#Seniors Funeral Costs
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Widow of fallen Buffalo Firefighter files notice of claim against city and fire department [Video]
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Monday!
It's been a while since I've done one of these week-in-the-life posts (and I LOVE reading them from others), and it's a particularly stressful week where I'm trying to stay off social media for Reasons, so hey, let's do this again!
It's a busy day, but it starts relatively late - I don't have to leave for the office until 10AM. So, you may ask, why on earth do I set my alarm for 8:30? Is it because I have an elaborate morning routine? Is it so I can hit the gym and go for a jog? No, no, no, it's because I have a little cat who takes the alarm as her cue to cuddle and I don't want to disappoint her, so I inevitably spend half an hour hugging her like a purring teddy bear first thing in the morning before I get up.
I respond to some e-mails as I get ready and on the bus ride over - mostly prep for our department's holiday party (I'm in the band and we're trying to get as much practice in as possible), but also a little work getting supercomputer access restored for an undergrad research assistant, offering to write a letter of recommendation so my colleague doesn't have to (we both know the student well and said colleague is traveling across the country for a funeral on a redeye flight tonight...), reworking some elements of the rubric for the faculty search committee I'm on, and confirming a meeting with my grad student.
10:45 - I get to the office and go to make my usual mug of tea... and realize in the moment I close my office door that the keys are still inside. I get the hot water from the lounge and meander by the office, but nobody's there. Just as I'm about to work up the nerve to go interrupt a more senior professor's meeting to borrow his keys, one of the office staff walks by and is happy to open the door for me, phew.
11:00 - My most senior grad student is doing an internship in Colorado this quarter (it's the location he most wants to do a postdoc at as well!), and we've set up a call to catch up after a few weeks without chatting. It's a bit of an awkward chat because he wants to go to his second conference in two months, and I had to bring out the "well, um, this is a side project you're doing with someone else's research group and you may want to check with them about where the $2000+ for conference costs is coming from". I possibly have an avenue - I might ask him to just attend for a couple of days instead of the whole time, so I can use some funding from a different grant, but I'm hoping we can get some cost-sharing going here, or possibly the other professor he's working with can present his poster for him if need be. Still, his work's going great and I'm hoping we can get him to this conference! He finishes his PhD this year, and I can attest to how helpful conferences are for landing postdocs.
12:00 - Speaking of grants, I had a successful grant come through late last summer to study wildfire smoke dynamics with novel instrumentation (something new to me!), and the whole team is meeting up for the first time to talk logistics! I also have to teach real soon, so I'm only on for the first chunk of the call, but we get some of the plan set up. Looks like we'll be meeting at a NASA facility early next year to do some siting stuff prior to the first controlled burn. I genuinely have no idea what I'm doing on this project, apart from being willing to write a big chunk of the proposal, but it's a good time!
12:30 - Class time! This is my domain-specific intro-to-python class that I developed 5 years ago and have been iterating on ever since. It's going a lot smoother this week than last, and the students are pretty responsive to my jokes (priority #1, lbr) and seem to be following along quite well, judging by the handful of questions I get after class. Not a ton of technical issues today, either, which is a HUGE win over last week.
1:30 - Forecasting time! I'm once again part of our university team in a giant forecasting contest. While I'm decidedly average at it (usually around 250th out of 1000 participants), my grad student was #1 for a while there. We chat in broad terms about the next week of weather in our targeted forecasting region.
2:30 - Meeting with another graduate student! We talk about some of the researchers he reached out to after his first conference a couple weeks ago, and we're starting to narrow down a possible author list for his first paper. He's working on writing up the methods and data for that paper while he incorporates a few new datasets into his preestablished workflow. He's been doing really well! Being a dual-major in CS means his code is a heckuva lot more organized than most second-year grad students I've had.
3:30 - ...nothing??? I've decided to skip my usual seminar and postpone one undergraduate student research meeting this afternoon (the one currently locked out of the supercomputer he needs for his project) since I have a couple of grant proposals due very shortly. I head out to grab some teriyaki to bring back to my office for lunch/dinner, but the restaurant just has a big sign out front saying "closed for FIRE" so I opt to go across the street for some chicken katsu and boba tea instead. I approve the final budget (coming up on a million dollars, no pressure) and keep plugging away at the statement of work (which is basically "what are you going to do, in detail, with one million dollars over the next three years? please tell us in exactly 15 pages, not counting your 3-page bibliography and 6 appendices"). I even find a perfect paper to reference to discuss one of our theories! We've made it through one round of reviews with our pre-proposal, and man, we'd love to do this project - it would be myself, a colleague, and a postdoc looking at some really novel stuff in severe storm predictability over the next three years. I also get a little work done on the invited talk I'm giving to a student journal club tomorrow, and work on some more e-mails (trying to set up a meeting with a friend's graduate student to help her out with some methods she's using from an older paper of mine).
5:15 - One of my colleagues has retired this year and has a farewell song he wants to sing at our holiday party, which happens to be mostly voice & piano, so we agree to meet up before the main practice and go over it a couple times before the rest of the band shows up and he has to head out to dinner. I'm really sorry to see him leaving (although I know he's delighted to get to spend more time with his kids and grandkids) - he and his wife were extremely welcoming when I started here, and were so kind and supportive when Mom died. Just very touched that he reached out to me to play piano on this one. Tragically, though, whoever was supposed to bring in the keyboard hasn't left it in the practice room, so we'll have to wait and run through it with the rest of the band on Thursday. Instead, it's back to the office to get caught up on e-mail and try to slog through more of the grant application (all today's research and work has netted me... 1 page of writing, blah).
6:00 - The rest of the band shows up! We run three songs of our eight-song setlist, and I'm somehow now playing on 4/8 of them, despite there being five people signed up for keys. It's a good time, though!
8:00 - I make it home and give Clara a bunch of new toys that have arrived with her prescription food (one of which she licks for 15 minutes straight). Luckily, tomorrow's work schedule is much more chill!
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Iâm (maybe?) almost done with a ThĂ©odred story Iâve been working on for a long time and, in looking back over some of my notes about his canon life, I couldnât help clocking the many similarities between his experiences and those of LOTRïżœïżœïżœs other first son of a kingdom of men, Boromir. Itâs not super relevant to my story, but I ended up with this running list and Iâm just sticking it here because why not. None of this is groundbreaking stuff (and there are probably more) but so far I have that ThĂ©odred and Boromir both:
1. Were heirs to the leadership of their respective realms and held their landâs senior military positions (Second Marshal for ThĂ©odredâthere being no First Marshal at the timeâand Captain of the White Tower for Boromir).
2. Lost their mothers early (Théodred at birth and Boromir at age 10) and grew up in households run entirely by powerful fathers who never remarried.
3. Ended up taking on dangerous challenges at least in part because those fathers were both having their reason and good judgment manipulated by opponents (ThĂ©oden through the treachery of GrĂma/Saruman and Denethor by the selective truths shown to him by Sauron in the palantĂr).
4. Got killed in a battle where their opponents were targeting them to the exclusion of others around them (Sarumanâs forces at the Isen were told to kill ThĂ©odred at all costs even while âdisregardingâ others, and the orcs at Parth Galen fire their arrows âalways at Boromirâ while leaving Merry and Pip untouched).
5. Were trying to summon aid at the time they were struck down (ThĂ©odred is shouting âTo me, Eorlingas!â to summon reinforcements when heâs fatally wounded. Boromir blows his great horn to alert the rest of the fellowship before heâs brought down).
6. Took massive injuries but lived long enough afterward to pass on last words in which they invoke the names of the men who will come to replace them as leaders and express the hope that those next leaders will achieve victory (Elfhelm and Grimbold believe ThĂ©odred is dead before they discover heâs still breathing just enough to say, âLet me lie here to keep the fords til Ăomer comes.â Boromir, as we all know, lays there with those arrows in his chest long enough to be found by Aragorn, at which point he says, âFarewell, Aragorn. Go to Minas Tirith and save my people.â).
7. Died within hours of each other (Théodred on the night on February 25 and Boromir around midday on the 26) at the same age of 41 because, oh yeah, they were also born within months of each other.
8. Didnât get a burial/funeral in keeping with their status and the traditions of their people because they died in awful circumstances far from home (ThĂ©odred dies and is buried by Elfhelm and Grimboldâs companies at the fords rather than in the barrows outside of Edoras with his ancestors. Boromir is sent over the falls by the three hunters instead of laying in Rath DĂnen with the other kings and stewards of Gondor).
9. Mentored and protected little brother-type figures (Faramir as Boromirâs actual little brother and Ăomer as ThĂ©odredâs cousin/adopted little bro) who would go on to achieve what they were unable to do themselves while alive.
10. Died unmarried and childless despite being extremely marriageable, in the primes of their lives and presumably expected to produce another heir. (Thereâs an explanation given for Boromirâheâs not into women and prefers fighting and armsâthough there is none for ThĂ©odred.) (Like many other people, I have my own personal HC for ThĂ©odredâs romantic life, but thatâs for another day.)
Iâm not sure what to make of all that, but I find it interesting. We hear so often about contrasts between Gondor and Rohanâthe different histories and heritages, the personality of cold, hard Denethor against kindly, grandfatherly ThĂ©oden, the magisterial stone and marble of Minas Tirith versus the rustic wood and thatch of Edoras, Gondorâs vast libraries and the Rohirrimâs oral traditionsâbut theyâre so deeply linked as kingdoms and as individuals. By fate and by choice, theyâre inextricably tied together, and I love the amount of detail that went into creating and including the subtle parallels between the first sons of each land as just one more way to see those ties play out.
#lord of the rings#lotr#boromir#theodred#théodred#rohan#gondor#oath of eorl#first sons#shared histories#meta
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"In April 2020, Vanessa GuillĂ©n, a 20-year-old Army private, was bludgeoned to death by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood, in Texas. The killer, aided by his girlfriend, burned GuillĂ©nâs body. GuillĂ©nâs remains were discovered two months later, buried in a riverbank near the base, after a massive search.
GuillĂ©n, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, grew up in Houston, and her murder sparked outrage across Texas and beyond. Fort Hood had become known as a particularly perilous assignment for female soldiers, and members of Congress took up the cause of reform. Shortly after her remains were discovered, President Donald Trump himself invited the GuillĂ©n family to the White House. With GuillĂ©nâs mother seated beside him, Trump spent 25 minutes with the family as television cameras recorded the scene.
In the meeting, Trump maintained a dignified posture and expressed sympathy to GuillĂ©nâs mother. âI saw what happened to your daughter Vanessa, who was a spectacular person, and respected and loved by everybody, including in the military,â Trump said. Later in the conversation, he made a promise: âIf I can help you out with the funeral, Iâll helpâIâll help you with that,â he said. âIâll help you out. Financially, Iâll help you.â
Natalie Khawam, the familyâs attorney, responded, âI think the military will be payingâtaking care of it.â Trump replied, âGood. Theyâll do a military. Thatâs good. If you need help, Iâll help you out.â Later, a reporter covering the meeting asked Trump, âHave you offered to do that for other families before?â Trump responded, âI have. I have. Personally. I have to do it personally. I canât do it through government.â The reporter then asked: âSo youâve written checks to help for other families before this?â Trump turned to the family, still present, and said, âI have, I have, because some families need help ⊠Maybe you donât need help, from a financial standpoint. I have no idea whatâI just think itâs a horrific thing that happened. And if you did need help, Iâm going toâIâll be there to help you.â
A public memorial service was held in Houston two weeks after the White House meeting. It was followed by a private funeral and burial in a local cemetery, attended by, among others, the mayor of Houston and the cityâs police chief. Highways were shut down, and mourners lined the streets.
Five months later, the secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, announced the results of an investigation. McCarthy cited numerous âleadership failuresâ at Fort Hood and relieved or suspended several officers, including the baseâs commanding general. In a press conference, McCarthy said that the murder âshocked our conscienceâ and âforced us to take a critical look at our systems, our policies, and ourselves.â
According to a person close to Trump at the time, the president was agitated by McCarthyâs comments and raised questions about the severity of the punishments dispensed to senior officers and noncommissioned officers.
In an Oval Office meeting on December 4, 2020, officials gathered to discuss a separate national-security issue. Toward the end of the discussion, Trump asked for an update on the McCarthy investigation. Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of defense (Trump had fired his predecessor, Mark Esper, three weeks earlier, writing in a tweet, âMark Esper has been terminatedâ), was in attendance, along with Millerâs chief of staff, Kash Patel. At a certain point, according to two people present at the meeting, Trump asked, âDid they bill us for the funeral? What did it cost?â
According to attendees, and to contemporaneous notes of the meeting taken by a participant, an aide answered: Yes, we received a bill; the funeral cost $60,000.
Trump became angry. âIt doesnât cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!â He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: âDonât pay it!â Later that day, he was still agitated. âCan you believe it?â he said, according to a witness. âFucking people, trying to rip me off.â
Khawam, the family attorney, told me she sent the bill to the White House, but no money was ever received by the family from Trump. Some of the costs, Khawam said, were covered by the Army (which offered, she said, to allow Guillén to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery) and some were covered by donations. Ultimately, Guillén was buried in Houston.
Shortly after I emailed a series of questions to a Trump spokesperson, Alex Pfeiffer, I received an email from Khawam, who asked me to publish a statement from Mayra GuillĂ©n, Vanessaâs sister. Pfeiffer then emailed me the same statement. âI am beyond grateful for all the support President Donald Trump showed our family during a trying time,â the statement reads. âI witnessed firsthand how President Trump honors our nationâs heroesâ service. We are grateful for everything he has done and continues to do to support our troops.â
Pfeiffer told me that he did not write that statement, and emailed me a series of denials. Regarding Trumpâs âfucking Mexicanâ comment, Pfeiffer wrote: âPresident Donald Trump never said that. This is an outrageous lie from The Atlantic two weeks before the election.â He provided statements from Patel and a spokesman for Meadows, who denied having heard Trump make the statement. Via Pfeiffer, Meadowsâs spokesman also denied that Trump had ordered Meadows not to pay for the funeral.
The statement from Patel that Pfeiffer sent me said: âAs someone who was present in the room with President Trump, he strongly urged that Spc. Vanessa Guillenâs grieving family should not have to bear the cost of any funeral arrangements, even offering to personally pay himself in order to honor her life and sacrifice. In addition, President Trump was able to have the Department of Defense designate her death as occurring âin the line of duty,â which gave her full military honors and provided her family access to benefits, services, and complete financial assistance.â
The personal qualities displayed by Trump in his reaction to the cost of the GuillĂ©n funeralâcontempt, rage, parsimony, racismâhardly surprised his inner circle. Trump has frequently voiced his disdain for those who serve in the military and for their devotion to duty, honor, and sacrifice. Former generals who have worked for Trump say that the sole military virtue he prizes is obedience. As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. âI need the kind of generals that Hitler had,â Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. âPeople who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.â (âThis is absolutely false,â Pfeiffer wrote in an email. âPresident Trump never said this.â)
A desire to force U.S. military leaders to be obedient to him and not the Constitution is one of the constant themes of Trumpâs military-related discourse. Former officials have also cited other recurring themes: his denigration of military service, his ignorance of the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his admiration for brutality and anti-democratic norms of behavior, and his contempt for wounded veterans and for soldiers who fell in battle.
Retired General Barry McCaffrey, a decorated Vietnam veteran, told me that Trump does not comprehend such traditional military virtues as honor and self-sacrifice. âThe military is a foreign country to him. He doesnât understand the customs or codes,â McCaffrey said. âIt doesnât penetrate. It starts with the fact that he thinks itâs foolish to do anything that doesnât directly benefit himself.â
Iâve been interested in Trumpâs understanding of military affairs for nearly a decade. At first, it was cognitive dissonance that drew me to the subjectâaccording to my previous understanding of American political physics, Trumpâs disparagement of the military, and in particular his obsessive criticism of the war record of the late Senator John McCain, should have profoundly alienated Republican voters, if not Americans generally. And in part my interest grew from the absolute novelty of Trumpâs thinking. This country had never seen, to the best of my knowledge, a national political figure who insulted veterans, wounded warriors, and the fallen with metronomic regularity.
Todayâtwo weeks before an election that could see Trump return to the White HouseâIâm most interested in his evident desire to wield military power, and power over the military, in the manner of Hitler and other dictators.
Trumpâs singularly corrosive approach to military tradition was in evidence as recently as August, when he described the Medal of Honor, the nationâs top award for heroism and selflessness in combat, as inferior to the Medal of Freedom, which is awarded to civilians for career achievement. During a campaign speech, he described Medal of Honor recipients as âeither in very bad shape because theyâve been hit so many times by bullets or theyâre dead,â prompting the Veterans of Foreign Wars to issue a condemnation: âThese asinine comments not only diminish the significance of our nationâs highest award for valor, but also crassly characterizes the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty.â Later in August, Trump caused controversy by violating federal regulations prohibiting the politicization of military cemeteries, after a campaign visit to Arlington in which he gave a smiling thumbs-up while standing behind gravestones of fallen American soldiers.
His Medal of Honor comments are of a piece with his expressed desire to receive a Purple Heart without being wounded. He has also equated business success to battlefield heroism. In the summer of 2016, Khizr Khan, the father of a 27-year-old Army captain who had been killed in Iraq, told the Democratic National Convention that Trump has âsacrificed nothing.â In response, Trump disparaged the Khan family and said, âI think Iâve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. Iâve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures.â
One former Trump-administration Cabinet secretary told me of a conversation heâd had with Trump during his time in office about the Vietnam War. Trump famously escaped the draft by claiming that his feet were afflicted with bone spurs. (âI had a doctor that gave me a letterâa very strong letter on the heels,â Trump told The New York Times in 2016.) Once, when the subject of aging Vietnam veterans came up in conversation, Trump offered this observation to the Cabinet official: âVietnam would have been a waste of time for me. Only suckers went to Vietnam.â
In 1997, Trump told the radio host Howard Stern that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was âmy personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.â This was not the only time Trump has compared his sexual exploits and political challenges to military service. Last year, at a speech before a group of New York Republicans, while discussing the fallout from the release of the Access Hollywood tape, he said, âI went onto that (debate) stage just a few days later and a general, whoâs a fantastic general, actually said to me, âSir, Iâve been on the battlefield. Men have gone down on my left and on my right. I stood on hills where soldiers were killed. But I believe the bravest thing Iâve ever seen was the night you went onto that stage with Hillary Clinton after what happened.ââ I asked Trump-campaign officials to provide the name of the general who allegedly said this. Pfeiffer, the campaign spokesman, said, âThis is a true story and there is no good reason to give the name of an honorable man to The Atlantic so you can smear him.â
In their book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser reported that Trump asked John Kelly, his chief of staff at the time, âWhy canât you be like the German generals?â Trump, at various points, had grown frustrated with military officials he deemed disloyal and disobedient. (Throughout the course of his presidency, Trump referred to flag officers as âmy generals.â) According to Baker and Glasser, Kelly explained to Trump that German generals âtried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.â This correction did not move Trump to reconsider his view: âNo, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,â the president responded.
This week, I asked Kelly about their exchange. He told me that when Trump raised the subject of âGerman generals,â Kelly responded by asking, ââDo you mean Bismarckâs generals?ââ He went on: âI mean, I knew he didnât know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, âDo you mean the kaiserâs generals? Surely you canât mean Hitlerâs generals? And he said, âYeah, yeah, Hitlerâs generals.â I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.â Kelly told me Trump was not acquainted with Rommel.
Baker and Glasser also reported that Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, feared that Trumpâs ââHitler-likeâ embrace of the big lie about the election would prompt the president to seek out a âReichstag moment.ââ
Kellyâa retired Marine general who, as a young man, had volunteered to serve in Vietnam despite actually suffering from bone spursâsaid in an interview for the CNN reporter Jim Sciuttoâs book, The Return of Great Powers, that Trump praised aspects of Hitlerâs leadership. âHe said, âWell, but Hitler did some good things,ââ Kelly recalled. âI said, âWell, what?â And he said, âWell, (Hitler) rebuilt the economy.â But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world.â Kelly admonished Trump: âI said, âSir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing.ââ
This wasnât the only time Kelly felt compelled to instruct Trump on military history. In 2018, Trump asked Kelly to explain who âthe good guysâ were in World War I. Kelly responded by explaining a simple rule: Presidents should, as a matter of politics and policy, remember that the âgood guysâ in any given conflict are the countries allied with the United States. Despite Trumpâs lack of historical knowledge, he has been on record as saying that he knew more than his generals about warfare. He told 60 Minutes in 2018 that he knew more about NATO than James Mattis, his secretary of defense at the time, a retired four-star Marine general who had served as a NATO official. Trump also said, on a separate occasion, that it was he, not Mattis, who had âcapturedâ the Islamic State.
As president, Trump evinced extreme sensitivity to criticism from retired flag officers; at one point, he proposed calling back to active duty Admiral William McRaven and General Stanley McChrystal, two highly regarded Special Operations leaders who had become critical of Trump, so that they could be court-martialed. Esper, who was the defense secretary at the time, wrote in his memoir that he and Milley talked Trump out of the plan. (Asked about criticism from McRaven, who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Trump responded by calling him a âHillary Clinton backer and an Obama backerâ and said, âWouldnât it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that?â)
Trump has responded incredulously when told that American military personnel swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. According to the New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidtâs recent book, Donald Trump v. the United States, Trump asked Kelly, âDo you really believe youâre not loyal to me?â Kelly answered, âIâm certainly part of the administration, but my ultimate loyalty is to the rule of law.â Trump also publicly floated the idea of âtermination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,â as part of the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and keep himself in power.
On separate occasions in 2020, Trump held private conversations in the White House with national-security officials about the George Floyd protests. âThe Chinese generals would know what to do,â he said, according to former officials who described the conversations to me, referring to the leaders of the Peopleâs Liberation Army, which carried out the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. (Pfeiffer denied that Trump said this.) Trumpâs desire to deploy U.S. troops against American citizens is well documented. During the nerve-racking period of social unrest following Floydâs death, Trump asked Milley and Esper, a West Point graduate and former infantry officer, if the Army could shoot protesters. âTrump seemed unable to think straight and calmly,â Esper wrote in his memoir. âThe protests and violence had him so enraged that he was willing to send in active-duty forces to put down the protesters. Worse yet, he suggested we shoot them. I wondered about his sense of history, of propriety, and of his oath to the Constitution.â Esper told National Public Radio in 2022, âWe reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at General Milley, and said, âCanât you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?ââ When defense officials argued against Trumpâs desire, the president screamed, according to witnesses, âYou are all fucking losers!â
Trump has often expressed his esteem for the type of power wielded by such autocrats as the Chinese leader Xi Jinping; his admiration, even jealousy, of Vladimir Putin is well known. In recent days, he has signaled that, should he win reelection in November, he would like to govern in the manner of these dictatorsâhe has said explicitly that he would like to be a dictator for a day on his first day back in the White Houseâand he has threatened to, among other things, unleash the military on âradical-left lunatics.â (One of his four former national security advisers, John Bolton, wrote in his memoir, âIt is a close contest between Putin and Xi Jinping who would be happiest to see Trump back in office.â)
Military leaders have condemned Trump for possessing autocratic tendencies. At his retirement ceremony last year, Milley said, âWe donât take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we donât take an oath to a wannabe dictator ⊠We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and weâre willing to die to protect it.â Over the past several years, Milley has privately told several interlocutors that he believed Trump to be a fascist. Many other leaders have also been shocked by Trumpâs desire for revenge against his domestic critics. At the height of the Floyd protests, Mattis wrote, âWhen I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.â
Trumpâs frustration with American military leaders led him to disparage them regularly. In their book A Very Stable Genius, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, both of The Washington Post, reported that in 2017, during a meeting at the Pentagon, Trump screamed at a group of generals: âI wouldnât go to war with you people. Youâre a bunch of dopes and babies.â And in his book Rage, Bob Woodward reported that Trump complained that âmy fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals.â
Trumpâs disdain for American military officers is motivated in part by their willingness to accept low salaries. Once, after a White House briefing given by the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, Trump said to aides, âThat guy is smart. Why did he join the military?â (On another occasion, John Kelly asked Trump to guess Dunfordâs annual salary. The presidentâs answer: $5 million. Dunfordâs actual salary was less than $200,000.)
Trump has often expressed his love for the trappings of martial power, demanding of his aides that they stage the sort of armor-heavy parades foreign to American tradition. Civilian aides and generals alike pushed back. In one instance, Air Force General Paul Selva, who was then serving as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the president that he had been partially raised in Portugal, which, he explained, âwas a dictatorshipâand parades were about showing the people who had the guns. In America, we donât do that. Itâs not who we are.â
For Republicans in 2012, it was John McCain who served as a model of âwho we are.â But by 2015, the party had shifted. In July of that year, Trump, then one of several candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, made a statement that should have ended his campaign. At a forum for Christian conservatives in Iowa, Trump said of McCain, âHeâs not a war hero. He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who werenât captured.â
It was an astonishing statement, and an introduction to the wider public of Trumpâs uniquely corrosive view of McCain, and of his aberrant understanding of the nature of American military heroism. This wasnât the first time Trump had insulted McCainâs war record. As early as 1999, he was insulting McCain. In an interview with Dan Rather that year, Trump asked, âDoes being captured make you a hero? I donât know. Iâm not sure.â (A brief primer: McCain, who had flown 22 combat missions before being shot down over Hanoi, was tortured almost continuously by his Communist captors, and turned down repeated offers to be released early, insisting that prisoners be released in the order that theyâd been captured. McCain suffered physically from his injuries until his death, in 2018.) McCain partisans believe, with justification, that Trumpâs loathing was prompted in part by McCainâs ability to see through Trump. âJohn didnât respect him, and Trump knew that,â Mark Salter, McCainâs longtime aide and co-author, told me. âJohn McCain had a code. Trump only has grievances and impulses and appetites. In the deep recesses of his man-child soul, he knew that McCain and his achievements made him look like a mutt.â
Trump, those who have worked for him say, is unable to understand the military norm that one does not leave fellow soldiers behind on the battlefield. As president, Trump told senior advisers that he didnât understand why the U.S. government placed such value on finding soldiers missing in action. To him, they could be left behind, because they had performed poorly by getting captured.
My reporting during Trumpâs term in office led me to publish on this site, in September 2020, an article about Trumpâs attitudes toward McCain and other veterans, and his views about the ideal of national service itself. The story was based on interviews with multiple sources who had firsthand exposure to Trump and his views. In that piece, I detailed numerous instances of Trump insulting soldiers, flag officers and veterans alike. I wrote extensively about Trumpâs reaction to McCainâs death in August 2018: The president told aides, âWeâre not going to support that loserâs funeral,â and he was infuriated when he saw flags at the White House lowered to half-mast. âWhat the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser,â he said angrily. Only when Kelly told Trump that he would get âkilled in the pressâ for showing such disrespect did the president relent. In the article, I also reported that Trump had disparaged President George H. W. Bush, a World War II naval aviator, for getting shot down by the Japanese. Two witnesses told me that Trump said, âI donât get it. Getting shot down makes you a loser.â (Bush ultimately evaded capture, but eight other fliers were caught and executed by the Japanese).
The next year, White House officials demanded that the Navy keep the U.S.S. John S. McCain, which was named for McCainâs father and grandfatherâboth esteemed admiralsâout of Trumpâs sight during a visit to Japan. The Navy did not comply.
Trumpâs preoccupation with McCain has not abated. In January, Trump condemned McCainâsix years after his deathâfor having supported President Barack Obamaâs health-care plan. âWeâre going to fight for much better health care than Obamacare,â Trump told an Iowa crowd. âObamacare is a catastrophe. Nobody talks about it. You know, without John McCain, we would have had it done. John McCain for some reason couldnât get his arm up that day. Remember?â This was, it appears, a malicious reference to McCainâs wartime injuriesâincluding injuries suffered during tortureâwhich limited his upper-body mobility.
Iâve also previously reported on Trumpâs 2017 Memorial Day visit to Arlington National Cemetery. Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security, accompanied him. The two men visited Section 60, the 14-acre section that is the burial ground for those killed in Americaâs most recent wars (and the site of Trumpâs Arlington controversy earlier this year). Kellyâs son Robert, a Marine officer killed in 2010 in Afghanistan, is buried in Section 60. Trump, while standing by Robert Kellyâs grave, turned to his father and said, âI donât get it. What was in it for them?â At first, Kelly believed that Trump was making a reference to the selflessness of Americaâs all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand nontransactional life choices. I quoted one of Kellyâs friends, a fellow retired four-star general, who said of Trump, âHe canât fathom the idea of doing something for someone other than himself. He just thinks that anyone who does anything when thereâs no direct personal gain to be had is a sucker.â At moments when Kelly was feeling particularly frustrated by Trump, he would leave the White House and cross the Potomac to visit his sonâs grave, in part to remind himself about the nature of full-measure sacrifice.
Last year Kelly told me, in reference to Mark Milleyâs 44 years in uniform, âThe president couldnât fathom people who served their nation honorably.â
The specific incident I reported in the 2020 article that gained the most attention also provided the story with its headlineââTrump: Americans Who Died in War Are âLosersâ and âSuckers.ââ The story concerned a visit Trump made to France in 2018, during which the president called Americans buried in a World War I cemetery âlosers.â He said, in the presence of aides, âWhy should I go to that cemetery? Itâs filled with losers.â At another moment during this trip, he referred to the more than 1,800 Marines who had lost their lives at Belleau Wood as âsuckersâ for dying for their country.
Trump had already been scheduled to visit one cemetery, and he did not understand why his team was scheduling a second cemetery visit, especially considering that the rain would be hard on his hair. âWhy two cemeteries?â Trump asked. âWhat the fuck?â Kelly subsequently canceled the second visit, and attended a ceremony there himself with General Dunford and their wives.
The article sparked great controversy, and provoked an irate reaction from the Trump administration, and from Trump himself. In tweets, statements, and press conferences in the days, weeks, and years that followed, Trump labeled The Atlantic a âsecond-rate magazine,â a âfailing magazine,â a âterrible magazine,â and a âthird-rate magazine thatâs not going to be in business much longerâ; he also referred to me as a âcon man,â among other things. Trump has continued these attacks recently, calling me a âhorrible, radical-left lunatic named Goldbergâ at a rally this summer.
In the days after my original article was published, both the Associated Press and, notably, Fox News, confirmed the story, causing Trump to demand that Fox fire Jennifer Griffin, its experienced and well-regarded defense reporter. A statement issued by Alyssa Farah, a White House spokesperson, soon after publication read, âThis report is false. President Trump holds the military in the highest regard.â
Shortly after the story appeared, Farah asked numerous White House officials if they had heard Trump refer to veterans and war dead as suckers or losers. She reported publicly that none of the officials she asked had heard him use these terms. Eventually, Farah came out in opposition to Trump. She wrote on X last year that sheâd asked the president if my story was true. âTrump told me it was false. That was a lie.â
When I spoke to Farah, who is now known as Alyssa Farah Griffin, this week, she said, âI understood that people were skeptical about the âsuckers and losersâ story, and I was in the White House pushing back against it. But he said this to John Kellyâs face, and I fundamentally, absolutely believe that John Kelly is an honorable man who served our country and who loves and respects our troops. Iâve heard Donald Trump speak in a dehumanizing way about so many groups. After working for him in 2020 and hearing his continuous attacks on service members since that time, including my former boss General Mark Milley, I firmly and unequivocally believe General Kellyâs account.â
(Pfeiffer, the Trump spokesperson, said, in response, âAlyssa is a scorned former employee now lying in her pursuit to chase liberal adulation. President Trump would never insult our nationâs heroes.â)
Last year, I published a story in this magazine about Milley that coincided with the end of his four-year term. In it, I detailed his tumultuous relationship with Trump. Milley had resisted Trumpâs autocratic urges, and also argued against his many thoughtless and impetuous national-security impulses. Shortly after that story appeared, Trump publicly suggested that Milley be executed for treason. This astonishing statement caused John Kelly to speak publicly about Trump and his relationship to the military. Kelly, who had previously called Trump âthe most flawed person I have ever met in my life,â told CNNâs Jake Tapper that Trump had referred to American prisoners of war as âsuckersâ and described as âlosersâ soldiers who died while fighting for their country.
âWhat can I add that has not already been said?â Kelly asked. âA person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs, are all âsuckersâ because âthere is nothing in it for them.â A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because âit doesnât look good for me.â A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star familyâfor all Gold Star familiesâon TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in Americaâs defense are âlosersâ and wouldnât visit their graves in France.â
When we spoke this week, Kelly told me, âPresident Trump used the terms suckers and losers to describe soldiers who gave their lives in the defense of our country. There are many, many people who have heard him say these things. The visit to France wasnât the first time he said this.â
Kelly and others have taken special note of the revulsion Trump feels in the presence of wounded veterans. After Trump attended a Bastille Day parade in France, he told Kelly and others that he would like to stage his own parade in Washington, but without the presence of wounded veterans. âI donât want them,â Trump said. âIt doesnât look good for me.â
Milley also witnessed Trumpâs disdain for the wounded. Milley had chosen a severely wounded Army captain, Luis Avila, to sing âGod Bless Americaâ at his installation ceremony in 2019. Avila, who had completed five combat tours, had lost a leg in an improvised-explosive-device attack in Afghanistan, and had suffered two heart attacks, two strokes, and brain damage as a result of his injuries. Avila is considered a hero up and down the ranks of the Army.
It had rained earlier on the day of the ceremony, and the ground was soft; at one point Avilaâs wheelchair almost toppled over. Milleyâs wife, HollyÂanne, ran to help Avila, as did thenïżœïżœVice President Mike Pence. After Avilaâs performance, Trump walked over to congratulate him, but then said to Milley, within earshot of several witnesses, âWhy do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.â Never let Avila appear in public again, Trump told Milley.
An equally serious challenge to Milleyâs sense of duty came in the form of Trumpâs ignorance of the rules of war. In November 2019, Trump intervened in three different brutality cases then being adjudicated by the military. In the most infamous case, the Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher had been found guilty of posing with the corpse of an ISIS member. Though Gallagher was found not guilty of murder, witnesses testified that heâd stabbed the prisoner in the neck with a hunting knife. In a highly unusual move, Trump reversed the Navyâs decision to demote him. A junior Army officer named Clint Lorance was also the recipient of Trumpâs sympathy. Trump pardoned Lorance, who had been convicted of ordering the shooting of three unarmed Afghans, two of whom died. And in a third case, a Green Beret named Mathew Golsteyn was accused of killing an unarmed Afghan he thought was a Taliban bomb maker. âI stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state,â Trump said at a Florida rally.
In the Gallagher case, Trump intervened to allow Gallagher to keep his Trident insignia, one of the most coveted insignia in the entire U.S. military. The Navyâs leadership found this intervention particularly offensive because tradition held that only a commanding officer or a group of SEALs on a Trident Review Board were supposed to decide who merited being a SEAL. Milley tried to convince Trump that his intrusion was hurting Navy morale. They were flying from Washington to Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, to attend a âdignified transfer,â a repatriation ceremony for fallen service members, when Milley tried to explain to Trump the damage that his interventions were doing.
In my story, I reported that Milley said, âMr. President, you have to understand that the SEALs are a tribe within a larger tribe, the Navy. And itâs up to them to figure out what to do with Gallagher. You donât want to intervene. This is up to the tribe. They have their own rules that they follow.â
Trump called Gallagher a hero and said he didnât understand why he was being punished.
âBecause he slit the throat of a wounded prisoner,â Milley said.
âThe guy was going to die anyway,â Trump said.
Milley answered, âMr. President, we have military ethics and laws about what happens in battle. We canât do that kind of thing. Itâs a war crime.â Trump said he didnât understand âthe big deal.â He went on, âYou guysââmeaning combat soldiersââare all just killers. Whatâs the difference?â
Milley then summoned one of his aides, a combat-veteran SEAL officer, to the presidentâs Air Force One office. Milley took hold of the Trident pin on the SEALâs chest and asked him to describe its importance. The aide explained to Trump that, by tradition, only SEALs can decide, based on assessments of competence and character, whether one of their own should lose his pin. But the presidentâs mind was not changed. Gallagher kept his pin.
One day, in the first year of Trumpâs presidency, I had lunch with Jared Kushner, Trumpâs son-in-law, in his White House office. I turned the discussion, as soon as I could, to the subject of his father-in-lawâs character. I mentioned one of Trumpâs recent outbursts and told Kushner that, in my opinion, the presidentâs behavior was damaging to the country. I cited, as I tend to do, what is in my view Trumpâs original sin: his mockery of John McCainâs heroism.
This is where our conversation got strange, and noteworthy. Kushner answered in a way that made it seem as though he agreed with me. âNo one can go as low as the president,â he said. âYou shouldnât even try.â
I found this baffling for a moment. But then I understood: Kushner wasnât insulting his father-in-law. He was paying him a compliment. In Trumpâs mind, traditional valuesâvalues including those embraced by the armed forces of the United States having to do with honor, self-sacrifice, and integrityâhave no merit, no relevance, and no meaning."
Jeffrey Goldberg is the editor in chief of The Atlantic and the moderator of Washington Week With The Atlantic.
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quotes from my senior year lit classâs modern adaptation of hamlet (titled âkeeping up with hamletâ) that only get funnier the longer they sit in my brain
âhow are you doing?â âoh, you know. same soup, just reheated, baby!â - hamlet, pulling a monster energy drink out of an industrial sized fridge
âpolonius! whyâd you stand under my copy of the atlantic?â -hamlet, after beating him to death
*snorts a line of coke and then introduces herself* - gertrude
*tagline in asides is âfeels super awkwardâ* - hortatio
âlisten to me. hamletâs a douchebag!â - laertes
*played by a 6 foot man with a thot knot and a scrunchie* - ophelia
âhe gave me his favorite monster tab necklace! plus, heâs an aries and iâm a libra. weâre a match. i even checked his natal chart.â - ophelia
âwomen! theyâre so caught up in things. they donât even know about the stock market. it just⊠it saddens me.â - polonius
*reading texts from hamlet to ophelia* ââophelia. i love you. i dream of smelling your skin when you sleep. if you donât love me i will kill myself.â you know. some real criminal minds shit.â - polonius
âlifeâs a prison and youâre my cell mate, guildencrantz!â - hamlet
âhey hamlet, what are you doing?â âwatching the⊠moving pictures. have you ever seen one?â ââŠ. you mean a movie? the tvs not even on.â - polonius and hamlet
âophelia! you stay here and read this fanfiction. heâll think youâre all alone.â - gertrude
*hamlet starts his famous monologue* ânot this emo shit againâ - polonius
âplease just take your monster tab necklace back⊠itâs sticky.â - ophelia
âhah! that stain on the couch looks like a camel.â - hamlet
âiâm actually sending hamlet to [rival school] to be put to death. that way heâll stop being such a little dickhead.â - claudius
âlook at these two men! this is claudius and this is your husband!â *holds up a picture of handsome squidward and willy shakes* - hamlet
âgreat iâm going to have to kill you. this is my mob, by the way.â - laertes
âhere lies the poor, dead, super dead, ophelia.â âbabe! no! babe! aw fuck, the fair ophelia!â - hamlet at the funeral
âfuneral costs are so expensive. *to the camera guy* how much are the royalties on this?â - horatio
#the target audience for this is so small and yet i couldnât help myself#hamlet#i was funnier at 17 than i will ever be#also i played laertes in case you were wondering
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Private equity finally delivered Sarah Palin's death panels
Tonight (Apr 26), Iâll be in Burbank, signing Red Team Blues at Dark Delicacies at 6PM.
Remember âdeath panelsâ? Sarah Palin promised us that universal healthcare was a prelude to a Stalinist nightmare in which unaccountable bureaucrats decided who lived or died based on a cost-benefit analysis of what it would cost to keep you alive versus how much your life was worth.
If youâd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, hereâs a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS
Palin was right that any kind of healthcare rationing runs the risk of this kind of calculus, where we weight spending $10,000 to extend a young, healthy personâs life by 40 years against $1,000 to extend an elderly, disabled personâs life by a mere two years.
Itâs a ghastly, nightmarish prospectâââas anyone who uses the private healthcare system knows very well. More than 27m Americans have no health insurance, and millions more have been tricked into buying scam âcost-sharingâ systems run by evangelical grifters:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/health/christian-health-care-insurance.html
But for the millions of Americans with insurance, death panels are an everyday occurrence, or at least a lurking concern. Anyone who pays attention knows that insurers have entire departments designed to mass-reject legitimate claims and stall patients who demand that the insurer lives up to its claim:
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/khn-podcast-an-arm-and-a-leg-how-to-shop-for-health-insurance-november-24-2021/
The private healthcare sector is designed to deny care. Its first duty is to its shareholders, not its patients, and every dollar spent on care is a dollar not available for dividends. The ideal insurance customer pays their premiums without complaint, and then pays cash for all their care on top of it.
All that was true even before private equity started buying up and merging whole swathes of the US healthcare system (or âhealthcareâ âsystemâ). The PE playbookâââslash wages, sell off physical plant, slash wages, reduce quality and raise pricesâââworks in part because of its scale. These arenât the usual economies of scale. Rather the PE strategy is to buy and merge all the similar businesses in a region, so customers, suppliers and workers have nowhere else to turn.
Thatâs bad enough when itâs aimed at funeral homes, pet groomers or any of the other sectors that have been bigfooted by PE:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/16/schumpeterian-terrorism/#deliberately-broken
But itâs especially grave when applied to hospitals:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/21/profitable-butchers/#looted
Or emergency room physicians:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/14/unhealthy-finances/#steins-law
And if you think thatâs a capitalist hellscape nightmare, just imagine how PE deals with dying, elderly people. Yes, PE has transformed the hospice industry, and itâs even worse than you imagine.
Yesterday, the Center for Economic and Policy Research published âPreying on the Dying: Private Equity Gets Rich in Hospice Care,â written by some of the nationâs most valiant PE slayers: Eileen Appelbaum, Rosemary Batt and Emma Curchin:
https://cepr.net/report/preying-on-the-dying-private-equity-gets-rich-in-hospice-care/
Medicare pays private hospices $203-$1,462 per day to take care of dying old peopleâââseniors that a doctor has certified to have less than six months left. That comes to $22.4b/year in public transfers to private hospices. If hospices that $1,462 day-rate, they have lots of duties, like providing eight hoursâ worth of home care. But if the hospice is content to take the $203/day rate, they are not required to do anything. Literally. Itâs just free money for whatever the operator feels like doing for a dying elderly person, including doing nothing at all.
As Appelbaum told Maureen Tkacik for her excellent writeup in The American Prospect: âWhy anybody commits fraud is a mystery to me, because you can make so much money playing within the guidelines the way the payment scheme operates.â
https://prospect.org/health/2023-04-26-born-to-die-hospice-care/
In California, itâs very, very easy to set up a hospice. Pay $3,000, fill in some paperwork (or donâtâââno one checks it, ever), and youâre ready to start caring for beloved parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles as they depart this world. You do get a site inspection, but donât worryâââyou arenât required to bring your site up to code until after youâre licensed, and again, they never checkââânot even if there are multiple complaints. After all, no one at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has the job of tracking complaints.
This is absolute catnip for private equityâââfree government money, no obligations, no enforcement, and the people you harm are literally dying and canât complain. Whatâs not to like? No wonder PE companies have spent billions ârolling upâ hospices across the country. There are 591 hospices in Van Nuys, CA aloneâââbut at least 30 of them share a single medical director:
https://auditor.ca.gov/reports/2021-123/index.html#pg34A
Medicare caps per-patient dispersals at $32,000, which presents an interesting commercial question for remorseless, paperclip-maximizing, grandparent-devouring private equity ghouls: do you take in sick patients (who cost more, but die sooner) or healthy patients (cost less, potentially live longer)?
In Van Nuys, the strategy is to bring in healthy patients and do nothing. 51% of Van Nuys hospice patients are âlive dischargedââââthat is, they donât die. This figureâââtriple the national averageâââis âa reliable sign of fraud.â
There are so many hospice scams and most of them are so stupid that it takes a monumental failure of oversight not to catch and prevent them. Hereâs a goodun: hospices bribe doctors to âadmitâ patients to a hospice without their knowledge. The hospice bills for the patient, but otherwise has no contact with them. This can go on for a long time, until the patient tries to visit the doctor and discovers that their Medicare has been canceled (you lose your Medicare once you go into hospice).
Another scam: offer patients the loosest narcotics policy in town, promising all the opioids they want. Then, once their benefits expire, let them die of an overdose (donât worry, people who die in hospice donât get autopsies):
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/12/05/how-hospice-became-a-for-profit-hustle
You can hire con artists to serve as your sales-force, and have them talk vulnerable, elderly people into enrolling in hospice care by convincing them they have nothing to live for and should just die already and not burden their loved ones any longer.
Hospitals and hospices also collude: hospitals can revive dying patients, ignoring their Do Not Resuscitate orders, so they can be transfered to a hospice and die there, saving the hospital from adding another dead patient to their stats.CMSâs solution is perverse: theyâre working with Humana to expand Medicare Advantage (a scam that convinces patients to give up Medicare and enrol in a private insurance program, whose private-sector death panel rejects 13% of claims that Medicare would have paid for). The program will pay private companies $32,000 for every patient who agrees to cease care and die. As our friends on the right like to say, âincentives matter.â
Appelbaum and co have a better idea:
Do more enforcement: increase inspections and audits.
Block mergers and rollups of hospices that make them too big to fail and too big to jail.
Close existing loopholes.
They should know. Appelbaum and her co-authors write the best, most incisive analysis of private equity around. For more of their work, check out their proposal for ending pension-plan ripoffs by Wall Street firms:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/05/mego/#A09948
Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Burbank, Mountain View, Berkeley, San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!
[Image ID: An industrial meat grinder, fed by a conveyor belt. A dead, elderly man is traveling up the conveyor, headed for the grinder's intake. The grinder is labelled 'HOSPICE' in drippy Hallowe'en lettering. It sits in a spreading pool of blood.]
Image: Seydelmann (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GW300_1.jpghttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GW300_1.jpg
CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
#pluralistic#cepr#medicare advantage#medicare#hospice#aca#aging#death panels#fraud#california#preying on the dying
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đđđąđ«đąđ§đ đŠ Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader
đđđ«đąđđŹ đŹđźđŠđŠđđ«đČ đŠ You get dragged into the unfathomable events at Starcourt Mall by your hopeless crush on Billy Hargrove and new-found middle-schooler friends. You struggle to cope with the trauma which gradually costs you your popular cheerleader reputation when you return to high school for senior year. Though this loss first appears to be the end of the world, you learn that there's worse things than levelling down in popularity.
Though even in darkness, there is always a light - for you this is Eddie Munson, who you gain an unlikely friendship in and fall for him in the process.
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đđđ«đąđđŹ đ°đđ«đ§đąđ§đ đŹ đŠ smoking, mention of and consumption of drugs, horror themes, violence (in the upside down and probs Steve losing another fight (âąÌáŽâąÌ)Ù jk jk he's king), nightmares, mention of and consumption of alcohol, mention of and a near death experience, death, bad language, blood, bullying, mention of vomit and vomiting, some domestic (mainly verbal and emotional) abuse(âŒïž), mention of suicidal thoughts, mention of suicide, mention of self-harm, allusion to eating disorder and smUUT so you have to be 18+ to read this seriesâïž
đđšđ«đ đđšđźđ§đ đđšđ« đđĄđđ©đđđ« đđąđ§đ đŠ 4.6K words.
đđđ«đ§đąđ§đ đŹ đđšđ« đđĄđđ©đđđ« đđąđ§đ đŠ horror themes, nightmares, death, violence, domestic (physical) abuse, blood, mention of and consumption of alcohol and bad language.
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You ceased contact with your new friends Max, Eleven, Lucas, Mike, Will, Dustin, Steve, Robin, Jonathan and Nancy after your dismissal from hospital and being back into the inescapable grasp of your mom.
Max had visited you in hospital, even leaving a bundle of candy on the side-table for when youâd wake up. Your mom saw the candy and threw it in the trash while you had been asleep.
Your mom continued to search for Rebecca because no bodies had been recovered in the mall fire. She searched even after Rebecca's funeral and the memorial service for all of those who had gone missing since the Fourth of July, assumed dead.
You refused to speak to anybody at the funeral and memorial service... you also refused to leave your room afterwards and planned on staying in there for the foreseeable future. It had been the sadness, anger you felt, but mainly the suppression of knowing the way that your sister, your dad, Billy and all the victims had died a unfathomable death, and not being able to talk about it.
It was eating you alive...
đŠ đđ«đ đđźđ đźđŹđ, đđđđ đŠ
"B-eckyy," you tiredly slur.
You wander the dimly lit streets of Hawkins in search of Rebecca and your dad. Youâre wearing what looks like Max's raincoat, the yellow one that she was wearing the day that you met her.
With tears streaming down your cheeks and your vision blurry because of your eyes being so sore, you still notice the small particles in the air that look like dust... they are hard to miss and appeared in many of your visions ever since the first you ever had after Starcourt, in the hospital.
They float away from you, the particles, so you decide to follow them after moments of just examining them with an intrigued expression on your face... itâs like they are guiding you and you feel a pull, like a rope tightly tied around your waist is tugging you in the direction they are going - you let them, thinking they'd lead you to Rebecca and your dad.
Itâs so dark - everywhere and everything is a dull blue on the way to the trailer park.
You can hear a hushed voice amongst the whooshing and spirals of wind, your head and eyes frantically move from side to side until you see Rebecca stood at a phone box... she is trying to make a call, you assumed to either your mom or dad because she is all alone and wearing the same clothes from the night that she went out searching for you.
You stop in your tracks to watch her, your heart sinking at how terrified she looks... then you notice a figure appear, walking towards her and she doesn't notice because she is looking the other way, holding the telephone against her ear.
"Be-hindd - you," you mumble, your lips trembling.
It's your dad, you realise - but his presence feels different as he strides towards Rebecca, goosebumps form on your neck, causing your eyes to widen and you try to shout for her only for nothing to come out... like you are being controlled.
Youâre forced to just watch as she turns and notices him, relief written all over her face as she exhales, lowering the phone but still holding it, "Jeez, dad - you scared me... have you any idea how long I've been waiting here, it's like - three in the morning and I was trying to call mom," she rambles, distressed under his gaze as he silently continues walking towards her, his appearance more rugged than usual, "Anyway - w-was there any sign of - her?"
Even though you know that she hated you and you hated her... you struggle to watch her with this horrible feeling that the reason why your dad had taken so long was because he'd been flayed.
You fight whatever is controlling you and start sprinting towards her, only for the storm in the form of the Mind Flayer's tentacles to shoot towards you from behind your dad's walking figure... it physically stops me from moving by attaching itself to your wrist again, sinking deep into the scar that had been stitched up.
'You're going to watch, little miss thief.' The low, eery voice that had been lingering in the back of your head for weeks now.
"Like - hell I am!" You choke out and try to pull your wrist away, but you feel that piece of the mind flayer moving around inside you and it's way stronger, bigger than you... you cannot move no matter how hard you try to fight it.
"Are you okay, dad?" Rebecca asks, now concerned as your dad stays silent, "I know it's worrying - but we need to pull ourselves together and have hope that we're going to find her - we have to keep going-,"Â Rebecca states boldly, but is trembling now as your dad is just metres away from her and not slowing down, "I don't know what mom's going to do to little miss when we find her or me if we don't find her... I'm so sorry for not seeing you more often dad, I will, I promise - once we find her."
"It's too late," your dad grumbles at her before snatching the telephone and immediately hitting her violently over the head with it, causing her temple to bleed.
Youâd been letting out distressed and muffled noises, but witnessing your dad knocking Rebecca to the ground, it makes you scream at the top of your lungs, "Nooo!"
Suddenly your mouth is being impaled by another one of the tentacles even though it appears to only be raging air, like a tornado. You canât close your mouth and your entire face is strained as you try to scream... all you can do is squint your eyes shut and refuse to look as tears manage to squeeze through and stream down your cheeks.
But you can still hear everything...
âDon't be afraid, Becky - look,â it's your dad, he must've been comforting her in her last moments, an arm around her or stroking her hair while she is on the floor, âit'll all be over and you won't have to worry about your silly little sister anymore.â
âD-dad - what - i-s... that?â You hear Rebecca ask weakly.
âIt's the answer to the end of your suffering.â
You hear an all too familiar snarl of the fleshy Mind Flayer youâd fought in the mall - and then Rebecca's scream, making you scream with her because you donât need to have your eyes open to know that Rebecca's face is being gripped onto by one of the tentacles, sucking the life out of her until... radio silence, pitched blackness.
You shoot up from your bed quickly, breathing heavily and frantically looking around... instead of witnessing Rebecca and your dad melting into a pile of flesh to merge into the Mind Flayer, you are in your dimly lit room... as if the entire event didn't happen. You pull your right arm from under the duvet and there it is... the stitches holding your wound together, gradually turning into a scar on your wrist.
Itâs a constant reminder of what happened last month... one that didn't end like the funerals and memorials commemorating the lives lost at Starcourt, the mental bashings youâd get from your mom about how youâd killed Rebecca... no, itâs a scar in all senses of the word - itâs going to be with you every month, week, day, hour and second for the rest of your life.
The only way you thought you could escape was through sleep, that's why youâre sat up in bed right now at 7:08pm... but judging by the recurring dream youâd just had and been having since the battle at Starcourt, you couldn't even do that.
You grow restless, but you canât even stand the disappointment of writing yet another letter that wouldn't be answered to Mason about your hurt, the pain of constant reminders, your spinning mind that made you feel dizzy all the time. Leaving your room, walking past Rebecca's untouched room, and then facing your mom was also not an option to pass the time... unless you wanted to hear her say for the millionth time: 'you did this, you tore my Becky away from me!'
No... I need some fresh air. I need to get out of this goddamn house right now.
You carefully climb out of your window in a red flannel shirt, long sleeved to cover your wrist. On your way down the drainpipe that runs down the house you fall, luckily into some bushes which cushion your fall... the mix of being stir crazy and feeling the cold night air hits you, catching you off guard... you realise that you had not left the house since Rebecca and your dad's funeral.
You run your fingers through the grass as you push yourself back onto your feet, looking around in momental wonder as if itâs your first time ever outside.
As you wander around the neighbourhood, purposefully avoiding the house that was once Heather's home... you are reminded of the reality that while you hurt and mourned over the loss youâd experienced, the world continued to spin... especially at the other side of town, where you hear the sound of distant music become louder as you choose to follow it.
Benny's Burgers. You look at the supposed abandoned place quizzically and start walking towards it.
Neon lights peek through the blinds and 'Kids In America' by Kim Wilde blares from the building. Your curiosity gets the better of you, you decide to look through a slit between the blinds... Patrick, Chance, Josh, Andy - all of the cheer and basketball team are in there... I should go, you think - until you hear a laugh, specifically Chrissy's laugh and immediately you see her cutting open a can of beer with a pocket knife.
âChug! Chug! Chug! Chug!â They all chant around her.
Seeing them all laughing, drinking and dancing together is a reminder that the world of reality is spinning so fast that you canât keep up... it feels like youâd been left behind and you couldnât even talk to Chrissy about it, definitely not in front of them anyway...
They'd make fun of me, I couldn't show them this side of me, the struggling side because I had always been the weakest link of the lot of them. I need to get away, just a black hole I could jump into and disappear into a vortex.
The first void you spot is the woods opposite Benny's Burgers, so you decide to walk into it.
There are so many random noises, twigs snapping, owls tooting, the wind blowing through the branches of the trees... it is creepily comforting and distracts you from the deafening noise happening in your mind.
You look up at the sky, which you can hardly see because of the tops of the trees merging into one another and hardly leaving any gaps for the night sky to dimly shine through.
You can see some stars and the moon peeking through, instantly making you relax as you notice the slightly darker shades on it, the subtle twinkling of the stars... You keep your head up, failing to look in the direction you are walking until... youâre lost... and youâre not even scared, you see it as an opportunity to have a breakdown in peace and to collect twigs and stones, shoving them in your jeans.
You completely lean against the trunk of a tree and let yourself slide down it as little whimpers leave your lips... How am I going to get through this? How am I going to pretend that the way they died was normal, in a fire? Pfft. How will I be able to continue cheerleading if I can't cope? How can I go on and pretend I'm fine when all I can think about is my responsibility for the death of Becky and my dad? You cry.
You place your hands over your face, whimpering into them as your bum hits the ground. You stretch your legs out as much as you can, "Look at what you've done - I hate you, I hate you for everything that's happened... not even just this summer, the last few years - the strain you put on mom, dad and Becky... how could you... and Bill-y, you didn't try hard en-ough and now... now you've l-ost everything," you choke out, "I h-ate you- ow!" You feel pressure on your leg and quickly lower your hands.
"Shit!" Itâs Eddie Munson, he'd just tripped over your legs... you know itâs him because heâs wearing the same old denim vest-jacket and has the skull patterned bandana dangling from his back-left pocket. You look at him in utter disbelief as he shakes his head, shaking the leaves out of his long hair while on all fours... your breathing must be so rapid and so loud that his head whips around to look at you, his eyes are wide and looking straight at you.
You both stare at each other for a while... you thought of running from him again⊠but where to? To my bed that didn't even give me comfort anymore? Fuck that, I'd rather him sacrifice me... if all of the cult bullcrap about Hellfire that Becky believed was true, "What, Munson?" You find myself asking with an attitude, trying to cover up your weakness, even though tears are still flowing from your eyes.
He collapses onto his stomach and scrambles around until he's facing you, about a metre and a half away, "I thought your legs were goddamn tree roots," he says in between staggered breaths.
You keep looking at him in complete shock, still rapidly breathing at the sight of him... Did he not hear me?
He rolls his eyes and visibly deflates in his demeanour, getting uncomfortable and you hear him mumble, "Look, you can run again if you want - or I can leave," he sighs, but as you continue to stay silent, he starts to stand himself back up, "Yup - I'm gonna... go - I'm getting a real bad case of deja vu right now."
You watch him as he starts to walk away, still brushing leaves off of his outfit, âw-wait." The crisp sound of his footsteps on the leaves stop and he half-turns, staying still and looking at you with one brow raised. "D-don't go," you find yourself whispering in a broken voice.
To say he looks concerned and weirded out by your behaviour is an understatement... he just silently sits himself down opposite you, fidgeting with his jeans and listening to your sniffles as you wipe your eyes with the sleeve of your shirt... he just listened to you crying... this must be so awkward for him, "I'm - sorry," you mumble.
"What for?" He asks, he'd had his head bowed down, but lifted it to look at you when you apologised.
You gesture at yourself and around you as you shake your head, "Just... this."
His mouth is agape for a few moments, "Oh - 's okay... I mean, it is a little weird, yâknow... I'm sat here in the middle of the woods with one of the queens of Hawkins High," he states playfully and picks up a leaf, touching at it as if itâs a reminder that this is actually happening, and when he realises that it is he blows a loud puff of air out of his mouth, "This isn't exactly how I expected tonight would g-."
He doesn't want to be here - even he finds me unbearable, "So go then - go and make a couple bucks... you'll get plenty at Benny's Burgers,â you huff, rolling your very swollen eyes.
He lifts his hands in surrender, confused, "No - no... woah - what? I'm not out here for business - I just like the woods," he scratches the back of his and furrows his brows, "Thats not what I meant anyway - 's just... you ran away from me last time I tried to talk to you."
You look down now, refusing to make eye contact with him, "Yeah, well - maybe I'm too exhausted to run now," you retort, a hint of truth in your words which brings another flood of tears to your eyes... you try to hide the fact that your words had hit close to home and cover your face.
You hear him exhale and a slight shuffle of leaves, assuming he'd moved ever so slightly closer to you, "Do you wanna talk about it?" His voice is gentle, small, unsure, "I could even sit on the opposite side of the tree and it'd be like I'm not - even here," you look at him from in between your fingers as he waves his hands around in a way that suggests mystery.
You slowly bring your hands away from your face, the mascara that once had been on your eyelashes is probably smeared down your cheeks... no one has ever offered to listen... why was he doing this after the way I treated him? Why is he so eager? Why does he care so much?
He hunches his shoulders, clearly feeling defeated again by your silence and he stands himself up again, thinking he is leaving you alone with your thoughts, you bring your knees up to your chest and hug them into you tightly as you tuck your face into the space between your legs and chest.
You expect to hear Eddie's footsteps fading into the distance, but they donât. Instead they circle the tree you are sat against and you hear him grunt, sitting himself on the other side of the tree, "W-what are y-," you mumble weakly.
"I heard you talking to yourself, m'kay - I mean, not what you said - I was kinda in my own world of... woods - stuff," a mix of him tapping his feet on the ground and twigs snapping can be heard, "I'm just gonna - sit here and if you wanna stay mute that's totally cool by me, but the only way you're gonna gain from whatever's going on here is if you... speak your mind - trust me, coming from the 'freak'... I know," he chuckles dryly, "Just pretend I'm not here - focus on yourself."
"B-but I know you're there, my brain isn't stupid," you state sassily.
"I know - that's not what I'm saying at all... I'm not even in the position to be calling you stupid, considering I failed senior year again," he sighs out, the back of his head thumping against the trunk of the tree.
"It sort of sounds like you ar-."
"Tink," the nickname slips out of his mouth quickly, hushing you... taking you back to the day youâd first met, how you both got along instantly, how he didn't judge you for not being the stereotypical âgirly girlâ, for not having many friends or listening to 'different' music⊠because he understood and was willing to listen... you hear him chuckle again, "Just try it ou-."
"You're not supposed - to be here, remember?"
"Sure - I'll shut up now, I promise... I do fidget a lot though, so just ignore tha-."
"Shhh!"
"M'kay," you hear the little smile on his face in his voice.
You exhale as you rest the back of your head against the tree too, you notice that your eyes are no longer watering up so much and you even have the tiniest smile on your face, only visible if looking through a microscope... you close your eyes and take a deep breath, trying to drown out the sound of Eddie tapping his fingers on his sneakers, "I'm just - so exhausted... not from actually doing anything. It's my mind... it's constantly awake - even when I'm asleep and I'm forced to listen to it tell me horrible things like...," you hush suddenly, almost blurting out your knowledge of the other side of Hawkins youâd had the 'pleasure' of finding out about, "Like - I should h-ave been the one in the - mall fire instead of m-y - sister - my d-dad," you sniffle, the waterworks behind your eyes flowing again, the truth in your words scaring you, "This is so stupid," you hesitantly giggle.
Silence... like Eddie had promised you.
You sigh, "I feel like I've been lying to myself ever since I started high school and now, having experienced the harsh reality of this cruel world, I don't even know who I am anymore. I don't even recognise myself in the mirror... and if I c-can't even do that - how am I supposed to cope with anything, let alone finish school without getting kicked off of the cheer team? How am I supposed to fit in?"
The words spill out of you rapidly like the tears did from your eyes, you almost forgot that you are practically back to back with Eddie Munson and arenât running for the hills... you look to the side and around the tree, the only visible part of Eddie is his white sneakers.
"I - wish I could be carefree. A girl who - knows what she wants and strives for it because it is the only reason she needs," you sniffle and whimper out a giggle, "I'm terrified of who I am, Eddie."
More silence... you start to hysterically sob, furiously rubbing at your eyes.
Your sobs are so loud that the sound of Eddie rushing to my side is drowned out, "Shit," he whispers under his breathe before reaching behind him and pulling out the skull and crossbones bandana from his back pocket and holding it out to you, "Here."
You cautiously take it, making eye contact with him first before you wipe your tears with it.
The smell of the bandana is musky, kind of gross, but you donât care right now, you bury your face into it as you cry.
"Y'know, I knew a girl once who was exactly like that - carefree, knew what she wanted... but most importantly, she was herself and she didn't give a shit about what the other kids thought of her... I thought she was cool as hell at that talent show and trust me, I don't say that lightly, especially when it comes to 'balls in laundry baskets'," he chuckles and you breathlessly giggle into his bandana before peeking at him, keeping the rest of your face covered, "You've gotta look after yourself more... say you wanna do something impulsive... do it - do what you wanna do and donât you dare think about what other people might think of you... if you do more of that then you'll find yourself again in no time, I promise."
You believe every word that he utters, "You're - r-right," you sniffle, mumbling into his bandana.
His eyes are big, like he canât believe what youâd just said, "I'm - what?"
You weakly giggle, "Believe it or not - I believe you," you smile shyly at him and he looks down, seeming flustered.
"Wow er - that was easy - I didnât think you would - believe in me," he mumbles unsurely and bounces his leg up and down quickly as silence rises to the surface between you again... the thoughts in your head arise, all the thoughts you hadnât been able to say out loud about the upside down, the Mind Flayer, the truth about the 'mall fire'... you had to keep them to yourself for as long as you live. "Can I er - drive you - home?"
You snap out of your mind suddenly, your hand balled into a fist with the bandana inside it, "Y-yes - but only because I - was getting myself - lost before you showed up," you hiccup.
He smiles toothily, "Sure," he keeps his hand to his side, but his fingers move as if they're trying to grasp something as you slowly stand yourself up, "The Munson Mobile is this way - not far."
I canât believe this is happening... Becky would've killed me for even being near the guy, what would she have done if she'd found out Iâd accepted a ride from him? You shake your head, trying to focus on the sound of the leaves crunching as you make your way out of the woods leading to the trailer park.
"Your chariot awaits," you hear Eddie's voice as he opens the passenger door of his van for you, but your eyes are fixed upon what was once your dad's trailer... it is probably now occupied by someone else, to ease the pain of that thought you squeeze the bandana in your hand and give Eddie a half-hearted smile.
"Thanks,â you mumble, climbing in - again, the smell is musky. He has logos of bands stuck almost everywhere and cassettes scattered on the floor.
"Sorry for the mess, I wasn't expecting royalty," he playfully jokes as he hops into the van and is quick to switch on the engine, the music he'd been playing on his last ride suddenly blares through the speakers, "Jesus Christ!" He squeals and quickly turns it down via a small dial by the steering wheel, but it is still loud though, "Sorry about that!"
"What is it?!" Eddie takes his eyes away from the road as he drives chaotically out of the trailer park. You hold onto the handle on the door tightly, the other still subconsciously gripping the bandana, "The music, I mean!"
He raises his brows at you before looking ahead, "Dio - Rainbow In The Dark!" He bangs his head in time to the music and you look at him with wide eyes.
He sings to the song and taps on the steering wheel, still not looking much at the road. He looks at you... is the heating on... like really high? You look down, "It's wicked - I like it!"
"You do?!" He grins widely at you before squealing and swerving the car slightly to avoid a lamppost, he notices you staring ahead, wide eyed and gripping onto any handle you can find for dear life, "Sorry! Just shake it off - a bit like this!" He bobs his head more chaotically, like he doesnât have any control over himself.
After youâd had a mini heart attack, you laugh hysterically at the adrenaline that resonated with you and do exactly what he told you to because it was what you wanted, you let yourself go and start head-banging to the beat of the song, every part of your body is moving in all different directions until beads of sweat linger on your face... and you notice that you are at the end of the neighbourhood as you look out of the passenger window.
"Oh - here - stop here!" You shout breathlessly and your body jolts forward as he suddenly slams his foot on the break of the van... you stare at him wide eyed again, your heart pounding.
Eddie just looks - proud, a grin from ear to ear, "There's the Tink I know."
Instead of hitting him for almost flinging you through the front window of his van, the shock and horror of that thought is overridden by the progress you made tonight... you smile from ear to ear too, the first genuine one since the Fourth of July... you hiccup upon realising that you are in Eddie Munson's van in your neighbourhood, "I'll - walk from here," you mumble softly as the song fades into silence.
Eddie frowns, looking down, "Are you sure? You've still got another like... five minute walk from here."
He knows where I live?
"Yes!" You blurt quickly and Eddie purses his lips, probably realising why you donât want him to take you any further... you blink, feeling bad, "Thank you, Eddie - truly."
Eddie blinks now, looking down and shrugging, "'s no biggie." After undoing your seatbelt you hop out of the van, almost missing the step out and stumbling, but you manage to catch yourself... you still feel Eddie's eyes on you, the obvious sign being that the sound of tires screeching hasnât invaded your ears yet, so you turn to fleetingly glance at him once more to give him a quiet 'goodbye'... but he has other ideas, "We've gotta stop meeting under the moonlight... in the woods, I'm starting to think you're a werewolf!"
You look from side to side, "shhhh - you dork!" You glare at him, but he flashes you another big and smug grin before looking down at your hand and speeding away in his van.
You look down at your hand... his bandana - youâre still holding it.
Crap.
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Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic:
In April 2020, Vanessa GuillĂ©n, a 20-year-old Army private, was bludgeoned to death by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood, in Texas. The killer, aided by his girlfriend, burned GuillĂ©nâs body. GuillĂ©nâs remains were discovered two months later, buried in a riverbank near the base, after a massive search.
GuillĂ©n, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, grew up in Houston, and her murder sparked outrage across Texas and beyond. Fort Hood had become known as a particularly perilous assignment for female soldiers, and members of Congress took up the cause of reform. Shortly after her remains were discovered, President Donald Trump himself invited the GuillĂ©n family to the White House. With GuillĂ©nâs mother seated beside him, Trump spent 25 minutes with the family as television cameras recorded the scene. In the meeting, Trump maintained a dignified posture and expressed sympathy to GuillĂ©nâs mother. âI saw what happened to your daughter Vanessa, who was a spectacular person, and respected and loved by everybody, including in the military,â Trump said. Later in the conversation, he made a promise: âIf I can help you out with the funeral, Iâll helpâIâll help you with that,â he said. âIâll help you out. Financially, Iâll help you.â
Natalie Khawam, the familyâs attorney, responded, âI think the military will be payingâtaking care of it.â Trump replied, âGood. Theyâll do a military. Thatâs good. If you need help, Iâll help you out.â Later, a reporter covering the meeting asked Trump, âHave you offered to do that for other families before?â Trump responded, âI have. I have. Personally. I have to do it personally. I canât do it through government.â The reporter then asked: âSo youâve written checks to help for other families before this?â Trump turned to the family, still present, and said, âI have, I have, because some families need help ⊠Maybe you donât need help, from a financial standpoint. I have no idea whatâI just think itâs a horrific thing that happened. And if you did need help, Iâm going toâIâll be there to help you.â A public memorial service was held in Houston two weeks after the White House meeting. It was followed by a private funeral and burial in a local cemetery, attended by, among others, the mayor of Houston and the cityâs police chief. Highways were shut down, and mourners lined the streets.
Five months later, the secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, announced the results of an investigation. McCarthy cited numerous âleadership failuresâ at Fort Hood and relieved or suspended several officers, including the baseâs commanding general. In a press conference, McCarthy said that the murder âshocked our conscienceâ and âforced us to take a critical look at our systems, our policies, and ourselves.â According to a person close to Trump at the time, the president was agitated by McCarthyâs comments and raised questions about the severity of the punishments dispensed to senior officers and noncommissioned officers.
In an Oval Office meeting on December 4, 2020, officials gathered to discuss a separate national-security issue. Toward the end of the discussion, Trump asked for an update on the McCarthy investigation. Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of defense (Trump had fired his predecessor, Mark Esper, three weeks earlier, writing in a tweet, âMark Esper has been terminatedâ), was in attendance, along with Millerâs chief of staff, Kash Patel. At a certain point, according to two people present at the meeting, Trump asked, âDid they bill us for the funeral? What did it cost?â According to attendees, and to contemporaneous notes of the meeting taken by a participant, an aide answered: Yes, we received a bill; the funeral cost $60,000.
Trump became angry. âIt doesnât cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!â He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: âDonât pay it!â Later that day, he was still agitated. âCan you believe it?â he said, according to a witness. âFucking people, trying to rip me off.â Khawam, the family attorney, told me she sent the bill to the White House, but no money was ever received by the family from Trump. Some of the costs, Khawam said, were covered by the Army (which offered, she said, to allow GuillĂ©n to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery) and some were covered by donations. Ultimately, GuillĂ©n was buried in Houston.
Shortly after I emailed a series of questions to a Trump spokesperson, Alex Pfeiffer, I received an email from Khawam, who asked me to publish a statement from Mayra GuillĂ©n, Vanessaâs sister. Pfeiffer then emailed me the same statement. âI am beyond grateful for all the support President Donald Trump showed our family during a trying time,â the statement reads. âI witnessed firsthand how President Trump honors our nationâs heroesâ service. We are grateful for everything he has done and continues to do to support our troops.â
Pfeiffer told me that he did not write that statement, and emailed me a series of denials. Regarding Trumpâs âfucking Mexicanâ comment, Pfeiffer wrote: âPresident Donald Trump never said that. This is an outrageous lie from The Atlantic two weeks before the election.â He provided statements from Patel and a spokesman for Meadows, who denied having heard Trump make the statement. Via Pfeiffer, Meadowsâs spokesman also denied that Trump had ordered Meadows not to pay for the funeral. The statement from Patel that Pfeiffer sent me said: âAs someone who was present in the room with President Trump, he strongly urged that Spc. Vanessa Guillenâs grieving family should not have to bear the cost of any funeral arrangements, even offering to personally pay himself in order to honor her life and sacrifice. In addition, President Trump was able to have the Department of Defense designate her death as occurring âin the line of duty,â which gave her full military honors and provided her family access to benefits, services, and complete financial assistance.â
The personal qualities displayed by Trump in his reaction to the cost of the GuillĂ©n funeralâcontempt, rage, parsimony, racismâhardly surprised his inner circle. Trump has frequently voiced his disdain for those who serve in the military and for their devotion to duty, honor, and sacrifice. Former generals who have worked for Trump say that the sole military virtue he prizes is obedience. As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. âI need the kind of generals that Hitler had,â Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. âPeople who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.â (âThis is absolutely false,â Pfeiffer wrote in an email. âPresident Trump never said this.â) A desire to force U.S. military leaders to be obedient to him and not the Constitution is one of the constant themes of Trumpâs military-related discourse. Former officials have also cited other recurring themes: his denigration of military service, his ignorance of the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his admiration for brutality and anti-democratic norms of behavior, and his contempt for wounded veterans and for soldiers who fell in battle.
[...] Trump has often expressed his esteem for the type of power wielded by such autocrats as the Chinese leader Xi Jinping; his admiration, even jealousy, of Vladimir Putin is well known. In recent days, he has signaled that, should he win reelection in November, he would like to govern in the manner of these dictatorsâhe has said explicitly that he would like to be a dictator for a day on his first day back in the White Houseâand he has threatened to, among other things, unleash the military on âradical-left lunatics.â (One of his four former national security advisers, John Bolton, wrote in his memoir, âIt is a close contest between Putin and Xi Jinping who would be happiest to see Trump back in office.â)
Military leaders have condemned Trump for possessing autocratic tendencies. At his retirement ceremony last year, Milley said, âWe donât take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we donât take an oath to a wannabe dictator ⊠We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and weâre willing to die to protect it.â Over the past several years, Milley has privately told several interlocutors that he believed Trump to be a fascist. Many other leaders have also been shocked by Trumpâs desire for revenge against his domestic critics. At the height of the Floyd protests, Mattis wrote, âWhen I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.â
Trumpâs frustration with American military leaders led him to disparage them regularly. In their book A Very Stable Genius, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, both of The Washington Post, reported that in 2017, during a meeting at the Pentagon, Trump screamed at a group of generals: âI wouldnât go to war with you people. Youâre a bunch of dopes and babies.â And in his book Rage, Bob Woodward reported that Trump complained that âmy fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals.â
Trumpâs disdain for American military officers is motivated in part by their willingness to accept low salaries. Once, after a White House briefing given by the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, Trump said to aides, âThat guy is smart. Why did he join the military?â (On another occasion, John Kelly asked Trump to guess Dunfordâs annual salary. The presidentâs answer: $5 million. Dunfordâs actual salary was less than $200,000.) Trump has often expressed his love for the trappings of martial power, demanding of his aides that they stage the sort of armor-heavy parades foreign to American tradition. Civilian aides and generals alike pushed back. In one instance, Air Force General Paul Selva, who was then serving as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the president that he had been partially raised in Portugal, which, he explained, âwas a dictatorshipâand parades were about showing the people who had the guns. In America, we donât do that. Itâs not who we are.â
The Atlantic released the story of Donald Trump musing about having the same kind of generals that Hitler had and complained about paying $60,000 for âa fucking Mexicanââs funeral (Vanessa GuillĂ©n).
This man is a sick monster devoid of any empathy.
See Also:
HuffPost: Trump Wanted âHitlerâs Generals,â Former Chief Of Staff Says
Daily Kos: Latest Trump bombshellâand Hitler praiseâwill make your jaw drop
Read the full story at The Atlantic.
#Donald Trump#Adolf Hitler#Trump Administration#Nazi Germany#Vanessa Guillén#Kash Patel#Mark Esper#Ryan McCarthy#Mark Meadows#Alex Pfeiffer#Natalie Khawam#Uniform Code of Military Justice#UCMJ#US Military#Mark Milley
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India archive reveals extent of âcolonial lootâ in royal jewellery collection
File from India Office archive details how priceless items were extracted from colony as trophies of conquest
by David Pegg and Manisha Ganguly
Published: 14:00 Thursday, 06 April 2023
Five years ago, Buckingham Palace marked its summer opening with an exhibition celebrating the then Prince Charlesâs 70th birthday with a display of his favourite pieces from the royal collection, Britainâs official trove of items connected to the monarchy. âThe prince had a very, very strong hand in the selection,â the senior curator said.
Among the sculptures, paintings and other exhibits was a long gold girdle inlaid with 19 large emeralds once used by an Indian maharajah to decorate his horses. It was a curious choice to put into the exhibition in light of the violent means by which it had come into the hands of the royal family.
Emerald girdle of Maharaja Sher Singh, c 1840. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023
As part of its Cost of the crown series, the Guardian has uncovered a remarkable 46-page file in the archives of the India Office, the government department that was responsible for Britainâs rule over the Indian subcontinent. It details an investigation, apparently commissioned by Queen Mary, the grandmother of Elizabeth II, into the imperial origins of her jewels.
The report, from 1912, explains how priceless pieces, including Charlesâs emerald belt, were extracted from India as trophies of conquest and later given to Queen Victoria. The items described are now owned by the monarch as property of the British crown.
Plundered stones
To fully understand the context behind the jewels, and their place in Indiaâs history, it was necessary to visit the archives.
A journal records a tour in 1837 of the Punjab area in north India by the society diarist Fanny Eden and her brother George, the governor general of the British Raj at the time. They visited Ranjit Singh, the maharajah in Lahore, who had signed a âtreaty of friendshipâ with the British six years earlier.
The half-blind Singh wore few if any precious stones, Eden wrote in her journal, but his entourage was positively drowning in them. So plentiful were the maharajahâs gems that âhe puts his very finest jewels on his horses, and the splendour of their harness and housings surpasses anything you can imagine,â she wrote. Eden later confided in her journal: âIf ever we are allowed to plunder this kingdom, I shall go straight to their stables.â
Twelve years later, Singhâs youngest son and heir, Duleep, was forced to sign over the Punjab to the conquering forces of the British East India Company. As part of the conquest, the company did indeed plunder the horsesâ emeralds, as well as Singhâs most precious stone, the legendary Koh-i-noor diamond.
The queen motherâs crown sits on top of the coffin during her funeral in 2002. Photograph: Dan Chung/The Guardian
Today, the Koh-i-noor sits in the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, on display at the Tower of London, and it has become an emblem of Britainâs tortured relationship with its imperial history.
Anita Anand, a journalist and historian who co-wrote a book titled Koh-i-noor on the diamond, said it was âa beautiful and cold reminder of British supremacy during the Rajâ, the period between 1858 and 1947 when India was ruled by the crown.
âIts facets reflect the fate of a boy king who was separated from his mother,â Anand said. The stone too was âtaken far away from his home, recut and diminishedâ. Anand said: âThat is not how India sees itself today.â
Buckingham Palace is plainly aware of the sensitivities surrounding looted artefacts. After the Indian government let it be known that for Camilla, the Queen Consort, to wear the Koh-i-noor at Charlesâs coronation would elicit âpainful memories of the colonial pastâ, the palace announced she would swap it for a less contentious diamond.
But, as was discovered by Queen Mary, the Koh-i-noor was not the only gem taken from Singhâs treasury to have found its way to the British monarchy.
Royal with a pearl necklace
Among the jewels identified in the document found by the Guardian is a âshort necklace of four very large spinel rubiesâ, the largest of which is a 325.5-carat spinel that later came to be identified as the Timur ruby.
Its famous name is erroneous: research by the academic Susan Stronge in 1996 concluded it was probably never owned by Timur, a Mongol conquerer. And it is a spinel, a red stone similar to, but chemically distinct from, a ruby.
Elizabeth II was shown handling it in the 1969 BBC documentary Royal Family, and was clearly acquainted with the myths surrounding it. âThe history, of course, is very fascinating. It belonged to so many kings of Persia and Mughal emperors, until Queen Victoria was sent it from India,â she observed.
The Timur ruby necklace, 1853. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023
The queen was never pictured wearing the item. However, she may have worn another of the Lahore treasures, identified in the India Office report as âa pearl necklace consisting of 224 large pearlsâ.
In her 1987 study of royal jewellery, Leslie Field described âone of the Queen Motherâs most impressive two-row pearl necklaces ⊠made from 222 pearls with a clasp of two magnificent rubies surrounded by diamonds that had originally belonged to the ruler of the Punjabâ â almost certainly a reference to the same necklace.
The queen wearing pearls at the Royal Opera House in 2012. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
In 2012, Elizabeth II attended a gala festival at the Royal Opera House in London to celebrate her diamond jubilee. Photographs showed her wearing a multi-string pearl necklace with a ruby clasp.
Were these Ranjit Singhâs pearls? There was speculation they may have been, though Buckingham Palace was unable to confirm either way.
Queen Maryâs interest appears to have been prompted by curiosity about the origin of some of her pearls rather than any moral concern about the manner in which they were obtained. But a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said slavery and colonialism were matters that âhis Majesty takes profoundly seriouslyâ.
Shashi Tharoor, formerly an undersecretary at the United Nations, and currently an MP in India, said: âWe have finally entered an era where colonial loot and pillage is being recognised for what it really was, rather than being dressed up as the incidental spoils of some noble âcivilising missionâ.
âAs we are seeing increasingly, the return of stolen property is always a good thing. Generations to come will wonder why it took civilised nations so long to do the right thing.â
#abolish the monarchy#queen elizabeth ll#king charles the cruel#brf#colonialism#koh i noor#cost of the crown#the guardian#british royal family#imperialism
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The following is some 'ready made lore' for use with my TTRPG "Beta Maxx X", you can find the previous edition on Itch.io and a quick start on Exalted Funeral's website. The Ex-F version is the easiest paper copy you can get for Europe and the US (I'm in Australia so unless you love $30+ shipping costs, order there!). This section is about massive historical events that could be know around the galaxy, and could be used to help shape the level of dystopia or utopia in the game. Also note that these are written in the voice of unreliable narrators, which is deliberate to in-book dispel the idea that this is a 'Dry Dispassionate Historical Third Person Narrative'; these are going to be 'wrong' in the same way that what most people remember about Egypt, Rome, Ancient China, etc are probably wrong.
Historical Events
1312 Rebellion
The 1312 Rebellion was a heck of a thing, media from the time tells that after some brutal crackdowns by Pinnacle Corporation on Cephi-3 every existing worker union, all 1312 of them, on Cephi-3 joined together and staged a world-wide rebellion against the Corporation. They planned to destroy the corporate government, install a popular representative democracy, rewrite corporations law so that companies could only be owned by their own workers, and drastically reform the legal system as well. The Rebellion was successful in 27 days, and lasted for six years before Pinnacle helped fund and arm the Guild of Peacemakers to assassinate the entire leadership of the Rebellion, and begin a wider program of mass shootings of 1312 Members. It was another roughly eight years of terror after the assassinations began. Eventually, Pinnacle was able to reestablish the previous status quo and the Guild of Peacemakers became the police and military on Cephi-3. In the 400 years since, a number of 1312 Rebellions have appeared on different planets and some massive space stations; typically large corporations have immediately responded to a potential 1312 Rebellion with extensive propaganda, a high volume of targeted assassinations, and a large number of âdisappearancesâ. 1312 is known to still be out there, and cells of 1312 members operate around the Galaxy. Their reading material has a tendency to appear in all sorts of strange corners of the Network, sometimes intrusively and other times buried in a âforgotten corner of some nodeâ.
Arnaq 5
Arnaq 5 caused the founding of the Galactic Convention Against Technomagical Nuclear Weapons which is just bonkers considering the way nobody can get in the same room over standardising how you send plain text messages over the Galatic Network; how card can it be to unify 7,465 different written languages? Not trying. What happened? The Arnaq 5 War was brutal by every possible measure. The two largest corporations on Arnaq, Arnaq Industries and General Consolidated Arnaq, started one of their frequent minor turf wars over a small city in a remote corner of the planet but the unexpected happened. There was apparently an internal coup planned inside Arnaq Industries so when the Chair of Arnaq Industries left to meet with the President of Gen. Con. Arnaq a small fusion bomb had been smuggled into one of the vehicles and detonated destroying a building and killing most of the senior management of both corporations. The Managing Director of Innovation, Nillz J Browly, then seized Arnaq Industries and mobilised the corporation into a Total War posture. As the war became more intense, Browly decided to end the war as quickly as possible without caring about any consequence to the people or the planet of Arnaq. They ordered the use of the Polter-475, a massive fission bomb enhanced with extensive magic to stabilise a number of manufactured radioactive elements. While it was ostensibly launched at a battlefield, the blast radius and radiation radius were so large that a quarter of the third largest land mass on Arnaq was turned into a wasteland. Then the skeletons started appearing. These skeletons began walking out of the wasteland armed with blaster weapons (some worked and some did not) and into the nearby settlements indiscriminantly murdering regardless of their corporate affiliations. Slowly the wasteland expanded, behind the advance of the skeletons, and at that point the Convention was started, the planet of Arnaq abandoned, and some people speculate the Harvesters self-formed from the ruins left behind.
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Monroe County releases jail video showing inmateâs final minutes
#FuneralExpenses#FuneralPlanning#FuneralService#SeniorsFuneralCosts#SeniorsFuneralExpenses#Funeral Expenses#Funeral Planning#Funeral Service#Seniors Funeral Costs#Seniors Funeral Expenses
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Family drama below the cut đ its a lot so if you stick around to read it, you a real one đ©·
So December 8, 2023, my momâs godson, my godbrother, passed away unexpectedly at 41.
He was my momâs baby before me and he was the brother/sibling I never had. Literally one of the worst days of my life.
Heâs been with his wife on and off since high school (late 90s/2000s) and her family and his family have beef going way back.
They have a son together and heâs 17. She had a daughter during one of the times they were broken up and sheâs 10.
When all the stuff was being arranged for the funeral and stuff, she was already kind of being distant, only involving her family in stuff and accepting their help.
All of her family (mom, dad, sisters, brother, and I think one of her cousins or aunts) was there at the cremation to say goodbye, yet my mom had to beg to be able to go, my dad and I werenât able to go and say goodbye (literally still hurts my heart to this day).
Fast forward a few months after everything, my Nina tells my mom that his wife didnât have enough money to do the cremation and the funeral (his dumbass didnât have life insurance đ) so she asked for help from her. Of course they helped her, and took out a loan to help pay for I think half the cremation and all of the funeral costs. She gave them one payment of $250 between January and May and that was it. So my mom sent my Nina some money to help pay for it.
At this time, the wife was also distancing herself more, not going over, not letting them come over, not calling, not letting her daughter go over and see my Nina or anything. Just being so stand-offish.
Fast forward to now.
A few weeks ago, the son called his tata (my Ninaâs husband) and asked him if he would escort him tonight for senior night for football along side his mom.
Of course he said yes to him.
Well I think today (?), he was on the phone with his tata talking and all of a sudden he got quiet on the phone and his mom took the phone from him and told him âweâve been through a lot over the last few months, this is just something him and I should do together.â And basically disinvited him.
My Nina also said he stopped by to visit her a few weeks back and he was telling her that all his mom does is yell at him as soon as he gets home from school or from practice. And thatâs exactly how she was with my godbrother, always yelling about something.
I understand that she lost her husband, but she wasnât the only one who lost him. The kids lost their dad, his mom and dad lost their son, his brothers lost their brother, my mom lost someone who was practically her son. We all lost him, you shouldnât be pushing us away and acting like weâre nothing, when weâre all here trying to help and get through all of this pain.
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Barrington Estates: Prologue
Barrington Estates is the gem of the tri-county area for gated living communities. It has everything a member of the upper echelons could want: large, beautiful houses; meticulously manicured landscapes; fantastic schools; and the exclusive Barrington Country Club to rub shoulders with the elite that all but govern the southeast from its private rooms and putting greens. Not many make it here without significant contributions to the HOA. Grant and Jennifer Dean, however, were one of the few exceptions.
The Dean family was one of the founding families of the club and community. They had the house on the hill that was envied by everyone. The late Donald Dean, grandfather of Grant Dean, made sure to keep it immaculate. It was a sort of slap in the face to Truman McMaster, the general manager of Barrington Country Club; the house on the hillâthe one all the pictures and magazine spreads loved to showcaseâwas owned by the board member who opposed McMaster at every turn. Rumors abound regarding their feud. Some speculated it was a result of a business deal gone awry, others posited that they needed some form of drama to keep themselves entertained. Only Donald and Truman knew the truth of the matter, and now one half of that truth was buried with Donald.
Grant was not particularly familiar with Barrington Estates, his father, Don Junior, being the prodigal of the family. Junior let his fatherâs house at eighteen with a large sum to his name and spoke to his father only two years later when it was nearly gone and Grant was on the way. Junior refused to move back in to the estate, but was funneled money from Donald so that Grant may not have to bear the sins of his father. Junior, ever-bent on regaining what he had, drove his wife Therese away when he began selling drugs.
âI donât care if Grant is at college!â Therese would scream again and again, âI donât want to have that dangerous business near me or my son!â After many of such arguments, she filed for divorce and cut Junior off.
A year later, Juniorâs hand was cut off for stealing five kilos from the wrong cartel. He didnât die immediately, though he couldnât clap as his son walked across the stage to graduate. Only a few short months later, his stump turned septic and the infection withered the rest of him away. Had he less pride, perhaps Junior could have lived. Nevertheless, Grant turned to his grandfather for assistance with the funeral costsâwhich was all-too-high for the all-too-low head countâand moved in with his grandfather, who died all-too-soon from the grief of having failed to save his only son.
Now, upon returning from their hasty honeymoon and keeping with his grandfatherâs request to not cohabitate with his college sweetheart, Grant was helping Jennifer move in with him.
Jennifer was a curvy woman, the areas under which she calculated from the nudes she sent Grant in their senior year. She graduated with a degree in physics and landed a job as a teacher in a high school one district away. She was smart, witty, and had green eyes that seemed dull unless they were in the right light; her hair was a wavy dark brown butterfly cut that flowed just past her shoulder blades.
Grant, by contrast, was plain but not unattractive. He kept his black hair in a shaggy mop and had nice cheekbones covered by a short scraggly beard. His gangly appearance frequently made others think of him as a stoner, which seemed fitting for a political science graduate. Though, a stoner could have never kept up with the stress of his internship as an aide to the governor. So far, that was his only achievement of note, outside of getting to marry the nerdy firecracker, Jennifer.
Jennifer didnïżœïżœïżœt have much of her own to move in; she was barely out of college. Still, a beat pickup truck packed with boxes is bound to look out of place in Barrington. Jennifer barreled up the large circular driveway to the McMansion, the rusted sides of the old Ford a stark contrast to the immaculate ivory-colored pillars she pulled toward.
Grant had already emerged from the house, having heard the beater booming a mile away. The houses were spaced out well enough, but the sights and sounds certainly brought some attention. He glared at the rustled curtains that indicated they were being watched from neighborsâ windows. As Jennifer approached, he waved and jogged toward the truck to open the door for her.
âMâlady,â he snickered with equal parts irony and sincerity as he opened the driver side door.
âMâsir,â she retorted, rolling her eyes. She stepped out of the truck and slammed the door behind her. Stepping forward, her mild exasperation faded to a wide smile and then to a kiss for Grant.
Grant embraced her, and his hand drifted from her back to her ass as he attempted to go for more than a gentle peck.
Still smiling, she pushed him away playfully. âBabe, didnât you say your neighbors are super nosy?â
âYeah, but what are they going to say? We just got married.â Grant planted a kiss on her cheek before breaking the hug.
Jennifer chuckled lightly. âIâd at least like to wait before hearing them ask about kids, though. I can already hear some old heiress down the street: âI saw that hussy from the other side oâ town pull up in a rusted out truck and start trying to make love right on the concrete!ââ She said mimicking an elderly raspy voice.
âThe neighborhood is not like that. Theyâre older and theyâre traditional, but weâre married. So, itâs fine. Either way, you live here now, and they canât change that.â He pecked her again on the cheek and began leading her inside by the hand, a middle finger raised to the neighborâs window with the other hand.
Jennifer gave another signature eye roll and followed Grant. âYouâre ridiculous,â she chortled crossed the threshold. The large foyer opened before her, decorated with a combination of farmhouse and mid-century modern decor. âThisâŠâ she announced, hearing her own echo, âThis is also ridiculous.â
âYeah, my grandfather was a pretty wealthy dude, but not out of touch. He wasnât stodgy or anything. Still feels weird with him gone,â Grant trailed off and sighed.
âYou okay?â Jennifer asked.
âThings have just been moving too fast. Graduation, a funeral, a wedding, another funeral, and a honeymoon all in like four months.â
âItâs okay, baby,â she assured him. âWeâll get settled in and settle down for a moment.â
âI know. I just want to slow down for a bit. You just mentioned it, but can we hold off on baby talk. I know Iâll hear enough of it from the neighbors.â Grant suppressed a grin.
âThereâs a smile. I knew you still had some wit in you,â Jennifer prodded. âNow, whereâs the bathroom?â
âFirst hallway on the left, first door on the left. Iâll start unloading your truck in a moment.â
âThanks,â she cooed before pecking him on the cheek and rushing briskly around the corner. âThis place is huge,â she bellowed back.
âYeah, just like myââ
Ding dong! The doorbell chimed.
âYouâre a child.â Grant heard before a door closed.
âWere get already walking up the fucking driveway?â Grant grumbled to himself. He gathered himself before yanking the door ajar. âHey!â He said, shifting to a bright chatter. âHow can I help you?â
Grant was greeted by a man and woman appearing to be in their late thirties or early forties. The man stood tall and was slightly overweight. His chestnut brown hair was in a generic left-parted business cut. A thick chevron mustache rested above his light smile. He wore a white golf shirt with the country clubâs logoâa âBâ with two smaller âCâs stacked directly to the rightâon the chest, and pleated khaki pants that did little to hide the two huge lumps at the top of either leg. The woman had red hair pulled back into a sporty ponytail. Her cheekbones were high on her slender face, and her makeup was subtle outside the fiery red lipstick. She was dressed more casually in a bright athletic top, black leggings, and neon running shoes.
The man spoke in a low tenor: âHey! Welcome to the neighborhood. Iâm Franklin and this is Jess. We live just next door to you.â He gestured to his right, even though the next house was a good hundred yards away. âWeâre the Mullinses.â Franklin continued, extending his hand, and growing his light smile to a bleached Hollywood grin.
âThanks for the introduction,â Grant offered cautiously but genuinely. âIâm Grant. My wife Jennifer has just started to move in. She stepped off to explore.â He turned around and called back into the house, âHoney! Come meet our neighbors, the Mullinses!â Turning back to the new neighbors, he gestured, âCome in! Come in!â The couple crossed the threshold and was guided toward the kitchen.
âWhy, thank you!â Jess said brightly with a slight southern twang. The Mullinses took an extensive look around the house as they walked, noting the decor and size of the house. âYâall have a lovely home,â Jess continued as they began to settle into the kitchen.
The small talk continued in the kitchen over some coffee and tea. A toilet flush and sink running announced Jenniferâs impending arrival. As her footsteps approached, Grant approached the doorway, made a grand gesture and announced his wifeâs less-than-grand entrance: âIntroducing, the reason for hastily closed curtains and prying eyes, my lovely wife, Jennifer!â
Jennifer silently walked through the display to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup. She leaned against the counter, took a small sip, and acknowledged the guests in stark contrast to her husbandâs introduction: âHey. Iâm Jennifer.â Her face contorted, suppressing a smile that turned into a chortle.
The stark facade broke after the Mullinses introduced themselves and realized the humorous intention behind her introduction. They actually got along quite well, despite worries of stuffiness from both parties. As it turned out, Franklin was an investor and Jess was close to launching her fashion line of womenâs clothing with actual pockets. Grant had to fill in the history of his last four months and his relationship with his late grandfather. Grant himself had only dropped off his things two weeks ago and was still settling in. Jennifer, of course, had just arrived that day; so, her few items from the bachelorette pad were still in the truck.
Mr. and Mrs. Mullins helped them bring in the boxesâonly around twelve in total. It was light work, but stomachs grumbled by the end of it. Reading the room, Franklin spoke up, âHow would you like to join Jess and I for dinner?â
âSomeone finally suggested food!â Jennifer immediately replied. âIâm down. Are you, babe?â She turned to Grant.
âLetâs do it. You a good cook, Jess?â Grant challenged.
âIâm awful, but Franklin is worse,â Jess laughed. âWe were going to the club tonight.â
âOhh! The country club! Excuse me!â Jennifer mocked.
Jess shrugged and smirked. âWe make due.â
âMy grandfather said just a little about the club before he passed. Iâm sure you do,â Grant intuited. âWeâll have to change before we go, though.â
âOf course!â Franklin said. âJess will have to as well. Just come over to our place in a few and weâll head down together.â
âHell yeah! Iâm down for some bougie food,â Jennifer announced before hoisting a wardrobe box and hiking upstairs.
Grant walked with the Mullinses to the door. âWeâll be over there in just a few. Next house down the road, right?â
âYep! 127,â Franklin confirmed. âSee you soon!â He called, walking out the door with his wife.
Grant waved after them, watching them walk down the driveway before shutting the door.
Grant changed from his regular streetwear to a pale blue dress shirt and khakis. Jennifer stripped her sweats and was in a day dress within three minutes. It was not long before the Deans were knocking on their neighborsâ door, eager for food. Inside, the sound of hard-soled shoes echoed through the hall like a metronome. The rhythm concluded as the door opened and the tall Mr. Mullins stood before them, having only changed into a pair of black penny loafers.
âCome on in,â he said, ushering the Deans over to a couch. He himself sat in a chair opposite them, legs spread, and abnormally large bulge all the more defined. âJess should be down in a moment.â
Grant and Jennifer had a hard time not sneaking glances at the pronounced moose knuckle in front of them. Grant blushed as Franklin noticed and locked eye contact with him. Eventually, Grant broke the silence: âSo how long have you and Jess lived here?â
âIâve lived here since I was a kid,â Franklin replied without breaking eye contact.
Heels clacked down the stairs as Grant finally looked away, peaking at the bulge again. His eyes immediately darted back up to see a smile and wink from Franklin.
âSounds like sheâs ready,â Franklin said, rising from his seat. Grant attempted to sneak another glance as the bulge settled into place before rising himself.
Jess reached the bottom of the stairs and announced herself, âReady to go.â She wore a pale green blouse, black skirt, and black heels. She shook her head, showing off her wavy red hair released from its workout ponytail. She impatiently waved the lot to the door as she proceeded.
Franklin took the opportunity to put his arm around Grant and began walking him out, declaring with a grin: âYouâre going to love steakhouse Fridays. Theyâve got every cut of meat you could want.â
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I'm working on stuff for Funeral Rights, the sequel to Cleaning the Gravestones (read here!). Let me know what you think, or if you have any suggestions!
Funeral Rites starts about 3-4 years pre-canon, when Vlad (Senior Lab Manager & Assistant CTO) receives a job offer that the family can't really afford to refuse as CTO of Axiom Labs in Amity Park, Illinois.
This kickstarts some plot, in which Vlad and Harriet end up trying (and probably succeeding) in gaining custody of Danny and Jazz for the following reasons:
They're both mildly ectocontaminated, which should NOT be happening
Yes, the bruises on Danny are probably mostly from his bullies, but some of them are bigger than a child's/teenager's hand, and Danny won't explain them
Both kids avoid being at home at all costs
Vlad's so-far buried trauma regarding the Fentons
Important to note: the Fenton parents aren't evil in this. They're misguided, neglectful, don't like to take the consequences of their actions- basically, they're bad scientists and bad parents, but they aren't intentional about it.
Cleaning the Gravestones was largely about blending the natural and unnatural, accepting that not everything can be understood, not going out of your way to hurt what you don't understand, developing and using support structures, and building both platonic and non-platonic relationships. It's also about learning to hide in plain sight.
Funeral Rites is going to flip a lot of that on its' head. It's learning where the line you cannot cross is. There's a breaking down of support structures (Danny and his parents, Wes and his dad, Dani, Katie, and their dad once they learn he's a murderer), and choosing what, if any, relationship to build back.
It's learning sometimes the secrets you keep for your family's safety can really bite you. Finally, it's about gaining closure: maybe not everything is perfect, or even close, but if you can at least pick up the rubble, maybe you can build something again. Above all: what really makes a monster? Is it being inhuman? Or something else? And how much of our destiny can we really rewrite?
Due to length, everything else under the cut.
Obviously, some things are different from canon. Vlad hasn't stewed in anger/hatred over the Fentons, he's (mostly) moved on. He and Harriet are (happily) married. They've got kids. So Vlad can't be Danny's narrative foil. That will be filled by someone else.
Walter Weston is an ally in this, unlike in CtG, where he was the primary antagonist. He's able to accept consequences, and feels a lot of guilt; he's eager to make up for his actions any way he can. Wesley is a lot like his dad 10 years ago, though thankfully isn't cursed by a spirit of madness.
Jazz is tired of being a mother at 13, and doesn't know how to fix things. She wants to be a kid, for once in her life, and the Chin-Masters family is promising to help with that.
Danny starts off with feelings of jealousy;
#inthememetime#danny phantom#vlad masters#danny phantom au#redeemed vlad masters#harriet chin#harriet x vlad#bad news#dani masters#cleaning the gravestones#funeral rites
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Some Days Are Harder Then Others
Eddie Munson (Angst that ends with lots of Fluff)
Warning: talk of the death of a parent and grief. Some mature language.
Summery: Reader is having a hard time with some personal issues and is canceling plans with Eddie and he wants to get to the bottom of why that is.
Authors Note: As someone who has experienced parent loss this is a bit self indulgent.Also my messages are open to anyone who has lost a loved one and needs someone to talk to. I may have cried writing this so be warned.
âââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââ
Grief is a bitch, thatâs the easiest way to put it. They say it gets easier with time but after 7 years the wound still bleeds. Losing a parent at age 11 makeâs grieving complicated and isolating. The loss becomes part of who you are and that means sharing the news with new friends and even partners that come into your life.
Eddie knew about your fatherâs passing from when it happened in middle school. Word traveled fast after administration was told and you where absent from school for 2 weeks only returning after the funeral service. He was one of the few kids that didnât walk on egg shells around you when you came back.
You sat alone at lunch on your first day back. Eddie invited himself and sat with you. He immediately talked your ear off about the cool new pin you were wearing on your backpack. The pin belonged to your dad. It was from some band he liked and wore on a hat. Now it was one of the few things you had to remember him by. Eddie made a day that was destined to be hard and uncomfortable a day you met your best friend.
Eddie always let you grieve freely, he encouraged it actually. Heâd ask you to tell him stories of your late father and he even gave you flowers on the anniversary of his death every year for you to put on his grave. You slowly fell for the metal head in your years of friendship leading up to a relationship your senior year.
Eddie likes to claim he repeated his senior year three times just so he could graduate with you. Now that you are finally graduating Eddie has stepped up his academic efforts to have at least a solid âCâ in each class to pass. You study with him most nights and actually get him to do his homework with lots of breaks for cuddles and snacks.
So when you canceled your usual celebratory ice cream date for passing your math test on Wednesday with Eddie due to a headache he wasnât hurt just concerned. Then you told him you had to watch your neighbors kid after school Thursday he was bummed but let it slide. His final straw was when you didnât show up to school at all on Friday. He knew something was up and he was going to find out just what it was.
He completely ditched school after first period when he learned you had never shown up to class from Gareth. All the awful scenarios plagued his brain as to what could be happening with you. Did your car break down?Where you sick? Did you wanna break up with him and where avoiding him at all costs?
His mind raced until he made it to your house and seeing your moms car in the drive way. He put his van in park and practically ran to your front door knocking a little too eagerly. Your mom opened the door quickly and smiled softly when she saw Eddie with a worried expression on his face. He gave her a polite smile before he spoke. âHello Miss y/ln, is y/n home? She never came to school today.â
Your mom actually really liked Eddie. Even before he was officially your boyfriend she always thought he was so polite and sweet. âHi Eddie. She did stay home. Sheâs been having a rough few days and I told her to take a day off. She didnât tell you she wouldnât be coming in? You two are joined at the hip I figured you already knew.â
Eddie frowned at the thought of you not telling him something was wrong. Your mother caught on to this and spoke again. âShe tells you everything doesnât she? I actually had to pry this one out of her myself. Sheâs been missing her dad a lot lately. I think the thought of graduating without him around has finally sunk in.â
Eddieâs heart felt like it had completely shattered hearing that. He gave your mom a soft smile as he rocked on his feet gently. âI think I know where to find her now. Thank you.â She sent him off with a knowing nod and smile. She watched as Eddie walked back to his van and started on his way to find you.
Hawkins cemetery was a few miles from your house. Not an easy walk so he figured you drove. He was proven right when he could see your car from the entrance of the cemetery. He parks his car just outside the gate and walks in knowing how to get to your fatherâs grave from visiting with you before.
You sat by the grave marked with your fatherâs name. Tears stain your cheeks as you pick at grass that surrounds the garnet stone. âGraduating should be exciting right? All the bull shit of high school is almost over and all I can think about is that you wonât be in the crowd watching me walk across that stage. Ready to give me flowers like you always did when I accomplished something.â You wipe another fallen tear as you bring your knees to your chest.
Eddie finally makes it to where your sat, your shaky voice now clear as he approaches you. He goes to announce his presence but stops when you softly continue your talk. âEddieâs going to be with me though. I know you never got to meet him but I think youâd really like him Dad. He makes me really happy and he treats me like a gentleman. Just like you always told me I deserve.â
A wide smile quickly finds its way to Eddieâedds face as he hears you talk about him to your father. He knows you like to catch him up on all the things going on, good and bad. His heart sores knowing he is something good in your life. Eddie steps closer and his feet meeting the grass close to where youâre sat. âMr y/ln, Iâll do everything I can to get her those flowers for walking across that stage. She deserves it, for getting me there too.â
You look behind you quickly recognizing Eddieâs voice immediately. Seeing him makes all the confusing emotions flood over and your eyes fill with tears. âEds .â Youâre quickly enveloped in a huge as Eddie joins you where youâre sat in the grass letting you cry into his shoulder. âIâm sorry if I interrupted your time with him.â Eddie rubs your back gently as he speaks knowing how it calms you down.
You shake your head again his shoulder and attempt to steady your shaking breathing. âYouâre not interrupting. Iâm sorry I disappeared lately.â Eddie pulls you back a bit, only enough to be able to wipe your fallen tears. âYou donât have to apologize for anything princess. You are aloud to feel your emotions however you see fit. Just know Iâll be here for you. Even when the ugly grief clouds cast over head.â
You give your boyfriend a small smile and a nod laying your head against his chest gently. âIâm pretty sure you heard what I said about you to him. I ment it. He would have really liked you Eddie.â You take his calloused hand into yours and play with his rings gently. Something that has always soothed you. ïżŒ Eddie pulls you closer to his chest. âI still aim for his approval you know. He may not be here to scare me straight into treating his daughter right but I still do everything I can to be a man heâd be happy to have stolen his daughters heart.â
You pull back gently and cup Eddieâs face with your hands and smile widely up at him. â I donât know how I get so lucky to find a guy like Eddie Munson but Iâm not letting you go. Got it.â Before Eddie can even respond your crash your lips into his. He kisses you back instantly and pulls away after a short moment. âIâm not going anywhere princess. Youâre kinda stuck with me.â Eddie tightens his grip around you gently and kisses all over your face making you giggle loudly.
Once he stops he lets you catch your breath and he smiles down at you. âI heard something about getting you flowers at graduation? Do I get a bouquet for myself as well?â You roll your eyes playfully at his comment and lay against him as you talk about graduation and make plans for what will happen that day. Your dad being involved in every step of the way.
#eddie munson#stranger things#stranger things imagine#eddie munson imagine#eddie x fem!reader#eddie x reader#eddie fluff#eddie angst#eddie x y/n#eddie blurb#eddie stranger things#eddie x you
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Love in a Ghost Town--Part 7: Seismic Shifts (Finale)
Eddie Munsonâs become content with working his day job. After the crazy stretching of events from 1983-1986, Eddieâs grateful for a little bit of normal in his life.
That is until one day, Valeria Browns shows up in town looking for a quick car fix. And sheâs more than he mightâve bargained for on the eve of Valentineâs Day. Valeria is just trying to enjoy her Valentineâs Day weekend after many years of being perpetually single. She has her fun, but itâs never serious. Maybe Eddie can change some of that.
Older!Mechanic!Eddie Munson. 2003 alternative universe. BlackFem! OC.
The Upside Down doesnât exist in this fic. But strange things do happen to the town of Hawkins, Indianna. Major Character Death that is not canon as a result of the non-Upside Down AU.
This chapter is from Eddie's perspective.
CW: 18+ content (Smut, oral--male and femme receiving, p in v); Pregnancy (unplanned); implied/past alcohol abuse
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Edited Picture of Eddie by @eddiemunsons-missingnipple
Feel free to review my masterlist here
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Eddie can count the number of times he thought the next day was never going to be his. Exactly 5,844 days of thinking the next day wonât be his--itâs not that Eddie is counting lately. He promised that when he made the promise to Valeria heâd stop. For all the times he didnât show up to algebra or trig, heâs lightning at multiplication. Never mind the fact that he did the math on a calculator to double check himself. Itâs not necessarily counting when he realized the last day he counted the days that the days kept coming was after Valeria came back into town and dropped off exactly 350 dollars in fifties, twenties, and tens. He stopped counting because he didnât want to know how long it would be until he found himself in her presence again. Too much of an ache when he realized his life felt too settled--or perhaps he felt settled on the fact that he would live and die by Hawkins in the long run and he would never get out--and this ultimately settling could rob him of something more.Â
Eddie is selfish at times. He can admit that. It is a fatal flaw in his entire composition. Heâd been selfish with Sinclair and his basketball years on the tail end of his final senior year by not always being flexible on Dungeons and Dragons sessions. Heâd been selfish about Wayneâs funeral. Wayne told him to have just a small viewing and then cremate him. But Eddie spent what he had to give Wayne more. Eddie liked to tell himself he was doing his uncle proud--the mid range cost casket, the mid-range cost flowers. Nothing jaw dropping, but still more than Wayne said he wanted. Eddie felt like he couldnât let his uncle go out in death remembered as the person whoâd gotten too sick, spent too much money on not even getting better but rather only staying alive to afford anything else. The truth of it is simple. The funeral was for Eddie in retrospect. Wayne was always known around town as a good, decent, hardworking guy with a quick and quiet wit. But Eddie needed to see him go out with something more because itâs in that memory of Wayneâs body in a properly tailored suit, casket shutting on the still too young but hollowed face and lowered into the ground like good decent people go, that makes it easier for Eddie to sleep at night.Â
And maybe this particular moment, staring at his ringing house phone, knowing exactly who it is to call him at such a time in the evening, that Eddieâs hesitation to answer is self-preserving. There is a difference in being selfish versus knowing that the good thing is the scary thing and not choosing it. The difference is fear. The easy choices are made without much thought because thereâs no need to question what comes after. The answer is already known. The answer comes like itâs supposed to.Â
Eddie answers though. He could never preserve himself enough around her. He picks up the yellow receiver on the fourth ring and settles it against his ear. âHey, Val,â he greets.Â
âHi, Eddie.â Her voice makes his innards feel like ice cubes melting in the summer heat. Itâs not necessarily a rasp to her voice. But it is low, smooth in a way that makes Eddie feel warm on the inside. âHowâd you know it was me?â
âWhen is it never not you?â Eddie returns, leaning into the wall. The yellow cord dangles around his legs. âIâm at a point where if itâs not you, it feels strange.â A confession--not that he hadnât been trying to confess for a couple weeks now. He did miss Valeria and it didnât shatter his whole day. It was an achy miss--a kind of longing he hadnât really experienced since Wayneâs initial passing. Eddie couldnât get enough of listening to Valeria in the evenings after work. He loved listening to her day; loved it when she asked about his day, picking up pieces of his jobâs lingo.Â
Eddie missed Valeria in a way that feels sometimes so pitifully simple. He wants to watch movies next to Valeria tangled up on a couch, her buried into his side and swatting at his chest when he gives unnecessary commentary to the film. He wants to hear her laughter not through a phone, and wants to see her smile again--when sheâs not playing coy or caring about how big her smile is. Eddie just fucking misses Valeria.Â
Lights fill the trailer. Eddie spins, listening to the rumble of a car cut out right outside his house. The curtains donât fully shut out the light. When Eddie occasionally fell asleep on the couch, the thin barrier woke him before he really wanted to. âCan-can I call you back, Val? Someoneâs outside I think and Iâm not expecting visitors.â
âYeah, yeah, sure.â
âThanks,â Eddie hums. âHopefully it wonât take long.â
âBe safe.âÂ
âI will.âÂ
Eddie hangs the phone back up on the receiver and ducks towards the front door. Itâs dark out so he canât make out who it might be or the car all too well from the window. Right after getting the blinds and curtains settled again, a knock rings out from his door. Thereâs no hiding it anymore. He turns the knob and like a visage, some sort of hallucination that Eddie canât separate out from reality, is Valeria on his porch. The hand still on the knob twitches. Eddie canât make heads or tails if heâs close to swinging the door close or swinging it wide open.Â
âHeard itâs someoneâs birthday today,â Valeria offers.Â
âWhat the fuck are you doing here, Val? Is this even real?â Eddieâs own heart is thundering in his chest. He can feel it beating against his ribs. The edges of his vision blur for just a moment and then as Valeria speaks, his vision clears.
âI came to make a delivery.â From the top of her bag, she digs out a white envelope.Â
âDonât--no. No more money,â Eddie huffs, releasing the door to pull her up the steps. His hands are flying to shove the envelope back into the slightly unzipped bag. Heâd nearly thrown the cash she gave him back into a new envelope to mail it to her, but her note specifically said otherwise. Eddieâs sure that if Valeria hadnât said anything otherwise he wouldâve sent it all back. But she knew him all too well.Â
Valeria doesnât resist Eddieâs work. She just pulls the tickets back out. âI heard thereâs a show up in Indy tomorrow. Thought you might be interested in going.â
Eddie watches more closely now as she pulls the envelope back out and flips the lid. She produces two tickets. Eddie is gobsmacked. Heâd been trying to get tickets--it was a match up of different bands on the road together-- and had even asked Valeria if sheâd be interested. Sheâd returned that sheâd been stuck with a shift that she couldnât shake. After that Eddie let go of the romantic notion of getting one more weekend with Valeria. Valeria had begged, though, for Eddie to still do something for his birthday. Heâd gotten dinner with Harrington, Buckley, Older Wheeler, and Byers. Heâs sure the kids would track him down after work tomorrow for something to do as well for his birthday. Eddie felt at peace with the idea of merely enjoying the antics when the kids came up to get him. Heâd happily accept the love when it came from them, attempting to make good on his promise. He is sure that he would give them a hard time about it. But inevitably heâd take the kindness, even if Eddie still didnât seek it. Seeking is still much too risky.Â
âBut the shop, I canât--â Eddie counters.Â
Valeria slips the tickets into his hand, curling his fingers around them. âJeff will cover.â
âHow--you donât evenâŠ?â
âI talked to Robin and Nancy who talked to Steve, who talked to Jeff.âÂ
âI donât know what Iâm going to wear, Val. I canât show up to this looking a mess,â Eddie teases. He wants to find something else--anything else--to rebut this act of kindness with. If he could come up with something more than who was going to watch the shop, he would. But in reality, Indy is only another two hours from here. The drive wouldnât be bad. They could even visit some places around the venue if they wanted before the show. By the time it ended, it would be late, but not so late that the two hour drive back couldnât be handled by one of them.
âConsider me your personal stylist for the evening,â Valeria whispers in retort.Â
Her eyes--deep and warm-- hold him steady. Like sheâs begging him to not put up the front. The thing is Eddie always would at least a little bit. Heâd always front, but Valeria would always be able to break him down. The stiff October breeze cuts over Eddieâs arms and heâs reminded that theyâre still on his front porch. The door to the trailer is still wide open. God only knows what sort of bugs have flown in possibly in all of this. Eddie pulls Valeria inside, shutting the door softly behind him, a click of the lock sealing them firmly inside.Â
âYou didnât have to do this. Howâd you get out of the shift?â
âI sacrificed some PTO before Thanksgiving in exchange with the assistant store manager. I bought the tickets months ago and then sort of worked backwards from there to get things all worked out.â
The living room feels more lived in as Valera slides out of her shoes and shucks her duffle back onto the single arm chair. The space exhales around her, like it too was rigid and waiting for her return. âYou hungry?â Eddie asks, slipping the tickets onto the dining room table, next to his wallet and keys.Â
As heâs spinning to face her, Valeriaâs slipping into his space. Her socked feet slide ever so gently over the floors and her headâs falling into his shoulder. Eddie winds his arms around her body with ease. His inhale is deep--pressing the smell of something sweet without being floral still decorating her skin. He wonders if itâs the same Shea Butter lotion he noticed she used or something related to it. But God, he loves it. He missed the scent on his sheets.Â
âHey,â Eddie whispers against her temple.Â
âHi,â Valeria giggles into his neck. The sound sends a shiver up his spine. âI ate on the road.â
Eddie hears the words, but he focuses for just a moment on the way Valeria feels in his arm. Sheâd never been small by any means. From their first sighting Eddie was well aware of that fact. But sheâs always been soft against him. Valeriaâs firm still because not even years away from sports can take away what genetics bring to the table. Maybe even firmer now than what was there before. Sheâd mentioned occasionally tagging along with Chelsea to the gym, but it doesnât sound consistent. And all Eddie can manage to do is pray that his fingertips can absorb this feeling--Valeriaâs warmth.Â
âWant something sweet then? Iâm not much of a baker but Pillsbury does right by me each time.âÂ
Valeria shakes her head against Eddieâs shoulder. Thereâs no braids this time. Her last visit sheâd had her hair a slew of them, parted into squares. Now the tressesses fall like corkscrews down to her shoulders. The roots are flatter, look gelled or sprayed down and then curl down from there. Eddieâs not sure how to describe it. But he presses his nose into the foliage of her hair and inhales yet again.Â
âAre you sniffing my hair?â Valeria asks. Her voice is muffled now by the muscle of Eddieâs neck.Â
âMaybe,â he whispers. He is. Heâd do it again. Heâd do it forever if he had the option. âIt smells tasty. Maybe I should take a bite out of it. Hmm. Think it could be a tasty treat.â
Valeriaâs laughter echoes. As she struggles back out of his embrace, all she can do is laugh and laugh and laugh. Eddie adores it. He feels the sound down in his toes. âMy hair is not for consumption, sir,â Valeria teases, plopping down onto the couch.Â
She fills the space, one arm resting up against the back of the couch. Valeriaâs always spilled the space. But Eddie drinks in the sight, her sprawled out and laughing still. He could consume her. Not that he wants her selfishly, to have her so no one else can. But he wants her to swallow his heart in her arms. He wants to know the fullness in his chest like he knows the back of his own hands.
âWhy are you looking at me like that?â Valeriaâs voice is soft, head ducked. Her hair--a dark brown with some honey highlights--covers her face like a curtain. Though she ducks her head, she still keeps her arms spread out. She still refused to fully stop consuming space.Â
âTell me. Tell me how Iâm looking at you,â Eddie laughs, reclining into the table, arms folded across his chest. He swears his body will totally evaporate if Valeria actually answers him. And he knows when he demands it, she will.Â
Itâs silent for a moment. Her nails click--a nervous habit Eddieâs noticed. Valeria flicks her nails together when sheâs gathering her nerves. This time her nails are painted a pearl pink with black spider webs across the fingers. Her middle fingers hold a spider though, a black window specifically given the red patch on the top. Eddie thinks--no, he knows--he wouldnât mind getting caught in Valeriaâs web. Hell, he probably already was. Everyone noticed it--Robin, Steve, the kids. They knew if Eddie didnât talk to Valeria much the day before. He was a bit more clipped in his responses. Never actually grumpy, but never fully centered. Eddie always felt a little off kilter, like he hadnât gotten enough rest by an hour or two, but knew he would still get through the day.Â
Valeria looks up, a new resolve settling onto her face. It pulls her lips down just a little into a pout. Eddie knows itâs never actually in displeasure. Her face usually scrunches up when sheâs displeased. It reminds him just ever so slightly of Erica--they were both books that didnât have problems opening up. They advertised who they were without hesitation. But Valeriaâs looking at him, eyes slightly glazed over. He canât tell if theyâre tears or not, but the thought that they might be immediately sets his heart thundering.Â
Her words pin him back into his spot before he can push up and start over to her. âYou look at me like you might love me. Like, love me differently than just friends do.â
Like you might love me. It was no question for Eddie though. He does love Valeria. He loves her more than he does the rest of his friends. He knew it a couple months ago. He didnât want to say anything about it. Because it was ridiculous. They lived hours apart from each other. Neither one of them seemed to budge on making a move for more. Eddie didnât want to leave the comfort of this town--even if it had caused him pain. Valeria most definitely wouldnât be moving away from her friends to a town like Hawkins.Â
âIâm too chicken shit,â Eddie replies. âBecause what would happen if I did say I did love you? What would we do if I said when I told you when you came back in June that when I said I missed you I wasnât just talking about missing you in a friendly way.â
âToo chicken shit,â Valeria laughs softly, pushing up from the couch. âBut my question in return is would you choose me? You said before you couldnât choose. That itâs too scary to choose because inevitably someone leaves.â
Eddieâs not sure why he thought with Valeria they could just ride the wave. Maybe before--when sheâd only come back once. But now sheâs back twice. Sheâd chosen Eddie twice now and he still hadnât budged. âYou always know what you want,â Eddie returns. Itâs meant to be a joke, but something catches in his throat when he watches her face drop.Â
âDo you know what you want? Are you ready to put in work? I feel stuck. All the time. And when I got unfortunately stranded, I realized I felt stuck because I was living this life on auto-pilot. After everything Iâd done, seen, been through, going through the motions was just about keeping me alive, but wasnât about me living. I want to live now. And I donât know what that looks like, what it really means in the grand scheme of things. But Iâd like to figure it out. With you. If youâre ready.â
That--that is the million dollar question. Is Eddie ready? Here, at thirty-eight, he felt like he should have a more readily available answer, but in the grand scheme of things, Eddie is still scared. Heâs still the boy that lost his uncle--the last bits of family that felt like an anchor. Heâs still the boy who got chased by this town, spilled blood for no real reason outside of otherâs narrow beliefs.Â
âI donât know who I am if Iâm not here,â he replies. âI donât know what it means to leave this--the town, this life. What if Iâm just lost once I leave?â
âThose questions haunt me too, Eddie. You think I donât think for a second about what happens if I leave my friends behind. Whoâs going to ride by my grandmotherâs to check on her each Sunday if itâs not me? What do I actually want to do with my life besides what Iâve already been doing? I donât have these answers. But Iâm trying. I signed up for fucking ballet classes. I donât know if you remember but my ass is maybe too big for a tutu. I am haunted by ghosts. That statement feels more literal than not sometimes. But what do I do if I donât try?â
âYour ass is not too big for a tutu. I happen to think itâs the perfect size for one.â
âNot my point, Eddie.â Her eyes narrow. âYou can be scared, but you canât not try.â
One of her flaws. Valeria has a very specific view of the world. Itâs not that sheâs wrong. Itâs just that she fails to account for how fucking hard this is. She fails to account for a perspective fully outside of her own. âYou donât get to dictate what I do and donât do, you know? Iâm terrified. As ridiculous as it may sound. But it doesnât mean I donât think about what could be. You donât get to assume.â
Valeria rests her hand onto his forearm. She tugs and Eddie hadnât even fully recognized how closed off heâd made himself until Valeriaâs silently pleading for him to let her back in. âThen tell me. What do you think could be?â
âI think about waking up next to you, in an apartment or something in a city that neither one of us has history in. I think about standing over your shoulder as you cook. I think about how angry youâd be at me for getting something red mixed in with the whites and turning all my work shirts pink but how ultimately youâd tease that pink might be my color after all. I-I think about if just in the other room that we sleep if it werenât filled with my guitars and records and your stuff, maybe you get back to softball. I think about what if it had a crib instead. And I think about how scared I am. How much I could fuck up a good thing in a blink.â
Valeria blinks. Her eyes swim and then cloud over. Eddie can only watch for a moment but it feels heavy and his arms fall unceremoniously at his sides like they are suddenly filled with lead. Valeriaâs hand goes with the action. She nods, a laugh falling from her throat. âGot it, Eddie. Got it. Envisioning a whole family but still too chicken shit.â
âWhat about you? What are you envisioning?â
She takes a step back and Eddie takes a step forward, but she curls her arms under her chest. Oh, how the tables have turned. The saving grace is that Eddieâs not going to push and when he reclines back to the spot where he was, Valeria stays in the half step between them. Her voice is clear. âEffort.â
It stings. He thinks maybe it was supposed to, but sheâs right. Even if sheâs never totally subtle about it. âNope, never one to mince words, huh.â
âNever will be,â Valeria returns. âLetâs see what youâve got in your closet since you canât show up a mess.â She nods her head down the hall and then starts for Eddieâs bedroom.Â
He can only watch. Valeriaâs arms are still folded, but she still carries on. Eddie hopes to God she waits for him. He wouldnât dare call it a prayer, lest Valeria be the altar and the God heâs worshiping. But watching her, the sway of her hips, as she carries herself down the hallway more and more the darkness swallowing her, Eddie thinks maybe he should pray more often. Maybe he should get his fucking act together because no one can wait forever. But goddamn it, Eddie hopes Valeria does have the patience of a saint. That, Eddie realizes, is the truly selfish part. He wants Valeria to wait for him or at the very least come back to him. If she canât wait, God, let her come back.Â
âWhat do you think?â Eddie holds his arms out. The pants have been sitting in his closet for years now--leather didnât really seem like it was having its moment in the 90âs or early two thousands, but heâd been too proud of all the work heâd done to save up for them. So they sat in the closet and Eddie yearned for a day to break them back out. Heâs thankful to all hell he got them a couple sizes larger than he mightâve needed them. Thereâs very little stretch in the material--some, but not a lot.Â
Valeriaâs gaze is slow. She takes her eyes up his body. She has been the last hour of Eddieâs frantic flurry. Clothes flying out of his closet like a cartoon, Eddie hated almost everything heâs ever bought in his life. Occasionally, Valeria would give an impressed hum and then suggest what needed to change--bottoms that needed to go, jacket that was clashing. Now Eddie stands in his leather pants that he was sure would never see the light of day, and a white cotton button up that Eddie is sure was influenced by Robin. He unearthed his black cowboy boots from the corner of his closet to complete the ensemble.Â
Now, Valeriaâs gaze travels up and up and Eddie can only wait. His fingers tremble just a little and he wonders for a moment if the soft click of the rings is audible enough for Valeria. Eddie watches her eyes. He needs her eyes to lock onto his again. Ever since she walked into the bedroom, sheâd kept herself tucked away, legs pulled up to her chest. Valeria chews on her bottom lip. Just look. Please. Just look at me baby, please.Â
âYou look good, Eds.âÂ
Her voice is soft and when her eyes finally lift, settling onto his, Eddie exhales. Her eyes sparkle just a little. Something floats still behind them--sadness or maybe something else, but in front of that is a spark. Just what Eddie needed. If he could keep that spark alive, he could keep Valeria. And itâs insane really. Eddie is insane--no two ways about it. Heâs insane about Valeria and heâs insane to keep toying with her. But fear--damn fear is a strong motivator. But if he can keep the spark in her alive maybe it would buy him a little bit more time.Â
âOh, a nickname to the nickname. Damn, I must be special,â he teases. Itâs not what he wants to say. He wants to beg. Ask Valeria not to let him go. Tell her that he just needs a little bit more time. But instead, he cracks a joke. Because thatâs what he always does. Itâs what always saves him. Itâs the easy choice.Â
Valeria scoffs, resting her chin on her knees. âYouâre special alright. Certifiable some might say.â
âThen I wonder what it says about you?â He crosses the foot between his bed and closet to the edge of the bed. One knee falls into the mattress and Valeria watches him the whole way. âDonât you think thereâs something to be said about you too in all this?â
âYeah, that Iâm certifiable too.â
Eddie leans in, holding his weight up on one pressed down fist. He tucks a little bit of Valeriaâs hair back behind her ear. âWhat are you wearing?â
âJeans, corseted top. Boots. Nothing special.â
âLet me see. We canât clash.â
Valeria snorts. âYouâll see tomorrow. Also, I think you should go with the leather jacket.â
âThatâs a lot of leather going on in one outfit, donât you think?â
âSome might say that occasional indulgence is doctor recommended.â
Itâs Eddieâs turn to snort at Valeriaâs comment, head dropping for a moment. As it does, he feels some of the hair he hadnât gotten secured well enough in the elastic fall down. It doesnât stand a chance though. Valeriaâs moving the strands back behind his ears just as soon as they fall, palms pressing into his cheeks. Her nails--a perfect addition of pressure when she scratches lightly at his bearded jaw. Eddieâs stomach quivers at the touch.Â
Eddie watches her tongue dart out to lick her lips. Itâs hanging again between them--the tension. Eddie tilts her head back with just a gentle press of his palm. âCan I kiss you?â
He needs permission because itâs reckless. To tell Valeria he dream of what they could have--love, a family, and then to tell her that he wonât take the leap because heâs too scared is a cowardâs move and itâs smothered in the stench of assholery to ask for more. Knowing he canât give her what she wants. But still wanting it all.Â
âYouâll want more.â It doesnât sound accusatory as it falls from Valeriaâs lips. Itâs factual. Because Eddie will. He will always want more.Â
âIs that a yes?â Donât take whatâs not given, but damn do I want you to say yes--the thought echoes and echoes until Valeriaâs voice interrupts it.Â
âI worked all day and then drove down. Rain check.â
There and gone. Eddie nods, smiling at Valeria. He thinks it might reach his eyes, but even he can feel how it may not fully reach either, like the corners of his mouth and eyes hit an invisible wall. âIâm sure youâre exhausted. My bed or the guest bedroom--your pick of the litter.âÂ
âProbably the guest room.â
âProbably? No oneâs kicking you out, sweetheart. We can just cuddle, do face masks, kill the pint of vanilla ice cream I have if sugar cookies arenât going to cut it.â
âYou do not have a pint.â
âGo hop in the shower and find out then, hmm. Iâll teach you a thing or two about doubting me.â Eddie laughs and this time it does feel real as he pats her ankle. This time it feels like what theyâve always had when Valeria narrows her gaze but unfurls herself. This time it feels real when she smacks his ass. Itâs a loud pop and Eddieâs not sure what stings more, her hand, his ass, or the lead in his chest. Just give me one more shot, he almost says.Â
Eddie changes out of the outfit, tucking the items back onto their respective hangers. He knows Valeria wonât be terribly long in the shower. Tucked back into the sweatpants and tank, Eddie settles on the couch. The shower still runs, but Eddie can feel the buzz, the anxiety creeping up under his skin. Heâs going to lose it all. Everything he had and what couldâve been is going to slip through his fingers. Thereâll be nothing to catch it, not even a coffee table with a pint of ice cream and one spoon.Â
âWhereâs your spoon?â Valeria questions, freshly showered. Her skin still echoes with warmth that Eddie feels covering his arm.Â
âMustâve forgotten,â he laughs, but opens his mouth wider when Valeria holds out a spoonful for him to have.Â
âYouâre lucky youâre cute,â she laughs. But that luck feels like itâs running out.Â
____________________
Itâs not a long drive to Indy. Eddieâs done it himself plenty of times in under two hours. He doesnât even fuss for control of the radio. Heâd rather listen to Valeria sing along to the songs, the Top 40 that she seems to keep on all the time. Heâs sure that she must get tired of it. But he doesnât get tired when she bounces in the passenger seat to Hey Ya. Itâs maybe the second time it's been played since they started driving. It makes the drive that much more entertaining as Valeria chants, âWhatâs cooler than being cool? Ice cold!â
 Eddie joins in on the second call-and-response because he can catch just out of the corner of his vision, Valeria motioning at him. It's noon now, sun high above them. Theyâd stop to get lunch at a place Eddie enjoyed and then get dinner at a little mom and pop shop that Valeria recommended. An even and fair approach to the impromptu day trip. The middle is sort of up in the air. Eddie has some places he likes to frequent--the tattoo shop heâs gotten all his ink done at, a couple of record shops. Valeria vaguely mentioned wanting to stop at a few boutiques. It feels remarkably normal as the cracks in the window allow air to seep through.Â
It feels remarkably normal, but Eddie knows that itâs not. Even as Valeria giggles at his stupid jokes over her plate of fries and a burger, Eddie knows itâs not normal. When Valeria drags Eddie into a boutique and he snatches a fun green dress and pleads for Valeria to try it on, itâs not normal. When Valeria saunters out in the dress, off the shoulder sleeves, ruffles, and cinched waist, and Eddieâs jaw drops, it is not normal. Itâs not normal to feel his arousal in fingertips. Itâs not normal to drop to his knees from the stool outside the dressing room.Â
âYouâre getting that. I donât care how. You are getting that,â Eddie breathes. But this isnât normal because Eddie knows that something between them is different. But heâs going to pretend that it is normal. Because he wants it to be normal. He wants what theyâve always had.Â
Valeria takes a socked foot and presses her toes into his sternum. âSlow down there. Dress is sixty dollars. And I technically need one more size up.âÂ
In the reflection now of the mirror, he can see how the zipper is still undone. She got it partially up but it does look like a squeeze. âXL?â Eddie asks, dragging his fingers over the bone of her ankle.Â
â1X actually. This one doesnât stretch like I thought.âÂ
Eddie arches his brow, fingers now dragging over her calf. He should be more worried about standing. The leather pants will not hide anything. But he doesnât care. This is about keeping the little piece of normal going that they have. His pride be damned. âIâll go look for it.âÂ
âThatâs if they sell plus sizes. I can normally get by on the extra large.âÂ
âIâll go look, yeah?â
âDonât do anything stupid, Eddie,â Valeria demands. She drags her foot down his stomach, pressing right over his crotch. Thereâs no hiding itâhis erection. But the press of her foot is just enough. It should hurt and it does. But it hurts in just the right way. He groansâlong and drawn out but he doesnât care.Â
âI am going to do so many stupid things,â Eddie whispers into her knee. But he doesnât wait for Valeriaâs response. Maybe she doesnât even respond. He stands, careful to get her foot back to the floor and let her get stable. He prays this place has a 1X. He needs them to have that dress in the right size for her.Â
He darts back to the rack where he saw the item. Small, small, extra small, medium, medium, medium, large, extra large, extra large. His breath stops in his throat. No 1X. âExcuse me, miss,â Eddie starts, trying to flag down the one person he spots behind the register. When they look up, Eddie smiles and lifts the dress. âDo you happen to have this in a 1X?â
The woman glances down at the item. The seconds are long and Eddie swears his heart is going to leap out his chest. His grip keeps tightening around the thin plastic of the hanger. âHmm we donât normally sell plus size here.âÂ
Of fucking course.Â
âBut I think that designer just recently expanded sizing, actually. She works directly with us so we try to make good sales. Give me just a second!â With that the worker flies off to a back corner. Eddie watches, hearing the scratch of metal over metal. He leans out and notices a longer rack of clothesâone that might be used to wheel loads of clothes to be stocked on the floor but arenât themselves racks to shop off of. But her fingers are quick and then she lifts up the green dress.Â
âLast one too!â the worker calls out.Â
âIâll take it.â Relief isnât the right word to name what Eddie feels. His limbs feel like theyâre floating and then suddenly drop back to earth. He hangs the clothing item back into the rack and begins digging out his wallet to meet the worker at the register.Â
âOne lucky lady,â the woman teases. She scans the tag before pulling the hanger out of the neckline. âHow long have you two been together?â
Did it seem like decades to the outside world? There was no way others would be able to see how well they fit together, how natural the whole thing felt. What Eddie and Valeria had feels like lifetimes together. The reality is that they only had a few months, but thereâs no way someone on the outside could see it. And even if someone could see it, there was no way that Eddie was going to burden some stranger about his own inability to get his life together. Eddie grins, âFeels like a lifetime but wouldnât have it any other way.âÂ
Maybe itâs too soft how he says it. The girl looks up at him, a pout settling on her lips. âThat is so sweet. God, Iâd kill for a love like that. When it does come, you definitely have to hold onto it.â
Eddie can only nod, passing along the bills for the dress. All the words are dried up on his tongue because he knows. As much as he didnât want to fuck things up with Val, he might have already. A dress wouldnât save them. Maybe nothing would save them now. But Eddie takes the bag, a smile plastered on his face. âThe right person will come around soon,â he offers. Just donât fuck it up like me. Thereâs no need to break the illusion for her though. Maybe sheâd already suffered enough heartache. Eddie does believe in love for other people. Sheâd find the right person soon. It takes hope. And effort, but hoping is so much easier.Â
âPlease tell me you didnât.â Valeriaâs laughter cuts through whatever rebuttal the worker had primed on her tongue. Eddie turns to see Valeria carrying the dress that was a size too small, glaring at him. Even though Valeria called the outfit simple, tried to shrug it off as something minimal, Eddie still couldnât believe the sight in front of them. The royal blue of the top dazzles off her skin. The black jeans and boots only seal off the look in a way that when Valeria stands next to him, it makes him feel taller. Though sheâs the one in the four inch platforms.Â
Valeria shakes her head as she smiles. She places the dress back on the rack, by passing Eddie completely before facing him again. âEddie, please. Itâs your birthday not mine.âÂ
It takes him a moment to work his throat and mouth again--tongue drying a little out on him. Eddie shrugs. âMy birthday was yesterday. Itâs over now.âÂ
âNo itâs not,â Val huffs. âItâs not over until this concert is over.â
Eddie holds out his bent arm. âToo late. It is done. Where to next?â
Valeria takes a gentle hold of his crooked elbow. âYour pick, birthday boy.â Valeria presses a kiss to Eddieâs cheek. Her lips brush against his skin as she whispers, âRecord store?âÂ
Eddie slips his free hand around her fingers. It reminds him heâs alive, in the middle of a clothing store. Heâs not gone yet. Neither is she. Valeriaâs not gone either. âItâs a little far out. You sure thereâs nothing else you want to see on this side while weâre out here. We could just walk around?âÂ
âAre you going to complain about your feet in those boots?â Valeria snorts.Â
âThese boots were made for walking,â Eddie returns, voice barely above a whisper. His nose brushes against Valeriaâs forehead. This could be his. This could all be normal--for right now, it is. It is normal. And it is Eddieâs.Â
âSure, I guess. Thereâs a cool vintage shop I think around the corner. Maybe youâll find some new rings.â
âWorth a shot.â Neither one of them moves for a moment, still pressed close together in their own bubble. But Valeria shifts, straightening up and thatâs all it takes for motions to set off. They give their thanks and goodbyes to the worker. Valeria leads them to the vintage shop. The click of her keys on her hip and the heel of Eddieâs boot echoes. The sound precedes them. From the vintage store, back to the truck, to the record store, to the restaurant for dinner. Thereâs the click and clack of their synced steps. When the venue fills with chatter, others laughter bubbling around them, Eddie can still hear Valeria. Her breaths, the clink of her earrings when she bobs or turns her head. Everything is attuned to her. Because Eddie just needs to hold a little bit longer, a little bit tighter.Â
Eddie takes her hand when the songs slow down, thumb rubbing over her skin. Valeria squeezes in return. This is all you could ever need, Munson. And just as the thought settles, he feels the âbutâ. Itâs the undermine--the thing Eddie tells himself so he feels better about his lack of action. In reality, the âcouldâ should be replaced. This is all he needs, but he fails to act on it, to make it a reality.Â
â...my drink? Edide?â
Eddie blinks, turning his head just a little to see Valeria looking at him, her lashes long and thick. The bass is still vibrating through the speakers. âWhat was that?â he shouts back to heard over the music.
âMy drink,â she calls out. âDo you want the rest of it? Iâm stuffed after dinner and the beerâs gonna disagree with me if I keep piling on more.â Her laughter just catches onto his eardrums.Â
Eddie holds out his empty cup and nods. âIâll see what I can do for ya.â
âYou donât have to, if you donât want.â
Eddie shakes his head, unraveling his fingers from hers to take her cup and stacking it into his own. About half of it is gone already, it shouldnât be too hard. But even Eddie will admit that he might not have space for it after the slice of apple pie at dinner. âThat cup alone was half my water bill, itâs getting drunk.â
Valeria pats his stomach. âDonât bust your gut though.â
âHa ha,â Eddie returns. âA true comedian you are.âÂ
âI know!â Her smile is bright and Eddie catches it even in the dimmed lights of the theater. His face warms as if he were standing out in the sun on a summer day. His rebuttal catches in his throat and he can only manage an eye roll before slipping his arm around her shoulders. She tucks herself back into his side, arms winding around his waist in the process. It feels like a cocoon--the shared warmth of their bodies. Eddie never has to leave this. He can stay here, with Valeriaâs breath tickling just a little at his neck, listening to bands heâs loved since he was a teenager. Itâs all this moment needs.Â
Itâs an awkward shuffle out of the venue. Eddie doesnât want to leave just yet, wants to soak in every last echoing sound of the instruments. Wants to feel his bottles rattle to a stop, but theyâre at the start of the row just about and thereâs some guys to Eddieâs left that turn and he knows theyâre looking to get out. Valeria and Eddie should too. Itâs still a two hour drive back to Hawkins. So he follows behind Valeria, climbing up the step. Once outside he stops, tugging on Valeriaâs hand to pause her too and turns to stare at the building. They havenât dropped from the curb just yet to head back to Eddieâs truck. The seal of the moment hasnât been broken. Once they step out into the parking lot, the reality all comes back. But until then, the cocoon remains intact.Â
âNot ready to go just yet?â Valeria asks.Â
âGotta soak it all in,â Eddie returns. Because it is one part ritual for Eddie just to take a few extra seconds to soak in the adrenaline, to let the thundering of his chest still slowly. Eddie tugs on Valeriaâs hand.Â
âYes, Eddie?â
He tugs again and she steps in closer. Eddieâs faster, cupping her jaw with his palms to bring her in even closer. âHave I told you thank you?â He knows he hasnât and as Valeria goes to speak, heâs already talking. Mouth moving faster than his brain at this point. The words are just falling. âBecause thank you, thank you, thank you,â he chants, kissing her lips with each phrase. The kisses get longer and long.Â
She had a piece gum at some point, Eddie can tell. Her breath minty against what should've been the bitter bite of beer. But Eddie doesnât really care. Heâs just lost in the softness of her lips. The way Valeria ever so tentatively lets Eddie lick up into her mouth and melts into his embrace. Eddie knows when Valeria pulls out of the kiss first, slowly and with pecks to soothe the separation, heâs going to thank her properly. Because thatâs how the moment should be savored, down to the last drops on his tongue.Â
âYouâre welcome, Eddie,â she whispers against his lips.Â
âDonât thank me just yet. Havenât thanked you properly yet.â
âOh, I. No, I donât--â
âPlease,â Eddie interrupts, hands slipping from her face down to her waist. He continues on, soothing her sides. âPlease,â he whispers. It doesnât even sound like Eddie. The whine in his own throat sounds desperate and sure Eddie is desperate to have Valeria again, make her come undone on his tongue, his fingers, his cock. But he wonât push her. Heâll plead but whatever she says now will override any desire he has.Â
âItâs two hours back to your place,â Valeria laughs.Â
âYou say that like I donât know, sweetheart. But thereâs motels around here.â
She shakes her head. âGonna make you wait.â
Eddie groans, taking a small nibble at her plump bottom lip. âYou fucking tease.â
âAnd Iâm driving back.â
âOh, fuck off,â Eddie barks out between tufts of laughter. âThatâs not fair.â
Valeria takes Eddie by the back of his head and brings his gaze to hers. âNever said it would be.â
The words bring a shiver to Eddieâs spine. But all he can do is close his eyes on the shaky exhale. Never said it would be. Eddieâs not sure if itâs a threat or a promise, but he likes the sound of both. None of this was probably fair but they were doing it anyway. Hell, Eddie would in a heartbeat. It may not be fair, but it for damn sure wasnât going to stop Eddie.Â
Eddie slips the keys into her pockets, giving it a heavy handed pat. âThen letâs get this show on the road, hmm, darling?â
______________________
Eddie doesnât waste time. Itâs a pride of his to know in his older age that he doesnât waste too much time--heâll waste some, but never too much. The clocks are ticking up and past one in the morning, but all Eddie is focused on is Valeria. She sighs into his open mouth. He swallows it down. If he could tuck Valeria up under his ribs, he would. If he could carry Valeria in his fingertips, he would. Eddie drinks in every sound. Valeria giggles at the tickle of his scruff at her neck and it makes his bones vibrate. He could fall apart right then and there when Valeria laughs.Â
âWhatâs so funny huh?â Eddie laughs in her neck.Â
âJust tickles,â Valeria hums.Â
Eddie skates his fingers over the soft skin of her belly, biting at the skin of her breast. Valeria gasps at the sensation but he can hear the smile in voice and thatâs all that matters. All that matters is the way when Eddie takes, Valeria gives. All that matters is when Eddie gives, Valeria takes. Valeriaâs nails trail over the skin of his back and shoulders, to his chest. Whatever fear he could have about the scars always melts away. Valeria touches him like glass, like she canât quite believe itâs him in her hands. And while it might seem frustrating, Eddie appreciates the tenderness. It reminds him that there are people who still care. There are still people who may want to consume but they do not do so maliciously. There are some people who may want to pour back. Itâs a rarity, but Eddie knows he needs the reminder.
The fire in Eddieâs gut only burns brighter. Itâs messy, Valeria dripping down on his chin, but he doesnât care. Her fingers tangle in his hair, pulling like she canât get him close enough. Maybe she canât. Maybe Eddie canât be close enough either. He holds her legs down, knowing Valeria likes to buck. But this isnât about something quick and dirty. This is about taking their time--sunlight and responsibilities be damned. Eddieâs going to drink down every drop.Â
âFuck,â Valeria whines, high in her throat.Â
Eddie can hear the strain in her voice. He laughs into her thighs, leaning up to watch Valeriaâs heaving chest. âYou doing okay up there, princess?â Eddie lazily drags a finger on her inner thigh.Â
âBetter than okay,â Valeria hums. âSo fucking good.âÂ
âOh, thatâs what I like to hear,â Eddie grins before licking another stripe up Valeriaâs cunt. She quakes when his tongue hooks around her clit. And though Valeria teased him by making him behave on the two hour drive because she was driving, Eddie is also going to tease her back by lapping from her--slowly, let his own body feed from her pleasure.Â
Everything her body can take Eddie wants. Eddie doesnât care how he gets it. Heâs always been one up for an adventure. But he must admit, when Valeria drags him up her body, still heaving from her orgasm, and seals their lips together in a kiss, Eddie thinks itâs going to be a reprieve. He thinks maybe theyâll just take a minute or two. What heâs not expecting is Valeriaâs push up, hooking one leg around his waist and then onto his back Eddie goes. Itâs not without a laugh, not without his own tease and wiggle of his brow.
âOh, what a view,â he hums as Valeria settles on his waist.Â
âHow does it feel down there?â she laughs.Â
âItâs a cool 50 degrees down here, Iâd say.â
âPrepare for a warm front.â
He wants to ask what specifically that means but the words donât get off his tongue before Valeriaâs teasing him with her fingers. Eddie twitches in her hand, anticipation of what she might do next seeping into his skin and dripping into the sheets. Valeria leans in, mouth opening but she just breathes. Right over Eddieâs face. He whines, not meaning to, and Valeria tightens her hand around his cock. She mocks his whine just a little, laughing. âCat got your tongue?â
âNo,â Eddie heaves out. âA pretty vixen has my dick though in her hands and I would really appreciate anything she wants to give me though.â
âA wordsmith, arenât you?âÂ
âI try.â The words all take every ounce of Eddieâs strength to get out. Valeriaâs started to lazily stroke him. Itâs wet, more than heâs sure his own precum but he doesnât dare think about Valeria reaching between her own legs to lube him up. No, the thought would absolutely make Eddie blow his load in half a second.Â
The tugs increase in pace, tighter and a little faster. More and more until Eddieâs throwing his head back against the pillows. âShit, shit, shit, Valeria, please,â he cries out. The pace doesnât feel like itâs sustainable like somethingâs going to give, either Eddie or Valeria, but so far, Valeria grins against him. Maybe she wonât tire out anytime soon.Â
âPlease what? Need full words, baby.â
âPlease,â Eddie huffs. âAnything. Iâll take fucking anything, honey. Shit.â His toes are curling. Everything in his lower gut is on fire and he swears heâs never going to actually feel anything like this again. Nothing can be as good as this.Â
âAnything anything?â Valeria asks.
Eddie can only nod, eyes screwed up tight, holding her hips in his hands. Sheâs so close, hovering right over him. He can feel the occasional drip onto his length adding more slick to the mess between them. âAnything,â he whimpers.Â
Valeria sinks, a sigh leaving her lips and Eddieâs eyes fly open. âOh shit,â he huffs. Valeria lifts up and then settles again, hips grinding. Her warmth spreads like wildfire. Eddieâs clawing at Valeria to get her to bounce on him again, to create a rhythm that they can both enjoy. But sheâs content for the moment just to grind.Â
âTsk, tsk,â Valeria mocks from above him. âDonât be greedy.â
âOh, fuck, easy for you to say,â Eddie returns. He wants more bite in the words, but he canât get it out. All he can do is pant and pray. Eddieâs floating. He feels it before he can name it. But his head it gone from his shoulder and he doesnât care that Valeria mocks his every sound. He doesnât care that her teeth are bruising his skin. He doesnât care that heâs lost all his senses. All that fucking matters is feeling the hot breath on his skin. All that matters is the way Valeria bounces on him, a greedy pace that makes him feel needed. How desperate it is just to be needed no matter the format, but Eddieâs beyond a rational understanding. Thereâs nothing rational left here as the room fills with the echoes of their moans.Â
âHoly--â The swear doesnât get enough air from Eddie before he can cums. All the air leaves his lungs as Valeria works atop him, hips rising and falling back onto his length. Maybe Eddie got this whole thing wrong. Maybe instead of getting everything Valeria had, she was going to get everything he had. Maybe theyâd always wind up like this, giving and taking and giving and taking all in equal measures. Valeria falls into his chest, panting in her own right. She shivers against him and Eddie wraps her up tight in his arms. Itâs a give and a take.Â
âDo you want pancakes in the morning?â Eddie asks into her temple after theyâve cleaned up. It took a few minutes before either one of them got feeling back into their limbs but it did happen eventually.Â
Valeria nods, curled into Eddieâs side. âYou got blueberries?â
âI can do that for you.â It shouldnât be too hard. Eddie can wake before she does and go out to the store to get a cartoon or maybe it would be better to get a frozen bag. But either way, Eddie feels himself drifting into sleep thinking about Valeria in his arms.Â
___________________________
The thing about their goodbyes is that when they should be permanent, they never feel that way. At least not with Eddie and Valeria. Thereâs something underneath them that always says more, says itâs goodbye just for now. Maybe this time will be like all the others. Eddie holds Valeria in the doorframe, in the liminal space of inside and outside his trailer. âYouâll still call, right?â Eddie asks. He needs those. What would fill his days if not for work and Valeria.
âIâll still call,â Valeria promises. She looks at him, eyes swimming and Eddie knows. He knows that things are shifting. It feels like an earthquake beneath his feet that one one else can feel. This goodbye wonât be like the others because the thing neither one of them demands at that goodbye is how frequent the calls will be. And maybe Eddie knew it was a good idea not to ask. Maybe even in all his disbelief he still knows the ultimate outcome. A week from the concert and Eddie only gets five calls. Theyâre just as long as theyâve always been, but not every day. Two weeks from the concert and the calls drop from five to four. Then four to three. Three to two.Â
Two months pass and it feels like a drought. The calls happen, usually once a week. And then they shorten. Itâs passing on how theyâre doing--abbreviated retellings of the mechanicâs shop and the store. Itâs just enough to feel like itâs a substantive conversation but not what they used to be--what would take hours, only take thirty minutes tops. The bottom of the barrel becomes higher and higher in their conversation more and more silences that feel much too awkward than before. The air is thick. Valeriaâs breathing has filled Eddieâs ears for the past two minutes and she keeps stopping and starting her sentences.Â
âCat got your tongue?â Eddie teases. âDid you eat chocolate? You know youâre mildly allergic to it right?â
Valeria laughs. Itâs the first time Eddieâs heard it in weeks this full and this loud. It makes his chest tight at the sound and heâs so fucking thankful for it in the moment, he exhales deeply into the receiver. âNo, no chocolate, Eddie.â
âDamn, I was sort of hoping maybe you had so you could finally answer my question about whatâs your favorite M&M.â
This bout of laughter is deeper and Eddie feels his body sag in relief. Heâs on a fucking roll and it feels so much better. Eddie feels like he can breathe. âThe answer is clearly the red ones.â
âAtta girl,â Eddie cheers. Their laughter is shared and soft. Just as quickly as the tension is cut it returns. Eddie reclines into the wall next to his fridge. He hasnât forgotten what Valeria said at the start of his call. How he barely got his greeting out before Valeria was barrelling through hers. âYou said you called because you had something to tell me.â
Eddie tries not to panic when Valeria agrees that she does has something to tell him. Because it was coming--the end. It was always coming and it marched so freely because Eddie didnât do anything to stop it. He was too chicken shit to do anything. Even if the world was going to shift again at least this time he would have nothing left to hold onto it. Maybe the world would just swallow him whole.Â
âItâs-I donât know how to say this.â
âJust like always, putting one word in front of the other, sweetheart.â
âBut itâs--itâs going to change everything.â
Itâs at that sound that Eddie pushes back up. Heâs not sure if heâs bracing himself for the inevitable or thereâs the last spring of hope heâs holding onto surfacing. âChange everything?â
âIâm-Iâm pregnant, Eddie.â
Yeah, thereâs that earth swallowing him whole and spitting him out on his face. But itâs the one fucking thing he needs. Itâs ice water on his face. Itâs a broken nose. Itâs the time Wayne had to buzz his hair back in middle school because heâd gotten it so tangled up that no one could really get it back into order.Â
A reset. A hard one that that.Â
A wake up call.Â
âDo you plan to keep the baby?â Eddie asks.Â
âI-I want to, yes. But I know you donât necessarily want kids.â
âI want this kid,â Eddie confesses softly.Â
âNo, you donât have to do that. Tammie and Chels are willing to help me out.â
âVal, Iâm not just saying anything. I want to be there for you and for my kid. I love you, you know that right?âÂ
The words are out again before Eddie can process what they actually will do and mean. But heâd already been dropped on his face once today, learning that Valeria was pregnant with his kid. What was a second drop in the grand scheme of things.Â
âBut not like that,â Valeria deflects.Â
âNo,â Eddie returns stern. He doesnât need her to assume anything anymore. Assumptions had gotten them in this placeâat least on Eddieâs part. Heâs assumed his way into this mess but he wouldnât let it get worse. Not when a closed door cracked again. It wouldnât do that too many more times. âExactly like that. I fucked up before. Iâm not going to fuck up twice. I love you, Valeria. Do you hear me? I love you. You were leaving and I did nothing to make you stay. I didnât show effort. I just wanted to keep things like they were and hope bare minimum was enough. It wasnât. It wasnât enough and fuck, Iâm not doing that again. Iâm not asking you to pity. I just need you to hear me. Iâm sorry. You were right. Effort is so important and youâre important. And Iâm sorry I let you go.â
âI mean I left. I wasn't going to hurt myself if you werenât ready to commit. I know that sounds harsh. I was walking away, Eddie. But the thing I wouldnât do is lie to you. I wouldnât try to hide anything from you.â Itâs not that itâs harsh. It just stings. Valeria had walked awayânot all at once but things had shifted between them. Eddie didnât fight the current. He had no reason too when Valeria asked if their relationship would ever reach for more heâd all but stomped it out. Itâs not penance; itâs just a natural consequence. Every action has a reaction. âYou are never one to mince words.âÂ
âIâm sorry Eddie. I just wanted to tell you. You deserve to know.âÂ
âDonât.â Eddie knows that tone. A resolution sheâs decided well before this conversation. âThatâs still my kid. I know I messed up but please donât cut me out of my own kidâs life.â
âNo, no. I didnâtâIâm sorry. I meant it like you should know. You need to know so we can decide what to do next, ya know?âÂ
âIâm a fool. Iâll admit. I am the court fucking jester but Iâthe thought that Iâm a dad or going to be a dad. It means everything.â Itâs the first time heâs thought about it like that. Heâs going to be a dad. Heâs going to have a kidâcome hell or high water. He blinks back tears. Some fall over his lash line and he doesnât move to clear them. âI can do this. I can do it right. I promise Val. I can.âÂ
âI know you can, Eddie. Iâve always known. I justâI had to take you at your actions before. I still do.â Her voice cracks, the wet sound of her tears thickening her voice.Â
âIâll show it. Iâll put in the work.â Itâs silent. Eddie wonders if Valeriaâs silence is bad but he barrels on before he can think too much about it. âHow long have you known?â Eddie asks.Â
âAbout a month? Missed my period a couple of times and thought something was up. Took some at home tests. I go in two weeks to the OBGYN to see if I am for sure.â
âWhat day?â
âFriday, the 16th at 11 AM.â
âText me the address, okay? Iâll be there. Iâm going to be there for everything, I swear, Val.â He knows theyâll have to discuss if anyone is moving, which will mostly likely be him. Heâd hate to uproot her in the middle of something like this. He could find another shop to work at. Eddie can and will do whatever necessary now to ensure he doesnât let Valeria slip through his fingers again.Â
âIâll text it to you. Promise. And Iâm sorry. For dropping a bomb like this on you.âÂ
Eddie giggles. Sure it is a bomb, and not what he anticipated when she said she had news, but at this point it is what it is. Thereâs no going back. âIâm sorry to have done it to you.â The smile is evident in his voice.
âNo, youâre not. Admit it. Just fucking admit it,â Valeria laughs.Â
âI mean, if youâre yanking my leg. The picture of you pregnant is pretty hot so less sorry. But we probably shouldâve been more careful.â He canât remember if there was a condom involved or not. He was usually more on top of it, even if his sex life was inactive aside from Valeria. It was important to keep up with the expiration dates and keep them on hand. Itâs not like Eddie can even blame the alcohol. Heâd barely finished the second beer. He was in most rights in his right mind.Â
âItâs the antibiotics I was on, according to the nurses I spoke with. Iâd just finished some two days before seeing you due to a root canal and they can make birth control less effective. As we now see.âÂ
âOh shit. I didnât even know that. Howâhow are you? I mean this for real. I donât want bullshit, Val. Not after what I know.âÂ
Her exhale crackles through the receiver. The beats feel longâlike stretched out taffy that keeps stretching and keeps stretching. He thinks the moment may never break and then Valeria speaks. âIâm scared, Eddie. Iâm so fucking scared.â
Eddie spins, dropping his head into the wall, voice falling into a whisper as he speaks. God, he so wishes he was there with her. Not that he thinks sheâd want him there immediately. But he wishes he could be. âHey, itâs alright to be scared. Iâm the biggest scaredy cat there is. Being afraid is okay. Whatâs got scared you?â
âEverything. We live in different cities. I have no clue how to take care of a baby. Morning sickness is a bitch. Iâm starving but I canât keep anything down. Havenât pooped in a week. Pregnancy really isnât all itâs glammed up to be.âÂ
âNot shitting for a week and not being able to keep anything down sounds horrendous. Itâs okay if you feel a little insane right now. Are you off tomorrow?âÂ
âYeah. I am.âÂ
âHow far are Tammie and Chels from you?â
âTheyâre planning to come over anyway, tomorrow.âÂ
âOkay, good, good. What time?â
âOne, I think. What-what are you doing, Eddie?â
He shakes his head, though she canât see it. He knows that she knows. Itâs who they are together--sentiment of each other in ways that should be creepy. âCan you get water down?â
âItâs a fight some days. But youâre changing the subject. Eddie, what are you planning?â
âNothing, Val. I just want to make sure youâre okay, since I canât be there.â From the living room, Eddie catches the chime of his phone. It goes off once. A text and he thinks itâs just the address Valeria promised to send, so he doesnât bother going to look at the message. âFor your appointment on the 16th, would you-would you be okay if I stayed the weekend with you? I want to talk properly. Face-to-face.â
âYeah, thatâd be okay. I think it would be good to talk.â
His phone chimes again and this time, Eddie does look in the direction. Not too many people had his cell phone number. The kids did, Harrington, Buckley, Older Wheeler, Byers, and Valeria. Gareth had it for emergencies--namely about the shop. And no one texted him. He was shit at it--hated it in the way that he had muster through it when absolutely necessary but much preferred just talking to someone.Â
âThereâs two addresses I sent. Iâll see you tomorrow, I guess,â Valeria states. Thereâs a bit of something that catches at the end and from far away, Eddie catches a cough.Â
âYou okay?â
âI think one of my neighbors is cooking fish and the smell is getting to me. Itâs-â Another gag interrupts her. âItâs gonna be a long night.â
âTell your neighbors I told them no more seafood. They can fight me on it.â
Valeria laughs--soft and mostly from her nose it sounds. âIâll tell them. Iâm sorry to cut this so abruptly. But itâs gonna get bad over here in a minute and I donât think you want the sounds of someone vomiting in your ear.â
âI would. For you. But if you gotta go, I get it. Iâll see you tomorrow.â
âI thought you werenât planning anything, hmm?âÂ
Eddie catches what sounds like a smile in her voice. He grins. âJust take care of yourself, Valeria.â
âSee you tomorrow, Eddie.â
Eddie listens to the dial tone for several minutes after the phone call ends. A static in his ears but the longer he stays on the line, the longer he has with Valeria. Tomorrow, heâs got to get his life together for tomorrow. Eddie slams his phone back onto the receiver and scurries to his phone. The first message comes through and mentions Dr. Johnson is Suite 1121. But then he reads the second address, Apartment 23C. Tomorrow.Â
âEddie?â Gareth answers on the third ring. âYou alright, dude? You never use your cellphone.â
âCan you cover for me this weekend at the shop and the weekend starting the 16th?â
âYeah, yeah of course. Is everything okay?â
âI-Itâs Valeria.â
âVal? I thought--itâs been months.â
âSheâs, uh, well, sheâs pregnant and I really have to be there. Iâm gonna have a kid.â The sentence makes his face lift, a grin pressing at the corners of his mouth.Â
âFuck, dude. Congrats! Yeah, yeah, I got this weekend and the 16th. No worries. If you need anything else, let me know!â
âI will. Thanks, Gareth.â
Eddieâs expecting--well, he doesnât really know what heâs expecting when he knocks on Valeriaâs door. Maybe she lied. Maybe sheâd kick him out and tell him to fuck off. He saw her car, but he doesnât know what Tammie and Chels drive well enough to know if heâs going to be greeted by the lot of them once the door opens. Either way, Eddie raps his fist against the door, waits two, maybe three seconds and then brings his hands back up to knock again.Â
Just before his fist connects, the locks click and the door swings open. Valeria stands, face a little hollowed, but still with the cascade of dark brown corkscrew curls. Theyâre pulled to the top of her head and fall like bangs against her forehead. She smiles, stepping back behind the door. The gray t-shirt displays a college on it; itâs a little baggy, but still fits her mostly well. âHi, Eddie. Iâm sorry Iâm such a mess right now.â
âNo, no, youâre not a mess,â Eddie returns, gesturing to see if heâs okay to come in. Valeria nods. âItâs early.â
Eddieâs hit with the small of something like vanilla, maybe something deeper too. And around the edges of the scent, it smells of cleaner. The apartment is bright, thanks to the blinds being open. The couch is dark brown, blue throw pillows. A white knitted blanket is thrown over the back of it. The wooden TV stand holds a decent size TV, DVD cases resting on it. Eddie slips out of his shoes quickly, noting her hardwood floors though she has a thick shaggy rug in the living room.Â
âYou didnât have to clean for me,â Eddie laughs. He slips the duffle bag off his shoulders and places it right in front of the couch.Â
âNeeded to clean anyways. You hungry?âÂ
âI-I ate already. Thanks.â Thereâs a couple feet between them, Valera leaning against one of her bookcases--thereâs two slender ones on the side resting against the wall between the two outward facing windows. Eddie stands still near the door.Â
Valeria nods, arms folding under her chest. Her gaze doesnât lift up to meet his. Eddie feels like heâs intruding, but she did agree to this. âIâm-Iâm going to try and fail with some toast. Bathroomâs down the hall, first on the left. Whateverâs in the kitchen is free for you to consume. Feel free to watch whatever too.â
Eddie takes a tentative step forward, fingers just brushing over her forearm. âValeria, can you look at me?â
She lifts her head, slowly. She looks tired--more so than Eddieâs ever seen her. Eddie cups her cheeks, thumbs brushing the bottoms of her eyes. It makes his chest ache. He hopes she hasnât been like this for the entire month and he hopes it wonât last the entire pregnancy either. âThatâs it darling,â he praises once her sight is level on him.Â
 âIâm glad youâre here.â Itâs a soft whisper but Eddie catches it all the same. Her lower lip wobbles and before the tears even fall, Eddie hears it. The truth of the matter is that sheâs scared and while she had friends, it was still a lot.Â
âIâm happy to be here too. But you can let it out now, okay? Iâm here.â
Valeria falls into his body, face buried into junction between his shoulder and neck. She shakes--like a leaf in a winter wind, Valeria shudders against him. âI donât want to do this alone,â she sobs.Â
âYou wonât. You wonât do this alone. Iâm here. Tammieâs here. Chels is too. Youâre not alone.â
âPromise? I know itâs stupid. But Iâ,â
Eddie cups be back of her head, brushing ever so gently at the hairs at the nape of her neck. If only he could take the shakes, if only Eddie could pull the dead out of her bones. âNo. Itâs not stupid. I promise Iâll be here for you. You wonât be alone.âÂ
_____________________________
Eddieâs early. He knows that--knew it the moment he left his house at 7 in the morning. But he hadnât been able to fall back asleep. He woke around 4:30 in the morning, a thick heat consuming his chest. He turned the fan up, cracked open a window, but nothing brought in enough of a chill to allow him to drift back to sleep. When his clock ticked over to 6, he called it--showered, got dressed, ate breakfast and then got on the road. Being early be damned, Eddie was not going to show up late to this. Besides, the earlier he was the more time they had to talk. It seemed like all they did these days--talk, trying to plan out a future even when it seems so daunting.Â
The front door has become an all too familiar sight. Itâs a little after 9 now so Eddie knocks--twice and then waits. Valeriaâs usually not far when he knocks. Just like always, the door opens a couple beats later. Valeriaâs face is a little fuller now. She can keep food down more consistently now. But still struggles with seafood and beef. Eddieâs just grateful sheâs not barfing up everything she eats anymore.Â
âCome here often?â Eddie smiles.Â
âApparently you do.â Valera waves him inside. He toes off his shoes and drops the bag down in front of the couch. âSorry to make you do this trek so much.â
âNo, you need the appointments. I donât mind. Besides, Iâm sure the guys at the shop are thankful to get rid of me for a couple days here and there.â
âAs long as youâre sure. Hungry? I just finished up some french toast and donât mind sharing.â
Eddie nods, finger tips warm and itching to pull at one of the curls. He resists though. The casual displays of physical intimacy are at a snails pace. They hugged, occasionally held hands, but it was clearly a line that Valeria wasnât going to cross soon so Eddie does his best to respect that limit. âI can go for a piece, if youâre sharing.â
Valeriaâs kitchen is smaller than Eddieâs, a byproduct of the way the kitchen is sectioned off from the rest of the apartment. But itâs cozy to be in--the counters are lined with kitchen utensils in holders, flowers (a set that Eddie sent a few days prior and then another set that heâs not sure where they came from). Thereâs plates and bowls set out with the french toast, a fruit salad made by hand, and bacon in them. âBacon okay too?â
âFine with me.â Eddie hadnât eaten much before leaving, knowing Valeria would offer up something once he arrived. If feeding someone is a love language, Valeria speaks it fluently. Eddie doesnât mind though. Heâs learned to speak it--accepting the offerings, finishing off what Valeria swears she canât. If the stress werenât getting to him like it was, heâs sure he wouldâve gained ten pounds.Â
âEverything okay? You look like youâre being haunted.â
Eddie takes the stretched out plate, watching the way her eyes assess him. They would always get each other. âWorried sick about you some days and making sure we can do this, feasibly, you know.â
âAbout that,â Valeria starts, sighing a little. Her own fork clinks as she assembles her plate too.Â
âYeah,â Eddie agrees when she looks at him. Her eyes say it all--weâre going to have to do something, make some sort of change.
Thereâs a moment of silence. Like neither one of them truly wants to crack open the surface. Nothing changes if they donât go deeper. Valeria speaks first and the moment finally cuts loose from their shared fear. âI could move to Hawkins. Try and transfer to that GAP.â
Eddie scoffs, sliding his plate onto the dining room table before facing Valeria fully. He gets the gesture, what sheâs probably offering, but the last thing he want if for Valeria to be miserable. âYouâd hate living in Hawkins, Val. Iâve lived there my whole life and itâs not getting better.â
âWell, I donât want you to sacrifice the car shop. Youâre managing the shop. All your friends are there in Hawkins.â
âIâm not pulling you away from the people who can support you right now. You said so yourself you donât want to do this alone. Tammie and Chels are your rocks right now and I think itâs important you feel supported.â
âYou matter too, Eddie. Iâm sure Steve and Robin are keeping you sane right now.â
âThey are,â he admits. He talked to either one of them at least once a day. Buckley is ecstatic at the prospect of a tiny human addition. But Harrington, Harrington was keeping Steve on the straight and narrow. There were many times Eddie found himself in the aisle in the grocery store staring at the bottles. His fingers itched to grab one, thinking if he could just forget the fear and the anxiety it make things so much easier. Harringtonâs cellphone number is etched into the tips of Eddieâs fingers from how many times heâs dialed it. Eddie doesnât really want to drink. He just wants something to take the edge off. Drinking was stupid though.
âIs that why youâre building muscle? Challenging Steve now?â
Eddie lets himself clamber backwards into the edge of the dining room table at the jab to his bicep. He hisses like it hurts, though it doesnât. âBe careful. Iâm sensitive.â
Valeria snorts, grabbing two glasses from the cabinet. âNeed someone to rub your back?â
Eddie lets the tuft of laughter fall from his lips. âHarringtonâs suggested I go to the gym when I feelâŠout of it.â
âOut of it?â
Eddie shrugs, pushing up to help her. He closes the cabinet for her and pulls out the jug of orange juice. âOut of itâŠyouâre not the only one scared. I worry Iâm going to fuck it all up. When that happens, I think about doing stupid shit.â
âStupid shit? Eds, I donât--you can talk to me.â
âItâs not that I think about drinking myself to death. But just. Itâs stupid.â
âSo you think about drinking? When youâre out of it?â
Eddie nods at the question. âDad was an alcoholic. Never violent. JustâŠcouldnât function without it sometimes.â
Her eyes widen, the realization falling deeply onto her face. âNo, no, you talk to me, Eddie. Okay? You call me. I donât care what time it is. You call me, okay? Please.â
Eddie wants to recoil. Her fingers are cold from the juice, but her hold is firm and Eddie can only nod. âIâll call you. When it gets bad.â
âYou promise?â
âYeah, I promise.â
Valeria nods. Her eyes stern, but her runs her hands down Eddieâs arm. âI didnât mean to make you feel like you canât talk to me.â
âI donât--itâs just I know youâre dealing with a lot. I donât want to make it seem like Iâm piling on.â
âYou donât. Itâs a me thing.â Because itâs Eddieâs own anxieties. He knows he could talk to Valeria, but he doesnât want to add on when she may not have the capacity. âI donât want to burden you.â
âYouâre not a burden, Eddie. A pain in my ass, but never a burden.â
âSometimes I forget thereâs a difference.â Eddieâs not sure where that came from, when the lines had gotten blurred from him. But itâs the truth. Heâd spent so much time trying not to be a bother, that he couldnât tell when people wanted him around sometimes.Â
Valeria steps in closer, body pressing flush into his. Thereâs just a few inches between their faces, but Valeria closes that gap too, pressing her forehead into his. Eddie encases her waist with his arms. Itâs a slightly strange feeling, the slight bump of her stomach pressed into his. âThen let me remind you of the difference, okay?âÂ
âOkay,â Eddie whispers, eyes fluttering close. Valeria goes to pull away, but Eddie squeezes. He doesnât want to let her go just yet. âCan I have one more minute?â
âOf course, you can.â
Eddie misses this, holding her close. Heâs missed the way she slots against him, head tucking into his shoulder. Theyâre like puzzle pieces slotted together to bring to life a fuller picture. Her breath tickles against his neck, but Eddie leans into the feeling. It lets him know sheâs still real.Â
âDid you get a new body wash?â Valeria asks after a minute.
âIs it bad?â
âNo, no, it smells really good.â
Eddie snorts. âYeah, itâs new.â
âSmells good enough to eat.â
âNo, thatâs what your french toast is for. You canât make our baby a cannibal without their consent first.â Eddie noses her temple. She still smells the same. Always has. Itâs a true solace. When he leaves, his clothes still smell like her and he can carry the scent for a day or two longer in his jacket and hair of the candles she burns, the perfume she wears on occasion. Eddie cups the back of her head, lips pressing into the warm skin of her forehead. âWeâll make it, right?â
âWe have so far. I have faith,â Valeria returns. Thereâs no hesitation in her response and Eddie thinks maybe he can believe that too. They resume their breakfast, hands finding each others under the table, sitting shoulder to shoulder instead of across from each other.Â
âDo you think moving into Indy is a good idea?â Eddie poses. Heâs situated at Valeriaâs vanity as she scraps through all the items in her closet. She pulls out a sweater--baby blue, and holds it up in front of her. âItâs cute.â
Valeria huffs and throws it back into the closet. âYou said that about the last top. And I donât think itâs a bad one. When are you thinking about it? My lease is up in April, another two months.â
Eddieâs situation was a tad more complicated. Heâd paid off the mortgage on the trailer a few years ago, but he was still paying the land rent. If he wanted to move, heâd have to find a way to sell the trailer. Which wouldnât be terrible, but it would be tedious. âIs this about the sweater or something else?â
âI donât feel like any of my clothes fit right.â
âYouâre growing a baby. Things are going to grow and change for a little bit. I really do think the blue top is the right one.â
Valeria nods and pulls it back out. âSo Indy? Youâre sure about that?â
âItâs close enough to home. Neither one of us has bullshit from our hometowns toto worry about. Still close enough that folks can visit.â
âWhat do you think about Franklin? Closer to Indy, but maybe not as crowded?â
âOh, God, babe,â Eddie fakes a gag. âNo. We are both not built for a town like that.â
Valeria snorts, slipping into a pair of black leggings. âOkay, fair. Franklin may not be our cup of tea. But you sure you want to dive into city life? A small town boy like yourself,â Valeriaâs voice dips into a slight, albeit slightly off Southern twang.Â
Eddie pushes up, noticing a slight struggle Valeriaâs diving into with the pants. He kneels in front of her, hand coming to her knee to settle her squirming. Eddie pulls the excess fabric up and off her heels. He then stands to help get the rest up her hips. âI think itâs time for the small town boy like me to get the hell out of there.â Satisfied that the pants are up and straight, he taps the end of her nose. âGold earrings?â
âWhen do I ever go for anything different?â
âNever. Can I choose?â
âYeah, absolutely.â
Eddie heads over to the vanity, fingers tracing over her jewelry. âLeave the shoes alone and let me get them please.â He spots her glare in the mirror and laughs as she settles onto the edge of the bed. Itâs not a hard choice, Eddieâs always gravitated to simple. But he still reviews each pair of earrings before settling on a pair of gold holds with her name written on the inside of them.Â
âYou know Iâm not so pregnant I canât do this by myself.â
âAnd do I look like I give a shit?â Eddie returns, grabbing a pair of slip on Vans for her.Â
âNot in the slightest,â she sighs. âSo Indy?â
âIf youâre okay with it?â Eddie counters, helping her into her shoes. âNo, letâs go. We have an appointment to make. A baby to see!â
Valeria takes his outstretched hands. âI think itâs a boy.â
âNah,â Eddie laughs. âTotally a girl.â
_____________________________
She told him he could do this. Yet his fingers still shake. His body tells him to call Harrington like he always does when it gets like this. But he watches Valeriaâs name in the phone in slightly blurry vision. The grocery store is a shitty place to have a moment like this, but itâs where Eddie finds himself. In another month Valeriaâs lease will lapse. Sheâs already started selling some things in her house. Eddieâs still hasnât found someone to take over the trailer. Hasnât started packing up anything. They have a place they like in Indy, but are on the waitlist until June. In the meantime, Valeriaâs taking a position at The GAP in the mall and Eddieâs transitioning Gareth and Jeff to take over the shop.Â
But Eddie hasnât done a goddamn thing to get movement on the trailer--packing, selling or otherwise. And fuck the paralysis that comes with the fear. Before Eddie can over think it too much, he presses SEND. The phone rings and rings in his ear. âShit, shit, shit. Sheâs probably at work, Munson. She told you she had a shift.â
âEddie? Everything okay?
âOh, thank fuck,â Eddie exhales.Â
âBaby? Whatâs going on?â
âTell me to walk out of this grocery store, please. I donât need it.â
âEddie, get out of that aisle, please. Okay. Itâs okay if youâre out of it. If itâs too much, but you donât need anything on that aisle.â
One step. Thatâs all he gets. But if he hooks a left at the end of this aisle, heâll run into the cookies. âIâm scared.â
âWhy? What are you scared about?â
âWeâre supposed to get the new place in June and I havenât done anything. Nothing. Jack fucking shit. Iâm justâŠstuck right now.â
âWant to vent or want some help?â
âI think I need Jesus and this is coming from me.â Itâs not an answer. Eddie knows that, but itâs okay. âI just. I only got one step. Thereâs so many more.â
âGive me one more. One step is perfect. Just one more.â
He does. He takes another step away from the aisle. âWhat should I do? Just talk to me. Scream. I donât care.â
âEnlist Dustin, Max, Lucas, and Erica. Yes, tell her I told her to be there because she will keep you all in line. Start just with your closet. What are clothes you donât need anymore? Clear that out. Just one room at a time. You wonât be able to get through it all. Itâs just a start.â
âBut then who takes over the trailer? Itâs paid off.â
âIâm sure the kids are probably feigning to get out from the parents. Maybe two of them are willing to take it over.â
Eddie gets to the end of the aisle and stops. It makes perfect sense. All he needed to do was take it in increments. Tiny pieces at a time. And while Harrington, Buckley, Wheeler and Byers all had places of their own. It didnât meant the kids wouldnât be looking for something else. The boys would probably enjoy having their own space. While Mike was still settling in from his post graduation life, Dustin and Lucas could forge something of their own. âWoman, you are a fucking genius. God damn.â
âYou going to work out now?â
âI need to bypass the cookie aisle first. But why? Why are you saying it like that?â
âNothing, no reason! But you might be able to transfer the paid off trailer to a couple of the kids and they can take over.â
âNo, no, no. We are not bypassing the fact that you totally have the hots for my newly deeper defined biceps.â
âNo, I donât!â Valeria huffs. Itâs indignant, fully.Â
âOh, yes you do, sweetheart. Yes, you do,â Eddie teases. He continues on, waving at Dustin who waves in return. âJust admit it, love. Just fucking admit it.â
âEddie, I do not have the hots for your new deeper defined biceps or large pecs. Absolutely not.â
Eddieâs grin is deep. Outside in the fresh air, he feels like he can breathe again. âYes, you do. Let me hear you say it.â
âNope. Nope, this is about you.â
âYes, it is about me. Flatter my ego, lovebug. Please.â
Valeriaâs laughter is big and loud. Eddieâs chest surges with pride at the sound. âEddie, no. Iâm not going to admit that pregnancy hormones are raging. Nope, nope, nope.â
âAre they raging my dear?â
âMaybe,â Valeria grumbles. âBut again, this isnât about me. This is about you. You donât have to have it all sorted right this second. We can take it one piece at a time.â
Eddie climbs into his truck, phone pressed to his ear by the work of his shoulder. âYeah, one piece at a time. Okay, I can do that. I can gather the troops for the weekend. You donât have anything this weekend either?â
âNo, no, next appointment is the week after.â
Eddie nods. âGot it. Itâs on my calendar already. The weekend, cleaning out my closet. Yeah, yeah, doable.â
âYou can call me while you do it too. If thatâll help.â
âIâll get distracted, with you on the line. Never get any work done.â
âI expect a report though. Itemized. Head to toe.â
Eddie nods. âI-I can do that. Thank you, Val.â
âYouâre so welcome, Eds.â
âEnjoy the rest of your shift knowing Iâm going to be very sweaty in the gym.â
Valeria groans. âFuck you. Enjoy the workout. Iâll call you once I get home okay?â
âSounds like a plan, sugar. Talk to you then.â
âYouâre getting your rocks off on this, arenât you?â Valeria asks through a laugh.Â
âOnly just a little,â Eddie answers. âOnly just a little. I like making you sweat.â
âJust for that. The next time you visit, youâre rubbing my feet and you donât get to control the remote.â
âOh!â Eddie huffs. It's a ritual now during his visits. He sets up her foot spa--that he bought unnecessarily--and gives her a pedicure and foot rub. In return, Valeria gets to bliss out for a little bit and she forfeits all power over the remote. Eddie only teasingly stated that heâd only keep it up if he could control the remote to the TV and the color of the polish. Valeria freely relinquished the control. âThatâs so not fair! If you tell me I canât pick out the nail polish color, Iâd rather you just take me out back and shoot me.â
âIâd never go that far, Eddie. Love you.â
He freezes, air catching in his throat. âValeria.â
âI know what I said, Eddie. Itâs not the pregnancy hormones. Iâve always loved you.â
âI-I donât feel like Iâve earned that back. And I know itâs ridiculous but-â
âEddie, youâre going on a spiral. Love isnât earned. Trust is, but not love. You have never had to earn love and anyone who has told you otherwise is a dispshit. Iâm sorry if I made you feel that way. I have always and will always love you. It took me a while to trust, to take a leap. But youâre too stinkinâ cute not to love.â
Eddie blinks. Itâs only with the action that he realizes there are tears in his eyes. Snot drips down his nose and he sucks it back. He uses the back of his hand to clear his face. âIâm glad you trust me again. And Iâm so fucking floored to hear you say that. To hear you say you love me. I love you too.â
âI know.â From faintly behind her, Eddie catches Valeriaâs name called out. She sighs. âIâm sorry, Eds. I gotta go. They need up at the registers for something. I took my headset out to talk.â
âYeah, no, no. I get it. Go. Iâll be here.â
âIâll call you here soon.â Their goodbyes are clipped and Eddie drops his head to his steering wheel. Iâve always loved you. Oh even if the rest of the day is a disaster, Eddieâs never going to get a higher high.Â
_____________________________
âSheâs so stinkinâ tiny!â Eddie whispers. Valeria laughs, but Eddie doesnât care, too caught up in the little girl in his arms. Heâs repeated the mantra god only knows how many times since they brought her home. In the hospital Eddie wanted to keep his mind on getting Valeria through delivery. Itâs a type of pain that he could never fully comprehend but sounded and appeared to be exhausting. Now Eddie can marvel. He can watch his baby girlâs face in blatant awe.Â
âShe doesnât eat like sheâs tiny though,â Val snorts.Â
Eddie nods, taking the pad of his finger to trace her cheek. Denver Edith Munson in his arms--all seven pounds and 3 ounces of her. Though heâd argue there were built a few more ounces than before on her. Sheâs much too pale right now to see who she really will take after, but for the moment, Eddie sees the slope of Valeriaâs brow and his nose. His entire universe feels wrapped up in a white and pink blanket. Denverâs eyes remain unopened but she has the cutest scrunch of her nose. There in the small dusting of freckles on her cheek, Eddie can see his heart resting in the constellation. A centimeter really in the grand destiny of the world but his little girl holds the essence of his heart on that one little cluster.Â
âIâm going to teach you all sorts of things, kiddo, okay? Stuff that will give your Mom a heart attack, but itâs okay. Sheâll go easy on you. Youâll probably be sick of me sooner rather than later. But god, Iâm going to be there for everything, alright? Every single thing. Giant poops. Skinned knees. Boyfriends. Your first drink. License. I love you, you know? Love you so much.â
A soft grunt greets him in return, Denverâs face pinched with the nose.Â
âMaybe that giant poop is sooner than you think,â Valeria teases.Â
âOh God, I can handle this. Totally. I can totally handle this,â Eddie mutters. Heâs not freaking out. Never, itâs just poop. Plenty of people change diapers. It canât be that hard. Heâs watched Valeria do it. Nurses helped in the hospital. Itâs not like itâs defusing a bomb. Changing a diaper is a reasonable task and something anyone can handle.Â
âWant to tag me in?â Valeria asks.Â
âNo! Absolutely not. You need your rest.âÂ
âStart by getting a clean diaper, honey.â Valeria directs from the couch, watching from above.Â
Eddie assembles all the necessities-- the changing mat, a fresh diaper, wipes, trash bag for the soiled diaper, a little bit of baby powder. âThe poop guardian angel,â Eddie teases, popping the secure tabs on the soiled diaper.Â
âWell, given that you have the new diaper upside down, I think itâs warranted.âÂ
Eddie balks. âI havenât even gotten her cleaned up yet, what are you on?â
Valeria grins. âJust making sure youâre paying attention to the lecture.â
He flicks her off, and Valeria can only laugh. The sound bounces in their living room--a bright summer day in Indy surrounding them. Thereâs still some clouds in the sky and given how dry itâs been in the summer, thereâs an expectation that the summer showers will come in heavier in the following weeks. The thunder still rattles Denver--the sound of her cries still breaking Eddieâs heart. Together theyâll get through though. Always together.Â
Positive that Denverâs fresh top to bottom, Eddie slides the new diaper under her. âNow, we secure the tabs, and there! Bada bing bada boom! Easy peasy!â Eddie rubs his nose over Denverâs. âDo you feel secure, madam?â
A snort sounds from around them. Itâs soft and sounds like it almost didnât fully come out. âYouâre such a dork.â
Eddie grins, looking up from Denver to Valeria. Her eyes are closed and he knows soon sheâll be drifting off for a nap. Not that he minds. Thereâs just dishes left and the laundry going in the dryer. Things he can surely handle to give Valeria a little extra sleep. âYour dork, though.â He nods down to the gold band on her finger. Not that she can see the motion. âStuck with me.â
âI tossed out the receipt. I chose this,â Valeria grins, lifting her hand.
Eddieâs glad she did. It hadnât been easy but the effort had been worth it in the end. âPerfect. Because I wasnât going to go quietly into that good night.âÂ
âI most certainly am. Right to sleep.âÂ
âCan you spare me just two minutes while I go wash my hands?âÂ
âAbsolutely I can.â Valeriaâs quick to scoop Denver up, slating her against the expanse of Valâs chest. Eddieâs knees pop as he stands. Surely being nearly 40 would do that but heâs met with barely concealed giggles. He lets it go with an eye roll, turning to head to the bathroom. âHate when you walk away but I love to watch you go,â Valeria teases.
âYou canât steal my line! Totally unfair!âÂ
Eddieâs only in the bathroom for a couple minutes. Nothing long at all. But when he returns to the living room itâs quiet. Valeriaâs light snores make barely a dent over the hum over the A/C unit. Denver is tucked under Valeriaâs chin, one of Valeriaâs hand on her back. The dryer shrills and Eddie shuffles down to the closet. Heâs quick to shut off the noise and looks back down the hall to see if itâs awakened them. But it doesnât seem to as they still rest comfortably on the couch. Thatâs a sight that Eddie thinks he would never want to get used to, so heâs always struck with a sense of awe and wonder each day.Â
âLeave the fitted sheet, Iâll do it.â
Eddie giggles at the gruff sound of Valeriaâs voice. âThanks babe.â He shouldâve at least expected Valeria to stir at the sound.Â
âI swear Iâll be up in a minute. Just-just checking my eyeballs for cracks.â
âKeep checking them for as long as you need.â
Tagging: @munsonology @avidreader73 @2clones-1kamino
#eddie munson#eddie munson fanfic#eddie munson fic#eddie munson smut#eddie munson angst#eddie munson fluff#tw: pregnancy#stranger things#stranger things fic#steve harrington#gareth stranger things#jeff stranger things#robin buckley#nancy wheeler#dustin henderson#lucas sinclair#eddie munson x black!oc#older!eddie#mechanic!eddie munson#older!oc#h writes
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