noticed, just as he didn’t notice when Joel came in after casting the Fidelius charm and shuffled back to bed.

The fire flickered, the shadows danced on the walls, and the only noise punctuating the silence of the night was the sound of Miskos fingers pounding the typewriter keys.

1. Akicita is a Lakota title meaning 'Warrior' or 'Veteran'

2. Broomsticks are a European Wizarding invention, and Native American students are usually taught to use them at Ilvermorny. Ten Wands is a Native American Witch who never went to Ilvermorny. Most of the magic she uses (with the exception of a handful of European-style spells) was developed by her own tribe. Most of these spells can be cast without a wand. Ten Wands won her broomstick in a fight in the early 2000s, but has never learned how to use it.

3. Hau Akicita, mačhante čhetetanhan. --> “Hello Warrior, I greet you from my heart” translated using @istamaza‘s English-Lakota Dictionary.

4. Misko’s middle name, “Awasajiw,” is pronounced [uh-WAH-sa-JOO]. You can find a recording of it here.

5. “Tunkasila” means Grandfather in Lakota. It’s also what many Lakota speakers call God.

6. Thanks @istamaza for telling me this Lakota creation story.

@writingwithcolor @ask-queenie-goldstein @askyoungdumbledore @ask-newton @ask-credence-barebone

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tahanismoved · 4 years

Text

How are we doing, everybody? Thank you all… so much for being here. You guys, it is so great to be back in the Twin Cities. And when I say that… When I say that, I mean it is great to be back in Minneapolis because I have never been to St. Paul. Hear it’s lovely. Hear it’s lovely. Wanna go. But I do think it’s very important… I know with twins, you have to pay attention to both of them equally, or else one of ’em gets a complex. I will say, in real life, I think of you have twins, it would be the wrong move to give ’em such different names. “And this is Minneapolis, which is the Dakota word for ‘water’ and the Greek word for ‘city.’ And this is Paul.”

I also want to start by saying I know it might be a little weird to see me in this environment. Most of you are probably used to seeing me wearing a suit, sitting behind a desk. Very odd. See me doing stand-up in casual clothes. It can be very jarring to see someone… out of context, like when a kid sees a mall Santa getting into his Ford Festiva. I mean, it might be weird to even be seeing my legs right now. It’s like that time Kermit rode a bike. It was fun, but you were like, “Are those weight-bearing legs?”

So, hopefully, you’ll learn a few things about me tonight you don’t know. Uh, one thing people think they know about me that is wrong is, uh, I am not Jewish. Um, all Jewish people assume I am Jewish… because of my name and my face and everything about me. My father’s father was Jewish. My mother could not be less Jewish. For example, the other day, she said, “As long as my kids are happy, I’m happy.” So…

My wife is Jewish. And her parents were so excited when they first met me. They were so happy that their daughter had met a nice Jewish boy, and then I had to break the news to them that Seth Meyers was not, in fact, Jewish. And that is very unfair to them, because to be named Seth Meyers and not be Jewish is false advertising. But I will say, over the course of the five years I dated my wife before we got married, I think, to my in-laws, I became, to them, Jewish enough. And I believe that’s the only religion that that happens in. Which is why it’s so great that it’s the only religion that ends with -ish. I really believe… I really believe that on our wedding night, people were going up to my mother-in-law and saying, “Is Seth Jewish?” And she was saying, “He’s Jew-ish.”

You may have noticed that I said, “In the five years my wife and I dated before we got married,” the only mistake… the only mistake I made with my wife is that I made her wait five years before I married her. That is too long for a woman of her caliber. I made a mistake. I also appreciate right now that if you’re watching this with a woman you have dated for five or more years, I have ruined your night. Right now, you are staring at me, but you can tell… that she is staring at you. It gets awkward. The longer you go, the more awkward it gets. We were together for four years. We were trying to figure out what to do for my wife’s birthday. We decided to go to Europe. She said, “Where do you think we should go?” I said, “Why don’t we go to Prague? We’ve never been to Prague. I heard it’s amazing. Let’s go to Prague.” She said, “We could do that. Or we could go to Paris. I know we’ve been to Paris before, but we have such a nice time in Paris.” I said, “Hey, it’s your birthday. If you want to go to Paris, let’s go to Paris.” We go to Paris, and the first night in Paris, my wife is more miserable than I’ve ever seen her. And finally, I said, “Why are you so upset?” And she said, “Every one of my friends said, ‘If he’s bringing you to Paris for your birthday, he is going to propose.'” Oh! To which I said, “Did you forking tell them about Prague?! Did you tell them my opening offer was Prague? A place where, famously, no one gets engaged.” No one has ever said, “Look what happened in the Czech Republic.” But shame on me. You cannot bring a woman who is expecting an engagement ring to Paris. It is too romantic a place for that. At one point, we were crossing a bridge going over the River Seine, and my passport fell out of my pocket. And I looked down, and I realized it would be easier to kick it into the river… and replace it at the embassy… than it would be to take a knee in Paris without an engagement ring. Like, “Oh! We live here! We live here now. We live here.”

But I finally wised up, and after five years, I proposed, and my wife planned the most amazing wedding. She was very sweet, because she tried to involve me in the planning of the wedding by asking me questions, but I kept getting the questions wrong. For example, she said, “Hey, for the wedding invitations, I was thinking, since we’re getting married near a lighthouse, it might be cool to get a lighthouse embossed on the back of the wedding envelopes. What do you think? It’s a little bit more expensive, but I think it’d be really nice.” And I said, “I have to be honest, I don’t think people look at things like the back of wedding envelopes. And if it’s more expensive, it’s probably not worth it.” And then, I could tell from her expression that what had happened was… is she had phrased a statement in the form of a question. And the punctuation was purely ornamental.

But instead of giving up on me, she just made the questions easier. She was really holding onto this idea that I would help her plan the wedding. So she would say things like, “Hey, what do you think we should do for food at our wedding? Do you think we should have it professionally catered, or… do you think we should have a trash can full of Wendy’s in the middle of the dance floor?” And I’d think about it, and I’d say, “I think we should have it professionally catered.” And she’d say, “Look who’s planning a wedding! My little wedding planner right over there!”

So, she plans, uh, this amazing, uh, wedding. And then, uh, at the rehearsal dinner, night before the wedding, uh, my wife got food poisoning. Oh! That is the accurate reaction to that piece of news. We’re at the rehearsal dinner, it’s a wonderful night, but my wife does not look well, and I say, “What’s wrong?” And she said, “I think I have food poisoning.” And so, then, I did something, uh, called mansplaining. And… Uh, if you don’t know what that is, uh, ladies… It is when… a man with no shared experience to what you’re going through tells you what’s actually happening. And so, I said to my wife, “You do not have food poisoning. What you have is something called the wedding jitters. You’re gonna go back to your parents’ house, I’m gonna go to the hotel. In the morning, I’m gonna call, you’re gonna feel great, and we’re gonna have this amazing wedding that you have planned.” And so, we did that, and the next morning I called her, and I said, “How are you feeling?” And she said, “I’m at the emergency room because I have forking food poisoning.”

So, I’m driving to the hospital the morning of my wedding, and I’m thinking to myself, “Oh, my God. I hope she doesn’t die for two reasons. One… I love her more than anything in the world. I cannot imagine living another day without her.” Two, I couldn’t help but think, if your wife dies of any kind of poisoning… morning of the wedding… you’re gonna be a suspect. And even once they clear you, that’s a real shadow for the rest of your dating life. “Were you ever married?” “Almost. Died, morning of. Poisoned. Anyway… Can I make you another drink?”

There’s one thing I feel terrible about, which is this. I felt so bad for my wife, and the whole time I was thinking, I’m so angry that it’s her and not me. That’s really not fair. A bride should feel great on her wedding day, but there was one thing that made me… a little happy… that it was her, which is this. About… a month before our wedding, my wife said to me, “Hey, I think, at our wedding, we should do a choreographed first dance.” The only person I know who’s a worse dancer than I am is my wife. But because “Envelope-gate” had just happened… instead of saying, “I think that’s a terrible idea.” I said to her, “I think that’s a great idea. And I think that not one of the over 100 professional comedians at our wedding… will talk shirt about us behind our back… during our terrible-ass dance.”

And we went and we saw a woman, a choreographer, and this was her specialty, was to teach people who did not know how to dance how to do a first dance at a wedding. And we went in, and it was the most… She was the most vibrant person I’ve ever met, and she looked at us and said, “I know you think you can’t do this, but I promise you, you can do this. If you put the same commitment to this as you’re about to give to each other, this will be the most amazing thing. And when you do this dance, your family, your friends, all of them will say, ‘You are a perfect couple.'” And we bought in. Guys, we bought in. And we said, “You know what, lady? You won us over. Let’s do it.” And after a full hour of dancing with this woman, her soul had died. I’ve never seen a person look more hopeless. She looked the way an emergency room doctor would look if you just ran in with a bunch of bones and said, “Help my grandpa! Stay with us!”

My wife’s not here, but this is one of the moves of the wedding dance that I remember. See if you can imagine this. If I did that better than anyone on Earth, it would be the worst thing I ever did. So, as we’re leaving the ER, after my wife has been pumped full of fluids, and my wife is a superhero who’s rallied and was about to actually have a great wedding, she turns to me in the car and says, “I think I don’t feel well enough to do the dance.” And I will tell you that Daniel Day-Lewis himself would’ve tipped his cap at the delivery I gave. When I looked at her with the hands on the wheel, and I said, “That is so unfair.”

Now we’re married, we have two kids, a three-year-old and a one-year-old. And it’s great having two kids. It’s a lot, but also, you’re a little bit more relaxed, because the more kids you have, the more resilient you realize children are. Uh, now, we don’t panic every time we hear a “thunk.” For those of you who don’t have kids, a thunk is the sound of a toddler’s head hitting the ground. And when you first hear it, when you only have one kid, you panic every time you hear it. But then, you grow to learn that a toddler’s head is so close to the ground that… it can’t reach terminal velocity. The thunk is either followed by the sound of your kid just getting up and going, doing whatever he was doing pre-thunk. Or they start to cry, more often than not, because they’ve scared themselves.

The other day, I was upstairs and my wife was downstairs with one of our boys, and I heard the thunk, followed by a cry. And I realized, that provided me with an opportunity to go downstairs and behave the way I want my wife to behave when the thunk is my fault. ‘Cause this was clearly on her watch that the thunk happened. So, I came downstairs and she was comforting our son. And I said to her, “He’s fine. He’s just scared. Don’t blame yourself.” And my wife looked at me and said, “He was actually going down that step I always warn him about. And I thought if I just let him fall, maybe he’ll learn his lesson.” And all I could think was the forking look she would’ve given me.

We’ve got two now, we’re a little more loose with it. You know, we’ve realized now we don’t like hanging out with friends that just have one toddler, they’re too stressed out. We also don’t like hanging out with friends that also have two. There’s just too much going on. We like hanging out with people who have three or more kids. Because people with three or more kids are so Zen and checked out. They are so checked out. There could not be a sound loud enough from the other room… that will make them put down their CBD-infused Pinot Grigio. You can hear… just a grandfather clock come crashing down, and they’re like, “Watch it in there, guys. They’re kids. They’re fine. They’re kids.” Somebody runs in, is like, “A raccoon bit me!” They’re like, “Did you bite ’em back? They’re kids. They gotta learn. They’re kids.”

I’m fascinated by the youngest of three kids. They’re so much more interesting than the other kids. They’re so resourceful and self-reliant because they’ve received so much less attention in their lives. They’ve figured out everything on their own. You know, when you have one two-year-old, they’re crying for you to make a smoothie. When your third is two years old, they make the smoothie. They just walk into the kitchen, drag in a stool, get up on top of it, start throwing bananas into a blender. And it’s not even your blender. It’s a blender they bought from a job they have on the side. And the parents know that they get things done, and so, the parents take advantage of them and treat ’em like a tiny monkey butler. “Tyler, we’re out of beers!” And he just comes in with… Coronas on a tray and limes in the tops. And they’re verbally advanced, so much more verbally advanced than their siblings were at that age, and at the end of the night, they say, “Well, if that’s everything, I’m gonna put myself down. I can feel myself getting a little cranky and I certainly don’t want any of you to have to see that. If you need anything else, my older sister, Becky, is here to help you. Good night.”

We are, um… We’re thinking about a third. We are thinking about a third. Our biggest hesitation is that when you have a child, you have to give birth to a child, and we… We’ve had very dramatic birth stories… so far in the old Meyers family. Our first boy was almost born in the backseat of an Uber. My wife started having contractions, they started moving so quickly. We called our doctor to explain what was happening. He said, “You have to come right now.” We got into the Uber. And on the way to hospital, my wife was in so much pain that she was on all fours in the backseat of the Uber with her head out the window… screaming, “I do not like this.” Being very economical with her word choice. Also, in any other city in America, if someone’s yelling, “I do not like this,” out the window of a car, it is an abduction taking place. In New York City, nobody blinks an eye. See, we weren’t on highways. We were, like, stopped at stop lights. And my wife was screaming, “I do not like this,” and old women were, like, crossing the crosswalk, saying, “It’s New York City. Nobody likes it.” And we got to the hospital, my wife gave birth 15 minutes after we got to the hospital, 15 minutes after we got there. And I had not decided where I was gonna watch from. I had not decided vantage point, and then, things were moving so fast that I just watched it all, and I’m so glad I did. It truly was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. It truly was stunningly beautiful to watch my son being born. I have since seen a still photo of it. Horror show. But good when it was, like, moving.

So, anyways… we almost have our first kid in an Uber. And despite that, our second baby was born in the lobby of our apartment building. And guys, I know you’re judging me right now. Like, “How could you have your baby born in the lobby of your apartment building after what happened last time?” But we were on our toes based on what had happened last time. Once again, the contractions started. We didn’t wait a second, we didn’t call the doctor. We went downstairs into our lobby and we started walking out to the car. And all of a sudden, at the door, my wife stopped and turned to me and said, “The baby is here.” Subtle. Nuanced. From the people who brought you, “I do not like this”… “The baby is here.”

And so, once again, I go to my old standby of mansplaining… which, if you ladies forgot… is when a man uses no shared experience, and says to his wife, “The baby is not here. You only think the baby is here. We have more than enough time to make it to the hospital. Take it from me, a man who has also had a baby out of his vagina.” And my wife looks back at me and says, “The baby is here.” And I looked down, and the only way to describe what I saw… It looked like my wife was trying to smuggle a baby in a pair of sweatpants. It was like, “Oh! That can only be one thing!” It was like a velour boa constrictor ate a baby. And so, then my wife doubles back. And I would describe her gait as the way you would walk if you had a wet grocery bag full of oranges. Like, “Okay, where… Would love to find a place to put this down. If there was anywhere to put this down.” And we basically had two choices of where to go at that point. We could either get back on the elevator or go to the lobby. Terrible options… if what you want is a hospital. Neither of those are even close to a hospital. That would be like if you said to someone, “Hey, do you have an iPhone charger I can borrow?” And they said, “No, but I have a grapefruit and a sombrero.” You would say, “Just forking say no.” So, my wife chooses lobby, and my wife goes down and she lies on her back in the lobby. And I cannot stress to you how quickly she gave birth to our son. I was on the phone with 911, and this was the extent of my conversation with 911. “We’re about to have a baby. We’re having a baby. We had a baby.” And let me tell you, it is very strange to be on a 911 call that ends with the operator saying, “Congratulations!” Almost never happens. Almost unheard of.

You might be saying to yourself, “Seth, you just told us that you watched the birth of your first child from a vantage point, wherein you might actually have learned something that would be helpful in the birth of your second child. Hopefully, you’re about to tell us how helpful you were.” Sadly, I am not. I stood with my back against the wall, mouth agape, as my wife Lion King-ed her own baby. She played… She played two roles. She was Simba’s mom and that weird old monkey.

You know, I think we all think of ourselves as the heroes in our own story. You see your entire life from your perspective. And yet, there’s never in my life been a moment where I’ve felt more like the sidekick to someone else than when I stood there and watched my wife deliver our child, which made the next moment one of the more harrowing moments of my life. Because in every day of the past nine months, my wife had said to me, “Make sure you have the doctor’s phone number in your phone.” So, imagine how I felt… having watched my wife do what she just did, to have her look at me and say, “Call the doctor,” and I had to look back at her and say, “Do you have his number?” I had 911!

The other thing that was crazy is, within 15 minutes of my son being born, there were, uh, five firemen and seven police officers in our lobby. And, uh, that was weird for me, because, uh, I think, as a dad, you’re hopeful that until your kids are seven, eight, nine years old, you will be the coolest man they ever meet. And yet, I feel, a full 15 minutes into my son’s life, he was looking around being like, “Man, I really hope my dad is one of these 12 kick-ass dudes. Not that scared guy in the corner. Looking in a phone for a number he knows isn’t there. Is he Googling, ‘Baby doctor New York?'” They were… They were so professional. If any of them recognized me, none of them said a word until the last minute, because as we were loading my wife into the ambulance, the last fireman was walking by, and as he passed me, he whispered in my ear, “Guess you got your monologue for tonight.” I was like, “I do. Thank you. Thank you. I do.”

You may be wondering, I don’t blame you for wondering, you may be asking, “Is it possible to love a lobby baby as much as a hospital baby?” It is. Over time, it is. In fact, the only relationship that changed based on the fact that we had a baby in a lobby is our relationship with the two doormen who were on duty that night. And it changed in very different ways. Ramone is now like family. Ramone feels like he was there for a magical moment. He feels closer to us than anyone else in the building. Every time he sees our son, his face lights up. Kevin cannot make eye contact with my wife. Kevin is definitely giving off a “I’ve-seen-your-wife’s-vagina” vibe.

The other crazy thing about being a dad is you just aren’t a dad, and then you are. It changes immediately. And I feel like, for a mother, you know, your body is telling you that a change is coming. You feel like a mother before the moment actually happens. But you are just not a dad, and then you are a dad. And that became very clear to me after our first son was born. About two hours after, we were in the hospital, and he’s asleep and my wife’s asleep, and a nurse brings me some paperwork to fill out. And the first question was, “Mother’s name?” And I put my wife’s name. And then, it said, “Mother’s phone number.” And I put my wife’s phone number. And then, it said, “Father’s name.” And I put my wife’s father’s name. And then, it said, “Father’s phone number.” And I thought, “Who the fork knows their father-in-law’s phone number?” And then, I realized, “Oh, I’m the father!”

I hope I can be as good of a father to my kids as my dad was to me and my brother. My dad was an incredible father. So supportive, our best friend, even to this day. And there are things that I want to emulate in the way that he raised us. One thing I’m really looking forward to is trying to be the kind of disciplinarian that my dad was, because he really seemed to enjoy it. He was never physical or threatening. He used a technique that I believe cognitive psychologists would refer to as “mindforkery.” I remember there was this time there was a storm in our town that knocked down a tree in our backyard. And the town came and took the tree, but they left the stump. And my dad thought the stump was an eyesore, and it really drove him crazy that he had this ugly stump in his front lawn. And so, one day, we were driving to school and one of our neighbors had a landscaping crew there. And my dad stopped the car and he got out, and he went over to the foreman and said, “If I gave you 100 bucks, would you get rid of this stump using your bulldozer?” The guy said, “I can do that.” Dad took us to school, went to work. That night he got home, the stump was still there. Next day, stopped again. The guy said, “We got busy. We’ll get rid of the stump.” Again, school, work, came home, stump was still there. My dad was so mad that the stump was still there. It was all he talked about. It was the week we found out the incredibly high bar he had for the customer service he expected of under-the-table stump removal.

So, finally, after about a week, we’re driving to school, and my dad stops the car, and turns around to my brother and I, and says, “Everything’s gonna be fine.” Which is a terrifying thing to hear… if it never even occurred to you everything would not be fine. It sounds like a positive thing, but in context, it’s very negative. It’d be like if a surgeon, right before you went under, said to you, “I hope we meet again!” So, my dad said, “Everything’s gonna be fine.” And he gets out of the car, and he walks over. And in his business suit, he lies down in front of the bulldozer. Lies down on the ground in front of the bulldozer. And then, as you would do if you were a landscaping crew and you saw this happen, they all walked over. The foreman said, “What are you doing?” And my dad looked at him and said, “I’m so depressed about the stump in my lawn… that I don’t want to live anymore. Will you please run me over with your bulldozer?” And the foreman said, “Man, you’ve got to get up.” My dad said, “I can’t get up. I’m too sad… from, you know, the stump.” And so, they looked at my dad, and then they looked at my brother and I with our faces pressed against the window. And he said, “Man, I promise if you get up right now, and get in your car, I will turn this bulldozer around. The stump will be gone by lunch.” My dad said, “You promise?” He said, “I promise.” My dad got back in the car. We drove off. We watched the bulldozer turn around and go the other way. And it was a very quiet and awkward drive. And then, finally, after about ten minutes of silence, my brother said, “Why would you do that… with us in the car?” And my dad, with no hesitation, said, “Oh, it wouldn’t have worked without you in the car.”

I have great parents. And it’s fun to be a parent, because I think in a lot of ways, it makes you a better person in general because you just have more empathy and you care more about the future of the world. But in other ways, it makes you morally a worse person because now there are things you would never have done before that you would do for your kids. Like, for example, we have this plastic toy. It’s basically a plastic box with four holes in it, and it has four corresponding shapes that goes into those holes. There’s a square, there’s a circle, there’s a triangle, there’s a star… We lost the star. I don’t know where the star is, but we lost the star. And yet, every time we take the game out, my three-year-old says, “Where the star go?” And I say to him, “We lost the star.” And if you’ve ever met or talked to a three-year-old, you know that’s not the end of that conversation. No three-year-old ever says, “Ah, such is life. We shall not speak of it again.” So, I’m not sad that we lost the star ’cause he misses the star, I’m just so forking irritated talking about it.

And the other day, we were over at one of his friend’s house for a play date, and I noticed they have the same toy. And they have the star. And I couldn’t believe the speed at which I had the thought… “Am I gonna steal the forking star?” I’m like casing the place for a nanny cam. It’s like I was George Clooney in Ocean’s Eleven. Asking the dad weird questions, like, “Hey, when you lose stuff, do you just let it be lost or do you investigate?” In the end, I did not steal it, but not because it was the wrong thing to do. I didn’t steal it because I thought I wouldn’t get away with it. I think I could’ve gotten the plastic star out of the house. I think I could’ve done that part. But I think the next time I took it out, I couldn’t be sure that my son wouldn’t go, “That’s Tony’s star.” And the minute he does that, we can never see Tony again. ‘Cause my son will give me up. And three just seems like it’s too young to teach him, “Snitches get stitches.”

We don’t want to let our kids play video games, which means I have to stop playing video games. Which is sad because I love video games. I like it ’cause it’s the only place I’m good at sports. My brother said, “Oh, you should play Xbox Live, it’s really great.” And I said, “Why’s it great?” He said that you put on a headset and you can talk to the people you’re playing against. And I did it. And it wasn’t great because I found out by doing it that I’m way worse at video games than 12-year-olds. The way I found out they were 12 is the other day I was playing somebody and I lost two games in a row. I said, “One more game?” They said, “No, I have to go.” And I said, “What do you have to do?” And they said, “Social Studies homework.” And I said, “How old are you?” And they said, “Twelve, how old are you?” And I said, “I’m 36.” And I’m not. I’m 45, and let me tell you guys something. When you… When you lie about your age by nine years… and you’re still three times as old as the person you’re lying to… it’s a real take-stock-of-your-life moment. Like, pretty much the only upside there is, “Well, at least I’m not a pedophile.”

Speaking of pedophiles, and I’ll be brief… My least favorite thing about pedophiles… My second-least favorite thing about pedophiles… My least favorite thing is, you know, the whole… the whole deal. My second least favorite thing, every time they catch a pedophile, the same thing happens, they interview friends and neighbors of the pedophile. And they always say, “He’s the last person we ever suspected of something like this.” And I hate that so much because it implies everyone’s walking around with a list in their head in reverse order… of the likelihood that everyone they know is a pedophile. Just once I’d love to see someone on the local news being like, “What do you think of the local pedophile?” “Who’s the local pedophile?” “Your neighbor Dave.” And they’re like, “Oh, yeah! Yeah, of all our friends, we thought it might be Dave.”

Also, “pedophile” is too fancy a word. You know what I mean? It’s like a pervert who’s also a snob. It’s like, “Child molester? Please. I’m a pedophile.” It also reflects so badly on the other “-philes.” You know, like bibliophiles, cinephiles. Those are just people who like books and movies, you know? An audiophile likes music. He doesn’t fork the record player. That is the best that joke has ever gone. The best that joke has ever gone. You were probably thinking, “I was right in the middle.” Nope. Best it’s ever gone. And for the special, no less, peaking at the right time. Thank you. Thank you, Minneapolis. I was bombing everywhere and people said, “Give it a chance in Minneapolis, they go… they go for the pedophile jokes there.”

Every now and then, I do a show at a college. And every now and then, it is a Catholic university. And… Uh… Ugh… Oh, man. You remember what we were just talking about, right? Every time I do a show at a Catholic university, the same thing happens right before I go on stage. Someone from the school will take me aside and say, “Hey, the only thing we’d ask is don’t make any jokes about the Catholic Church.” And I feel like I have the perfect response to that, which is I look at them, and I say, “Oh, what kind of jokes do people make about the Catholic Church?” And it’s so great, because when I do that, their eyes light up… with joy, because you can tell they’re thinking, “Oh, my God. Maybe he hasn’t heard!” And that… is faith.

Really, there’s a lot of conversations lately about people in scandals, and questions like, “When can that person come back into society?” “When can this person, post-scandal, come back?” And it makes me think, doesn’t it feel like the Catholic Church should’ve had to have taken at least one week off? Just after everything that’s happened, just one week you go to church, and there be a sign outside saying, “Hey, we’re closed for the day. We’re doing an all-staff meeting. We’re gonna go over the rules one more time.” I mean, there was one racist incident at Starbucks and they shutdown all the Starbucks. And solved racism. That’s why you don’t hear about it anymore, ’cause of Starbucks.

I’ve nothing against Catholics. The most wonderful people. Yet, the leadership, it’s crazy. If your favorite restaurant in the world, if you found out they had a rat problem, you would say, “Hey, I’m not coming back until you solve the rat problem.” If you waited a month, came back, and said, “Is everything taken care of?” If they said to you, “It’s more than taken care of. We found a thousand rats in the dining room, and we moved ’em to the kitchen.” I mean, when Netflix kicked Kevin Spacey off House of Cards, they didn’t move him to Stranger Things. And I mean, he would’ve… loved that.

So, I want to talk about, uh, politics, uh, for a second. But I also… Yeah. I also know there are people who, uh, don’t like jokes about politics. And because this is on Netflix, it presents us with a unique opportunity. Uh, we are gonna have an option for people watching at home to skip politics. There will be a box right down there. And they can just click that, and it will take them to the next moment of the show when it’s not about politics. So, let’s give them a second to find that. Because I appreciate that there are people who think there are too many jokes about Donald Trump. And they say, “When are the jokes about Donald Trump gonna stop?” And the only thing I’ll say is I feel like the jokes are the only good part about living through the Trump era. The only good part. I mean… living through the Trump era without any jokes would be like getting a prostate exam and not wanting the results. “Let me tell you what we’ve found.” “No, no! That’s not what I’m here for! I’m gonna be here tomorrow, get you back up in there, though.”

It’s also very strange for me, because, based on the kind of show I do, and because it’s a show about politics, people have been coming up to me so much over the last few years and saying, “Oh, my God. This Trump presidency must be so good for you. How good is this Trump presidency for you?” And I hate that, because I hate having people feel as though I’m benefiting from this. I’m feeling like… I feel as though I’m a gravedigger in the Middle Ages. And people are coming up to me, like, “Oh, my God. This plague must be so good for you. How good is this plague?” And I have to say, “Well, obviously, we’re very upset about the plague. But it has been very good for me. It’s been very good for business, really. We had to open a second location.”

It’s also strange because there are people who blame me for the Trump presidency, because in 2011, I told jokes about him at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and many people say that’s the night that maybe he decided to run for president, because I told jokes about him and President Obama told jokes about him. And it turns out, he has very thin skin. Which is ironic, because it looks thick. Like the heel of a catcher’s mitt. A lot of people said it because I told jokes about him that night, Obama told jokes about him that night. That night he began plotting his revenge, began plotting this course to be president of this country. And a lot of people wrote articles about that night in the lead-up to the election. And a lot of those articles only talked about Obama’s jokes and left me out of it, and that hurt my feelings, because I also wanted credit for tricking him into running for president, because I was so sure that he was going to lose. And then he won, and the minute he won, I realized something. “This is Obama’s fault.”

You know who I feel really bad for in the Trump era is, uh, Canada. I feel bad for Canada because in the run-up to the election, so many people said, “If he wins, I’m gonna move to Canada.” And then he won, and nobody did. They must’ve been so excited on election night. Like, waiting at the border. Then a couple of weeks passed, nobody showed up, they called. They were like, “Hey, you guys coming or not, eh?” And we’re like, “Oh, what? Oh, yeah. Umm… no.” They’re like, “Why not? Did he not win?” “No. Yeah, no. He did. He did win.” “Oh, is he not as bad as you thought he was gonna be?” “N-No, he… he’s a little bit worse.” “So, what’s this all a-boot?” “Uh… “I g… Yeah, um… I guess we just don’t want to live in forking Canada.”

A lot of conservative Christians voted for Donald Trump, and they voted for him for the reason that he would pick conservative judges. He would pass legislation that was kind to them, and they are certainly getting what they voted for. And I am not to deny anyone voting for what they want. The thing that frustrates me is when conservative Christians tell us that Donald Trump is a religious man. Donald Trump is not, in any way, shape, or form… …a religious man. Here’s a dead giveaway. Here’s a dead giveaway. Donald Trump does not go to church. Which makes sense, because he would hate church. Can you imagine Donald Trump sitting for an hour in a room where someone talks about the glory of someone who is not Donald Trump? “Is this whole hour about Jesus? Do you know he didn’t own a single hotel? True story. Night he was born, couldn’t get a hotel reservation.”

And the Bible warns against this exact thing. In the Bible, it says, “Beware of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Donald Trump isn’t even trying that hard. He is not a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s a wolf in a shirtty wool sweater… Just walking into a flock, being like, “Baa, I’m a sheep. When are you guys going to bed? Baa, I’m also a sheep. I’m not gonna eat you. ‘Cause I’m a sheep. Baa!”

The other crazy thing about that White House Correspondents’ Dinner night is it was on a Saturday, and on Sunday, Barack Obama went on television and announced that SEAL Team Six had killed Osama bin Laden the very next day. And it was an amazing moment. I think it caused a lot… Yeah. It was a moment of great relief to many Americans, which is why I’m ashamed to this day at how I reacted to that piece of news. Because I… did what I thought was a very good job at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and it went to my head. It went to my head and I started thinking, “When the news comes on Monday, all they’re gonna do is talk about how forking funny I was on Saturday… as long as nothing major happens on Sunday… a notoriously slow news day.” I’m basically admitting to you that I was the one person in America, who upon hearing that SEAL Team Six had killed Osama bin Laden had this reaction… “shirt! Tonight! They waited ten years and they got him tonight! fork me!”

All right. That’s the end of politics. And, uh… we’re gonna have the people who left us join us again. But when they come back, I want them to hear me say something that will make them curious enough to go back… and watch it. So, I’ll just give it a beat here.

So, I guess my point is I misjudged him and I do think he’s a very good president. The whole thing, based on how I laid it out. You agree with me, too.

I’ve been, uh, living with my wife now for ten years. We’ve lived together for ten years, and let me tell you, my wife has made my life just immeasurably better. Living with her has made just my environment immeasurably better. Everything about living with my wife is so much better. With that said, and I’m ashamed to say it, there are times where I resent how much better she thinks she’s made it. Like the other day, I couldn’t find my belt and my wife found my belt, and as she brought it to me, she said, “Where would you be without me?” And I wanted to say, “Exactly here without the belt.” In fact, I would have the belt because I would know exactly where it was, in yesterday’s pants on the floor. But now… we’re not allowed to leave yesterday’s pants on the floor, so I need a National Treasure-style map to find my one lousy belt.

My wife always knows where everything is because my wife has OCD. She’s one of those people who, if she walks into a room and anything is even a little bit off, if a Venetian blind is turned the wrong way, she cannot settle until she figures out what it is. And I think it’s really important to find ways to never be bored in a marriage. And so, what I like to do… If I get home first, what I like to do is I like to go into our closet and turn around one of the hangers. And then, when she gets home, I sit on the end of the bed, and I ask her how her day was. And then, I wait until she goes into her closet and she gets quiet, because her spidey sense is telling her that something’s wrong. And it’s in that silence that I think to myself, “As long as I can do this, I will never be bored in this marriage.”

I have a brother. My wife has a brother and a sister. And it’s been a real education what sisters are like, especially how sisters fight. The way my wife and her sister fight is it escalates so quickly, and then is immediately forgotten by both of them. And the only people left to pick up the pieces are those of us unlucky enough to have been there when it went down. This is a very normal argument, a normal fight between my wife and her sister. One of them will say, “Hey, when you borrowed my sweater, you stretched out the neck.” And the other one will say, “You were a slut in high school.” I’ll be like, “Whoa!” Where is the middle of that argument? The sister will leave and slam the door. You’ll think, “We’ll never see her again.” The next day, the buzzer in the apartment rings. “Who’s that?” “It’s my sister.” “What’s your sister doing here?” “She’s borrowing a sweater.” And I’m like, “What about the neck? Did you already forget about the neck?”

This is a true story about my wife and her sister. When they were five and nine, they were sharing a bowl of guacamole. And one of them, I won’t say which one, took the last bite of guacamole, and the other one said, “Did you take the last bite of guacamole? You are a bench.” And then, the one who had taken the bite, very calmly looked at her sister dead-eyed, pulled the bowl back, opened her mouth, and let the bite of guacamole fall back into the bowl. And the only part… The only part of that story that isn’t true is that it happened last week. It happened last week and I was there.

My wife is a lawyer. My wife is a former prosecutor. Uh, I use “former” loosely because she falls back into it pretty quickly when we argue. In every one of our arguments, my wife is this incredibly well-prepared prosecutor and I am a public defense attorney who just found out I have the case. Like, she’s so ready for all of our arguments, and I’m running into the courthouse late, and I’ve got papers coming out of my briefcase and mustard on my tie, and I run up to the judge, and I say, “I need a continuance!” And the judge says, “Overruled!” because my wife is also the judge.

She’s one of those really, really good prosecutors that gets you to admit to your crime on the stand without you knowing it. Like, we’ll have an argument, and she’ll say, “Hey, did you forget to separate the recycling when you took out the trash today?” And I’ll say, “Absolutely not.” And she’ll say, “You’re so confident. How can you be so sure?” And I’ll say, “I didn’t take out the trash today.” And she’ll say, “No further questions, Your Honor.”

One of the things my wife loves about the law is each side gets to make their case. And we were talking about how that’s so different from my job, where I get to come out here and just give my side of the case. So, we decided it would be healthy and good if I also shared her perspective. So, would it be okay right now if I did stand-up as my wife about me? Is that good with everybody? Hey, everybody. Um, my name is Alexi Ashe Meyers. Thank you so much for letting me do this. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I do not… I do not do this professionally, because unlike my husband, I do not live my life in the desperate quest for the approval of strangers. It is true that I found my husband’s belt, but I do take issue with him saying he tried to find it, could not find it. I want to tell you how my husband looks for things. He looks one place, and if it’s not there, he loses his mind. This is my impression of my husband as Sherlock Holmes. “Watson, I believe the killer was the coachman.” “Well, it couldn’t have been the coachman, Holmes. The coachman was out of town.” “Then I don’t forking know, man! I don’t forking know, Watson!”

It’s true, I have OCD. My husband has no CD. And that, I mean there is no amount of clutter that can make him even the least bit upset. He is a glass-half-full kind of guy. And by that, I mean there is not one surface in our apartment that does not have a half-full glass of water on it. Because despite being a full-grown man, he can still not remember how much water he needs when he’s thirsty. Nor can he remember when he’s thirsty again that he has unfinished water right next to where he was sitting. So, however hard it is to live with my OCD, I assure you it’s only a fraction as hard as it is living with a man who has aqua aphasia.

I’m a former prosecutor. I’m a former sex crimes prosecutor. And you would think, based on that, that at the end of a hard day at work, my husband, the comedian, would cheer me up. You’d be wrong. One time, I came home and he was lying on the couch. And I said, “What’s wrong?” And he said, “Two of my jokes didn’t work in the monologue tonight.” And I said, “You have a show tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll get them next time.” And the, he just rolled over and made a noise, like… And then, a full hour later, he finally got around to asking how my day was. And I said, “It was really hard. We arrested a pedophile.” And then, I swear to God… when he heard that word, he smiled. And I said, “Why are you smiling?” And he said, “‘Pedophile’ is too fancy a word.” And I said, “That joke will never work.” And he said, “It might work in Minneapolis. You never know. Give it a chance in Minneapolis.”

I spit out the guacamole. Who’s the bench now?

Every now and then, I want to let my husband sleep in. When I want to let him sleep in, what I will do is I will get up very quietly. I will take our two boys, I will bring them downstairs, and I will make them breakfast. When my husband wants to let me sleep in, what he will do is he will wake me up… and say, “I’m gonna let you sleep in.” Because he can’t even go an hour without getting thanked.

And by they way, I’m not gonna make it an hour, because there are so many questions. The morning that he tries to help out, there are so many questions. He’ll go downstairs, then he’ll come back up and just say, like, “Hey, what do the kids eat? How do I make it? Where do I put it? In their mouths? When they’re done, how do I clean up? Do I do all the dishes or just throw them in the garbage?” And then, I’m so frustrated that I just get up ’cause it’s easier to do it myself than explain it all to him. And then, he gets frustrated at me and says, “I will never learn unless you teach me.” And when he says that to me, I am so happy that the windows in our apartment have child locks, because if they didn’t, I would open them up and throw myself out. Because how do you not know? There’s that expression, “If you give a man a fish, you will feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you will feed him for life.” My question that I ask my husband now is, “How do you not know how to forking fish? You watch me fish every day. And then, when it’s your turn to fish, you eat the worm and throw the whole forking rod in the water. What’s wrong with you?”

Sometimes my husband will open the refrigerator and say, “We’re out of yogurt.” And I will say, “We are not out of yogurt.” And he will say, “I swear to God, there’s no yogurt in this refrigerator.” And I will say, “Please don’t make me come over there and find the yogurt.” And he will say, “On our child’s lives, there is no yogurt in this refrigerator.” And then, I will walk over to the refrigerator and it will take me this long to find the yogurt.

This is my husband if he was Apollo 13. “Houston, we have a problem. There is no moon.” And then I would say, “Have you looked out both windows?” And then, there’d be a pause. And he’d say, “Houston… we’re good to go.”

But guys, I feel bad. I do feel bad about something. Every tenth time… there is no yogurt… Every tenth time I have just forgotten that we ran out of yogurt, and we did not replace the yogurt. But now my husband is too afraid of me to ask me to find the yogurt. And so, he’ll just stand there with the refrigerator door open looking for yogurt that is not there. And in those moments where I see him, with the blue light of the refrigerator illuminating his stupid face… as he scans the only three shelves over and over again… In that moment, I think to myself, “As long… as I can make him do this… I will never be bored in this marriage.”

Thank you, guys, so much! You’ve been amazing! Good night, Minneapolis.

#*#themis' big brain

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