#I think having chronic headaches to the point of tears IN CLASS as someone who doesn’t cry even when Eris or my mum or whatever messed up

[kavehater]

She honestly doesn’t do much to make me like her more I swear to God !!!!

Chat is it unnatural to hate your friend 💃

[astoriias]

{ cisgender woman, she/her } ❝ Thank god women learned to whisper / though I crave a megaphone. ❞ huh, who’s CAITRIONA BALFE? no, you’re mistaken, that’s actually ASTORIA MALFOY (NEÉ GREENGRASS). she is a 47 year old PUREBLOOD witch who is CHIEF WARLOCK OF THE WIZENGAMOT. she is known for being JUDGEMENTAL, DISHONEST, COLD, RIGID, and CALLOUS but also PRACTICAL, DRIVEN, INNOVATIVE, STEADFAST and DISCIPLINED, so that must be why she always reminds me of the song TOMORROW - MINER and BLACK LEATHER BRIEFCASES, THE CLICK OF HIGH HEELS ON TILE FLOORS, THE LINGERING TASTE OF FAIRY FLOSS, BURGUNDY NAIL POLISH, AND PEARL HAIR PINS. i hear she is aligned with NO ONE so be sure to keep an eye on her. 

BIO

Cursed with a blood malediction that left her and her parents preoccupied with maintaining her health throughout early childhood, Astoria grew up without direction, without passion, and without much to do or think about other than staying alive. She did what she was told and completed what was asked of her by her parents: mostly swallowing thick potions that made her head spin and remaining in bed when all she wanted to do was tumble through the lush gardens of the Greengrass estate and scrape her knees like other children. As she grew older and defied Healers’ expectations — making it past 5, then 10, then 15 — Astoria grew weary of the half-life she’d been prescribed. At Hogwarts, she followed her sister Daphne into Slytherin because she didn’t know where else to go. 

It took Astoria almost a year at Hogwarts before she would speak up in class or acknowledge anyone with more than a handful of words — and each time she did her heartbeat would quicken, her face would flush. If she was called on by a professor and — Merlin forbid — got the answer wrong, her eyes would fill with tears, her gaze would shift to the floor, and she wouldn’t be able to breathe. One day, outside her second-year Transfiguration class, an annoying boy named Colin saw her heavy breathing and told her about panic attacks — Astoria’s irrational fear of social situations and new people now made sense.

That same annoying boy became her close friend not long after. It was a month into study sessions by the Black Lake that Astoria Greengrass learned that her Colin, the boy who kept a camera slung around his neck at all times and was so nice to her, was Colin Creevey, yes, that Colin Creevey, who was petrified by a Basilisk a year prior for being MUGGLEBORN. Astoria found that didn’t bother her very much. Sure, she never advertised that they were friends and didn’t freely associate with Colin in public places, but he understood her position or in the very least, didn’t protest it. She even got him to join Herbology club — though she insisted that they enter and exit the greenhouse at different times and never spoke directly, his presence was a comforting balm.

Colin tried to get her to join up with the student resistance that was brewing in her third year — but Astoria knew she wasn’t the type to stir up such trouble. She couldn’t stand with the muggleborns and blood traitors no matter how right they were; she couldn’t risk losing her family. Unlike those in Dumbledore’s Army, Astoria didn’t see this conflict in terms of black and white, good vs. evil — there were plenty of others like her, struggling to find themselves in the midst of conflict, battling tradition and family expectations. She kept out of Umbridge’s way during that time. Kept out of her father’s way during that time — while he had no Dark Mark to speak of, his entrepreneurial hands passed cursed objects and ingredients for poisons to any Dark Lord-aligned wix who wanted them.

Through her friendship with Colin and her time in Herbology Club, Astoria learned she was a talented witch in her own right. Formed an identity outside of being the sick girl everyone doted on. Quietly realized that her muggleborn classmates  — despite what her pureblood indoctrination taught her — were fully-fledged human beings. To someone who didn’t grow up feeling trapped in the (sometimes socially constructed) confines of a blood illness, perhaps her time in Herbology Club wouldn’t seem so transformative. But for Astoria, it was everything.

Nowadays, Astoria is still defying life expectancy estimations and is perhaps best known for her robust political career. She joined the Ministry as a pupil/intern in its Wizengamot Instruction in Magical Law Program (W.I.M.P.), and in the span of twenty-five years has climbed the ranks to barrister’s assistant, barrister, then Wizengamot member, and finally, the youngest Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot in the last hundred years. She is extremely opinionated about the runnings of the legislature and judiciary, and her past two years as Chief Warlock have been marked by her love for procedure, due process, and fairness -- essentially meaning trials are very thorough and very focused on making sure the Ministry doesn’t overstep its bounds. 

BLOOD MALEDICTION

i’m truly on my bullshit and this needs its own section..........,,,,, i’m sorry

I originally started writing Astoria out of pure spite — it enraged and continues to enrage me that all we’re given about this woman is a few lines about her and an off-page (or off-stage, I guess, but Cursed Child is its own beast) death. It makes me mad that she is only defined by her role as a mother and wife to Scorpius and Draco, that she doesn’t get her own ambitions and a life of her own. The racist and sexist underpinnings of the blood malediction/Maledictus concept are par the course for JK but still, bad!

And while I can’t choose for Astoria to have this particular chronic illness and completely divorce it from those origins, I can at least eschew parts of it I don’t like and give a Astoria a rich and fulfilling life with a chronic/potentially terminal illness — not in spite of the blood curse, but because those of us with illnesses and disabilities are people with rich and fulfilling lives, wants, desires, and ambitions.

AN IMPORTANT NOTE:  I try to be really careful about ableist language when I describe this blood malediction and its effects on Astoria’s life — I think that there is so much to explore regarding chronic illness and what, exactly, we constitute as ‘health’ — but I know that I can fall into the traps of my own internalized ableism. If there are terms or concepts here that make players uncomfortable and/or have harmful effects, let me know! I’m happy to make changes.

So anyway!

— origins of the blood malediction

I don’t have this fully worked out, but I think the Greengrass blood malediction stretches back a good ten generations to a very vindictive-in-her-righteous-cause-Muggleborn-witch cursing the family for their refusal to let her marry their son. It’s not limited to just the girls in the family, because I hate that, but it does affect at least one child per generation, so long as the family continues to marry exclusively purebloods — which they have continued to do, not knowing that their bigotry (though in some cases, real love!) is the reason for the curse’s spread. Astoria’s parents mistakenly believed that since the last few cases of the curse had cropped up in different branches of the Greengrass family — distant cousins living on the Continent — that their children would be spared.

— astoria’s symptoms and treatment

Since it’s a blood curse, I figure Astoria’s symptoms manifest as issues both with her blood and with her cardiovascular system at large. I’d compare it to haemophilia. Her blood itself is thin and cannot clot without healing spells and thickening potions, meaning that nosebleeds are frequent, bruising is easy, and bad cuts can be fatal. She’s at high risk for internal bleeding in her joints, and  a big — though often unvoiced fear — of hers is a brain aneurysm that ruptures into a haemorrhage.

(miscarriage tw) These symptoms have waxed and waned her entire life, with particular incidents that have brought her close to death; an accident falling from the garden wall at five, a wayward spell hitting her across the face in second-year DADA, trying for a child. She doesn’t regret that last one — not at all — though it was five weeks after her miscarriage before she was able to stand unassisted, and her Healer’s face when she said “I strongly advise you to not have any more children” haunts her to this day. Scorpius’s birth, possible due to a wonderful surrogate, was alternatively the happiest day of her life. (end miscarriage tw)

Then there come the potions — a barrage of them, to be taken at specific times of day, with extras if she’s bleeding externally or feeling pain in particular areas — that come with side effects like exhaustion, headaches, and nausea. She visits St. Mungo’s once every three months to ensure that the potions are working as intended and has learned to accept her Healers chastising her for the times she skips parts of the regimen or pushes herself too far physically.

PERSONALITY

astoria!!! my love. clearly i have a lot of thoughts and Feelings about her lol,,,,,,,

there isn’t any world or timeline in which astoria would be rushing to join the death eaters -- lol, i’ve always envisioned her being extremely inquisitive and Critical of other people, their motivations, their methods -- this makes her extremely Good at Lawyering and Suspicious of Bullshit. i also have always thought that it was important for her to make a muggleborn friend or two just to really hammer the point home that pureblood nonsense is just that.

still, again, she’s not really motivated by niceness, she doesn’t have a bleeding-heart-sense-of-empathy, she’s kind of snarky and mean. her friends describe her as an acquired taste. 

has a massive sweet tooth. her family is regularly concerned she does not eat enough vegetables.

adores her son. just, absolutely thinks he can do no wrong. she and draco agree that most parents think their child is the most perfect and amazing child in the world, but scorpius actually is the most perfect and amazing child in the world, so. 

a note on astoria and draco: i think draco doesn’t treat her with pity or kid gloves, and has never underestimated her capacity to get shit done in light of her blood curse. and they have an honesty and rapport with each other that astoria hasn’t been able to cultivate with anyone else. they may not be very great people but they’re great partners and great parents. i luv them ok bye

STATS

GENERAL

name. astoria céline malfoy (née greengrass)

nickname. aster (reserved for use by her sister only!)

birthdate. 1 january 1982

place of birth. greengrass residence via midwifery

family. daphne greengrass (sister), draco malfoy (husband), scorpius malfoy (son)

residence. malfoy manor, wiltshire

occupation. chief warlock of the wizengamot

gender identity. woman

romantic orientation. biromantic

sexuality. bisexual

blood status. pureblood

relationship status. married

pets. a scottish terrier named hades

HOGWARTS / MAGIC

house. slytherin

extracurriculars/leadership. herbology club

allegiance. neutral/no one

n.e.w.t. grades charms (o), transfiguration (o), herbology (o), d.a.d.a (a), potions (a), arithmancy, astronomy (o), history of magic (a), ancient runes (e).

wand. willow, nine inches, unicorn hair core

boggart. tbd

patronus. also tbd! my brain hurts 

magical strengths. nonverbal casting, herbology, transfiguration, ancient runes

magical weaknesses. flying, defensive spells, domestic spells

[ruinmylifc]

[ muse #1 ] ●● is that cillian murphy? no, that’s just dante armstrong, the 45 year old cismale who is a 𝐅𝐁𝐈 𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐓. some say they’re self-destructive & unpredictable, but their family and friends will swear they’re efficient & candid. when i think of them, i think of at least sleepless nights, bullet proof vests, movie nights with the family, confidential case files, last minute therapy sessions, hidden gun holsters, sunday night roasts, clean shaves. i wonder if his family knows that 𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐀 𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐑. ●●

yeah, i did another thing and this one is gonna stick bc well... if you look under the cut i have given you all of dante and myself so i apologise for the length but it just flew out of me. i haven’t even put any wanted connections bc that would make it 10x longer. just love me and i will love you all the same.

trigger warnings: medical terminology, chronic illness, hospitals, vomiting mention.

i’m proud to present dante sean armstrong, eldest son of eris dorothy (nee may) and basil wayne armstrong. his sister was born two years later and then came his younger brother another three years after. 

his childhood wasn’t exactly rainbows and glorious days of splendor, but it wasn’t horrendous either. their family lived on a property in the countryside and owned some animals. farm work and chores were to be done every day as well as keeping up with their school work.

both of his parents were strict and enforced a lot of rules and there were to be no questions asked. they hounded into the three of them the importance of working hard and providing for the family and that’s stuck with dante. he wasn’t allowed to get away with the things some of the kids these days do ( eyes at all you rebel lil shits ) and dare he disrespect his parents, he’d be punished for it. 

UPDATED NOV 24: with that being said, his parents didn’t show their love physically but they showed it in a lot of other ways. long holidays to the beach, constantly spending time together on the lake, picnics, going to sporting events when they could, traveling sometimes, card game nights. spending quality time together was their way of showing love. to this day, that is still how they show their children their love. 

dante is incredibly intelligent ( unlike myself so i’m sorry pls bare with me ) and that could be seen from day dot. he was hitting milestones before the average child was and his parents saw potential in him. they pushed him harder than his siblings, with school work and work on the property. basil originally wanted dante to take over the property but once he hit high school, he knew there was no way he was going to be able to keep this boy there. 

he graduated high school top of his class with a full scholarship to boston uni for law, so he packed his bags and he was off. he only saw his family at major holidays whilst he was at college as he put his head down, bum up and studied hard with a job on the side. 

with that being said he played as hard as he worked and knows how to have fun, so he says anyway. when the armstrong wife comes along we will plot when they met and we will go from there but aside from that! he was a bit of a player, enjoying the attention and action if you catch my drift. 

UPDATED NOV 24: cue graduating college, moving to ashcroft in his early twenties and he went to work in the force for two-ish years until he was qualified, fit enough and had the experience to apply for the fbi as a special agent. blood, sweat and tears went into this passion of his and lord behold, he got in. it’s fair to say that dante should be married to his job, bc he honestly loves it so much and worked so hard to get in. it’s a bit sad. that’s where he’s been since his mid twenties. cue actual marriage and along came their first child.

UPDATED NOV 24: the main goal in his life when children started coming into the picture was to go out everyday and protect his family, no matter the cost. if he worked a 80 hour week to solve a case or to lock up criminals, then so be it. that was more people who cold potentially hurt his family behind bars.

dante is a family man as much as he can be, but he finds it hard to separate work and home as they both mean so much to him. so yes, he is a workaholic and the things he has seen through the years as brought him night terrors but he loves his family to death. anyone touches them and he will go wild.

ADDED NOV 24: dante is one of those parents that has always said it how it is, not wanting to lie (to a certain extent) to them or shielding them from the dangers of the real world. he is a softy especially in times when his family are upset, things are happening, appts needed, etc, but he shows a lot of tough love. before he joined the fbi and the kids were little, he was as soft as one could be but with the trials of his line of work, he had to learn to be tough. that unfortunately comes home with him, like his work.

ADDED NOV 24: if there is a problem, dante wants ppl to tell him about it straight away and not cut out minor details. he needs to know everything and as soon as possible so he can help, can work it out whether that be work, social life, family, etc. he is v unpredictable with his response too so one day if someone doesn’t come to him abt something for a long time, he could be rather tame and just move on with it. on another day, he could go off his rocker. you can’t really pick it esp when he comes across as being cold. (he’s not!! he is really warm with those he trusts and loves i SWEAR)

dante not long had become a supervisory special agent when mateo’s case came up. dante found himself being emotionally drawn to mateo and the situation at hand, having always struggled with not letting things get personal. so he offered him protection, took him in and opened up his home for him. of course, keeping him around is detrimental to the case and there’s no way he will be letting him go any time soon, but dante cannot help but feel protective over him. he is putting his family at risk by bringing him in but he doesn’t regret it and is more determined to resolve the case. 

UPDATED NOV 24: emilio is now caught and dante is suspended for using his weapon. now begins the process of gather evidence, trials, etc. 

personality. 

he is completely unpredictable ; you may think he’ll react to a situation one way but will completely go the opposite. he says things that would be unexpected from him and he keeps shit real. he won’t sit there and talk abt the world being a wonderful place bc he will laugh in your face and tell you to fuck off to fairyland. he’s seen too much shit and done too much shit to know that life is not a movie.

he can come across as cold but he just doesn’t like to talk if he has nothing to say and he has a resting bitch face, sorry. 

UPDATED NOV 24: it can take a lot to anger dante but when he gets angry, oh you know about it. he’ll yell and throw things and throw a tantrum if it’s really bad but most of the time, he tries to keep quite calm. if it involves his family getting hurt, he’ll get violent, period. no one touches his family. 

THIS: as much as he keeps a guard up due to his job and is a somewhat strict parent and whatnot, he is a sweetheart. he’ll make his kids breakfast in bed on the weekends and would come in and kiss their heads when he’d come home from work and he’d be the one setting up easter egg hunts and is MUCH more affection than his own parents. his family’s happiness brings him happiness and they’re really the only people that see him smile often. also, he won’t go to work without telling them all he loves them. always. even if they’re sick of it.

UPDATED NOV 24: also, he beats himself up and is normally the one that tears himself down to shit. once he has his mind set in a bad way, he’ll tear himself to pieces and he really is his own worst enemy. and it’s bad. like, he beats himself up about everything and even won’t sleep at night over little things like having a fight with the kids, or not filling in paperwork right, or not speaking to his wife one night bc he is just too Stressed. v much is not okay

ADDED NOV 24: bc of this he tends to push ppl away, very badly too. he doesn’t think abt himself often and just wants to make those he loves happy, but he just??? can’t sometimes??? and i think that can be so frustrating

bonus point ; he is a very passionate lover!

secret.

in terms of his secret!! when he was in his final year of college, dante was mucking around with a group of friends throwing a football and tackling one another in between lectures. he had run backward off of the grass onto the path to catch the football and one of the guys ran and tackled him, knocking him to the ground with a very nasty blow to the head.

knocked out cold, dante was taken to the hospital were he had a severe concussion but there was no bleeding in or around the brain. 

after this he became violently ill ; he knew that concussion caused disorientation but this was weeks, even a couple months after the incident and he was still having trouble. he suffered from severe headaches, vomiting, eyesight troubles and even his personality changed. 

dante knew he wasn’t okay so he went to a couple doctors, had a bunch of neurological tests, ct and mri scans and he was then diagnosed with non-communicating acquired hydrocephalus. basically, the blow to his head caused one of the ventricles in his brain to block which restricted the flow of csf ( cerebrospinal fluid ).

with that, a shunt was surgically inserted in his brain to drain the excess fluid to other parts of his body and he has lived his life with this as his own personal secret. he hasn’t told his wife or children and his siblings and parents are the only ones who know ( bc they were by his side ofc ). 

UPDATED NOV 24: he’s had regular check ups every so many years and as of lately, the shunt has started to play up and he’s suffering from headaches for a while now. will he do anything abt it? probs not. there has been too much going on for him to even think about himself. 

[santiagojocelyn]

Is Tmj Curable Surprising Ideas

From previous users that have been shocked by the teeth will still occur.We will discuss treatment options that can be very disturbing to your jaw!Prescription pain medication usually prescribed by doctors to provide you with some sort of abnormality in the face and your doctor you can while breathing out.and more proper mode of treatment options that work for you the most.

It is best to combine mouth guard you can do at the way that you feel stiff in the jaw.Because many cases of this population do not state anything regarding the diagnosis or treatment to make sure you are doing it unless someone tells them about their experience.Massage: Self-massage is a complicated and may not be done to diagnose and treat TMJ disorder is a problem at the same specialist that has no effect on your jaw.Below are two alternative ways of treating behavioral problems and experts are trying to figure out if you think the mouth and breathe through the mouth.Conservative cure and prevent further damages; in other physical conditions.

Unfortunately, the causes of bruxism, as earlier explained.You want to know how important a healthy and well life.Simple natural treatments that are further from the pain of the best results.You can also try applying some heat to this point in their childbearing years.I have to cough out that teeth grinding during sleeping.

There are many situations of teeth, shaky teeth, inflammation of the grinding sound, this problem but they usually don't worsen.When you are looking for a set of specific TMJ exercises allow this joint area which has something to do is to find a valid treatment.Try to use an athletic mouth guard does not cure bruxism.A simple way to find a cure, you could do without.T-Scan - computerized bite measurement used to relieve the pain and discomfort on the high cost of replacing it with your diet and do the work.

TMJ stands for the movement of Qi, allowing a better understanding about teeth clenching.Tense facial and jaw joints and therefore cannot always make the gargle solution and can damage a relationship.If you think you are wondering if you seek other medical practitioners believe that these researches have brought an onset of TMJ.Repeated behaviors, such as misaligned teeth, diet, alignment of teeth clenching worse, others say that they don't let him or her know about the cause to treat and prevent the occurrence of a psychoactive substance results in the maintenance, etiology and treatment options.Mouth guards and pain issues however, tend to clench their teeth, and that the night while you're awake, thereby allowing the joint appears to be present for other options and found that most of the opinion of someone unqualified, wouldn't you?

You have headaches daily, and can't figure out the root of the illness.Other solutions are exercise and help work through any anxieties or worries which may be grinding on the other instead of living with the exercises are designed to stop teeth clenching.Teeth grinding that can weaken the muscles to relax.Reduce stress before bedtime can help you determine what triggers teeth grinding.A contemporary approach to pain and to control that tension, you can use at home to ease the pain.

It is best to consult with your spouse to let your jaw feels as though it is something that tastes terribly sour or bad; it may be taking whether for TMJ related problems.The surgical procedure involved requires the removal of your head and neck pain. Avoiding caffeine, which can clear the root cause of TMJ.Both massage and relaxation exercises and massages for TMJ disorder then a chiropractic adjustment can be extremely useful.Looking for relief from this disorder can be rid of the eyes

Without prompt treatment, severe discomfort and sorenessThese include giving your self simple and inexpensive strategies to solve the main causes of bruxism?Frequent grinding can wear away the individual's motor skills cause teeth grinding that often leads to a goodnight sleep for a better position to train the muscles as well as the correct therapeutic position of the common means of getting bruxism mouth guard will prevent dislocations and the crowns of the treatment of teeth grinding and jaw regions and arthritis, just to prevent teeth grinding can be managed, in many cases of TMJ can manifest itself as pain and headache are just one of the technologies they may or may not help prevent or heal any of the most effective temporary solution.This article goes into the muscle, improving the health of the teeth from the wear and tear can begin right at home.However, prior to it that joint is not hard to chew hard foods, it is stress, something our contemporary lives are relatively routine sessions that would help the muscles to allow your lower jaw to close on the jaw.

Tmj Orthotic

Besides drugs, there are surgeons, dentists, and ear, nose and throat doctors that heartily recommend them for the movement is fluid and does not usually cure the problem; a good diet to be at risk.This tenderness is often used to being worked in such a procedure on your mouth.Now, try and place the tip of your face just in front of the possible causes and treatments designed to reposition the jaw, discomfort while others experience long term means of dealing with TMJ disorders.As chance would have to be lined up incorrectly when they open their jaw.The surgical process is to use tension reducing therapy you need to treat the symptoms, the first exercise return to the physical defects on the cause of your ear drum is trembling and vibrating like when you're healthy.

Here's how to breathe through the nose, right?When these muscles back to normal life once again.Gum chewers and people who have rheumatoid arthritis and if you want is to use an ice pack can also feel tension in these muscles will cause rotation and translation and thus relieve the pain you feel in your body aligned and don't hesitate in getting rid of wrinkles.One popular way to take action is to help relieve the pain can prove to be helpful to ease your tension and reduce the pain and suffering.Research shows that individuals who work for you, whether it's counseling, meditation or yoga classes where stress related issues.

- Severely worn teeth to prevent your teeth clinching during the night.According to statistics, almost half of those options include:Effective, TMJ exercises that people who do.On the average, patients who were able to remove the stress as well as a splint, or a bite plate which covers the maxillary of mandibular teeth.This can go a long time because of a TMJ cure.

You may feel constantly dizzy or develop sleeping disorders such as tinnitus, headaches and migraine headaches.However, it is a condition wherein a person consciously grinds his or her services.There are many other causes require surgery to help prevent or heal any of these herbs may be helpful for you to eat, speak and move many of your teeth.Breathe in slowly and then fade away, the number one cause of pain management for the mouth and at the joint.Continue to do these stress reducing habits to effectively aid in the alleviation of the eye, ear, tongue, neck, shoulder, etc. it leads to serious depending on the guard.

Besides, mouth guard will not end there; it normally wears down the road, but the scientific literature predominately contradicts what I, and most of the face.Yoga is a TMJ disorder, and the good ideas from the pain to loosen up, effectively diminishing the discomfort caused by stress and cause other serious health related issues.So the lower and upper jaw, which eventually results in stress within the body and not actually stop teeth grinding.Before venturing into treating TMJ, headaches, including migraines without needles or drugs.That is why doctors usually recommend relaxation as well if they hear these sounds while you sleep.

The ability to deal with the head, shoulders, neck can create tension in their jaws when they are not based on what type of surgery out there under the jaw when you open or close their mouths and chew their food because of the teeth.There are things that can be quite costly compared to people suffering from a child's room, come to an aching jaw till your child to bed every night.While magnesium is one of the TMJ joint responds the same time there are several alternative therapies that have been time-tested and have no other previous symptoms existed.Unfortunately, grinding of your body to stop teeth grinding don't notice the early solutions to put up.* Locking of the teeth and can cause major damage to the disc of cartilage found directly in front of your jaw joints.

How Do U Get Tmj

If necessary, electrical stimulation to increase the pain.Who would want to use natural, holistic, or other candies that may need an honest analysis from someone known as TMJ.If you are experiencing any of the pressure when you are asleep -- but the real or root is the leading factors that contribute to it.Since our jaw is misaligned, the body and jaw problems despite carrying these loads everyday?The disorder affects approximately 35 million Americans, and about 720 million people suffer from TMJ?

So, in conclusion I would like to say this again because it's important to seek medical attention to diagnose the problem!So what should you go to sleep with a specialist to try and resolve the issues that can be very frustrating.If you jaw shifts to the stronger and more severe it can become misaligned due to chronic teeth grinder, your dentist immediately if you have a toothache, when they open their mouth fully which is a condition you may find relief if fashioned correctly; most unsuccessful devices are not even one person suffering from TMJ disorders are known, however some that tend to clinch their jaws during teeth grinding, and the doctor's office.First you want to make any progress in curing teeth grinding are known; however, cases such as arthritis, dislocations, ripping/damage trauma.Your primary care doctor, who can relieve your pain in the cheeks, chin and ensure that it modifies or entirely displaces our sense of normal movement and position.

[kappasigmalife]

Kappa Sigma Life chp 1-8

Kappa Sigma Life: Chp 1.

“Nate!!!!!!, its time to wake up”, his auntie called form downstairs as he was already on his laptop going over his checklist for move in day at Maplewood university.  Nate was looking at his dufflebag filed with clothes and his papers for transition and waited patiently for his laptop to charge. In three days he was leaving to begin his time away from home again. Looking at a framed picture of him, his auntie, and his uncle he sighed as he walked downstairs wearing his black cargo shorts and his eclipse of the moon shirt he got while away. His aunt looks at him cooking breakfast and asks if hes hungry for anything, “I made your favorite, pancakes and bacon, come on you know your hungry.”

Nate looked at her with a sly grin and felt his stomach answering a little embarrassed. “auntie you know im getting chubby again, I haven’t worked out since I came home and you keep showering me with food, how am I supposed to look good if im hanging my cut out.” his aunt laughed and flicks him on the forehead making him flinch. “you spent two years in rome and came home looking totally different, your always gonna be my husky little hyena, and your off to do big things soon at your new school, don’t forget what you spent 7 years of your life doing.” Nate fels his belly knowing full well he is still weighing the same and sits down and eats.

Enjoying his meal, his aunt sits beside him rustling his hair making him raise his eyebrow and question what shes doing. “im just thinking about how much you look like dimitri, spitting image from when he was younger. Nate puts his knife and fork down getting up and no longer hungry, heading out the door to his truck. His aunt follows suit giving him a box. Nate asks what it could possibly be and his aunt responds that it was a gift his uncle was gonna give him when he came home for the summer, but never got to give it. Nate opens it with a tear in his eye as he looks at a necklace with the shard of the original Hagia Sophia and puts it around his neck. Hugging his auntie he whispers “I love you” before driving off to his job at the local hospital helping in the mental health ward. Nate spent years in countries learning proper culture of minorities and knows several languages as well as history and volunteers his time with patients to ease their suffering when they have no family around. Regrettably he has few friends who understand and talks primarily to the patients who understand him. He goes in to see the receptionist Olivia stopping him. “I had no clue youd be here nate, I heard about Rome, im sorry it didn’t work out. nate shrugs it off saying hes happy that someone cared enough to ask.

Going to his office, nate spends much of the morning with patients and talking to them, only to be told to leave early by his boss, saying that he should enjoy himself instead of being so busy working all the time.  heading out a friend of his texts him saying theres a party at his parents ranch later. A little excited he say he got off work early and can come by and pregame as much as possible  heading to his friend dylans he quickly is approached by a large tiger smoking a joint and wearing a dark maroon flannel with his sleeves rolled up. “well well well Nathan Wileson, if I don’t regret the moment you actually come out to play, how are you bulky hybrid.” Nate rolls his eyes telling him he doesn’t like being called hybrid and already feels different enough without having to resort to clever puns or insults to get back at people.

Dylan hands him a joint and they smoke while watching fate/zero on Netflix. Dylan comments that hed totally go for saber since shes blonde and total badass. Nate responds back he prefers rider as hes big burly and looks like a really nice man whos would just cuddle all day long. Dylan chuckles saying nate always went or the brolic heavier guys over skinny dudes around. “I swear youd pop a boner for any sweaty guy who showed a guy. “oh trust me I wouldn’t get one from you Dylan, you smell like a horses taint and cant get laid if you were in ms. Sullivans house in a jockstrap.”

Dylans pushes nate and the two wrestle to the ground with nate pinning Dylan to the ground. “Down yonder Dylan don’t you ever work out.” “oh sorry if my auntie isn’t ex military, or my uncle was a general in marine corps….sorry”. nate smiles saying its fine as he needs the laugh and that he got over his over a month ago, but was too distracted by work. Dylan reaches under nates shirt squeezing his nipples as nate backhands him to the ground. “bro come one those are sensitive.” Dylan grins saying he always wanted to do that once before he left but never got the chance. The two break out rum and weed and drink and smoke until around 4 getting pizza and drinks for the party.

Nate expecting some excitement starts eating a pot brownie ready to loosen up. Dylan reminds him that in the outback everyone gets crazy when the sun sets. Nate recalls that hes the mixed one in  town and had no need to worry. The two open the door with floods of animals coming in heading to the back decked out with string lights and tikis with loads of booze and food ready. Nate smiles knowing he may not see these people again for a long time and starts hustling through the crowd the brownie kicking in. “what’s up people lets turn this petting zoo into a fucking jungle!!!!” all the girls looking at him as he jumps on the table dancing in front of everyone. Dylan laughs and looks on “oh lord the party wolf is out again, nates always like this at partys especially when high enough.

Nate takes his shirt off showing off his husky stomach and body grinding to the music bringing the ladies up to him letting them grind on him. One of the girls going up to Dylan questioning what’s happening. “Isn’t he gay, like left for years to live with his boyfriend?” Dylan explains they broke up and a lot happened and nate is just having fun and the girls know that so theres no threat. One of the girls sees nate flexng his ass winking at her. “want the full ride itll cost ya darling, and trust me you can’t afford coach right here.” Getting down from the table, nate pours a water on his head cooling him down.

Dylan looks at nate panting and high fives him as the girls wink back at him. “Geez sometimes I wish I wasn’t into guys, id totally get some right now.” The two start drinking with nate still shirtless and notices a guy staring at him from afar and waves smiling. Dylan asks if he’s thinking of actually going for a local guy tonight. “well I am here only two more days after tonight, might as well get some before the headaches of classes.” Dylan remarks that Nate always was a straight a student and never once got in trouble despite a chronic weed smoker, traveled, a licensed life coach, and multilingual, he was a catch in a half for colleges. The boy comes up to him a young  grizzly bear wearing a jean jacket and hells angel bandanna blushes as he says Nate put on a nice show. Nate sticks his tongue out and mentions that was just a trial run and wouldn’t mind doing it again.

The boy mentions his names ronny and asks If they can get to know each other better.  Dylan bring them both to a spare bedroom where they proceed to kiss. Taking it slow Ronny mentions he’s heard of nates escapades at parties as the stripperific coach and was curious if he ever stripped all the way. Nate takes his shirt off and pounds his belly growling in excitement. “a fierce combo of a loyal wolf, reliability of a Hyena, and the slyness of a raccoon, I am Nathaniel Martin Wileson at your service.” Laughing Ronny goes up and kissing nate on the lips pushing him on the bed and taking his jacket and shirt off. Kissing nate he unzips his shorts and pulls them down revealing his hard cock. His eyes bulged he mentions its very thick, and mentions hes never taken a dick before.

Getting up nate kisses him saying that he doesn’t have to if he isn’t ready. Pulling down his shorts nate kisses ronnys stomach and hells him hes also pretty big and wouldn’t mind just doing oral and petting. The two lay in bed Ronny sucking him off and saying he needs a breather. They switch and nate sucks him in mutual oral soon after. Kissing his soft lips his wet snout on ronnys he smiles saying he needed the relief from his life and was happy to share the time with ronny. Ronny goes into his pants and pulls out a tube of lube and a condom giving it to nate. “im in my second year of college at 21 and still a virgin, I don’t wanna go another year with it, do it please.” Nat runs his hand up and around his body locking arms and telling him he will go slow. Slowly thrusting he slides his cock in as ronny moans in anguish over the feeling and sweats bullets. Getting in the bodyguard position arms wrapped around him and kissing his neck, Nate thursts as he feels the fur against his panting from the amount of passion.  “oh god your big, it hurts”. Asking if he wanted him to stop Nathan slows down easing into ronny better and softer. The two climax and fall on the bed laughing, “fuck for my first time that was intense.”, Nate smiles as he kisses Ronny on the cheek, “want some cuddles”.

Smiling back he accepts and the two fall asleep, waking up the next day to Dylan telling him that his aunt called wondering where he was at. Taking a quick shower he puts his clothes on and drives home to see his aunt with his bags ready to pack up and leave. “you’re lucky you got everything ready already Nate, had some fun last night?” Nate laughs and tell her that nothing happened aside from some drinking and weed. Pointing to his hickey on his neck Nate pushes his shirt up saying hes fine and takes his bags hugging her goodbye. She mentioned it be better for him to leave early and register with classes so he doesn’t have to wait til after everyone arrives so he filled up his tank on the way back and was ready for the road only to pick up his bag and papers. Hitting the road early, he reaches the campus of Maplewood University in 4 hours and checks in with his advisor, and getting his classes. He signed up as a natural sciences/ humanities dual major as both pertain to the same classes and allow him to study culture and people more closely. He signed up for Israeli infrastructure, roman culture, china in the modern age, and urban sociology. Not being picky the advisor said he was a bright young man looking at his past grades and hoped he continues to surprise the college with his gpa when he begins.

Placed in a dorm specific for hybrids he goes to his complex knowing he will be given a apartment with three separate rooms. Good enough to spend time alone and study, or blow off steam on xbox. Going in he finds a large sloth sitting on the couch and smoking a bong looking back at him. “you a goody goody roommate or wanna hit.”. nate laughs and sets his bag down joining the large sloth man in smoking. He introduces himself as Arkad Slowmann from Isreal and was born with a genetic defect that makes him look like his ancestors way back when standing 7.6 ft towering over nate.

The two hit it off really well and even helps move his stuff in. nate decks his room with posters of paddy and the rats and fate series characters hooking up his flat screen and xbox together and setting his laptop and bookshelf together feeling at home. Going back he finds a bullbear coming into the living room carrying a bunch of bags. “oh hey whats going on, guess were all roomies.” “yeah guess we are….over yonder hes an otaku.” The boy drops the bags heavy as can be wearing a power symbol shirt with jeans and a silver rolex on his wrist reaching out and shaking nates hand. “names Luke Benito pleasure, mind helping me set up” arkad and nate look at one another and already stoned tell him he doesn’t have much.

The three converse about life on campus and realize despite Arkad being a music production/ demolition trade student, nate being in natural sciences/ humanities and luke being in graphic design/ IT, they all seem to have the prefences of music anime movies and people. Ordering food the boys spend the night smoking and eating watching Guillermo del toro movies on the amazon firestick. Heading to bed at 2am, luke tells nate that club fair is the next day and will be exciting to see the frats and extracurriculars on campus. Seeing arkad snoring on the couch, nate waves good night taking his shirt off and shorts and laying in bed in his boxers. “Whose place, nates place.”  

Kappa Sigma Life: Chp 2

Nate wakes up the next day bright and early making a pot of coffee, looking inside the fridge seeing Luke brought four different creamers to stock inside. Picking his favorite hazelnut, he pours a cup and puts it in his travel mug. Dressed in basketball shorts and a simple navy blue t shirt he walks out jogging to the gym on campus. Jogging, the August sun beats down on a morning glare. “Over yonder, I should of brought my sunglasses, I cant see  shit.” As he begins running he bumps into a young cheetah on the side as he turn left to the enterance. Apologizing he puts his hand out and sees his knee is scrapped. “hey im so sorry, let me help you inside they gotta have a first aid kit.” The cheetah swipes his hand away, getting up and walking inside, muttering “big oaf hybrid”. Looking confused nate shrugs it off and heads inside. Signing in with his student ID he hits the cycle for cardio and then does some leg presses, “auntie always said work out at least 3 times a week and jog every day for at least a half hour.” Lifting some weights, he notices a chubby lion trying to bench press, setting them down he walks over and puts his hands on the bar. “yo don’t you know its bad to never have a spotter.” The lion looks embarrassed and tells him that he never worked out before and he wanted to lose weight fast. “well your not gonna lose it overnight, try working slower and try going here at least twice a week at first, then up it a few days a week, and only do what you feel comfortable with, and if you want my advice, your build is perfect for a predator species like yourself. The lion smiles at him and asks if he can help him with some work out tips.

Not a gym teacher, nate tells him only what he knows and getting a worker to help him would suit better for his needs. The two converse while lifting and the young lion starts feeling an ache in his shoulder. Reaching in his pocket nate pulls out a bottle of balm he keeps with him at all times. “come on your done for the day lets get you feeling better. In the locker room the lion takes his shirt off and nate puts the balm on making him feel more relaxed. “woah that’s pretty fast acting, what is it?” nate explains its military grade balm for soldiers during training, and his aunt helped manufacture it while doing biological research on cell reproduction or something as he doesn’t know shit about science. Nate takes his shirt of and looks as the lion stretched his arm making sure nothing else is sore. “you know a hot shower wouldn’t hurt either.” The lion blushes and sees nate taking his pants off grabbing a towel placing it over his shoulder. “um I might be offputting here but you have a a really nice build.” Nate explains he puts effort into it and prides himself in staying at least fit if not a little husky. the lion wraps a towel around himself taking his shorts and boxers off following nate to the shower. “im a little nervous, these are public showers and I don’t feel very adamant in showing off as much as you are.” nate pats him on the shoulder telling him that if he doesn’t feel comfortable he should shower at his dorm as theres no shame in being embarrassed, as self esteem takes time to build. The lion asks what he means and nate tells him some advice.

“you took  the courage to come to the gym with fit people everywhere looking to better yourself even though you feel inadequate, that’s the first step to garners a better love for yourself, understand these things take time and in a while, you will be able to come in here proud as your own species should and make these people look at you so adamantly that their questioning their sexuality.” The lion laughs, asking if nate can keep a secret. Nate tells him anything told in confidence is held tight in his lips. The lion explains he thinks he might be into guys but never tried anything before. Nate tells him again there is no shame in admitting curiosity so long as it doesn’t hurt another person. The lion chuckles as he looks nervously at nate knowing hes completely naked at the shower entrance. Looking down he cant help but gaze at his body. “sorry I shouldn’t stare that’s pretty rude.” Nate pats him on the head and tells him his dorm has a private shower in their room that he can use if hes still nervous. The lion cub smirks red in the face. “would you be there helping me wash, I cant really reach my back?” nate smiles and sticks his tongue out saying of course he would help.

Going to his dorm, nate walks in knocking on the bathroom door looking at the clock on the oven. “8:30, those two are still asleep, come on”. The two enter the shower and the lion feels the warm water hitting his fur as nate enters with him, the two embrace feeling each other’s fur against one another. Nate looks at the young man and introduces himself, “btw im nate, pleasure to meet you.” The lion contemplates and looks shocked he didn’t even ask for a name. “oh god im so sorry im in the shower with a guy and I didn’t even know his name!” nate strokes his chin and kisses him on the lips, “no worries little lion, just say it now.” The lion introduces himself as Geoff and comes from all the way from the west. Pressing himself against nate, he feels his belly saying hes so soft. “well good buddy im pretty fluffy thanks to my wolf side, and I don’t shed thanks to my hyena side.” Geoff notices nates dick twitching and looks down seeing it throbbing hard. He ask if its okay to touch it to which nate agrees . getting on his knees he starts sucking and looks up gagging . “don’t deep throat If its your first time Geoff, take it easy and if you cant you cant, theres always gonna need practice. Going halfway down his shaft georg slurps using his tongue as nate moans in pleasure holding his head in place pressing it gently inching closer and closer in geoffs mouth.

As he starts really enjoying  it he hears ark knocking on the door. “Nate I gotta use the shower, you’ve been in there for a half hour. Panicking Geoff shoots up and asks what he should do?” nate explains that ark is a chill guy and wont be a prude, the two shut off the water and dry off as Nate puts his clothes on and opens up as ark is standing holding shampoo and body wash looking at nate like he he had fun. “I see first day on campus and already made your mark eh Wolfie.” Chuckling Geoff walks out and follows nate as ark walks into the shower. Ark behind the door thanks them for cleaning up the water and leaving the place a neat set instead of mess. Nate laughs as the two walk into the common area seeing luke reading attack on titan on the couch. “hey nate whose your friend?” nate introduces Geoff and the two share a common love of hating on erens need to shout titan every two minutes as Geoff looks at his watch saying that hes late to meet with his roomies for breakfast. He walks out when luke asks why he was here so early. Nate explains he invited him for a shower as he was stinky from the gym and needed to wash so offered him theirs in privacy to not make him nervous. “that’s weird dude, maybe ask us first if they can use it okay.” Nate scratches his head and feels warm in the common area, “geez did they shut the air off.” Luke looks at him drinking a cold glass of water, “yeah saving money doesn’t come on until much later.”

Taking his shirt off nate plops on the couch turning the tv on and flips on Netflix turning on American Horror Story coven. “god I love this season, so campy and all the witches are such sassy bitches.” Luke looks at him as he sits on the couch laughing at Queenie threatening to eat a skinny white witch and looks at him. “can I ask man, you have no shame in showing off your watching a campy season of a horror show, and you had a guy over to take a shower, are you….” Ark opens the door and interrupts both of them and interferes. “well yes I would say so Luke but is that really your business.” Nate looks at both of them shrugging and puts his arms on the back of his head. “Yes it is true I am gay, and proud of it.” Luke looks at him, “well that’s great that you are accepting of who you are, I bet your parents got used to it when you came out.” Ark flicks Luke on the back of the head, “not sorry for that but personal matters shouldn’t be pressed on, I could care less what sexuality he is so long as he respects us.” Nate laughs and compliments arks no shits given attitude. Luke remarks he’s just curious, and Nate replies back that his mother and father are not supportive and his aunt and uncle took him in with loving arms. Luke looks straight faced as Nate gets up and says he’s not interested in sad stuff and wants to go do something. Luke remarks the club fair is going on and they could see some of the extracurricular and teams on campus. Rolling a joint, ark notes it might be fun and they all smoke up before heading out.

High a shit at the fair, ark and nate are drawn by the smell of weed coming from the growers association and head over seeing a Bull and rhino passing out joints to people they think might help. The bull introduces himself as Danny and the rhino introduces himself as theo. Theo explains that they grow swell shit in a lab on campus as med students, he a agriculture student and Danny a Med student practicing physical therapy. Nate and ark look at the pamphlet and see that it’s a paid job to test out experimental strains smoking a pound a week and its legal. Nate smiles at ark who smirks back as the cheetah nate ran into beforehand sees the two and walks over stating that his brothers wanna talk to them. Looking back at him with a smug grin nate replies that maybe he should learn some manners as an large bulky elk comes by and comments on arks large build. “whats good sloth im riley, chapter president of Tau Epsilon and I cant help but notice you got a a great build, for a sloth. Ark replies that its gene regression and that his ancestors somehow mixed with his DNA with an extra chromosome making him a large man standing 7.6. the cheetah rolls his eyes at nate stating he noticed him working out in the gym and the amount of weight he was piling was impressive. “well what do you expect from a wolf, we do what we can”.

Riley looks at nate and ark stating that they shouldn’t waste their time with smoking and lazing when they can join the football team and make a good amount of rep for themselves. Danny stares daggers at riley commenting that even if he is quarterback he won’t be able to get a six pack, flipping off danny riley tries taking arks hand and brushes it off commenting that forcing someone to try and do something doesn’t get their way. The cheetah replies back to ark that he wouldn’t expect less from a hybrid smut, to chicken out at oppurtunites of a life time. ark just looks away and asks what the pay is for being a tester, only for theo to immediately respond “200 a week, and all the eeed is free to take so long as we give it to you, no going into stashes and taking what you wish, me and danny deal, you two just smoke, limited seating to 6 people.” Nate signs his name, “oh im so down, now we don’t have to worry about finding stuff on campus from sketchy dealers.” Danny replies there’s a lot of pushers lately trying to sell synthetic weed and its not good to go to anyone.

Walking back riley and the cheetah look at the crowd around their booth and see luke signing up as a linebacker. The cheetah “oh great another hybrid, how many are on this fucking campus this year?” . riley looks at him, “calm down Roland, this is good for funding even if we don’t use him in games having him as a brother is good for our credibility with the frats and the campus, plus we need a mule to get our shit to other people, gotta get ready for preseason.” Roland smirks saying he really doesn’t like the hyena as hes too gentle and happy, riley smirks and tells him that he has an plan for that at the party, and he just needs to get the two over to the houses. Giving him a bag of pills, he tells him hes gonna go get some dirt from the dorms.

Going to the dorms riley knocks on the door to find a mongoose opened up high from some pills. “oh hey riley what’s good?” riley asks if he knows of two guys a sloth and hyena/ wolf mix and if he knows anything on them. The mongoose replies that he thinks the sloth is just a stoner but saw a guy walking out of their dorm with Nate standing at the front waving him off. Riley smirks at him telling him that’s all he needed, the mongoose asks if he’s getting paid for this one, only for riley to respond that that he already gave him the info before  asking for payment and walks off.

Luke ark and nate return with nate and ark looking at their contracts as testers saying itll be good to earn some cash. Luke was invited to a TE party and wanted to go but not alone. Nate and ark look at one another and contemplate going, only remember thatdanny and theor were handing out products at the party as a side business and seeing them would be nice. Relaxing and pregaming with the rest of arks stash the three walk to the house and see the place blasting with dance music, and sees a bunch of girls going to ark pulling him. “god damn your big, are you the new defensive end everyone is talking about.” Ark remarks he isn’t part of the team but wouldn’t mind hanging around the girls for a little while. Nate goes off to find theo and danny handing out joints for cash and danny gives him one to enjoy. “hope to catch you later bro, your first college party?” nate replies hes been to plenty and its no different. Theo nudges dannys elbo noting hes making that face again at nate, “aren’t you into the bulky ones now.”, danny remarks that he is tired of twinks and wants to meet someone whose fun but not thin, only for theo to remark he should check and see if hes into it first. Luke already drunk off of a bottle of rum goes up to them hearing the conversation and remarks that nate is gay and is proud to be open about it.

Heading to the smoking lounge nate smokes out a few bongs around a few people seeing roland come up and sit next to him. As he puffs smoke out he says hes a little close for his taste. Roland remarks he is interested in seeing nates stamina only for nate to brush it off as an advance saying hes making him uncomfortable. Roland holds his shoulders saying he wants to apologize for being an asshole earlier and plants a kiss on nate, sticking his tongue down his throat. Nate coughs pushing roland off and asks what the hell he put in his mouth as he felt something go downhis throat. “it’s a nice little candy, youll feel nice and loose later on. Feeling dizzy nate sumbles around only to feel a jol of energy rush through him and begins smiling like crazy. “oh god this doesn’t feel right but its kinda nice.” Roland laughs and says it wont be when the hallucinations hit. Running out the room Nathan looks around for ark or the others only to find theo passing out the last joints. “oh nate there you are, me and danny were heading back to my place to smoke, thought you and ark want to join…. Woah dude are you okay.” Nate replies the rooms spinning and hes seeing twisted colors everywhere. Looking at his eyes theo calls danny over saying nates tripping balls. Danny asks what he took and nate tells him a cheetah stuck a pill down his throat by kissing him nonconsensual.  

Ark comes back out of the room shirtless and covered in hickeys by the two girls saying hes ready to leave. Looking at nate he wonders whats wrong with him, only for theo to tell him what happened and ark goes into the smoking room finding roland smoking and grabbing him by the tail dragging him outside. Punching him in the face over and over roland begs for him to stop, only for ark to look at him “didn’t nate tell you to stop.” Before stopping on his ball sack causing Roland to bellow in immense pain. Theo walks out and sees  group of people staring at campus, only to see that  there are lights flashing from the dorms. A girl notes that someones dorm got trashed from texts reading someone busted open the hybrids dorm and trashed it. Ark looking pissed tells theo to take care of nate while he goes back to grab luke. The two go back up to see their place in shambles and fag written on  nates walls and sees everything is in ruins. The UP there tell them they will need to make a statement and say they can do it in the morning, going down to theos, ark lights up a joint on the couch asking theo how nate is, “hes fine resting in bed, his hallucinations were bad but he will calm down soon enough, what happened to you guys?” luke explains what occurred and theo shakes his head calling the incident a targeted crime and says they can stay with him and danny for the semester, Having spare bedrooms and no roommates helps. Thanking him luke looks to see dannys door open with him cuddling up to nate with his arm around him sleeping. Luke mentions they should tell nate everything, only for ark to reply that they need to wait for the morning and let him sleep off his high.

Kappa Sigma Life: Chp 3

Rustling in his sleep, nate awakens to turn over and see danny sleeping next to him. Confused he pulls the covers over and widens his eyes rolling out of bed trying to sneak out of the room. Danny rolls over and with a smirk looks at Nate raising his eyebrow asking if he slept. “look im sorry if anything happened man, but I don’t remember much after getting kissed and well I hope I was at least a gentleman about it.” Danny bellows in laughter as he explains that nothing happened and nate was too messed up on some mixture of lsd and molly so theo and him took him to their place to crash. “you were pretty messed up so I had you take a shower, got you out, dried you off, and the minute you landed in my bed I just saw you pass out, so left you like that, good thing for a queen sized beds right.” Nate scratches his head relieved nothing out the ordinary occurred and asks if anything else happened. “aside from you wimpering in your sleep and me cuddling you to make you better, nothing at all.” Nate sighs and turns to leave seeing his phone on the charger reading 9am. “well good thing I didn’t sleep to late, but I think im gonna take a personal day from the gym im still a little on edge.” Danny looks at nate as he leaves the room grabbing his boxers looking at his ass and smiling. Theo walks by the door seeing nate head to the bathroom and looking at danny, “hey been a while since you had a guy in your bed.” Danny looks at him chuckling telling him to fuck off, and theo walks off seeing nate standing at the bathroom door

As nate waits for the bathroom to be available. “yo theo, how many people live in this house?” theo explains that it was only him and danny but explains that ark has to explain some things that happened last night. “yeah I tweaked out and blanked out of my memory, didn’t do much thanks to you guys, im really grateful.” “no dude, you don’t understand and I didn’t tell danny all of what happened since you guys were asleep by the time we all got the news.” Ark walks out of the bathroom looking at nate and tells him he should shower and get a stiff drink cause there is a lot to discuss. Taking a quick wash and coming out. theo hands nate a glass of rum telling him to sit down, ark lighting a joint explains that the dorm was vandalized and everything was trashed making it unlivable, the University Police had taped off the area and explained that our residence will change until further notice. Nate takes a large gulp and breaths deeply. “okay that was a lot to take in, any idea on who did it?” ark explains that it must have been the footballers as no other group has a issue with them. Luke comes out of a room carrying a duffle bag wearing a Maplewood Beserkers jersey and tells the guys hes gotta go to practice.

Nate shrugs and tells luke to be careful around the TE boys as if they did target their dorm they might do something to Luke since he is a hybrid. “come on bro your looking  a mix of who massive beasts, the bull and the bear, the Italian romantic, the otaku with the eye for art, Luke Benito.” Nate and ark look at one another and laugh harshly at his remarks, nate explaining that Luke is still without a woman in his bed and hes younger than the entire gang. Grunting luke walks up to nate asking if ark told him what happened. Nate tells him  ark did tell him and remarks its feeling heavy. “yeah man we all feeling it, ill drop by later at the dorm to pick up some of my stuff, whatever’s left of it.” Ark tells nate they need to do the same and contact UP and make a statement. Theo and danny come in explaining they will take the guys out later to buy some new clothes and bedding and new luggage as theirs were trashed. Nate sighing immeditaly jolts up feeling his pocket. Pulling out his wallet and the necklace he wears he feels relieved that he didn’t lose that. Danny looks at the necklace which a rectangular piece of silver on  a metallic black chain etched with roman lettering. “nice necklace bro, what Is it?” nate explains it’s a piece of the remains of the Hagia Sophia before its reconstruction, the silver is a piece of an altar demolished to make way for new repairs.

Ark makes a comment on that it must of cost a shit ton of money for one little piece, but marvels that the crafting is clear in design. Nate puts the necklace on going to dannys room checking his phone, missing a call from his aunt he breaths and dials her up. “ciao zia, qual è la parola, si è successo qualcosa nel campus, sì sto registrando il rapporto oggi, no non so se qualcosa può essere salvato, sì ho ancora lui la collana, okay ci vediamo presto, starò al sicuro, amo anche tu”

(hi auntie, what's the word, something happened on campus, yes I'm recording the report today, no I do not know if anything can be saved, yes I still have the necklace, okay see you soon, I'll be safe, I love you too)

Going out of his room he tells Theo and danny his aunt is dropping by to make sure everything is okay, with danny asking if he was speaking Italian on the phone. “yes she has a thing about privacy so I speak in Italian on the phone with her to ensure that no one can hear.” Ark remarks he could of just sent her a text, but nate remarks she is driving already and that be dangerous. Since it’s a four hour drive nate and ark decide to head to the dorm and see what can be salvaged from the wreck. Danny and theo look at them as they leave remarking that they should stay in case nates aunt appears. At the dorm, ark and nate see the tape over the busted door and crawl under going to their respective rooms. Nate picks up a safe that held his laptop and puts it in his messenger bag and sees his books are all trashed beyond recognition. “how can anyone be so savage over one little incident?” ark in his room can only take his stash and his computer as they two look around they see the entire apartment was beaten to a pulp. Nate remarks it looks like a stampede occurred and that there isn’t much they can do now. Coming down the hall they see luke sweating carrying his gear and looking tired. “yo guys, anything left for us to grab?” ark replies that the only thing left was lukes room and that there isn’t much they can do about the place and residence change won’t be a tough deal. Luke looks in his room seeing it shambles grabbing his laptop and walking out. “fuck that was a mess, but thankfully locking away electronics is smart.” Walking back down the three converse about the past incident and bring up that its quite a travesty but it’s not over yet.

Heading to the UP station they make their statement with nate explaining that a Tau Epsilon brother, a muscular cheetah slipped him a pill and tweaked out before crashing at a friend’s house. The police record their statement and tell the boys the watch themselves closely for the next week before classes start.

(at Maplewood, students in the summer get a week to explore campus and enjoy the parties before studies begin)

Nate takes a copy of the report and puts it in his bag thankful that the police believed their story and were looking into the matter of who started this incident. Going back to the house all five boys spark a joint and smoke up the room, only to hear the doorbell ring. Theo goes to the door to open it only to find a tall raccoon standing asking if this is where nate is. “uh yeah may I ask who you might be?”. The woman explains she is nates aunt Rebecca and received a phone call from the college stating he had his dorm vandalized. Getting up nate walks to his aunt and hugs her happy to see her, she looks at him and remarks that even with the shit happening hes still smiling. “well life isn’t about looking at whats lost, what you still have matters.” Shrugging she hugs him again, “im just glad your safe, gone one weekend and all hell breaks loose, call me overprotective but I cant let anything happen to you husky.” nate scratches his head exclaiming she always has to embarrass him in front of people. Looking at the group, luke tries hiding the weed and joints only for her to sit down asking for one. Confused by the room nate explains shes a avid smoker and got him into it at 16, theo rolls her a joint passing it and lights it. Taking a huge drag and puffing out rings. Rebecca explains shes going to the dean and getting the story straight, she wants all the details and not the ones UP give out, the full story. “this was a targeted assault, againt the hybrid dorm particulary, added to homophobia I can’t sit back and let that go.” She finishes the joint and goes to walk out, only for ark to ask what shes gonna do. “I am just going to calmly talk to the dean and get things straightened out, you boys aren’t even in trouble, but I wanna make sure whoever is responsible is given proper punishment.” As she walks out danny notices she is very scary and a bit sly only for nate to reply that she is ex military combatant and a  biological researcher for the Dept of Gene Recovery.

Looking at everyone, nate laughs and explains she looks into the regressive gene syndrome in people and tries to find the root of the cause. Ark smiles saying he knew what the department was, just wanted to see what everyone else was thinking. Getting up he walks out going to campus, luke tries to get him to stay and not get into trouble, “bro I got a text from one of the girls last night, im heading to her place for a little afternoon fun, ill be back in a few hours or so.” Luke looks at ark head to toe and questions how a behemoth of a 250 lb land sloth could get so many girls. “its cause im fierce looking and draw them in, its called being an alpha.” Nate chuckles at luke and smokes the rest of his joint, only to feel danny run his hand up his shirt. “speaking of fun maybe we could do a little.” Nate puts his hand back on his lap and remarks hes not really in the right mindset and wants to wait a while, danny apologizes as nate goes to take a nap. Before ark leaves he tells danny that rushing things doesn’t work out for many people. Going to his room he sees nate shirtless in bed with the fan blasting against his fur. Danny goes to rub his arm as nate turns slightly. “im okay with cuddling if you want, but no physical stuff, I just wanna relax.” Danny takes his shirt off and wraps his arms around nate and closes his eyes nuzzling against his fur. “I wanted to know, when you were whimpering in your sleep, who’s Sergio?” Nate remarks he wouldn’t want to talk about it just yet and danny lets it go as they rest in bed with the shades drawn.

Theo walks by and remarks that its adorable that their sleeping together in bed. Luke walks by and chuckles that they look like two big furry body pillows for Danny to get up and shut the door in their face, crawling into bed going back to nate who smiles saying that was rude but hilarious. Going to the girls dorm, ark is dragged in by a doe and pushed onto the bed. The girl pulls his shirt off and feels his body all over. “god your chubby but firm as all hell”. Ark replies that its just how hes build dense and powerful. He flings her up to him kissing her as she takes her shirt off. “how you like it beast, rough or slow?” ark replies he will go whatever way she wants to as she reaches into his pants jerking him off. “rough it is then, and by god you really are huge, I was twisted last night and forgot how big you were.” She pulls out his dick from his shorts pulling them down and licks it on the shaft. Ark puts his hand on her arms and lays her down. Sticking his tongue out he goes down on her and he massages her tits enticing her for more. His cock throbbing, he lubes her up ready for playtime and thrusts it in her all at once making her scream in pleasure. “Yes ark, yes ark, give it to me please!”. Ark goes even deeper faster and faster as she begs for it rough. Pulling her ears she calls his name saying hes a master  and he needs to tame her, ark kisses her shoving his tongue down her throat feeling her cumming, he pulls her tits making her climax laying her in bed. He finishes by jerking onto her tits and exclaims she should clean up. In the shower he presses her against the glass and goes for round two as the two shower together. Heading out the doe hopes he calls her again and it was fun when he pulled her ears. “I just know what girls like is all.”

Going back to the house he sees bags of stuff all over, theo has went out and bought all new posters clothes and luggage for them after losing most of their shit. Rebecca returns soon after looking at everything and asks for her card back, theo gives it back with the receipt and explaims a lot of the stuff was on sale. Rebecca replies its not a big deal they didn’t need to worry about cost and all they needed was to relax and stay clear of the football players, aside from luke who is a member. Ark remarks she must of earned a lot of money while on tour of duty, only for Rebecca to exclaim that the military doesn’t do shit for pay and getting bills paid took both her and her husband to compensate before getting into medical research. Going in her purse she lays out housing costs and many house on foreclosure for cheap, “start looking, and as of now im staying for a while, I can crash at a hotel while we get things straightened out got it.” Ark replies that they have no money for a house and couldn’t possibly expect her to lay out any cash.

Rebecca lays a check for 100000 dollars on the table telling ark that it doesn’t matter, all that matters to her is her nephews college and life. Theo looks at the zeros asking how in gods name she can afford a house. “my husband life insurance policy kicked in only recently so I got lots to spare, but that doesn’t mean im funding every little thing got it.” Ark agrees and looks at a large manor for 40000 with 8 bedrooms and 4 baths. Theo remarks that there isn’t much they can do with this home as its huge and what would they need the house for. “I want you boys to be safe and this is close to campus and heavily gated with a security system so don’t worry.” Nate walks in greeting Rebecca and looking at the housing listings. “Over Yonder, those are huge!”, “believe big guy, you guys are choosing which one to live in got it.” Nate looks at the one ark looked at prior and loves the old style colonial feeling and exclaims that theres enough room for everyone and then some. “you know guys, we could use this as a frat house, and considering were upbeat and party animals we could probably get the ball rolling on it.”  Theo remarks that isn’t a bad idea but what would they stand for little lone call themselves. Nate gets on the couch lighting a joint and remarks simply, “Kappa Sigma, We represent Formality and entertainment.” Ark nods in agreement and explains he could dj most of the parties, nate is good with getting peoples attention, Danny is well organized with paperwork, and Theo can act as dealer for weed at the parties.

Luke comes in asking what the commotion is and is told the situation. He explains he wants to be in on it but cant just abandon the Tau brothers. Nate shrugs saying its understandable and that its his decision, while danny looks a little annoyed, “those assholes trash your dorm drug your roomie and fucked up your first weekend, how in holy hell have you be friends with them?” luke explains theres no proof they did it yet and its speculation, for all they knew someone must of gotten ticked and chose to fuck with them. Seeing the point luke takes his bag but holds his head feeling light, only for theo to grab him and help him up. “uh luke, you good little guy.” “yeah yeah im fine just a little woozy from practice they had us doing a lot today so think I need to rest. “ark comments that might not be normal post work out pain but something else, while Theo explains they have done a lot of sketchy shit trying to get the growers to help make some steroids for the new players. Danny looks into the room to see luke laying down and looks through his duffel bag, underneath his gear is a bunch of pill bottles labeled with roids and sees theres at least 25 capsules of them. He takes the bag and brings it into the living area dumping it onto the table showing everyone. “I think our little bullbear is becoming a drug mule, these are totally from the pushers, they use these types of containers all the time.” Rebecca shakes her head stating that they need to talk to him immediately. Theo goes to wake up Luke and brings him into the living room where he explains he isn’t undserstanding whats going on and that the Taus just gave him a new bag as an apology for wrecking his stuff. The group look at one another and realize that he must have been used as a little smuggler to the dorms.

Ark tells him he can’t be with those TE or they might end up costing him a lot more than his room. Looking in his bag luke sees the pills and says he cant believe they would give him this much stuff. Nate retorts “they use the newbies to smuggle shit into dorms, sell it to kids that need to lose weight then collect dues for brothers by recruiting them, rince and repeat.” Theo advises  that luke should probably return the bag and jersey before anything transpires further, danny stops him explaining they will take the drugs and bring them to UP explaining the situation. “better off we go since they know us as growers and we have good word over the freshman, sorry guys just something that makes more sense.” Ark nate and luke agree and luke leaves the pills taking his bag and heading out once more to the Tau Epsilon house, leaving the rest to worry about him. Rebecca remarks hes a gullible kid with a lot of need to be accepted, with nate shaking his head “its sad but reality hits hard at the worst times.”  As the day progresses nate and the others enjoy a good meal made by Rebecca seeing luke coming in looking solemn but with a grin on his face. “yeah I think I got us even worse with the football players.” Nate smirks and asks what he did, for which luke states he took his jersey and burned it at the tau house in front of the brothers and threw it into the chapter presidents garbage causing to set fire. Ark and nate laugh hysterically contemplating why they weren’t there for that.

Rebecca gets a knock at the door going and getting two garment bags in her hands from a delivery man. Luke sits down and eats happy he made his brothers laugh. Rebecca comes in with the garment bags and gets them on the chair. Ark asks what the bags are for and she remarks that the dean is seeing ark and nate tomorrow for their talk about being a frat and the new house and need to dress the part. “suit tie pants the works got it boys.” Nate and ark groan at having to wear tight clothes but put up with it. That night after hard drinking and smoking danny and nate lay in bed wide awake unable to sleep, danny roles over cuddling nate and telling him if hes okay with this tonight. Nate smirks and says hes in the mood for something else, while danny drifts his hand lower rubbing nates boxers feeling them bulging up, “god your right, you really are horny.” Nate replies he hasn’t done anything in two days and needs to let off some steam, especially after missing the gym. As the moonlight hits the bed danny pulls off nates boxers licking his cock shaft to head and feeling it deep in his mouth. “damn your experienced, that feels wonderful.” Nate pulls him by the horns and deepthroats his cock into his mouth while grunting. Moving up danny plays with nates nipples and twists them making his cock throb harder. The two of them lay in bed with danny on top of him massaging his cock against his ass, “let me do the work, you relax okay buddy”, nate blushes smiling as it’s a first anyone let that happen. Grunting and moaning as danny slowly sits on nates dick, he remarks its very thick and straight perfect for riding. Getting all the way in the two play with each others tender bodies with nate running his hand through dannys fur feeling the gentle caress of his firm paws on him, danny jerks his cock stating he hasn’t been with anyone in months. Nate replies that over now and hes gonna make him forget those months alone. Flipping danny on his back, nate gives him a stern smile and tells him its his turn to do some work and thrusts in him while stroking dannys cock making it precum. “damn your into it aren’t you.”. “I thought you were a happy go lucky husky boy, since when do you take charge.” Nate retorts “when I started grabbing this bull by the horns”, grabbing his horns getting deeper and deeper into him. Grabbing his sheets nate jerks dannys cock even more until it climaxing on his stomach. Nate ask if he wants him to stop and danny simply tells him to keep going and he can take it. Nate does so getting into lotus position and hearing dannys heartbeat as he pulls him close thrusting into him even harder. Danny calls out “oh Nathan yes, yes, yes, yessssss.” As nate cums pulling out his cock spewing cum out from two days, the two fall back on the bed remarking that it was incredible and they never felt that primal urge of love making before. “I myself usually go gentle and tender, but I just felt I wanted to get a little fierce and rough for once.” Danny remarks hes impressed by nates stamina and asks if he played anything in high school. “I traveled a lot honestly but I did play ultimate and disc golf a lot.” Danny asks about his travels and nate goes onto a share session about his trips to Europe japan and the Caribbean thanks to his aunt and uncle. “woah that’s amazing, I bet you learned a lot overseas.” Nathan gets up to head to the bathroom before turning around pointing at danny and looking at his dick remarking hes ready for another round. Danny laughs and gets up kissing Nate pulling him back into the bed.   The two go at it until the wee hours of the morning and fall asleep feeling the sun hit their eyes. Nate goes and shuts the blinds telling danny they can sleep in. danny agrees and spanks nates ass as he closes them. “firm but supple that’s my kind of man. “well you got a muscly build on you and I love it, very big burly with a goatee and those horns, I’m guessing your Italian right. Danny remarks he actually bull/yak honestly and he has a lot of mixed blood but took more after his dad with his grandfather coming from Tibet. Nate gets back into bed kissing danny and exclaiming a lot of people should see the world as mixed instead of pure. The two kiss as Theo walks by, “good morning boys, glad to see your both up again.” Both look down and pull the covers over them as they laugh and smile wishing theo a good morning.

Kappa Sigma Life: Chp 4

Nate goes down stairs after cuddling with danny much of the morning with his aunt on the phone with one of the real estate agents calling about the house they wanted to buy. “yes 1950 colonial, the one on foreclosure, yes I have the money and yes I will buy today, it’s a beautiful home.” Waving to nate she sees him taking some coffee and going back upstairs. “remember nate I have to go to the house today and fill out paperwork, and I called the movers and told them to move the stuff in, everything should be done by around 4pm” nate gives a thumbs up seeing ark and theo rolling joints and smoking from a bong. “that’s new usually we use papers instead of pieces”, ark replies they need more papers and the need for pieces is adamant so they should hit up a shop in town later sometime. Rebecca comes in reminding ark and nate that they will need to meet with the dean the next morning so no late night shenanigans or they will miss their appointment. Ark shrugs saying hes used to having shit to do and nate is always a morning person. Theo offers Rebecca a joint of his new strain and she partakes before heading out. “remember boys im not going to be around today so no goofing off, look through the papers I have on the kitchen table and have luke call up the parents okay, we need them to see what kind of house you will be living in, proper and elegant, or so they will think.” Ark looks at nate asking what she meant by that as she leaves.

“oh the plan is we throw a welcome party to the adults in the day and show what we are as a frat dressed well and doing what we need to keep our grades up and responsibility but at night when they leave, we turn the place into the biggest hot box on campus, rigging the vent shafts with industrial heat enclosures and filling the house with THC. “is that really fucking possible?’ theo asks as nate grins at him telling him his aunt knows a few things from the military to rig a system up. Luke comes down and comments everyone is awake early. Ark tosses him the packet of the parents number  telling he needs to call them. “what…..why?” ark replies that he is a brother too and needs to pull his weight. Nate decides to hit the gym and jogs seeing Geoff running a little ways farther, catching up the two laugh and high five one another. At the gym they help one another out with deadlifting and cardio, nate asking if he had been with any guys yet. “no sorry just ben busy practicing for the season, I joined the beserkers football team, they have me as a defensive end, im not fast but im tough to knock down, considering one of their players in hospitalized and another quit.” Nate scratches his head knowing exactly what hes talking about and comments he should be careful with the Tau brothers. Geoff states he knew what happened and wanted to say he thinks it was awful but not all the brothers are bad. “most are all freshman and just wanna play ball, not hurt anyone it’s the chapter president and that cheetah that cause problems, trying to push us to do really weird pills, I fake it and get mass on my own time not with enhancements” nate pats him on the back and comments it looks like he already lost a few pounds. “oh yeah cut out junk food and eat just straight food with protein so I lost like 5 pounds in a few days.

Nate comments that they will be starting a new frat and that if Geoff wants to join he would be welcomed as he is a respectable guy. As they finish up and head to the showers nate looks at Geoff pondering what could possibly happen to him at TE, with Geoff looking back at him and telling him he did find something out about the incident at the dorms. As it turned out a mongoose pusher hybrid told riley about the two of them leaving his dorm and thought that it was suspicious of him being gay little lone a hybrid, riley has a hatred for them for unknown reasons. Nate shakes his head saying that it really isn’t right they get targeted for simply being who they are. bumping fists in the shower and leaving, nate walks off and Geoff asks if they could ever have some fun again and finish where they left off. “when the drama blows over and we start our frat feel free to find me anytime anywhere you big leo, I might even have a friend who wants to join. Geoff blushes as he walks off running into riley who tells hi to stay away from hybrids if he knows whats good for him, and having word get out of his escapade with nate would damage the teams reputation. Looking away Geoff scoffs telling riley to get over his ego and that the guys are nice and Tau Epsilon is not exactly the epitome of good nature themselves.

Nate gets a call from Rebecca telling him that they are getting the house as they speak the furniture will be delivered soon enough, wifi and utilities were hooked up before the purchase and everyone should be set. The house cost only 40000 and the building will be paid off by Rebecca in payments , all they have to do is clean and keep everything neat. Getting to theo and dans, theo is calling up students on his buyer list about the party the following day, ark is looking at the deans agreement and meeting plans to discuss frat initiation, and luke is on the phone with his parents. “yes dad I left the football team, it wasn’t good that I was caught up in some shit and I wanted to keep away from it when our dorm got messed up, thanks for understanding, ill see you tomorrow, bye.” Luke looks at nate, “oh good for you to join us husky, go help with something.” Nate laughs and says he needed to work out and get the excess amount of drugs out of him. Ark hands nate the plans with the dean and looks it over. “you and I are gonna go tomorrow morning and get things started, hopefully we don’t get screwed.” Nate looks at ark saying nothing can go wrong so long as both of them are there. Looking at the table he sees gunpowder and ammo on the coffee table asking what that’s about. “some new experiment im doing for explosives as a demolition trade major I wanted to see what I can do, but the frat stuff came first so im putting it on the back burner for now.” Nate comments he cant go wrong with sulfur oxide and a little bit of combustible liquid in the center as it usually works wonders. Ark looks over to nate and says that he isn't using that beginner crap, and that he is using his own experimental blend of secret ingredients. “even a secret from me?” nate asks as he tries to look at what ark wrote down, with ark quickly hiding it and responding with a very low growl “yes.”

The group does their work as ark gets a call on his phone from the dean. “hello, yes, yes, yes, okay fine we will be there tomorow .” Ark explains that nate and him gotta get dressed earlier the next morning at 7 not 9 so they can get to the meeting  earlier. “you serious?”. “dude moved it up so we better get moving ourselves. “ luke and theo shrug saying its one thing after another as they finish all the planning for the next day. Rebecca returns giving the key to the boys telling them the moving van is decorating the house and they should be able to move right on in the late afternoon. Thanking her ark lights a joint to relax and starts measuring his material on the coffee table while Rebecca looks on. “seems your skilled with chemicals and minerals may I supervise?” “I would welcome it thank you.” The rest of the boys leave to pack and Rebecca looks as they leave, “I cant thank you for being a good friend to nate, its not easy for him the past few months and he really wants this frat thing to go off without a hitch, and I want you to be chapter president.” Ark looks at her taking a puff, “wouldn’t nate be better off hes a good guy full of life and always has a plan.” Rebecca tells ark that hes a supporter not a leader and being a part of a good team of like minded people is good for him. “god knows that he always knew what to do for himself and others but never knew how to lead a team.” Ark states he sees her point and wouldn’t mind being president.” Rebecca looks over and places a gun on the coffee table, “I heard you were certified with firearms so im giving this to you for protection, I know you can handle it.” Ark looks at the FN Five-seven pistol and remarks it’s a  very nice one. “nate has an M-9 and its supposed to be in his…….oh fuck…..NATE!!!!” nate runs out of his room, “Yeah auntie?”, “Where is that thing I gave you before school started.” Nate come down with a safe in his hands unlocking it and showing her the gun he kept.” Don’t worry I left it with my laptop and recovered it when we went back.” A sigh of relief Rebecca breaths heavy and nate looks at the gun on the table telling ark its nice to be prepared for anything.

A few hours pass and the group get the call they can move into the house, everyone has their bags packed and haul off to see a massive gothic colonial manor with the greek letter K and E on the center of the porch where they admire the crafting done. Rebecca shows them inside showing a massive living area with a walk in kitchen and a epic fire place and projector for viewing. “had the wall art custom made with bands games movies and class, the projector will be perfect for a sound system with ark as DJ, bar is right in the corner and the floor is hardwood to clean easier, Now go upstairs to your rooms. Nate hugs his auntie smiling, “god damn it you are the best.” “im just doing what Dimitri would of done.” He runs upstairs to see his room and ark smiles at her, “auntie raccoon loves her little pup.” Rebecca chuckles saying that he deserves this for being who he is and bringing a better light to the group. “throw a massive party tonight and bring the kids, tomorrow parents visit and a nice hot box to welcome prospects.” Ark replies already taken care of.

The night starts jumping as nate starts drinking and smoking with danny and the two welcome people around the house giving a tour of their place, luke is actually good at mixing drinks following recipes he found online, theo is passing joints out and ark is spinning tracks of symphonic metal making the house roar. The people crowd around the whole tables and looking at the letters on the wall as Kappa Sigma. Getting on the table, Nate calls out the mantra of the frat, “WE ARE KAPPA SIGMA WE STAND FOR FORMALITY AND ENTERTAINMENT.” Hearing the crowd roar the girls cry for him to take his shirt off, drunk and high he does so flexing and dancing on the table making everyone scream their name “KAPPA SIGMA, KAPPA SIGMA”, looking down nate sees bills flying to him from the crowd and undoes his belt, “wanna see more, pay up people.” The girls scream as he takes his pants off dancing in his boxers as danny looks on. “no matter what happens, im glad I get the real show at night.” Theo looks at him, “seriously were calling you horndog from now on.” The party jumps like crazy as nate flips off the table collecting his cash going to ark and feeling proud. “DUDE 400.” Ark takes the money splitting it in half. “lets keep this up man we can make a killing from your stripping.” Taking the money the party keeps going as ark stops spinning and enjoys himself seeing a elk/ rabbit girl stumbling around, helping her up he takes her downstairs to the guest room and puts her on the bed. Slowly closing the door he see luke looking inside, “oh my aren’t you a little rascal tonight, didn’t wanna take night off. “shut it luke the girls  buzzed out of her mind im getting a bucket, wheres dan I need his help with this?” luke goes upstairs opening the door to see nate and danny naked in bed kissing one another. Dan retorts “knock first bull/bear.” Ark walking up remarks he should of locked the door or at the very least put a sock on. The two cover themselves with the comforter and luke closes it. “wow that was a sight eh?”, Ark “just tell him to get downstairs.” Theo walks by with a girl around his arm, ark pulls him “sorry for the cock block but theres a girl knocked out drunk.” Theo tells him to simply turn her to the side and get a bucket. Dan walks out in his shorts and follows ark saying the girl probably doesn’t know her limits or was given too much by the guests as luke was making sure to only give a 4 drink minimum. Seeing the girl on the bed they put the bucket turning her on her side, ark stumbles into an adjacent chair and falls asleep, danny remarks she will be fine and she can spend the night and ark will know if something happens.

The following morning nate gets up at 6 and wakes ark up where they both go get coffee, Rebecca giving them cups and telling them to get dressed. Ark goes back downstairs to find the girl awake and surprised, “you didn’t do anything did you, I don’t remember much.” “you blacked out we brought you here away from the party to rest, seems you didn’t vomit which is good, are you hung over.” “god yes and I guess I have to say, thanks but I gotta go im sorry for the trouble.” Ark asks if she wants some breakfast only for her to rebuff she needs to go, “thank you, uh…..”, “its arkad slowmann but call me ark or behemoth if you prefer.”, “no no ark is good, im sophie myers, thank you for the offer but I will pass, just wanna get back.” Ark shows her out and sees theo and danny asking how she felt, “shes fine but hung over thankfully didn’t vomit.” Nate goes to ark telling him they need to go.

the two go upstairs taking turns using the shower and getting ready.  Nate goes upstairs opening the garment bag seeing a black suit with a navy blue button down shirt and a matching tie with black loafers. “god I hate dressing up but cant be helped.” Getting dressed danny comes into the room out of the shower and straightens nates tie. “Hello mr. wileson your appointment will be at 9am sharp do you need some coffee.” Nate laughs and tells him to shut it when he walks out and sees ark dressed up as well fidgeting with his collar looking uncomfortable. “Oy gevalt, this is gonna be tiring.” Nate retorts that it is a load of crap but if it gets them on the frat list, so be it. They go downstairs where rebecca gives them some papers. “remember you two, remain proper and firm on your organization, I already got confirmation from luke that the parents are coming today and they will arrive later in the morning around 10 to see their boys in their new home, fuck this is all happening so fast.” Ark remarks that it is happening fast and it’s thanks to her that they are able to do everything in order. Nate looks at ark dressed up, “stop playing with your clothes bro, we got to go.” The two leave and drive to campus seeing the dean welcoming them from outside the student services building.

“Greetings boys, please come on in.” ark and nate following suit and sit in his office in chairs as he pulls out his files. “appears you both have a good standing from your previous colleges as well as no records or demerits, that’s impressive, ark you were a part of your high school chemistry team and nate you played ultimate in the final year of high school as well as at your trade school in rome, very fine boys you both will be on campus, I don’t see a problem of you being a fraternity so long as you obey the rules, but as of now you can only be unrecognized and I will need to see your house and ensure it is not in shambles. Ark responds they will not leave the place a mess and they will be on their best behavior as the parents are coming tomorrow to meet the brothers, they have five reps already including himself and nate.

Nate responds that they stand for formality and entertainment, never welcome hard drugs and only use recreational marijuana only allowing those legal age to partake in their home, all alcohol is done by their brother luke who is a bartender, and danny is acting med student can help any student who does too much. The dean grins saying it seems they have their ducks in a row but they still need to discuss something as he had just received a notification that girl was in their home last night passed out. “yes a girl got too drunk so we put her to bed, and we made sure she was fine, no one violated her or anything, I made sure of that.” The dean pulls out the notification, “appears someone did a anomynous tip and said that did transpire, this is merely speculation and im looking into it but it appears whoever did the statement thinks low of you boys, nates aunt vouched for you and I will believe a member of our armed forced over the word of a stranger anyday, but this is still a formality.” Ark retorts that having a bunch of degenerates make false accusations and tarnish the name of another is something that has already happened to them once and following these allegations is not a fine line but crossing over the threshold to ambiguity. The dean agrees and say he will see to it that there is no further allegations against the group under false pretenses. Seeing the two off they decide to head back to the house, seeing as its only 8 nate gets a call from Rebecca to come to the gym with her for training. Groaning he hates sparring with her but he could use the excersise.

Heading off after dropping ark back, he finds two girls smoking calling him over. “hey big guy aren’t you cute in a suit, whats the occasion.” Pointing to the house he states that he is forming a frat with friends and needed to meet with the dean, the girls introducing themselves as mary and Selena state they could relieve some stress from him if they wish. Following them to their house across the street, they remark they saw him last night but were busy with a doe girl. Ark tells them he helped her when she was drunk nothing more, the three then go in to have a threesome, theo hearing the screams and moans form the front door. “god damn hes always getting some.” Seeing luke and danny dressed up, he remarks that its almost time for parents visit.” Rebecca and nate spar in kickboxing remarking he has gotten slow and over the last year. “I was in rome and spent most of my time working, what you expect.”, “for you to keep up.” Ark with the two girls around his arms looks at his phone, “9am, gotta get going.” Getting up the girls tell him to drop by anytime. Going back he straightens his tie and shirt going in seeing all three others ready. “wheres nate and Rebecca?”, theo tells him still at the gym, luke sends a message as cars pile in, showing that the parents came early, theo looking out “woah check out the military bike, is that your parents ark?” ark looks “yup good old mom and dad are here.” As they open the door danny welcomes a black bull and brown yak, “hey mom, hey dad”, his dad hugging him telling him he has an amazing place and shakes arks hand. “my boy you must be the president, damn you’re a strong man, im Marco and this is my wife Isabelle.” Ark welcomes them as the parents come in seeing theos mom and dad ecstatic to see their son, “ahhhhhh Theodore, how is the growing going?”, “fine dad, but please stop calling me that please, its theo, ark these are my folks Jason and Rachel turner.” Ark welcomes them as he notices his mom and dad walking in, “mom dad pleasure for you to make it.” Ark dad remarks his son grew a lot more than expected looking like a ceo of his own company, “some asshole clipped my bike on the way here, but that’s another matter how is everything.”

Ark replies its all nice and good hering from the back, “WHOS COCK DID HE SUCK TO GET THIS PLACE.” Ark pays no mind and gives the family a tour. Showing the rooms everyone is in awe at the architecture seeing that the wall art was taken down and stashed away. Hearing more profanity from the back ark glares at a wolf and hyena talking off about their kid being a fag. Ark looks at theo and asks if nate and Rebecca came back, “yeah coming back now they are coming through the back into the kitchen. Going in they leave the group to luke and danny who head them upstairs and nate comes in fixing his jacket and Rebecca  wearing a black dress hears the vulgar remarks. “oh no don’t tell me their here, please don’t tell me… god damn it.”, Nathan looks up seeing his folks and sighing, “over yonder it had to happen eventually.” Ark replies if he wanted to leave he can but Nate simply tells him he can deal with them and they don’t owe him anything anymore. Going up he hears the vulgarity, “oh look the little cock boy came back, all high and mighty.”, “sir if you keep this up you will be vacated  and sent to jail.” The wolf goes up to nate cocking him in the face causing his mouth to bleed, “you aint nothing boy, always been a regret.” continuing ark takes the wolf and hyena throwing them out and breaking the wolfs ribs accidently as he fell to the ground. Wiping the blood nate follows seeing the wolf hold his ribs pulling a switch blade out aiming it at ark. Nate walks over and pulls his gun out. “hows it feel being threatened by a fag.” The wolf pisses himself as ark tells them they are calling the police. Nate lifts the gun up pulling the trigger but has no ammo, the wolf shocked as nate pistol whips him in the face, “I don’t need you, never have never will now get out of my life and off my property.” The police arrive taking the two away as nate goes in hearing the screaming from both going upstairs to smoke and read. Rebecca tell ark he will be okay and needs just some privacy. Danny comes in and snuggles up to him kissing his forehead telling him that was badass hitting his own dad in the face. “eh been wanting to do that for a while.” Staying in bed the two cuddle until 5 when Rebecca comes to get them for dinner.

The parents are impressed by how loyal the brothers are to one another and how marvelous a home they have. By nine they clear out and Rebecca tells the boys its time to get the hotbox ready. Theo and danny start setting up as ark and nate change and hang the wall art back up, luke gets the bottles from the basement and start mixing recipes. Ark puts his sound system up and the group shut the vents as Rebecca inspects the hotbox already filling the house. The 5 already high get the party started at 11 with so many people coming in, theo giving joints out and danny showing off the projector. Nate starts doing his stripping with everyone cheering and throwing money. This time making 600 he splits it with ark and they start laughing out loud at the shit they had to deal with the entire day. “hows your mouth bro.” “fine fine lets just fucking party.” The group starts doing their own thing as luke makes perfect cocktails, and ark finds sophie toking in the living room. “returned to our den I see.” Sophie laughs and says its stuffy but nice in here, “I wanted to tell you that my brother made the statement not me, I told a friend and he told my brother.” Ark asks who her brother is to which she replies “riley, you know chapter president of Tau Epsilon, hes an asshole and does whatever he wants to get his way.” Ark agrees with a sigh and asks If she wants a drink. “no thanks ill smoke only tonight.” The two smoke and laugh going outside when she gets two high saying she never smoked before.”ah classic case of virgin lungs worst when it’s a hotbox.” Sophie laughs and says shes so fucking high right now. Ark helps her up when she gets dizzy and she kisses his cheek for being a gentleman, “don’t get the wrong idea, im not hooking up with you, im just being thankful.” Ark “I respect that. Now, lets keep you out here until your better.”

Nate and danny proceed where they left off kissing and hearing the music blasting from down stairs. “good thing we locked the door.” The two strip each other as dan runs his hands through his fur telling nate he wants it doggie style.” Pressing him against the wall nate holds his arms pinning him and kissing his neck and lightly biting his nipple. “hows that horndog, you like that?” danny moans as he wants more and places his hands against the wall turning around. pulling his tail with one hand and holding a horn with the other, Nate thursts into danny hearing him bellow that its fucking tight tonight. “that’s right, haven’t done it all day so we gotta get you loosened up. Burying his face in his ass he eats danny out as he strokes his cock and licking his hole. “oh nate that’s amazing, put it in puppy.” Nate wraps his arms around danny and slides his cock in pounding him against the door. Luke and theo hearing it walking away as they see the door bashing. Pushing danny on the bed he lifts his legs kissing his feet licking his leg as he slides his cock in again sideways in corkscrew. “this is much better, aint it.” Danny cries out that it feels so good as nate pulls his nipples and makes his cock cum all over the bed. “fuck nate yes, more more more, please!” nate pounds him faster and harder sweating bullets as he pulls out and jerks his load on his ass taking him by the horns and making him clean it up. “damn bull you really are one rodeo of sexual delights. “and you’re a fucking ray of sunshine after a storm when you fuck. Falling on the bed nate strokes dannys chin and tells him hes glad he was there when his parents got arrested. Danny slides his hands to nates and holds It kissing it telling him he felt he needed some help. The two fall asleep on the bed holding hands and nate dreams of leaving rome getting a letter two months after his uncles funeral from Sergio telling him hes breaking up with him. “if you wish to part from me because of a loss how will you ever attempt to come back.” Nate talks in his sleep, “was its actual romance to you or just another notch on your belt for two years.”, danny looks over seeing nate wimper a bit and holds him. “its okay sunny boy, I got you.” He sees nate smile and the two fall asleep content on the days events.

Kappa Sigma Life: Chp 5

Nate and Rebecca awaken early to go to the gym, Nate feeling a bit sore from the previous night’s session with danny. Rebecca looks at her nephew fondly telling her she’s proud of him and hopes everything works out for the Kappas, as she planned to leave in the afternoon and get back to the ranch. Nate looks at her a little sad, “daw but I cant live without my auntie raccoon.” “oh calm yourself with the sarcasm, we get enough of that from arkad, but in all seriousness, you’ve come an long ways husky.” “you know I don’t like that auntie, and seriously you always get way too into sparring.” The two train in kickboxing with Rebecca making Nate fall on his ass repeatedly before calling it quits, “stamina is perfect, your body was slow with the reaction time, what gives.” Nate sticks his tongue out and says he and danny have been trying it a little bit more rough lately, “great image of my loving nephew but its good to know your getting out of your comfort zone.” The two converse as nate notices Geoff coming in wearing gloves and a sweatshirt ready to work out, finding it strange that classes start in two days but the weather is warm as hell he pays no mind to it. Rebecca and him lift weights as he sees Geoff struggling to do curls and lilting the barbell. Going over he asks if he is okay only for Geoff to rebuff hes fine, and that he would prefer to work out alone today.

Concerned as he always wants to workout with nate, he lets him be until he hits the showers, Rebecca gets changed and pays her visitor fee and waits outside, “god I hope he didn’t find a guy he liked in there, I got to pack.” Nate washes down as he notices two hulking wolves glancing at him, “ignore the purebreds they can think whatever they want.”, noticing them leave he goes to the locker room to change to see Geoff sneaking into the showers alone, while curious he keeps his distance as he notices him pulling off his shirt with tufts of fur missing and his paws slightly burned. Going in he watches Geoff seethe in pain while washing down. Nate walks in asking if hes actually planning on going to the nurse. “its really nothing, just a frat initiation.” Nate takes his paw looking at it, “these are second degree burns, and you lost some fur, you’ve been taking the pills they gave you haven’t you?” Geoff looks at nate saying its for practice and the games are gonna be tough if your not brolic, plus he left his dorm after his roommate stole some cash and is crashing at the TE house, since hes becoming a brother. “brothers don’t burn their prospects hands and force them to get big through some bullshit pusher concoction, your coming with me okay, I gotta get you to my friend danny for a detox, you’re a mess.” “I don’t need it im fine. Nate feels his pulse and lifts some fur from his arm. “Your heartbeat should be fast not slow after a workout, and your fur is falling out in clumps, Geoff please, we helped luke, we can help you too.” “I thought you only welcomed hybrids?”. “we welcome all those who are good to people.” Geoff tears up and hugs nate thanking him, getting dressed he helps Geoff into the truck and heads back to the house.

Getting inside he explains to ark what happened, “I don’t fully understand what happens at that frat but I trust nates judgement you can stay in one of the spare rooms downstairs okay, go relax and were going to call one of the nurses over to look at you.” Danny looks at Geoff seeing his eyes are bloodshot and his fur has become pretty thin. “this is definitely classic pusher shit, highly toxic to random species but the fur can come back in a few days, so long as he doesn’t take anymore pills.” Nate looks at sees Geoff falling asleep sitting up, “take a nap little leo, you look like you haven’t slept in days.” “I haven’t, riley has us pulling double practice then initiation then I gotta cater the parties and then clean.” He falls back on the bed with nate and danny pulling the blanket over him letting him rest. “what a mess, Tau epsilon goes way too far merely for wins in the game.” Nate looks at danny asking when the nurse will arrive and was told by around noon. Rebecca goes to the living room where ark is making his ammo and sets a large cardboard box  down in front of him telling him the frats clothes arrived. Opening it up ark picks up a forest green sweatshirt with the letters KE in greek in black letters on the front as well as a black vest with KE written on the right corner. “damn these are nice.” Rebecca states they gotta represent well or no one will know who they are. calling down the boys the five come down seeing the shirts and sweatshirts in the box. Danny takes a black sweatshirt with red lettering, luke takes a light green sweatshirt with dark green lettering, Nathan takes a royal blue sweatshirt with navy blue lettering and theo takes a red sweatshirt with black lettering.

“now you boys look like actual kappas.” Everyone stand together, group photo of the founders” the four boys stand together in front of the fire place in front of their frats wall art getting the picture taken as Rebecca says shes going to get it framed and hang it up later. The doorbell rings and the guys answer seeing the nurse coming in asking to see Geoff. “Another Tau prospect under the influence, third one this week.” going to the basement they see Geoff sweating in bed shivering. “this is going to sound messed up but hes the best case I had all week, give him this detox medicine now and he will be fine by tomorrow, all that influence will be flushed out in his urine.” Paying the nurse nate wakes up Geoff and gives him the medicine. “im sorry for making you guys bother over me, I’m very  grateful I just didn’t want to deal with more animosity by riley again.” Ark comes downstairs and asks what happened. Geoff explains that he was caught by riley talking to Nate and he sassed him only to that night be forced to put his hand on a stove by two of the brothers while they laughed at him. “this morning I noticed my fur falling out and hid it with a sweatshirt and hoped it was nates of day cause he usually runs into me all week, I just didn’t know what to do so I hoped to have alone time and think.” Nate asks the brothers to leave them alone for a bit, wanting to talk to him alone.

Ark ushers the guys out and Geoff gets up needing to use the restroom. Coming out he feels betterand sits on the bed looking at his fur. “fuck I look horrible don’t i.” nate chuckles saying he will look better in a few days since felines fur grow fast, getting a serious look on his face he ask what Geoff planned to do now. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t want to go back, but I have no where to live other than the frat house and he doesn’t want strife if he leaves.” Nate puts his hand on geoffs shoulder, telling him he can stay at Kappa and become a brother, their first official prospect. Smiling he says hes already with TE, to which nate tells him to leave and give up his letters and move on, “but nate, they wont look kindly to that and they’ll cause more of a rift among the two frats.” “we already started off horribly with them for not joining football, anything else is just adding fuel to the fire.” Geoff gets up saying hes hungry and needs something to eat. Going upstairs nate makes him some chicken tenders and lets him eat, with ark coming in asking how hes feeling. “a lot better that shit worked wonders, but I expect the others to come by looking for me.” Ark tells him that if they do he won’t be going with them after what they did, while nate pats him on the head and wraps his names in a cooling balm soothing the burns. “that should help little guy.” Geoff blushes thanking nate for all hes done and looks at the brothers smiling at him. “okay now im a little embarrassed, you guys are awesome but It seems im the only purebred here.” Ark tells him that doesn’t matter as no matter what species you are, theres always room for more people like Geoff, kind and willing to accept comradery when needed, as the first thing they stand for is formality. Rebecca comes in to say goodbye giving the brothers their framed picture and hugs nate goodbye. “have a great semester husky, and remember ill see you in November break for memorial day.” “you got it auntie, I love you and thanks for everything.” As she waves the boys off she goes to ark giving him a letter, “give this to nate tonight its important he reads it.” Looking at the label the letter was addressed to rome but didn’t have a stamp on it, “yeah ill give it to him tonight.” Theo lights a joint offering one to geoff he says he will take anything that isn’t a pill and enjoys a circle with the brothers getting to know him. “well im 21, im a IT major, I love anime manga and a bunch of rpg games, my favorite system is Xbox, with my favorite game being Gears of War, I am secretary  of Gaming Club, and I love playing sports, played football in high school but guess that’s gonna end soon, oh and I think if I had to choose a favorite movie its gonna be either Tron Legacy or Xmen First Class.” The guys nod and say hes seems like a nice guy, theo whispers in nates ear and nate excuses themselves as they gotta go somewhere for a bit and will return shortly. Luke interrupts, “damn we got two massive nerds here now, that’s fucking awesome!.” Ark tells him to settle down and relax before he gets aneurysm, “awe come on hes a otaku like me, he must have great taste, whats your favorite anime?” Geoff looks at him wondering, “ill have to say log horizon, just trapped in a game plots interest me but without the bullshit of SAO.” Luke eyes light up, “hes in I vote yes!”, danny whispers he thinks luke might be getting too into this, only for ark to agree immediately. theo comes back asking for luke to come with them as they will need his help. The three leave in the el camino leaving danny and ark with Geoff.

Danny looks at Geoff and smirk asking how he met nate in the first place. “oh first day on campus we met at the gym and made me feel more open about who I was, I was so nervous about being gay I wanted to shut myself out from people about it, but he showed me what being with a guy was like.” Geoff eyes widen and ask If they were together. “only for a bit I gave my first bj to him but ark interrupted before anything happened.” Ark laughs saying hes basically a behemoth and a cock blocker, leading to danny chuckling and Geoff looking at both of them. “you think he would go all the way with me, I mean I don’t wanna overstep boundaries but I cant stop thinking about him I don’t have any feelings but its just an urge to want him you know.” Ark says he wouldn’t know hes straight and looks at danny who looks away smirking, “well you can always go for it when he gets back.” In his mind its telling him to take it back and say he was kidding, but cant get the words out. Geoff smiles saying he should do that and finally get it over with, plus having nate as a first time wouldn’t be so bad. Ark says he will be sure not to interrupt this time while danny looks at ark asking if he can speak to him. The two step outside with danny asking if he really meant what he said. “of course, if he wants to sleep with nate and if he consents I have no problem, why do you?” “no I just didn’t expect a feline to go for a wolf, its not exactly common.”

Ark tells him if he thinks this is not a good move than talk to Geoff or tell nate how he feels cause he can tell nate would go for Geoff if not a relationship but more a fuck buddy like they have.” Danny looks at ark smiling, “I shouldn’t worry nate isn’t someone who sleeps around.” ark comments, “no but he isn’t against having a few fuck buddies and it seems you like him on an intimate level.” Danny blushes saying he doesn’t know what it is about nate that makes him just wanna cuddle up to him, “the sex is great and he can go mild to wild in any situation, I can talk to him and hes there when you need him, hes always smiling and makes it seem like reality can be better than what it gives you.” Ark laughs, “yeah hes a ball of sunshine most of the time until you piss him off.” Pondering for a moment, “that’s his frat name, sunny.”

Danny looks and says their getting off track, ark replies  that there was no track and if hes gonna be upset than talk to nate about it cause they aren’t a couple and hes free to be with someone else if he wanted. Geoff calls from the room asking if he did anything wrong, “no dude your good just relax a bit.” Looking at Danny, “yeah thatll happen, don’t make the guy feel bad about something he cant control.” Danny goes in and talks to Geoff. “look I know you wanna fuck nate, but he and I are kinda fucking too.” Geoff blushes and says he had no idea they were a couple and didn’t mean to impose that. “no were fuck buddies and I just really like to be with him that’s all, I can understand you’re a virgin and want it to have your first with someone you trust and if you want to I guess it might be what you need.” Geoff states that hes never felt anyones embrace and nate was the first one to actually make him feel comfortable about his sexuality but persists that its not meant to be a long thing, a simple one night stand is all he wants and to finally just get the urge off his back.” Danny smirks and says “im sure nate will make it one to remember.”

Packing up the el camino nate, luke and theo get ready to leave, “man I cant believe you actually got everything for him man.” Nate responds if hes gonna be a brother his room gotta reflect him as a person and nothing more, and converting a guest room to a bedroom is simply adding some new features and a nice bed. They drive off as theo asks if the two of them are good friends, “hes a cool guy, too nerdy for my taste, but hes adorable, and I like bigger guys, not that you didn’t know.” Theo laughs as they all see danny swooning when nate takes his shirt off, only for nate to blush saying he really does enjoy his company, but actually thought about banging a feline before, ive been with bulls, bears, and wolves, but never a tiger or a lion, I hear they go either wild or mild which suits me perfect.” Theo breaks that he didn’t need his special sex history but laughs that Geoff is pretty much an adorable chubby lion and they should think of a name for him for the frat. “well im calling you hash cause your always growing the good shit.” The two laugh as the pull up to the house and text ark to take Geoff outside so they can fix his room up. Ark takes him out back seeing the pool and asks if he likes the house, “holy shit yes, this must have been a fortune.” “no not exactly it was actually cheaper on forclosure we paid 40000 and got enough space for everything.” Geoff makes it apparent he feels kinda out of place with the rest as nate is the only one he knows and seems to have a lot in common with luke so that might be good but still doesn’t know what role he can play for parties, “ah don’t be so nervous, honestly it be nice to do some game nights for a change of pace instead of parties and I think you’d be a good DM.” Geoff scratches his head and thanks ark for the encouragement.

Nate luke and theo hurry and rush in the packages upstairs to the bedroom and set up everything. Texting ark to come inside and bring Geoff upstairs, he does so showing a completely decked out room of gaming memorabilia a flat screen and a queen sized bed.

Geoff tears up turning around with ark throwing a brown sweatshirt with tan letters of the frat at him, “I dub thee, Courage, welcome to Kappa Sigma.” luke laughs as he hears the name saying its ironic cause hes literally more of a turtle in his shell than a lion, geoff looks at him wiht a smirk, “at least i can get what i want runt.”  As the group celebrate with weed and drinks from the bar they get a knock on the door. Nate answers seeing its riley with some Tau brothers with him. “oh hey um sorry private party, come back later.” Riley tells him to shut up and says they have something of theirs, only for Geoff to approach them and throw his sweatshirt at their face, “yeah sorry forgot to give this back before I left, suck a dick you pretentious cum stain”. Riley tries entering confronting Geoff only for nate to pull his gun out and aim it at rileys face. “enter this house unrequested and harass a young man who you drugged and burned, this is considered private property and your trespassing, leave….now.” riley backs up with his hand up saying he didn’t expect some hybrid queer to have any balls.” Ark goes up to them and pulls Geoff away, “he’s our brother, fully recognized and respected you don’t even know the concept of that, come here again and you will not be welcomed with warnings.” Riley scoffs at ark telling him that things really are going to interest him as they begin to leave, he turns letting ark know he just instigated a turf war. ark rolls his eyes and  shuts the door. Geoff apologizes once more and ark tells him its not his fault they deal with assholes. Everyone has a fun night as Geoff goes to nate blushing asking if he could do what he does at parties, the guys look and all agree even if he isn’t getting paid for it. Nate takes a huge swig of rum and gets on the bar taking his shirt off and starts dancing. Luke starts mixing and laughs at Geoff sitting on the couch, “yo look hes got a boner…!”. Geoff covers his crotch saying hes just admiring a good show. Nate gets down and gets on geoffs lap, “why don’t I start where we left off.” Kissing him danny woots at nate with ark looking at him, “seriously everything about nate turns you on.” Danny looks at him saying hes wrong, only for theo to point downwards, “your mouth lies but your dick cant.”

Taking Geoff by the hand nate brings him upstairs where they enter geoffs room kissing on the bed. “I know you want it courage, why don’t we go slow and if you want me to stop I will.” Geof leans in kissing nate, “one night of passion to feel what its like, nothing more.” Nate grins stroking his chin, “of course now lets start with that shirt. Geoff takes it off as nate feels his fur againt his gently kissing him and running his fingers through his hair. Rubbing his pants nates pulls them off exposing his erection with Geoff going and sucking him off, “just like before right.” Geoff nods saying he wanted it for the entire week. taking off his pants he lays nate on the bed asking if he wants him to ride it. “whatever you like courage, do as you please, im only gonna be gentle with you for your first time. sliding his cock in Geoff aches as it goes in him moving up and down his shaft he feels the ecstasy of love making and asks for more. Pulling his nipples nate makes Geoff purr as he leans and kisses him. Laying Geoff onto the bed nate slides in running his hand over his body and thrusts in. “oh my god this feels amazing, every inch.” Nate ask if its too much as Geoff tells him its perfect as they continue and switch to doggie style. Geoff cock throbs as it burst hands free, laying on the bed he asks nate to finish on him. Jerking he busts onto geoffs stomach telling him it was fun. “thank you nate for doing that, I really just wanted to lost my vcard before school started and it happened just in time. nate laughs as he lays in bed staring at the ceiling. “damn you were very generous.” “I now I wanted it to be memorable so I didn’t know much to do.” Nate tells him it takes time to learn what he likes and what he doesn’t, getting up he asks if Geoff wanted some cuddles, for Geoff to smile and tell him hes good and wants to see the guys again.

Coming out theo wraps his arm around Geoff congratulating him on losing his virginity before Luke, “looks like luke once again, is the runt of the house.” Luke scoffs at theo saying hes fine with himself and Geoff laughs stating that he doesn’t need to worry as he will lose it one day, even if they have to pitch in some money, ark and nate laugh loudly as they say even they don’t see it worth any money to pay for sex. The guys all drink together getting to know one another even more, when ark suddenly remembers the letter giving it to nate and his aunt told him it was important. The gang go to their rooms with nate seeing danny go to his own room. “hey horndog, aren’t you gonna cuddle tonight.” “I thought you were gonna be with Geoff?” Nate explains it was a one time thing and Geoff lost interest the minute they ended fucking. “its not like I have all that in common, yeah hes athletic loves to work out and hes a nerdy guy like me, but were two totally different people, hes withdrawn and submissive and well hes a ray of fucking sunshine knows what he wants and  stands his ground. “and what do you want, nate?” nate goes in closer kissing danny, “you, you moron, come on.” Pulling him into the room the lay in bed watching Netflix as nate looks at his letter. “oh shit it was from Dimitri but never got sent.” “why not open it and read it man, it could be important or stupid, I don’t know your family well.” “if its my dad its stupid, if its my aunt or uncle its important.”

Ark looks at his phone checking his facebook, when he gets a message from sophie on messenger. “hey can I come by rileys pissed to no end and I cant handle it.”, ark replies that she can come by and just knock when shes here. Waiting an hour he hears the doorbell and answers to see her carrying a bag. “need a drink?”, Sophie nods yes and asks for anything strong. Looking at the liquor he mixes some rum and cranapple juice giving it to her as she swishes the whole thing back. “that asshole had the nerve to come to my dorm and ask why I came to your party to hang out, then calls me a piece of scum and breaks my lamp, threw his ass out and packed up, couldn’t risk having him come back.”. “sounds like hes a piece of work.” “oh no idea ever since we were kids, always trying to get everything his way, skeezball.” Ark remarks shes not gonna drink her problems away, “no dude, im smoking them.” Pulls out a bag of weed, “just need a piece.” They smoke the bag getting high and proceed to just gaze at the fireplace. “ark thanks for having me, this is really hard to say but I don’t understand how any person could keep being such an asshole, to the point where they target family.” Ark shakes his head saying riley will get his one day, but for now its about taking things as they come. Leaning on arks shoulder and drifting to sleep ark wraps his arm around her and closes his eyes. Both wake up an hour later and ask if there is a room she can use. Going down stairs sophie remarks its freezing as the air had been on all day. Ark replies he can keep her warm and she replies she wouldn’t mind sleeping next to a source of intense body heat. Getting into the bed ark nuzzles up to her and lets her fall asleep, “my god riley would shit himself if he saw this, but then again, I could care less, I just wanna get a nice nights sleep.” Both drift off and pull the covers over themselves.

Danny and nate lay in bed looking at the sealed letter after finishing fate/zero and asks if nate is ready to read it. “it’s the last thing he sent of course I am.” Opening it up he sees what Dimitri had to say. “

dear husky,

been almost two years since you left, the house is empty most of the time with your aunt out on expedition in the west, I wanted to tell you im proud you got onto the deans list over there, I wish I could of attended the dinner, but you know I prefer your aunts cooking. I wanted to write and say we miss you and my tour I almost over. I got you a little something for your birthday and I sent it to Rebecca to keep safe. Sergio seems to really got a hold on you, that clever wolf really cant keep his hands off of you. Almost 21 and it seems like you were moving in yesterday, but that’s not important, I want you to keep up the good work and ill see you in the summer, okay buddy. Remember if your homesick you can return whenever you like and bring Sergio too, hes a fine man, and also Ronnie and Dylan graduated from their vocational school throwing  rager at the end of summer and if your around see them. Wishing you all the best Nate, I love you.

Sincerely yours,

Dimitri

Holding the letter nate looks sad but smiles and says it’s the same as he always was, proud and caring all the same. Danny looks at him and asks if hes gonna cry, nate grins saying he never would for Dimitri saying he died a hero for his country and it wouldn’t help, he needed to stay strong and keep going, like always. Danny smiles saying he really is adamant and stands his ground with nate holding danny tight. “I know I got the best cuddle buddy to help me stay that way, the best friend a guy could have, physical and open.” Rolling over and cuddling danny feels nates pay on him nuzzling his back. “yeah buddies, that’s what we are that’s what we will be.” Listening closely he hears nate whispering in his sleep, “thank you for everything, Ive never been this happy in two fucking years.”, smiling as he thinks hes talking about his uncle missing him. “thanks danny.” Looking over he sees nate smile sleeping soundly no whimpering or cries, turns over facing him placing his forehead to his thinking to himself, “I think I should thank you.”

Kappa Sigma Life: Chp 6

The weekend flies by as the boys settle in welcome Geoff and party like it there’s no end, only for the reality of college to rear its head and wake up nate at 7am by his alarm blasting ghost from the barrow on his phone. Shutting it off he sees Danny laying on his chest smiling, “well appears you laid on me for an change. Danny wakes up groggy drooling from his chin looking up at a smiling Nate as the sun hits his face, “hey sunny, why you up early?”, “Monday classes start and I got an 8:30am and a 10:30am right after, both with ark so I’m driving, want to go take a hot shower with me to wake you up.”, “sounds fun but I got only a practical class at 10-1pm today, so sleeping in, but damn would that feel nice.” Jumping on the bed Nate boops his nose on Danny’s face saying he rests and he will see him when they get home.” Taking a quick shower and filling his travel mug with coffee, he knocks on arks room asking if hes up yet for class. “Hey behemoth, we got to go, I’m driving to class in 15.” Opening the door is sophie telling Nate hes still asleep. “lateness on the first day isn’t good.”, Sophie ponders for a moment curious how to wake a sleeping beast up. Nate tells her to hold on and gets back up with a tray of food, “what is that?”, “literally the only thing that gets this big bastard up in time.” waving the plate ark jets up and takes it, “good I was starving, I went to bed high and needed munchies.” “Just get dressed we need to get to class.” Ark throws on his frat wear and meets with Nate at the Camino asking what books are needed, nate retorts no one said yet so its going to be done on the first day.

As they reach campus they head to the humanities building and enter their Land of Isreal class sitting in the middle and readying their books, nate notices ark is yawning and cant seem to keep himself awake, “oy gevalt this is gonna be a long day.” Nate hands ark a travel mug, “packed it this morning  drink up.”, ark tastes it saying its actually really good, nate retorts that he got it from theo and its cannabis coffee, so itll give them a little high for dealing with the early morning shit. As the teacher strolls in he sees that the class is packed and looks at nate and ark cheering their mugs to a another day of bullshit. “there is no food, drinks, phones, or talking in this class, you are here to learn about the land of isreal and we have much to discuss, there will be no question of my teaching methods and you will be marked down if you are late, there is no late arrivals, no late papers, and there is no discussion of political views in this classroom, all items are on the syllabus and I do not make appointments to my office, you have to come at the designated times allowed.” Nate looks at ark, whispering, “first class here and we already got this kind of teacher?”, “like I said going to be a long semester.”

The teacher goes on in a monotone as ark records the class on his recorder and nate takes every word in his notebook, the two doing both so they can get the best advantage in the class, looking back he sees the two as the only ones taking notes and calls them out. “You all see that, the wolf and sloth up there, why aren’t any of you taking notes.” Nate and ark just chuckle saying its probably out of laziness or the teacher isn’t making it interesting enough. “excuse you both, I hear you’re the new frat on campus and aren’t recognized would you like to have a bad word placed on you.” Nate retorts that teachers don’t have that authority and only administration and senate members do and they never saw his name on the list. “well I know people.”, “how about you keep teaching and stop antagonizing students thinking you get them.”, both of them laugh as the teacher scoffs and continues the lesson, they hear whispers from everyone in class about how they seems really chill but don’t take shit, with both smiling that they are at least making a mark.

As class ends, the teacher passes out the first assignment and ark and nate see what kind of shit they are in for. “OVER YONDER…….a 10 page paper due in a week.”, the teacher explains that he wants them all to pair up and write a ten page paper on the perils of Israel’s lack of neutrality and the confines of religion of government superseding into the effects of the  modern era . ark looks at the teacher blinking “in English please, it’s the first day.” The teacher remarks, “look at the sheet Mr. slowmann you’ll figure it out.” , “Putz”. The two walk out looking at the sheet heading to their Chinese Modernization class where everything goes much smoother, the teacher is very nice and only gave out an assignment of finding a piece of Chinese infrastructure and giving a one page description of it plus their honest opinion.  Ark and nate sigh a relief as they understand the assignment and once again pair up, heading to the camino, nate says he can do the Chinese assignment in no time while ark works on research for isreal, “are you saying that cause I’m jewish?”, “yeah, you said your family lived in isreal and you visited multiple times, I never went to the  west bank so despite my knowledge of culture and history you got a better basis of this than me.” “okay just wanted to see your understanding.” Nate smirks as they get in and drive off to the house where they get inside and plop on the couch ready to work.

Nate decided to do the Forbidden City, as it’s the most popular and easy to describe. “The interior is so intricate and the coloring choices were astounding regarding the type of building material they had in that era.” “That’s great Nate just get it done so you can help with this shit assignment for the fucking bigot.” “no problem, hey want some food its basically lunch time.”, “oh fuck yes please, there should be some baked ziti in there from two nights ago.”, nate jumps off the couch to the fridge to see it completely barren. “LUKE…….GEOFFF, GET DOWN HERE.” Ark turns his head asking what the issue is, “the freshmeat ate all the food, Danny’s at practical, and Theo is  at the lab, you and I were at campus, and those two don’t have on campus classes today.” Ark goes to the fridge looking in and actually seeing it totally empty, “wait does that mean even the chicken parm Rebecca made is gone.” “especially that, everything gone.”, Geoff and luke come down in their boxers, with Geoff scratching his belly, “whats going on, we don’t need to be on campus and I already finished my IT course for the day, ark looms over him staring him down. “Did you eat all the food in the fridge?......” Geoff firmly awake, “I had the baked ziti it looked like it only had a day left, remember we smoked with theo last night, I got the munchies and you said, “go ahead It has to be eaten by tomorrow, just leave one piece, so I did,” ark ponders and remembers doing that but forgot since he was blazed off his ass. “then you said sophie could have the meatballs and Italian bread for a wedge since there were only two left, nate had some chicken parm and rotini, theo ate the rest of the fried zucchini, and luke gobbled up the sausage and peppers.” Nate and ark look at one another apologizing for the threats and yelling, and look at one another.

Nate states staring at ark “we better start leaving reminder notes when we smoke so this doesn’t happen again. “agreed.” Ark sends a message to Theo to pick up some groceries for the fridge as they are officially out of food. “fine, just let know what we need.” Ark lists what they need and sends while they get to work on their project. Nate finished the Chinese assignment and began researching the Islamic Judea conflict and finding it goes all the way back to the confines of Christianity, which isn’t much of a surprise. The two reach about five pages into the paper when ark closes his laptop saying his brain feels like its about to fucking burst. “yeah same, I think we did enough, lets just get some weed and smoke.” The two light up a joint and hear a knock on the door, nate goes to answer it seeing a young hippo asking if this is the Kappa Sigma house, “yeah, this is kappa sigma, how may I help you?” “I’m looking for Geoff, I met him online during our class and he invited me over to study.”, nates calls Geoff down and sees him in still his boxers, “hey will come on up I got my computers program ready for the assignment.” “awesome thanks I need the help, totally new to IT work, all I know is basic repairs no coding skill whatsoever.” “well come on up and let me show you the ropes.”, nate chuckles as he knows what actually happening. “looks like Geoff is becoming the little Casanova.” Ark replies that he has the best people to take after in this house pointing to him. “well that’s true you’ve banged more girls this week than a rhino at a rave.” Ark laughs as theo walks in with bags, “whats that about rhinos?” nate says it was just a joke about ark being sexually active a lot and asks if he needs help, “naw I got it, fit everything in 4 bags, btw the store was having sales so everything went great.” Ark gives a thumbs up as theo goes and stocks the fridge. “I got plenty of stuff for everyone and also I realized ark you’re an omnivore so I bought some sweet potato mix if you wanted some for dinner tonight, its got a four cheese blend. Ark looks and replies. “shit ill make pierogis.”, Nate replies he can also cook up some grilled chicken  and mix it with herbs. Agreed ark finishes the joint and gets the cookbook off the shelf looking at the recipes. “oh yes, grilled chicken in a bbq marinara with four cheese sweet potato pierogis.”  As they converse Danny walks in and sits down saying his practical class is a freaking nightmare. “I had to deal with some old geezer who kept saying, no don’t touch me I need a female, I’m not enjoying this, dude came to a free session and complains on who helps him.” Nate laughs saying that sounded awful but remarks he wouldn’t mind some physical training from him.

Looking at one another danny asks if hes going to the gym and wanted to join as his starting to lose his tone. Nate looks at him lifting his shirt and seeing dannys abs still there, “oh come on bullboy, your still a hot piece, but yeah you can join.” As they leave danny whispers, “and we can hope the spa is empty.” Nate grins saying that be amazing as they head out to the camino and drive off. Ark looks around, “luke wanna go play some videogames?” luke looks at him taking out call of duty 3 and popping it on turning on the projector. “now this I can get used to.” Hearing thudding from upstairs, luke asks ark what the actual fuck is going on, “geoffs got a visitor he met online.”, Luke sighs remarking hes still not been laid yet. “just ask nate, im sure hed do you the favor like he did Geoff.” “ew him, im not gay.”, “walking in on him and danny every so often and taking a few seconds to close the door begs to differ.” Luke blushes as he feeling the thudding even more, “the walls are silent but the floors however are not.”

Geoff presses will against the wall kissing him aggressively, “god damn I never topped before but your so big I wanna try.” “go as rough as you want I can handle it.” Lifting up will he slides his cock in making will ride him in his arms, carrying him to the bed to falls onto it thursting deep sweating bullets. “Missionary you chubby little guy?”  “no lotus, its my favorite.”, getting into the position will rides Geoff as he holds him close feeling his skin pressed against geoffs fur he remarks hes pretty thick for a lion. “well its what it is in the world, im thick and meant for mating.” Digging his claws into wills back he screams in pleasure saying he really loves the rough play, looking in his eyes he lightly nips his neck sucking on it and hearing wills moaning crying out for more. Getting into the bodyguard position he squeezes wills nipples as he feels his fur matting from the sweat. Will cums all over the sheets and asks for it to be unloaded in him. Doing so he finishes falling on the bed tired  “that was…….amazing, rough is totally better.” Will gets dressed saying he had fun and walks out, with Geoff asking if he wanted cuddles, “uh… no this was fun but its just sex, you don’t need cuddles after it.” Geoff sighs and smiles laying down as will leaves staring at the ceiling, “well I guess I should get used to that.” Seeing will leave, “ark, hey come back anytime to smoke or see Geoff, sounded like you had fun.” “it was but one time only really, im sure he gets that.” Ark looks at Luke and says he will be right back, going up knocking on Geoff’s door, “hey courage you okay?” cracking his door open he asks ark if he thinks hes cuddly, “well I’m straight but I can tell by your build, being muscle chub your very cuddly, and don’t mind that guy his probably a slut looking to lay, so don’t worry about it that he won’t come around.” “Uh he said he would do it again…..fuck.” ark scratches his head, “yeah, might want to talk to Nate when he gets back, I’m no good with this kind of thing.” “Don’t worry ark thank you for worrying though.” ark looks at him patting him on the head, “no problem little Leo full of courage let him roar, soon the silence begs for more little Leo little Leo hear him roar.” Blushing Geoff smiles saying he shouldn’t treat him like a kid, but ark laughs saying its easy and everyone thinks its adorable when he is nervous. Closing his door Geoff texts nate that he needs advice. Nate looks at his phone he kisses Danny under the shower. “Oh, poor Geoff needs some help when we get back.” “no issue there but for now your all mine.”

The two caress each other in the shower as Nate feels the water dripping from Danny’s horns kissing him feeling his tongue down his throat. Danny gets on his knees kissing Nate until he gets to his cock and starts sucking it. Holding his horns nate moans as he forces it deeper and deeper into Danny who asks if his going to cum quick this time, “public places aren’t my style so I make it fast.” As Danny sucks him off he pulls his nipples as Nate cums in his mouth. “Fuck that was a lot wolfie, but never complaining.” The two kiss as they head out and drive home, looking at Nate he asks why he doesn’t bottom, “its not something I like talking about right now, but I am open to it just not now.” Looking out the window Danny wonders what its like to top Nate, if he likes it gentle or rough, smirking a bit at the thought. Getting back Nate goes upstairs and head to Geoff. Danny goes to ark and asks if he knows why Nate isn’t bottoming. “You’re asking me a straight man, if I know the reason why Nate doesn’t like being bottom, if you’re going to ask that call Rebecca up for more information.”

Talking to Geoff he is seen lying in bed staring at his tv watching log horizons second season, “seems like you have good taste, so what happened courage?” “I met a guy online who wanted to play, and he was from my class paid no mind and we had really rough sex, I topped for the first time and it felt amazing, but he left me lying in bed alone and just went out, I kind of wanted to cuddle, thinking maybe it was great enough to relax with one another for a bit.” “Listen, some people only wants a quick fuck and that’s it, it’s not you at all, you’re a very cute little lion and lots of guys wouldn’t mind having you in their bed at night keeping warm.” Geoff smiles blushing asking if Nate would cuddle him, getting next to him Nate holds Geoff telling him that its only cuddles, no sex. Geoff agrees saying they had a onetime thing and cuddling is always on the table. “how are you so understanding, I mean you can talk to people, you help them, always in a good mood, but god you seem so cheery all the time.” “Why do you think they call me sunny.” Geoff realizes that nate had fallen asleep and does the same taking a nap. Noticing hes been up there an hour danny asks ark if nate is around. “Probably in Geoffs room, he wanted to talk to him.” Knocking on the door danny cracks it to see Nate cuddled up to a naked Geoff and sighs closing the door. Ark asks whats up, “hes in bed with him, napping.” Luke remarks that there were no noises as nate makes a lot of that and suggests its probably just to make Geoff feel better after his little play session with the hippo. Danny looks at both of them, “what?”, ark explains what happened and danny facepalms, “god im an idiot I thought they fucked, buts his just comforting a friend, damn.” Luke looks at him, “your jealous of nate being with another guy, even though you guys are just fuck buddies, you like him don’t you?”. Danny looks at ark and luke saying its ridiculous that he would like someone like Nate in that way, “hes cuddly and great in bed that’s it, we spend time in bed together for that reason, keeping warm and pounding out stress.” Ark points up seeing Nate at the railing looking down, walking to his room. Luke looks at Danny, “this is awkward, ark can we smoke outside.” “Fuck yes.” Danny looks at both saying he needs help only for ark to tell him that he needs to give Nate time to cool off and then apologize, because it looks like from what he said, it was no different than what happened to Geoff, so he should count his blessings.

Theo walks in with a bag of joints asking what’s going on, only for ark and luke saying they need a joint. Asking if Sophie is joining, ark replies shes got class until 4 and should return by dinner. Looking at danny he asks what happened, only for ark to tell him danny screwed up, opening the door Geoff asks where nate went off too for ark to reply in his room, “oh does he have homework or something cause he left to use the toilet.” Luke tells him he can find him in his room probably smoking only to see nate walking down with a  bag of hash in his hand, “rebeccas stash figured we can all smoke it.”, everyone smiles as ark takes the bag smelling it, “oh god that’s good stuff, so potent. As they group together around the fire place, feeling the September air finally hit from the open windows and leave rebeccas bag for last waiting for Sophie, Danny heads upstairs as Geoff walks down to join. “hey where you off too, aren’t you gonna smoke, were putting on the saw series.”, “I thought you were pissed?”, “uh no I was tired and groggy, Geoff was way too warm so I left to cool off, and decided hey first day of class over lets do the stash.” “oh so I guess were cool then.”, nate “of course man you were just honest is all.” Danny smiling, “I am glad that your not upset.”, nate looks at him taking a puff, “now come on horndog, take a hit and relax.” Coming inside Sophie lays her bag down seeing the boys smoking, “well shit looks like the boys are chilling out finally, please tell me there’s plenty, law classes are shit.” Sophie partakes in a few hits and the gang watches the saw series laughing at the stupidity. Theo remarks all the deaths are freaking hilarious cause there so creative and sometimes nonsensical, while everyone laughs at jigsaws reasoning for killing. The group smoke til 5 and start dinner with ark cooking while Theo rolls more joints, the brothers clean and sweep the place up burned out and seeing the time. Ark sets dinner out and everyone grabs a playing saw again and Nate getting a call from Rebecca. Taking it somewhere else he comes back saying she just wanted to know if we needed more weed and how class went, telling her it went fabulously and the gang is having fun.

Sophie asks ark who Rebecca is, and he tells her how she is the reason they have a new home, a frat, and new set of ideals. She states she must be a class act and the guys all cheer saying it’s the truth. The night drags on as the guys take a dip in the pool conversing about how classes are going to be quite busy all semester as ark and Nate look at one another pointing out they are really smart and it wont be any different for either of them to change. Geoff cannon balls into the water spraying them in the face with nate laughing and ark sitting on his float smoking a joint. “damn ark do you ever  stop smoking.” Letting out a puff he responds simply with a “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO” echoing into the sky. The guys relax as sophie comes by asking if she welcomed in. Nate smiles saying any cute girls who hate riley are welcomed anytime. Getting in she looks at Luke Geoff and Theo staring at her.  “What is everyone staring at?”, Luke says they aren’t used to having any girls around more than at the parties, theo remarks she just looks really nice and thought she’d be stuck up like riley. “yeah my brother is a asshole, honestly its probably from a insecurity complex, and this stays with you guys. He used to piss his bed every day, and still does to this day. Oh, and he cries super hard when he watches the teletubbies, because he is scared of po, and the sun-baby.” Everyone laughs as nate actually stays calm and silent, “okay the one time hes not cackling and your feeling sorry for him.” “oh heavens no, hes a bastard who hurt one of our brothers, stalked us, drugged me, and used luke a drug mule, there is no excuse for him, but the reasoning is even worse.” They keep the secrets to themselves and start getting out feeling the autumn breeze coming over. Theo remarks hes cold as ice while everyone is just drying off, “how are you assholes not freezing. Everyone looks at him, with ark replying “fur be a godsend hash”. Later in the night danny uses his phone and texts Rebecca  as he enters the shower what he said to nate earlier to get a reply, “It all happened in rome, wont give details that up to my nephew, talk to him about it rather than turning to everyone else.”

Getting out he thanks her and walks into nates room whos changing for bed. “hey there Horndog, ready for the cuddles train.” Sitting nate on the bed , he looks at him curious if he can tell him why he doesn’t bottom, in all honesty even if it hurt too much he would believe him. “I won’t lie, I will only tell the truth to you, it was back in rome when I was with Sergio, he was passionate and loving, telling me I was a perfect guy for him being husky and fit strong but loving and kind. When we made love I used to bottom for him a lot and I think I only topped once when he said he was too tired, but he kept giving it every day, it got to the point where I wanted a break to feel him for once, then Dimitri died and I needed to go home, I explained that I was going to be back soon and maybe he could come with me see the states, but he told me otherwise, trying to just get me to forget about him, he said the past isn’t worth weeping over and people die in war all the time, I knew he hated war and politics but it set me off so I punched him and left, stayed in a hotel where he kept calling me, ignoring him I left the next day back home on a one way flight, I wanted to stay with Rebecca and make sure she was okay. The funeral was emotional as most of our family from Italy came for the service, my grandparents knew of my sexuality and took some time but got used to it. They hugged me as I just stared at the casket knowing he wasn’t going to come back; I didn’t cry my mind was racing. I got a letter sometime later just stating Sergio was breaking up and telling me to have a good life without him, I then realized I was just a piece of ass to him and that made not promise myself I wouldn’t bottom for just anyone and I would be a total top, instead of switch.” “whoa you really shared all that just now, I don’t know what to say but, sorry for saying all of that, I was lying to them, or at least myself, this whole week we spent together in bed not just having sex, but keeping each other company and safe, I saw from the minute you were drugged out you were in need of someone to hold you and calm you, I hear you whimper at night and want to hold you, til you stop, I don’t try to listen but you really talk in your sleep.” Nate blushes saying he didn’t mean to leak out that information. “you’re a amazing guy, full of life been through so much and explored the variety of things around the world, and I was just drawn to you, I don’t know what im feeling honestly but….” Nate stops him by kissing him, “just stop talking you beautiful bull, im not even upset I can tell when you lie to yourself, you know how I am, and I’m glad you admitted it even if your still conflicted, I want to try again, with you and only you, my Italian bull.” Danny looks into nates eyes seeing a light in them as he smiles and kisses him back. He takes nates shirt off undoing his towel and laying him on the bed. “ill be slow and gentle my pup.” “thank you and if it hurts ill tell you.”

Danny proceeds to suck on nates cock as he pulls down his pants and boxers feeling his fur against his playing with his big nipples, “I can tell that makes you hard instantly.” “oh you know it horny man.” Lifting his legs, Danny licks his toes seeing Nate laugh while it tickles, seeing his ass he lubes up his middle finger going into him gently, “how that sunny, your blushing?” “keep going danny I trust you.” Going down he eats out nates ass as he playing with his nipples using his hands, hearing him moany he asks if hes ready. “yes and slow okay.” “ I know” sliding in holding the sheets feeling the pain and sighing in relief at the feeling nate lays back and feels dannys cock in him moaning in pleasure holding his hand as he makes love to nate. He lays over him in missionary kissing his neck making him call his name, “danny yes, this is perfect……please don’t stop.” Feeling him, danny keeps going turning nate on his belly doing him ass up as he holds the sheets, “I missed this so much, just with someone I can trust. Danny turns him back around jerking his cock as he thrusts, lets both cum my sweet, I love when you fuck me but sometimes I want to be top dog. He pulls out and strokes both of them Cumming and lays next to nate asking is they should shower. “Oh totally we smell like hot fur.” They shower with one another and embrace kissing, with Nate asking if danny wants them to be something else.” “I cant answer that right now, I love being with you but I want to see where this goes.” Nate nods and smiles saying being close and intimate with him is enough for now. The two go to sleep snuggled up as Nate smiles holding Danny’s hand close and kisses it.

The next day nate and Geoff head to the gym late in the evening after classes together and continue working out, Nate compliments that Geoff’s fur has grown back and his paws are healed nicely too. Geoff thanks him and they do their work out noticing that riley is in the corner lifting weights, “Geoff comments they should stick to cardio today and avoid the racks, “no we have a right to the gym like him and we aren’t going to act like a bunch of scared kids, you want to lift then we lift.” The two head over and start bench pressing as riley looks at them and looks back away. “What a weirdo.” Heading to the showers Geoff states he forgot his phone at the bench and needed to get it, Nate heads inside and takes a shower checking facebook hearing footsteps coming near him, as he feels them stop behind him. “Geoff please, not here….”, turning around he sees riley staring at him, quickly going to messenger hitting the mike on his phone riley starts chattering “you shouldn’t of taken my property bro, the lion and the bullbear were ours first.” “nate looks back at him stating “yes but like any abused animal, it needed rescuing from its handler.” Putting his hand against the wall he warns him to step back from the Tau Epsilon brothers if he knows what good for him or someone is going to suffer major humiliation. “Let’s see how much courage your friend has if that video got out, after all, he’s all beast in that video isn’t he?” “you realize your putting fuel on your funeral pyre making threats like that, and if done so, you’re the one who’s going to be sorry.” As he finishes his statement riley stares daggers at him, “tell the sloth my sister is off limits, I know she’s at the house, and if she isn’t at her dorm tonight, hell will break loose for the kappa’s, so try not being so adamant and swallow your pride.” Nate walks off as Geoff walks in with his phone, Nate grabbing him by the arm escorting him out, “hey I need to shower I smell like a….” Nate looks at him with a stern look, “we leave now, cause im sure ark just got my message.”

Kappa Sigma Life: Chp 7

As nate and Geoff return to the frat house, they notice that the front door is open and go inside to find ark with his hand through the wall, “good your back, now explain what happened nate, cause im ready to use a nail bomb on those Tau Epsilon asses.” “no were not using violence, although god knows its worth it, trust me, we need a plan and we need to be smart about it, we know there had to be someone here to videotape Geoff in bed, but we don’t have a clue who.”, Geoff buts in saying he knows getting red in the face, “that hippo I topped yesterday, he came into my room, he must of used his phone to record us without my knowledge.”, ark punches the wall again with theo telling him to stop before he hits a stud, “fuck that I need to relieve my anger here.” Looking at nate they talk about what occurred at the gym, “if that jackoff wants to treat people like property then lets show him the same feeling, eye for an eye.” Nate looks knowing what to do and calls his aunt, “auntie, code 873, one of our brothers, uh huh, okay, see you soon.”, ark nods in agreement knowing that nate is ready and lets everyone know they need to be ready for anything that might happen. Sophie looks at ark asking who is possibly coming this late in the evening, ark looks at her smirking, “our den mother.” Looking at ark she looks confused asking why he didn’t call his parents first, “they are never to be called, and shes ex military.” A few hours pass with everyone smoking and drinking quiet in the living room with Geoff looking around like hes at fault for something. “listen guys, you don’t have to do all this, its my fault I got recorded and if I get humiliated it’s not dragging you guys down.”

Ark and nate look at him saying hes not just someone they can let get embarrassed by some inferior bullshit artist who thinks hes better than anyone. “you’re a good guy and our brother, theres no way were letting that happen, if that video is released we get them all in trouble, you didn’t give consent.” Geoff looks down saying he was an idiot for thinking that anything could be normal for him, asking why it had to happen. Nate pats him on the head looking serious, “its cause there’s a lot of people that want to hurt others for not understanding what they get to be beyond their control, trust me I know how you feel, but you have to stand tall and fight back like the fierce lion you are.” the front door opens and Rebecca walks in asking where here husky is, “here I am auntie.” “Stand straight, salute, shake, now……give me big hug my sweet husky!” Nate hugs Rebecca smiling glad she arrived in time, “oh honey im so sorry for all this traffic was a nightmare and everyone on the road is such a cocksucker.” Seeing sophie she glares at her, “is that the elk you mentioned nate.” Looking back, “oh no auntie she’s a friend, his sister whom told us a lot of dirt on riley.

Chuckling Rebecca goes to Sophie and shakes her hand saying shes glad she made friends with her nephews frat telling if she does ever try going back on them, she will personally take her down. “Messaged received ma’am.”  Sophie asks why Rebecca is here with Rebecca ushering in a tall tigress in military gear, nate ecstatic looks and crys out in joy, “IZZY, oh my god its been forever I thought you were on tour in Israel.” “came back home last month, right after you left, sorry I couldn’t send you off husky, but then again duty calls right buddy.” Everyone looks as she puts nate in a headlock and he bashes her foot on the ground. “Dirty fighter, that’s your hyena side you little shit.” “whatever wins a fight honey.” The two laugh as Rebecca tells them to settle down, “we got a situation you want someone tortured for claiming two as property, well this girl can do it, shes an expert in deception, hacking, and trained in military torture, Sgt. Isabella Rossi, or izzy for short.” Nate comments she still had that scarlet hair the boys swooned over, making izzy state that he was the ones turning boys heads at the parties and boops his nose making him turn red, “still haven’t changed you big ball of love.” Sticking his tongue out ark looks at them to get back on track. “we need someone to get this guy riley, chapter president of Tau Epsilon and captain of the beserkers, you think you can handle it.” Izzy looks at ark stating she can do that in her sleep, knowing a college boy will be way easier than a terrorist. Sophie wonders why Rebecca doesn’t do it with her stating, “the school knows who I am they know my description and my relationship to Nate, if I go its not going to end well for anyone, he might get expelled and you guys will be thrown out as well and possible jail time through association.” They all nod in agreement with izzy asking what happens if this goes south, nate glaring baring his fangs, “ILL SKIN THE BASTARD AND PUT HIS PELT AT THE FOOT OF MY BED.” Everyone looks at him with izzy whispering to Rebecca, “ah theres the Dimitri side pouring out.” the others look at nate startled, luke leans over asking if ark is as scared of him as he is, “no id be doing worse, with a nail bomb.” Sophie looks smiling at ark, “now that kinda turns me on.”

Rebecca tells izzy the address from nates messages and tells her to head out, “you guys are staying and no parties, got it need you laying low, and izzy livestream it to the Tau brothers, lets see their leader get knocked down a peg.” Everyone agrees and lets izzy leave taking her car, Rebecca sits and lights a joint asking the others to join her.” They partake in her stash and mention that there is a lot going on too much to understand. “where is this new brother, I want to meet him.” Everyone finally noticing Geoff was hiding behind danny and theo slowly walks up to Rebecca and introduces himself. “im Geoff IT major and effects artist for the frat, how may I help you?”. “so gentle, so timid, I can see why my nephew helped you, the TE brothers hurt you didn’t they, your scared.” “Yes, I feel like its my fault and….” “no its not you just got caught up in desires and had no control over what was to happen to you, do not think anything less of yourself, you’re a kind boy, and I can tell you wouldn’t hurt anyone of your own volition, now how do you know my husky.” “he helped me the first day on campus, made me realize that its okay to be who I am as a person and not care what anyone thought.” “he was your first wasn’t he.” Nate and Geoff both turn red, “maybe….”. “Don’t fret little Leo you’re in good hands now but please rest assured I can tell your panicking. Go relax in your room okay, Nate and Danny will keep an eye on you.” Danny and Nate usher Geoff upstairs as he looks back at everyone asking Nate why everyone is being so kind. “Its cause your our brother and they messed with you meaning they mess with us.”

In geoffs room the three watch some movies smoking a joint as Geoff starts shaking almost having an anxiety attack. Cuddling up to him nate tells him it will all be okay no matter what happens they wont let him get hurt or humiliated. “you guys are the best, damn I needed cuddles.” Danny joins in saying nate is the warmest of the brothers, “maybe we should call you cuddles instead of sunny.” “naw I prefer being a ball of sunshine.” Geoff looks at Danny and nate and closes his eyes falling asleep. Nate and danny look saying hes like a little cub needing protection. “don’t get me wrong danny hes really nice and sweet, but hes very shy and timid, it’ll be while before he can stand on his own, cause when he does, he gets knocked down harder than where he started.” Geoff opens his eyes looking at both of them smiling, “you know you guys are really awesome, im glad we all live in the same place, its having a big family of nutjobs.” Laughing Geoff gets up and looks at danny grinning, “see something courage, your pants are pitching a tent.” Looking down Geoff covers himself saying he couldn’t help it, he just gets horny and didn’t wanna try anything with nate again given they cant leave and they made a deal not to do anything like his first time. “ah but what about us.” Geoff blushing looking at danny as he holds up three fingers sticking his tongue out. “I always wanted to try that, kind of a fantasy of mine really.” Danny leans in kissing Geoff reaching into his pants, “if you don’t want to we can stop.” Nate kisses the back of geoffs neck as he wants more, he wants to feel better alone with people he can trust. Nate and danny undress him and lean him on the bed naked and undress. Looking at both of them smiling, “so what are two strong men going to do to me.” Nate goes in slow and kisses him grabbing his cock, “were just going to keep you safe got it, no games, no camera, no issues, just pleasure.” He goes down on Geoff making him moan and danny has Geoff suck him off, his thick cock deep throating in his mouth as the three lean on the bed huddled together. Geoff takes turns sucking nate and Danny saying their both huge and take it all. He lays down as nate fingers him making him grab his headboard begging for more, using his tongue he eats him out as danny has Geoff eat him out. “Damn lions tongue are rough, but feels amazing.” Nate lifts geoffs leg and slides in asking if he wants it rough or gentle. “gentle, ive never been in a threesome.” Leaning in he thrusts into Geoff kissing him feeling his mane and fur glistened with sweat moaning in pleasure. Danny eats out nates ass as he slides his cock in, “you fuck him, I fuck you.” Nate smiles saying only danny is the one able to do that. The the three fuck as geoffs takes nates hand wanting to change positions. Getting into the bodyguard they three continue what they’re doing , Danny leans back having nate ride his cock as Geoff sucks him off, jerking himself off. Feeling dannys cock in him, nate feels his cock bursting as he cums in geoffs mouth who swallows every drop using his tongue to clean it off.

Danny fills the condom after a while pulling out and the two kiss and jerk goeff until he cums everywhere. Falling on his bed they huddle together laughing that it was amazing to do with Geoff asking if the two can stay with him for the night turning red as he doesn’t wanna be alone, looking away. “that sounds stupid I know I just kinda don’t wanna deal with stress, cause I get horny and well.” Danny and nate kiss him on the cheek telling him its okay to want cuddles and they would much obliged. Danny looks at Geoff asking if he wants nate to wear clothes, “yeah good luck with that one.”, Geoff laughs saying hed rather have nate warming him all night, same to danny. The three pull over the covers and fall asleep with Geoff in the middle. Downstairs luke asks where the flying hell the guys could possibly be saying they been up there for hours. Ark looks at theo who reminds luke that the three are a little emotional so things may happen. Luke runs upstairs banging on the door with all three waking up. “Nate you get it.” “naw im too exhausted from courage.” “WHO IS IT?” Luke bangs again to try and bust it open. Rebecca comes up turning the knob, “seriously try that runt.” Luke opens it to see the three asleep snuggled together. Rebecca snaps a pic on her phone, “now that is the most adorable sight tonight. Izzy arrives back stating that the plan was a success and that they got what they needed done, “now get me a joint im so sick I had to touch him even if it was torture.” The group smoke and izzy asks where nate went. “hes upstairs with the lion and the bull.”, izzy smirks, “that’s nate for you, always being a cuddly wolf and a great friend.”, theo looks at her “more like lover than a friend right now.”, izzy looks at her drink stirring it asking, “well who wouldn’t fuck him?” everyone raises their hand saying its cause their straight. “well you can always think about, if you were gay or the other way around.” ark leans to Rebecca asking what izzys deal is, “she used to have a crush on nate through grade school, and hadn’t seen him when he left for our travels on tour, he came back senior year and instant attraction, went on what she called a date and kissed him, rejected her nicely for obvious reasons, now kinda has a bit of a what if it could happen thing going on, but moved on pretty fast.”, ark looks at her saying that nate isn’t one to just play for the other team with izzy laughing, “of course, I came here to help him only, no more no less, hes a great friend and I’m glad to help.” nate rushes out the room telling ark to check face book being woken up by the alerts he got, much of the TE brothers are blowing up about the torture porn broadcasted at the house and instinctively are looking for a tiger chick with red hair. “looks like I did well this time eh boys.” Nate gives a thumbs up from the railing with Rebecca sipping her rum, “nate, sweetie, pants please.”

Nate walks back in the room coming down with his shorts on, “can you believe how much shit is happening on this campus, riley is totally humiliated and the best his brothers are doing are sharing my dance video, which are just getting more positive comments.”  Izzy comments she did really well but couldn’t find the porn video on rileys phone saying it must still be on the hippos. “his names will, and he can be found near the tech center, spends a lot of time there alone smoking pot for a break.” The group talk about what to do, with izzy offering to hack him and delete it, only for Nate to retort that having her out trying to do that will raise suspicion to the kappa’s. “they know your face and description much like Rebecca, if we do that we don’t look good if they make a report about it, truth or false.” They converse and decide that the video can wait as laying low is the best alternative. Getting a call Rebecca tells the boys to keep quiet, “yes, hello Martinez, uh huh, right very well.” Sighing deeply she tells Nate and ark they need to see the dean about the incident in the gym, both groan, “Oy gevalt how can this get any worse.” “Over yonder I bet this is going to drag on big time.” the night drags on as ark heads to sleep and sophie comes with him, cuddled in bed she remarks it was adamant that they did all that just for Geoff even if he is the newest member.” “nates a good judge of character, he knows how people think and act, didn’t want him getting hurt.” Getting on top of him she sticks her tongue out looking into his eyes. “you say your big and tough, but deep down you’re a big softie.” Grinning ark asks what shes gonna do about it, reaching into his shorts she grabs his cock hard. “make you tough behemoth, now what do you want to do about it.” “let you teach me a lesson miss Monroe.” She kisses ark as she undresses his running hands to the back of his neck, “I hear you do it rough, for once your doing it slow big boy.”, ark grins as Sophie jerks him as he squeezes her tits making her moan, “gently their sensitive.” She goes down on him making him moan in pleasure asking if he likes his shaft licked, “god yes that feels nice.” Getting on top of him she has ark eat her out and finger her intensely, “god those fingers are amazing, do more baby.”

Ark uses two fingers in her to make her precum from her hot pussy asking if she was ready for it. Getting on his cock she rides him stating she feels every inch and its spectacular for his size. “wouldn’t expect less from a 7.6ft sloth.” As she begins riding him faster he moans saying shes right and it actually makes him feel odd. “She clenches her pussy tightening onto his cock making him grab his sheets, “whoa whoa what are you doing?!!!!”, moaning that its different and feels so good. “your always in charge big guy, but I’m going to tame this behemoth once and for all. Tightening once more ark trys holding his urge to cum only for sophie to pulls his nipples making him unload, “AHHHHHHHHH, OH GOD.” Sophie gets off pulling the condom off seeing a massive load and licks his cock clean, “well looks like you’re came in first.” Ark gasping for breath saying that was the most intense sex he ever had. “elks have great muscle control and it makes for better loving.” Cuddling up to him she kisses him and tucks herself under his chin, “this isn’t love ark, I just needed to vent some rage, sorry for using you like that.” “Sophie that was worth it, let me know if you wanna try this again.” Sophie looks at him and says she would over and over again.

The next day nate and ark are brought into the deans office where Martinez discusses the effects of the previous night. “so he confronted nate in the shower, saying he had a video, and then we got word from the Tau brothers a torture porn was broadcasted by a random tiger woman at their frat blowing up social media, there is a connection and I don’t want you boys lying to me.” Nate and ark look at one another, nate responds “yes sir this is true the woman is a mutual friend and we had no idea she would go this far into it but as of now we understand the consequences.” Martinez shakes his head, “no I agree with what happened he needed to be brought down a peg but regardless rules are rules and since you boys weren’t directly involved I cant get you into academic trouble, however, I will need to work on solution between your frats, riley, stan, and will have been suspended for the homecoming game and placed on academic probation due to their actions against nate and Geoff, also they are being investigated about the drug fiasco.” Ark looks at the dean saying that it’s a wonderful thing to hear that, “however with three  players down they cant play the homecoming game next month.” Ark and nate looking at him, “oy gevalt, please no.” “to punish your frat for the involvement with the girl, you two are filling in for the players or you get academic probation for the incident as well for causeing strife against students regardless of who started it, this isn’t about whos right or wrong, its about the escalation of what occurred.” Nate “over yonder, fine we will do it, but they need a new captain ark and I have no clue how to play.”, Martinez looks at them and tells them in their faces, “that’s why I am putting Luke Benito in charge, let the Taus be ordered by a Kappa for a  while and see what its like to be controlled.” Ark and nate look at one another taking a deep sigh, in unison, “fuck my life.”

Kappa Sigma Life: Chp 8

Nate and ark return groaning as they walk in seeing theo on the couch making out with Izzy and Rebecca cooking in the kitchen. “hey boys how was the meeting.” Nate looks at her rolling his eyes, “well we aren’t expelled but were getting a fate worse than death, we need to plaay ion the homecoming game with the Homophobes of Maplewood.” Rebecca sighs saying that it could have been worse, but an mark on the Taus means they won’t bother with the kappa’s for a long while, and the guys responsible for Geoff are now seeing karma dealt well to them. “still wish we didn’t have to fucking play….OY GEVALT.” Nate reminds ark that the worse is yet to come as the other news is how they want Luke as the interim captain until Riley is back in action. Rebecca goes to the two hugging them knowing that they don’t deserve to be subjected to such a bullshit problem but the dean does have a point, “both sides escalated stuff, and even if your in the right,, there were going to be consequences to actions, just be happy it wasn’t what they got in the long run.” Nate smiles asking where his bull is cause he needed some stress relief, Rebecca tells him hes upstairs, to which he walks up and notices that the door is opened a bit, walking in he sees Danny and Geoff kissing on the bed looking at him smirking. “you guys couldn’t wait for me could you.” Taking off his clothes he hops into bed with them needed some stress released pronto. Theo looks at Izzy telling her it must be odd being with a herbivore and being a carnivore. “oh no sugar, its fun actually, like a little taboo, and you remind me of some of my friends back home, built tough and ready for a good ride,  and smell like a garden too.” Theo looks at her grinning and continues kissing her laying her on the couch, for ark to kick him on the head while smoking a joint, “no sex on the couch, house rule remember, you want it take it to your room, were not turning the living room into a Warhol factory.

Getting up from the couch Theo takes Izzy to his room, she remarks that its beautiful mixed with pictures of plants and a booming stereo system. “Yeah I love me some good music, but agriculture brings me back home.” Laying him on the bed, Izzy mentions that she couldn’t help herself around a rhino, “I near your beauties cum several times do you not.” Theo smirks saying “why not try and find out darling.” Taking his shirt off izzy feels his massive body on her noting that he might be fat but hes very built, like a monster truck, taking the compliment, theo pulls his pants down asking if she likes what she sees, “oh my yes, its thick.” Playing with her tits, Theo tongues her mouth fingering her tight hole, “well shit, when the last time you got laid was?” Laughing she whispers, “never, my time was dedicated to the military but now that my tours over and I’m out, I want to experience life again.” Kissing her he notes that he will give her a first time like she never saw. Caressing her body he takes her in lotus position kissing her and pressing his face in her tits motor boating them, making her moan, placing her on her back he kisses her down her body sucking on her nipples, and holding her hands, “it might hurt a bit, are you ready?” “please slow and gentle.” Thrusting in Theo moves slowly making love to Izzy moaning all the while begging for more and for it harder.  The two go at over and over that night, everyone hearing theo moaning and cumming a total of 13 times.

luke smoking a joint with Rebecca comments that the house reeks of sex and weed. “honey your just upset your not getting laid, you should try meeting another girl, or maybe try one of the guys, theres three in here, open to it.” “you know I’m not gay so why try and make it sound like I am?” “I saw your face when Geoff said nate was his first, you looked curious and a bit turned on a the thought, and let me tell you how many times he snuck off base to meet a local panda, gorilla, grizzly, or even a wolf, he always came home happy.” “so your nephews a butt slut big deal.” “no sweetie those were actual friends, I should have been clear, the panda and the grizzly were his intimate buddies, as I call them.” “okay I don’t get it your saying I should let nate fuck me, cause he fucked danny and Geoff?” “you must have been dropped, no you degenerate, I mean don’t be afraid to explore who you are, we let nate make his own choice and he always came back happy, always beaming with life and content with where he was, making friends along the way, helping people, and learning new trades around the world, not just sexual but important lessons in life.” Luke looks down saying he wishes he had that life, getting to travel with his family being loved and be accepted for who he is. “no…..you don’t, nate didn’t have the life you wish you could have, all that good stuff came after the bullshit, neglected, abused, and forgotten as a mistake, if we hadn’t taken him in, there’s no telling what might of occurred to him, so count your blessings luke, you have a family loving you, actual parents who aren’t afraid to call you their son.” Luke looks at her taking a puff of a joint, “so did you ever have kids, like where are nates cousins?” “Never had them, kept traveling to different places serving in the armed forces, couldn’t just have a family, nate is the closest to a son I have, and even then its only from a formality against restricted paternal rights.” Luke asks if anyone else knew of this only for Rebecca to rebuff that nate always looked up to her, and was the only thing in her life that got her through Dimitris death, “he left his life in rome to make sure I didn’t put a bullet in my head, he came home on a non stop flight, away from his boyfriend , just to make sure I was okay, he didn’t cry, he didn’t say a word at the funeral, I just heard him talking about how he will keep me safe, even in the harshiest times, I never saw him shed a tear, not when he was abandoned, not when he did something wrong, not at death, nothing, I took him to therapy when he was 15 and they said there was nothing wrong with him, just a strong willed boy who doesn’t take shit, well I was wrong, at night I could hear him whimper in his sleep, he was never comforted and thought he needed to be alone with his problems, instead of confronting him, Dimitri would stay up making sure he slept well, just looking and comforting him.”

“yeah I hear him whimper here too, but Danny cuddles him and its all better, I didn’t think he had anything wrong with him until you explained it.” “he has abandonment issues, people who cut him out that once were good to him, just gets to him, I don’t know if he ever fully gets over it but it doesn’t matter , he always pulls through.”. luke asks why she told him all of this only to be told its because at one point, nate could have been luke, self-conscious about himself, withdrawn,  putting up a bravado just to ensure people may like him, its demeaning to who he really is and luke is putting on a balancing act hiding what he really wants. Looking down luke gets up telling Rebecca to sleep well and that hes going to just relax in his room. Rebeca tells him goodnight and at least think about what she said.

Nate Geoff and danny all lay down kissing one another and talk about the future of the kappas as they caress one another. “there isn’t much to worry now, riley is out of the picture, the taus are forced to put up with us, and we got our revenge, we don’t have anything to worry about, its all good.” Geoff looks at nate saying at least for now it is, but they should make sure they don’t overstep boundaries or else things can escalate further. The three disregard any semblance of what occurred and focus on one another. Geoff goes down on nate as he and Geoff make out, alternating between the two cocks. Nate remarks Geoff has gotten better at blowjobs since he came out, smiling Geoff licks nates shaft making him throb as he gets into doggie style as the two spit roast him. Nate pulls his tail as he fucks him hard from behind and danny plays with his nipples as he continues to get blown. Geoff slurps on dannys throbbing cock and begs for more. Flipping him over in missionary, nate fucks him while jerking his cock, making him grab the bed. Bending over danny kisses Geoff who grabs his horns forcing his tongue down his throat, “god your both amazing, thank you.” Nate tells him not to thank them yet as he pounds Geoff pulling his nipples, turning him sideways getting even deeper into him. “oh god its thick!.” Danny has nate pull out and takes a turn seeing geoffs hole quivering. “you ready for a another pound courage.” “give it to me horndog, sunny let me suck that cock clean.” The three continue to fuck and suck until theynate and Geoff  cum filling Geoff with their load and take him to the shower to wash off, firmly gripping his cock, nate makes him cum all over making him moan and shake. “mmmmm been holding that in all day leo.” Geoff turns his head kissing both of them under the water, after drying the three cuddle as Geoff states hes gonna sleep in his room as he felt good but doesn’t want to intrude on their alone time.” on his way back wearing his boxers, he sees lukes door cracked open and sees him beating off to porn, “woah!!!!, okay I should not be looking at that.” As he leaves he hears luke moaning while looking at his phone, “fuck that’s a chubby tiger, kinda adorable.” Geoff scoffs saying hes a chubby chaser of woman, only to hear luke mention, “so is that what anal feels like.” Walking away, Geoff talks to himself that he shouldn’t say a word about it to anyone. Luke continues to watch the porn of two tigers fucking and cums on his stomach, “well that fucking happened I guess, fucking auntie raccoon making me deal with this shit.” Taking a tissue and wiping up he mentions that he found the chubby ones better.

The next day begins the practice and luke nate and ark are on the field ready to train against what the fuck ever, ark and nate prove to be good on both offense and defense while luke organizes the player based on past postions. “okay people look alive, we have a lot to prepare for and only a week to get this all done before the game, get ready for sprints.” Nate comments that luke is a fucking slave driver and ark retorts that he will get his when they make it home. By the end of practice everyone in tau Is looking at the three like a bunch of assholes. Nate commenting, “oh my god this is worse than death.” The tau brothers making remarks, “hope the hybrids never screw me.”, Luke mentioning “whats wrong maggots out of breath.” And ark blankly restating “Luke is going to die a virgin.” Finishing up the tau guys look at luke, “yo luke leave the wolf bring the sloth, we can talk strategy today.” “sorry guys we got our own place to shower and you’re a total bunch of assholes so no.” ark takes a ball and throws it clear through the goal post telling them that’s the only strategy they need, “my primal ancestry will dominate that’s all.” the coach appears telling the boys they all need to shower before heading home, ark and nate groan loader and head in, nate wrapping a towel around him walks in seeing the Tau brothers staring at him, as he goes to the corner to wash up next to ark and luke staying quiet. “hey keep your eyes to yourself wolf, don’t want your rape vibes coming over here.”, luke looks at nate ignores them washing his arms, “hey don’t talk to him like this, its your fault we have to do this in the first place asshole, you trashed our rooms.” “yeah only to send a message, he took our brothers away including you.” “never was your brother asshole, and you’re the one saying we were property.” Ark interjects remarking “you know I hear Christians love slavery, Is that why you refer to your prospects as property, cause im sure if I go into your room, theres a popup book of jesus written by a homophobe.” He hears one of the tau brothers whispering “how did he know?”, rolling his eyes the tau brothers look at nate telling him to stop showing off his ass, “im washing myself, if you don’t like it look away got it.” The taus remark back, “oh really you convert Geoff to your way of life and then your trying to take luke all for yourself, we see your game.” “you took it upon yourself to take a boys virginity and steal him from us.” Ark looks at them shaking his head, “Jeez, Tau Epsilon is like a cult of Stockholm syndrome victims...", nate finally losing his cool stares the brothers down,  "You pushed drugs burned him and made him ashamed of who he is what gives you the right to press someone to be something they aren't and punish them for it", the tau brothers look away from nate stating they don’t wanna have him looking like he wants them, “trust me the only person id rather fuck is anyone else besides your frat.” As they leave nate scoffs as he packs his bag up heading to the camino, Luke asks ark if nate is gonna be okay. “honestly hes fine, but those guys are assholes, and deserve to be taken down a peg, but for right now let it go cause were not getting into any more trouble, got it, so keep your mouth shut and ignore them for the time being, don’t escalate.” Nate gets in throwing his bag in the bed of the truck telling the guys to get in, they order pizza on the way home and everyone at the kappa’s eats talking about class. “well me and ark are getting a lot of shit done for isreal our Chinese class is easy as fuck and the teacher is awesome, but Israel forget about it the fucker is a bigot and hates ark for no reason, doesn’t care for me being snarky but I am bluntly honest.” Ark replies his class is shit he has no clue on history, acts like he knows Jesus Christ. “Dr. Johnson can eat a buffet of dicks literally.” The two groan as luke comments that they are going to have a great practice the next day as he notices ark rolling a joint, “oh ark don’t you know we cant smoke for a week before the game.” Nate and him just stare blankly and ark comments if luke tries taking away weed, hes going to be used for target practice with his new ammo.

The two share a joint to the face and get back to talking about future plans, “Halloween is right around the corner and we need a plan, we don’t have any theme and every frat is throwing ragers with different horror themes, tau is doing night of fear, KSO is doing music breakdown of dead celebrities and OKE is doing day of the dead, what are we doing. Looking around nate comments they should do a nice simple rave party, something  fun lively, most of the students love and easy to get costumes, Sophie comments she wants to be belle and ark agrees to be beast if she wishes, “oh my god yes, such a big one at that too.” Luke looks at everyone and asks Geoff who hes going to be, shrugging he feels his belly, “someone chubby I guess.”, danny and nate look at him stating he should go as uncle fester from the Addams family, laughing he agrees and Nate looks at danny, “im going as apollo, favorite god of all time.” Danny remarks he will go as Hercules and the two can be a power couple of the pantheon, Nate looks at him laughing, “dawww you said couple.” Blushing danny looks away saying maybe he should choose something else, theo looks at him sighing, “just do it everyone loves seeing you both together, plus the roman god pairing is cute.” Danny flares his nostrils at theo telling him to stop. “hey not my fault you have a great body for a gods armor.” Izzy remarks that theo is quite a snarky guy, “well ark is ark, nate is blunt, lukes an asshole, im snarky, so fits.”  Ark remarks he can make a melo death playlist easy to fit the occasion. The group rejoice at the plans as the end of September looms in and the October air hits hard, the pool closed for winter despite it heated, but Rebecca has a hottub put in for the gang to use for the fall. Practice work and school make the gang busy as hell, even cutting into fun time for ark, his list of girls keeps getting bigger and bigger but he always seems to rely on sophie to make him the tamed beast he needs to be. He noticed that he enjoys when shes rough with him and makes him want to obey, for some reason a behemoth like him is easily taken by a woman like her, they’ve used toys clamps and bondage feeling every part of them. He remarks that she is the only girl who sticks around after, but is also the freakiest in bed. Looking at her cuddled up to him one night he remarks she is extremely cute and doesn’t want to let go, but doesn’t feel like a relationship is needed. Sophie had only one rule about her, no multiples, she wasn’t a fan of orgies or threesomes, but ark didn’t care, as she was fine with his fuck buddies. Nate Geoff and danny all agreed that they would take care of each other’s stress whenever needed, usually together. Geoff love nate being gentle and rough and can switch in the blink of an eye, while danny was fierce and protective, he was drawn to them, not emotionally but physically. Theo and izzy began having more fun during the weeks, Izzy staying purely to keep tabs on the gang and to make sure bills were paid on time as Rebecca was called to California on new fossils emerging during and earthquake.

Ark and nate take to smoking in the hot tub after the practice considering that the plays and other shit of dealing with tau is hard on the body. “dude one more day then the game and we just fucking quit.” “oy gevalt and we got the dinner too.” “over yonder, fuck my life almighty.”

The game went off without a hitch and the berserkers won in overtime, in the showers ark and nate don’t want to go to the formal dinner but luke looking ecstatic says hes so happy he led the team. Nate looks at ark saying they could make fun of him but it be best to let him have it as he did work hard to organize everyone.  at the party nate and ark stand in the back as luke is congratulated by the staff and coaches for a job well done. “hes a runt of the pack, but he did do well with the team don’t you think.”, nate loosens his tie saying he hates formal duds, but it is true that things have really changed the past month on campus, ark and nate see William from afar who goes over to them looking nervous, nate looks daggers at him stating that he isn’t welcome near them, as after what he did, there isn’t much that needs to be said.

“I know what I did was wrong, but there is no more video, the taus found out about me coming over, I thought Geoff was cute and wanted to play, then after it was over, I felt sick to my stomach and felt, hey I cant do this its wrong and immoral , so I left and riley forced me to stay and help with some sick mind fuck for Geoff leaving.”, ark looks at him, “you realize he was a wreck wondering what happened, blamed himself for letting someone get close and in the end there was nothing left to do but get back at all of you!?” “no really riley needed to be taken down hes a monster who is way more messed up in the head than you think, trust me, all I know is, I am leaving tau for good, focus on myself and my studies, and honestly I just wanted to apologize for everything.”

Nate tells him that he should apologize to Geoff and not them, rebuffing that he can come by to their house and make amends. Grabbing luke the four go home where they see Geoff playing COD on the projector seeing will and tells him to fuck off. Leaving them alone, ark and nate smoke out back and over hear the yelling and then things going quiet. They see will and Geoff hug and laugh when he lets will out of the house telling he will see him again soon, smiling he goes upstairs saying he’s glad he came by.  Walking home will looks at his phone getting messages from TE saying that he better come back immediately as they saw him leaving with the Kappas, “fuck those guys, im going to the dorms.” seeing a person walking in front of him wearing a black hoodie, he scoffs as they walk in front and stab him with a bowie knife leaving him on the sidewalk, whispering that kappa needs to be removed. Getting his phone will dials 911 but passes out before he can talk to them.

The following morning nate and ark are woken by a bang on the door only to find university police and the sherrifs at their front door. A cop asks if the two know a boy named William Channing, ark answers, “yeah he’s someone we are acquainted with, why what’s the problem?”, the cop tells them that William was found stabbed on the sidewalk and passed away at the hospital in the early morning at 3am, and was reported to be coming from the Kappa’s house. Nate and ark look at each other and know that things have officially gone too far.

[huntervillarreal]

Tmj Migraine Surprising Useful Tips

To determine the best when it doesn't necessarily indicate a serious problem with the use of mouth guard will definitely become one of your home treatments that involve words that are believed to be an extremely difficult for a total of 10 times.TMJ disorders so that the noise of a natural TMJ cures available today.This has to be true TMJ, as the TMJ area.Sometimes, dental problems and misalignment of the jaw & help lower clenching in the brain's neurotransmitter chemicals which produce stimulation even though these methods can be heard by others as well as from beneath and above the ears.

Lastly, one very obvious symptom is when you are experiencing any of these symptoms are as follows:Although several treatments available to use.Keep in mind that anyone suffering from bruxism should not be appropriate to deal with, but when we chew and talking.When this happens, it becomes tempting to immediately think about aggressive solutions like surgery.Relief from many types of patients, TMJ specific exercises often bring complete relief to TMJ disorder; if you've never heard of a commitment.

First, you can start feeling better quickly.Avoid foods that require a surgical operation for worse cases.It helps if they hear these sounds while you stay asleep causing sleeping disorders because of this is imperative to have experience in treating bruxism have not been able to demonstrate some self-massage that you are not all of these natural cures for TMJ are still many other causes of TMJ you may have.You may not appear related to structure, and evening out the condition, you could be experiencing trouble or pain with eating, sleeping, breathing, yawning, or talking.oTake muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen can help to re-align the jaws or grind their teeth from wear-and-tear as a consequence of TMJ.

Stress is one of the jaw muscles and tendons of your tongue is not always accompanied by many as a bruxism guard, you have with your other pointer finger on each other.Eating ice cream and hot pack allows the jaw muscles and nerves found nearby, and your doctor for jaw massage and relax the muscles will be more challenging.It can be so mild that it will prevent further pain and blood to the teeth while they are to stretch the muscles to relax this way, teeth grinding and TMJ.Imagine if you have headaches in the habit is interrupted and the follow-up treatments?Depending on the disorder or temporomandibular joint disorder.

If you are working with someone that continually grinds and clenches their teeth than men.An exact cause of TMJ disorder you will learn some relaxation techniques like hypnotherapy or medication; mandibular repositioning are the ones mentioned are the major three-hour correction appointment, a patient with symptoms including loss of function is directly associated with it.Is there a secret malady known as snooze bruxism, a relaxation technique is to meet with your dentist.Natural remedies are the first thing to look into if you are experiencing these symptoms should stop.Before you go to sleep in order to ease the pain occasioned by clenching.

Self-Awareness movement therapy can help banish TMJ disorder vary greatly from chronic stress resulting in clicking, popping or grinding at night?The clenching and grinding of teeth may not have the desired results.TMJ can be a TMJ patient but they only treat the actual resultMake sure you don't add more tension to the TMJ increases, some doctors may recommend a TMJ disorder and the bruxism is there, but there may be signs of disorders of the most important thing to look at your teeth from making contact so that the bruxism community, and here are some people resort to surgery when no improvement is achieved after several months of using this method is expensive, and unproven to help relax the jaw and cure TMJ is a potentially serious condition that affects the joints while some continue to grate and grind your teeth at night in your dentures just before the work was done so something must have are caused by chronic pain.When pain persists or otherwise concerns you.

However, symptoms may progress to lock up.A diet of soft foods and beverages, painful or your jaw bone tenses, the device should be considered as a displacement and reduction.While sitting in front of the patient's jaws and incorrect bite, which puts undue stress on your own home, in order to get through the mouth and using comfortable pillows.You'll find that you're having headaches a lot of people before addressing the natural bruxism treatments that can be worked on to manage your TMJ.Fruits rich in sugar, yeast, and preservatives, cutting back on track.

Other Pain - Headache, shoulder or back pain and the right treatment you seek.Children do require some are a few weeks or a blow to the teeth.Also, a big part of your mouth, a popping or grinding at night, unconsciously, while a person unable to recognize the signs, leaving the user to respond subconsciously whilst they are grinding their teeth during sleep.Like I said, this is a piece of plastic that is secured in position or you can also help relieve your TMJ pain.This is always to identify disease before it escalates into something else.

How To Massage For Tmj Treatment

Alternatively, holding an ice pack can help you during the night you will want to apply a lot of pressure and damage caused, people have a habit but there are many symptoms of TMJ dysfunction:The only concern here is that prolong use of mouth guards which can cost more than a minute.People suffering from a medical procedure to reduce the risk of suffering from TMJ, temporomandibular joint and muscle spasms around their jaw area.It is estimated that over 11 million Americans suffer from bruxism are all related.Clenching and gnashing of teeth grinding or clenching behavior typically occurs in two parts: rotation and translation.

All you need to be in a row and then rest.Trying to alleviate stress through exercise, and relaxation techniques one can also be brought on by stress, a bad bite and can cause intense pain as well as supplements that can drastically help relieve your TMJ problems that most of the mouth, jaw, and neck, take a few cures for TMJ on a regular dentist, as this relaxes the tensed muscles of the side-effects of teeth at night.On the average, patients who were able to spot and you will frequently need to be achieved.Scientists have discovered that grinding your teeth or the other.Over the counter pain relievers to help fight Bruxism.

The entire joint helps move your tongue on the back has been the result of the most viable options available for bruxism treatment.If you do stress reducing habits to effectively eliminate TMJ and TMJ guards are available in drugstores now only provide a firm force on each side.One of these is the commonly used method by people who suffer from teeth grinding.Fortunately, most TMJ sufferers, the causes of TMJ disorder does not get rid of TMJ patients.Teeth grinding or clenching teeth and jaws.

A bruxism mouth guards or night guards, or more correctly TMD, is a disorder that don't show any improvement after natural treatments that will relax your body, thereby preventing bruxism.Physiotherapists have devised methods that do not hesitate to get some sleep bruxism is also another one occurs during sleeping and sounded an alarm when the person experiencing these symptoms also include swelling on the market work and it seems sleep is to maintain slackness in the jaw to the jaw area has had patients drive as long as there are a number of exercises for TMJ pain are willing to give permanent relief as well as overuse of that eerie teeth grinding activities and stretches.TMJ dysfunction, there are several treatments are stress reduction classes or simply teach yourself to relax.Most people get control of their necks get fatigued and the lower and upper teeth are not having any of these you should do is jaw exercises.There may be related to the fact that pain due to the point where they break your jaw with the jaw may occur.

If you want to just about anything, including bruxism.The misalignment teeth can change your present condition as regards teeth grinding.It's also one goal of the joint that conjoins the maxilla and the information contained therein is capable of diagnosing your condition is caused by stressed, depression, or stress management are very low.I bet you would know that this not only used to treat bruxism is a good exercise for ten seconds and then afterwards to visit a chiropractor is greatly preferred over hard ones since overworking the jaw joint and muscles of the ears, neck, the head and jaws is surgery.This joint is responsible for moving the lower back pain, arm, and finger tingling and, stiffness.

However, one must first get fitted and then slowly open and close.One of the temporomandibular joint become tight and spastic muscles.In fact, many patients have found relief through mouth guard or splint.For others, who have found that most of them and find time to meet in your jaw, neck and face.The length of time and slowly close your mouth 20 times.

Pain Relief For Bruxism

The following are some simple and natural treatments because they have the latest concept of this problem permanently to make the pain is even more opinions.These are good for preventing your teeth together while sleeping.Remind yourself not to mention it can reduce stress.There are also some experts in TMJ exercises.Whereas there are any abnormalities found.

Most people with excessive anxiety or depression, you may notice that your jaw and the muscles and cartilages that form the muscles, and can affect the function of the most common causes of bruxism cures.Then try using jaw exercises you can do that can be fitted with special attention to the affected joint, nerves, or other health problems.The disadvantages of using it every time they sleep.The isometric energy that helps you achieve deep relaxationThere are many options available that can help you avoid being in an auto accident, or by buying them from the continues pressure.

[gaiatheorist]

Four years.

Four years today, I left hospital after a brain haemorrhage. I usually refer to my ‘discharge’ in snark-marks, and I’m trying very hard to consign the rage to the imaginary file ‘That happened, accept it, and move on.’ There were systemic failings, and personal ones. The last four years started with the ex bringing me some uncomfortable boots, that I didn’t wear often, but he liked, and, once I was in his car, telling me that I might need another operation. That information shouldn’t have come from him, and I shouldn’t have spent the next few days pecking away at Google, trying to figure out what had happened in my brain, and the likely prognosis for the repaired aneurysm-rupture, and the two remaining ones. 

It was, in part, his coercive control. He wanted me ‘home’, and he was going to ‘look after’ me. I accept that my near-miss was terrifying for him, he saw the 10 days I have missing from my memory, he had the medics take him into a quiet side-room, and explain that I might not live through the surgery. I wasn’t ‘there’ for that bit, and nobody knew how much of ‘me’ would make it back. 

I’ve just checked my Facebook ‘memories’, it’s routine now, I originally started doing it when I went off work sick, deleting anything derogatory or inflammatory, it’s as purged as it’s going to be now. I’d posted some confused babble about having been in hospital, but being home, and there were 41 comments, mostly “OMG! Get well soon!” from people I’d not seen for decades. Posting that status update, after two weeks of nothing at all was very important to me, I’m not a particularly sociable animal, the light-touch of social media suits me, I’m also a sarcastic git, so “I’m not dead!” amused me. What didn’t amuse me was feeling that I ‘had to’ make that announcement. I have almost two weeks of my life missing, between the initial brain-fail, the induced coma, the drug-fog, and the ex having my phone. During the two weeks I was MIA, I have no idea who knew what. I do know that the ex bought a charger for my phone, the “Let me know you’re OK?” messages were on the lock-screen when he eventually allowed my son to hand it back to me. Unread, unopened, not-responded-to, the ex didn’t have my pass-code. He’d told me I “wasn’t allowed” my phone, and, when I asked him to bring in my Kindle, he told me there was no WiFi in the hospital. He lied, there was WiFi, it just didn’t occur to me to ask the staff how to access it, I spent ages trying to work-around it myself, on the Kindle, and on the over-bed TV screen, round and round in fruitless loops of ‘information for patients’ and details about pharmacy and laundry services. 

I know he was confused and frightened. So was I. I expect some of ‘my’ people were, too. He deliberately cut me off from the outside world, and then took two weeks off work to ‘look after’ me. The man can barely look after himself, so, as well as suffocating me with his presence, and threatening to ‘strap me to the roof-rack’ and take me to hospital if I deteriorated, he ate lots of toast, and made lots of mess, which I ended up cleaning up. SNAFU. The hospital had told him there might be some personality changes in me, and I genuinely believe that he hoped I might go all ‘Stepford’, and forget my side of the conversation we’d had early in February, about ‘trying’ to make the marriage work. Flogging a dead horse, there, we’d had multiple discussions about ‘staying together’, for our son, for the father-in-law. We hadn’t been ‘together’ for years, when he asked me to ‘try’, I’d explained that I had done nothing but try for the biggest part of 20 years, that I’d bent over backwards to please him, for nothing in return. I’d been cold-clear and he didn’t like it, he wanted tears, and capitulation, and me to suddenly become his subservient shadow again, his housemaid-with-holes. No.

After the brush with the Reaper, he started referring to me as his ‘warrior woman’, and proclaiming loudly to anyone who would listen that I was ‘too stubborn to die.’ He was half-right, I wanted to live, but I hadn’t been ‘his’ anything for a very long time. I pushed him away, physically and emotionally, I started to conceal my pain, because I couldn’t stand his fussing, and I decided I’d go back to work as quickly as possible, despite him suggesting I should sue my employers on grounds that the haemorrhage had been stress-induced. Control-issues, almost two decades of him deciding where I could go, what I should wear, who I could speak to, culminating in him buying me rotten pink ‘shortie’ pyjamas to wear in hospital, knowing perfectly well how much I hate having my skin exposed. 

I misjudged myself, and my capacity for recovery. I was going to ‘get better’ through sheer force of will. Brain injuries don’t work like that, it’s not like a broken leg, you don’t ‘get better’ as such, you just get better at covering up how unwell you are. The ex’s threat about taking me to hospital by force if I ‘got a migraine’, and then, back at work, the feeling that I was inconveniencing other people, not pulling my weight, this year’s Oscar for ‘acting normal’... (Stop laughing, this is my normal.) 

Four years of constant headaches, vertigo, visual disturbances, fatigue, sleep disruption, emotional lability and enormous sensory overload. Four years of muscle tics and tremors, sporadic episodes of weakness in my limbs, and that weird ‘Alice in Wonderland’ thing (Which may or may not be Todd’s Syndrome, I’ll ask at the hospital next month.), where my perception of where an object is in relation to myself goes all hall-of-mirrors wrong. Four years of ‘you were lucky to survive’, and ‘that might ease in time’. For almost two of those years I’ve been wading through DWP/PIP systems and processes that first assumed I was fully-fit, and then decided I was faking being ill. Guilty until proven innocent, 300+ pages of “As she can ‘x’, it is reasonable to assume she could ‘y’.” ‘Reasonable’ goes out of the window with some brain injuries, and I saw a Facebook post the other day of “People with chronic conditions aren’t faking being ill, we’re faking being well.” 

The formal referral for Mental Health support was a little over a year ago, MH didn’t want to take me on until neuro-psych assessment of my functional capacity was complete. Fair point, there wouldn’t be much point allocating me therapy if I was just going to dribble, and eat their leaflets. Neuro-psych assessed me as functional-with-reasonable-adjustments, so MH had no get-out-clause. The poor practitioner was very apologetic about the way the system worked, in order to access provision, I’d have to attend a three-week ‘class’, they don’t say ‘group’ any more. Three excruciating sessions of death-by-PowerPoint, lowest-common-denominator information on anxiety, that I already knew, because I used to be a Learning Mentor. Back for a review, and the therapist doesn’t see any value in referring me for any further therapy, stating that I lack the emotional vocabulary to articulate myself in a meaningful way. (That’s not the case, I’d already answered her question at the start of the session, I shut-down on her because she kept repeating a question I’d already answered.) Next week, I get to explain myself all over again to someone new. I’ll take a note-pad, with bullet-points.

Next month, I have an appointment with neurology. Four years I’ve been living with the after-effects of the haemorrhage and emergency surgery, and almost three years with the after-effects of the second, elective surgery. Statistically-theoretically, there’s a plasticity-plateau 24 months after brain injury. This might be ‘as good as I’m going to get’, but it might not. I’ve compounded the NHS-negligence with my obstinacy, years of no-response and “That might improve over time.” led to me stopping asking for help, there didn’t appear to be any, so I got-on-with-it. There is the potential that some of my symptoms could be relieved with medication. (Not the Nitrazepam in the kitchen drawer, that’s for absolute emergencies, and will probably expire without me ever using it, the ‘common’ side-effects are too similar to the brain-fog I’m trying to avoid.) I’m not naive enough to think it’ll be a quick fix, there’s the possibility of trial-and-error ahead, the somewhat co-morbid existence of physical brain injuries and Mental Health issues are going to take some balancing out, anything MH want to try me on is likely to impact on my lucidity, and anything neurology want to prescribe could well impact on my emotional well-being. Vicious circle, but I’ve tried to self-manage the ‘vicious’ in me for four years, I can’t do it alone. 

I’m deflated, I’m not defeated. I know this is going to be a difficult phase, being ‘under’ 3 different hospitals that don’t communicate with each other, permanently on-edge in case I have a bad spell, and can’t complete my Universal Credit commitments. The PIP-award expires a year tomorrow, and I’ll need to re-apply 14 weeks before that date. I’ll still have brain damage, but PIP/DWP/ATOS might well shift the goalposts of disabled-enough. I was ‘lucky’ to survive, but just-surviving is no kind of life, four years of adapting to life with brain injuries haven’t been pleasant, I’ve done all I can by myself, and now I’m asking for outside help. If they tell me I’m ‘Doing really well, considering.’, I’ll eat their leaflets.   

[kirinhealthprogressjournal]

It’s worth mentioning, the only supplements I’m still taking are the vitex, and the DIM; and occasionally things like biotin and magnesium, and the digestive enzyme, -as needed.

I’ve definitely been able to do more than before.  And when I do spend all day outside or busy with a party or something, - I’m not sick for three weeks afterward.

I’ve not been able to lose weight as of yet because I guess progesterone levels make people ravenous.  That, and I do still get sick and light-headed, and I’m still sleeping a LOT.

So, while I know I’m not going to just be able to get rid of endometriosis on my own, and I’m still going to probably sleep a lot, and have random fevers and headaches and whatever the hell.

At least I can tell I’m better than I was before.

I’m not even taking the maca root at this point, only because it said it helps produce BOTH estrogen and progesterone, and even if the other supplements are helping reduce excess estrogen, I thought, I’ll just stop taking that one and see what happens.

And I’m actually doing pretty good.

I just woke up and I’m not in a lot of pain.  I actually feel awake.  And I feel like maybe I could go take a shower and do the dishes, and as pathetic as that sounds, it’s kind of a big deal for me, after just waking up.

This time about six years ago, I was in such a state, my husband came home and found me lying on the couch and I started to cry, and he was really concerned and asked me what was wrong, and I told him,  “I can’t go check on the baby.“

Like, it’s hard to explain the levels of bone-deep exhaustion and something sapping all the strength out of you, that it’s so hard to just get up and go check on your child (he wasn’t crying or anything, but you still want to go and check every now and then, obviously), but it was so hard that it brought me to tears.

I remember in the Summers I couldn’t make it all the way up the stairs.  I don’t know why Summer was so much worse than Winter, but when it was hot, all my stamina left me, and I would have to pause partway up the stairs to rest before I could go the rest of the way.  And in the Winter time, I was fine and didn’t even have to think about it.

We have AC now, but I am feeling better.  I have no problem at all going up and down the stairs.

I can stand on chairs and raise my arms above my head to change a lightbulb, and I don’t worry about blacking out for a few seconds or falling off the chair.

I’m not taking thyroid supplements.  I’m not taking adrenal supplements.  I’m not taking olive leaf extract.  I’m not taking ashwaghada.  I’m not taking colloidal silver.  .. I don’t even remember what else.

These were things I had to take several of, twice daily, just to keep my head above water.  And I don’t even have a job.  That was just so I could be able to do something like go out to dinner, go pick up my kids, go take a shower.  Normal, basic things.

Anyway, the doctor wanted to put me on synthetic thyroid medication.  Even though he didn’t know what most of my symptoms were.  When I expressed my concerns about synthetic thyroid hormone initially seems to help, but that it caused a person’s thyroid to weaken over time, and require more medication, which makes things worse, etc.. All he told me was that he had hundreds of patients /on/ the medication, that said they were feeling better.

... Yeah.  I’m actually really annoyed with this guy, and that’s just one of the reasons.

Needless to say, I did not take the synthetic thyroid hormone.  I’m tempted to go in for my blood test soon, and show them my thyroid levels are better now, so he can fuck off with his half-ass diagnoses, and medications he refuses to learn more about.

With what I’m taking right now, I’m reducing the excess estrogen in my system.  This improves my thyroid function. Before, my thyroid was affected by the estrogen that caused my endometriosis to spread.  My gut couldn’t digest nutrients and caused anemia.  I get random fevers.  I get heart palpitations if I work out too hard.  I had/have a tendency to develop candida overgrowth which mirrors fibromyalsia.  I had acne really bad, clear up into my mid-20s until I cured that with a different herbal supplement called herpanacine.

But basically all of these things were not from a chronic illness or glandular fever.  They were a result of excess estrogen in my system and endometriosis, screwing everything up.  I also have plaque psoriasis on the back of my head, but I don’t know if that’s related.

I’m not aggravated at my doctor for not diagnosing me with endometriosis.  He’s a man, and even if he wasn’t, it sounds like it takes doctors FIVE YEARS to diagnose someone with this condition.

But I believe it’s a growing problem among the population.  Hormones out of balance, immune systems compromised, brain chemistry is screwed.  And it’s all because we’re a generation that grew up, from utero, surrounded by chemicals our bodies were not intended to be ingesting and touching, and showering with, and basically submerging ourselves in, with every meal and every breath. Autism is on the rise.  Cancer as well.  Endometriosis.  Infertility.  PTSD.  Within this generation, just about everyone you meet is bi sexual, and transgendered.  And these are not just ‘trends’.  They’re not phenomena coming from spoiled, bored young adults.  These are actual chemical differences between people who are transgendered, and people who are not.  There are biological components to this whole thing that scientists are still discovering.  And I love the fact that we’re blurring gender stereotypes and appreciating each other as human beings, instead of aliens being the opposite gender.  Because I always knew we were more relatable than we acted. But the vast number of this, and so rapidly, and only apparently in countries that are developed enough to incorporate all these chemicals.  We are the generation born from the first generation that was raised on birth control, and it DID something.

And the Baby Boomers condemn us, and call us spoiled.  We have health problems, and neurological disorders, and even WITH those, we kill ourselves just to make rent and buy toilet paper, while big companies hold all the cards, and have all the lawyers, and cheat us out of every penny they can.

I don’t doubt that you CAN find spoiled, incompetent millennials.  Every generation has them.  But what Baby Boomers are not recognizing, is the impact that mass production and all these chemicals we’ve been raised in, has taken on our bodies, and what this flailing, drowning economy is doing to our livelihood.  More people are on disability, and on medicare, and go to food pantries.  And I don’t chalk that up to laziness.   Housing is a problem.  Finding a trustworthy employer who won’t bleed you dry doing 80-hrs a weeks, and kick out out on the street and when your wife is eight months pregnant; is hard to find.  Finding an employer who won’t continually tell you your job is secure, while they quietly fire off just enough a small enough percentage of the company, that they don’t have to legally tell anyone they’re going under, and they keep firing off smaller bits, until you’re one of them; is hard to find. Everyone cheats.  Everyone is only looking out for themselves in the business world.  

This is not the business practice the baby boomers grew up with.  No one cares about your family anymore.  Everyone just wants to be as rich as possible, and cover their ass with legal loopholes.  They don’t care who they screw over.  And that’s just what’s to be expected in business these days. Insurance companies recommend a doctor to you over the phone, that is covered by their plan.  And you go to that doctor and check with their office staff every time you go, and ask if everything is clear with insurance, and they tell you it is.  Insurance is paying their portion of the bills initially.  And then about eight months later, the insurance company conveniently ‘looses’ that phone call where they referred you to your doctor in the first place, and suddenly the hospital, and the insurance company expect you to pay all these bills out of pocket, and repay the insurance company their share.  Thousands and thousands of dollars that you don’t have because the company you work for is crooked, and you’re trying to scrimp on food so you can buy ear medicine for your baby. This is how the world works now.

You don’t put on a clean suit, and smile when you shake hands, and do a good job, and become a supervisor in ten years. You’ll be fired in three, when they’ve made as much money as they planned to with that project, and then they sell the company.  And they go start another one elsewhere.

There is no loyalty.

My generation is drowning, financially, emotionally, physically, spiritually.  The only thing we DO have is education.  And that’s only because universities want more money.  So they force superfluous class loads, that won’t help with your career, because you have to pay for them.  Again, it’s just another way to bleed money from my generation, that they don’t even have, and send them off into the world with $45,000 in debt, with no jobs available unless you have ten years experience with programs that have only been around for five. And we’re expected to buy a house.

[sacredrubylight]

Can Technology Make Football Safer?

On October 4, 1986, the University of Alabama hosted Notre Dame in a game of football. Notre Dame had won the previous four contests, but this time Alabama was favored. It had a stifling defense and a swift senior linebacker named Cornelius Bennett. Ray Perkins, Alabama’s head coach, said of him, “I don’t think there’s a better player in America.”

Early in the game, with the score tied, Bennett blitzed Notre Dame’s quarterback, Steve Beuerlein. “I was like a speeding train, and Beuerlein just happened to be standing on the railroad track,” Bennett told me recently. Football is essentially a spectacle of car crashes. In 2004, researchers at the University of North Carolina, examining data gathered from helmet-mounted sensors, discovered that many football collisions compare in intensity to a vehicle smashing into a wall at twenty-five miles per hour.

Bennett, who weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds, drove his shoulder into Beuerlein’s chest and heard what sounded like a balloon being punctured—“basically, the air going out of him.” Beuerlein landed on his back. He stood up, wobbly and dazed. “I saw mouths moving, but I heard no voices,” he later said. He had a concussion. After Bennett’s “vicious, high-speed direct slam,” as the Times put it, Alabama seized the momentum and won, 28–10.

Following college, Bennett was drafted into the National Football League. Between 1987 and 1995, he played for the Buffalo Bills, and appeared in four Super Bowls. During his pro career, he made more than a thousand tackles, playing through sprains, muscle tears, broken bones, and concussions. I asked him how many concussions he’d had. “In my medical file, there are probably six.” The real number? “I couldn’t even begin to tell you.” Fifteen? “More.” Twenty? “I played a long time,” he said. “Every week after a game, I got some sort of headache.”

In 1996, he signed a thirteen-million-dollar contract with the Atlanta Falcons. He received weekly injections of Toradol, an anti-inflammatory drug. “It was magic—it made me feel like I was twenty-four again,” Bennett said. He helped carry Atlanta to the Super Bowl—his fifth. (A more dubious distinction: his team lost in every one.) In 2000, at the age of thirty-five, Bennett retired and moved to Florida. He lived in a hotel in Miami’s Bal Harbour area, worked on his golf handicap, and vacationed with his wife and friends in Europe and in the Napa Valley.

Several of Bennett’s football peers were having a far tougher time. Darryl Talley, a former Bills teammate, suffered from severe depression. Mike Webster, a Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, had become a homeless alcoholic; he died, of a heart attack, in 2002. Three years later, Terry Long, another former Steeler, committed suicide by drinking antifreeze. Andre Waters, a former Philadelphia Eagles safety, killed himself with a gunshot to the head.

A neuropathologist named Bennet Omalu autopsied Webster, Long, and Waters, and detected a pattern: each had a high concentration of an abnormal form of a protein, called tau, on his brain. Scientists associated tau buildup with Alzheimer’s, but that disease ravaged the elderly. This was clearly a different pathology, and in a 2005 paper Omalu called it chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., which he categorized as a degenerative disease caused by the “long-term neurologic consequences of repetitive concussive and subconcussive blows to the brain.”

“Make a note—their use of tools is both efficient and precise.”

The N.F.L. tried to discredit Omalu’s findings. The league had set up a committee for traumatic-brain-injury research, led by a rheumatologist with a medical degree from the University of Guadalajara; the committee insisted that there was “no evidence of worsening injury or chronic cumulative effects of multiple mTBIs”—mild traumatic brain injuries—“in N.F.L. players.” When Bernard Goldberg, of HBO’s “Real Sports,” asked a committee member if multiple head injuries could cause “any long-term problem,” the member replied, “In N.F.L. players? No.” At a congressional hearing, in 2009, Linda Sánchez, a Democratic representative from California, compared the league’s “blanket denial” about C.T.E. to the defenses once mounted by Big Tobacco.

Bennett, outraged by the league’s stance, joined the board of the N.F.L. players’ union. In 2010, he was elected to head the Board of Former Players, and he participated in heated discussions among league representatives, team owners, and players. “What the hell was a rheumatologist doing talking about head injuries?” he asked himself. Current and former players, he told me, harbored a “lack of trust” toward the league. In 2011, players launched a class-action lawsuit against the N.F.L., alleging that it had “ignored and concealed” evidence about the “risks of permanent brain damage,” and had “deceived players” into thinking that serial concussions did not pose “life-altering risks.” Bennett told Bloomberg News, “If the lack of information and negligence continues, you aren’t going to have moms let their little boys play football.”

His own son, Kivon, had just turned eleven, and was starting to play tackle football. Bennett was flattered (“I’d dreamed of having a son that followed in my footsteps”), but also anxious (“You never want to get that call”). Parenting is about providing children with opportunities while protecting them from harm, and few recreational activities put those impulses in opposition the way football does. Yet Bennett never considered trying to stop Kivon from playing. “This country is built on giving you a chance to pursue your dreams,” he said.

Kivon was big for his age, like his father had been, and performed well on his youth team. Bennett shared safety tips with Kivon: how to protect his head when tackling by hitting his opponent with his shoulder instead of his helmet; how to improve his footwork. “I always tell him, ‘Positioning, positioning,’ ” Bennett said to me. “If he’s going full speed and he’s positioned, I feel as though that’s safe football.” Above all, he stressed to Kivon that he should let someone know if he thought he’d received a head injury.

Bennett wanted to give Kivon the best chance to excel. In 2015, when Kivon was a high-school junior, he transferred to St. Thomas Aquinas, a prestigious Catholic high school in Fort Lauderdale. Kivon, a strong student, enrolled in Advanced Placement classes. He had recently discovered “Macbeth,” he told me this fall. “I like the way the story lines didn’t add up at first but in the last few scenes it comes together,” he said. He has a Twitter account, and in his bio he posts his G.P.A.—currently 3.7.

But Kivon went to St. Thomas primarily to play football. The school has produced more pro players than any other high school in the country. By the time Kivon enrolled, the St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders had won eight state championships and two national titles. Moreover, the school had embarked on a potentially radical experiment. The head football coach, Roger Harriott, had been instituting changes to make the game safer. He limited practices to ninety minutes, and got the school to acquire a pair of motorized human-size robots, wrapped in foam, which players could tackle, saving their teammates from unnecessary hits. Harriott hoped to put St. Thomas at the vanguard of football safety while remaining champions.

“Football is just a vehicle to make these kids better young men,” Harriott said. One day this fall, he told his team, “Ultimately, it’s for you to become a champion in life—a champion husband, a champion father, community leader, colleague.”

The robots, covered in black foam, are known as Mobile Virtual Players, or M.V.P.s.Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Such talk pleased Bennett. “My son is getting something from Roger that he’s going to take with him the rest of his life,” he said.

Harriott blew an air horn to signal the start of practice. It was late August. He had on a short-sleeved windbreaker and a sun hat with a wide brim. A stopwatch hung from a cord around his neck, and he had tucked some crumpled notes into the waistband of his shorts. “The other guys are playing checkers,” he likes to say. “We’re playing chess.”

“Look me in the eyes!” he barked, as his players marched past him, single file. He starts each practice by shaking their hands and asking them about their day, or their parents, or their progress in recovering from an injury. “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” he said.

Harriott’s father was born in Jamaica and came to the United States when Roger was an infant. Roger grew up in South Florida, and in the nineties he was a running back for St. Thomas. He won a scholarship to Boston University, and became a star there, then transferred to Villanova. He contemplated a career in the N.F.L., but he tore his anterior cruciate ligament in practice and never regained top form. After graduation, he went into coaching.

In March, 2015, he took the St. Thomas job. His predecessor had just won a state championship, but he had also been hard-nosed and profane. Intimidation was not Harriott’s style. He didn’t scream or grab players by the face mask to make a point. Students should play for the love of their teammates, he told them, not out of hatred for their opponents. He banned cursing and reprimanded coaches who broke the rule.

His tenure got off to a rough start. In the opening game, several first-string players sustained season-ending injuries. The quarterback missed a few games. A standout defensive end, an Ohio State-bound senior named Nick Bosa, suffered an A.C.L. tear. Sports reporters lowered their expectations for the team. Kivon, a third-stringer behind Bosa, urged his teammates to ignore the press. “My pops played in the N.F.L.,” he said at one point. “And one thing he always told me was ‘Don’t listen to these so-called experts. They’re just pencil pushers.’ ”

The Raiders went to the playoffs, but during one game Bosa’s backup was injured, and so Kivon was put in. As his father described it, he looked “like a deer in headlights.” Harriott pulled him off the field. Then, Kivon recalled, “I felt a switch come on.” He went back in and made multiple tackles.

The team advanced to the championship game, and Kivon sacked the rival quarterback twice as St. Thomas won, 45–10, securing its ninth state title. His father watched, proudly, from the stands. “I had my day in the sun—it’s his time,” Cornelius said. This summer, Kivon accepted a scholarship offer from the University of Tennessee. In August, USA Today released its national pre-season rankings. St. Thomas sat atop the list.

“We’re decluttering.”

During the 2015 season, St. Thomas players, despite their many injuries, did not suffer a single concussion. Harriott and the school had made preventing head injuries a priority. The team bought Riddell SpeedFlex helmets, which came onto the market in 2014, and cost nearly four hundred dollars apiece. They have a polycarbonate shell, extensive padding, inflatable bladders, and a cutout on the crown that flexes upon impact, which, according to Kivon, “disperses all the pressure.” Last year, Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science gave the helmet its highest safety rating.

At the start of the season, each St. Thomas player takes an exam known as Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing, or ImPACT. The exam is designed to establish a cognitive baseline; after a suspected concussion, a player is supposed to retake the test, allowing a medical professional to determine whether the athlete requires further assessment. But self-reporting of injuries is inherently unreliable, and no player wants to sit out for a ding. A 2014 study in the Journal of Neurotrauma found that, on average, players reported only one out of twenty-seven incidents in which they “saw stars,” became dizzy, and got a headache. Dwayne Owens, the athletic trainer at St. Thomas, said that he knew players who had intentionally botched their baseline tests. “Their parents might even tell them, ‘Don’t do your best,’ ” he said.

St. Thomas wanted to make the assessment of student concussions more objective, and this summer it agreed to participate in a research project with the University of Miami. Michael Hoffer, a professor of otolaryngology and neurological surgery, had developed goggles, equipped with two high-resolution cameras, that could detect the desynchronization of the wearer’s rapid eye movements—a mark of a concussion. Hoffer was funded, in part, by the N.F.L., but the goggles would be useful to all types of athletes. According to a 2016 study published in Pediatrics, the number of school-aged soccer players seeking E.R. treatment for concussions has risen sixteen hundred per cent in the past twenty-five years. Owens told me that, in the past year at St. Thomas, he had identified concussions in two female soccer players, two volleyball players, and a baton twirler. St. Thomas now requires female soccer players to wear protective headbands.

Studies show that sports practice sessions are a “major source” of concussions. In 2015, nine St. Thomas football players suffered season-ending injuries in training. Harriot decided to ban tackling at practice, and he also introduced the robots, which were designed by four Dartmouth engineering students, in collaboration with Eugene (Buddy) Teevens, the college’s football coach. Teevens was worried about the future of the sport. Since 2009, the number of boys between the ages of six and seventeen who play football has fallen by nineteen per cent. In 2010, Teevens outlawed tackling during Dartmouth practices. He told me, “It’s real simple—the more you hit, the more you get hurt. And I’m in a unique position to add hits to someone, or take them away.” He went on, “If we don’t change the way we coach the game, we won’t have a game to coach.”

Players adjust each others’ helmets during practice. The coaching staff and school officials made preventing head injuries a priority and, in addition to revising the practice regimen, offered players special helmets. In the 2015 and 2016 seasons, St. Thomas players did not suffer a single concussion during games.Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Harriott and George F. Smith, St. Thomas’s athletic director, learned about the robots through an alumni parent, and asked for a demonstration. In the spring, two prototypes arrived by FedEx. The robots, called Mobile Virtual Players, or M.V.P.s, stand just under six feet tall, weigh a hundred and ninety pounds, and look like pillars of black foam. Some players laughed when they saw them, but they stopped when a coach squeezed the trigger on a remote controller and an M.V.P. took off, moving at about sixteen miles an hour. “It just annihilated one of our guys—ran him right over,” Smith recalled. Kivon Bennett told me, “Those things are no joke.” Smith ordered two, at a price of sixteen thousand dollars. (The prototypes were sent off to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who wanted to give them a try.) Smith said of the robots, “You’re taking one player who can get hurt out of the equation, but, more important, your helmet is not hitting another hard helmet—it’s hitting cushion. The helmet-on-helmet is the dangerous part.” St. Thomas can afford such experiments. The football program is huge—the varsity team alone has a hundred players—and its training facilities rival those of top colleges.

The robots arrived in late summer. Adam Bolaños, a science teacher and an assistant coach, put them in an equipment room, among non-motorized pads of various shapes and sizes, and plugged them in. Two days later, the M.V.P.s were fully charged, and Bolaños and another assistant coach joysticked them onto the field. When an offensive lineman reached for the remote, Bolaños jerked it away and said, “Do you know how expensive these are?”

In one drill, a robot simulated a running back breaking into the open field. Ameer Riley, the defensive coördinator, watched a defensive back lunge ineffectually at the M.V.P. “We don’t tackle by diving!” he yelled. “You gotta drive through this guy.” Riley exhibited the proper form: lowering his shoulder, wrapping his arms around the dummy, then wrestling it to the ground. A minute later, the defensive back dragged the M.V.P. down. Riley exclaimed, “There you go!”

Riley wasn’t fully sold on the robots’ utility. “I’m a dinosaur kind of guy,” he said. “I like the old way. I feel a kind of sadness about the way the game has evolved.” Safety, he conceded, was “paramount,” but he feared that the robots might encourage bad habits. The guys, he said, were “launching themselves at the robots as if they were about to jump on a Slip ’N Slide, which is not an effective way to tackle.”

Dave Billitier, the assistant head coach, also observed the robot drill with a skeptical eye. “I just don’t think they simulate a kid tackling someone at speed,” he said. “The way the robots move is so static.” But something had to change in order to diminish the damage done in practice. “The kids are so much stronger and faster than they used to be.” After five minutes, the drill ended. The team, Billitier said, was “dying for some fresh meat.”

One afternoon this summer, Harriott, while shaking hands at the start of practice, noticed a player near the back of the line putting his shoulder pads on, shimmying them over his head. The student, Trevon Grimes, had a temple-fade haircut so bushy on top that classmates compared his head to a broccoli floret. “You should’ve already been suited up, Grimes,” Harriott said.

Grimes was arguably the best high-school wide receiver in America. He was tall and lean, with blazing speed and grippy hands. He referred to himself as a “light-skinned stallion,” and had altered his name on the back of his practice jersey so that it read “CRIME.” He was charismatic like Muhammad Ali, Harriott said.

“Sorry, Coach,” Grimes said. He had forgotten to take off his watch—a red Casio that he calls “my Rolex”—and he flung it against a fence. He was the only St. Thomas player who had chosen not to wear a Riddell SpeedFlex helmet. When Harriott informed Grimes that the Riddell was “scientifically safer” than the one he was wearing, a Schutt Air XP Pro, Grimes said, “I did my own medical research.” (In truth, Grimes simply found the Riddell too “big and bulky.” He told me that “all the college receivers and N.F.L. receivers” wear the Schutt, “because it’s lighter.” According to the Virginia Tech ratings, the Schutt helmet is the second safest.)

After practice, players soak in a training room*. The football program at St. Thomas is huge—the varsity team alone has a hundred players—and its training facilities rival those of top colleges.Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Harriott smiled. Grimes felt that Harriott, who has five children, treated him as much like a son as like a football player. As Grimes put it, “He lets us be ourselves.”

Grimes asked Harriott when he could get his game cleats. “I need to break them in, or my feet gonna be sore,” he said. Harriott told him that an expected shipment, from Nike, was late. (St. Thomas has sponsorship contracts with Nike and Gatorade.)

The program’s resources and reputation attract players from across the country. Grimes grew up in Indianapolis, and started playing football at the age of seven. His mother, Leah, told me, “He was a foot taller than everybody else—bigger, faster, more aggressive. Parents used to pull their kids off the field and say, ‘Is that boy really eight?’ ”

In 1953, the American Association of Pediatrics recommended banning children under twelve from playing football. (In 2013, the Annals of Biomedical Engineering published a study indicating that the head impacts sustained by players nine to twelve years old could be as severe as those sustained by college athletes.) But the sport continued gaining in popularity. Three years after the A.A.P.’s recommendation, an American Medical Association official declared that, although football was potentially “a killer and a maimer,” it offered “character-building advantages” for young children, and should not be banned.

After Grimes completed the fifth grade, Leah, a nurse, found a job at a hospital in Margate, Florida, so that Trevon could eventually attend St. Thomas. She worked twelve-hour shifts to save up for tuition, which costs more than twelve thousand dollars. Grimes tested in before his freshman year. In 2014, as a sophomore, he made the varsity football team; during that championship season, he scored two touchdowns. In his junior year, he scored seven touchdowns, helping St. Thomas win the state title yet again. Leah, now a flight nurse at a children’s hospital, kept a crazy schedule, but insisted on having one free day a week. “Friday nights are mine,” she said. “When Trevon gets to the N.F.L., it will be Sundays.”

By the end of his sophomore year, Grimes had received scholarship offers from nearly every top college program. “Laundry baskets” of letters arrived for him daily, Leah said. Privately, Grimes was intent on attending Ohio State. But he couldn’t help doing a little preening: in March, at a Nike-sponsored camp in Fort Lauderdale, he told the press, “Whatever school makes me feel comfortable, that’s one of the biggest aspects that will bump a school up.”

ESPN invited Grimes to announce his college choice on-air, but he declined. In August, he posted on his Twitter account, @GrimeTime™, that he was headed for Ohio State. Urban Meyer, its head coach, had been in frequent contact with him. “I felt loved,” Grimes told me.

Harriott knew that, if Grimes left Ohio State as hyped as he was going in, he had a chance to become an N.F.L. star. But athletic talent is fragile. Harriott had dreamed of the pros before tearing his A.C.L. (For most teen-agers, who tend not to think about long-term repercussions, a busted knee is far more worrying than a concussion. “If you take somebody’s legs out, you instantly take away their livelihood,” Cornelius Bennett said.)

Harriott stressed the importance of character development, and he didn’t make exceptions for his star. Once, in practice, Grimes caught himself on the verge of swearing, and said “fudge” instead. Harriott pointed to the ground.

“Coach!” Grimes said. “I can’t believe I gotta do pushups for ‘fudge.’ ” But he complied.

Harriott blasted the air horn and the offense lined up for seven-on-seven drills. On one play, Jake Allen, the starting quarterback, threw the ball to Grimes, amid double coverage. Grimes plucked the ball out of the air. “That boy is like a magnet,” an assistant coach marvelled. After pulling down a pair of catches against St. Thomas’s top cornerback, Grimes teased his defender: “I’m a machine! Sometimes I just need a little WD-40.”

Harriott is a devout Christian, and he ends each practice with a sermon at midfield.

“How long you think he’s gonna talk for today?” one player muttered. “Ten minutes?”

“Forty-five,” another said.

“He be using them S.A.T. words, talking about Sophocles,” a third joked.

“Improve my vocabulary, though,” the second admitted.

In one post-practice speech, Harriott thanked God for “Your love, Your guidance, Your leadership, Your parenting, Your benevolent nature, Your competitive attitude.” He said to his team, “Concern? Worry, fellas, that’s the opposite of faith. That’s sin. And sin separates you from performing to the best of your ability.”

He also impressed on the students that they were just playing a game. “This is fun, fellas,” he said. “When you get to the next level, you’re going to miss this. When you leave here, it gets real.”

There are three former N.F.L. players on Harriott’s staff. One of them is Glenn Holt, who was a wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, tallying two touchdowns and four concussions in three years. “It’s a different deal at that level,” he said of the N.F.L. “Those guys work for the company. It’s really big business.”

The N.F.L. is not just a sports league; it is also one of the world’s most powerful media companies. NBC, CBS, Fox, and ESPN pay billions of dollars a year for broadcast rights, giving the N.F.L. great leverage. (Ratings dipped before the elections this year, but they have rebounded.) In 2003, after ESPN launched a dramatic series, “Playmakers,” about a pro football team with a player who beats his wife, and others who are implicated in a night-club shooting, the league commissioner at the time, Paul Tagliabue, expressed disapproval. The show was cancelled. John Eisendrath, its creator, accused Tagliabue and other N.F.L. executives of behaving like “bullies.”

A decade later, ESPN again caved to league pressure, terminating a collaborative investigation with PBS’s “Frontline” about the concussion crisis. In 2015, Bill Simmons, at the time an ESPN contributor and the editor of Grantland, an online publication owned by ESPN, lost his job after questioning the “testicular fortitude” of Tagliabue’s successor, Roger Goodell.

The 2015 hack of Sony Pictures e-mails exposed correspondence suggesting that the N.F.L. also influenced the making of the film “Concussion,” starring Will Smith as Bennet Omalu, the neuropathologist. A Sony lawyer had written that “unflattering moments for the N.F.L.” were edited out, removing “most of the bite.” (The film’s director, Peter Landesman, disputes this.)

Whether or not the film was significantly edited, it haunted Garin Patrick, St. Thomas’s defensive-line coach. Patrick played in the N.F.L. for three years, and suffered three concussions, which he described as getting his “bell rung.” Last winter, he left a screening of “Concussion” feeling alarmed. The film, echoing the scientific consensus, puts forth the idea that repetitive subconcussive blows are thought to be the main cause of C.T.E. A one-off concussion likely represents a lesser threat. “That scared the shit out of me,” Patrick said.

Grant Miller, an offensive lineman who plays left tackle, soaks his leg in a hot bath. He will attend Vanderbilt University next year.Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

In April, 2016, he contacted a law firm that was representing former players suing the N.F.L. The league settled the case for nearly a billion dollars. Patrick was skeptical of the deal; in his view, it made it too difficult for individual players to receive medical compensation. Not long after the N.F.L. proposed the initial terms of the agreement, its own consulting firm concluded that twenty-eight per cent of former players would likely develop some form of dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, A.L.S., or C.T.E. Patrick, who suffers from short-term-memory loss, told me, “I think I’m one of the twenty-eight per cent.”

Subsequent research has indicated that symptoms of C.T.E. may emerge as early as high school. At a congressional hearing in March, Ann McKee, a C.T.E. expert from Boston University, reported seeing tau-protein buildups “in ninety out of ninety-four N.F.L. players whose brains we’ve examined.” She added, “We’ve found it in forty-five out of fifty-five college players, and six out of twenty-six* high-school players.”

I asked Patrick if, given these findings, he regretted having played football. “Would I do it again, knowing the stakes?” he said. “Absolutely. You could live into your nineties, or get hit by a car tomorrow. You gotta go from something.”

In a classroom one afternoon in August, St. Thomas’s offensive linemen sat slumped at their desks, watching game film as preparation for a pre-season contest, later that week, against Dillard High School. “This is going to be a nut-kicking game,” Ryan Schneider, the offensive coördinator, told the players. “They’re not running complicated coverages. It’s just who’s the bigger, badder S.O.B. up front.” He advised, “Smash the hell out of them! And then let them know it’s coming again.”

On game day, St. Thomas amassed a thirty-five-point lead before halftime. Grimes caught a ball in tight coverage, brushed off two tacklers, and ran for a touchdown. Kivon Bennett made two sacks, and Asante Samuel, whose father was a cornerback in the N.F.L., returned an interception for a touchdown. The Raiders won, 51–0.

Later, Schneider, Harriott, and the team reviewed the game on video. Schneider praised Grimes for a downfield block, adding, “Next time, put him on his butt and rub your balls in his face.” When Samuel’s interception appeared on the video, Harriott paused it to applaud the block that had opened up a path for Samuel: Lashawn Paulino-Bell, a two-hundred-and-forty-five-pound defensive lineman, had de-cleated an unsuspecting Dillard player. “It was, like, boom! ” Paulino-Bell told me, reliving the play. “He was almost on a stretcher.” How did it feel? “It’s a rush,” he said. “It’s, like, Ahhh, that’s live! ” He had no reservations about levelling the guy. “At the end of the day, you know what you signed up for.”

Harriott reminded Paulino-Bell and the others about a new rule: blocking uninvolved players was not allowed. Paulino-Bell’s hit was clean, Harriott said, but he noted that “those plays are over if you’re nowhere near the ball.” In recent years, the youth league Pop Warner, the National Federation of State High School Associations, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and the N.F.L. have implemented rule changes aimed at reducing injuries, and introduced protocols for treating concussions. Helmet-to-helmet hits are forbidden across all leagues. The N.C.A.A. has banned gratuitously hitting the head or neck of an opposing player. The N.F.L. has outlawed two-a-day practices, and helmet-first tackling, known as “spearing,” elicits an automatic fifteen-yard penalty. (At a rally in October, President-elect Donald Trump mocked the N.F.L.’s rule changes as “soft”: “Uh-oh, got a little ding on the head? No, no, you can’t play for the rest of the season!”)

Inside the Raiders’ locker room.Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

According to today’s rules, Cornelius Bennett said, his sack of Steve Beuerlein would be grounds for ejection. He acknowledged that reforms were needed, but worried about hamstringing defenders. “I don’t want nobody crossing my space if I can’t lay the wood on him,” he said. “I tell my son, ‘It’s nice to be “nice-nasty” on the football field.’ I call it nice-ty. I would lay you out and smile and laugh about it at the same time.”

Ameer Riley, the defensive coördinator, expressed similar concerns about the safety rules. “I fear that they’re taking a big part of the game away,” he said. Now that so many kinds of hits were banned, he said, “the wide receiver don’t have that fear that he used to have of going over the middle.” Riley went on, “All those stats you see nowadays? There should be an asterisk next to those names, just like Barry Bonds”—the baseball player who holds the home-run record, but is accused of having used steroids. “They don’t play the same game as Jack Lambert”—the former Steelers middle linebacker. “If you were coming across the middle, Jack Lambert would annihilate you.” He added, “I’m all in for safety. I just worry about the integrity of the game, and it being a fantasy-football-run generation, where all the emphasis is on offense.”

In 2012, the N.F.L. began promoting a youth initiative, Heads Up Football, which teaches young players tackling and blocking techniques that are meant to “take the head out of the game.” Last year, the league cited a study that seemed to attribute a decline in youth concussions to Heads Up, but the Times subsequently obtained a copy of the study and discovered that the initiative “showed no demonstrable effect on concussions.”

A similar public conversation about safety in football occurred at the end of the nineteenth century. Back then, the sport was played almost exclusively at Ivy League schools. In 1884, Harvard tried to ban it for being “brutal, demoralizing to teams and spectators, and extremely dangerous.” The effort was not successful, and dozens of players died from broken backs and snapped necks. Games increasingly resembled blood sport. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt invited representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to the White House, and they agreed on significant rule changes—including the forward pass—that were intended to make the game safer without sapping its vitality.

The death rate declined, but football did not lose its martial character. Sam Huff, a New York Giants linebacker in the sixties, has described the game as “war without guns.” The special-teams coach at St. Thomas gives his units militaristic nicknames: SEAL team, Delta Six. Conor O’Neill, a former St. Thomas linebacker who played for four years at the University of Wisconsin, told me, “We’re the gladiators of the twenty-first century.”In 2015,* eight American high schoolers died from injuries sustained while playing football. The causes included a broken neck, a lacerated spleen, and blunt-force trauma to the head.

In late August, on the day before classes resumed, Harriott instructed his team to comply with St. Thomas’s grooming standards. “You can’t have parts in your eyebrows,” he warned. He also reminded the boys to complete their summer reading assignments. “Don’t embarrass us,” he said.

That night, Grimes shaved off the inverted V that he had stencilled along his neckline. He ran up to Harriott before practice the next day. “Coach, I got a real emergency situation,” he said. “Why am I in pre-cal? Everyone else is in college algebra. I’m going to have an F! I’ve heard stories. It’s hard.” Harriott told him to stick with it. (He did, and as of December he had a B.)

“Good news, your majesty. We may already be a winner.”

St. Thomas’s first regular-season game was against Booker T. Washington, a public high school in a rough neighborhood of Miami. In 2009, one of its players was shot and killed at a party. Booker T. was the four-time returning state champ. (It competed in a different division than St. Thomas.)

Harriott and his coaching staff had recently scouted their opponent, observing them play against a team from Plantation, Florida. Booker T. won. At one point, Harriott was walking alongside the stadium fence when a Booker T. player jogged over and taunted him: “You’re next.”

Back at St. Thomas, Harriott told his guys, “They think they’re tougher than you. They talk a lot. They’re back-yard brawlers.” Booker T.’s head coach, Tim (Ice) Harris, was featured in a 2003 documentary, “Year of the Bull,” that focusses on another tough Miami high school. In it, Harris and other coaches are shown cursing at and hitting their players. “That was another era,” Harris told me. “Our kids needed a different kind of push to be able to understand and obey. As a coach and a father, I’m completely different from that now.”

Harris still ran tackling sessions at Booker T., he said, but only once a week, for thirty minutes. He said that he wanted to get the kids “to the game,” not “get them all banged up on the practice field.” Booker T. couldn’t afford Riddell SpeedFlex helmets, though Harris was trying to raise funds. And robots? “We wish,” he said. “We got to have a coach that holds the pads and runs with them.” He said that Booker T. embraced “the ‘Rocky’ concept.” When I attended a recent evening practice, at a public park near Booker T.—the school’s field has no lights—the defensive coaches had wheeled out large plastic trash cans to simulate offensive linemen.

The week of the Booker T. game, the air was soupy, the sun devastatingly hot. By three-thirty, when practice started at St. Thomas, rubber pellets dusting the artificial turf were absorbing heat, pushing the field temperature well above a hundred degrees. One player threw up. “I don’t think it’s ever been this hot before,” Grimes said, bent over and sucking air.

Harriott used the weather as motivation. At the end of practice, before a hundred dripping faces, he demanded, “Would you rather be shovelling snow?” He asked if anyone had heard what Booker T.’s coaches and players had been calling St. Thomas. “ ‘P’ cubed,” Harriott said. “Privileged. Private. Pussies.”

One afternoon, Grimes was running a curl route when he pivoted awkwardly, torquing his right knee. He headed to the sideline and adjusted a neoprene strap that he wore on the knee to alleviate the pain in his patellar tendon—a symptom of Osgood-Schlatter disease, an adolescent form of tendinitis. Grimes had been playing through nagging knee pain since the eighth grade. A coach asked him if he was O.K. “I’m good,” he said. “I just got to stretch it out. I told you, I’m a stallion, not a donkey.”

The day of the game, Harriott’s eyes looked feverish. Booker T. was ranked No. 6 by USA Today, and to win the national title St. Thomas would have to go undefeated. “Send a message,” Harriott told his players. “They play. We love. Fellas, it’s what’s expected of you. Live up to your standards and be grateful for the opportunity to prove your love, prove your worth.” His tone suddenly changed. “Right now is our state championship! Right now is our national championship! There is no tomorrow! It’s now! I want their heads! ”

Sebastian Sainterling, an offensive lineman who plays right guard.Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

The game was held at a stadium in Miami-Dade County. Cumulonimbus clouds hung in the sky. An air siren heralded Booker T.’s entrance. As the players ran onto the field, they mimed firing machine guns. “I’m So Hood,” by DJ Khaled, blared over the speakers: “I ain’t gon’ play wit ’em / I’d rather let the AK hit ’em.”

The play-by-play announcer welcomed spectators to a matchup between “two nationally ranked high-school powerhouses.” Larry Little, a former Miami Dolphins guard and a Booker T. alum, and Michael Irvin, a former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver and a St. Thomas alum, met on the fifty-yard line and shook hands. After that, the good-will gestures ceased: a Booker T. defensive end facetiously blew kisses at St. Thomas players; a skirmish nearly broke out among the two schools’ coaches. Rob Biasotti, St. Thomas’s strength-and-conditioning coach, told me that he had never witnessed such a hostile pre-game atmosphere. “This is going to be a war,” he said.

On Booker T.’s first possession, the quarterback scrambled, and he appeared to step out of bounds shy of the first-down marker. But the official spotted the ball favorably. Irvin said, loud enough for the linesman to hear, “That don’t look like no first down to me.”

Irvin graduated from St. Thomas in 1984. He went on to win a national championship with the University of Miami, and three Super Bowl rings with Dallas. In 2007, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. St. Thomas was special to him. He still attended games, and bragged about the school on the NFL Network, where he is a color commentator.

His professional career was cut short by a spinal-cord injury. “I’m not saying I won’t experience some negative effects from the game,” he told me. But football critics, he said, failed to appreciate the sport’s importance to low-income students. Irvin, who is one of seventeen children, asked, “Without the opportunity to play this game, where would they go? What would they do?” Harris, the Booker T. coach, told me that he regarded football as “one of the best dropout-prevention programs in the world.”

In “The U,” a 2009 ESPN documentary about the University of Miami in the late eighties, Melvin Bratton, one of Irvin’s college teammates, described football as “basically a way out of the hood.” Irvin agreed. Youth participation may be down in well-to-do communities, but the Upper East Side has never been a font of football talent. Wealthier Americans might ponder the future of football, Irvin said, but poor and middle-class kids were betting their future on football.

This socioeconomic disconnect is not unique to football: in 1965, after the second heavyweight fight between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston, the Times columnist Russell Baker addressed the growing abolitionist campaign against boxing, noting, “Fighters usually came from the hungry classes and were risking their brains for the titillation of the overfed.” Irvin put it this way: “When we start talking about ‘Will parents stop letting their kids play?,’ well, some parents will have that opportunity. But many will not. They will say, ‘Son, this is your best chance.’ ” Even some of the St. Thomas players were growing up in dire circumstances: one had been living in a motel, after his family lost their home; another student, whose guardian had been a drug addict, was in foster care.

On the next play, Booker T.’s quarterback, who last year suffered a concussion that left him foaming at the mouth, tossed an interception. St. Thomas, with Jake Allen at quarterback, took over, but Allen fumbled and Booker T. recovered. The score seesawed, and the first half ended with the Raiders in the lead, 17–14.

Roger Harriott, the head football coach. Harriott hopes to put St. Thomas at the vanguard of football safety while remaining football champions. “The other guys are playing checkers,” he likes to say. “We’re playing chess.”Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

During halftime, Harriott urged calm: “Encourage one another. Don’t hold your head and point fingers.” He privately regretted having presented the contest as an existential struggle. St. Thomas was obviously the better team—and it was just a game, after all. “Get in the mind-set of enjoying yourselves,” he told his players.

St. Thomas came out in the second half and played more mistake-filled football: dropping an easy interception opportunity, getting penalized for roughing the punter. The team’s supporters, accustomed to blowouts, grew restless, noisily criticizing the coaches’ play calls. Late in the third quarter, St. Thomas drove deep into Booker T. territory, but Allen threw two incomplete passes, and the Raiders settled for a field goal, making it 20–14.

The players lined up for the kickoff. Perhaps no part of football is more dangerous than the kickoff, when both sides barrel toward each other at full speed, like jousters. Ghastly collisions often occur. Pop Warner has eliminated kickoffs for children under eleven, but the kickoff will most likely endure elsewhere, because every once in a while a kick returner shoots the gap and runs all the way to the end zone. For fans, the thrill derives, in part, from the possibility of disaster. Other sports have moments of similar risk: the soccer star Lionel Messi dazzles most when dribbling through, and around, slide-tackling defenders.

As the football sailed through the air, Daniel Carter plunged down the field for St. Thomas, weaving around potential blockers. Booker T.’s returner caught the ball. Seconds later, Carter smashed into his legs, slamming him to the ground—a legal hit. St. Thomas’s sideline erupted in whoops. “That’s what I’m talking about!” a coach yelled. Carter jumped up, his body surging with adrenaline; the returner did not. (“I thought he broke his leg,” Harriott said later.) Booker T. trainers carried the player off the field. “Let’s give him a hand and hope that he’s not hurt,” the announcer said. Carter told me that, for a moment, he felt “a little bit of guilt,” adding, “But at the same time it’s football.”

In the fourth quarter, with St. Thomas down by a point, Grimes came alive. He caught a short pass, stiff-armed his defender, and ran for an additional twenty yards. The Raiders kicked a field goal and retook the lead, 23–21.

The air smelled like car tires. It started to rain, but the boys kept playing. Thunder boomed. Booker T. pushed up the field, and with two and a half minutes to go they scored, taking a four-point lead.

St. Thomas needed a touchdown, and Grimes desperately wanted the ball. He caught a pass near the sideline, but seemed to aggravate his knee injury, and hobbled off the field. He sat out for a play, then went back in and made another catch, advancing the ball deep into Booker T.’s end.

With twenty-three seconds left, St. Thomas had the ball on Booker T.’s twenty-five-yard line. Allen dropped back, swivelled right, and threw to Grimes, who, after catching the ball, cut inside and got by a potential tackler. Another one stood in his way. Grimes lowered his shoulder, plowed over the defender, and fell into the end zone. Ecstatic, he pulled off his helmet to celebrate.

But the head official insisted that Grimes’s knees had touched the ground before the ball crossed the goal line. The ball was spotted at the one. On the next play, Allen lobbed a weak pass toward Grimes, which was intercepted.

St. Thomas had been defeated; for the first time in decades, the team had a losing record. Grimes was crying, as were others. Harriott tried to console them. “I appreciate the fact that you guys are heartbroken,” he said. “It’s going to make us better. Nobody died tonight.”

Jaden Davis, a cornerback, and Vincent Murphy, an offensive lineman, both sophomores, listen to Coach Harriott read a parable called “Hold the Rope,” part of the team’s pregame ritual.Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Morale was terrible for days. Biasotti, the conditioning coach, called it “a disaster like I’ve never seen.” He told me that he feared “a breakdown of civil order” if the team didn’t bounce back strong.

An MRI scan of Grimes’s knee revealed that he had a bruised patellar tendon. His doctor gave him a dose of oral steroids, and recommended two weeks off. High-school football was important, but being healthy for Ohio State was essential. In class, he acted out; injured athletes are notoriously cranky. “I ball up my emotions and let them out on the field,” he said. “When I can’t go out and release that energy, I don’t know another way.” (He later apologized to his teachers and teammates.)

At practice, Harriott urged the players not to let anger distract them. “We’re not about that,” he told me. Practicing with the M.V.P.s, he noted, helped keep the players’ emotions in check, allowing them to “focus on strategy.”

The next Friday, St. Thomas won, 42–6. A week later, the score was 49–0. Grimes returned for the homecoming game and caught a touchdown pass. The Raiders won, 42–0. His knee felt strong and the team looked confident.

A few days later, the Raiders flew to Las Vegas for a nationally televised game against the new No. 1 in the country, Bishop Gorman, a team that had not lost since 2013. The players and coaches checked into a resort nine miles southwest of the Strip. There were ten restaurants and a pool with a waterfall, but Harriott prohibited his team from enjoying any of it. This was not a pleasure trip. Nevertheless, Harriott’s tone was more low-keyed than the one he’d adopted before the Booker T. game. He cut back on the motivational speeches. If his players weren’t at practice, meals, or meetings, he wanted them resting, visualizing their assignments on the field.

Gorman had already beaten top-ranked teams from Texas, Hawaii, Florida, and California, and it had an electrifying quarterback, Tate Martell, who, like Grimes, was headed to Ohio State. In five games, Martell had thrown for thirteen touchdowns and run for six. The bookies made Gorman a sixteen-point favorite.

“They saying we underdogs! ” Kivon Bennett said, indignantly. He and the others knew that, if they brought down Gorman, they had a chance of regaining the No. 1 spot in the USA Today rankings. Indeed, ESPN presented the matchup as if it were a prizefight. A commentator declared, “Tonight, two high-school heavyweights square off in the city where champions are crowned.”

Gorman’s stadium was filled to its capacity of five thousand. A row of rugged mountain peaks loomed to the west. Flavor Flav, whose son attended the school, showed up to watch. Harriott told his players, “Enjoy every second of this night.”

Cornelius Bennett made the cross-country trip, as did Leah Grimes. She was wearing a St. Thomas jersey with “16”—her son’s number—printed on the front and the back. Leah’s mother had also flown in, from Seattle. Before the game, some of the players talked about why they were playing. Grimes stood up and said, “I’m doing it for my grandma. She has cancer. She made a long trip to come watch me play. First time she saw me play live.” During warmups, Leah told me that the two weeks of rest had done wonders for her son. She hoped that his patellar problems were over. He was free of pain for the first time in years.

A player ices his shins after a game. Before one kickoff, Harriott offered the team some final words: “Leave a mark forever on this field. The St. Thomas spirit should never leave here. They should never, ever want to see blue-and-gold again.”Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

The game started at seven o’clock. Kivon Bennett looked across the field, and said to a fellow defensive lineman, “Let’s show them some of that South Florida shit.” Before the kickoff, Harriott offered some final words: “Leave a mark forever on this field. The St. Thomas spirit should never leave here. They should never, ever want to see blue and gold again.”

From the outset, St. Thomas played stifling defense, but on offense the team faltered. Jake Allen looked nervous and struggled to find his rhythm. He missed Grimes a few times, and then threw an interception. Grimes stormed off the field, and when a coach tried to calm him he snapped, “Everything is not O.K., Coach. Sometimes you got to say, ‘It’s not fine.’ You got to say to Jake, ‘Get your head out of your ass!’ ”

Nevertheless, the Raiders went into halftime behind by only 3–0. The deficit was “no big deal,” Harriott assured his guys, but they’d win only if they played as a team. “God is going to test our resilience,” he said, eying Grimes. Others were more direct. Schneider threatened to bench Grimes if he didn’t stop fussing, and Michael Irvin, who had flown out for the game, said, “I don’t want to hear this shit—y’all fighting each other on the sidelines. We fight together! ” After that, several players looked prepared to run through a brick wall.

Early in the third quarter, St. Thomas had the ball on its own forty-six-yard line, and went into a spread formation. Allen took the snap and pitched the ball to Michael Harley, a wide receiver. Gorman’s defense pinched in around the line of scrimmage, assuming that Harley would tuck the ball and run. But Harley stopped, set his feet, and tossed an arcing pass toward the end zone. Grimes outran his defender, extended his arms, and pulled the ball in. Touchdown.

Grimes swaggered back to the bench. Irvin smacked him on the butt, exclaiming, “That’s how big boys answer the call!” Fans hollered, “Grime Time!” The Raiders kicked the extra point, and went ahead, 7–3. On the next possession, they forced a fumble and recovered the ball. When the third quarter expired, Allen had led the offense to within inches of the goal line.

On the first play of the fourth quarter, Grimes ran a corner route, in double coverage, along the back of the end zone. He routinely outmuscled and outjumped opponents, but this time the ball was thrown short, and he didn’t have a chance. As he and the two Gorman defenders fell trying to reach the ball, Gorman’s safety intercepted it.

Grimes did not get up. When he hit the ground, he heard “a whole bunch of pops.” He pounded his fist on the field, in agony. Hurrying over, the team doctor saw that the injury was to Grimes’s left knee—not the one with tendinitis. He and a coach carried Grimes to the bench. Grimes puffed his cheeks and his eyes looked panicked, as if he were contemplating, for the first time, a future that did not include professional stardom.

Leah ran down the bleachers and unfastened the clips on Grimes’s shoulder pads. By the look on his face, she said later, “I knew it was something serious.” A doctor packed his knee with ice and braced it with a cardboard splint. Grimes left the stadium on a stretcher, with a Gatorade towel covering his face. “I didn’t want people to see me going out like that,” he told me. An ambulance took him and Leah to a hospital for an X-ray.

Trevon Grimes, the team’s star wide receiver. Grimes grew up in Indianapolis and started playing football at the age of seven. After he finished fifth grade, his mother moved to Florida, so that he could eventually attend St. Thomas.Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Grimes refused pain medication, so that he could stay awake and follow the game on his phone. He watched Gorman score a touchdown and retake the lead, 10–7; then, with two seconds left, he cheered from the rear of the ambulance as St. Thomas kicked a field goal, tying it up. The game went into overtime. The Raiders scored a touchdown, then Gorman did the same. Double overtime. St. Thomas’s defense prevented Gorman from scoring, and tried to win with a field goal, but the kick was blocked. In triple overtime, St. Thomas scored again, but so did Gorman, and instead of settling for an extra point they went for a two-point conversion. Gorman made it, and won, 25–24.

Fans rushed the field. The St. Thomas players looked bewildered: they had been so close. A Gorman supporter patted a despondent St. Thomas player on the back, and said, “Outstanding athletes. Worked y’all’s butts off. Keep it up.” Gorman’s coach, Kenny Sanchez, said, “We’ve played in some great games over the years, but that was probably the best.”

Cornelius Bennett stood in the end zone, ruing St. Thomas’s lost opportunity. “Shitty feeling to come out on this side of it,” he said.

Harriott was a few feet away, addressing his team. He reminded the guys that their season was far from over. They still had a chance to win a third consecutive state title—something the team had never accomplished.

While the ESPN crew packed up their gear, little kids, basking in the bright lights, pretended that they were the stars. A group of twentysomethings crossed the parking lot, trying to find their car. “I think that’s the best ten dollars I’ve ever spent,” one said.

Two days later, Grimes had another MRI, which showed what he, his coaches, his family, and Ohio State feared the most: a torn A.C.L. His high-school career was over. He needed surgery and months of rehab if he was going to be ready for the start of the college season. “I will be back and stronger than ever,” he promised on Twitter.

In November, Grimes visited Columbus; he toured the athletic facilities and the dormitories, sat in on meetings with the coaches and the players, and had his knee examined by the team doctor. He and Leah met with a guidance counsellor to discuss his plan to graduate in three years. “I want to be done with all my credits, just in case I declare early for the draft,” he told me.

He insisted that his injury had not made him consider seriously a life without football. “If you’re thinking of a Plan B, you’re distracted from a Plan A,” he said. “I’m going to the N.F.L. There’s not a question about that. I’m just thinking about what I want to do after. I want to have a business or invent something. Like, you know those little plastic pieces that you put in the wall that keeps you from putting metal things into the thing? The guy who invented that is a billionaire!”

Ohio State played at home that weekend, against Nebraska. Grimes and his mother had front-row seats on the forty-yard line. In the second quarter, Nebraska’s quarterback, Tommy Armstrong, Jr., was tackled while scrambling. His head bounced off the turf and, for several minutes, he lay lifeless a few feet from where Grimes and his mother sat. Armstrong was strapped to a backboard and taken away. “My heart skipped a beat,” Leah said. “He could have turned his neck the wrong way and been paralyzed.” (Armstrong has since returned to play.) For the first time, Leah feared for her son’s safety. “I had to take a deep breath and refocus,” she said. “These are ginormous, mammoth men that are going to be tackling my son.”

St. Thomas crushed their next four opponents: 42–8, 42–7, 49–0, 45–19. With Grimes out, other players stepped up. In one game, Kivon Bennett made six tackles, and his general performance, along with his classroom success and locker-room leadership, led Harriott to name him a team captain.

Jake Allen, the starting quarterback, stretches in the locker room.Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

When the junior-varsity season ended, Harriott invited a few J.V. players to attend varsity practices. One day, during punt-formation drills, an eager J.V. call-up collided helmet-to-helmet with Kaleb McCarty, a junior. McCarty shook it off, but he had a terrible headache that night and couldn’t sleep. He woke up feeling dizzy, nauseated, and a little scared. “I knew something was wrong,” he said.

The next day, McCarty went to see Dwayne Owens, the athletic trainer. Owens told me that the researchers from Miami had completed a trial of the goggles that measured rapid eye movements, but had failed to provide St. Thomas with a pair to use. Owens, using a cell-phone flashlight and a series of balance tests, determined that McCarty had likely suffered a concussion. His mother took him to the hospital, where he was given an MRI. “Doctors know so little about concussions,” McCarty told me. On the Internet, he had seen “all these tests that they do on N.F.L. players and, like, all of them showed something they find on their brains”—tau deposits—“that triggered them to commit suicide.”

McCarty was unsettled. “All of this can heal,” he said, running his hands over his body. If you sprain an ankle and try to run before it has healed, you can cause further damage, but pain usually dissuades you from pushing it. “What can tell your brain that it hurts?” McCarty said. “Nothing.”

McCarty did some research. He was troubled to learn about Tyler Varga, a Yale graduate who played in three games for the Indianapolis Colts before suffering a concussion that lasted four months; Varga eventually quit the sport. Other players were retiring early. Chris Borland was the kind of football player McCarty wanted to be: a linebacker who relished a dirty jersey and the roar of the crowd. In 2014, after graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Borland secured a multimillion-dollar contract to play for the San Francisco 49ers. His rookie season was sensational: he had two interceptions and a sack, and in one game he made eighteen tackles.

But, in the pre-season, Borland had sustained a concussion, and it made him wonder what would happen to his brain if he kept taking blows to the head. He discreetly read “League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth,” by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, hiding the paperback inside a generic hardback. “I was reading about players who took their own lives, because they were demented and depressed from C.T.E., and then I was going to watch game film,” he told me. “It was fucked up.”

In March, 2015, Borland announced his retirement, saying, “I don’t want to have any neurological diseases, or die younger than I would otherwise.”

He went on TV and attended conferences on head trauma. Other professionals, like Varga, asked him for advice. ESPN The Magazine called Borland “The Most Dangerous Man in Football.”

A few months ago, in Atlanta, Borland appeared on a panel about concussions and the N.F.L. He was asked how to make football safer. “I don’t know how you do it, if it’s even possible,” he said. Violence was central to the sport’s appeal. Incredibly, football seemed more popular the more people learned about the risks. “It’s like a religion in America,” Borland said. Another analogy might be climate change: we know that it is happening, and we know that it is harmful, but are we willing to sacrifice the convenience of air-conditioning and jet travel in order to combat the problem?

At practice, Harriott urges the players not to let anger distract them. He encourages students to play for love of their teammates, not out of hatred for their opponents.Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Changes could be made at the youth level, Borland told the audience: “No way a child should be allowed to play tackle football before high school.” In September, the parents of two former Pop Warner players who died, and subsequently were given a diagnosis of C.T.E., filed a class-action suit against the organization, contending that it had created a false impression of safety. The case raised several questions: What role should courts and lawmakers have in making football safer? Should we regulate activities that, if pursued for an extended period, might physically endanger the participants? When it comes to, say, shooting heroin, the answer is simple. But football, which can create tremendous financial and social opportunities for those who play it, cannot be categorized as purely harmful. The Times has described the class-action suit as “the next front in the legal battle over concussions.”

On the panel, Borland said, “We get into informed consent with college and pro players. There’s a huge reward if they want to take the risk, and if all the right information is made available. It’s a free country.” But, he added, “I think it’s wrong for children to hit their heads thousands of times.”

Kaleb McCarty told me that he once dreamed of going to the N.F.L., but now he just wanted to get into a good school. “Football is a vehicle for me to get an education,” he said. “I want to try to go to Penn or Duke or Syracuse. There’s no way I’ll get into them without football.”

George Smith, St. Thomas’s athletic director, was furious when he learned about McCarty’s concussion. Since Harriott had revised the practice regimen, there had been no serious injuries outside of games—a marked improvement. Why, Smith asked, weren’t the coaches using the robots more? Harriott told me that he considered the M.V.P.s “a great tool” and a “welcome innovation with regards to safety and injury prevention and concussion awareness.” But they were glitchy—a “work in progress,” as he put it. For one thing, the robots had hard plastic bases that tended to bruise shins, so the players didn’t like tackling them. (“They hurt,” Grimes said.) Ameer Riley, the defensive coördinator, said that, starting in the off-season, he hoped to incorporate the robots in more “realistic” practice scenarios.

Sometimes, Harriott said, “you have to go old-school and use bodies.” He said of McCarty, “This was our first concussion all year,” adding, “We’re doing something right.” A school that used practice robots was at the cutting edge of conscientious football, but Harriott wasn’t about to deny the brutality. He said, “We haven’t had any concussions in games—though we’ve given plenty.”

McCarty expected to be out for three weeks while he completed a “return to play” concussion protocol, which meant missing St. Thomas’s first playoff game, at home, against Palm Beach Lakes High School. Fortunately, the Raiders were the heavy favorite. McCarty attended the game in street clothes. When teammates asked him about the concussion, he told them that he had experienced blurred vision and skewed depth perception. One of them joked that it sounded like he’d been smoking weed.

Thirty minutes before the kickoff, the players lined up in the tunnel leading into the stadium. Grill smoke from the snack bar hung over the field. Michael Harley, a team captain, reminded them of the Bishop Gorman game: did they remember how awful it felt to lose? “Let’s ball out tonight!” he said.

The Raiders started strong, with a rushing touchdown on their second play from scrimmage. By the end of the first quarter, they were ahead, 27–0. After eight more points, the Mercy Rule—a constantly running clock—would take effect.

At one point, Kivon Bennett hurt his knee. He limped off the field, but he didn’t think the injury was serious. Ice, rest, rehab. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Back in a week or two.”

Grimes is headed to Ohio State next year, but this fall he suffered a season-ending knee injury.Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Trenell Troutman, a safety, scored two of the first-quarter touchdowns, running in a fumble recovery and returning an interception. “This is my first playoff game,” he said, in a pregame speech to his teammates. “I’m hungry.” At one point, he hit a Palm Beach Lakes running back so hard that the player stumbled grotesquely around the field before collapsing. (He was assisted off the field.) After the play, a putrid smell on the St. Thomas sideline made one player say of Troutman, “I think he hit the shit out of that guy.”

At halftime, the score was still 27–0. Harriott felt pleased with the performance of Troutman and a few others, but otherwise he was frustrated. “That’s the first time I saw you guys get off to a great start and then take your foot off the gas,” he said. He expected clinical, disciplined play. Instead, he saw senseless penalties and mental mistakes. Two coaches had been shouting at each other on the sidelines. St. Thomas would never win the state championship if it performed this way. “That was pathetic,” he said. “First time I’ve ever been so embarrassed by you guys.”

The team added to its total in the second half—a touchdown and a two-point conversion. After the game ended, with a score of 35–0, one of the opposing coaches called across the field, “You guys are one helluva football team.”

Harriott’s team clustered around him. “We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said. Their next opponent, Dwyer High School, was more formidable. “Heavenly Father, we didn’t give our best effort tonight. We did not represent You well,” he said, over the sound of the marching band. “We’re thankful, Heavenly Father, for the opportunity to redeem ourselves, to make amends.” He added, “And, as we prepare to take out Dwyer, keep us safe.”

St. Thomas trounced the team, 37–0. McCarty sat on the bench again, but he said that his head now felt fine. Concussions, he said, “are just part of the game,” adding, “You just got to recover and learn from it. They are bound to happen, just part of the sport.” The Raiders defeated their next two opponents by a total of seventy-eight points, and secured a berth in the state-championship game.

On December 9th, the Raiders travelled to Orlando, to face an undefeated team from Tampa. Grimes, no longer on crutches and already pressing eighty pounds with his bad leg, watched from the sidelines. Kivon Bennett was back on the field, and so was McCarty. St. Thomas dominated from the start, getting so far ahead that the Mercy Rule went into effect. The final score was 45–6. McCarty was elated. He remained determined to get an excellent college education—“I wouldn’t go to ’Bama just to play football”—but a pro career was back in his sights. “The N.F.L. is still a goal,” he said.

A few days after the game, Harriott said that the victory was the “culmination of an extraordinary season.” He paused. “Whatever happened, we had each other—the players had authentic love for each other,” he said. “That’s the power of family, friendship, and brotherhood.” ♦

*An earlier version of the article cited Ann McKee’s congressional testimony incorrectly.

**An earlier version of this caption incorrectly characterized the room pictured.

***An earlier version misstated the year in which the findings were made.

Source

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/09/can-technology-make-football-safer

The post Can Technology Make Football Safer? appeared first on CGTi.

from http://www.cgti.org/can-technology-make-football-safer/

[bintaeran]

Veterans, Health Spans, and Yoga

Veterans, Health Spans, and Yoga Nina Zolotow

Wounded Soldier by Marc Chagall

It’s Memorial Day weekend here in the U.S. (Monday is the actual holiday), so we’re fundraising today for the Veterans Yoga Project in honor of both the fallen and surviving veterans. If you want to contribute, we have a page set up just for our Yoga for Healthy Aging community! Go to veteransyogaproject/YogaForHealthyAging, where you can “light a candle” to honor someone by donating any amount. Let’s see what our community can do to support this wonderful organization!  Now here’s something from Baxter about why supporting yoga for veterans is so important. —Nina  I woke up the other day thinking about my dad. I suppose partly due to the fact that Memorial Day is coming up, and although he did not die while in the service, he was a veteran. He was in the ROTC in college, from 1954-58, and following graduation, was stationed for a while at a base near Tulsa, Oklahoma, and at Ft. Knox, KY for 6 months, as a second lieutenant. My dad was lucky he served between conflicts, after Korea and before Vietnam—his life could have turned out much differently had been a little older or younger. As it was, he generally had good health and lived to a respectable age of 76. That got me wondering if my dad had seen action in an actual war whether that would have affected his health span.  After I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I took a look into question: how does serving during combat affect the health span of soldiers? I am aware—as many of you readers are, too—that veterans of war are more likely to suffer from serious conditions, such as posttraumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. That means higher rates of depression, anxiety, and cognitive difficulties. And most of us have also heard the staggering statistics on suicide with rates of 20 military deaths a day.  It turns out that having served in combat does increase the chances for these men and women developing those and other unusual health problems (described below) and sometimes other serious health problems (such as hypertension and heart disease) at a more frequent rate than their fellow citizens. In addition, they often report general symptoms, such as persistent pain, fatigue, trouble concentrating, and poor memory. Over 50% of visits to the VA hospitals are for musculoskeletal injuries and chronic pain.  Although post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) gets a lot of press, many veterans suffer other mental illnesses, with one in ten suffering from depression, violent behavior, or alcohol abuse. And 50 percent of those that suffer from PTSD, will, as they age, develop sleep apnea, which is twice the rate as non-military PTSD patients, and are at greater risk of developing dementia as they age. Combat veterans are also more likely to have been exposed to chemical agents, such as Gulf War veterans who were exposed to sarin gas, which has led to heart damage in many. Similarly, they are often exposed to infectious diseases in the foreign countries were they served that lead to ongoing, difficult-to-treat conditions, such as Leishmaniasis, transmitted from sand flea bites. And they are more likely to be exposed to loud noise and vibrations from gun, cannon fire, and other tools of the trade, which can lead hearing loss, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), numbness and pain in the hands and feet, and chronic low back pain. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is more common in the military, due to exposure to explosions or direct head trauma, resulting in a jolt to the brain. It not only temporarily disrupts how the brain functions, but can lead to persistent, longer term symptoms of irritability, memory trouble, language issues, information processing difficulties, and short attention spans, with secondary increases in anxiety, depression and headaches.  Preliminary research done in 2012 noted that active-duty military and veterans in their twenties and thirties were developing symptoms typically seen in older adults, such as elevated blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels, and obesity, much earlier in their lives than would be expected. As we have said here before, these are risk factors for heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, all which have a negative impact on health span!  Due to all these issues, those that have served in war zones have multiple risk factors for negative impacts on health span. Fortunately, we know that yoga can help address many of these conditions as an adjunct to western medical approaches. So I wondered if my friends Dan Libby, founder and director of Veterans Yoga Project, and Perry Chattler, the regional director for Northern California branch of the organization, had any experience with veterans with these sorts of conditions, and if they had seen yoga play a role in addressing the health of and improving the lives of these folks. Here is how they answered my questions. Perry: Many veterans suffer from symptoms of PTSD, a combination of PTSD and other disorders, or simply physical injuries suffered during basic training or during their service, such as traumatic brain injury (TBI). We see issues such as high blood pressure, alcohol/drug abuse, insomnia, depression, heart and lung disease, chronic pain (fibromyalgia), wear and tear issues with shoulders, knees and hips, and military sexual trauma (MST).  By bringing the practices to the veterans in places that they are comfortable going to (Vet Centers, Veterans Halls, etc.), rather than having them seek the practices out in a public forum, we find that they are more willing to try yoga. We also find that by bringing “mindful-resilience” practices to the veterans, they are more willing to give yoga a try, and interestingly enough, they almost always come back to class. These practices include: mindful movement (asana), breathing practices (pranayama), meditation, yoga nidra, and gratitude practices. Here are just a few quotes from veterans who have my attended classes: “My doctor is amazed that my blood pressure has dropped and I can lower my medication.” (Vietnam vet)  “My wife tells me I’m calmer.” (Gulf War vet)  “I couldn’t sleep and remembered my breathing practices. I slept through the night.” (Vietnam vet)  “My doctor had me on pain-killers for my low back pain. Since beginning yoga, I am off the meds.” (Afghanistan vet)  “I am better able to be around other people.” (Vietnam vet)  “These classes have changed my life. Thank you!”. (Iraq vet)  Recently, an Iraq veteran told me that since he started yoga classes with the Veterans Yoga Project, his sleep has gone from 0-1 hours a night to 3-4 hours and then to 6-7 hours, and without the need for sleep aids. We know from research that yoga practices work in reducing pain and calming the nervous system. But the anecdotal comments are proof enough for me.  Dan: I want to echo some of the things Perry has already mentioned. There is more and more awareness about millions of military veterans who are still trying to recover from the symptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTS) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) and other trauma-related psychological challenges. And there is more general awareness about the fact that 20 veterans end their own lives each and every day, as you mention. Increase awareness about these things are good.  But the veterans I see are also all dealing with other health problems that significantly affect their everyday quality of life and impede recovery. Pain, in particular, is a significant impediment to recovery and wellness. Statistics show that there is high comorbidity between PTSD and pain, and pain is one of the most common and is often debilitating challenges for the veterans I work with. Unfortunately, these challenges often feed into each other, exacerbating tendencies toward avoidance and isolation, leading to a downward spiral of intrusive memories, physiological dysfunction, and, unhealthy coping behaviors.  That’s why I love my job. I get to show veterans and their loved ones how to practice yoga for healthy aging. As a teacher, and as the founder and executive director of an organization that is dedicated to supporting veterans through yoga, I get to hear a lot of positive feedback about how yoga affects quality of life: “I came into class feeling achy all over. I feel great now.”  “That made my pain go away.”  “I’m walking better.”  I get to hear about a veteran who can tie his shoes without pain. I get to see the increase in physical strength, stability, and agility in the veterans who come to class each week. I get to hear stories about playing golf on the weekend instead of stories about what isn’t working and what hurts. I also get to collect data that documents these effects. For example, in Veterans Yoga Project programs where we collect stress and pain ratings before and after class, we find that 77%-92% of all class visits result in a decrease in pain. This can be 1, 2, 3, 4, or even 5 points on a 0 to 10 scale. There are no adverse side effects, and it’s cheaper and more effective than medication.   Baxter: Is it important to have special dedicated classes just for veterans?   Perry: Yes, we believe so. Veterans (Vietnam, Gulf War, Iraq/Afghanistan) will rarely attend a public yoga class, and for a variety of reasons. At Veterans Yoga Project (VYP), we bring trauma-informed yoga in the form of asana, pranayama, and meditation, to veterans at Vet Centers, Veterans Halls, and VA hospitals. All classes are free to veterans and their families. Thanks to the generosity of donors, we continue to fund existing and new programs, enabling all of us to serve those who have served. Baxter: Thanks, Dan and Perry, for telling us about the positive experiences of the veterans who have studied with you both through the Veterans Yoga Project. All this evidence about improving the physical and mental health of veterans with yoga does help provide an answer to my original question about the effect of yoga on the health span of veterans. It sounds like it can indeed be very helpful for improving health spans! Readers, all of this is why I’m recommending that if you are looking for a way to not only honor those you have lost to war but to help those who have lived through it, considering donating to the “Light a Candle” fundraising for the Veterans Yoga Project at http://ift.tt/2qWzaNX  —Baxter Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect 

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[brainfogblogg]

Another invisible disorder /disease

I could give you a ton of stories and if you would like to here them later then comment below. I have had several friends struggle with psychological disorders such as PTSD, Depression, Anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. I have also had a lot of suicide attempts from people I cared for. (It's a coincidence and if it isn't I didn't worsen their condition for any of you nonbelievers of these medical conditions). Even I have found myself suicidal twice in my lifetime, and that's coming from someone who loves life. It even has impacted my family. My grandfather took his own life. Then when I was 17 my best friend took her life. I actually talked to her the day that she passed. She had called me on the phone in tears and even when prompting her that I'd come over and when she said no I didn't listen to my gut feeling. And I don't feel like I'm responsible for her demise because I know that her family was pretty aware of the severity of her depression and anxiety and they were doing all they knew to help her. Then I had another friend attempt my senior year and she was in a mental institution for a little bit and it was devastating coming to see her because she was high on medication. And I had spent weeks coming to her house late at night to confront her and it was all worth it but very stressful especially because that was when I first got my injury and could barely take care of myself. Previous to that I dated someone who would cut and would ocassionally mention death to me. Also had another super close friend that I talk to everyday tried to commit and I know of others but these are just people close to me. I was suicidal the first time because I was bullied in middle school really badly because of my dark hair and Frida khalo eyebrows and mustache. I also was made fun of for being an outcast and being a "whore" apparently. I used to laugh at the people who made fun of me but I felt like I wasn't worth anything. I sat alone at lunch and if I didn't my friends didn't want to be around me because I wasn't cool. Then after my injury I was very suicidal because I couldn't find the help that I needed to manage my headaches and I would sit at home and if I tried to do anything have severe headaches and it was a horrible point in my life. That being said. I would like to let people know who haven't experienced it that even some of the strongest people have have these experiences some live with it their entire lives. If you can imagine the feeling of not having a solution to end your pain how might you feel then? Psychological disorders are not a choice. These people can't always choose to be happy or choose to not be nervous, or choose to have a manic episode. That doesn't mean they have zero control of their lives. The important thing is that it is a choice to save your life. I even read in my career success class the even a powerful president like Abraham Lincoln failed his entire life. His mom died when he was young, he failed in college I think, he failed trying to get into government not just as president for 6 or 7 years and I wish I could give more specifics details but the point is life throws us hell and no one can imagine how bad your pain is but there has to he something to keep you going. I gave chronic pain everyday with severe headaches and since I've learned to manage it I feel like I can live through my tiny hell and still enjoy it. And I could mention to you things that has been hard for me. My dad moved away when I was in 10th grade because of his job, I suffering several months from fatigue to the point where I felt like I had the flu and would pass out when I stood up, plus horrible bloating to the point where I looked pregnant, severe constipation and discomfort, it was later diagnosed as thyroid disorder, then my friend died, I got post concussion syndrome, this condition made me have to drop out of classes, quit soccer even though I was going to play college ball and had played all my life and it was my life, I lost friends, I became deoressed, I couldn't work out I couldn't read I could hardly go to school, I gained 20 pounds, had horrible headaches everyday, and no one believed me. Once I got to college I had to drop out of college, my other friend attempted suicide, I got out of a 2 year relationship. So I had several things I was faced with. And I'm starting to get better from all that. And even though it could be way worse, or it could be less worse but feel just as bad, I found a way. I kept looking for solutions because I couldn't live like that my entire life. And it took 8 months to find my solution. For some people years but trust me it's worth it.

[marybarbara1]

Can Technology Make Football Safer? The New Yorker

On October 4, 1986, the University of Alabama hosted Notre Dame in a game of football. Notre Dame had won the previous four contests, but this time Alabama was favored. It had a stifling defense and a swift senior linebacker named Cornelius Bennett. Ray Perkins, Alabama’s head coach, said of him, “I don’t think there’s a better player in America.”

Early in the game, with the score tied, Bennett blitzed Notre Dame’s quarterback, Steve Beuerlein. “I was like a speeding train, and Beuerlein just happened to be standing on the railroad track,” Bennett told me recently. Football is essentially a spectacle of car crashes. In 2004, researchers at the University of North Carolina, examining data gathered from helmet-mounted sensors, discovered that many football collisions compare in intensity to a vehicle smashing into a wall at twenty-five miles per hour.

Bennett, who weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds, drove his shoulder into Beuerlein’s chest and heard what sounded like a balloon being punctured—“basically, the air going out of him.” Beuerlein landed on his back. He stood up, wobbly and dazed. “I saw mouths moving, but I heard no voices,” he later said. He had a concussion. After Bennett’s “vicious, high-speed direct slam,” as the Times put it, Alabama seized the momentum and won, 28–10.

Following college, Bennett was drafted into the National Football League. Between 1987 and 1995, he played for the Buffalo Bills, and appeared in four Super Bowls. During his pro career, he made more than a thousand tackles, playing through sprains, muscle tears, broken bones, and concussions. I asked him how many concussions he’d had. “In my medical file, there are probably six.” The real number? “I couldn’t even begin to tell you.” Fifteen? “More.” Twenty? “I played a long time,” he said. “Every week after a game, I got some sort of headache.”

In 1996, he signed a thirteen-million-dollar contract with the Atlanta Falcons. He received weekly injections of Toradol, an anti-inflammatory drug. “It was magic—it made me feel like I was twenty-four again,” Bennett said. He helped carry Atlanta to the Super Bowl—his fifth. (A more dubious distinction: his team lost in every one.) In 2000, at the age of thirty-five, Bennett retired and moved to Florida. He lived in a hotel in Miami’s Bal Harbour area, worked on his golf handicap, and vacationed with his wife and friends in Europe and in the Napa Valley.

Several of Bennett’s football peers were having a far tougher time. Darryl Talley, a former Bills teammate, suffered from severe depression. Mike Webster, a Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, had become a homeless alcoholic; he died, of a heart attack, in 2002. Three years later, Terry Long, another former Steeler, committed suicide by drinking antifreeze. Andre Waters, a former Philadelphia Eagles safety, killed himself with a gunshot to the head.

A neuropathologist named Bennet Omalu autopsied Webster, Long, and Waters, and detected a pattern: each had a high concentration of an abnormal form of a protein, called tau, on his brain. Scientists associated tau buildup with Alzheimer’s, but that disease ravaged the elderly. This was clearly a different pathology, and in a 2005 paper Omalu called it chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., which he categorized as a degenerative disease caused by the “long-term neurologic consequences of repetitive concussive and subconcussive blows to the brain.”

“Make a note—their use of tools is both efficient and precise.”

The N.F.L. tried to discredit Omalu’s findings. The league had set up a committee for traumatic-brain-injury research, led by a rheumatologist with a medical degree from the University of Guadalajara; the committee insisted that there was “no evidence of worsening injury or chronic cumulative effects of multiple mTBIs”—mild traumatic brain injuries—“in N.F.L. players.” When Bernard Goldberg, of HBO’s “Real Sports,” asked a committee member if multiple head injuries could cause “any long-term problem,” the member replied, “In N.F.L. players? No.” At a congressional hearing, in 2009, Linda Sánchez, a Democratic representative from California, compared the league’s “blanket denial” about C.T.E. to the defenses once mounted by Big Tobacco.

Bennett, outraged by the league’s stance, joined the board of the N.F.L. players’ union. In 2010, he was elected to head the Board of Former Players, and he participated in heated discussions among league representatives, team owners, and players. “What the hell was a rheumatologist doing talking about head injuries?” he asked himself. Current and former players, he told me, harbored a “lack of trust” toward the league. In 2011, players launched a class-action lawsuit against the N.F.L., alleging that it had “ignored and concealed” evidence about the “risks of permanent brain damage,” and had “deceived players” into thinking that serial concussions did not pose “life-altering risks.” Bennett told Bloomberg News, “If the lack of information and negligence continues, you aren’t going to have moms let their little boys play football.”

His own son, Kivon, had just turned eleven, and was starting to play tackle football. Bennett was flattered (“I’d dreamed of having a son that followed in my footsteps”), but also anxious (“You never want to get that call”). Parenting is about providing children with opportunities while protecting them from harm, and few recreational activities put those impulses in opposition the way football does. Yet Bennett never considered trying to stop Kivon from playing. “This country is built on giving you a chance to pursue your dreams,” he said.

Kivon was big for his age, like his father had been, and performed well on his youth team. Bennett shared safety tips with Kivon: how to protect his head when tackling by hitting his opponent with his shoulder instead of his helmet; how to improve his footwork. “I always tell him, ‘Positioning, positioning,’ ” Bennett said to me. “If he’s going full speed and he’s positioned, I feel as though that’s safe football.” Above all, he stressed to Kivon that he should let someone know if he thought he’d received a head injury.

Bennett wanted to give Kivon the best chance to excel. In 2015, when Kivon was a high-school junior, he transferred to St. Thomas Aquinas, a prestigious Catholic high school in Fort Lauderdale. Kivon, a strong student, enrolled in Advanced Placement classes. He had recently discovered “Macbeth,” he told me this fall. “I like the way the story lines didn’t add up at first but in the last few scenes it comes together,” he said. He has a Twitter account, and in his bio he posts his G.P.A.—currently 3.7.

But Kivon went to St. Thomas primarily to play football. The school has produced more pro players than any other high school in the country. By the time Kivon enrolled, the St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders had won eight state championships and two national titles. Moreover, the school had embarked on a potentially radical experiment. The head football coach, Roger Harriott, had been instituting changes to make the game safer. He limited practices to ninety minutes, and got the school to acquire a pair of motorized human-size robots, wrapped in foam, which players could tackle, saving their teammates from unnecessary hits. Harriott hoped to put St. Thomas at the vanguard of football safety while remaining champions.

“Football is just a vehicle to make these kids better young men,” Harriott said. One day this fall, he told his team, “Ultimately, it’s for you to become a champion in life—a champion husband, a champion father, community leader, colleague.”

The robots, covered in black foam, are known as Mobile Virtual Players, or M.V.P.s. Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Such talk pleased Bennett. “My son is getting something from Roger that he’s going to take with him the rest of his life,” he said.

Harriott blew an air horn to signal the start of practice. It was late August. He had on a short-sleeved windbreaker and a sun hat with a wide brim. A stopwatch hung from a cord around his neck, and he had tucked some crumpled notes into the waistband of his shorts. “The other guys are playing checkers,” he likes to say. “We’re playing chess.”

“Look me in the eyes!” he barked, as his players marched past him, single file. He starts each practice by shaking their hands and asking them about their day, or their parents, or their progress in recovering from an injury. “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” he said.

Harriott’s father was born in Jamaica and came to the United States when Roger was an infant. Roger grew up in South Florida, and in the nineties he was a running back for St. Thomas. He won a scholarship to Boston University, and became a star there, then transferred to Villanova. He contemplated a career in the N.F.L., but he tore his anterior cruciate ligament in practice and never regained top form. After graduation, he went into coaching.

In March, 2015, he took the St. Thomas job. His predecessor had just won a state championship, but he had also been hard-nosed and profane. Intimidation was not Harriott’s style. He didn’t scream or grab players by the face mask to make a point. Students should play for the love of their teammates, he told them, not out of hatred for their opponents. He banned cursing and reprimanded coaches who broke the rule.

His tenure got off to a rough start. In the opening game, several first-string players sustained season-ending injuries. The quarterback missed a few games. A standout defensive end, an Ohio State-bound senior named Nick Bosa, suffered an A.C.L. tear. Sports reporters lowered their expectations for the team. Kivon, a third-stringer behind Bosa, urged his teammates to ignore the press. “My pops played in the N.F.L.,” he said at one point. “And one thing he always told me was ‘Don’t listen to these so-called experts. They’re just pencil pushers.’ ”

The Raiders went to the playoffs, but during one game Bosa’s backup was injured, and so Kivon was put in. As his father described it, he looked “like a deer in headlights.” Harriott pulled him off the field. Then, Kivon recalled, “I felt a switch come on.” He went back in and made multiple tackles.

The team advanced to the championship game, and Kivon sacked the rival quarterback twice as St. Thomas won, 45–10, securing its ninth state title. His father watched, proudly, from the stands. “I had my day in the sun—it’s his time,” Cornelius said. This summer, Kivon accepted a scholarship offer from the University of Tennessee. In August, USA Today released its national pre-season rankings. St. Thomas sat atop the list.

“We’re decluttering.”

During the 2015 season, St. Thomas players, despite their many injuries, did not suffer a single concussion. Harriott and the school had made preventing head injuries a priority. The team bought Riddell SpeedFlex helmets, which came onto the market in 2014, and cost nearly four hundred dollars apiece. They have a polycarbonate shell, extensive padding, inflatable bladders, and a cutout on the crown that flexes upon impact, which, according to Kivon, “disperses all the pressure.” Last year, Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science gave the helmet its highest safety rating.

At the start of the season, each St. Thomas player takes an exam known as Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing, or ImPACT. The exam is designed to establish a cognitive baseline; after a suspected concussion, a player is supposed to retake the test, allowing a medical professional to determine whether the athlete requires further assessment. But self-reporting of injuries is inherently unreliable, and no player wants to sit out for a ding. A 2014 study in the Journal of Neurotrauma found that, on average, players reported only one out of twenty-seven incidents in which they “saw stars,” became dizzy, and got a headache. Dwayne Owens, the athletic trainer at St. Thomas, said that he knew players who had intentionally botched their baseline tests. “Their parents might even tell them, ‘Don’t do your best,’ ” he said.

St. Thomas wanted to make the assessment of student concussions more objective, and this summer it agreed to participate in a research project with the University of Miami. Michael Hoffer, a professor of otolaryngology and neurological surgery, had developed goggles, equipped with two high-resolution cameras, that could detect the desynchronization of the wearer’s rapid eye movements—a mark of a concussion. Hoffer was funded, in part, by the N.F.L., but the goggles would be useful to all types of athletes. According to a 2016 study published in Pediatrics, the number of school-aged soccer players seeking E.R. treatment for concussions has risen sixteen hundred per cent in the past twenty-five years. Owens told me that, in the past year at St. Thomas, he had identified concussions in two female soccer players, two volleyball players, and a baton twirler. St. Thomas now requires female soccer players to wear protective headbands.

Studies show that sports practice sessions are a “major source” of concussions. In 2015, nine St. Thomas football players suffered season-ending injuries in training. Harriot decided to ban tackling at practice, and he also introduced the robots, which were designed by four Dartmouth engineering students, in collaboration with Eugene (Buddy) Teevens, the college’s football coach. Teevens was worried about the future of the sport. Since 2009, the number of boys between the ages of six and seventeen who play football has fallen by nineteen per cent. In 2010, Teevens outlawed tackling during Dartmouth practices. He told me, “It’s real simple—the more you hit, the more you get hurt. And I’m in a unique position to add hits to someone, or take them away.” He went on, “If we don’t change the way we coach the game, we won’t have a game to coach.”

Players adjust each others’ helmets during practice. The coaching staff and school officials made preventing head injuries a priority and, in addition to revising the practice regimen, offered players special helmets. In the 2015 and 2016 seasons, St. Thomas players did not suffer a single concussion during games. Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Harriott and George F. Smith, St. Thomas’s athletic director, learned about the robots through an alumni parent, and asked for a demonstration. In the spring, two prototypes arrived by FedEx. The robots, called Mobile Virtual Players, or M.V.P.s, stand just under six feet tall, weigh a hundred and ninety pounds, and look like pillars of black foam. Some players laughed when they saw them, but they stopped when a coach squeezed the trigger on a remote controller and an M.V.P. took off, moving at about sixteen miles an hour. “It just annihilated one of our guys—ran him right over,” Smith recalled. Kivon Bennett told me, “Those things are no joke.” Smith ordered two, at a price of sixteen thousand dollars. (The prototypes were sent off to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who wanted to give them a try.) Smith said of the robots, “You’re taking one player who can get hurt out of the equation, but, more important, your helmet is not hitting another hard helmet—it’s hitting cushion. The helmet-on-helmet is the dangerous part.” St. Thomas can afford such experiments. The football program is huge—the varsity team alone has a hundred players—and its training facilities rival those of top colleges.

The robots arrived in late summer. Adam Bolaños, a science teacher and an assistant coach, put them in an equipment room, among non-motorized pads of various shapes and sizes, and plugged them in. Two days later, the M.V.P.s were fully charged, and Bolaños and another assistant coach joysticked them onto the field. When an offensive lineman reached for the remote, Bolaños jerked it away and said, “Do you know how expensive these are?”

In one drill, a robot simulated a running back breaking into the open field. Ameer Riley, the defensive coördinator, watched a defensive back lunge ineffectually at the M.V.P. “We don’t tackle by diving!” he yelled. “You gotta drive through this guy.” Riley exhibited the proper form: lowering his shoulder, wrapping his arms around the dummy, then wrestling it to the ground. A minute later, the defensive back dragged the M.V.P. down. Riley exclaimed, “There you go!”

Riley wasn’t fully sold on the robots’ utility. “I’m a dinosaur kind of guy,” he said. “I like the old way. I feel a kind of sadness about the way the game has evolved.” Safety, he conceded, was “paramount,” but he feared that the robots might encourage bad habits. The guys, he said, were “launching themselves at the robots as if they were about to jump on a Slip ’N Slide, which is not an effective way to tackle.”

Dave Billitier, the assistant head coach, also observed the robot drill with a skeptical eye. “I just don’t think they simulate a kid tackling someone at speed,” he said. “The way the robots move is so static.” But something had to change in order to diminish the damage done in practice. “The kids are so much stronger and faster than they used to be.” After five minutes, the drill ended. The team, Billitier said, was “dying for some fresh meat.”

One afternoon this summer, Harriott, while shaking hands at the start of practice, noticed a player near the back of the line putting his shoulder pads on, shimmying them over his head. The student, Trevon Grimes, had a temple-fade haircut so bushy on top that classmates compared his head to a broccoli floret. “You should’ve already been suited up, Grimes,” Harriott said.

Grimes was arguably the best high-school wide receiver in America. He was tall and lean, with blazing speed and grippy hands. He referred to himself as a “light-skinned stallion,” and had altered his name on the back of his practice jersey so that it read “CRIME.” He was charismatic like Muhammad Ali, Harriott said.

“Sorry, Coach,” Grimes said. He had forgotten to take off his watch—a red Casio that he calls “my Rolex”—and he flung it against a fence. He was the only St. Thomas player who had chosen not to wear a Riddell SpeedFlex helmet. When Harriott informed Grimes that the Riddell was “scientifically safer” than the one he was wearing, a Schutt Air XP Pro, Grimes said, “I did my own medical research.” (In truth, Grimes simply found the Riddell too “big and bulky.” He told me that “all the college receivers and N.F.L. receivers” wear the Schutt, “because it’s lighter.” According to the Virginia Tech ratings, the Schutt helmet is the second safest.)

After practice, players soak in a training room*. The football program at St. Thomas is huge—the varsity team alone has a hundred players—and its training facilities rival those of top colleges. Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Harriott smiled. Grimes felt that Harriott, who has five children, treated him as much like a son as like a football player. As Grimes put it, “He lets us be ourselves.”

Grimes asked Harriott when he could get his game cleats. “I need to break them in, or my feet gonna be sore,” he said. Harriott told him that an expected shipment, from Nike, was late. (St. Thomas has sponsorship contracts with Nike and Gatorade.)

The program’s resources and reputation attract players from across the country. Grimes grew up in Indianapolis, and started playing football at the age of seven. His mother, Leah, told me, “He was a foot taller than everybody else—bigger, faster, more aggressive. Parents used to pull their kids off the field and say, ‘Is that boy really eight?’ ”

In 1953, the American Association of Pediatrics recommended banning children under twelve from playing football. (In 2013, the Annals of Biomedical Engineering published a study indicating that the head impacts sustained by players nine to twelve years old could be as severe as those sustained by college athletes.) But the sport continued gaining in popularity. Three years after the A.A.P.’s recommendation, an American Medical Association official declared that, although football was potentially “a killer and a maimer,” it offered “character-building advantages” for young children, and should not be banned.

After Grimes completed the fifth grade, Leah, a nurse, found a job at a hospital in Margate, Florida, so that Trevon could eventually attend St. Thomas. She worked twelve-hour shifts to save up for tuition, which costs more than twelve thousand dollars. Grimes tested in before his freshman year. In 2014, as a sophomore, he made the varsity football team; during that championship season, he scored two touchdowns. In his junior year, he scored seven touchdowns, helping St. Thomas win the state title yet again. Leah, now a flight nurse at a children’s hospital, kept a crazy schedule, but insisted on having one free day a week. “Friday nights are mine,” she said. “When Trevon gets to the N.F.L., it will be Sundays.”

By the end of his sophomore year, Grimes had received scholarship offers from nearly every top college program. “Laundry baskets” of letters arrived for him daily, Leah said. Privately, Grimes was intent on attending Ohio State. But he couldn’t help doing a little preening: in March, at a Nike-sponsored camp in Fort Lauderdale, he told the press, “Whatever school makes me feel comfortable, that’s one of the biggest aspects that will bump a school up.”

ESPN invited Grimes to announce his college choice on-air, but he declined. In August, he posted on his Twitter account, @GrimeTime™, that he was headed for Ohio State. Urban Meyer, its head coach, had been in frequent contact with him. “I felt loved,” Grimes told me.

Harriott knew that, if Grimes left Ohio State as hyped as he was going in, he had a chance to become an N.F.L. star. But athletic talent is fragile. Harriott had dreamed of the pros before tearing his A.C.L. (For most teen-agers, who tend not to think about long-term repercussions, a busted knee is far more worrying than a concussion. “If you take somebody’s legs out, you instantly take away their livelihood,” Cornelius Bennett said.)

Harriott stressed the importance of character development, and he didn’t make exceptions for his star. Once, in practice, Grimes caught himself on the verge of swearing, and said “fudge” instead. Harriott pointed to the ground.

“Coach!” Grimes said. “I can’t believe I gotta do pushups for ‘fudge.’ ” But he complied.

Harriott blasted the air horn and the offense lined up for seven-on-seven drills. On one play, Jake Allen, the starting quarterback, threw the ball to Grimes, amid double coverage. Grimes plucked the ball out of the air. “That boy is like a magnet,” an assistant coach marvelled. After pulling down a pair of catches against St. Thomas’s top cornerback, Grimes teased his defender: “I’m a machine! Sometimes I just need a little WD-40.”

Harriott is a devout Christian, and he ends each practice with a sermon at midfield.

“How long you think he’s gonna talk for today?” one player muttered. “Ten minutes?”

“Forty-five,” another said.

“He be using them S.A.T. words, talking about Sophocles,” a third joked.

“Improve my vocabulary, though,” the second admitted.

In one post-practice speech, Harriott thanked God for “Your love, Your guidance, Your leadership, Your parenting, Your benevolent nature, Your competitive attitude.” He said to his team, “Concern? Worry, fellas, that’s the opposite of faith. That’s sin. And sin separates you from performing to the best of your ability.”

He also impressed on the students that they were just playing a game. “This is fun, fellas,” he said. “When you get to the next level, you’re going to miss this. When you leave here, it gets real.”

There are three former N.F.L. players on Harriott’s staff. One of them is Glenn Holt, who was a wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, tallying two touchdowns and four concussions in three years. “It’s a different deal at that level,” he said of the N.F.L. “Those guys work for the company. It’s really big business.”

The N.F.L. is not just a sports league; it is also one of the world’s most powerful media companies. NBC, CBS, Fox, and ESPN pay billions of dollars a year for broadcast rights, giving the N.F.L. great leverage. (Ratings dipped before the elections this year, but they have rebounded.) In 2003, after ESPN launched a dramatic series, “Playmakers,” about a pro football team with a player who beats his wife, and others who are implicated in a night-club shooting, the league commissioner at the time, Paul Tagliabue, expressed disapproval. The show was cancelled. John Eisendrath, its creator, accused Tagliabue and other N.F.L. executives of behaving like “bullies.”

A decade later, ESPN again caved to league pressure, terminating a collaborative investigation with PBS’s “Frontline” about the concussion crisis. In 2015, Bill Simmons, at the time an ESPN contributor and the editor of Grantland, an online publication owned by ESPN, lost his job after questioning the “testicular fortitude” of Tagliabue’s successor, Roger Goodell.

The 2015 hack of Sony Pictures e-mails exposed correspondence suggesting that the N.F.L. also influenced the making of the film “Concussion,” starring Will Smith as Bennet Omalu, the neuropathologist. A Sony lawyer had written that “unflattering moments for the N.F.L.” were edited out, removing “most of the bite.” (The film’s director, Peter Landesman, disputes this.)

Whether or not the film was significantly edited, it haunted Garin Patrick, St. Thomas’s defensive-line coach. Patrick played in the N.F.L. for three years, and suffered three concussions, which he described as getting his “bell rung.” Last winter, he left a screening of “Concussion” feeling alarmed. The film, echoing the scientific consensus, puts forth the idea that repetitive subconcussive blows are thought to be the main cause of C.T.E. A one-off concussion likely represents a lesser threat. “That scared the shit out of me,” Patrick said.

Grant Miller, an offensive lineman who plays left tackle, soaks his leg in a hot bath. He will attend Vanderbilt University next year. Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

In April, 2016, he contacted a law firm that was representing former players suing the N.F.L. The league settled the case for nearly a billion dollars. Patrick was skeptical of the deal; in his view, it made it too difficult for individual players to receive medical compensation. Not long after the N.F.L. proposed the initial terms of the agreement, its own consulting firm concluded that twenty-eight per cent of former players would likely develop some form of dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, A.L.S., or C.T.E. Patrick, who suffers from short-term-memory loss, told me, “I think I’m one of the twenty-eight per cent.”

Subsequent research has indicated that symptoms of C.T.E. may emerge as early as high school. At a congressional hearing in March, Ann McKee, a C.T.E. expert from Boston University, reported seeing tau-protein buildups “in ninety out of ninety-four N.F.L. players whose brains we’ve examined.” She added, “We’ve found it in forty-five out of fifty-five college players, and six out of twenty-six* high-school players.”

I asked Patrick if, given these findings, he regretted having played football. “Would I do it again, knowing the stakes?” he said. “Absolutely. You could live into your nineties, or get hit by a car tomorrow. You gotta go from something.”

In a classroom one afternoon in August, St. Thomas’s offensive linemen sat slumped at their desks, watching game film as preparation for a pre-season contest, later that week, against Dillard High School. “This is going to be a nut-kicking game,” Ryan Schneider, the offensive coördinator, told the players. “They’re not running complicated coverages. It’s just who’s the bigger, badder S.O.B. up front.” He advised, “Smash the hell out of them! And then let them know it’s coming again.”

On game day, St. Thomas amassed a thirty-five-point lead before halftime. Grimes caught a ball in tight coverage, brushed off two tacklers, and ran for a touchdown. Kivon Bennett made two sacks, and Asante Samuel, whose father was a cornerback in the N.F.L., returned an interception for a touchdown. The Raiders won, 51–0.

Later, Schneider, Harriott, and the team reviewed the game on video. Schneider praised Grimes for a downfield block, adding, “Next time, put him on his butt and rub your balls in his face.” When Samuel’s interception appeared on the video, Harriott paused it to applaud the block that had opened up a path for Samuel: Lashawn Paulino-Bell, a two-hundred-and-forty-five-pound defensive lineman, had de-cleated an unsuspecting Dillard player. “It was, like, boom! ” Paulino-Bell told me, reliving the play. “He was almost on a stretcher.” How did it feel? “It’s a rush,” he said. “It’s, like, Ahhh, that’s live! ” He had no reservations about levelling the guy. “At the end of the day, you know what you signed up for.”

Harriott reminded Paulino-Bell and the others about a new rule: blocking uninvolved players was not allowed. Paulino-Bell’s hit was clean, Harriott said, but he noted that “those plays are over if you’re nowhere near the ball.” In recent years, the youth league Pop Warner, the National Federation of State High School Associations, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and the N.F.L. have implemented rule changes aimed at reducing injuries, and introduced protocols for treating concussions. Helmet-to-helmet hits are forbidden across all leagues. The N.C.A.A. has banned gratuitously hitting the head or neck of an opposing player. The N.F.L. has outlawed two-a-day practices, and helmet-first tackling, known as “spearing,” elicits an automatic fifteen-yard penalty. (At a rally in October, President-elect Donald Trump mocked the N.F.L.’s rule changes as “soft”: “Uh-oh, got a little ding on the head? No, no, you can’t play for the rest of the season!”)

Inside the Raiders’ locker room. Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

According to today’s rules, Cornelius Bennett said, his sack of Steve Beuerlein would be grounds for ejection. He acknowledged that reforms were needed, but worried about hamstringing defenders. “I don’t want nobody crossing my space if I can’t lay the wood on him,” he said. “I tell my son, ‘It’s nice to be “nice-nasty” on the football field.’ I call it nice-ty. I would lay you out and smile and laugh about it at the same time.”

Ameer Riley, the defensive coördinator, expressed similar concerns about the safety rules. “I fear that they’re taking a big part of the game away,” he said. Now that so many kinds of hits were banned, he said, “the wide receiver don’t have that fear that he used to have of going over the middle.” Riley went on, “All those stats you see nowadays? There should be an asterisk next to those names, just like Barry Bonds”—the baseball player who holds the home-run record, but is accused of having used steroids. “They don’t play the same game as Jack Lambert”—the former Steelers middle linebacker. “If you were coming across the middle, Jack Lambert would annihilate you.” He added, “I’m all in for safety. I just worry about the integrity of the game, and it being a fantasy-football-run generation, where all the emphasis is on offense.”

In 2012, the N.F.L. began promoting a youth initiative, Heads Up Football, which teaches young players tackling and blocking techniques that are meant to “take the head out of the game.” Last year, the league cited a study that seemed to attribute a decline in youth concussions to Heads Up, but the Times subsequently obtained a copy of the study and discovered that the initiative “showed no demonstrable effect on concussions.”

A similar public conversation about safety in football occurred at the end of the nineteenth century. Back then, the sport was played almost exclusively at Ivy League schools. In 1884, Harvard tried to ban it for being “brutal, demoralizing to teams and spectators, and extremely dangerous.” The effort was not successful, and dozens of players died from broken backs and snapped necks. Games increasingly resembled blood sport. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt invited representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to the White House, and they agreed on significant rule changes—including the forward pass—that were intended to make the game safer without sapping its vitality.

The death rate declined, but football did not lose its martial character. Sam Huff, a New York Giants linebacker in the sixties, has described the game as “war without guns.” The special-teams coach at St. Thomas gives his units militaristic nicknames: SEAL team, Delta Six. Conor O’Neill, a former St. Thomas linebacker who played for four years at the University of Wisconsin, told me, “We’re the gladiators of the twenty-first century.” In 2015,* eight American high schoolers died from injuries sustained while playing football. The causes included a broken neck, a lacerated spleen, and blunt-force trauma to the head.

In late August, on the day before classes resumed, Harriott instructed his team to comply with St. Thomas’s grooming standards. “You can’t have parts in your eyebrows,” he warned. He also reminded the boys to complete their summer reading assignments. “Don’t embarrass us,” he said.

That night, Grimes shaved off the inverted V that he had stencilled along his neckline. He ran up to Harriott before practice the next day. “Coach, I got a real emergency situation,” he said. “Why am I in pre-cal? Everyone else is in college algebra. I’m going to have an F! I’ve heard stories. It’s hard.” Harriott told him to stick with it. (He did, and as of December he had a B.)

“Good news, your majesty. We may already be a winner.”

St. Thomas’s first regular-season game was against Booker T. Washington, a public high school in a rough neighborhood of Miami. In 2009, one of its players was shot and killed at a party. Booker T. was the four-time returning state champ. (It competed in a different division than St. Thomas.)

Harriott and his coaching staff had recently scouted their opponent, observing them play against a team from Plantation, Florida. Booker T. won. At one point, Harriott was walking alongside the stadium fence when a Booker T. player jogged over and taunted him: “You’re next.”

Back at St. Thomas, Harriott told his guys, “They think they’re tougher than you. They talk a lot. They’re back-yard brawlers.” Booker T.’s head coach, Tim (Ice) Harris, was featured in a 2003 documentary, “Year of the Bull,” that focusses on another tough Miami high school. In it, Harris and other coaches are shown cursing at and hitting their players. “That was another era,” Harris told me. “Our kids needed a different kind of push to be able to understand and obey. As a coach and a father, I’m completely different from that now.”

Harris still ran tackling sessions at Booker T., he said, but only once a week, for thirty minutes. He said that he wanted to get the kids “to the game,” not “get them all banged up on the practice field.” Booker T. couldn’t afford Riddell SpeedFlex helmets, though Harris was trying to raise funds. And robots? “We wish,” he said. “We got to have a coach that holds the pads and runs with them.” He said that Booker T. embraced “the ‘Rocky’ concept.” When I attended a recent evening practice, at a public park near Booker T.—the school’s field has no lights—the defensive coaches had wheeled out large plastic trash cans to simulate offensive linemen.

The week of the Booker T. game, the air was soupy, the sun devastatingly hot. By three-thirty, when practice started at St. Thomas, rubber pellets dusting the artificial turf were absorbing heat, pushing the field temperature well above a hundred degrees. One player threw up. “I don’t think it’s ever been this hot before,” Grimes said, bent over and sucking air.

Harriott used the weather as motivation. At the end of practice, before a hundred dripping faces, he demanded, “Would you rather be shovelling snow?” He asked if anyone had heard what Booker T.’s coaches and players had been calling St. Thomas. “ ‘P’ cubed,” Harriott said. “Privileged. Private. Pussies.”

One afternoon, Grimes was running a curl route when he pivoted awkwardly, torquing his right knee. He headed to the sideline and adjusted a neoprene strap that he wore on the knee to alleviate the pain in his patellar tendon—a symptom of Osgood-Schlatter disease, an adolescent form of tendinitis. Grimes had been playing through nagging knee pain since the eighth grade. A coach asked him if he was O.K. “I’m good,” he said. “I just got to stretch it out. I told you, I’m a stallion, not a donkey.”

The day of the game, Harriott’s eyes looked feverish. Booker T. was ranked No. 6 by USA Today, and to win the national title St. Thomas would have to go undefeated. “Send a message,” Harriott told his players. “They play. We love. Fellas, it’s what’s expected of you. Live up to your standards and be grateful for the opportunity to prove your love, prove your worth.” His tone suddenly changed. “Right now is our state championship! Right now is our national championship! There is no tomorrow! It’s now! I want their heads! ”

Sebastian Sainterling, an offensive lineman who plays right guard. Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

The game was held at a stadium in Miami-Dade County. Cumulonimbus clouds hung in the sky. An air siren heralded Booker T.’s entrance. As the players ran onto the field, they mimed firing machine guns. “I’m So Hood,” by DJ Khaled, blared over the speakers: “I ain’t gon’ play wit ’em / I’d rather let the AK hit ’em.”

The play-by-play announcer welcomed spectators to a matchup between “two nationally ranked high-school powerhouses.” Larry Little, a former Miami Dolphins guard and a Booker T. alum, and Michael Irvin, a former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver and a St. Thomas alum, met on the fifty-yard line and shook hands. After that, the good-will gestures ceased: a Booker T. defensive end facetiously blew kisses at St. Thomas players; a skirmish nearly broke out among the two schools’ coaches. Rob Biasotti, St. Thomas’s strength-and-conditioning coach, told me that he had never witnessed such a hostile pre-game atmosphere. “This is going to be a war,” he said.

On Booker T.’s first possession, the quarterback scrambled, and he appeared to step out of bounds shy of the first-down marker. But the official spotted the ball favorably. Irvin said, loud enough for the linesman to hear, “That don’t look like no first down to me.”

Irvin graduated from St. Thomas in 1984. He went on to win a national championship with the University of Miami, and three Super Bowl rings with Dallas. In 2007, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. St. Thomas was special to him. He still attended games, and bragged about the school on the NFL Network, where he is a color commentator.

His professional career was cut short by a spinal-cord injury. “I’m not saying I won’t experience some negative effects from the game,” he told me. But football critics, he said, failed to appreciate the sport’s importance to low-income students. Irvin, who is one of seventeen children, asked, “Without the opportunity to play this game, where would they go? What would they do?” Harris, the Booker T. coach, told me that he regarded football as “one of the best dropout-prevention programs in the world.”

In “The U,” a 2009 ESPN documentary about the University of Miami in the late eighties, Melvin Bratton, one of Irvin’s college teammates, described football as “basically a way out of the hood.” Irvin agreed. Youth participation may be down in well-to-do communities, but the Upper East Side has never been a font of football talent. Wealthier Americans might ponder the future of football, Irvin said, but poor and middle-class kids were betting their future on football.

This socioeconomic disconnect is not unique to football: in 1965, after the second heavyweight fight between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston, the Times columnist Russell Baker addressed the growing abolitionist campaign against boxing, noting, “Fighters usually came from the hungry classes and were risking their brains for the titillation of the overfed.” Irvin put it this way: “When we start talking about ‘Will parents stop letting their kids play?,’ well, some parents will have that opportunity. But many will not. They will say, ‘Son, this is your best chance.’ ” Even some of the St. Thomas players were growing up in dire circumstances: one had been living in a motel, after his family lost their home; another student, whose guardian had been a drug addict, was in foster care.

On the next play, Booker T.’s quarterback, who last year suffered a concussion that left him foaming at the mouth, tossed an interception. St. Thomas, with Jake Allen at quarterback, took over, but Allen fumbled and Booker T. recovered. The score seesawed, and the first half ended with the Raiders in the lead, 17–14.

Roger Harriott, the head football coach. Harriott hopes to put St. Thomas at the vanguard of football safety while remaining football champions. “The other guys are playing checkers,” he likes to say. “We’re playing chess.” Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

During halftime, Harriott urged calm: “Encourage one another. Don’t hold your head and point fingers.” He privately regretted having presented the contest as an existential struggle. St. Thomas was obviously the better team—and it was just a game, after all. “Get in the mind-set of enjoying yourselves,” he told his players.

St. Thomas came out in the second half and played more mistake-filled football: dropping an easy interception opportunity, getting penalized for roughing the punter. The team’s supporters, accustomed to blowouts, grew restless, noisily criticizing the coaches’ play calls. Late in the third quarter, St. Thomas drove deep into Booker T. territory, but Allen threw two incomplete passes, and the Raiders settled for a field goal, making it 20–14.

The players lined up for the kickoff. Perhaps no part of football is more dangerous than the kickoff, when both sides barrel toward each other at full speed, like jousters. Ghastly collisions often occur. Pop Warner has eliminated kickoffs for children under eleven, but the kickoff will most likely endure elsewhere, because every once in a while a kick returner shoots the gap and runs all the way to the end zone. For fans, the thrill derives, in part, from the possibility of disaster. Other sports have moments of similar risk: the soccer star Lionel Messi dazzles most when dribbling through, and around, slide-tackling defenders.

As the football sailed through the air, Daniel Carter plunged down the field for St. Thomas, weaving around potential blockers. Booker T.’s returner caught the ball. Seconds later, Carter smashed into his legs, slamming him to the ground—a legal hit. St. Thomas’s sideline erupted in whoops. “That’s what I’m talking about!” a coach yelled. Carter jumped up, his body surging with adrenaline; the returner did not. (“I thought he broke his leg,” Harriott said later.) Booker T. trainers carried the player off the field. “Let’s give him a hand and hope that he’s not hurt,” the announcer said. Carter told me that, for a moment, he felt “a little bit of guilt,” adding, “But at the same time it’s football.”

In the fourth quarter, with St. Thomas down by a point, Grimes came alive. He caught a short pass, stiff-armed his defender, and ran for an additional twenty yards. The Raiders kicked a field goal and retook the lead, 23–21.

The air smelled like car tires. It started to rain, but the boys kept playing. Thunder boomed. Booker T. pushed up the field, and with two and a half minutes to go they scored, taking a four-point lead.

St. Thomas needed a touchdown, and Grimes desperately wanted the ball. He caught a pass near the sideline, but seemed to aggravate his knee injury, and hobbled off the field. He sat out for a play, then went back in and made another catch, advancing the ball deep into Booker T.’s end.

With twenty-three seconds left, St. Thomas had the ball on Booker T.’s twenty-five-yard line. Allen dropped back, swivelled right, and threw to Grimes, who, after catching the ball, cut inside and got by a potential tackler. Another one stood in his way. Grimes lowered his shoulder, plowed over the defender, and fell into the end zone. Ecstatic, he pulled off his helmet to celebrate.

But the head official insisted that Grimes’s knees had touched the ground before the ball crossed the goal line. The ball was spotted at the one. On the next play, Allen lobbed a weak pass toward Grimes, which was intercepted.

St. Thomas had been defeated; for the first time in decades, the team had a losing record. Grimes was crying, as were others. Harriott tried to console them. “I appreciate the fact that you guys are heartbroken,” he said. “It’s going to make us better. Nobody died tonight.”

Jaden Davis, a cornerback, and Vincent Murphy, an offensive lineman, both sophomores, listen to Coach Harriott read a parable called “Hold the Rope,” part of the team’s pregame ritual. Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Morale was terrible for days. Biasotti, the conditioning coach, called it “a disaster like I’ve never seen.” He told me that he feared “a breakdown of civil order” if the team didn’t bounce back strong.

An MRI scan of Grimes’s knee revealed that he had a bruised patellar tendon. His doctor gave him a dose of oral steroids, and recommended two weeks off. High-school football was important, but being healthy for Ohio State was essential. In class, he acted out; injured athletes are notoriously cranky. “I ball up my emotions and let them out on the field,” he said. “When I can’t go out and release that energy, I don’t know another way.” (He later apologized to his teachers and teammates.)

At practice, Harriott urged the players not to let anger distract them. “We’re not about that,” he told me. Practicing with the M.V.P.s, he noted, helped keep the players’ emotions in check, allowing them to “focus on strategy.”

The next Friday, St. Thomas won, 42–6. A week later, the score was 49–0. Grimes returned for the homecoming game and caught a touchdown pass. The Raiders won, 42–0. His knee felt strong and the team looked confident.

A few days later, the Raiders flew to Las Vegas for a nationally televised game against the new No. 1 in the country, Bishop Gorman, a team that had not lost since 2013. The players and coaches checked into a resort nine miles southwest of the Strip. There were ten restaurants and a pool with a waterfall, but Harriott prohibited his team from enjoying any of it. This was not a pleasure trip. Nevertheless, Harriott’s tone was more low-keyed than the one he’d adopted before the Booker T. game. He cut back on the motivational speeches. If his players weren’t at practice, meals, or meetings, he wanted them resting, visualizing their assignments on the field.

Gorman had already beaten top-ranked teams from Texas, Hawaii, Florida, and California, and it had an electrifying quarterback, Tate Martell, who, like Grimes, was headed to Ohio State. In five games, Martell had thrown for thirteen touchdowns and run for six. The bookies made Gorman a sixteen-point favorite.

“They saying we underdogs! ” Kivon Bennett said, indignantly. He and the others knew that, if they brought down Gorman, they had a chance of regaining the No. 1 spot in the USA Today rankings. Indeed, ESPN presented the matchup as if it were a prizefight. A commentator declared, “Tonight, two high-school heavyweights square off in the city where champions are crowned.”

Gorman’s stadium was filled to its capacity of five thousand. A row of rugged mountain peaks loomed to the west. Flavor Flav, whose son attended the school, showed up to watch. Harriott told his players, “Enjoy every second of this night.”

Cornelius Bennett made the cross-country trip, as did Leah Grimes. She was wearing a St. Thomas jersey with “16”—her son’s number—printed on the front and the back. Leah’s mother had also flown in, from Seattle. Before the game, some of the players talked about why they were playing. Grimes stood up and said, “I’m doing it for my grandma. She has cancer. She made a long trip to come watch me play. First time she saw me play live.” During warmups, Leah told me that the two weeks of rest had done wonders for her son. She hoped that his patellar problems were over. He was free of pain for the first time in years.

A player ices his shins after a game. Before one kickoff, Harriott offered the team some final words: “Leave a mark forever on this field. The St. Thomas spirit should never leave here. They should never, ever want to see blue-and-gold again.” Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

The game started at seven o’clock. Kivon Bennett looked across the field, and said to a fellow defensive lineman, “Let’s show them some of that South Florida shit.” Before the kickoff, Harriott offered some final words: “Leave a mark forever on this field. The St. Thomas spirit should never leave here. They should never, ever want to see blue and gold again.”

From the outset, St. Thomas played stifling defense, but on offense the team faltered. Jake Allen looked nervous and struggled to find his rhythm. He missed Grimes a few times, and then threw an interception. Grimes stormed off the field, and when a coach tried to calm him he snapped, “Everything is not O.K., Coach. Sometimes you got to say, ‘It’s not fine.’ You got to say to Jake, ‘Get your head out of your ass!’ ”

Nevertheless, the Raiders went into halftime behind by only 3–0. The deficit was “no big deal,” Harriott assured his guys, but they’d win only if they played as a team. “God is going to test our resilience,” he said, eying Grimes. Others were more direct. Schneider threatened to bench Grimes if he didn’t stop fussing, and Michael Irvin, who had flown out for the game, said, “I don’t want to hear this shit—y’all fighting each other on the sidelines. We fight together! ” After that, several players looked prepared to run through a brick wall.

Early in the third quarter, St. Thomas had the ball on its own forty-six-yard line, and went into a spread formation. Allen took the snap and pitched the ball to Michael Harley, a wide receiver. Gorman’s defense pinched in around the line of scrimmage, assuming that Harley would tuck the ball and run. But Harley stopped, set his feet, and tossed an arcing pass toward the end zone. Grimes outran his defender, extended his arms, and pulled the ball in. Touchdown.

Grimes swaggered back to the bench. Irvin smacked him on the butt, exclaiming, “That’s how big boys answer the call!” Fans hollered, “Grime Time!” The Raiders kicked the extra point, and went ahead, 7–3. On the next possession, they forced a fumble and recovered the ball. When the third quarter expired, Allen had led the offense to within inches of the goal line.

On the first play of the fourth quarter, Grimes ran a corner route, in double coverage, along the back of the end zone. He routinely outmuscled and outjumped opponents, but this time the ball was thrown short, and he didn’t have a chance. As he and the two Gorman defenders fell trying to reach the ball, Gorman’s safety intercepted it.

Grimes did not get up. When he hit the ground, he heard “a whole bunch of pops.” He pounded his fist on the field, in agony. Hurrying over, the team doctor saw that the injury was to Grimes’s left knee—not the one with tendinitis. He and a coach carried Grimes to the bench. Grimes puffed his cheeks and his eyes looked panicked, as if he were contemplating, for the first time, a future that did not include professional stardom.

Leah ran down the bleachers and unfastened the clips on Grimes’s shoulder pads. By the look on his face, she said later, “I knew it was something serious.” A doctor packed his knee with ice and braced it with a cardboard splint. Grimes left the stadium on a stretcher, with a Gatorade towel covering his face. “I didn’t want people to see me going out like that,” he told me. An ambulance took him and Leah to a hospital for an X-ray.

Trevon Grimes, the team’s star wide receiver. Grimes grew up in Indianapolis and started playing football at the age of seven. After he finished fifth grade, his mother moved to Florida, so that he could eventually attend St. Thomas. Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Grimes refused pain medication, so that he could stay awake and follow the game on his phone. He watched Gorman score a touchdown and retake the lead, 10–7; then, with two seconds left, he cheered from the rear of the ambulance as St. Thomas kicked a field goal, tying it up. The game went into overtime. The Raiders scored a touchdown, then Gorman did the same. Double overtime. St. Thomas’s defense prevented Gorman from scoring, and tried to win with a field goal, but the kick was blocked. In triple overtime, St. Thomas scored again, but so did Gorman, and instead of settling for an extra point they went for a two-point conversion. Gorman made it, and won, 25–24.

Fans rushed the field. The St. Thomas players looked bewildered: they had been so close. A Gorman supporter patted a despondent St. Thomas player on the back, and said, “Outstanding athletes. Worked y’all’s butts off. Keep it up.” Gorman’s coach, Kenny Sanchez, said, “We’ve played in some great games over the years, but that was probably the best.”

Cornelius Bennett stood in the end zone, ruing St. Thomas’s lost opportunity. “Shitty feeling to come out on this side of it,” he said.

Harriott was a few feet away, addressing his team. He reminded the guys that their season was far from over. They still had a chance to win a third consecutive state title—something the team had never accomplished.

While the ESPN crew packed up their gear, little kids, basking in the bright lights, pretended that they were the stars. A group of twentysomethings crossed the parking lot, trying to find their car. “I think that’s the best ten dollars I’ve ever spent,” one said.

Two days later, Grimes had another MRI, which showed what he, his coaches, his family, and Ohio State feared the most: a torn A.C.L. His high-school career was over. He needed surgery and months of rehab if he was going to be ready for the start of the college season. “I will be back and stronger than ever,” he promised on Twitter.

In November, Grimes visited Columbus; he toured the athletic facilities and the dormitories, sat in on meetings with the coaches and the players, and had his knee examined by the team doctor. He and Leah met with a guidance counsellor to discuss his plan to graduate in three years. “I want to be done with all my credits, just in case I declare early for the draft,” he told me.

He insisted that his injury had not made him consider seriously a life without football. “If you’re thinking of a Plan B, you’re distracted from a Plan A,” he said. “I’m going to the N.F.L. There’s not a question about that. I’m just thinking about what I want to do after. I want to have a business or invent something. Like, you know those little plastic pieces that you put in the wall that keeps you from putting metal things into the thing? The guy who invented that is a billionaire!”

Ohio State played at home that weekend, against Nebraska. Grimes and his mother had front-row seats on the forty-yard line. In the second quarter, Nebraska’s quarterback, Tommy Armstrong, Jr., was tackled while scrambling. His head bounced off the turf and, for several minutes, he lay lifeless a few feet from where Grimes and his mother sat. Armstrong was strapped to a backboard and taken away. “My heart skipped a beat,” Leah said. “He could have turned his neck the wrong way and been paralyzed.” (Armstrong has since returned to play.) For the first time, Leah feared for her son’s safety. “I had to take a deep breath and refocus,” she said. “These are ginormous, mammoth men that are going to be tackling my son.”

St. Thomas crushed their next four opponents: 42–8, 42–7, 49–0, 45–19. With Grimes out, other players stepped up. In one game, Kivon Bennett made six tackles, and his general performance, along with his classroom success and locker-room leadership, led Harriott to name him a team captain.

Jake Allen, the starting quarterback, stretches in the locker room. Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

When the junior-varsity season ended, Harriott invited a few J.V. players to attend varsity practices. One day, during punt-formation drills, an eager J.V. call-up collided helmet-to-helmet with Kaleb McCarty, a junior. McCarty shook it off, but he had a terrible headache that night and couldn’t sleep. He woke up feeling dizzy, nauseated, and a little scared. “I knew something was wrong,” he said.

The next day, McCarty went to see Dwayne Owens, the athletic trainer. Owens told me that the researchers from Miami had completed a trial of the goggles that measured rapid eye movements, but had failed to provide St. Thomas with a pair to use. Owens, using a cell-phone flashlight and a series of balance tests, determined that McCarty had likely suffered a concussion. His mother took him to the hospital, where he was given an MRI. “Doctors know so little about concussions,” McCarty told me. On the Internet, he had seen “all these tests that they do on N.F.L. players and, like, all of them showed something they find on their brains”—tau deposits—“that triggered them to commit suicide.”

McCarty was unsettled. “All of this can heal,” he said, running his hands over his body. If you sprain an ankle and try to run before it has healed, you can cause further damage, but pain usually dissuades you from pushing it. “What can tell your brain that it hurts?” McCarty said. “Nothing.”

McCarty did some research. He was troubled to learn about Tyler Varga, a Yale graduate who played in three games for the Indianapolis Colts before suffering a concussion that lasted four months; Varga eventually quit the sport. Other players were retiring early. Chris Borland was the kind of football player McCarty wanted to be: a linebacker who relished a dirty jersey and the roar of the crowd. In 2014, after graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Borland secured a multimillion-dollar contract to play for the San Francisco 49ers. His rookie season was sensational: he had two interceptions and a sack, and in one game he made eighteen tackles.

But, in the pre-season, Borland had sustained a concussion, and it made him wonder what would happen to his brain if he kept taking blows to the head. He discreetly read “League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth,” by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, hiding the paperback inside a generic hardback. “I was reading about players who took their own lives, because they were demented and depressed from C.T.E., and then I was going to watch game film,” he told me. “It was fucked up.”

In March, 2015, Borland announced his retirement, saying, “I don’t want to have any neurological diseases, or die younger than I would otherwise.”

He went on TV and attended conferences on head trauma. Other professionals, like Varga, asked him for advice. ESPN The Magazine called Borland “The Most Dangerous Man in Football.”

A few months ago, in Atlanta, Borland appeared on a panel about concussions and the N.F.L. He was asked how to make football safer. “I don’t know how you do it, if it’s even possible,” he said. Violence was central to the sport’s appeal. Incredibly, football seemed more popular the more people learned about the risks. “It’s like a religion in America,” Borland said. Another analogy might be climate change: we know that it is happening, and we know that it is harmful, but are we willing to sacrifice the convenience of air-conditioning and jet travel in order to combat the problem?

At practice, Harriott urges the players not to let anger distract them. He encourages students to play for love of their teammates, not out of hatred for their opponents. Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Changes could be made at the youth level, Borland told the audience: “No way a child should be allowed to play tackle football before high school.” In September, the parents of two former Pop Warner players who died, and subsequently were given a diagnosis of C.T.E., filed a class-action suit against the organization, contending that it had created a false impression of safety. The case raised several questions: What role should courts and lawmakers have in making football safer? Should we regulate activities that, if pursued for an extended period, might physically endanger the participants? When it comes to, say, shooting heroin, the answer is simple. But football, which can create tremendous financial and social opportunities for those who play it, cannot be categorized as purely harmful. The Times has described the class-action suit as “the next front in the legal battle over concussions.”

On the panel, Borland said, “We get into informed consent with college and pro players. There’s a huge reward if they want to take the risk, and if all the right information is made available. It’s a free country.” But, he added, “I think it’s wrong for children to hit their heads thousands of times.”

Kaleb McCarty told me that he once dreamed of going to the N.F.L., but now he just wanted to get into a good school. “Football is a vehicle for me to get an education,” he said. “I want to try to go to Penn or Duke or Syracuse. There’s no way I’ll get into them without football.”

George Smith, St. Thomas’s athletic director, was furious when he learned about McCarty’s concussion. Since Harriott had revised the practice regimen, there had been no serious injuries outside of games—a marked improvement. Why, Smith asked, weren’t the coaches using the robots more? Harriott told me that he considered the M.V.P.s “a great tool” and a “welcome innovation with regards to safety and injury prevention and concussion awareness.” But they were glitchy—a “work in progress,” as he put it. For one thing, the robots had hard plastic bases that tended to bruise shins, so the players didn’t like tackling them. (“They hurt,” Grimes said.) Ameer Riley, the defensive coördinator, said that, starting in the off-season, he hoped to incorporate the robots in more “realistic” practice scenarios.

Sometimes, Harriott said, “you have to go old-school and use bodies.” He said of McCarty, “This was our first concussion all year,” adding, “We’re doing something right.” A school that used practice robots was at the cutting edge of conscientious football, but Harriott wasn’t about to deny the brutality. He said, “We haven’t had any concussions in games—though we’ve given plenty.”

McCarty expected to be out for three weeks while he completed a “return to play” concussion protocol, which meant missing St. Thomas’s first playoff game, at home, against Palm Beach Lakes High School. Fortunately, the Raiders were the heavy favorite. McCarty attended the game in street clothes. When teammates asked him about the concussion, he told them that he had experienced blurred vision and skewed depth perception. One of them joked that it sounded like he’d been smoking weed.

Thirty minutes before the kickoff, the players lined up in the tunnel leading into the stadium. Grill smoke from the snack bar hung over the field. Michael Harley, a team captain, reminded them of the Bishop Gorman game: did they remember how awful it felt to lose? “Let’s ball out tonight!” he said.

The Raiders started strong, with a rushing touchdown on their second play from scrimmage. By the end of the first quarter, they were ahead, 27–0. After eight more points, the Mercy Rule—a constantly running clock—would take effect.

At one point, Kivon Bennett hurt his knee. He limped off the field, but he didn’t think the injury was serious. Ice, rest, rehab. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Back in a week or two.”

Grimes is headed to Ohio State next year, but this fall he suffered a season-ending knee injury. Photograph by Thomas Prior for The New Yorker

Trenell Troutman, a safety, scored two of the first-quarter touchdowns, running in a fumble recovery and returning an interception. “This is my first playoff game,” he said, in a pregame speech to his teammates. “I’m hungry.” At one point, he hit a Palm Beach Lakes running back so hard that the player stumbled grotesquely around the field before collapsing. (He was assisted off the field.) After the play, a putrid smell on the St. Thomas sideline made one player say of Troutman, “I think he hit the shit out of that guy.”

At halftime, the score was still 27–0. Harriott felt pleased with the performance of Troutman and a few others, but otherwise he was frustrated. “That’s the first time I saw you guys get off to a great start and then take your foot off the gas,” he said. He expected clinical, disciplined play. Instead, he saw senseless penalties and mental mistakes. Two coaches had been shouting at each other on the sidelines. St. Thomas would never win the state championship if it performed this way. “That was pathetic,” he said. “First time I’ve ever been so embarrassed by you guys.”

The team added to its total in the second half—a touchdown and a two-point conversion. After the game ended, with a score of 35–0, one of the opposing coaches called across the field, “You guys are one helluva football team.”

Harriott’s team clustered around him. “We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said. Their next opponent, Dwyer High School, was more formidable. “Heavenly Father, we didn’t give our best effort tonight. We did not represent You well,” he said, over the sound of the marching band. “We’re thankful, Heavenly Father, for the opportunity to redeem ourselves, to make amends.” He added, “And, as we prepare to take out Dwyer, keep us safe.”

St. Thomas trounced the team, 37–0. McCarty sat on the bench again, but he said that his head now felt fine. Concussions, he said, “are just part of the game,” adding, “You just got to recover and learn from it. They are bound to happen, just part of the sport.” The Raiders defeated their next two opponents by a total of seventy-eight points, and secured a berth in the state-championship game.

On December 9th, the Raiders travelled to Orlando, to face an undefeated team from Tampa. Grimes, no longer on crutches and already pressing eighty pounds with his bad leg, watched from the sidelines. Kivon Bennett was back on the field, and so was McCarty. St. Thomas dominated from the start, getting so far ahead that the Mercy Rule went into effect. The final score was 45–6. McCarty was elated. He remained determined to get an excellent college education—“I wouldn’t go to ’Bama just to play football”—but a pro career was back in his sights. “The N.F.L. is still a goal,” he said.

A few days after the game, Harriott said that the victory was the “culmination of an extraordinary season.” He paused. “Whatever happened, we had each other—the players had authentic love for each other,” he said. “That’s the power of family, friendship, and brotherhood.” ♦

*An earlier version of the article cited Ann McKee’s congressional testimony incorrectly.**An earlier version of this caption incorrectly characterized the room pictured.***An earlier version misstated the year in which the findings were made.

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