#but i saw them perform monkey gone to heaven !!!

[majodump]

Loto origins

A very long-Long time ago I used to be a beautiful flower I was seen as one of the most beautiful flowers in the celestial garden. I was right in the middle for all to see my beauty and for me to be able to listen to all and everything that included praise by many that passed but also the knowledge that elders and all that came to the garden share.

They praise me they all loved me and between their love for me and all the knowledge that I was learning I started to develop a conscience as

I learn more and more from the sermons and stories and I had a pretty good understanding of what life was like for the people around me even was able to Study some of their secrets and learn their techniques but of course, being a simple and yet beautiful flower I was able to learn this trick but not perform them nevertheless life was wonderful until one day...

It was a normal day in the garden

A day that looked to be like any other

That was until HE appears...

I had seen him mindlessly pass by from time as he made his presence obvious by his improper appearance

And loudness.

I can still hear the whispers of all those passers-by telling the story of this powerful fo and all the miss adventures that his name carry.

This time the whisper came again telling the tales of how he came back after 500 years and he is now asking for help in one of his quests. But now he was obligated to wait for settings near the pounds until his help arrived. He looks so bored and a little sad.

My petals glow as a chuckle wanted to escape me. "This was the terror that almost devastated heaven all does millennia? And now the all-powerful terror is asking for help?? Don't make me laugh because I would if I could."

As my petals glow and glow I realize I had taken the attention of this unwanted guest. Whom is a feed of stupidly and impulsiveness decided to rip me out of my home and stack me away between his persona and the trigger kilt he carried. After that everything when dark...I could barely hear the conversation ad and I try to do glow to do anything that would make my presences know but in the end it was futile. All I was able to hear was the screams of my capture begging to take his circle way but those too were sent to deal ears.

After the fight, it went quiet and all I felt was darkness

and silence.

After a while, I felt a strong breeze as the kilt move to reveal a the beautiful sky as I have never seen before but before I could admire the scenic view I realize I was getting close up from the garment and before I could do anything I felt ...I fell for like it felt years my home my life my purpose they were all gone and all I can see was the skies above and a Figure getting more distant by the second. I

And then I was covered in darkness again.

When I woke up I was in the water and I thought I was safe for a the moment I even thought it was home

But there was a feeling something I have never felt before it was something paralyzing and horrible. I think I heard people of the palace talking about a similar experience After battles. They called it....pain.

I was in pain. I couldn't move the only thing I could see was the sky above but I try to feel where this so-called pain was coming from because I had never felt this before but more than that I had never felt anything before..and with this realization came to another thought "I had never felt this before" as I try to move my leaves I felt them has broken and as if both of them had been split into 2 parts for each leaf a lot of me felt like it was broken all over my stem was craked in two maybe 3 different parts? And my petals felt extremely heavy.

I lay there in that pond wondering about this new feeling I saw the night and day pass by multiple times and during this time even when I couldn't get up I started to learn to use and the split of my leaves and little by little I had been able to move my right leaf and put it in front of me to be able to see the damage caused but instead of my beautiful leaves what I saw it was nothing the most hideous monstrosity and hand that almost the mirror that one from that fault the creature that took me the way, was horrendously dirty and furry extremity that was occupying the space of my beautiful leaves. Was in so much shock that was able to get others extremely working only to find that it just looks as horrendous as the last.

With time was able to flip me over to see my reflection in the water...what I saw made me shiver to my Core. A beast was looking right at me a face similar to t that of the monkey that took but not quite the same and as I keep looking at it I couldn't quite recognize if its

Expression was that of fear, confusion, hopelessness, sadness, or a combination of all. The more I looked at it the more I realize that I had lost everything and more...

After many travel and attempts, I finally managed to get back home but by the time I finally arrive I was rejected by everyone around me. As they didn't want to have any other monkey problem on their hands. They didn't even recognize me and their eyes were does of coldness and disgust instead of the warm and loving faces that used to admire me.

In the end, after grading a few stuff I leap out and never look back.

Now I had a new mission and It was to find the monkey that made my life miserable and make him suffer just as much as he made me.

[dancingthesambaa]

The Smell of Plum Blossom Tea Ch 4

Summary: Just like a butterfly wing, a single act of kindness can change the course of the future, it certainly did for MK as a black-furred monkey put out a hand towards him.

Rating: Teen and up

Chapter 4: Ramen Noodles for the Soul

There was a battle commencing as two shadows faced off against each other, one being a ghastly figure that had the body of a tiger, but nine human heads with elongated necks and the other was a petite woman and all she had with her was a fan. The dark area surrounding them was riddled with buildings ripped apart and the still bodies of people then the beast lunged at her with a silent roar.

“The Kaiming Shou ran first as they viciously tried to strike the Geisha down,” the voice said as the creature was about to tackle her down, “but she was too quick for him,” the woman elegantly dodged as she leaped into the air.

“The woman was through with the beast wanton destruction so with her aim true she cut off the first head,” the woman fan opened and it had cut off one of the creature heads. “And then the second,” the next head soon plopped to the floor as she continued that action until she was left with only a headless body, “until finally none remained and with a flick of her fan,” The Geisha’s eyes seemed to narrow minutely as she gently waved her fan to the beast and it erupted in a gulf of blackened flames. “they had burned into the nothingness.”

The scene then transformed into one of peace, the bodies and destruction vanished and in its place, a field of flowers had grown next to a rustling town.

“No one knows exactly where the Geisha had gone nor who she was, but that had no purpose in the townspeople's eyes as they were grateful for saving them in their time of need,” the voice continued as the villagers all bowed to the field of flowers. “So they tell this story, not in hopes of finding who she was, but rather to tell all that if you ever happen to meet the valiant woman that saved them from ruins, to kindly welcome her with open arms.” The scene faded to black and a few seconds later a round of applause erupted with cheers quickly pursuing.

The voice took off his hood and gave a mock bow to the audience as made his way off the stage to let the next person go.

“Mac, why are you such a hard act to follow,” one of the performers sighed as he walked towards the stage, “you know everything after yours is gonna be less than mediocre.”

“Then get good,” he smirked.

“Maybe you're just too good,” he playfully punched the monkey's shoulder as he went to the stage to set up.

“That was awesome!” A young boy bolted from his seat as he collided into Macaque, “super cool!”

“Thanks kiddo,” he said as he lifted him off the ground and tucked him under his arm, “now let’s find your sister before she rips off your head.”

“Pfft, Yan Yan won’t be too-,”

“BAO!” A voice sternly called out and he could feel the boy shrink.

“Shit,” he muttered as he soon saw his sister followed by his brothers and sisters and a certain Jellyfish demon, “double shit.”

“Thank you for finding him Mackey, your plays are marvelous as always,” the bluenette woman gave a quick smile to her former teacher and her eyes pivoted on her idiot brother as it tightened, “as for you.”

“I love you very much,” Bao said with puppy dog eyes and a pout as soon as he was let down.

“Really,” Bohai deadpanned as one of the children began to play with his tendrils.

“Cute, but that stopped working a long time ago,” she instead began to lecture him on the dangers of leaving without telling anyone as they all left, some even complimenting him on his play as they walked by.

“Yan is really protective when it comes to them,” Mei hummed out as she dragged MK by the sleeve of his purple jacket, who was morning.

“You should see when they go out in the street, that’s a right nightmare,” he said as he tied his fluffy mane of fur back up in a ponytail. “Swear the only reason she is friends with Bohai is that he can help wrangle all those kids.”

“Soooo, I didn’t know you were such a theater nerd,” she mischievously grinned. She was excited to find out that the tough, grumpy monkey actually had a love for the theatrics and voluntarily went out from time to time to play at the theater. She teased him endlessly for this the second she found out about it.

“Dad likes his dramatics,” MK unhelpfully replied as he crossed his arms.

“What’s got you so moody,” the father asked and all he got was a groan in response.

“Someone dropped all of his snacks and he won’t stop whining about it,” she teased him.

“My caramel popcorn was in there!” He dramatically cried out and fell to his knees. “All that delicious goodness! Gone!”

“How about ol doc over here can take us to this amazing noodle shop I know,” Mei patted his shoulder.

“Really?” He looked up at her with hope.

“I am?” Mac quirked one of his eyebrows.

“Yes, because you don’t want two poor children to go hungry,” the fourteen year old put her hands on her head in a faint.

“I am soo hungry,” MK flopped on the ground to emphasize both of their points.

“I guess if I have to,” he begrudgingly agreed in a mocking tone as the two teenagers cheered.

“I’m telling you, this place's noodles are simply to die for,” Mei said as they approached a restaurant called Pigsy Noodles.

“I’ll take your word for it,” the monkey demon shrugged as Mei opened the doors wide open and they heard a friendly voice greet them.

“Welcome to Pigsy Noodles!” They saw a short pig in an apron turn around to face the group, “How can I help-,” he paused for a moment as he stared not at the kids, but rather at the monkey that was accompanying them. He didn’t know why, he never met the chimp before, but something felt a bit...off about that simian.

He wasn’t the only one as Macaque felt almost a tinge of tension, now he met all types of Pig demons, but he has never felt one so similar to Zhu Baije before.

It was a tense stand-off before Mei butted in, “We are here for your finest noodles! I promised MK here that yours is simply the best!”

This snapped the pig out in an instant as he smiled at the two, “well of course it is, come and sit. I’ll have the menu out in a jiffy,” he gave a nod and turned to grab the items.

The three sat down and the monkey gave a quick once over on Pigsy, both physically and spiritually, and relaxed once he realized that, no this was not the original Zhu Baije, it was just someone that had an eerie likeness to him. But he still kept a careful eye out to him and he knew that Pigsy was doing the same as he kept glancing over to him from time to time as he prepared another customer's food.

“Mmmm, this is good!” MK said as he slurped some of the noodles.

“What’d I tell you,” Mei said with her mouth full of Yao mein.

Macaque mentally agreed as he sat in between the both of them and silently ate his food.

“Many thanks from such esteemed customers,” the pig demon jokingly said.

“It’s quite good,” another voice added, though this time Pigsy's smile quickly turned to irritation at that voice.

“It's better to be the best damn thing you have eaten with the number of times you don’t pay freeloader,” he said.

“Ah, but isn’t the knowledge of my experience of my worldly knowledge of the unknowns, myths, and truth that surround our world. Whether it comes from the depths below to the heavens high in the sky, truly that is the greatest substance of all ” the man mysteriously says as his glasses almost glinted.

“Is it money,” Pigsy deadpanned.

“No,” the aura of mystery that surrounded him suddenly dissipated as he sheepishly grins.

“Then I don’t care!”

“What kind of unknown?” MK perked up as he turned to look at the stranger. “Is it cool? Are they adventures?”

“How about fights? Are there lots of action packed ones filled with danger and mysteries?!” Mei joined in as she got interested as well.

“All of that and more,” the stranger hopped into the chance to tell some of the stories that he had uncovered. “You have all heard the tale of the Legendary Monkey King, correct?”

“Yeah!” They both excitedly cheered but paused as they glanced back to Macaque who was still eating.

“As long as you don't up and leave the restaurant, you can listen,” he waved them off very much knowing why they looked to him in the first place. “Get me another bowl please,” Mac said to Pigsy as he handed him some money.

The pig just nodded as he turned his back to start up another bowl.

The two smiled at him and rushed off to hear the stories on the other end of the counter and that left both Pigsy and Macaque alone together, who both silently decided that it would be best to passively listen to the story than talk to each other.

“-and legends say, that only one with vast knowledge and strength are the only ones they can create the mystical pills of immortality,” Tang mysteriously said as the mythical book was laid out between them.

“So only people with amazing powers can do that!” MK’s eyes widened. “So cool!”

“Or they can just steal it, like the Monkey King,” Mei grinned.

“Or that too,” Tang nodded to her, “but even that was a feat in itself that he had managed to successfully procure such valuable items in that time frame.”

“Man it must be tough to find them all,” MK said.

“It is, some are deep under the seas where only the legendary dragons dwell, another is high up on the mountain tops where you have to pluck it just right or else you have to wait for eons before trying but want to know a secret,” Tang leaned in.

“Yeah,” they whispered and followed suit.

“There is said to be a plant in the Plum Blossom forest that is an ingredient to make the Pills, but no one has yet to find it,” the man happily stated as he began to talk, not knowing of the two nervous glances as they forced themselves not to turn around to a certain monkey.

Macaque only grinned into his cup once he heard that, but Pigsy scoffed.

“Sounds like a bunch of nonsense to me,” he said as he wiped down the counters.

“Well every myth has a fraction of the truth,” he rebutted, “so I’m not giving up my exploration yet.”

“You visit the forest?” Mei curiously asked.

“I try to go as much as I can, but not just for the plants, there is rumored to be all types of different mythical creatures and spirits that wander in the forest,” Tang excitedly said.

“Oh really,” MK forced out with a pained grin, Mei was the same as she had seen some of them when she slept over one day. “That sounds really cool.”

“So,” the pigtailed girl tried to redirect the conversation, “I want to hear more about the Monkey King or any other gods, please.”

“Well I do have one in mind,” the man's eyes lit up as he flipped through the pages.

The two kids have a sigh of relief.

“The Six Eared Macaque is an interesting one.”

And immediately they both tensed back up.

“He is a demon that has caused mass confusion throughout history as no historian can agree which version is correct,” he landed on a page with a shadowed monkey with glowing violet eyes that seemed to bore into them.

“Oh, well-,” MK was cut off by Tang as he went on.

“Is he this one-note villain that simply stood in the Monkey King way or is he more of the mischievous trickster that helped wandering souls against vengeful beings and healed those when they asked. Is he both? If so, was he the healer before or after the Journey? If before then why did he decide to attack the Monkey King? If after, how did he survive that last attack? There are just too many questions that surround the origin of the Six-Eared Macaque, it’s truly quite fitting due to his nature.”

“It really is,” Mei gritted her teeth and slowly turned to face said Monkey demon, “hey Ma-I mean fluffy, I think it’s time we head home, right MK.”

“Yes we do,” he robotically said as the two made their way back to him.

“Oh is it getting late?” Tang blinked, “I didn’t even realize it.”

“It’s all good,” Macaque smirked as he ruffled the two heads, “nice stories.”

“History you mean,” he gave a wide smile, “besides, they were very good listeners…sorry I didn't catch your name?”

“Macaque,” he happily ignored the kid's panicked stares at him.

The man looked at him for a solid minute before laughing, “like the Six Eared Macaque! What a strange coincidence.”

“It sure is,” he smirked.

“Your parents must have loved the myths then,” he wiped a tear.

He shrugged, “it came along the way.”

Tang was a bit confused by that, but before he could ask the monkey he put a hand on both of the teenager’s shoulders and they seemed to vanish the next moment.

“…alright I’m not even gonna question how,” Pigsy grumbled as he continued cleaning.

“He vanished like a thief in the night,” Tang said in amusement.

“At least this thief paid for his food,” the pig grumbled then he noticed that there was some money with a note. Pigsy took a glance at the message and he gave a slight grin, “congratulations Tang, I won’t be on your ass today about your meal.”

“Huh, but you never let go of a chance to put it over my head?” The historian questioned as he walked over.

“Well you can thank their dad,” the pig demon showed him the note and he read it.

Thanks for keeping them entertained, food is on me.

“Well that is nice of him,” he smiled, “I hope they come back sometimes.”

“Hmph, any paying customers are more than welcome,” the pig said as he continued his cleaning, while the historian was more than happy as he continued to eat.

It was the middle of the day and both kids had their designated classes, whether online or home tutoring, and he was currently plucking out some of the weeds from a batch of Morning Glories when he saw the flowers bloom. “Back again already crackpot,” he called out as he took out one of the longer weeds he was plucking out of his mouth.

A croaky voice with a laugh, “what can I say, I can’t stay away from your glowing personality.”

He rolled his eyes as he stood up and turned to meet a balding old man with frizzy red hair and no shoes on his feet, “fuck off.”

The old man gave him a toothy grin as he flopped to the ground, poured a cup of wine, and held it out to the monkey.

“A bit too early for a drink there Shen,” he mused as he took the cup from his hand and sat next to him.

“It’s late somewhere else,” he chuckled and leaned back against one of the Plum trees.

“Yeah yeah,” he waved him off and took a sip of the drink, “don’t you get tired of drinking the same shit every time?”

“Yep,” Shen said.

“And you're still not gonna switch it out any time soon?”

“Nope,” he grinned and took a swing.

“You know one day you’re gonna tell me what the hell this is,” he grumbled in his drink.

“Not on my life.”

“Thought so.”

“Hey Dad,” MK called out as he entered the infirmary, “do you know where-,” he paused as he saw that he wasn’t alone.

“Didn’t expect you to have a hatchling,” the large alligator demon said, or what he assumed was an alligator as he looked almost similar to a ghost but in blue.

“Not most do,” Mac said as he picked out a violet plant and started to look it up in a book.

“Uhhhh,” his mind was running a mile a minute trying to come up with what was happening. “Sorry?”

He waved him off, “just be glad it wasn’t surgery.”

“So what is going on?” He asked as he slowly closed the door behind him.

“Just whipping up an antidote for him,” he hummed out.

“I didn’t know ghosts needed medicine.”

“Not a ghost,” the alligator muttered.

“Huh?”

“What he means is that he’s in his corporeal form,” Mac further explained as he began to dice up the plant. “Had to with the amount of poison in his system, so I just placed him in the lamp as usual.”

“Poison!? Lamp?!” He said in alarm.

“…oh I guess you have never seen it before, hold on.” Mac finished placing the last ingredient inside, stirred it, and let it simmer. He turned to the alligator, “want to rest or free roam?”

“Rest,” he said.

The monkey complied as he used his tail to grab a lantern and in the next moment, the transparent demon was gone.

“What is that?” MK went forward to get a better look.

“This is the Shadow Lamp, it allows me to store people's bodies in there, which puts said bodies in a stasis thus allowing me plenty of time to make the medicine needed.”

“Oh, so it’s like a fancy tool to help patients! Why don’t all doctors have this?”

“Cause originally this was not a medical tool,” he explained as he carefully set the lamp down.

“A weapon? How?” He tilted his head, he didn’t see how a lamp can cause harm.

“It was used to suck the bodies in the lamp, but be able to control their shadow against their own will,” he inwardly chuckled at MK's shocked face.

“What?! That can happen?!”

“Yep.”

“But wait?” He backtracked as he looked at the lamp, “if it’s so dangerous why are you using it?”

“At the end of the day, a weapon is just a tool,” he quietly said, “it doesn’t have any emotions, no attachments, no moral conceptions, it’s just a tool that anyone can use. It’s the one who uses the weapon that determines how the tool can be used.”

“Really?”

Macaque paused as he looked into MK bright eyes, he gave a small smile.

“Really.”

He put away his supplies and safety materials before ruffling MK’s long hair. “Now how about you tell me what you were originally here for nightlight.”

“Oh right! Do you know where the spare water bottles are? The others have holes punctured in them.”

“Damnit Minsheng,” Mac pinched his nose, “they should be in the bottom cabinet by the fridge.”

“Thanks!” He said as he left the infirmary, “Want me to bring you anything?”

“No, I’ll be a bit busy,” he muttered as he took out his phone, “I have a few arrangements to make, specifically with some glue, rope, and a whole lot of glitter.

“Hey Pigsy!” MK hollered out as he walked into the shop, “the usual please!”

“Coming right up,” the pig grinned as he was already preparing his order.

The fifteen year old grinned as he sprawled over the counter, “Tang not here today?”

“Surprisingly no, he’s probably off at the library or some antique store,” the pig demon then noticed that he was alone, “surprised I don’t see Macaque or Mei here.”

“Well Mei wanted to pick out her future bike, so she dragged Dad over to the auto shop.”

“Auto Shop? For a bike?”

“Motorcycle,” he explained.

“Ah,” he nodded and placed his food in front of him, “bon appetit.”

“Thank you!” He cheerfully replied as he dug into his food.

Pigsy just grins at the boy as he was about to go back to cleaning up since MK was the only one in, but he paused as a probing thought couldn’t leave his mind. He knows it wasn’t any of his business and he hasn’t seen anything damaging nor even concerning, but his damn gut has been bothering him ever since he laid eyes on him. “So kid.”

“Hm?” MK looked up as some noodles were hanging from his mouth.

“I'm a bit curious about your old man, he isn’t the chattiest bunch and I’m a bit curious at what he does,” he casually asks.

“He’s a doctor!”

“Really?” Now that was a surprise, he was betting on being some sort of martial arts teacher.

“Really! He’s super smart and a bunch of people and demons go to him, he’s even had a student before.”

“Huh, doesn’t seem like the type to take on a student.”

“No, but she was really persistent,” he grinned at the understatement.

“I bet.”

“Though he is a bigggg worrywart,” he leaned back from his chair.

“He is?”

“Oh yeah, like there was this one time when I was ten that I scraped my finger against a really thorny plant and when I yelled out, he instantly picked me up and started to treat my entire arm as he tried to find out if the plant was poisonous while asking me if I had a fever, nausea or any other symptoms and during that entire time I was not let down,” he deadpanned.

He snorted at the image, “that certainly is unexpected.”

“He also sometimes performs shadow plays at the theater.”

“Flair for the dramatics,” he quirked his eyebrow.

“Like you wouldn’t believe it,” he nodded.

Pigsy chuckled, “makes me wonder how he met your mother then.” Though he stopped as he saw MK fell silent and his face flushed. “…did I say something wrong?”

His head shot up and he shook his hands, “No! Nothing! You said nothing wrong! Well-actually a bit, but not anything mean! It’s just that-well he…adopted me.” He couldn’t help the grin that formed on his face.

“Oh-shit, I’m sorry that was really callous of me,” he winced, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“My loss?” His grin faded at the unusual statement.

“Your parents,” he clarified.

“Oh,” face completely slack and blank, “they're not dead.”

Pigsy��s eyes blinked, “Oh,” then he came to the realization of just what he meant and his voice and face dropped, “oh.”

MK gave a sad little smile, “Yeah, he actually found me in a back alley when it was about to rain and he adopted me from that point on. He may not be blood related to me, but he’s still my dad.”

The pig smiles and begins to heat some noodles, “and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Now, you want some more? This one is on the house.”

“Yes please!” He perked up.

Pigsy couldn’t help but give a wide smile at the child's affectionate nature, it was contagious.

‘Glad for my gut to be wrong for once,’ he mentally thought as he poured the soup in, ‘he just looks like the usual jackasses you see in the underbelly, but he’s just a protective bastard for his kid…kids, half sure that he practically adopted girlie.’ He should ask the monkey next time he comes in, it would be hilarious to see his reaction…damnit Tang has infected him.

Macaque was standing in front of the two teenagers in one of the forest's many clearings, “So after much deliberation, I decided to finally teach you how to actually fight.”

“I told you we would wear him down eventually,” Mei nudged MK, but they were both caught off guard when their feet were swept under them and they fell on their butts.

“First lesson, don’t let your guard down,” he said as his tail gently swished behind him, “that is the height of stupidity that will get you killed.”

“Noted,” they both groaned.

“Now,” he waited for a bit for them to get on their feet, “I can’t promise you that I am an expert on martial arts, most of my moves are just street fighting, but I can promise you that by the time I’m done with you guys, you will actually have a chance to put up a fight.”

MK and Mei listen intently.

“Mei,” she perks up, “I know your family has some sort of dragon ancestor right?”

“Oh yeah! The Great Dragon of the West Sea,” she proudly stated.

Macaque could only blink at the irony as he quickly realized just who her ancestor, or rather the son of the said ancestor, was, “Nope, not going to open that can of worms,” he muttered. “But yes that, and I believe that you have already looked through some of the martial arts teachings that was formed by him?”

“Yeahhh, but I’m having real trouble with actually learning some of the moves,” she nervously chuckled.

“That’s cause it shares the same qualities as Tai Chi, though with much serpentine movement, I have fought quite a few with that kind of style and usually two things stand out to me, they are quick and accurate.”

“Like a snake,” she nodded.

“Like a snake,” he agreed, “I can definitely teach a few off of the top of my head, but it would probably be best if I see a few of your scrolls at a later point so I can demonstrate.”

“Hell yeah!” She pumped her fist in the air.

“Alright, MK,” his head perked up at the call of his name, “you have zero knowledge of any type of fighting.”

He deflated at that.

“Which makes it easier to incorporate my style onto you.”

He instantly inflated back up.

“If there is one thing I have learned in all my years of fighting is-,” he vanished from view and both kids scrambled forward to escape being surprised from behind, only to be startled when they found their heads being gently pushed down from above and they were once again sprawled out.

“Be unpredictable,” he cheekily stated as he landed back down.

“Why do I get the feeling that we’re going to be falling down a lot,” MK said as he lifted his face off the grass.

“I have a feeling you're right,” Mei muttered as she laid flat on her back.

“Like I said, welcome to your first class my unruly disciples,” he gave the most shit eating grin, “you have a lot to learn.”

[busterkeatonfanfic]

Chapter 8

Buster woke the following morning feeling like hell. His nostrils were so stuffy he could barely breathe out of them, his nose was on fire, and his mouth still tasted like blood even though he’d brushed his teeth twice before bed. He stumbled to the bathroom to look at the damage. Two small purple bruises underscored his eyes and the bridge of his nose was swollen to twice its size. His appearance confirmed that canceling filming had been the right decision. He swallowed some aspirin, cleaned his teeth again, and took a shower, letting the steam open his clogged sinuses. 

The aspirin barely touched the pain. He toweled off and pulled on a dressing gown, then poured himself a breakfast whiskey to go with the steak and eggs he ordered. Once he’d eaten, he called Nate. To his relief, he was patched over to her line; she hadn’t left for Sunday brunch at Dutch’s yet. 

“Hello?” she said.

“Hi, how are you?” he said.

She told him that she was well. 

He said, “I broke my nose in the game last night.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. How?”

He explained the eighth-inning fastball to the face. “But we won the game. 9 to 6.”

“Did you?” she said. “That’s too bad about your nose though. I’m sorry, darling.”

She sounded suitably sympathetic, but he craved more. He wanted the soothing, the I’ll-be-right-there, the kissing and canoodling. 

“How are the boys?” he said.

“The usual,” she said. “Full of the devil.”

“Good,” he said. “I won’t be filming for a few days because of my nose. You should really consider bringing them up. They’d love the steamboats and I’d like you to see the set. They say the shopping is good in Yolo, too.”

“Oh Buster,” she said, her tone telling him the answer was already a big fat no. “You know I’d love to, but six hours on a train is too much for them, don’t you think? I know you’re disappointed, but we must think of what’s best for them. And wouldn’t they be in your way? I’d have to bring Connie to mind them, and I think four is getting to be a crowd. I don’t suppose your suite would hold another four, would it?”

“Nate, you don’t have to bring the governess. I think you’re perfectly capable of managing them for a few days, don’t you? We can get a second suite or even a third, if that’s what has you concerned.”

“I’m flattered by your faith in me,” she said with a little laugh, “but you’ve never traveled with three- and five-year-old boys! I know I’m letting you down, but it’s only another month, isn’t it? Five weeks tops? That’s really not so bad when you think of it.”

“Yeah, it’s not too bad,” he said, echoing her hollowly.

“I miss you dreadfully,” she assured him, before launching into a story about the picture Dutch was filming and the party she intended to throw with her sisters at the Villa next weekend. He listened with only half an ear. He wasn’t surprised about her answer to his proposal, but he still felt lousy.

Since Bobby had been born and Nate had booted him out of the bed, he’d accepted that his needs would have to be satisfied by other women. He knew that Nate hated him for it, even though he’d stuck to his original promise and been the soul of discretion. In spite of her rejection, he still desired her and wanted to win her back, but the most she would ever permit was necking and light petting. If he so much as thought about taking things further, she’d squirm out of his grasp. He just didn’t understand, even three years since he’d last made love to her, why he couldn’t have both a wife and the rights that other husbands were entitled to. He’d gone over it in his head a thousand times. Was he a bad lover? Was it her upbringing? Peg’s sermonizing? Her religion? Could she be a lesbian? He didn’t know and God forbid he even try to broach the topic. She’d give him such a withering look before she stalked out of the room that he felt like he ought to be thrown in jail on charges of sex depravity for even mentioning the idea. 

Divorce was out of the question, naturally. There were relationships to preserve: the one with Joe for starters and those with his famous sisters-in-law. He didn’t trust that Nate wouldn’t try to keep the boys from him, either, if he tried to end it. He could just hear her saying to some attorney, ‘Well, he doesn’t see them much anyway.’ In the meantime, all the saphead could do was to keep trying vainly to find that opening in his wife’s affections. Casting her as his leading lady hadn’t worked. Building her a little love-nest, then a great big love-nest, hadn’t worked. He’d recently decided that maybe a real honeymoon instead of the post-nuptial cross-country train trip that had masqueraded as one might work on her. He figured deep down it wouldn’t change her mind, but still he had his foolish hopes. 

When Natalie was done prating, he told her he had to get ready for lunch with Joe and said his goodbyes. There wasn’t any such lunch, but he no longer wanted to talk. 

He ended up spending the afternoon at the new zoo, disguised by a fake moustache, a tweed cap, and jumper vest that constricted him in heat on what was already a sweltering day. It worked, though. No one looked twice at him. The zoo was a disappointment. To begin with, it was extraordinarily tiny, but more importantly most of the animals featured—deer, wild turkey, raccoons—could be seen if you just sat in a Muskegon tree long enough. The most exotic offering consisted of some listless-looking monkeys in cages. A pack of adolescent boys thumped on their wire enclosures and screeched at them to perform. “Pick on someone your own size!” he yelled at them, and they scattered. The monkeys blinked back at him, not seeming to care one way or the other. 

He did have dinner with Joe that night at the Italian Restaurant in the Julius Hotel. As Buster tucked into his truffle tagliatelle, Joe dropped the bomb. 

“We can’t have the flood sequence.”

Buster laughed. “It sounded like you just said ‘We can’t have the flood sequence,’ Joe, but I don’t think I heard you right,” he said, and took a bite of tagliatelle. “Good one, though.”

“I’m not kidding. Think about how it’ll look. You’ve got a river that’s supposed to be the Mississippi—”

“Sacrasippi,” Buster said, lifting his eyebrows.

“Cut it out,” said Joe, frowning. “I’m trying to be serious. You’ve got a river that’s supposed to be the Mississippi and it’s supposed to flood. Well, you know as well as I do that hundreds of people just lost their lives in the Mississippi floods.”

“Since when do you care?” said Buster. If there was one thing he’d always liked about Joe, it was that he let him alone and let him make the pictures his own way. Something about this smelled fishy.

“It’s in poor taste. It’s not going to get laughs, it’s just going to bring bad publicity. I don’t want it to flop. There’s too much money in it.”

Buster set down his fork. Two words had stuck out: publicity and money. “This is Harry, isn’t it?” he said, narrowing his eyes.

Joe gave a slight wave of his hand, dismissing the comment. “Now don’t go blaming Harry. I happen to agree with him. It would be a risky thing, and God knows what it would cost to pull it off anyway.”

“Well that god damn bean-counter,” said Buster, anger flaring. “We’ve already got everything set up for a flood! The entire god damn picture is about a flood. That’s the entire point!” Joe looked at him with a firm expression. “I’ve made up my mind. We can’t do a flood.”

“Well, we may as well can the whole picture then,” Buster said. “All my best gags are built around the flood. I can’t just start from scratch.”

“Look,” said Joe, continuing to eat his own meal. “We’re talking about lost lives here. You can see that, can’t you?”

“Horseshit,” said Buster. “Remember Chaplin’s picture Shoulder Arms? The ink wasn’t even dry on the Armistice when he released that. I remember ‘cause it was the first thing I saw after I got back from France. Everyone loved it. No one was thinking about how many soldiers had just gotten their heads and legs blown off in the war, they just knew a funny picture when they saw one.” He clenched his left fist in his lap. 

“Why not try another disaster?” Joe said.

“Like what?” he said. He stabbed at the pasta with his fork and took a bite without pleasure.

“I’m not the brains here.”

“What, like a cyclone? Joe, I bet you tornadoes and hurricanes kill more people each year than floods. Sure we wouldn’t get bad reviews and angry letters from folks whose families have been killed by tornadoes?”

Joe waved his hand again. “A cyclone sounds just fine. Anything that’s not a flood, you can do.”

It stunk to high heaven as far as Buster was concerned, but he knew Joe well enough to see when he’d made up his mind. He finished his tagliatelle in silence and didn’t even pretend he was willing to pick up the tab when Joe went to pay. He took a taxi back to the Senator and went to bed early, tossing between the sheets and stewing about his lost flood. There were butter cookies in the brown paper sack making dark greasy spots on its sides. Nelly stood outside Buster’s dressing room, her heart racing with the memory of what had happened last time she’d stepped inside it. Before she lost her nerve, she tapped on the door. 

“Come in!” called Buster. 

She slipped through and closed the door. He was sitting at his table again, not in costume today but wearing dark slacks and a long-sleeved blue jacquard shirt with faint stripes.

“Hi, it’s Nelly,” she said, by way of greeting. 

“I haven’t forgotten your name,” said Buster, one corner of his mouth quirking. “What do you have there?”

She stepped a few feet forward and extended the bag. “I made you cookies.”

He looked from the bag to her as he took it, surprised. “What did I do to deserve such an honor?”

“I heard you broke your nose,” she said. Indeed, she could see up close that his nose was swollen near the top and there were small faded bruises beneath his eyes, not noticeable unless you were next to him.

“So you baked me cookies.” He peeked inside. 

“Yes. I wanted to thank you, too,” she said, feeling the full ridiculousness of her gesture. “For taking care of me last Friday night.”

“No one’s ever made me get-well cookies before, not even my own mother. I’d just get cod-liver oil, even for sprains.” He sounded pleased.

“How’s your nose?” she said, as he bit into a cookie. 

“Hurts like the dickens,” he said, chewing. “I’m hoping the swelling will go down by Friday so I can start filming again.” He didn’t remark upon the cookie as he finished it, but she noticed he pulled another out of the bag. “We’re doing the night scenes soon.”

She was still a little fuzzy on Steamboat Bill’s plot, but this week’s filming had involved hundreds of local extras, and the grander of the two steamboats was piloted up and down the river, belching out huge plumes of black smoke. She’d taken a break to watch the spectacle. The crowd’s enthusiasm for the steamboat seemed real. The whole set certainly looked real thanks to all the props down by the riverside, the small boats, the large pennants reading KING, and the patriotic bunting draped on storefronts. Buster had been on hand near the cameras helping direct, but hadn’t noticed her in the throngs.

Buster went on. “I’ve got this publicity man who says I can’t have a flood because of the lives that were lost when the Mississippi flooded, so we’re changing everything up for a cyclone.” She marveled a little that he was telling her anything about the production, but tried not to show it. “I wondered what those airplane propellers and big motors Bert had me order were for,” she said. 

“These are good,” said Buster, pulling a third cookie from the bag. “Remind me to get hurt more often.”

“Or rescue foolish girls from themselves more often,” she said. 

“It was nothing,” he said. 

“It was something to me.” 

He considered her as he started on the third cookie. 

“Anyway, I already took lunch. I’ve got to get back to the shop,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. 

She had her hand on the door when he spoke up again. 

“Why that Shrew play, anyway? Why not Juliet?”

She turned back and looked at him, thoroughly confused. She had no idea how he knew about one of her dearest and closest ambitions.

He noticed her puzzlement and clarified. “You said your dream was to star in that Shrew play. Why? Why not Romeo and Juliet?”

“I don’t remember telling you that,” she said, feeling abashed

“Well, don’t get bent out of shape about it, I was just asking,” he said, a little defensively. 

“No, I’m not bent out of shape, I’m surprised,” she said, as she faced him. “I don’t remember saying that. I’m afraid of what else I, uh, might have said that night.” She cringed to think of what else might have come out of her mouth. “I hope I didn’t beg you for a break or anything.”

He regarded her with a calm expression. “You didn’t. I’d still like to know, though.”

“Well, Kate has a mind of her own. She wants to control her own fate. Marriage isn’t for her,” she said, conscious of how clumsy her words were. “She’s fun to play. Romeo and Juliet is a little boring.”

In truth, it was Katherine’s spirit which she loved, the rebellion against her father and Petruchio, and hang the end of the play. In her experience, the audience never remembered the end of the play, only the beginning and middle where Katherine was at her most defiant and fiery. 

Buster nodded, elbow on the table and finger sliding absently under his lip. The silence stretched on for long enough that Nelly said, “Anyway, I’ll see you around.”

“Thanks for the cookies,” Buster said.

Note: It’s easy when writing a fiction about Buster Keaton to cast Natalie Talmadge as a villain. I prefer to listen to Buster’s granddaughter Melissa Talmadge Cox who points out that the divorce is ancient history and that fans should get over it! Even though I’m writing a story that is obviously canon divergent, I always remember that Buster lived happily ever after with Eleanor Norris Keaton and considered himself to have had a lucky life with very few dark spots. Why did Natalie put a end to her sex life with the gorgeous, winsome Buster Keaton? I think the likeliest explanation is that she just wasn’t attracted to him or simply didn’t like sex. I do think Buster really loved her too and wanted things to work out, which is why their marriage lasted as long as it did. I’ve tried to convey that with this story. Also, I’m with Natalie. Trying to travel hours on a train with two young rambunctious boys sounds like a nightmare, even with a governess.  And yes, the Keaton governess was also named Connie, not to be confused with Constance “Connie” Talmadge, who was also frequently called Dutch. Finally, with a lot of digging through newspapers I learned that the date Buster broke his nose was July 30th, 1927! So the first scene takes place on the 31st. The second occurs on Wednesday, August 3rd.

[omegaverse-council]

Handle With Care

(TW for mentions of domestic abuse and the at least semi-dystopic OD AU.) In which a tired, used omega’s life falls apart, his son seems determined to repeat the same tragedies, and the next door neighbor is armed with casseroles.  Everyone is stubborn, and nothing is easy. But Brin has had worse, so it’s all good.

“Mr. Hill?”   

Brin jerked his eyes away from the poster on the wall.  There should be a limit to pastels in rooms like these, he’d decided. Enough of it, and it felt like you’d developed some sort of milky film over your eyes and couldn’t see the colors properly anymore.  “Yes,” Brin answered.  He was distantly surprised by the sound of his own voice.

“If you’ll just sign here, you and your children will be provided for.  The city’s welfare programs are very generous, you know, after all…”

Don’t say these things happen, Brin thought.

“…After all, these things happen.”

“Right,” Brin agreed. The mark on the back of his neck—a mark which had been there for almost ten years now—suddenly ached.  It would keep doing that, apparently.  Something about the bonding hormones and omega psychology.  Then they’d gone on about the drugs he was eligible for now that Cross was…

 …gone.

Brin signed the paper.  What did he have to be stubborn about, anyway?

“And this,” the social worker said, producing another sheet covered in illegible text, “This will give us permission to place you with other eligible alphas.  I’m not saying there won’t be a few heats that will still be, ehm, difficult—“

It was like glass. Perfectly quiet, perfectly still—and when it became something else, the absence of its silence was like a slap in the face.  That was how Brin shattered.  

His teeth bared in a snarl.  “No,” he growled to the intruder, the offending paper balled up in his fist.  His other hand was still ringing from how hard he’d struck the wooden desk between them, “I will never take another alpha.”

— 

Life proceeded to spectacularly ignore that Brin was now bereaved.  He was now one of those mournful creatures that haunted the fringes of society.  Head down and with wide-eyed figments of another life shuffling along behind, dependent and helpless.  The oh-so-precious omega, scarcer than the alphas who would vie for him, excused from the competition now because if he could take another mate, he’d have done so already.  He must be one of the ones with a faulty loyalty instinct that wouldn’t accept the loss of his alpha.  Nothing anyone could do!  Poor thing. Poor thing.  At least this way he could keep his children.

The welfare check came in.  They moved to another, smaller apartment (one without a balcony).  Destin took his first steps.  And Brin passed his heats alone, biting a leather strap to contend with the pain.  Had to do it. He’d had worse.

 —

 The biggest problem in Brin’s new life, though, was Vadze.

This was about as shocking as you’d imagine.

“Fuck you,” Brin’s eldest snapped, performing a complicated salute that ended in two middle fingers and Vadze’s most acerbic sneer.  Brin had to hand it to the kid—pint-sized Vadze may have been, but anyone would have found that grimace menacing.  Vadze’s little sister, still too young to talk, cringed against Brin’s hip. “I don’t have to do shit!  You want someone to go to school so bad, why don’t you do it, Mom?”

Vadze had also worked out how to make ‘mom’ the most gruesome of his florid insults.  This accomplishment had coincided with the kid presenting as an omega himself.  

“I know, honey,” Brin said, trying to sound wise and authoritative instead of dead tired from how many times the twins had woken him up last night, “That’s why I want you to graduate.  I want better for you—”

Vadze slammed his plate down with a hiss.  Without another word, he went stalking for the door.  

…Brin was going to hazard a guess here and assume that Vadze wasn’t headed for the bus stop.

“I’ll be back sometime tomorrow,” Vadze growled over his shoulder.  “Don’t wait up.”

“But—“

The door slammed. Two rooms over, Destin began to cry. Brin groaned in the back of his throat. It was going to take forever to get Destin back to sleep.  He retreated towards the dim interior of the nursery to get the job started.  

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Seril called from the kitchen.  “I’ll get Sable and Kyr ready for school—c’mon, guys.  Cereal or toast?”

“Toast!”

“Pancakes!”

— 

There was no point in worrying over Vadze, though.  Even when he was younger, Vadze hadn’t ever asked Brin for help.  Not once.  Not even when—

—so anyway, even knowing that his baby had presented as an omega, and even with Vadze staying out all night doing heaven-only-knew-what, Brin couldn’t worry about it the same way he would have if had been someone else.  He didn’t think Vadze was going to come back strung out or brutalized by some gang.  If anything, he was more concerned about Vadze getting dragged home by the police. If Cross had been the sire, Brin would have said Vadze had inherited his father’s temper.

And when a stranger came knocking at the door and wasn’t a drone in a monkey suit to check in on the kids, or an insurance salesman, or a particularly intrepid elementary school teacher trying to meet all the parents, but asked, “Are you Vadze’s mother?”  Yeah, Brin didn’t feel the stab of fear he really should have, just a jaded sense of resignation.  Maybe he was getting old.

He crossed his arms over the worst of the stains on his sweater.  “That’s me,” he sighed, “What’s he done this time?”

“Oh no,” said the stranger, blinking.  “No, I’m here to thank you.”

“Um,” Brin said, blinking back.  “…Vadze Hill?”

The stranger laughed. Brin suddenly felt a lot more self-conscious about his messy sweater.

“I’m Raifa,” he said, extending a hand to Brin.  Upon penetrating Brin’s personal space, it smelled of ink and heavy fog.  A beta, Brin registered distantly, and felt himself relax a fraction more as he shook it.  “Good to meet you.  Your son has been looking after my daughter.  I really appreciate it.”

Brin blinked again.

— 

“So what’s this I hear?”  Brin asked when he saw Vadze again (two days later.  Vadze had been home since then, but only by virtue of his dishes in the sink and rumpling on his side of the bed that he shared with his younger brother).

Vadze, upon being addressed unexpectedly, froze.

It was 3 AM and Vadze was wearing his warmest hoodie.  He had one arm in the fridge, the other shoving a baggie of carrots into his pocket. The kitchen light, which Brin had just flicked on, reflected off Vadze’s wide—and guilty—eyes.  Brin’s jaw tightened.

“You have six other siblings, but you can’t be bothered to help out with them.  And you go and adopt a new one?”

Vadze’s head lowered, but not in a show of submission. It was like a dog preparing to bite. “None of your fucking business, Mom.”  He defiantly shoved another bag of food into his pocket.  “You’re spying on me now?”

“A neighbor visited,” Brin answered.  Vadze cut him off with a sharp, nasty laugh.

“Right.  I could have guessed.”

Please do not make me decipher your bullshit, Brin thought, rubbing at his aching neck.  I’m so damn tired.  What he said was, “Vadze.  It’s the middle of the night.  Go back to bed.”

“Back at you,” Vadze snapped.  “I’ll be back whenever.  Don’t wait up.”

Brin just put his head in his hands.  If he tried to stop Vadze from going, Vadze would yell, and the babies would wake up again, and the circles under the other kids’ eyes would get worse.  It was like being held hostage.  That Vadze didn’t slam the door behind him was a miracle.

— 

“Coming, coming!” Brin hurriedly slapped his hands with the towel—it did him no good whatsoever, because he’d been doing dishes long enough for the towel to be soaked through—and darted to the door. He stepped on something (who had left their pencil on the entryway floor?  Agh!) and nearly tripped.  By the time he got the door open, the fist was poised to knock again.  “Sorry, I’m so sorry,” Brin babbled, “I didn’t hear you—well, I mean, I heard you, but I thought it was something else—“  He blinked. “You’re not social services.”

“Er,” said Raifa, looking just as surprised as Brin.  “Should I be?”

“…No,” said Brin, who had been waiting half the day for them to show up already.  They were supposed to check on the kids.  He’d just gotten started with the dishes—well, except for the fact that he’d been doing them for nearly two hours by now.  Brin groaned a little and let his head thunk against the doorjamb.  They weren’t coming, were they?  “Has the world changed after I was mated?  Is punctuality for suckers?”

“God, I hope not,” Raifa said, “If it is, then my boss at work has really had me fooled.”

Brin cast a rather pitying look at the young man on his doorstep.  Big dark eyes still brimming with hope and optimism, an apologetic smile that belonged in a cartoon—not the adult kind, but the one where they taught you a moral platitude at the end—and a crisp, tidy polo shirt that was quite at odds with the heart-pattern potholders.

Wait.

Brin lifted his head from the doorjamb.  “Is that a casserole?”  He asked, incredulous.

“Yes?”  Raifa said, as though he doubted his own answer. “Does your family like casseroles? I should have asked.  I have brownies downstairs if you want those instead!”

It was a casserole, and it was for Brin’s family.

…Huh.

“Want to come in?” Brin finally asked, vaguely remembering that yes, this was how humans interacted.  Words.  He waved a hand belatedly.

“Yes, please,” Raifa said, and then, “It’s actually still really hot and I’m kind of burning my hands.”  

“Shoot,” said Brin, springing away from the doorjamb.

— 

Raifa needn’t have worried about whether or not Brin’s family ate casseroles.  Brin’s family would probably eat the kitchen table and chairs, given enough hot sauce and butter.  The casserole was a big hit.  Sable and Temer fought viciously over the last slice until Brin cut it in half for them. Even Brin had to admit it was delicious.

Raifa had puffed up proudly when questioned about his cooking skills.  “No, I’m pretty sure you guys will like it,” he said.  “I mean, it’s shameless bribery.  I don’t get to spend a lot of time with my daughter, so I wanted to give her a reason to look forward to sitting down at dinner with me.  I’ve been practicing ever since.”

He gave Brin the brownies too, which Brin hid in the back of the fridge for later, aware that the mongrel hoards would descend otherwise.  It would be nice to have something special for Seril’s birthday and if the quality of the casserole was anything to go by, those brownies would be heavenly.

“Are you sure?” Brin had asked upon being confronted with additional baked goods, even though he was itching to relieve Raifa of all that chocolaty goodness.

“I’m sure,” the beta had laughed, “I had no idea your family was so big!  I should have brought two casseroles!”

“You don’t have to, you know,” Brin had pointed out anxiously on Raifa’s way out.  He hadn’t stayed long, so Brin hadn’t been forced to unearth his small talk.  Just long enough for Raifa to compliment Brin on his home and coo over the cuteness of the (napping) twins.  After all, Raifa wanted to hurry back to get dinner ready for his daughter.  “I haven’t done anything for you.  If anything, you should be feeding Vadze, right?”

“I promise I’ll feed him too, if he’ll ever sit still long enough,” Raifa answered cheerfully. As he went downstairs he waved goodbye to Brin so enthusiastically that Brin’s own hand lifted a little in response.

“…Weird guy,” Brin observed, mouth quirked at the edges.

— 

 “Hey Mom!” Seril came bounding out of his bedroom first thing, startling Brin into narrowly-averted tragedy at the coffee maker. Seril’s fingers were sticky.  He smelled like chocolate.  

Oh no, thought Brin.

“Did you make brownies for my birthday?!”  Seril asked excitedly.

“Um,” said Brin.

This proved sufficient for Seril, who threw his arms around Brin’s waist and hugged him tight. “Thank you!”  He exclaimed.  “They were really good!  And don’t worry, everybody got one.  Yours is over here!”  He towed Brin away from the coffee maker.

“That’s great, honey, but, uh—“  Brin searched for the correct phrasing.  “—How exactly did you know I made you brownies?”

“Vadze told me!”  Seril announced cheerfully.  “He found where you hid them, but don’t worry, he didn’t take any extra.  He’s really nice today!”

As it turned out, Vadze also had vanished from Seril’s impromptu 6 AM party before Brin could have a word with him, but Brin wasn’t exactly surprised.  As far as Vadze’s ideas of a celebration went, this was tame. Last year, Brin had gotten to return shoplifted video games.

— 

There were always consequences, though, and Brin’s came in the form of Temer’s pleading glances and less-than-subtly dropped hints.  

If homemade brownies were awarded for Seril’s birthday, so too must they be awarded at Temer’s, lest it be tacitly understood that mom loved Seril more.

During Raifa’s last visit, Brin had gotten his apartment number (third floor, 418) and that weekend he headed over.  Brin was wearing something conspicuously undecorated with baby vomit or crayons, he had a wad of bills in his back pocket to pay for at least some of the lesson, and he was hoping that society’s ingrained need to take care of the poor, unfortunate omega would be enough to guilt Raifa into submission.  He’d left Seril in charge, which should give him a minimum of three hours before everything dissolved into chaos.

Brin had prepared a speech too, one that started off jovial and then gradually tapered off into attempted blackmail.  He even had two versions: one for Raifa, and one for Raifa’s mate.

However, when Brin knocked, neither of the adults answered the door, but a tiny, poofy-haired creature in overalls.  She’d tied a striped bath towel around her shoulders like a cape.  As Brin stared, she flung it out with her arms with a gwaaaohr of menace.  She had Raifa’s big, dark eyes.

“Fear me, interloper!”  She exclaimed.  “And what do you want?”

She was absolutely precious.  Every single omega instinct of Brin’s clicked on and threatened to make him melt.

“Um,” he said uselessly.  Oh god, he couldn’t blackmail a child.  He’d probably just go to the store and buy her brownies.  

“Gaila,” came a call from further in the house.  “You’re taking too long and I’m hiding all your puzzle pieces.  Who’s at the door?”  

“Some guy looking like Cousin It!”  Gaila howled back at an impressive volume.  Brin winced. He was still shaking it off as Raifa charged up the stairs.  Gaila peered up at him.  “What’s your name, Mister?”

“Um,” said Brin.

“Oh my god,” Raifa said, and scooped Gaila up one-armed.  She obligingly kicked her heels out and made fwoosh noises to indicate her mastery of the power of flight. “I’m so sorry, Brin!  I thought you were just another neighbor or something—“

“—I am, though?”

“—How are you?” Raifa went on bravely.  “I, uh, really didn’t expect you to come visit me. Is everything okay?”

Craaaaap, thought Brin, experiencing a revelation—Raifa had mentioned how little he got to spend time with his daughter, and here Brin was trying to interrupt.

“I mean, I’m really happy you did visit,” Raifa was still babbling.  “I’m probably being rude right now.  So rude. Here, come in.”  He proceeded to usher Brin inside so effectively that Brin failed to make a single excuse to skulk back upstairs.  Gaila, apparently tired of flight, wriggled until Raifa set her down, then sped off.

Raifa shook his head after her.  “Oh boy.  Sorry for subjecting you to that, Brin.  She can be a bit much.”

“Have you met Vadze?”  Brin retorted.  “She’s adorable.  Gaila, right? How old is she?”

“Nine,” Raifa answered.

“Nine and eight months!”  Gaila retorted from around a corner, then vanished with another whirl of her cape.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Raifa said fondly.  “Your father is but a fool.  Nine and eight months.”  To Brin he added, mouthing quietly, “She’s already excited about presenting.”

Brin found himself smiling a little.  Everyone was at that age.  “What does she want to be?”

This prompted a histrionic sigh, “Well, for the longest time she wanted to be a beta. You know, like her poor old man. But now that she’s met your son, I’m afraid she has become fickle. My child decided that alphas are better.”

Ouch.  Well, hopefully not.  Gaila’s crush would be doomed.  Vadze despised alphas.

“She wants to be just like him,” Raifa added.

Brin choked a little. “—like him?”

“Yeah,” Raifa said, “I mean, she’s determined to be taller and everything, but it’s not like Vadze is finished growing either.”

Oh, Vadze, Brin thought, chest squeezing.  What did you tell them?  And then, after a moment’s pondering, he thought more indignantly, And you took off your collar too, didn’t you.  We’re going to have a talk about that…

No possible way that wouldn’t end in a screaming match.  Brin shoved the thought aside.  

“So what’s up?” Raifa asked.  “Not an emergency, I hope!  Because if it is an emergency, then I just spectacularly wasted your time by going on and on.  Um.”

“Nothing like that,” Brin assured him.  “I just—“ His speech had deserted him. Typical.  Time to wing it.  “Show me how to make brownies?”

Raifa blinked at him.

“I can pay you!” Brin blurted, tactful as ever.

Gaila stuck her head around the bend again.  “Brownies? I want some!”

— 

And that was how Brin wound up making brownies in Raifa’s kitchen.  Somehow, the money never made it out of his back pocket.  He went home covered in flour, his one nice shirt stained with batter, and Raifa at his side, carrying the second dish.  They’d gone a little wild.  Gaila had promised to guard the third dish with her life. Brin figured the dish would be significantly and helpfully lighter when they returned for it.

(That was okay. Admittedly, he was planning on ‘forgetting’ that brownie dish like Raifa had ‘forgotten’ his instructor’s fee.)

“You know, you’re actually really good at this,” Raifa said.

“What, going up stairs?”  Brin snorted. “Yeah, I got that online degree.”

“No, the cooking thing,” Raifa laughed.  “Handling kids.  I think Gaila loves you more than me.  I’m jealous.”

Brin nearly stopped to stare at him.  Jealous?

“Do you want me to babysit?”  He hazarded. He didn’t mind.  Gaila was adorable—plus, what was one more?

“Nah.  Not at all,” Raifa laughed.  “I mean, I think I’d be in for an epic tantrum if I tried to separate her from Vadze, right?  She follows him everywhere.”

Brin had sort of forgotten that Raifa had encountered Vadze first.  He doubted his kid had said anything flattering about him.  

“Still,” he muttered. “I’m offering if you need it.”  

“I can teach you how to make some other dishes too,” Raifa offered as they got to the door. “Quick and easy stuff that kids like. If you’re not busy, and, I mean, you want to?  I mean, I’ve got work, so it would have to be over the weekends.”  He grinned.  Raifa did that a lot.  Brin wondered if it made his teeth hurt.  “Busy tomorrow?”

— 

Brin was also right about the conversation with Vadze over his collar.  It did turn into a screaming match.  

“What is it, then?!” Vadze howled back, eyes flashing, collar crunched in his fist.  “If that’s not what you’re afraid of, say it!   Just say it!!  You think I’m gonna let someone bite me just because I don’t wear this piece of shit to broadcast how pathetic I am?!”  He hurled the collar at the ground, and the cheap plastic snapped under the stomp of his foot.  It must have hurt.  Vadze wasn’t wearing shoes.  “Fuck you!!” Vadze bellowed.  “I can take care of myself!!  I’m not some dumbass like YOU!!”

And Brin, Brin who had hung onto Vadze with everything he had when Vadze was just a tiny, helpless thing who didn’t know anything that wasn’t his mother’s warmth and the sound of Brin’s heartbeat—Brin who had promised himself that he would love Vadze forever, no matter what—he was screaming back just as loudly.

“You think you have a choice!!”  He snarled. “You don’t!  You never take the collar that protects you off!  And if you are too good—no, too arrogant—to follow the rules, don’t expect me to clean up your mess!!  While you live under my roof, you will wear that collar AT ALL TIMES, you hear me!? Or you can get out and never come back!!”

It was the wrong ultimatum to put in front of Vadze.  His eyes gleamed like he’d been waiting for it.

“Oh,” Brin choked. Oh no.

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Vadze sneered, and turned on his heel.

Brin was rooted in place.  The door slammed.  In the ringing silence, he could now hear that the babies crying.  The other kids had heard.  They were scared.  Brin needed to go comfort them.  Vadze was gone.

Brin put his face in his hands.  

— 

…The neighbors actually called the police on them.  

Brin wasn’t annoyed, just confused.

“A disturbance was reported in this apartment,” the officer at the door told Brin.  Brin kept his head low, aware that his eyes were puffy and red.  “Is everything alright, sir?  Are you in any trouble?”

Brin was still a little bemused that someone had actually called the police.  They couldn’t have been that loud.  Surely it had been louder when Cross—

“No, we’re fine,” he said.  “Just an argument.  Won’t happen again, I swear.”

“Are you sure? We’re here to keep you safe.”

And for a moment, Brin thought of sending them after Vadze.  It would be an empty gesture.  Brin already knew Vadze could hide from the cops.  

It was actually kind of funny.  After everything, Vadze was the one Brin had finally told to get out.

— 

Incidents of reported domestic abuse in alpha-omega couples are extremely low.  Alphas feel the need to protect and provide for their mate. What alpha would ever intentionally harm that special person?  And an omega instinctively submits to their alpha and would never defy them.

In reality, it becomes a matter of degrees.

Being isolated during heat is an agonizing sensation for a mated omega.

And there will be an arduous, psychologically traumatic struggle to be claimed by any other, no matter the emotional connection, because the omega’s body still is bound to that original mate.  Should the omega succeed in bonding to a different alpha, it means their children growing up around a stepparent who will be eager to start a new family.  It is very easy to fade into the background.  Adoption is always encouraged.  All children deserve homes that want them.

And all you have to do to prevent that is put on a smile square your shoulders, take a deep breath…

“Sorry. I was provoking you.  You’re right.  Can you forgive me?”

Separation means financial reliance on the state for oneself and one’s children.  It means not having a protector.  It means having to fight alone against alphas who may feel entitled to any omega who doesn’t have a mate to defend them.  

“I was being so stupid.  I know no one else will be as good to me as you are…”

Because after losing an alpha, the omega has been used.  The omega has been worn down.  The omega is desperate.  And that omega will take what he can get, if he knows what’s good for him.  The alpha he might get could be far, far worse than this one.

“Please, Cross…?”

And so, the abuse becomes a matter of degrees.

How bad was the beating?

Brin’s motto: he’d had worse.

— 

“Coming…”  Brin paused to smother a yawn against the back of his wrist.  His head was pounding.  He fumbled with the lock, wishing fervently that he could go lie down.        

And he could! Once he made dinner, finished the laundry, ironed the kids’ school things, brought Kyr some medicine, and fed the babies.  And probably made everybody’s lunches.  Seril and Temer were just going to have to live without help with their homework today, because Brin probably wasn’t getting back up tonight.

He pushed the door open, wincing at the glare of the afternoon sunlight.  He found himself staring at Raifa.

Raifa, whose glorious hair never looked like a cat had been chewing on it.  Dammit.

Brin attempted a smile anyway, out of sheer neighborly stubbornness.  “Oh hey.  Did we have a lesson today?”

“No,” Raifa said, peering down.  “I just wanted to… Brin?  Brin?”

Brin put a hand out against the doorjamb to stop himself from toppling over.  “Mm?”  His eyes shot back open.  “Vadze is okay, right?”

“What?”  The change of subject made Raifa blink.  “Oh.  Yeah, of course he’s fine.”  Raifa bit his lip.  “…But you look terrible.”

“Thanks,” Brin snorted.  Raifa briefly looked so wounded that Brin cracked a real smile.  “Don’t worry.  I just got the sniffles from Kyr.”

“Uh-huh,” Raifa said, slowly and doubtfully.  “Hey, can I come in?  I brought meatloaf.”

Brin closed his eyes at those miraculous words.  Dinner: sorted.  “Be my guest.”  He managed to part himself from the doorjamb long enough to let Raifa inside.  

“Here—“  Raifa offered his arm, but Brin waved him away. He wasn’t an invalid.

Despite this, Brin somehow wound up leaning against Raifa anyway as they limped into the living room.  His head really hurt, that was his excuse.

“You sit down,” Raifa said, settling Brin back onto the cushions.  “I’ll put the meatloaf in the fridge, okay?”

“I can do it.”  Brin tried to sit up, but he got tangled in the couch cushions.  The room was kind of… wobbling.  Groaning, Brin let his head fall back.  Okay, five minutes.  He could afford five minutes.

Raifa’s quiet footsteps receded.  Brin could hear him clattering around in the kitchen.  A patter of littler footsteps announced themselves—Sable, maybe?—and Raifa chatted with her in hushed tones.  The kid went away again, and Brin relaxed.  His head spun, even sitting down.  Ugh, poor Kyr.

“You okay?” Brin called out to Raifa.  “You’re taking a little while in there.  Need any help?”

“I’m good,” Raifa reassured him.  “Just making you some tea.”

Brin didn’t need tea. Brin needed to do the laundry. More to the point, Brin needed to convince himself to get back up on his feet.

The apartment was a mess.  He shouldn’t let Raifa see it like this…

— 

Brin woke up to a gentle hand on his shoulder.  

Hm.  Someone was being nice.  Brin’s head really hurt.  Had he gotten hurt bad this time—?

Shit.

“How long was I asleep?”  He gasped at once, latching onto Raifa’s wrist.  Brin’s chest had congested into a block of concrete while he rested.  A headache throbbing relentlessly behind his eyes.  Someone had wrapped a blanket around him.  Brin drew in a breath to yell about it and wound up doubled over and coughing wetly.

“Uh oh,” Raifa said. His voice was hushed.  Even the noise of Brin’s coughing was making his headache worse, so Brin appreciated it.  “Okay, lie back before you fall over.  And drink.” Brin, throat burning, had no choice but to accept the tea.  Hot tea—but it was already dark outside through the apartment window and he wasn’t fooled.  “I hate to wake you, but I think you might be more comfortable sleeping in your bed.”

“I shouldn’t have been sleeping at all,” Brin managed to croak. “You shouldn’t have let me.”  He glared reproachfully at the intruder. Raifa smiled nervously back.

“You’re sick, Brin. You have to rest.”

“I can’t,” Brin snapped angrily, and then had to cough again.  Raifa took the tea before it spilled.

“It’s okay,” he soothed.  “Seril is taking care of Kyr.  Temer and I did the laundry.  I hope you don’t mind—“  Brin damn well did mind! “—and Seril told me you make lunches for the kids, so I made them some sandwiches and put them in the fridge.  Come on—“  He somehow negotiated Brin to his feet.  They began to hobble to the bedroom.  Each step was exhausting.  Brin felt horribly like he was going to burst into tears in the middle of it.  He kept having to cough into the crook of his arm too, which was disgusting, and really frustrating to be doing in front of his nice, unfairly perfect neighbor.

Raifa settled Brin down onto the bed.  Tucked him in and everything.  Brin wanted to protest, but instead he just laid there, eyes watering, shivering all over.  Why did the apartment suddenly feel freezing cold?

“Sorry,” he muttered miserably, avoiding Raifa’s eyes.

“It’s okay,” Raifa answered.  “This is what neighbors are for.  And look, is there anything else you need done tonight, Brin? I don’t want you to have to get up again.”

Brin hesitated.  “Just ironing,” he said, and then, quieter, “I need to feed the babies.”

“Would you let me do that?”  Raifa must have felt Brin stiffen.  “Okay, well what if I fed them in here, where you could see?” He asked gently.  “So you can make sure they’re okay?  Or do you want me to ask Seril to do it?”

Brin’s throat ached even worse.  He had to take a few deep breaths and then his voice was steady.  “It’s okay if you do it.  But bring Seril in here too.  I might need his help with them later tonight.”

“Okay,” Raifa said, and then, more sternly, “Rest.”

Brin scowled at him.

— 

Raifa visited two more times, and the second time, Brin was well enough to be up and about, aggressively completing chores to make up for lost time.  “No one in this house knows how to do dishes,” he grumbled, whipping out the dishtowel.  “And as for you—“  He aimed a dripping spoon towards Raifa’s nose, “You’re terrible at ironing.  You put creases down the middle of Temer’s shirts.”

“Yeah,” Raifa grimaced, “…Not really my best skill.”

“I can show you how,” Brin offered without thinking, then winced.  “I mean, if your mate doesn’t mind.  Actually, you’d probably rather learn from them.”  Brin still needed to introduce himself to them too, if only to apologize for monopolizing Raifa for the past few days.  But they always seemed to be out whenever he visited—

“She wouldn’t mind,” Raifa answered.  “In fact, I think she’d appreciate you helping me out.  She passed away three years ago.”

Brin nearly dropped the spoon.  

Nothing pastel, at least.  He’d frozen over the water, suds up to his wrists, and the wall he was staring at was perfectly blank.  “I’m sorry,” Brin said after a moment.  “I had no idea…”

“It’s alright,” Raifa replied calmly.  “I have you at a disadvantage, after all.  Vadze told me about you when we met.”  

Didn’t Brin know it.

And he wanted to say something sensitive—something kind and thoughtful that would prove wrong all the inevitably horrid things his kid had said about him.  But it was like his jaw had locked shut.

Raifa sighed. “That was part of why I brought that casserole over,” he said after a moment.  “I know what a mess I was when I first lost her.  Don’t take this the wrong way, but when I heard about you, I just… Well, I thought you might need some help.”

Brin glanced over his shoulder.  “Do I—“ Do I really seem so pathetic?  “Does it really seem like I need to be watched?”  He smiled weakly.

Raifa answered him with an equally pathetic smile.  “It’s been three years and I still try to get Gaila to wear all denim because I can’t iron things right.”

Brin laughed—then he coughed, because he still wasn’t completely well, but he managed not to cough into the sink.  Feeling brave, he asked nonchalantly, “Does that make us friends?”

“Please, I already bought your friendship,” Raifa answered matter-of-factly.  “You were doomed at first casserole.”

Brin had never had friends, not since having Vadze.  Definitely not after being bitten by Cross.  He had no idea what he was doing, but flicking suds at Raifa seemed like a good place to start.

— 

“I wasn’t using Vadze as an excuse or anything,” Raifa suddenly exclaimed one afternoon. “I really do appreciate him staying with Gaila!  I’m pretty much working two jobs.  Ugh.”  He gave that slightly queasy, sharp-edged grin that meant he was talking about his mate. “Hospital bills.  Moving wasn’t cheap either.”

Brin nodded along. Beta households weren’t eligible for government assistance, even if there were kids involved.  It couldn’t have been easy for Raifa to assume full financial responsibility and try to raise a growing girl.

“And I know she’s lonely,” Raifa went on, “Even though she’s such a tough kid.  She’d barely even talk about her mom, you know, at first—“  He shook his head.  “She didn’t want to make her daddy cry.  And now I’m feeling lonely because she’s always off gallivanting through the neighborhood with her new best friend.  Seriously, that’s just sad.”

Brin had to smile. Kids were a mystery.  They could be brave and fragile in the same sentence, assert their independence while expecting Mom to come fix their problems.  Easy to love, and easy to be hurt by.  “You must be doing a good job,” he murmured. “She’s a really great kid.”

“But so is Vadze,” Raifa said.  

“Hm.”  Brin raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Raifa nudged him a little.  “You should try to let them talk about it, you know,” he went on.  “Even if you’re not ready to talk with them.  Kids deal with loss a little differently, but they still feel it.  They need to get it out.”

Brin smiled dryly. “Yeah,” he agreed.  He was thinking, They don’t miss Cross.  He asked, “Did Vadze tell you about my mate?”

“No,” Raifa shrugged. “I think he’s still processing it. I did ask,” he admitted, “Just once. But he just stormed out without anything.”

That’s my boy, Brin thought, chest squeezing. Control that temper.

— 

Having friends was strange, but Brin prided himself on his ability to adapt quickly.  “Just bring her laundry up with you,” he said into the receiver, phone pinned between his shoulder and his chin as he airplaned another bite of baby food into Destin’s mouth.  “We’ll do them both.  I’ll show you how to do the ironing.”

“Can’t today,” Raifa said, “Gaila’s here.”

“She is?”  Brin exclaimed, and cursed a little as he dipped his sleeve into Destin’s bowl.  Gaila usually came home after dark.  It would have worried Brin to pieces if it was his kid.  Truth be told, it kind of did anyway.

“Mm-hm.“

“Well, tell her I say hi—“

“She’s already demanding you come down for a visit,” Raifa replied amusedly.  “Little pest.  No, shoo, it’s daddy’s turn with the phone—“

“—HI BRIN—“

“Do I need to call you back?”  Brin asked, laughing.

“No, no,” Raifa laughed with him.  “She’s drawing anyway.  Gaila, what are you making?”

“You can’t look yet!”

“And there you have it.”  Raifa snorted.  “I don’t even think I’m needed right now.  She just requires the audience for later.”

“You wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Brin retorted, and smiled as Raifa sighed across the line.

“You got me.”

“You don’t…” Brin hesitated.  At Raifa’s encouraging hum, he took a breath.  “You don’t happen to know what happened to Vadze tonight, do you?”  As soon as he said the words, he winced.  He didn’t want to have to explain the question.  Oh, the real reason I’m asking about my son’s whereabouts is because he hasn’t been home in almost two weeks…

“Let me just ask,” Raifa answered gently.  Brin let his breath back out.  Destin had finished eating, it seemed, and was flailing hopefully in an effort to escape the high chair.  Brin dried his son’s face one-handed, the other twisting nervously in the hem of his own shirt.

It would be okay. Vadze was always okay.  He was smart and resourceful.  And stubborn.  So stubborn.  Everything Brin wasn’t…

“Gaila says Vadze is getting in a fight with some of the bigger kids,” Raifa finally said. Brin dropped the spoon.

“A—a fight?”  He choked.

“It’s okay,” Raifa soothed, and as Brin shook his head, he clicked his tongue over the line. “Brin?  It’s okay.  Vadze will be fine.”

“How can he be fine?!”  Brin exclaimed.  “Does Gaila know where he is?  I need to go get him.  Now.”

“Brin,” Raifa said gently, “Vadze has been getting in fights since you moved here.”  Brin felt cold all over.  The beta’s soft inquiry—“didn’t you know?”—seemed to ooze into his ears, drawing out the awful question.

No.  No, he hadn’t known.

His baby was—

“I think I’d better come up after all,” Raifa said.  

“No,” Brin insisted. “Please don’t.  It’s fine.  I’m just—” I don’t want to see you feeling sorry for me.  Or worse—judging me for being such a bad parent—

“Breathe,” Raifa urged.  “Breathe, Brin.  Come on. It’s not like what you’re imagining, I promise.  He holds his own.”

“But he’s—“

“He told me about it, okay?  He probably didn’t want you to get scared.  He’s cleared a territory.  He’s only fighting the  alphas who challenge him over it—“

“Vadze is not an alpha!!”  Brin shouted into the receiver, and then proceeded to hang up in mortification.  

Startled by the loud noise, Destin’s eyes welled up. “Oh—oh no, honey, Mom’s sorry,” Brin picked the baby up and cuddled him close.  “Really, I’m sorry, sorry…”  He tucked his face against Destin’s downy head, his own tears prickling at his eyes. He hadn’t known anything.  

But this was just like the collar Vadze refused to wear.  He didn’t want to be an omega.  He wanted to be an alpha so bad he would lie about it and invite other kids to beat him up.

I am a failed mother, Brin thought, heart crumpling in his chest.  I couldn’t make Vadze feel better, and I certainly couldn’t protect him.  So this is what he’s turned to.  This is how he’s coping.

He should probably call Raifa back and apologize for losing his temper, but all of Brin cringed away from the very notion.  No way could he get out of explaining things this time.

And he’d always had worse beatings, sure; he could take anything Cross dished out.  But thinking back on them, contemplating them, talking about them was like taking every hit all at once.  Brin didn’t have it in him.  Not anymore.  The only way he could keep going was to not let himself feel it.

And someone was knocking at the door.

— 

“What did I tell you about coming up here?”  Brin said angrily, swiping at his face with the back of his sleeve—he couldn’t seem to stop the tears now that they’d started flowing.  Dammit, he hated being seen like this.  He should have just let Raifa knock.  “Go back.  You’re not going to leave Gaila by herself.”

“Not for long anyway,” Raifa said.  “And anyway, you still opened the door.”

“Only because I thought you were the landlord,” Brin snapped.  “Go home.”

“I’m sorry,” Raifa said, not in the exact same tone as a petulant child, but the obnoxiousness was all there.  He was not sorry.

And then Raifa opened his arms up to Brin. “Will you just come here?”  

Brin glared at him.  

“It’s okay,” Raifa said, “Please, just let me.  It’s okay to need a hug.  Literally everyone needs a hug sometimes.”

But Brin’s problem was not a paucity of hugs. Brin’s problem was needing a do-over for his life.

“I don’t—“ Brin’s perfectly angry assertion ruptured on a sob.  “—You don’t get it.  I don’t deserve—“

“No,” Raifa hushed him.  He took a half step forward.  Faltered there, wild-eyed, fingertips stiffening.  “Oh, Brin.  You do. You do.”

Repeating it didn’t make it so.  Brin’s weight rocked to his heels.  He wanted to slam the door.  But Brin’s head thumped against Raifa’s chest, and then the beta’s arms were sweeping around him, gathering the omega close.  

“You try so hard,” Raifa said, voice choked, “Why would you say that about yourself? Dammit, Brin…”

Brin bawled into Raifa’s shirt like a baby, hiding his face and feeling, for the first time in a long time, somebody hugging him close for no reason at all.

— 

And then they sat on the couch together while Gaila played with Temer in the other room. Raifa had briefly left Brin by himself to go bring her over.  Brin had failed to lock the door on him.  His legs were noodles.  His gas tank was empty.  He was flopped over the couch, head lolling back, limp and wrung mostly dry, staring at the ceiling.  Raifa was warm beside him.  

“He hasn’t been coming home, has he?”  

Brin looked over.

Raifa was smiling sadly.  “Yeah, I thought he might not be.  He’s been sleeping on our floor more than usual.  And he doesn’t take much, but Vadze steals food when he thinks I’m not looking.”

Brin’s face flamed. “Oh—I am so sorry.  How much?  I’ll pay you back—“  Raifa waved a hand.

“It’s nothing I can’t spare,” he said simply.  “If he’d let me, I’d offer it.  He’s just too proud to be seen needing something.”

“That idiot,” Brin muttered.

“He kind of takes after his mom,” Raifa added lightly, and so Brin glowered at him until his swollen eyes stung.  

“He’s okay, Brin,” Raifa said more gently.  “No more bruised up than usual.  However he’s getting by, he’s getting by.  And honestly…”  He hesitated for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.  “…he’ll be okay.  I’m certain of it.”

“You don’t know what Vadze is capable of,” Brin murmured back.  

“Maybe not,” Raifa agreed, “But I’ve seen him with Gaila.  He takes being her big brother seriously.  Vadze wouldn’t want her to see him really bad off.”

Brin opened his mouth to argue.  After a moment, he closed it and tried again.  “I’m not sure he knows his limits,” he said quietly.  “He didn’t exactly have the best childhood, as I’m sure you can tell—“

“Hey,” Raifa interrupted.  Brin cut him off, unwilling to hear it.

“—he wouldn’t mean to get hurt,” Brin growled, “But he thinks he’s invincible.  I can’t even believe he’s fighting with alphas on the street.”  He straightened up suddenly and addressed Raifa seriously, “He is an omega.  I’m not crazy.  I have his papers if you don’t believe me—“          

“I do, I do,” Raifa reassured him.  “But he’s pretty big for an omega, and he’s holding his own in the territory fights. Maybe even a little more than that. Gaila’s seen him fight and she pretty much worships him.”

“But he’s an omega,” Brin said helplessly, “Sooner or later, he’s not going to be holding his own.  And what then?”

“Then,” Raifa answered quietly, “You have to be there for him to pick him back up again. That’s all you can do.  That’s all any parent can do.”

Brin growled at him. “You’re a pushover, Raifa.  If I give up like that then there won’t be anything left of him to pick up!  If it was Gaila—if she presents as an omega, because she might—you wouldn’t dare leave her to the wolves.  Not if you’ve lived through half of what I have.  You’d know better—”  Even as he said it, he knew that Raifa hadn’t.  Whatever Raifa had gone through hadn’t been bad enough to destroy him.  It was hard to believe that the kindhearted beta had even lost his mate in the first place.  

Instead, it had barely touched him.  Raifa was still so… so nice, so forgiving, like the world hadn’t wronged him at all. That was part of why he was such a lenient parent.  He hadn’t been taught the hard way that he couldn’t afford that luxury.

“But,” Brin admitted miserably, “Vadze won’t even talk to me, so what am I saying?  I’d have to chain him up.  And then he’d hate me even more and still run away the first chance he got.”

“Vadze doesn’t hate you,” Raifa said at once.  Brin threw him an incredulous look, but Raifa’s gaze was puzzlingly sincere.  “Really,” he said, shaking his head.  “I knew you two fought…”  A smile was beginning to spread across his face.  Brin stared at it in confusion.  “…You really don’t know.”

“What don’t I know?” Brin demanded.  “Tell me.”

“Whenever Vadze comes over,” Raifa told him, beaming, “He asks me about you.  He makes sure that you’re okay.”

Brin blinked.

“Just like you, really,” Raifa went on, “Whenever you have the opportunity, you’ll ask me little things about him.  And you both pretend like you don’t really care that much, like you have no problem being apart, but you keep asking.  Sure, he’ll complain about you if everything’s okay.  But when I say you’re having a bad time he’ll all but order me to give you a call and bring you something for dinner.”

At this point, Brin’s eyes were all but bugging out of his head.  “Vadze does that?”  He gaped. “No way.”

“You’re both really bad at expressing your feelings, aren’t you?”  Raifa’s voice was tinged with sympathy.  “You care so much, but you’re scared to show it.  Would it really be so bad to let Vadze know you love him?”

Brin swallowed and looked down at the floor.  “It’s hard to,” he said quietly.  “I—he really should hate me.  I think he probably does.  After everything that happened… I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Is it maybe something you can tell me about?”  Raifa asked.

Brin’s mouth opened.

After a moment, he closed it again and shook his head.  “No,” he said.  “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“Look, it’s fine,” Raifa soothed, and Brin grabbed his hand.

“I can’t yet,” he stressed.  “This was a lot to process in one day.  So can we just sit around being normal people for a little while? You can hear the gory details some other time.”

“That sounds good,” Raifa agreed, and turned his hand over so their fingers tangled.  He squeezed Brin’s hand.  “Take all the time you need,” he said.

— 

“I have the worst trust issues,” Brin explained with a rigid grin, when they’d let the conversation stretch and wound up staying up too late—tiredness and the electric energy of Raifa’s attention left Brin feeling drunk.  The words just kind of fell out on their own.

Raifa patted his hand.  “It’s okay,” he said, yawning, “Gotta keep fighting, however you can.”

Brin stared at the top of his head for a moment—Raifa had hunched over to yawn again, this time into his fist.  “Augh,” he groaned, “Bet you Gaila isn’t going to let me sleep in tomorrow…”

“She has to keep fighting too,” Brin murmured, smiling to himself, and outright laughing at the wounded look Raifa shot him.  

“That’s not fair,” he lamented.  “…I’m too tired to come up with a good argument.”

“Then you’d better get back to your apartment,” Brin answered.  “Come on, get up.  I’ll walk you down.”  He prodded Raifa, who grunted, but lurched to his feet.  Raifa collected Gaila—napping in the nest with Brin’s kids—and cradled her carefully in his arms.  She nestled closer with a sleepy mumble.  

Brin wondered when he’d forgotten to tense up.  Seeing Raifa approach his kids…  Raifa tousled Kyr’s hair as he left.  The little boy hummed, even fast asleep.

“You can’t walk me down,” Raifa muttered on his way to the door, “You’re the omega.  I have to walk you down.”

“You’re making no sense,” Brin scoffed, and Raifa tilted his head back to grin at him.

“Yeah.  I know.”

— 

And then when Brin finally worked up his courage to tell Raifa—when they sat down at the kitchen table, fortifying mugs of tea in hand, staring at each other in silence as Brin tried to work out where to begin—Raifa blurted out, “Maybe you shouldn’t tell me.”

Brin blinked at him. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “That’s cool.”  He nodded.  He looked back at his tea.  His fingers drummed against the table.

Raifa put his hand on top of Brin’s before he could fidget further.

“What I mean is,” Raifa ground out, avoiding Brin’s eyes.  “It seems like you haven’t talked to anyone else about this, maybe?  And I want to listen.  I do.  I want you to tell me.  But I might not be the best person for that job.”

Brin frowned at him. “Job,” he repeated, mystified.

Raifa grimaced. “I have,” he said, with difficulty, “Ulterior motives when it comes to you.”

He paused for a moment, as if to let that sink in.  Then he retracted his hand.  Brin was staring.

Raifa added, still not looking at him, “Do you get what I mean?”

“Um,” Brin blinked at him.  “Kind of?”

“I don’t want to take advantage of you,” Raifa said firmly.  “I don’t want to get you to tell me things—things you might not want me to know. Or rely on me if it’s, you know, too much.  I don’t want you to think that I tricked you.  I really don’t.”  And then all of a sudden he was looking into Brin’s eyes and saying, “Do you get it now?”

— 

Yeah, but Brin didn’t really have anyone else to talk to, did he?

“Well, that sucks,” Raifa frowned, and took a sip from his mug. “You need to get out more.”

Brin hugged his sweater to himself.  “Don’t know if I even remember how,” he muttered.  He couldn’t even convince himself to get a haircut.  Going out to socialize was significantly more advanced. “Anyway, the kids need me.  I have to stay home.”

“24/7?”  Raifa said a little skeptically, and then added brightly, “Hey, what about therapy?”

“Oh yeah!  When hell freezes over,” Brin answered succinctly. “Air all my problems?  To a stranger?  You must be joking.”

— 

Brin made a point of stopping off at Raifa’s apartment when he got back.  He greeted Gaila with a hello hug and sent her off to investigate his shopping bags—there was a treat for her hidden in them. Raifa, he greeted with a glare.  “I was right,” he informed his friend, “I hate therapy.”

“Wait, you actually went?”  Raifa had been in the middle of peeling potatoes.  He dropped a big chunk of potato skin on his foot and for some reason the tips of his ears were getting darker.

…He was blushing. Aha!

Brin’s face was suddenly very hot.  

Gaila, from the entryway, squealed with delight upon finding her very own copy of the latest Destination Dream book.

…Wow, Brin found it imperative to go check on her immediately.  He fled the kitchen and its dark-eared inhabitant with a fist over his mouth.

 —

 It would have been nice if Brin had hatched his plan instantly after that.  A couple sessions of government-sponsored therapy, the support of a friend, and then he spontaneously sprouted a backbone.

In reality, he second-guessed and thought himself in circles for way too long.  Throughout it all, he kept hoping that Vadze would just come home on his own.

But Vadze didn’t.

And so eventually, Brin just went mad with all this support and understanding, because that was the only explanation.

“So,” he said, phone warm against his cheek, “Do you remember that one time you said I could rely on you if I ever needed something?  And that you owed me a hundred favors?”  Even as he said it, he couldn’t resist snorting.  If Raifa owed him a hundred, Brin probably owed Raifa a thousand.

“Wait, I don’t remember.”  Over the line, Raifa sounded exhausted.  Apparently Thursdays were really busy at work.  “Are we talking about the time when you helped Gaila make the toothpick castle for history class?  Or the science project?”

“Science project,” Brin answered.  He’d had three kids graduate from elementary school so far.  He was kind of the king of arts and crafts.

“Right.  And yes, I do remember.  What’s up?”

“I was wondering…” Brin’s courage briefly failed him. He took a deep breath to smother the nervousness in his stomach.  “…Does Vadze usually walk Gaila to the door when he brings her home?”

“Ah.”  Raifa’s voice sounded completely neutral.  No indication of whether he was going to agree or not.  Brin bit his lip.  “I kind of thought you might ask me something like this.  And yeah.  He usually comes inside too, for a little while.”

Brin took another deep breath.  “Will you help me?”  He asked, and was proud that his voice wasn’t shaking too hard.  “I know he might take it badly and get mad at you, but I swear Gaila can stay with me if he does.  And I’ll tell him I forced you into it and—and I justneed to talk to him—“

“Brin.”  Raifa’s gentle voice cut him off.  “Of course I’ll help you.  Honestly, I’m pretty sure he’s waiting for you too.”

— 

They worked out the details on Raifa’s way home from work.  Brin went down to meet him and they walked back up together.  Raifa unlocked the door for him with a sympathetic smile.  Brin didn’t imagine he looked very confident right now.  He was shaking and cold and felt like he might burst into tears the minute Vadze yelled at him.

“Need anything while you wait?”  Raifa offered, shrugging out of his jacket.  “Tea?  I’ve got to get started on dinner.  They’ll probably be here pretty soon.”

“No thank you,” Brin murmured.  He selected one of the chairs up against the wall, where Vadze wouldn’t be able to see him until he was halfway in the living room already.  Now that he wasn’t moving, if he didn’t sit down, he’d fall down.

“You’re gonna be okay, Brin,” Raifa murmured to him.  And then he swept out of the room, leaving Brin alone with his thoughts.  

And the waiting.  

Brin knotted his fingers in the bottom of his sweater, feeling his palms sweat.

Well, Brin was almost alone.  Raifa’s quiet humming carried.  Brin propped his head up on drawn-in knees.  

He’d expected a constant state of panic, trying to straighten out what exactly he needed to say to Vadze, and predict all the ways Vadze would respond so he could circumvent them.  It had to be perfect.  Brin needed to tell Vadze all the things he needed to hear, and all right at once.  

Somehow, though, Brin couldn’t do that this time.  

Time didn’t seem to pass.  Raifa was a distant, invisible presence that existed only by the merit of his ghostly nonsense humming.  Brin’s heartbeat crawled along and Vadze would never return, because time wasn’t moving forward.

It was a strange feeling and not one Brin was very familiar with.  He identified it after a moment.

I feel safe.

Kind of a ridiculous sentiment while he was preparing to face off against Vadze.  But then again, how else did one recognize safety? Even Cross, who for all his faults had seemed invincible, had proven to be just another person.  He made mistakes like everyone else.  He’d died.  

But you could relax in the moments between battles. Maybe that’s what ‘safe’ was.  And maybe there could be more to life than getting your back up against the wall to brace yourself for the next one.  

Brin’s therapist liked to drone on about that kind of thing, which was probably why Brin was thinking it.  

Be mindful and acknowledge when you are in no danger, when you are comfortable.

So what was Brin feeling right now?  Why did it feel so safe?

Because…

He twitched as he heard the lock click.  Lifted his head as the door opened to Gaila’s rapid, sweet chatter, and the more subdued answers that followed.  

His heart lurched.  Vadze.  His baby.

“—and then you sent them flying!  Like—like plastic bags!”

“Nah,” came Vadze’s slow drawl—warm and amused like Brin hadn’t heard it in so long.  “It was pretty anticlimactic.  Pretty sure their feet stayed on the ground and everything. Think I’m losing my touch.”

“No, it was definitely all BWOOSH,” Gaila insisted, and bounced into view.  “You’re a liar.  Daaaddy!  Vadze isn’t telling the truth—“

“In here, kiddo,” Raifa called from the kitchen.  Gaila stopped short as she saw Brin, tilting her head to study him.  Brin had at some point gotten to his feet.  He cast a helpless smile her way, but didn’t say anything.

“Hey hey.  You trying to make me trip over you, short stack?” Vadze’s hand dropped on top of Gaila’s head and steered her to the side as she giggled.  “What are you even looking a—“

And then he stopped short too.

“Hey,” Brin said softly.  “Vadze.”

Brin kind of hated himself for doing this.  For a moment Vadze had been upright and smiling, all soft angles and swinging, loose hands.  

As soon as he saw Brin, his eyes turned to stone and he imploded into defensive formation.  Hands in his pockets and hair tumbling into his face when he lowered his head to glare.  Vadze’s mouth snapped shut so tight the muscles in his jaw jumped.  His smile just evaporated into nothingness.

Gaila’s giggles were overtaken by concern.  She peered up, tugging at the hem of his shirt.  “Vadze?”

“C’mere, kiddo,” Raifa emerged from the kitchen.  Vadze’s eyes veered towards him like snake-strike.  The room seemed to get colder.

Raifa ignored it, instead taking Gaila’s hand. “Daddy needs some help in the kitchen. What do you say we let these two talk for a bit?”

Gaila dug her heels in, now frowning in earnest as she looked back and forth between Brin and Vadze.  “But… But…“

Vadze took a breath. “No,” he said.  The anger seemed to dissipate just a little.  He sounded resigned instead.  “It’s okay.  Get lost, kid.”

“Vadze!”  Gaila let out a cry of distress, momentarily squirming free of Raifa.  She threw herself at Vadze’s legs.  Brin nearly grabbed for her.  Vadze was still all tensed up and ready for a fight—

Gaila thumped into his legs and hugged her arms around him.  Vadze stayed perfectly still.  Gaila repeated his name, sounding on the verge of tears.  

Instead of lashing out, Vadze reached down and brushed her poofy hair out of her face.

Brin blinked. He’d never seen Vadze being—

Well.

Being gentle.  Not once.

“Come on,” the younger omega murmured down, and for the first time Brin saw hints of his dynamic peeking through.  His voice was so soft.  “I got this.” When he wasn’t looking at the adults, the ice in the room thawed.  “Don’t I always win?”

“But you—“ Gaila squeezed him.  “But you’re not supposed to look scared!”

Vadze’s utterly soft expression veered into a sour grimace.  “I do not look—“  Gaila had started beaming up at him.  Vadze glowered back.  Or at least he tried to.  It came out hopelessly fond.  

“Oh, shut up,” he muttered, flicked her on the nose, and then nudged her off of him as she pouted.  “I’m hungry, short stack.  Go fix me food.”

“Okay.  And then we’ll play!”  Gaila announced.  She cut her eyes Brin’s way for a moment—Brin was too shocked from this exchange to make a sound—then added brightly, “All of us together!”

The look on Vadze’s face suggested he’d rather swallow a bucket of nails.  He took a deep breath (or two).  “We’ll… discuss it.”  He managed with an admirable lack of growling.  “Seriously.  Go. Shoo.  You’re crazy annoying.”

“That’s just because you’re hungry,” Gaila said knowledgeably, and all but skipped back to Raifa—who, as Brin glanced up at him, didn’t look half as dumbfounded as Brin himself felt.  He looked like he was trying not to smile.  Gaila grabbed Raifa’s hand with both of hers and towed him determinedly towards the kitchen.  “You’ll feel better soon!  Daddy, what’s for eats?”

“Uh… soup?”    

“Soup!”

And then it was just Brin and Vadze’s glare.

Only Brin found that Vadze wasn’t glaring at him.  He was staring at the floor rather intensely, arms crossed, all bristled up—but it wasn’t a glare.  And he wasn’t yelling.  

“I bet you’re so fucking happy about this,” he muttered.  

“What?”  Brin was startled out of his observations.

“Me,” Vadze gestured. “You know, doing the omega bullshit. Squealing over kids.  I’m finally acting like you always wanted.”  He dared to glare up at Brin now, but Brin for the first time couldn’t see the hatred he’d always expected.  It was hard to tell with all his messy hair hanging in the way, but Vadze looked almost… embarrassed.  “I bet you’re thinking you’ve won.”

“I am happy,” Brin began.  Vadze’s eyes flashed.

“Well fuck you. It’s not like that.  Kids are fucking annoying and I can’t stand them. The only reason Gaila’s okay is because she’s smart and keeps up without whining—”

“I’m happy,” Brin interrupted, raising his voice a little to cut Vadze off, “Because there’s something that makes you happy, Vadze.  I was beginning to think nothing could anymore.”  

Vadze’s expression became very complicated.  His crossed arms suddenly looked a lot less confrontational.  

Oh.

Had… had Vadze always looked so much like he was trying to hug himself when they talked?

“Vadze,” Brin said softly, and then hesitated on the words.  Can’t you come home?  Is it really so bad with me?  He swallowed.  “Your siblings miss you.”  Vadze sniffed in disdain.  The lump in Brin’s throat got bigger.  “I miss you.”

“No, you don’t,” Vadze said, and then flicked his eyes up at Brin again.  “It’s going well, right?”  He said.  “Since you two planned this, I guess you’re getting along?”

There was something nasty in his tone, but Brin ignored it.  “Yeah,” he said quietly, “Raifa’s a good friend.  We talk about you.”

“Ugh,” Vadze grimaced.  “Just stop. Mom, please tell me you don’t think you have to do this.  You’ve got plenty of spawn already, you’re busy, and no one even knows I’m yours, so it’s not like anyone can come look down on you for not wanting me—“

“I’m sorry,” Brin burst out.

And then Vadze was looking at him.  His eyes didn’t dart away again this time.

It was hardly the first time Brin had apologized to him.  But the words tasted so different.  

“I’m so sorry,” Brin went on, voice shaking.  “I’m sorry that you’re an omega, and I’m sorry you never had a dad.  I’m sorry you didn’t have a better mom, Vadze—I swear I tried.”  Vadze was shaking his head, and it wasn’t enough—Brin took a step forward and Vadze retreated back a step instantly, unwilling to let him any closer.  “I’m sorry about Cross.  I just thought—“

“Shut up,” Vadze suddenly snapped.  “Don’t you dare.  I don’t want to hear this.  I’m leaving.”

Brin darted forward before he could (had Vadze always moved this slowly?  Had he always been so small?) and blocked the doorway.

“I’m sorry,” he said desperately.  “I know you hate me.  I don’t blame you for it.  I should have run away and taken you all with me the first time he hit you.”  The memory was still a heavy weight in Brin’s stomach.  It might not have even been the first time.  Maybe it was just the first time Cross had left such an obvious mark.

Vadze had lied about it.  Spitting and angry, fists balled at his sides.  “I fell, Mom, I fell!  Just leave it alone!  I fell!”  And Brin, hand over his mouth, choked back nausea.  He could read the lie in Vadze’s eyes.  And even then, he was still hoping in the back of his mind that it was a schoolyard bully, or an accident, or hell, that Vadze really had just tripped because no, no, no, it was only supposed to be Brin…

“I just thought it would get better.  I thought I could make it better, and that if I tried harder, he’d stop!”

And then he’d been pregnant again.  And again after that.  Brin couldn’t leave.  He had nowhere to go, nowhere to take care of him.  He watched the other kids, the littler kids (the ones who listened to him) like a hawk.  Every day without bruises, and he’d sigh with relief.  

And none of the others ever did turn up with bruises that didn’t match their stories.  It was only ever Vadze.

Brin avoided every opportunity to go outside. He wouldn’t leave them alone with Cross. He’d keep them all in a room together with Mom, keep them quiet and happy, show Cross what a good mate he could be. Then Cross didn’t have to get angry—

But sometimes Brin did have to leave.

And Vadze wasn’t really Cross’s son.  Cross didn’t try to hold back.

Brin had pieced together some of what happened.  Seril and Temer were willing to talk about certain… parts.  

Vadze, who sneered at all his younger siblings and would barely touch them—he would throw himself in front of Cross if it came to that.  Scream insults that only got more creative with time, so Cross couldn’t ignore him. Punch him with his little, bruise-knuckled fists until Cross would turn around and the littler ones could escape. The one time Brin had caught Cross at it, Vadze had worn a gap-toothed, triumphant grin just before Cross’s fist snapped his little head to the side.

Cross had broken Brin’s arm in retaliation.  Brin wasn’t allowed to raise a hand against his alpha.  But he had, as hard as he could, the minute he had pulled Vadze to safety behind him.

“I thought—“ Brin found himself gasping for breath, “I thought I was doing my best for you, but maybe I was just doing my best for myself.  I should have tried harder.  Then maybe I wouldn’t have lost you.  Then maybe… maybe you’d still come home.”

Maybe you would feel safe.

For a moment the room was quiet.

“You have no idea,” Vadze breathed, “Why I hate you, you bastard!!”  

Brin’s head jerked back.  The air was hazed and shimmery with unshed tears.  No pastels, nothing blank.  Vadze glared, implacable, arms finally snapped free, fingers digging into Brin’s shoulders.  Brin’s back hit the wall.

“Yes!”  He shouted.  “Yes, Mom, you should have left!!  Thanks for finally figuring that out!  You should have left the first time he hit you!  We shouldn’t have had to watch that!  We shouldn’t have had to listen to you crying after, and then pretend we didn’t all hate him in the morning!”  Vadze’s voice cracked.  

Brin held his hands up.  It’s okay, I’ll be good, whatever you want.  Trying to quiet him.  Didn’t want Gaila to hear—or Raifa—but Vadze continued on, furious.

“We shouldn’t have had to see our mom covered in bruises!  You should have cared about your own fucking self for once, but instead you just let him!  Like it was nothing!  Yeah, I hate you.  I hate you! But you hated me first, so what else was I supposed to do?!”

Brin’s voice broke, “Baby—“

“—after all, you let him claim you because of me!!”  Vadze recoiled just as suddenly as he’d shoved Brin backwards, wide-eyed and snarling. “Because you had me, right?  Your big mistake!  And you wanted to try to give me a family.  So you went looking and eventually let that asshole claim you. It was my fault and everybody knew it! And all I ever did was get born!”

“No, baby,” Brin said, shaking his head.  He pushed away from the wall.  “That’s not true.”

“I’m glad Cross’s dead,” Vadze snapped defiantly, “I just wish I’d been the one to kill him. Wouldn’t have mattered that I was an omega, I’d just do it in his fucking sleep—don’t—“  He broke off with a wheeze, eyes spilling over.  “No, don’t—“

Brin’s opened arms slowly folded Vadze close.  

You couldn’t tell from far away, but when Brin was holding him, he realized Vadze was shaking.  Maybe even harder than Brin himself.

Literally everyone needs a hug sometimes.  Even the Vadzes of the world.  Even the scary tough ones.

“No,” Brin said firmly.  He had to.  He couldn’t leave room for argument.  And not because it was what Vadze wanted to hear either.

It hurt.  All the blows rained down at once.

“It wasn’t your fault.  I’m sorry you ever thought that.”  As Vadze shivered silently, all tense, but not quite pulling away, Brin went on quietly, “Not you.  Not ever.  I could never hate you.  But I hate what I did to you, and sometimes it hurts just to see you and remember all of that.  And I get scared sometimes too.  Scared that you’ll repeat my mistakes.”

“Because,” Vadze said tiredly, voice muffled into Brin’s sweater.  “That’s what I was, Mom.  A mistake.”

Brin bit his lip, squeezing Vadze closer.  “Yeah,” he agreed after a moment.  “You were. And I love you so much.  From the minute you were born, I wouldn’t trade you for anything.  Not the perfect life or the perfect mate or any other son.  I wouldn’t trade any of you.”

Vadze snorted. “Fuck that,” he muttered, “I’d trade you in a heartbeat to be an alpha.  What are you, crazy?”

“No,” Brin answered with a smile, “I’m just nicer than you.”

“Ugh,” Vadze grumbled.  “You suck so much.”

But after a moment, his arms settled tentatively around Brin.  Brin closed his eyes, and for the second time in his life, shattered.

— 

Fragments of glass that were once whole are: pretty, unrecognizable, and dangerous.  You shouldn’t touch them with your bare hands. You shouldn’t get close.

And yet, to repair what was broken, you must.

You must handle each piece carefully, and take care to protect your hands because you are important too.  You must be able to see the suggestions between jagged edges; the start of a curve, the place where fractures meet, and hints of what intact thing might emerge.

It’s okay.  It can be a team effort.

The glass will help you too, even if it seems to resist.

(It will tell you in the absence of silence that nothing is beyond repair.)

— 

“Do you think Kyr’s father was musical?”  Raifa asked.

Brin looked over.  “Huh?”  

Raifa looked quite a bit different in the sunshine. His hair was curlier than Brin had noticed.  For once his tidy shirt was a rumpled, stained mess, and Raifa was still breathing hard from the game of tag their kids were embroiled in.  In a perfectly objective manner, the light and sweat made him glow.

Brin was trying to get out more lately.  The kids, as it turned out, liked to play outside too.

Both their laps were full of beads.  Brin was stringing them together on fishing wire. Gaila’s birthday was coming up and at the prospect of homemade necklaces, Brin’s kids had discovered a previously unknown fascination with jewelry.  Even Temer, who considered herself far above such things, had demanded a pair of butterfly earrings.  

Evie and Destin were too small for jewelry, so they were just going to have very glittery additions to their mobile.

Brin and Raifa had needed to go out and buy a whole bunch more beads, basically.

(He still hadn’t gotten that haircut just yet, though.  But he’d at least looked in through the window, Raifa’s hand in his.  Baby steps.)

“Musical, you know,” Raifa gestured.  Brin raised an eyebrow.  “He’s always humming those songs, and I think he makes them up himself.  Or—sorry, are you the musical one?”

Brin laughed.  “No way.  But you realize you’re talking about Cross?”

“He’s Cross’s?”  Raifa sounded so astonished by this.  He also lacked volume control.

Wincing, Brin still risked a glance towards his eldest.  Lucky for him, Vadze didn’t seem to have heard.  

Gaila had determined the game of tag needed more adventure and gone up a tree.  Vadze was guarding her hiding spot, considering his fingernails with a blatant lie of nonchalance—anyone who dared trespass in his domain would be chased within an inch of their life.

(Honestly, he probably wanted to play too, but was worried it wouldn’t look cool enough.)

 And knowing Gaila, she might just have climbed the tree to make him participate.  Brin hadn’t given her quite enough credit at first. Right after he and Vadze had made up, Gaila had informed Brin quite seriously that she would forgive him for making Vadze cry this once, but only if Brin made brownies again.  Also, she was going to be the best alpha ever, and she and Vadze would be best friends, and also fight side by side until they amassed a huge territory, and then get married.  

Whether Vadze had been privy to these marriage plans remained to be seen, but it was pretty great to see Vadze grimacing as the passing breeze wrecked his hairstyle.

“But I thought,” Raifa considered the sleeping babies (who knew?  Seemed like sunlight made them pass out).  “Evie and Destin…”

“Evie and Destin, yes,” Brin said patiently, “But also Kyr—“  He broke off and frowned.  “Huh.  Didn’t I tell you this already?”

“Not exactly,” Raifa said before adding anxiously, “But it’s okay.  You don’t have to talk about it.  I opened my mouth before I considered that it might be a sore subject and I’m kind of kicking myself now.  Oh boy.”

Brin squinted up at him a little puzzled.  Brin hadn’t meant to tell him any of it at the start.  He hadn’t meant to get involved with anyone.  But Raifa just sort of elbowed his way in and now Brin was completely confused there was a subject they’d missed since he felt like Raifa was already privy to every embarrassing, messy detail.

“—And oh my god, I don’t even know why I asked that in the first place.  Is it my business?  No, it is not.  Nosiness is a bad habit.  Wait, I mean, don’t take that the wrong way.  Kyr is very talented—“

“Raifa!”  Temer cupped her hands to her mouth.  “You have to come back and play!  No one can keep up with me—“  She struck a pose.  “—because I am the best!”  With a growl, her brothers launched herself at her.  Temer went down in a flail of limbs.  Kyr, who had already withdrawn from their battles, edged further away and threw blades of grass at them with shouts of encouragement.

“Ah, a distraction,” Raifa said happily, and then looked so utterly guilty about it that Brin laughed.  

“I need some more blue beads.”

“Sure thing,” Raifa said, examining the contents of his lap with interest.  Brin strung a few more beads onto the string, considering where to start.

“How much do you want to know?”  He finally asked.  “I can start at the beginning, but that might break your rules about oversharing.”

“It’s not oversharing,” Raifa answered.  His ears had gone dark again.  “I just want to know too much, that’s all.  Don’t enable a sick man, Brin, that’s terrible.”

Gaila poked her head out of the tree branches.  “Get him, guys!”  She whooped, flailing a fist.  “My minion, go forth!”  

“Your what now?” Vadze did not seem impressed. Gaila threw a twig at him and he sidestepped it, continuing to look unimpressed.  “I have a better idea,” he said, suddenly grinning, and grabbed a branch to swing himself up.  Gaila squealed in panic, and in the ensuing scuffle, leaves rained down.

“Don’t fall!” Brin called over.

“Urgh,” Vadze muttered.  “Yes, Mom.”

“HI, BRIN!  AND OKAY!”

“You know,” Raifa went on, lifting his head.  Brin looked over at him.  The sunlight was dazzling.  “You really are a good mom.  Crazy good.”

“Hm,” Brin said, but he didn’t argue.  He was getting better about that.  Mostly because his therapist had insisted on him trying something new. ‘Self-esteem exercises.’  

Sounded like a load of bullshit to Brin, but whatever.  Telling Vadze about them had actually gotten his son to laugh out loud.  Brin had been grinning for the rest of the week.

“Where are my blue beads?” Brin demanding, snapping his fingers at Raifa.

“Yes, yes.”

“Mooooom, Sable hit me!”

“Minions aren’t supposed to rub leaves in—no, not the hair—!!”

“Oops.  Seril, you okay?”

“Hey, short stack, don’t complain.   Aren’t you supposed to be tougher than that?”

“…Did you mean it?”

“Huh?”  Raifa looked up.

“Did you mean it,” Brin repeated.  “What you said to me way back when.  About your ulterior motives?”

“Huh?”

“The thing is,” Brin said, clearing his throat, “I thought about it.  And I get your point.  But the thing is—uh—“  He suddenly couldn’t get the next bead on the string.

“Brin?”

“—what if I actually wanted you to know?  What if I wanted you to know everything?  Because your ulterior motive is completely fine with me.  Really.”

Okay, he really wished he could stop talking now.

His feelings, on the other hand, had accepted one blue bead too many.

“And I kind of,” he sucked in the deepest breath he possibly could and risked a glance up at Raifa, “I kind of want to know everything about you too.”

Raifa was staring.

“Say something?” Brin pleaded.

Raifa gave a slow shake of his head.  “No way. Now you’re the one babbling.  Let me have my moment.”  His finger brushed Brin’s cheek.  It felt cold.  Brin was definitely blushing all over the place.  He glared sharply, but it probably wasn’t much of a distraction.

(Deep down he kind of knew that his glares at Raifa looked a lot like Vadze’s attempts to glare at Gaila.)

(And maybe had for a long while, because Raifa was wearing this hopeless little smile all of a sudden and oh, would you look at that, Brin’s face actually could get hotter—)

He didn’t get much further than that.

The sun streamed down in a never-ending offer of warmth, and the sky had never been so blue, or the grass so soft.

“Ew, gross,” Seril muttered, and made gagging noises.

Temer shrieked.  “Mom and Dad are kissing!!”

From the treetops there was a squealed “yes!” and a snort followed by a faint mutter of “finally.”

[toddlazarski]

Last Suppers

Shepherd Express

“Please let me go ‘round again.”

— John Prine

I thought the apocalypse would be more exciting. Some kind of heaven-sent fireball, a mushroom cloud of malaise, Mad Max dune buggies. In this far off light I’d always pictured myself bearded, barricaded, adroitly philosophical, suddenly quite adept at swinging a sort of spiked bat or other homemade zombie stopper. Instead, so far, some five weeks in, nobody I know has gotten sick. Nobody in my orbit has died. Even being accosted by our neighborhood Jehovah’s Witness on the street, being told of end times and other corporeal human collapses I couldn’t stand or fully hear—being as they were, uttered by a man six feet away, while a two-year-old pent-up from quarantine perched on my shoulders and periodically bonked my head urging movement—took place from a mindful, strangely respectable social distance. 

Mostly these days just find me as an iPhone-glued glut of dissociated dread. A musty sack of torpor filling out ironically-named Champion jogging pants and a Totino’s-stained hoodie crowned by a hastily shaved head. What I’m currently reminded of, for some reason, from somewhere deep within the lizard brain that was weaned on world-end movies, is Deep Impact, and the way it all ends for Tea Leoni’s character: in front of a beloved beachhouse, with brave acceptance, facing truth and demise in the form of an imminent asteroid death, with her—father, maybe? (This recall may be way off, as I only saw the movie once, maybe 20 years ago, but I have a current therapist-mandated pause from internet research as the slightest twitch toward dot com-ing leads inevitably, instantly to a Milla Jovovich in Fifth Element-like doom scroll of terror). Regardless, this is how I view my resignation when being generous: a soft, somber, single tear strong-willed nod and jutted-chin acquiescence. I’ve had my restaurant meals, if they never come again. I’ve had too many, at too many bars. I’ve lived. So, here I am, at the freezer again, my own beloved beachhouse, mustering strength, wondering how much Ben and Jerry’s will pass before life maybe resembles normal again, or else until I see St. Pete, or St. Paul, or whichever is the one at the gates. Measuring the days till Quetzalcoatl in pints of Chunky Monkey. Wondering if I’ll ever again eat Cherry Garcia as a little reward, for a jog and some push ups maybe, instead of a desperate substitute for therapy, lobotomy. My biggest preoccupation is really Instacart deliveries, and the thought of them, the threat of them, where we let the bags sit on the porch like sentinels with tales from the front lines, or like badges of middle class virus-avoidance privilege. We hope the wind cleans off the Corona, I suppose, and then we let the same bags sit inside, eyeing our wares cautiously, suspiciously by the door, weighing the three articles advising cleansing groceries is unnecessary versus the one—always from Medium—that states everything inside a grocery store will likely give you and your grandmother the plague. Then, between the subsequent wiping—of course—and the beginning to plan six days out for the next Instacart delivery, and then the moisturizing of hands out of necessity from washing hands far too much, there has been such a background din of quiet second-coming contemplation. With little to do but wipe the door handle again, with the closest social contact being yet another episode of Cheers, there’s been too much time to think on all this, on all that went, all that was snuffed by a brutal harsh Monday morning reminder—all our kicks, our joys, our dinner plans and drink diversions, all that was maybe never really deserved in the first place.

For one or another—or none at all—reason that I choose to not consider too closely, the last normal weekend in contemporary American existence was a big one. A Friday night trip to Enlightened Brewing to check out Derek Pritzl and the Gamble was a promising prospect, sure. They had recently introduced me to, made me fall deeply in love with, play over and over again, John Prine’s “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness.” Still, as things were, it was largely run-of-the-mill in those distant days of social possibility. Just line up one of a few willing babysitters, jot on the calendar absent-mindedly, leave it peppered, like always, with the growing-old adult notion of if I feel like it. The self-importance of a modern American. The expectation, the world owing me it’s pearls and it’s oysters and it’s artisanal double India Pale Ales, for some reason. There for taking, when we wished. It’s like we were all Mad Men men, coming home from work where you expect your dinner to be waiting, your children cleaned and polite. You did a little bit of work and now you are owed something, the other half of your existence, calm and orderly and “here are your slippers, dear.” Now there is no choosing or taking or rewarding yourself with a night out, or rewarding yourself with a night in. It’s simply like our parents have given us an indefinite timeout, with more whiskey, yes, but also more, much more, morbidity. And also our parents are not coming to our room, eventually, to tell us it will all be ok. Rather, now, they might come, and stand on the sidewalk, while we stand on the front porch awkwardly, not knowing what to do with our hands, with no Easter hugs even considered, and mom might leave sugar cookies in a bag on the sidewalk, as if we were in prison, and she was the jailer that had to slide our sustenance gruel through a slot in the door. Only her said bag came with a real wonder: do we have to disinfect that now? I ran into a friend at Enlightened, then another, then a friend of a friend, and then a work friend—hugs for all the normal tangly tendrils of an adequate social life, amplified by guitars and rollicking songs of regret and craft suds and jocular end-of-week revelry. The band was twangy and driving and jostly, and I wanted it to be louder. Actually my spoiled fragile ego knew I deserved it to be louder. Meanwhile I talked importantly about basketball and somebody told me about their trip to New Orleans. “I’ll be there in a month,” I said. Like an ignoramus, like tempting fate, like I was one of the kids on the playground in Sarah Connor’s nuclear apocalypse nightmare in Terminator 2. There was no Purell in sight, in mind. 

Later, at the Newport, the bartender handed me a beer list, and I didn’t even note that, or contemplate my mortality on the fact, he wasn’t wearing latex gloves. I leaned close, doing the thing you have to do at crowded bars where you wedge between two seated patrons, brush one or both, amplify your voice to the hunched-forward Sam Malone, spittle and open mouths and casual “excuse me, I’m sorry, man” contact with strangers not an issue or thought, let alone transgression against the whole of humanity’s existence. The bummer about the NBA that night was that the Bucks were losing to the Lakers. The saddest part about John Prine was the line: “How can a love that'll last forever, get left so far behind?” What would any of us say, had we knowl—in 5 days the entirety of the NBA machinery would be suddenly halted, a broom handle stuck in the grinding gears? That I would have no chance at seeing live music again, for the foreseeable future? And that, weeks later, due to the same crippling circumstances, John Prine would be dead?  

The next night, somehow, as if acting on some last-chance latent level, I found myself barreling south for a Saturday night in Chicago. I rode a crowded Amtrak. I held the steel handle up the steps, followed along close in line, plopped unworriedly right on the worn blue cloth seat, I ordered a Lyft, I closed a packed bar with out-of-town big-city tenacity. Old friends shared birthday cake in a corner. I flushed a toilet, maybe didn’t wash my hands for a full 20 seconds, poked at the jukebox, clinked glasses, performed once-normal finger and hand functions that would now cause me to douse both extremities to the elbow in alcohol and ask for a light. My buddy and I kept drinking like we were Goodfellas, bound shortly for a stint in the can, which, in hindsight, we sort of were. Then we ordered another Lyft back to his place, like signing the tab on the last real Saturday night. Sunday was disarmingly sunny, soft, pleasant, the kind of warm early spring sliver that catches you off balance, leaves you without the right clothes or your sunglasses. So we sat inside, at the bar at a place called the Moonlighter, where we nursed hangovers with micheladas and shared fiery chicken wings and sloppily severed a grease-dripping American-cheesed burger and shoved it down our gaping gullets and licked fingers and laughed at the bartender’s Nascar sweatshirt, bitched about his lassitude. It was still a day where you could like a bartender or not like a bartender, and you didn’t have to wonder if all bartenders had simply vanished, poof, gone on the wind, Leftovers-style. You could do your drinking business and move on to the next one. Which we did, literally, deciding on pizza and homebrews at a spot called Bungalow that takes—that took—itself probably a bit too seriously. We’ve often fallen into this habit of double lunch-ing, not so much because we are slobs, fat and greedy and gluttonous. And not as some kind of intuitive acknowledgment that we were approaching end times. It also wasn’t just a love of time together, collapsing the 100 miles that separates our lives with a collective unspoken vow of ceaseless Epicureanism. Well, maybe exactly because of all those reasons. Either way we ate, glad they take, took, themselves so seriously with each bite, sip. And I got a pie to go, tucking it under my arm through Union Station, cradling the box like a toddler’s favorite stuffed dinosaur during my ride home nap, a last pepperoni and sausaged vestige from the world of living, togetherness, an experience slice from before we began to view each other as potentially poisonous flowers.        

My final restaurant meal was the day after, at Copper Kitchen, my neighborhood greasy spoon of fluffy omelets and watery coffee that you can never get half down before a refill magically appears tableside. A welcoming diner with video poker, and some staff that still eye me a bit questioningly because I’ve only been coming here for two years, and not 30, like most patrons always around me. By now though, with some work, our regular waitress is beginning to know the score, my daughter and I having seemingly earned the corner booth I always steer her toward. I grab the high chair myself, never need a menu, she orders her own “Mickey Mouse pancakes, please” in an impossibly tiny voice. In many ways, actually, it feels small town-worn, lived-in, like a John Prine song. A surreal slowdown, a place with a cook with a “short order face.” A spot of warm plates and unjudging respite. “If I came home, would you let me in? Fry me some pork chops and forgive my sin?” Our daddy-daughter day this early March Monday was flowing in a far more friendly manner though: another successful trip to the Domes behind us, we had full-stomach cold afternoon warm bed naps ahead. I wanted to tell her some news I was suppressing too, having just briefly talked to my wife on the phone about her recent brief phone call with the doctor. The info was just beginning to gel and bacon-grease coagulate down around my ham and cheese omelet and double-buttered rye. “You’re going to have a sister,” I almost said. Instead I let her eat more bacon, I let the waitress squeeze her arm affectionately as she poured me yet more benign coffee that I would sip and sip until it was time to leave. I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t time yet. But maybe I missed the time. How could I have known, that now, weeks later, Copper Kitchen and restaurants like it, all restaurants, are in real danger of never fully opening again? How was I to know that soon there would be no business anywhere for good news?

[zeemonkey1]

Why?

“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” 

I wish I were lying about all of this.

I used to ask why a lot, y’all. Why Curious George does the things he does, why he gets away with it, why everyone defers to MYH like he is the Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu of the universe. Whatever pain-starved and masochistic readers I have left will no doubt agree that I have attempted in my ramblings to understand the why, and I have failed as utterly as when I tried to play basketball in high school. Know your role, saith the universe, basketball is not for you. Not only was basketball not for me, certain things were for me, and none of them were athletic, nor were they attractive to high school girls. That, in itself, was enough why and why me and why them to keep me filling notebooks with whiny, maudlin, cringy bullshit for years, chasing an unobtainable goal through various adolescent stages of goth, emo, grunge and whatever-the-fuck else in an attempt to be something (anything) different than what I was.

It took longer than it should have for me to realize that ca-caw, ca-caw and tookie, tookie DON’T WORK.

Yell for the monster all you want; he will not show up until his time is fulfilled.

Ask why all you wish; God will ignore you and focus on the what and the who because, if thou canst not draw out leviathan with a hook, then buddy, God ain’t got to explain shit, feel me?

ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die

Consider Kafka. There is no point, and that is the point. Sometimes people wake up as insects; sometimes people get arrested and stabbed for no reason at all. Sometimes people get beaten up by hoboes and change their name to “Negro.” Sometimes the moment is structured such that our protagonist lives in a village for no reason, has sex with a barmaid for no reason, and bides his time by fighting against a faceless bureaucracy for reasons he doesn’t understand towards a goal that doesn’t matter and we don’t even get to know what that goal is because Kafka died before he could finish Das Schloss. And anyway we wouldn’t even know or care if Max Brod would have just burned the notebooks filled with whiny, maudlin, cringy bullshit like he was supposed to.

The Man in the Yellow Hat knows what Kafka was throwing down. There is no point to the monkey; there is no purpose to be served. Life is a serious of random happenings that occur without our interaction, without our blessing, and without any manner of the control we like to think we have.

This is why clowns are funny.

This is why clowns are fucking terrifying.

Clowns do not follow the rules society has set down; they perpetually exist in a netherworld of obfuscation and misdirection. Why do they look like that? Why do they do all the patently ridiculous things they do? Why do they exist?

Because they do.

In this episode, MYH and George are traveling to a clown school. Nobody knows why other than a vague MacGuffin of wanting to see Pepe El Loco, ”the world’s greatest clown performer.”

But it is not a clown school.

It is madness.

And I don’t mean Lovecraftian Mountains of Madness, where the countless gibbering things at least have an unfulfilled hunger, a desire to devour , a desperate yearning to escape the foul darkness and feast upon the cracked psyches of all who behold them. I mean the kind of madness that plagues Pink Floyd’s Lunatic on the Grass, a meaningless madness, laughing at things that aren’t funny, laughing at nothing at all.

MYH almost finds a parking space, but then a clown car full of two other clown cars and like fifteen clowns cuts him off and steals it. Thus, it is the parking lot that becomes MYH’s Kafkaesque hellscape, and Curious George must brave the clown school alone. He is told to proceed to the ninth floor, where the Pepe El Loco show will be held.

First Floor: George sees a clown dancing with three dogs dressed as clowns around a fountain that is also a clown. The lobby looks like somebody paid Betsey Johnson to gravely insult Banksy using only decorations available at Party City. Another clown comes in, joy-buzzes himself for no reason, and leaves. Then, a messenger clown gets attacked by yet another clown who comes out of the elevator with a bucket filled with confetti.

Somehow, this means two things:

A. George cannot use the elevator. He must take the stairs.

B. George acquires the messenger clown’s bag, hat, and nose, which now makes George the messenger, like what happens to that suicidal guy in the Piers Anthony book about Death.

doctor you have to help me

Third Floor: George is distracted by a clown walking down the stairs on his hands. He forgets what floor he is on, and so opens the door on the third floor to ask for directions. The third floor looks like the playroom in that Richard Pryor movie The Toy. The woman behind the desk looks like one of the Murmurs joined the Swiss Guard and sounds like Fran Drescher.

She hands George what looks like a twisted green bongpipe and then genuflects to the portrait of Dear Leader Pepe El Loco on the wall. She explains that the bongpipe is part of the “greatest clown gadget ever” and George must go to the fifth floor to pick up another piece of it. George tries the elevator, but as soon as the doors open, a clown shoots another clown out of a cannon. The clown that is thus ejaculated bounces off a trampoline and back into the elevator. Who could use an elevator with all that mindless bullshit going on? Not George—back to the stairs.

Meanwhile, MYH finds another parking spot, but it is reserved for elephants. A clown shows up on an elephant and demands that he move. MYH keeps driving; elephant is parked. The clown leaves the elephant, but only after he hits a button on his keyring and the elephant-car-alarm beeps.

At this point, I paused the show and screamed at the heavens. The heavens did not answer.

i am sad and depressed

Fifth Floor: George is dumber than a football bat. I wonder if his intelligence fades in and out, like a variable Flowers for Algernon. Sometimes he can build fabulous machines. Sometimes he can solve mysteries. Today, trapped in the Tower of Madness, George cannot count from three to five, and thus must walk all the way down to the first floor and start over.

On the first floor the clown and his dogs are still dancing. Stop asking why—hear you nothing that I say?

On the fifth floor a clown riding a baby’s tricycle and sounding like Snagglepuss gives George some sord of weird-ass metal thingie with a red disk on the end of it like that orgasm-game Commander Riker played on TNG. This clown says go to the second floor. George still can’t count, so he goes down to the first floor and watches the clown and his dogs for a bit.

A worm crawling in my brain tried to make me say WHY? but I ignored it.

life is harsh and cruel

Second Floor: Second floor was just Paul Lynde bouncing around on bedsprings tied to his shoes. George collects another piece of metal tubing, heads down to the first floor to watch the dogs-and-clown, and then climbs the stairs up to the eighth floor.

pagliacci is a famous clown

Eighth Floor: Edith Bunker is dusting a bicycle seat in front of the Macedonian flag. She gives the seat to George and tells him to go to the fourth floor.

George has an epiphany. Instead of walking back down to the first floor and then up to the fourth, he can instead tape numbers to all his fingers and use them to subtract eight from four.

MYH is still circling the parking lot. As soon as he says “I’ll NEVER find a parking spot!” a clown jumps out of nowhere and paints a parking spot around his car.

I begin to believe Marcel Duchamp and Frank Zappa wrote this episode in a Navajo sweatlodge.

pagliacci is in town today

Fourth Floor: The fourth floor is the swimming level from Super Mario Brothers. A seal gives George something that looks like a can of pepper spray. A clown with a Minnesota accent unfolds from a filing cabinet and tells George to go to floor ten.

Now, follow me on this. We were told at the beginning that Pepe El Loco’s show happens on the ninth floor. That was the whole reason George and MYH came to the clown school. Now we know there is a floor above nine. Why this made me want to eat aquarium gravel will be soon made clear.

you should go see pagliacci

Tenth Floor: Clown on stilts gives George a toilet plunger and says he better hurry to the first floor to meet Pepe El Loco. George hurries. The clown and dogs are gone. MYH and the great Pepe El Loco are there.

pagliacci will cheer you up

FIN: They all take the stairs to the ninth floor. Pepe El Loco’s all-important gadget is a disassembled pogo stick with the plunger as the bouncy part. He gets to the center ring of a three-ring circus just in time to bounce around and do little flips with it.

Y’all.

Y’ALL.

The ninth floor of this ten-floor building is a cavernous bigtop the size of the dadgum Astrodome. The ceiling is made of vaulted tent-canvas.

There is no tenth floor. THERE IS NO TENTH FLOOR EVEN THOUGH I SAW GEORGE GO TO THE TENTH FLOOR AND RETRIEVE A TOILET PLUNGER FROM A CLOWN ON STILTS

but doctor I am pagliacci

[mattiehawkins]

All of the questions😎😎

I have a feeling that, because all these questions are quite complex I won’t be able to give massively satisfying answers. But I’ll do my best, and this is just for fun, and to have a little look at how I’m feeling right now…

(Also all of them?????? Megan, really???? jkjk ily babe x)

(This did take me an exceedingly long time though… I think I overthought it…)

1. what album do you feel best describes your mood 

My mood right now? That’s difficult…

I don’t think I can give an answer that fully satisfies myself for this question - but it’s somewhere around Wild World by Bastille, maybe?

(Idk, feelings are hard to interpret and express sometimes.)

2. if your name had to be a song title which song would it be  

Arabella - Arctic Monkeys

3. what is your go to sad song when you need to cry

Me & Magdelena by The Monkees (although, it isn’t necessarily sad, but it almost always makes me cry) and sometimes, when I’m a special type of sad, Thought I Was A Spaceman by Blur.

4. what band would you want as the rest of your superhero team  

Gorillaz, mainly just because Noodle could survive the apocalypse, and that’s the kind of power any superhero team needs.         

5. if you had to live in the world of an album which one would it be and why              

This for me is a really hard question; it’s difficult to choose an album when so many albums that have a theme and build a world aren’t the nicest places to live (or at least the ones I listen to).

My first thought was MEKAKUCITYDAYS by Jin, but even though I love the Kagerou Project and always will, those kids have gone through a lot and I don’t want that.

So then I thought of Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife by Blur, but my life wouldn’t really change that much, other than living in a slightly more idealistic London.

So I’ll settle on those, I suppose…

(Unless film soundtracks count, in which case I firmly choose How to Train Your Dragon, give me a dragon, please!)

6. what song best describes the person you think your soulmate would be               

I really don’t know… (It doesn’t help that I don’t listen to a lot of overly romantic love songs.)

7. create a poem out of song titles    

(Can I only use song titles? Okay, I’m gonna do this my way - Capitalised is a title, lowercase is just linking words)

This Town Called Malice, where The Beautiful Ones and The Drowners live,

I Walk The Line along The Edge Of Heaven.

I Broadcast my thoughts, Go Out, walk this Lonesome Street,

In The Heat Of The Moment, clutching my Heart Of Glass.

Strange Birds on a Cliff’s Edge,

Wild & Free, flying on Wings like Icarus towards the Crystal Sky,

and Strange News From Another Star.

Snap Out Of It, we’re all just an Echo, a Lost Boy, Nomads, the Last Living Souls.

Run Away With Me, Sweet Young Thing,

You & Me could have the Adventure Of A Lifetime.

(artists in order: The Jam, Suede, Suede, Halsey, Wham!, Blur, Blur, Blur, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Blondie, Birdy, Hayley Kiyoko, Lena, Birdy, Lena, Blur, Arctic Monkeys, AmaLee, Ruth B, Highs, Gorillaz, Carly Rae Jepsen, The Monkees, Damon Albarn, Coldplay.)

I’m actually pretty proud of that.

8. which album art would you get tattooed    

Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh, I don’t really know! That’s a big commitment, and I’d have to love the album so so much, and the cover would have to be pretty, and be a good tattoo.

I guess AM by Arctic Monkeys, or The Magic Whip by Blur.      

9. is there a song that you feel could have been written about you

Sleepsong by Bastille.

(And at times, Tell It Like It Is by Graham Coxon.)

But also! Other really happy songs! (I can’t think of any right now, and I just want this done tbh.)

10. if you could only speak in the song lyrics of one artist who would it be       

Oh man, that’s a Commitment™

I guess Damon Albarn, because then I get his solo stuff, Gorillaz, and Blur, so that’s a fairly wide range.

11. if you could have your favorite artist sing one of their songs to you which song would it be     

I’d 100% have to choose Gorillaz, because as far as bands go, they were literally my first love - the first band I listened to every recording of every song of theirs I could get my hands on; the first band that I listened to the discography of all the time, for month-long stretches playing the same album; the first band that I went out and bought the music of myself, without being given it or my mum paying for it; they were the first band that for me the music was bigger than just a few catchy singles by some people I was aware of, but didn’t actively want to know more about. And they still, after all these years, make me feel the same strength of emotions as that very first time I saw the video for On Melancholy Hill on the Top 40.

So Gorillaz, but that brings me onto the question: what song?   

My favourite Gorillaz song is probably Empire Ants, but would that be the one I’d most want to have performed to me? I guess I could ask for a track from the new album, but if I didn’t like it as much as Empire Ants, I might regret it. But I really love how Hong Kong sounds performed live, so maybe that? Or Don’t Get Lost In Heaven? Dirty Harry?

12. describe where you want to be in ten years with a song title

This is so difficult!

The Scientist - Coldplay

13. which song would be the national anthem of your country if you ruled one               

Oh man, I have no idea. But White Flag seems by Gorillaz seems at least somewhat appropriate, and I swear I can never tire of Kano’s voice.

(Also I’m getting tired now, and this is the last question left to answer and this is all I can think of #LetMeLive)

14. what is your go to happy song when you need to feel better

On of the really poppy singles by the Spice Girls, or Alright by Supergrass.

Also, on occassion, I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor by Arctic Monkeys.

15. is there an album that feels like a friend to you  

A couple, but other than Headquarters by The Monkees, listing the others here feels a little uncomfortable… It feels like kind of a private question, idk

16. what is the album that you always blast too loud    

Gorillaz, Demon Days, Plastic Beach - Gorillaz

(What’s The Story) Morning Glory? - Oasis   

Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not - Arctic Monkeys   

17. which album do you always listen to with headphones

This Is Hardcore - Pulp

Queen of the Clouds - Tove Lo         

Art Angels - Grimes 

18. what song are you unable to resist dancing to  

so very many - if I love a song, no matter where I am, I’m always moving about (I’m terrible to go shopping with because I have a terrible habit of dancing subtly/singing quitely if a song I love comes on)

But I guess I should list a few (this is in no way the entire list):

Alright - Supergrass

I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys

Dolly Dagger - Jimi Hendrix

19. what song do you always have to sing along to 

see above

But here’s a few:

Don’t Look Back In Anger - Oasis

Fluorescent Adolescent - Arctic Monkeys

Daydream Believer - The Monkees  

20. what song do feel would be a beautiful painting   

This Side of Paradise - Hayley Kiyoko          

21. what album do you wish you could unhear and discover again

I don’t know? There’s definitely albums I wish I could’ve had better appreciation for when they had just come out, but I’m not sure which I wish I could just experience all over again.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, maybe? Possibly a Blur album from Modern Life Is Rubbish, Parklife, Blur, 13, or The Magic Whip? Or a Gorillaz album?

I really honestly don’t know.

22. which album do you want to be the soundtrack to your life  

Bad Blood - Bastille is very likely my soundtrack, it has a good range of themes which I have encountered, or likely will in the future.            

23. which band would you want to be your family 

I don’t think I’d want any band as my family?            

24. what song do you think of in association with beauty            

Quite a few, but none that spring to mind immediately? (Other than that one by James Blunt, which I heard on a TV show the other day.)

25. what song do you think of in association with pain 

Very many, but possibly To Binge by Gorillaz has the strongest association. 

26. what lyrics do you feel were written especially for you  

I’m just going to pass this one, I don’t have the time, and it could be kind of personal.            

27. what lyrics do you want to doodle on every piece of paper 

Oh man, so many, I have a list. But the one that springs to mind is: “All of which makes me anxious, at times unbearably so.”            

28. what music do you listen to at 3 am       

Very soft music - I clear my mind and just let it wash over and through me.    

29. pick three albums to take with you into the afterlife

Another Commitment (this is why I could never go on Desert Island Discs).

I’m going to just plunge myself in the deep end for this question, and just pick three that right now I’m feeling I would need:

Demon Days - Gorillaz

Make It Big - Wham!

(What’s The Story) Morning Glory? - Oasis   

(I can 110% assuredly tell you that I’ll be kicking myself over my choice in like 3 hours thinking “This album! You idiot! How did you possibly think you could survive without this album!”)

30. what is music to you in one word   

hope      

[gotmudonyou]

OCR World Championships 2018 Report

When I heard that this years OCR World Championships would be held on home soil I had conflicting emotions. On the one hand it was great that I wouldn't have to shell out a lot of money to fly abroad again but on the other hand I was worried that it wouldn't have the magic that the event village in Canada had. I guess not having jet-lag would also be a plus.

Lets rewind to last year though. In Canada I had lost my band on the 3K and kept it for the 15k and team races. Analysing my performance it was clear that my obstacle game had to improve. Why had I lost my band at the rig in the 3k? Inexperience in a major race and specifically on rigs was clearly a big factor. But my mental game was clearly at fault as well. When running at full pelt on a short and fast course I was blowing too hard to be focussed coming into a technical obstacle. I also knew that although I had kept my band on the 15k I could have pushed harder during the race (although had I pushed harder would my obstacle game have suffered and maybe not kept my band?).

In the lead up to Canada I was on about 30-35kms of running a week. I wanted to up that so I signed up for a Marathon in April. This turned out to be a really bad idea. Reaching around 30kms in a training run I suddenly had knee pain that stopped me in my tracks. Diagnosis? Patella Tendonitis. Severely reduced mileage, strengthening exercises and a complete deconstruction and re-build of my running form. The reduced mileage was bad enough but the new way of running was tiring and made me long for the days I would just run without thinking whether I was overstriding or lifting my knees high enough.

Finally at the point of getting on top of the Patella Tendonitis I was looking forward to getting back to training hard. My body had other ideas. It saw my Patella Tendonitis and raised me ITB pain. I won’t bore you with my months of recovery but suffice to say it was not fun. My physio warned me against increasing mileage too fast as ITB issues are prone to coming back. So coming into the World Championships I had run a maximum of 11kms in one go since April. Not the best prep. 

Thankfully I had also signed up to a training programme held at the PT Barn. The Road to Worlds training programme was run by 3 fantastic coaches who each brought a differing skill set to the coaching. The course focussed on every aspect of OCR training that a racer needs to be successful in OCR. This included specific obstacle technique, skills and strength analysis, race preparation and race strategy. It taught me how to asses a race down to the finest detail. It also helped me to identify mental traps that had hampered my racing in the past. So whilst my race endurance was nowhere near where I had wanted it to be, my obstacle strength and performance as well as my mental game were better than ever. On the advice of the coaches I had also added an OCR Specific workout to my weekly regime, my hope was that this specific training would partially offset my lack of mileage. I have to admit I got some funny looks from the neighbours running out of my garden every 10 mins and doing a lap of the area with a sandbag on my shoulders! So...back to this year’s race....

This year’s race was held on the permanent site of the award winning Nuclear Races. The course was billed as packing in 100 obstacles over 15kms. 

Ok so it wasn't really 100 obstacles. 6 of them were a continuous wreckbag  carry and many obstacles listed were logs, trenches or streams. In any case, this was going to be very different from last year’s race which was up and down a ski slope with not much mud and no water obstacles. This race was going to be pretty flat with lots of mud and a fair amount of water including a full submersion.

3km Short Course

Due to my lack of mileage in training all year I knew that there was no way I would be able to keep up a decent pace for the 15km course so decided the 3km was many target race. The plan was to go all out and I said to myself if I didn’t cross the line exhausted then I hadn’t gone hard enough. I’d ‘pre-rigged’ the course the day before so I knew all the obstacles and had decided on my techniques through the rigs. I’d decided which attachments to use and which to miss out. This is something that the Road to Worlds course stressed. Just because an attachment (such as a ball, nunchuck or rope) is there it doesnt mean you have to use it. I saw so many racers out there using small and tricky attachments on a rig just because they thought they should.

Stood on the start line they had replaced Coach Pain with the MC from the UK Spartan series, Spartan Phil. Ok so he’d replaced his spartan helmet with a cap so I guess he was just regular Phil. As much as I’d loved  Coach Pain’s rousing start line speeches it was probably wise to use a more UK friendly style for this race.

The MC counted down..3....2...1....GO!! As it was a short course the pack went off at a fast pace. We were straight into some ditches which immediately got my heart rate through the roof. Next it was a crawl under barbed wire and then into a Wreckbag (sandbag) carry and then a crawl with the sandbag. This was a crazy way to start a race and didn’t allow you to settle into any kind of pace. I was thankful that I’d done a decent warm up so I felt able to push on. Then it was straight into 3 rigs back to back. First up was the platinum rig. Having done my prep I knew that I wanted to miss out a few attachments which made it a simple rig of rings and monkey bars. My heart rate was high which might have made me rush things in the past, but not now. I flew through but with barely 30 seconds of running I was at the next rig. This rig, named Varjagen Saga had been brought over by Strong Viking, a European race series. It consisted of 3 parts each with various things to hang and swing from. Through my prep I knew the technique to use for each section and flew through to hit the bell.

Varjagen Saga

With hardly any time to regain my breath I was hit with another grip strength sapping rig. The Force 5 Rig was something I’d never seen before in person. However having watched videos of the North American Championships I had a feel for how to approach the rig. All of the attachments swung from front to back, which made it easier to reach the next attachment. This rig was also housed by part of the huge event tent (it was massive!) which was cool and meant there were loads of spectators cheering on the racers. Surprisingly I got through it first time.

After a couple of jumping type obstacles I approach the Ninja Rings. This was a traverse where you had to get to the other side using plastic rings that you held in your hands and moved from bar to bar. I’d been practicing this on my home rig for months so I was ready and flew across.

After this followed some squats under bars whilst carrying a log, a quarter pipe and another hanging obstacle called Trapeze. I then arrived at a new obstacle called Skitch. The aim was to traverse to the end of a hanging bar using hooks that you held in each hand. The tricky part was that you had to lift both hooks across a chain attached to the middle of the bar. This was a difficult obstacle and many struggled (even some pros). As part of my training I had some hooks fabricated for me and I mocked up a version and practiced at home. This paid off as I nailed it first time.

Skitch

Now I just had 3 obstacles to go! First up was a bomb carry, which was exactly what you think is. A metal bomb that you had to carry in your arms but not on your shoulders. The bomb had a moving weight inside so if you carried it at an angle all the weight shifted to one side. This obstacle in itself was fine but it tired your arms and grip out enough to make the penultimate obstacle that much harder.

The penultimate obstacle was the wonderfully named Skull Valley. I’d conquered this obstacle in Canada so was confident I could do so again. Thankfully I had just enough grip left to get through.

Skull Valley

The final obstacle was a giant slip wall to get over. Thankfully the ropes were a little lower than in Canada so this was no problem (it got tougher on subsequent days due to the mud).

Crossing the line in 65th place out of 202 in my age group I was in the top 32%. I was happy with my obstacle performance and effort. Band kept, but this was just race 1 of 3.....

15km Standard Course

The 15km race was going to be a different beast. As I said, I hadn’t run more than 11kms since April so a tough 15kms Obstacle race was going to be a test of my fitness. The race set off at a less frantic pace and after the ditches we were treated to a nice long Wreckbag carry through the forest. The carry involved ducking under and going over beams. Being short means ducking under beams was nice and easy but going over them not so much!

Wreckbag Carry

After another carry and some other minor obstacles I hit the Nuclear monkey bars, thankfully just the short section. After this came possibly the worst part, around 5 sets of cargo nets to crawl under. I hated these, they were quite tight and you had to crawl on your hands and knees. I’m pretty sure this was responsible for the scrape on my knee.

About 5kms in and after a zip line we got into some proper mud. I mean the kind of mud you have to crawl through. Thankfully I then got completely soaked by the deathslide which cleaned the mud off. Whilst obstacles such as zip lines and deathslides are fun I’m not sure they have a place in a World Championship race. Saying that many racers I ran past told me they loved the zip line. So what do I know.

I was looking forward to the low rig having trained specifically for this type of obstacle. So I was a bit disappointed to find it was simply two bars with a ring in between. Boring! Oh well. Shortly after this came Stairway to Heaven, an A frame with horizontal planks which you had to climb and ascend on the inside with only your arms. This was only the third time I’d ever attempted this obstacle. The first time was Canada last year and the second at a Road to Worlds training session. It was at this point that I caught up with my wife Jo who had set off in the wave before me. After a quick hug and checking how she was getting on I quickly ascended and descended the stairway without much thought (I think you can overthink this one easily). I found out later that Jo managed to get to the top of Stairway but was unable to make the transition. This was the furthest she had ever got on this obstacle so she was really happy with her progress.

The race used a lot of the permanent obstacles on the Nuclear site but added a number of World Championships specific obstacles as well as obstacles from other races. After a section of Nuclear obstacles I was back in the event village and the gauntlet of rigs. The Platinum rig had been changed up from the previous day and was marginally more complex. Yet again though there were attachments that I had no intention of touching. It now started with 2 rings followed by a T-bar. There was no way of skipping the T-bar so I decided to grab it with a couple of fingers either side and effectively treat it as a ring. A rope, some monkey bars and a couple of rings and I was through. I sailed through Varjagen Saga again and was actually starting to enjoy the flow of this obstacle. It was then on to the Force 5 rig. Although I’d smashed this obstacle the day before I was getting tired. I wasn’t focussed and therefore fell off the middle wheel and had to go back to the retry lane. I knew my grip was still ok so decided to take 5 minutes and regain my focus. I took the time to clean the mud off my hands and managed to fly through. Phew!

Weaver & Force 5 Rig

After this it was back into the forest and a rope traverse over water. Now I hadn’t seen a rope traverse in a race since the UK Championships back in 2016. For some reason I had a feeling we’d see one so I’d been down to Mad Mike’s, my local training centre, to practice. Theres also no better impetus to hold on than the threat of dropping into cold water. So hold on I did.

With around 4kms left I could feel my lack of mileage in training starting to tell. I was slowing and could feel my legs tiring. I took in another gel and pushed on.

Bomb Carry

Nailing Skitch and battling through the bomb carry I was faced with Skull Valley for the second time in 2 days. Having had no problem with this on the 3K I was surprised to feel my grip failing before the second set of skulls. As I reached for the first skull my hand slipped. For a moment I felt doubt creeping in. I’d trained my grip endurance and to feel weakness was disheartening. But I reckoned that I just needed a quick rest to let me recover. When I slipped off I also ripped some skin off my hand. This was bad news as I now had a red raw section of skin where I would need to hold the skulls. Arse. But wait...ripped hands were always going to be potential risk at such an obstacle heavy course. If only I had put something in my pocket for such an eventuality. As my coach Scotty PT says, ‘fail to prepare and prepare to fail’. I’d prepared for every other element so of course I was ready! I’d thankfully packed some WOD & Done hand protectors. These are sticky strips that go over your fingers and protect your palms. I carefully applied the strip to my right hand and took some deep breaths. Arriving at Skull Valley I’d met Team UK honorary captain Stuart Neail and he was having to retry as well. We were both taking our time and ensuring we were recovered enough before taking a second go. This was an obstacle that most racers could probably complete when fresh but after 15kms and 100 (ish) obstacles it suddenly felt a lot harder. Seeing Stuart get through I knew it was my time. It was now or never. I flew through the first set of skulls and onto the swinging monkey bars. The tricky bit is the transition from the monkey bars back up to the second set of skulls. Thankfully I nailed that and as soon as I started swinging I could feel that the rest had the desired effect as my grip felt solid yet again. I was so happy to hit that bell!

The final obstacle was again the slip wall. This time things were made a bit harder by mud caking the wall and ropes. Scrambling over the top and running over the finish line I was thrilled to have kept my band again. I definitely had to work for it towards the end of the race.

Team Race

I ran the team race with 2 fellow Road 2 Worlds members, Leanne and Claire. Like last year the team event was divided into 3 sections, Speed, Strength and Technical. However this year the sections were much more even in the length of the sections plus there were some team obstacles that we had to complete together. I was on technical again although I was feeling pretty beat up by now as the 15k had taken it out of me. Before the race I realised I wasn’t at all focussed so a I was hoping a coffee and a caffeine gel would wake me up.

I didn’t really do much of a warm up as I was standing around for nearly an hour waiting for my team mates to complete their legs. Finally I saw Leanne coming up the hill and after completing her last carry she handed over to me and I was straight into the Platinum rig. My arms being tired from 2 days of racing I made sure to go two handed on rings when possible and make sure I landed each hand where it needed to be. I could hear coach Tony Leary shouting ‘make it safe Fabian, make it safe!’. It was then straight into Varjagen Saga and again I sailed through this obstacle.

It was then on to the Force 5 rig. I lost concentration at the last moment and doing an Appleton (sorry James) I missed the bell by millimetres. Back to the retry lane for me. Fatigue was definitely the main reason that I missed the bell but I think I let the initial failure the day before get in my head a bit. After a few minutes of recovery and some encouragement from another Road to Worlds member Jonathan I had a second attempt and nailed it.

It was then on to the Dragon’s back, Ninja Rings and Weaver. The final obstacle of my technical leg was Skitch. Noticing that my WOD & Done hand protectors weren’t that grippy against metal I tore most of them off to ensure I had the best grip. My grip was fine thankfully and I hit the bell and ran down to tag my team mates for the final section of the race. I have to say that by this point my arms were burning!

The final section included 3 team obstacles. The first was transporting 2 atlas stones on a metal gurney. Leanne and Claire carried the gurney whilst I steadied the stones and ensured they didn’t fall off.

Next was a rope climb over a metal A frame. We all had to go over the same rope but could help each other. Claire wasn’t keen on this at being afraid of heights. Leanne waited at the top in case she needed help but Claire was amazing, faced her fears and conquered the obstacle.

It was then on to the final Slip Wall. This time there were no ropes! We had a plan which was to form a human ladder. I went at the bottom, Leanne climbed on my shoulders and Claire then climbed up both of us to the top. Claire then helped pull Leanne up. Leanne then hung down whilst I ran up and grabbed her leg to reach the rope. We were over! Crossing the finish line with your team is an awesome feeling and we were all buzzing after the race.

So 3 races and 3 bands kept. That’s one more than last year so I guess that’s progress. I had hoped to be a bit more competitive this year but that wasn’t to be. I was really happy with my performance on the 3k and I reckon if I can get back to the kind of mileage I was at last year coupled with the functional OCR workouts I’ve been doing this year I can get a lot quicker. My obstacle game is streets ahead of where it was last year as is my grip endurance. So speed and running endurance is my focus now.

So as I said I was concerned that having the Championships in the UK it wouldn’t match the heights of Canada. I really shouldn’t have worried. The race village was great and from a spectator point of view there were a lot of obstalces to view. I thought the course was well designed and challenging. Yes there was more mud than some competitors were comfortable with but this was a good representation of what UK OCR is about. We were also ridiculously lucky with the weather. It was around 16ºC for the first 2 days and by the Sunday I was lying around in a t-shirt with a high of 20ºC! Madness for October. A week later it dropped to 5ºC so we were very lucky. Also had it rained instead of hanging around spectators would have had to huddle under the tent or go back to their hotels. But it didn’t rain, so it was glorious.

Special mention needs to go to Tom Nash, Stuart Neail and the many others who have worked to make Team UK a unified team. Having the team kitted out in Team UK racing tops, jackets and shorts was a wonderful sight and made it easy to support our fellow countrymen on the course. I have to say that the support for Team UK out on the course was amazing. Not only that but the support I received from fellow Road to Worlds members was incredible. Hardly 10 mins would go by without hearing a ‘Go Team UK’ or ‘Go on Fabian!’ It was wonderful and nearly made me a bit emotional at one point. No crying for me this year though. Just lots of smiles. What a weekend! 🇬🇧

Oh I also took loads of photos over the weekend, feel free to check them out here!

[thecaptainsdesk]

Since the world saw Angelina Jolie swinging through the ruined temples of Cambodia as Lara Croft, the country has been crawling with tourists eager to get a better look at the places made famous by the film. In recent years, Siem Reap, a town that is close to a huge complex of ancient Buddhist and Hindu temples, is now a major tourist destination, with more than 120 hotels, from basic hostel to Ultra-DeLuxe. While there may be small pockets of opulence such as this, the majority of the country is still poor, and visitors to Cambodia should get out to see the reality of this beautiful country.

After several decades of civil war, and the genocide brought about by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia’s modern, violent history is fresh in the minds of the world. However, with the introduction of a new regime of democracy, the nation sits on the verge of a new revolution – as a popular travel destination. And this is mainly due to the jungle-covered ruins of Angkor Wat, and other places just like it. The ancient capital of the old Khmer Empire is also the world’s largest, single religious monument, and is one of only a handful of temples that have been uncovered in the dense jungle landscape. Hundreds of other beautiful, ancient temples and pagodas exist, buried under the growth of tropical jungle, and sometimes used as backdrops for major Hollywood blockbusters.

Over the years I have found myself in Cambodia on several occasions, both as soldier and tourist. The first time I went there was with the military as part of the UN resolution on foreign aid, to protect UN aid workers who were helping to get the country back on its feet. Unfortunately, I spent more time watching the jungle for former Khmer Rouge activists than watching the famous sites I have mentioned here, although in Phnom Penh I got to spend time around the city and explore a little. Thankfully, the horrors of the past are long gone, and the Khmer Rouge we encountered there no longer cause trouble.  Cambodia has come a long way since the days of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and although it is not perfect, it’s a lot safer for tourists now.

From the ruins of Angkor Wat to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, you can really immerse yourself in the rich, yet violent history of Cambodia. Whether you are following in the footsteps of adventurers, or enjoying freshly baked bread in one of the delightful cafes of Siem Reap, it is almost impossible not to be affected by the stories of Cambodia. Tales of glory and of ruin, tragedy and joy, all are etched into the deathly silence of the stones, and shines from the friendly faces of the Khmer people. Wherever you travel in this once-devastated land, Cambodia is a country that leaves an unforgettable, indelible impression.

Top Spots for Tourists in Cambodia

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

In Siem Reap, lies the ancient temple of Angkor Wat. Probably the most famous of all places in the country, people show up in their thousands to watch the sunrise at 5:30am. While many people crowd the walkways, jostling for the best shot, if you get off the main walkway and sit on the steps of the outpost buildings, you are almost guaranteed a better view, with less people. Built over the course of more than thirty years, Angkor Wat was the 12th century home of King Suryavarman II after he died.

Completely buried by jungle until it was discovered by French colonists in the 1800’s, what they uncovered is now considered as one of the Wonders of the World. The well-preserved temple has numerous bas-relief walls that depict the many levels of heaven and hell, some of which are quite gruesome, as well as more than 1,800 seductive Dancing Maidens carvings. The temple is surrounded by a huge rectangular lake, and rises up on three terraces to the central shrine and tower. The temple reflects the traditional Khmer design of the “temple mountain” which is a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods in Hinduism.

Angkor Thom

Locally mispronounced as “Uncle Tom”, this temple has not been restored in the way Angkor Wat has, though it has several interesting features. The main feature of the temple is the entrance bridge, which is flanked by 54 stone-carved warriors who appear to be playing a tug-of-war game with the sacred Naga Snake. Many of the warriors’ heads are missing, stolen by looters after the war in Vietnam, some of which have been recovered and are now in museums across the U.S. The bas-reliefs here are mainly of people playing chess, cooking, and having babies, and one even depicts two monkeys performing sexual acts, known locally as the “Monkey 69”.

Ta Prohm

The temple that was used in the Tomb Raider film, this ancient place was left completely undisturbed by restoration teams, and is still full of crumbling walls intertwined with thick tree roots. It was left as it was found, to allow tourists to see the state in which many of the temples in the area were discovered.

Artisan’s Angkor

Artisan’s Angkor is a trade school for disadvantaged Cambodians in Siem Reap, where the students make all kinds of local handicrafts, which fly off the shelves of the colorful school store as fast as they can make them. The school makes everything from silver-plated ornamental boxes to vividly colored scarves made of local silk, and it is all of high quality.

Downtown Siem Reap

Take a Tuk-Tuk to Downtown Siem Reap; This nimble mode of transportation – essentially a 4 person carriage pulled by motorcycle – congests every alley, lane and road in Siem Reap. It takes just a few minutes (and about $2) to get to…..

Pub Street and Siem Reap Night Market

This area of Downtown Siem Reap has a nighttime vibe that is comparable to that of New Orleans at Mardi Gras. There are dozens of restaurants selling all kinds of food, both local and foreign, and spas where you can relax, get a massage, or try the traditional Cambodian J’Pong heat and herbal treatment. Most of the spas have pools inside where you can get a “fish pedicure”, which can be a little ticklish as the small fish eat the dead skin on your feet. The night market is full of deals on items you can find in many such markets across Asia, but a little searching can be rewarded with some excellent finds.

Tonlé Sap

Tonlé Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Cambodia and South East Asia, and is of major importance to the country. The lake is subject to the changes of the seasons, and shrinks or expands depending on the monsoon rains. Dry season in Cambodia is from November to May, and the lake drains into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh. In the monsoon season, the lake changes direction, and fills with water to make an enormous lake that is the home to numerous Vietnamese and Cham communities that live in floating villages around the lake.

Preah Vihear

Preah Vihear is a striking Khmer temple, dramatically set on a 1,722-foot cliff in the Dângrêk Mountains. The views from the top expand over lowland Cambodia, with the peak of Phnom Kulen watching silently in the distance. Spread over more than 2,000 feet, the temple’s five Gopuras are comprised of four levels and four courtyards, all of which are decorated with intricate carvings. Constructed mainly between the 11th and 12th centuries, the temple was dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Set on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, ongoing territorial disputes between the two countries have closed access to the temple from the Thai entrance.

Banteay Srei

Although officially part of the Angkor complex, Banteay Srei lies 25 km (15 miles) north-east of the main group of temples, and therefore often considered a separate Cambodia attraction. The temple was completed in 967 AD and is built largely of red sandstone, a medium that lends itself to the elaborate decorative wall carvings which are still clearly visible today. Banteay Srei is the only major temple at Angkor not built for a king, instead it was constructed by one of king Rajendravarman’s counselors, Yajnyavahara.

Mondulkiri

Mondulkiri is a wild, sparsely populated area of Cambodia, dotted with rolling hills, jungles, waterfalls, and valleys. The region is home to some of the country’s most rare and endangered wildlife, including leopards, water buffalo, and elephants. Almost half of Mondulkiri’s population belongs to the Bunong minority group, who hunt for most of their food. It’s a fantastic region for visiting traditional villages and interacting with elephants in their natural habitat. The cool climate, stunning scenery and wildlife-viewing opportunities make it a perfect area for trekking and hiking.

Popokvil Waterfall

Set in Bokor National Park, Popokvil Waterfall is a stunning two-tiered waterfall, which looks particularly gorgeous during the rainy season. Although the appearance of the surrounding rainforest has been somewhat marred by the construction of a huge casino on the hill summit, the area is still quite pretty. The waterfall takes its name from an expression meaning ‘swirling clouds’, perhaps due to the ever-present mist that surrounds it. It’s a great place to stop for a refreshing swim and, if you’re lucky, catch a glimpse of the endangered animals that live in the area, such as the pig-tailed macaque and the Malayan sun bear.

  Koh Ker

Formerly the capital of the Khmer Empire from 928 to 944 AD, the site has some spectacular buildings and immense sculptures, and is dominated by the 30-meter-tall temple mountain of Prasat Thom. Rising high above the surrounding jungle, the temple is topped by a giant Garuda (a mythical half-man, half-bird creature). Abandoned and left to the jungle for almost a thousand years, the temple can be likened more to ancient Mayan ruins than typical Khmer architecture, and the encroachment of the jungle and its wildlife on Koh Ker only adds to the site’s sense of mystery.

Drive Route 6 to Phnom Penh

The largest city in Cambodia, Phnom Penh has been the country’s capital since the French colonial era. Once called the “Pearl of Asia”, it is considered to be one of the prettiest cities in Indo-China, though it is still recovering from wars and revolutions. Sitting on the Mekong River, the city dates back to the 15th century, and the French influence can still be seen in the architecture of the city. From the glittering Royal Palace and crowded night markets to the sophisticated restaurants and bars, Phnom Penh’s beauty is complex, and realized slowly by visitors as they tour the city.

Eat A Spider (or watch someone else do it)

There’s a stop along Route 6 Cambodia that features platters of fried tarantulas, crickets and birds. There are also bananas and mangos for the non insect eater. Believe it or not, spiders actually taste nice. If you have ever eaten crickets or deep fried locusts (I remember when that was a phase in the north of England in the late ’80s), then it is not much different. Trying new foods is all part of the charm of a new country. Just go for it!

Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

15 kilometers from Phnom Penh, the Killing Fields is a monument like no other in the world. The monument is filled with bones and skulls from one of the hundreds of killing fields across the country. The Cambodian government decided to leave majority of these mass graves alone and undisturbed, making this one both a monumental cemetery and a hallowed ground.

Nearby is the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which was once a peaceful high school and now is a memorial to those who died there. Between 1975 and 1979, the school became a torture and interrogation center for the Khmer Rouge, from which very few survived. Doctors, professors, clergymen, and other high-value professionals were rounded up and chained, electrocuted, dismembered, or beaten to death at the order of Cambodian dictator, Pol Pot. Those who survived the torture were taken out to the Killing Fields, and executed. While it is a hard place to visit, like many other Holocaust Museums, it is there to remind people of the horrors of dictatorship, and make sure it can never happen again.

You can probably put together a whole trip based on this list, although if you travel to Cambodia to do all of these, it may take you several weeks. Go there, and enjoy this beautiful land as it recovers from the decades of war and hardship. For pretty soon, it will be as popular and tourist-oriented as places like Thailand, Bali, and Boracay!

  The Most Memorable Attractions In Cambodia Since the world saw Angelina Jolie swinging through the ruined temples of Cambodia as Lara Croft, the country has been crawling with tourists eager to get a better look at the places made famous by the film.

[houstonlocalus-blog]

Pixies Serve Fans Well With Houston Performance

Pixies. Photo: Daniel Jackson

  I wouldn’t want to be a band many regard as revolutionary that reunited for a bunch of fans that seemed to only want to hear “the hits.” I say that because Boston indie rock group Pixies seem to get a lot of flack for making new albums. It’s pretty dumb to think that the band would ever make Surfer Rosa again, or that they’d want to continue touring the songs of Doolittle for the next twenty years. I can’t lie, I’m a Pixies fan through and through and I could go the rest of my life without hearing “Monkey Gone To Heaven” live. On their last two albums, Indie Cindy and last year’s Head Carrier, the band dropped two pretty solid records while “fans” complained about everything from the fact that Kim Deal is gone to seemingly invalid complaints about the last two albums. However, in spite of that, the four-piece that inspired Nirvana and Radiohead made their way over to the lawn at White Oak Music Hall on Sunday to give those in attendance a show they’d never forget.  What we received was a band that can still perform admirably while mixing in fan favorites alongside new tracks better than they did twenty years ago.

  Black Francis of Pixies. Photo: Daniel Jackson

  It should be noted that there was plenty of “fan servicing” done with this set. There’s nothing wrong with that, as the band sounds stellar from the beginning to the end, and while there was literally no stage banter from the band, no one around me seemed to mind. Opening with “Cactus,” the group then launched into two oddly chosen slow tracks “All the Saints” from their latest album Head Carrier and then the instrumental “Ana” from Bossanova. They would then go deep into fan favorites like “Here Comes Your Man,” “Vamos,” and “Nimrod’s Son.” The audience had cameras on their cellphones rolling along until the band broke out the best live version of “Winterlong” I’ve heard in the five times I’ve caught them. The addition of Paz Lenchantin really gave the track a fresh new voice and honestly sounded better than it did when I saw the original lineup perform it in the ’90s.  

  Black Francis of Pixies. Photo: Mars Forse Walker

  They would follow up with “Gouge Away” before playing another newer song, “Oona,” where it was lovely to hear another new song added to the mix of the set. This was followed by Lenchantin’s lead vocals of “All I Think About Now” before the band found themselves back in the past performing the raucous “Debaser” from Doolittle. The set would continue like this with another new song, “Bel Esprit,” only to be followed by another favorite, “Wave of Mutilation.” The band seemed to really just truck through the songs without much emotion, but they’ve never really been the group to do that. In fact, I can’t remember ever seeing a Pixies set where the band addressed the crowd much at all. “Talent” off of Head Carrier would get very little response from the crowd who seemed to get as excited as imaginable when “Monkey Gone to Heaven” kicked off. One of my new favorites, “Classic Masher,” sounded pretty fantastic out on the lawn at White Oak. Hearing the new tracks sprinkled in was a nice touch before they played “Velouria” and “Havalina,” before switching gears to perform “Mr Grieves.”  

  Joey Santiago of Pixies. Photo: Mars Forse Walker

  Adding another favorite of mine, “Indie Cindy,” it felt like the band, who is said to be playing without a set list, was really just trying to keep things interesting for everyone, including themselves.  The crowd erupted into a frenzy when they played “Where Is My Mind” before looking shocked when that was followed with “Caribou” and “U-Mass.” It should certainly be noted that this version of the Trompe Le Monde classic sounded the best it’s sounded live in years. While it may be presumptuous to say that there were many “casual” fans in attendance, this was proven further that only about half of the audience seemed to know the words to “Hey,” and “No. 13 Baby,” and they didn’t seem to be back onboard until the band closed out their set with “Bone Machine.”

  The band took center stage and collectively bowed to the audience before performing one last song, the B-side and fan favorite “Into The White,” sung admirably and beautifully by Lenchantin. The overall set was notably epic as far as Pixies sets go. The band played songs, both new and old, on the lawn at White Oak to casual and diehard fans, all the while reminding us that they’re still going strong.

Pixies Serve Fans Well With Houston Performance this is a repost