#shuffle with me Houston stranger

[bigtreefest]

Chapter 1: Shuffle With Me, Houston Stranger

From: Handiwork Series

Pairing: Mechanic! Farmhand! Curtis x Bartender! Reader

Summary: Curtis keeps a busy life between helping out on the farm and running the garage. There are some moments and places that give him reprieve, though, and one of them happens to be a bar where a certain sweetie works.

Word count: 3,386

Content/warnings: not many, mentions of drinking and alcohol, bar setting, weird vague emotional states, another guy hopelessly head over boots (what else is new, y’all should know this is how I write all my love interests at his point), menacing foreshadowing

Author’s Note: this takes place at the same time as chapters 3, 4, and 5 of YCMBWH and chapter 1 of The Rainmaker. You can technically read it alone, but the other stories help fill in some gaps. Check out the rest of the AU!

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Outta Nowhere AU | Series Masterlist | Next >

Curtis walked into the shop with sore shoulders and a slight ache in his heels from a long day of unexpected work and standing. His cousin had called him in to help out with a few chores at the farm since she had to run the Friday farmer’s market, so the day was long and tiresome.

The last thing he wanted to do right now was go through and double check his books for the auto body shop, so he decided against it. Even if he went through everything tonight, it’s not like it would be quality work.

He figured he’d just quickly make sure everything was in its place in the office and the garage to make paperwork easier for him on Monday and work easier for the guys in the morning. Then, he’d be able to join his cousin and her new farmhand at the bar.

Curtis was organizing his socket wrenches by size when he heard a rattling sound become louder behind him. He turned as he sensed it coming closer, seeing an old truck pull into his garage.

He looked down to check his watch. The shop had been long closed by now, and he had places to be. Based off the noise though, he couldn’t deny something was definitely wrong with the vehicle. If Curtis weren’t such a good man, he would’ve turned the patron away, but there was no saying how far a truck that sounded like that could possibly get.

He tilted his head, examining the vehicle and attempting to peer through the glare in the drivers side window when the engine turned off and he saw a pair of old, comfy shoes step down from the cab. His eyes traced up the body before him and Curtis was speechless. Your hair was just tucked under an old ball cap, nothing fancy.

“Hi, I hope you don’t mind, I’m not sure what this sound means and was hoping you had time to take a look at my truck. I know you guys are closed, so it’s no rush, but I’d really appreciate it. I’d rather know where my car is than get stranded out in the middle of nowhere.”

Curtis continued to stand there, mesmerized by you until he shook his head back into the present. “Oh, um, sure. I think I have the evening free, so let me just check on a few things real quick and I can take a look at it.”

Curtis pulled out his phone to text his cousin that he wouldn’t make it to the bar tonight.

He stuffed his phone in his back pocket, going to grab a chair from the front office as you followed. “Never good when a truck that old makes a sound like that.”

You nodded along. “Oh trust me, I know. Darn thing’s even older than me. Usually I’m able to figure out the minor stuff, but this is beyond what I know.”

Curtis nodded when he went to set a metal folding chair down by where you had pulled the truck onto one of his lifts. It scraped against the concrete floor, and he was surprised by the way you simply looked at it, as if you were offended that he’d want you to sit down.

“Oh, by the way, I’m Curtis, I own this shop.” The mechanic stuck out his hand, cleaner than you would’ve expected, and you shook it, introducing yourself.

“Ah, it’s nice to meet you. One of my coworkers actually suggested I come here when the truck started acting up. Said his best friend was the big cheese.”

Curtis laughed. “Um, he used those exact words? Or are those yours? Where are you from?”

You shook your head. “Oh no, sorry, those were my words. I think he just called you the boss, he’s the bouncer at the bar?”

Curtis clicked his tongue as he walked over to the hood of your car, propping it open. “Okay, you’re talking about my buddy, Edgar. Yeah, I’m glad he sent you to me. He works some shifts for me now and then. So you’re new to town? I go to the bar pretty often, I’ve never seen you there.”

You nodded your head tentatively. “Yeah, didn’t think it would be so noticeable I just moved here from Houston, but I’m really from here and there, lived almost everywhere. Been working at the bar for about a week now.”

Curtis nodded as he looked deeper into your engine, testing the tightness of parts and how full each fluid was. “Well how about that. Yeah, we don’t get too many people moving here, but I’m sure it’s a nice change from the city.”

You nodded and hummed, walking over and leaning under the hood of the car with him. “Agreed. I don’t think many mechanics would be this patient with me out there.”

Curtis lightly chuckled as he looked up at you over his shoulder. “Well I’ll be honest with you, patience is one thing, but you probably won’t think I’m very kind when I tell you this truck probably wont survive the next time you take a far journey if you plan to move…”

His small smile was replaced with a grimace. Maybe if he knew you were leaving soon like you seemed to do so often, he could hold himself back more. He could tell himself that there was no point in being attached, being himself for you to see. He’d hold off on the kindness that poured out to everyone he knew and loved, because it would hurt for you to take it and leave.

Your face held a small smile, though, despite his look of worry. “Well what if I planned on staying?”

Curtis looked back into the engine in an attempt to hide the redness in his cheeks. He was warm at the thought of you sticking around. He jiggled the loose part he found, grunting from leaning over so far, before he spoke up, partially avoiding your question.

“Well, you see this right here. I’d replace it and say it would be good for another couple of years.”

You beamed. “That’s good news!”

Curtis stood up to his full height and for the first time, you noticed just how towering his stature was. Anyone else would be intimidated from a distance, but from this proximity, you could see the kindness in his eyes.

“Yes and no.” It came out softer than he had intended. “I’ve gotta make a special order, and it will probably take at least a week to come in. Do you have another way to get to work?”

You nodded. “Yeah, my apartment isn’t too far from the bar. Walking shouldn’t be an issue.”

He looked at you skeptically. “Are you sure? I know you guys have some pretty late shifts.”

“Curtis, I’ll be fine. I’m tougher than I look.” He sighed in response.

“Alright, if you say so. I’ll put in for that part and in the meantime, your truck can stay here.” He walked over to the workbench and scribbled on a piece of paper, tearing it off and handing it to you.

“Here’s my personal number. In case you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call me. I could even set up a ride for you if you change your mind.”

You took the paper, creasing it in the middle and stuffing it in your pocket. “Well, I’ve got a shift tomorrow and I think I might get there on time if I start walking now. Bit of a ways to my place from your shop. Any chance you could drive me home so I can sleep?”

Curtis sighed and checked his watch. “Yeah, I guess so, considering I’m holding your car captive. Come on, I’ll close up and we’ll get you home.”

As you waited for the new car part to be delivered to the shop, you kept working. Bills had to be paid. You had to keep living.

You were surprised the next day at work when Edgar had offered to walk you home after your shift, and every night after then, but didn’t question it. You were just appreciative to have a nice coworker you could trust.

Another surprise was the amount of take out orders that you’d have to give out from the bar. Most of which were going to a certain handsome mechanic.

It was Wednesday night, and the fourth time he’d come to pick up dinner this week. The man must really like cheese curds. You didn’t question it, though, as you handed him his order, asking for updates and waving goodbye with a somber smile as he left too soon, and spoke very little.

What you didn’t know was that Curtis had food at home, sitting in his fridge as he opted for the extra opportunities to see you. You also didn’t know how much he feared opening up his mouth and exposing himself by saying the wrong thing to the first person to make him nervous in a long time. Curtis was generally steady, driven, easygoing, but he could feel that world, that demeanor, start to tilt.

Curtis had a long week. A week much longer than he expected with the extra work he had to do out on the farm instead of in the shop. Sure, he was getting along better and better with Bucky, but that didn’t change the fact that there was too much going wrong.

Cole, that little shit from high school, was back and Curtis’s cousin had gotten stuck in a mine. There was no time for sleep, let alone stopping by the bar with this much of a crisis going on.

As soon as the rocks collapsed in the mine, Curtis was freaking out. “We have to call the police, the fire department, someone to get her out of there. She might not be injured now, but I can’t say the same if there’s a secondary collapse. We need to do something. Now.”

Bucky grabbed him by his collar. “No. No police. It’ll ruin everything.”

Curtis put his hands up in surrender. “Okay then, what do you suppose we do, big guy?”

Bucky paced back and forth, biting his thumbnail with worry. “Gimme a second. I’m figuring it out.” He stopped in his tracks. “Who all knows about the mines?”

“What? What does that ha-“

Bucky cut Curtis off. “Who. All. Knows?”

Curtis shook his head and shrugged. “I-I don’t know, not many people. Me and her, her college roommate, and Jake. That’s it, I think.”

Bucky rapidly reached into the pocket of his jeans and handed Curtis a card from his wallet. “This is my associate Sam. You’re going to call him and tell him those names. We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

Curtis immediately pulled out his phone, trusting the judgement of his new friend. He called Sam, telling him everything he could about those who were close enough to have heard of the mines. After that, he got to work.

He assessed what all would need done in the next day and did as many small tasks as he could, staying up until he could greet the helpers on the way.

All Curtis wanted to do was sleep, this was taking a toll on him, but he did his best to not let it show, to not become a grump. He just put his head down and made himself useful while Bucky waited back at the mine. At the first available opportunity, he was going to drop into a bed and nap. This week was stretching him thin.

Meanwhile, you continued to work at the bar. After seeing him for several days in a row, it was concerning that Curtis seemingly fell off the face of the Earth. Surely that wasn’t your business, though. Maybe it was just a coincidence he was ordering food so often before. He had better places to be, like work, or maybe on a date.

Why would you care, though? He was just the nice guy fixing your car. There was no way he was going out of his way to visit; probably just had some late nights at the shop and that’s why he picked up dinner, not to see you. Anyway, work was always busy enough for your mind to be occupied. You’d at least see him again hopefully once that coveted car part came in.

After a much easier Saturday at the farm, Curtis was ready to have a nice, relaxing time at the bar. As the crew he came with went inside, he hung back to talk to Edgar. He clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey man, how’s it going?”

Edgar patted him back. “Good, I’m good. Been walking your girl home like you asked. She’s working tonight.” A smirk crept onto his face as Curtis looked down.

“But besides that, what’s going on with you?”

Curtis sighed and pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. He turned a picture of Cole Turner towards Edgar.

“Um, I’m alright. A little stressed, but I’m hoping you can help. I’ve got something for you.”

Edgar looked up from the piece of paper. “What’s this?”

“Someone who we need to make sure stays out of here. And if you see him, you let me know, okay?”

Edgar nodded. “Sure thing. Have fun with your girl.”

Curtis rolled his eyes and walked through the door to catch up with everyone else.

You were pouring out drinks for the group that came in when a familiar tall, broad form approached from the doorway. You took in the way his shoulders pushed at the flannel fabric of his shirt as he sauntered into the room. You couldn’t help the way the smile already on your face grew to see him again.

“Oh hey, if it isn’t the big cheese.” He laughed at the nickname, shaking his head as he moved to take a seat at the bar.

“Yeah, sorry I haven’t been in for awhile. Had some family matters to attend to. Speaking of which, that’s them over there.” He gestured toward the group who had just ordered food and drinks from you before heading towards the booths on the far side of the room.

“Ah! Okay, in that case, this is for you.” You grabbed a short rocks glass from the lower counter in front of you and set it up on the bar top in front of Curtis. The glass made a small thud against the finished wood as you looked at him.

Curtis tentatively grabbed it and sipped. After swallowing he hummed.

“Sweet. Like a cherry.”

You nodded. “Oh yeah. That’s because it’s got extra cherries. Your buddies over there said you’d drink whatever, so I made you my favorite.”

Curtis lowered the glass and looked at you deeply with his warm, burning sapphire eyes. His voice grew low and raspy. “I wasn’t talking about the drink.”

He winked at you and you had no idea how your legs didn’t fail you right then. You were able to quickly recover, though, shooting a remark right back.

“Maybe if you’re nice, I’ll let you test that conjecture.” You could see his cheeks grow warm at the suggestive statement. You grabbed your rag and threw it over your shoulder, leaning closer to the towering man who was just confident, now evidently bashful.

“Curtis, are you…blushing?”

His eyebrows were quick to arch as his attempt of a scowl failed to break through past a shy smile. “No! Blushing is fake. It doesn’t exist. That’s just an old wives tale.”

You looked at his skeptically, not even attempting to hide the laugh that burst out. “What do you mean you think it’s fake? You’re so red right now.”

Curtis’s eyes shifted around the room, unsure of how to respond. “I just feel really…warm…when I look at you.” He muttered so low you could barely hear it.

You wanted to keep pushing before his embarrassment made him turn away from you.

“Hey listen, I’ll be back. I’ve gotta check in with the group, but keep this stool saved for me?”

You nodded. “Sure thing.”

As soon as Curtis returned, he was glued to his chair. He spent the entire evening chatting with you, asking about your life, and telling you about his on the farm and at the shop.

You were honestly grateful for the one bit of peace on a busy bar Saturday night. Every chance you got, you were leaning against the counter by him to take a breath, watching his friends ride the bull and dance together. What a group of great people.

“So, have you been able to make it home alright this week? I’m sorry that truck part still hasn’t come in yet.”

You nodded as you poured a line of shots for a group of girls waiting on the corner. “Yeah, it hasn’t really been a problem. Edgar’s been insistent on walking me to my door, which helps me feel better when it’s that dark out. Just makes me feel bad, though, because I think I finish a little later than his shift time is supposed to be.”

“Well that’s nice of him. If you want, I can drive you home tonight. Might take some of that load off if you’re worried.” Curtis’s eyes watched you slide the shots to the patrons as you came back to his seat and sighed.

“Are you sure? I don’t want you staying here later than you have to, either. It’s really okay. I can definitely take care of myself.”

Curtis shrugged. “I don’t doubt that at all, Cherry. But I’m offering. And I’d be a fool to prematurely end one of the best nights I’ve had in awhile. I really don’t mind.”

“Okay, then. Sounds like a plan.”

As the night was winding down, and Curtis’s group had already come over to close out the tab, the two of you watched the remaining people prepare to head out. Who was Curtis that he knew someone with a black card? Supposedly they were business associates of the farm. Was farming really that lucrative? You guessed so.

You rejoined the present as the last few slow songs came on the juke box and Curtis held out his hand.

“You know how to dance?”

You scoffed, “Curtis, I’m still working. But yes, do you think I could’ve gotten by all this time without a little bit of knowledge?”

He shook his head. “I would’ve been worried if you did. Come on, there’s hardly anyone left. Shuffle with me, you little Houston stranger.”

You sidestepped the bar and walked out the small half door to join Curtis on the dance floor, holding both his hands and looking up into his eyes. “I’d say we’re hardly strangers now. You don’t learn nothing after hours of talking like that.”

You began to swing to the twangy music, holding each other close. Curtis twirled you and pulled you into his chest where your ear could hear his racing heart. The warmth and the scent of his cologne were comforting. His arms blanketing you, shielding you from all other thoughts besides this moment. As the song faded out, you realized you two were the only ones left besides the other employees doing the final tidying up before shutting down for the night. You reluctantly pulled your body from Curtis, left only holding each other’s hands.

“I should probably go help with the closing duties. Can you wait for me by the door?”

Curtis nodded. “Of course. I’ll be ready whenever you are.”

Curtis watched you go back to your cash register as he walked back towards Edgar, keeping an eye on you the whole time.

“So, anything interesting happen tonight?”

Edgar nodded with with wide eyes. “Um, yeah. That guy you gave me a picture of, he came by. Threw a fit when I wouldn’t let him in. Some dude in fancy clothes and a mustache was with him, too. Not sure what that was about, but they at least respected the badge.”

Curtis huffed and nodded. “Okay, thank you.”

This was not good. Curtis pulled out his phone and texted Bucky.

Next >

Bonus A/N: Tbh, even I don’t know where this story is gonna go, but I love Curtis a lot and will need some time to find a niche plot that will do him some justice.

I hope you enjoyed. Comments, reblogs, and likes are sooooo appreciated.

[childewife-baby]

King of Fatui's

Chapter 1.

I stand behind the bar while Scaramouche sits in an armchair on the other side of it. His eyes are trained on a bland bit of wall behind my head, a poker chip spinning between his swollen fingers. The lounge is too pristine for all this blood. Too bright, too quiet. I can practically hear the sins dripping off his body—some his, some not—and staining the carpet at his feet red. I rest my sweaty palms on the bar and swallow.

“Want me to call someone? Your brother?” His lips tilt into a humorless smirk, and I remember the sight of Kazuha's bloodied, naked body and the menacing glare he shot me through the windshield. I shiver. “The other brother, I mean.

He shakes his head once.

Well, then.

I shuffle from one slipper-clad foot to the other and stare at him for a few ticks of the grandfather clock on the mantle. I skim over his ruffled black hair and open collar. He popped off the stitches that held his gentlemanly persona together the moment we boarded the yacht—his collar pin and cufflinks. As they bounced over the swim platform, I managed to catch them before they disappeared into the Pacific. Now, as I glance down at the diamond dice cufflink next to my trembling hand, I wonder how they ever fooled anybody.

Is this what a breakdown looks like?I wouldn’t know. Despite the fact that, by the end, my mother would stand naked in front of the record player in the hallway, crying along to Whitney Houston’s most heart-wrenching ballads, or that my father would smash his head repeatedly into the bathroom mirror, their demise was slow. More of the crumble I expected, rather than a suddencrackI didn’t see coming. When I look up from the cufflink and back to Scaramouche , I’m startled to find he’s staring right at me. A half-lidded gaze, blackened by the type of recklessness that makes your survival instinct kick in. The type that’d make you cross the road if you saw it in the eye of a stranger, or jump back out of an Uber if it greeted you in the rearview mirror. I turn to the liquor wall. Not because his expression scares me, but because I know it shouldn’t heat the space between my thighs. I’msick.

I reach for the First Aid kit and a bottle of Smuggler’s Club whiskey.

“Vodka.”

My shoulders pull taut. “Since when did you start drinking vodka?”

“Since you said you wouldn’t kiss me if I drank whiskey.”

A hot tide carries dizziness to my head and warmth to my stomach. The sensation only intensifies when I turn around and find no humor in his eyes.

Stepping out from behind the bar, I cross the lounge and into his orbit, my heart beating a little faster with every step. His eyes track me, hardening when my legs come into view.

“Put some clothes on, Y/N. My men are onboard and I don’t want to kill anyone else today.” He drops back in the armchair, running a busted hand through his hair with a careless sweep. “Those fucking thighs,” he mutters at the bland bit of wall again.

Kill.So Kazuha’s dead. Christ, I thought maybe he just gave him a little concussion, or something. What could he have done that was so bad?

Still in shock from waking up to the sound of Kazuha’s body bouncing off the hood of Scaramouche’s car, I don’t have it in me to argue about how if a man sexualizes pajama shorts and a tank top then that’s his own fucking problem. Numb everywhere but my center, I pick up the throw slung over the arm of a sofa and wrap it around myself. I have every intention of placing the liquor and First Aid kit on the coffee table and scurrying back to the safety of the bar, but Scaramouche’s arm shoots out, wraps around the backs of my legs, and pulls me onto his thigh. My pulse slows to a syrup-like rhythm, too sticky to beat properly. My vision dims at the heat of his body seeping through the blanket and soaking into my own. He’s hard and warm and danger rolls off him like a sonic wave.

He tightens his grip on my waist, and my eyes fall down to his arm. His jacket came off not long after his cufflinks did, and now his sleeves are rolled up to reveal inked forearms covered in blood, too. The King of Fatui's stares back at me expectantly.

I turn away and grab the First Aid kit. Nonchalance isn’t the easiest expression to wear, not when a heartbeat thuds against my shoulder, and hot, heavy breath tickles my throat. My feeble poker face is immediately undermined by the tremble in my fingers as I pry open the white and red box.

Blankly, I stare at the foreign objects inside. “Hold on; I need to Google this.”

A bloody grip on my hip keeps me from jumping up. “The clear liquid is saline solution. Soak a cotton pad in it.” He spreads a large, busted paw over the curve of my thigh, sending a fever-like chill through me. “Then clean up my hands.”

I can barely concentrate on the task; I’m too busy blistering under his stare and pretending like his hand on my thigh doesn’t affect me at all. I pause with the cotton pad hovering over his knuckles. “This might hurt.”

His laugh is rusty and my ears grow hot. “I think I’ll survive.”

His gaze continues to press on my cheek as I wipe down his wounds with clumsy dabs and a scrunched-up nose. When the tension grows so thick it slows my movements, I say, “For a man who prides himself on not having busted knuckles, you sure know your way around a First Aid kit.”

This time, his laugh is softer. “I’m from a family of thugs. Patched up more than a few bullet wounds in my time.”

He lifts his right hand to inspect my handiwork, and once he deems it satisfactory, he slides it up my leg and places it on my lower stomach. The feeling of his busted pinky finger resting on my pubic bone makes me want to rub my thighs together. My next breath comes out shaky and ragged. He moves his left hand so I can work on it.

“Well, now you’re a thug too,” I mutter, soaking more cotton in saline. “What did Kazuha do?”

[destinyimage]

Supernatural Miracle: Man is Healed of a Perforated Ulcer, Testimony Brings Nurse to Christ

“What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God” (Acts 20:24, The Message).

It was midnight, and the pain was excruciating.

For a moment, I thought it was just a stomachache, and then I doubled over. To make matters worse, I was in a hotel room in Houston, Texas, over 1,000 miles from home.

I took a cab to a clinic the hotel said was open all night, and on the way, the pain intensified. Now I was on my hands and knees, crawling toward the clinic’s front door. Drenched in sweat, I inched my way toward the front desk. As I looked up, a woman stared down and began to scold me. She thought I was under the influence of something. She pointed to the door, “If you don’t have insurance, you need to leave.”

Moments later, I heard the words “perforated ulcer” and found myself in an ambulance on the way to a Houston hospital. After surgery, the pain level the next day was unbearable. The tiniest movement reminded me I had a 5” scar on my abdominal wall. At this moment, two nurses arrived and very sweetly told me that I would get up and walk down the hallway. Somehow I managed a few shuffling steps.

The next day I looked up and nearly burst into tears. Sherrie walked in the door with my dear friends Jesse and Becky Crain. Sherrie is the love of my life, but she is also a former nurse and a lifetime student of health and nutrition. Within moments I was gulping down a variety of supplements.

On my next attempt to walk down the hallway, I could still barely stand when a man walked up and asked if he could pray for me. This stranger began to pray, and the power of God began to flow. I felt a wave of heat and electricity from my head to my feet. He prayed for healing, and then he prayed for my life to touch the nations. He told me God has a special and unique work for me and that the time was now. I began to cry.

Moments later, Dorgival shared his story of growing up with no knowledge of God. He reached a crisis point when a tumor protruded from his abdominal area, and he had no hope of recovery. But one day, a follower of Jesus came and prayed for his healing. Jesus completely healed Dorgival! His face lit up as he shared, “That is why I come to this hospital to pray for the sick one day a week.”

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Dorgival told me if the pain returns at night, to declare Psalm 103:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and all that is within me,

bless his holy name!

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits,

who forgives all your iniquity,

who heals all your diseases

(Psalm 103:1-3, ESV).

That night the pain was so intense I was unable to sleep. As I began to speak the words of Psalm 103, my abdominal area began to grow warm. Then the warmth intensified until it felt like a furnace. Several times in the next half hour, I reached for the call button, fearing something might be wrong.

From that moment, the presence of God saturated my room. When the nurses would ask if I wanted to watch TV, the answer was no. Several visitors and even members of the hospital staff commented on the unusual presence in my room.

On my next walk down the hallway, it was so odd to hear the sounds of television coming from each room I walked by. In one room, the sound of an old western. In the next room, the sound of a political talk show. In the next room, something sounded sexually suggestive. A few steps down the hallway, I heard someone cursing. When I returned to my room, the Holy Spirit gently asked a question. “Which room do you want to be in?”

I was speechless, but the message was clear. You can choose to be in any of the other rooms, or you can choose to be in this room with the manifest presence of God.

My friend Rob Hoskins of OneHope frequently shares his passion for a pure heart and pure motives. Rob testifies that God can provide any financial resource or staff persons, but what he looks for are pure hearts and pure motives. I asked Jesus to take me on a guided tour of my heart and show me any room in my heart that needed repentance.

When I was cleared to fly home to Minnesota, a nurse named Maria introduced herself. “You need to know that you are the talk of the floor. No one has ever recovered this quickly from this surgery.” Maria looked around the room, “The nurses have told me there is a presence in this room.”

I shared with Maria that the presence in the room was Jesus and asked if she would like to know him. I watched the wonder in her eyes as she shared what her mother told her when she was leaving for America. “Maria, someday someone will tell you how to know Jesus. Maria, when that day comes, you must give yourself to him.”

What followed was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever witnessed. Maria heard that Jesus had given his life for her sins and that she could invite him to be her Savior. She was smiling and crying at the same time. She had spent years wondering how to know Jesus, and now it was like watching someone who had crossed a desert take an unlimited drink of cold water.

As Maria left my room, the Holy Spirit whispered again, “Which room do you want to be in?”

Reflect:

Do I have a pure heart and pure motive? Which room do I want to be in?

Equip:

How do I look for the one waiting for the good news?

Aroma of Jesus: Reflect for a moment on the programs and media that are a part of your life. Is there content that is grieving the person of the Holy Spirit? Ask Jesus to take you on a guided tour of your heart. As you surrender to a pure heart and pure motives, be ready for people all around you to be drawn to the aroma of Jesus. “It is in His presence and through His grace that whatever of fragrance or beauty may be found in us comes forth” (Hudson Taylor, Union and Communion).

Walk with Jesus: To see the lost, lonely, and broken through the eyes of Jesus, we need to walk with Jesus. This is why Jesus invited his apostles into a relationship before sending them out to preach. “He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach” (Mark 3:14).

Family Matters: My heart is unmoved if I think of the lost as a faraway statistic. When I understand that the one waiting for good news is my brother or sister, I am compelled to reach them. Jesus calls Maria his sister, which means she is my sister. “So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 2:11).

Let’s Pray:

Jesus, as I walk along, there are so many rooms demanding my time and attention, but my heart belongs to you. I surrender what I see and hear, and I ask that you grant me a pure heart and pure motives. “Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Psalm 139:24). I am willing to go looking for the one, but I pray that you bring them to me today.

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[alpacaparkaseok]

Pairing: doctor!Jungkook x reader (ok, technically clinical technician!Jungkook lol)

Wordcount: 1.6k

Genre/Rating: Fluff! strangers to friends to a lil’ more 👀👀

Tags/Warnings: mentions blood just for a moment (when talking about JK’s work). shouldn’t be anything too crazy, Jungkook is just your annoying new neighbor that sings abnoxiously loud in the shower. oh, and did I mention that the two of you share a wall? 

a/n: You wonderful, beautiful people! This post is a commission for the ARMY for AAPI Justice and Advocacy Event. Please click here to find more resources and consider donating to the cause! And THANK YOU @ezralia-writes for commissioning this! *insert round of applause and flowers* I hope you enjoy!

April 23rd

You should’ve known it was too good to be true.

You’d been living in utter bliss for the past six months, having moved across the city to a relatively quiet part of town. You had a neighbor; you were sure of it. Had seen their car in the parking lot too many times to not have one.

It’s just, you never heard them. Let alone saw them.

Which was completely fine. The loud, obnoxious lifestyle people usually adopted in a city as bustling as Seoul had never suited you anyway. For six months, you basked in the glorious silence from your next door neighbor. The only signal that you ever got that they were even there was the occasional time you’d both be showering at the same time. Your bathrooms shared a wall, which you tried to ignore. Thankfully, your neighbor seemed to ignore it as well.

So why is there a man suddenly belting out I Will Always Love You as though performing a one-man tribute to Whitney Houston?

The sound of his booming voice nearly knocked you off your feet as you made quick work of shaving your legs. Surely he must have heard your shower running! Can’t a woman get some peace and quiet on a Friday morning?! There’s nothing to celebrate yet!

You even make a point of clearing your throat loud enough to be heard on the other side of the wall, but he doesn’t falter in his loud, albeit dazzling, rendition of the song. He pauses for a second, giving you just enough time to let out a sigh of relief and begin on your other leg.

Leg soapy and ready to be shaved, you make it halfway through one swipe before the singing starts up again.

He only paused to switch songs. Whitney Houston tribute over, he begins a passionate ode to Adele’s greatest hits.

“What did I do to deserve this?” You sigh, resolving to finish up before the song is over and you’re subjected to another.

May 1st

           It begins innocently enough. After a week of subjecting you to his siren-like voice, there’s a knock on your door. Of course, you assume it’s the food you’d ordered, so you just finish throwing your sweatshirt on before wrenching the door open.

           “Hey,” you look up to tell the deliverer that you just need to grab your wallet, but your mouth runs dry at the sight before you.

           Grinning with a friendly smile that might be a bit of overkill, a boy – nah, a whole man if we’re being honest here – gives you a sheepish wave. His long brown hair is falling into his eyes, which he meticulously brushes off to the side.

           “Hey! You must be my neighbor!” When you keep staring at him with what you hope is a look of neutrality, he flushes a deep red. “I- er, I mean, obviously. That was kind of dumb of me…”

           “You’re not the food guy?” It’s the only you can think to say, willing your eyes to focus in on his face and not the way his sweatshirt and sweats look on him. “Uh…I mean, yeah. Neighbors.”

           The man before you lets out an adorable chuckle at your silly comment. “Oh, good. I’m not the only awkward one here.”

           “Woah! I’m not awkward! I’m just hungry!” You cry out, making him only laugh harder.

           “I’m Jungkook, by the way,” he says, nose crinkling as you look at him with wide eyes. So this is what was on the other side of the wall, belting out Mariah Carey this morning. “I just moved in last week, and realized that I haven’t even come over to say hello. You know, like a friendly neighbor should.”

           “Hey, Jungkook.” You look around, wondering if there’s anyone else outside witnessing this incredibly awkward first meeting. “I, uh, well…I’m me.”

           He snorts. “Yeah, I know. I’m assuming your name is the one on the mailbox? Next to mine?”

           We have mailboxes??

           “Oh, ha! Yeah, that’d be it.” You shuffle back and forth on your feet, unsure of what to say next. “Well, I thought you were the delivery service-“

           “I just delivered food, too!” Jungkook says with a grin. He runs his hands up and down his arms even though it’s not cold outside. “I was thinking that…you know, we could eat together? I actually ended up ordering extra, but it looks like that wasn’t necessary.”

           You grin, settling against your doorframe. “Ah, so you’re here to woo me with takeout? You should’ve just said so.”

           It looks like Jungkook’s considering moving again. He swallows thickly, eyes flitting over to you before staring down at your floor. “Actually…I heard you watching TV…were you watching Wanda Vision?” When you nod, he sucks in a breath. “It’s just, I haven’t bought a TV yet, and-“

          “Oh, tough luck. Good luck with that.” You burst out into a fit of giggles at the tentative look in his eyes. Silently forgiving him for all those mornings that doubled as musicals over the past week, you wing the door open a little wider and gesture for him to come inside. “Come in, I need someone to bounce theories off anyways.”

           That’s all it takes before Jungkook is bounding inside, settling down on your couch with an air of comfortability that seems so at odds with his shy nature. Then again, everything about him seems to contradict his shy smile.

           You like it.

June 2nd

What originally started as a simple friendship; Jungkook brought food and you let him have the remote; quickly turned into constant interaction. You learned that he had a roommate that was hardly ever home named Taehyung. He has a brother that he visits every other month. He works as clinical technician, but he’s known more for his beautiful voice more than his title as doctor.

Apparently he was known in the lab for singing little lullabies to the glass flasks containing different samples of blood and other fluids, even occasionally chatting with them as though they were avidly listening.

The more you learned, the more you really wished your old neighbor never moved out in the first place. Especially as you slipped on some shoes to take out the trash one night only to run face first into a familiar chest.

“Jungkook,” you groan, rubbing your nose and peeking up at the boy-like grin he wears. “What was that for?“

You step around him, closing the door to your apartment and heading down the stairs to where the dumpsters were located. “My bad. I was just about to knock.”

He matches your stride, hair whipping about in the wind. You realize that he’s wearing his lab coat, making you furrow your brows. “Aren’t you supposed to leave that at the lab?” You ask, pointing to the white coat.

Jungkook pouts, looking down at his coat as though just remembering that he was still wearing it. “Oh, well I have to wash it, you know. I brought it home with me today.”

“Ok…but why are you still wearing it?” You give him a half-smile as he reaches to open the lid to the dumpster, allow you to throw your trash inside.

Jungkook blinks, as though this latest question completely threw him for a loop. “Uh…I thought it might help.”

“With what?”

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “You think doctors are sexy, don’t you?”

           “What?!” You choke out quite literally, beginning to cough. “Who- I never said that!”

           Jungkook grins maliciously. “Yeah, but I heard you watching Grey’s Anatomy the other day. And it was on your recently watched.”

           You begin to walk away, waving him off. “That doesn’t mean anything, Jungkook. So what? It’s just a show.”

           Running ahead of you, Jungkook bounds up the first few steps before turning around to face you again, effectively cutting off your escape route. “Be honest. You don’t find them the least bit sexy? This coat does nothing for you?” He runs his hands down the lapels for emphasis.

           You attempt to push past him. “What is even happening today?” Jungkook stops you in your tracks, hands on your upper arms and trapping you against the railing.

           “I thought I might as well give myself a chance,” he mumbles, head tilted to one side as he takes in the way you’re staring up at him with utter confusion. “Don’t you wanna go out with a doctor?”

           You blink slowly. “You…you’re setting me up with a doc-“

           “Yah!” Jungkook groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “How many way do I have to say it? I want you to be the Wanda to my Vision!”            “Jungkook, we’ve talked about this…” you sigh, hiding your laugh at his impatience. “They have a toxic relationship, why would I want that?”

           “Don’t make me do this!” Jungkook whines, cheeks turning pink. “Just tell me yes or no!”

           “To what?” You ask, feigning ignorance. “I don’t even know what you’re asking.”

           “Nooo, you do,” Jungkook presses in closer as though that’ll help you understand. “I want you and I to…to…you know, I think we’d be good together.”

           You frown. “Aren’t we together right now?”

           “I swear-“ Jungkook takes a step back, sighing up at the sky. You snap your fingers, having a sudden epiphany.

           “Oh, you mean together like we start singing duets in the morning through the wall?”

           He blinks before bursting out into a fit of laughter. “I…yeah! Exactly!”

           “No. But I will let you take me out on a date.” You give him a long look. “I’ve never been kissed by a doctor before, you know.”

           Jungkook turns an impressive shade of red. “O-oh. You haven’t?”

           “Nope,” you pop the ‘p’. Turning to head up the stairs, you leave him in his shock. “Wonder what it’s like.”

           Taking off in a run, you only get about a two second head start before Jungkook overtakes you, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you in close, wide eyes eating up every inch of your skin.

           Tilting your chin up, he breathes out, “Well, why don’t we change that?”

masterlist

commission a request!

[nonalectos]

my coming out party, miss fine (1 hr 28 min) a Fran/C.C. playlist

Native New Yorker - Wendy Williams (alex neuhedel)

Vogue - Madonna

Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend - Marilyn Monroe

Don’t Rain On My Parade - Barbra Streisand

Jolene - Dolly Parton

Michelle - Sir Chloe

Babooshka - Kate Bush

Black Sheep - Metric

Cycles - Lili Trifilio

Desire - Liza Anne

Strangers? - dacelynn

Can’t Get You out of My Head - Kylie Minogue

And Then She Kissed Me - St. Vincent

Someone New - Laufey

Dream A Little Dream Of Me - Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong

Hot In Herre - Jenny Owen Youngs

Sex And Candy - Marcy Playground

Something To Talk About - Bonnie Rait

2 Horns and 2 Wings - Michelle Malone

If It Wasn’t For The Nights - ABBA

Because the Night - Patti Smith

Maybe This Time - Liza Minnelli

I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston

Cuz I Love You - Lizzo

Happy Days Are Here Again - Barbra Streisand

[shuffled or unshuffled]

[plantrry]

hello hello! i was tagged by @pinkharry to do this fun music game!!! thanks so much for the tag friend!

Playlist Shuffle Rules: Hit shuffle on your media player and write down the first 20 songs, then tag 10 people, no skipping!

1. liability - lorde

2. fOoL fOr YoU - zayn

3. thursday girl - mitski

4. leather and lace - stevie nicks

5. bright side of the road - van morrison

6. bags - clairo

7. what a feeling - one direction

8. this life - vampire weekend

9. lonely weekend - kasey musgraves

10. the only exception - paramore

11. follow my girl - the japanese house

12. motion sickness - phoebe bridgers

13. honey hi - fleetwood mac

14. how will i know - whitney houston

15. i know the end - phoebe bridgers

16. me & my dog - boygenius

17. first love/late spring - mitski

18. sunflower vol. 6 - harry styles

19. hypochondriac - fenne lily

20. stockholm syndrome - one direction

10 songs ive been listening to lately:

1. moon song - phoebe bridgers

2. two slow dancers - mitski

3. hypochondriac - fenne lily

4. a.m. - one direction

5. alewife - clairo

6. okay, saint laurent- october tooth

7. remember my name - mitski

8. dynamite - bts

9. golden - harry styles

10. go home - julien baker

9 most influential albums (in no particular order):

1. fine line - harry styles

2. punisher - phoebe bridgers

3. be the cowboy - mitski

4. melodrama - lorde

5. bon iver- bon iver

6. rumours- fleetwood mac

7. golden hour - kacey musgraves

8. four - one direction (i make no apologies)

9. stranger in the alps - phoebe bridgers

tagging people stresses me out hahaha, but if you want to share, id love to see what tunes you’ve been listening to: @harricanes (i know you were tagged but im doing it again!), @thepinkpants, @adoremp3, @harryfistme, @nicoleannwriting, @peachybloomss, @peachlii or anyone!! say i tagged you bc I just did!!

[nikkoliferous]

He doesn’t bother explaining why he’s here.

This is early on, late May, a few months into the race, but he is already of the belief that he is doing something extraordinary with his presidential campaign — something that’s never been done before. The trouble is describing it. There’s no word for this in modern politics. It is, he believes, “a new way to communicate with the American people” — though he won’t say this until later, and only when asked. Even now, long after he’s put this work at the center of his campaign — at his events, in ads, on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube — he won’t talk about it much. He isn’t sure it’ll work, or if people are “picking up on what we’re trying to do here.” The media, he believes, has always believed, can’t fathom what’s at the heart of this.

So when he arrives at the house, a small mobile home 40 miles outside Montgomery, Alabama, over the Lowndes County line, in one of the poorest places in the country, with five reporters and his own camera crew, he steps through the front door, greets his host, and begins with no clear mention of what he hopes to accomplish here or how it will help him become president.

Pamela Rush, a 49-year-old mother of two, is showing him the problems with her home: the floor tilting visibly to one side, the sheets of plaster peeling off the wall, the broken pipes, the broken cabinetry. He stops in the room where her daughter sleeps. “Do you guys wanna…?” He motions for everyone to come closer. His videographer shuffles forward. On the bedside table, there’s a ventilation machine, the kind used for sleep apnea. A tube of ribbed plastic connects the device to a mask resting on the bedspread, which is patterned cheerily with tiny elephants. Because of mold in the house, Pamela’s daughter needs the device to breathe in her sleep. “How old is she?” the candidate asks. She’s 10. Pamela holds up the mask so he can see up close.

“Show them, not me,” he says, gesturing toward the camera.

She shows the camera the mask.

The visit continues like this. “Show them,” he keeps saying. “Show them.” He speaks only to ask questions, prompting Pamela to “explain” this or that, pointing her to an unseen audience on the other end of his camera lens. It’s like he’s directing his own video — except the video isn’t about him or his campaign or his policy agenda. He is, it seems, somewhere offscreen, an omniscient narrator, felt maybe, but not seen or heard. This is not a public event. There is no crowd. There is no podium, no speech. Mostly, there is silence. The leader of the political revolution — a man who has spent 50 years of his life trying to talk about his ideas — is not saying much at all.

In his first campaign, a third-party bid for US Senate in 1972, he lugged around a 2,000-page, two-volume study by the House Banking and Currency Committee, liberally quoting its findings to the people of Vermont. He spent that year telling anyone who would listen about the fact that a mere 49 banks were trustees of $135 billion and held 768 “interlocking directorships” with 286 of the country’s largest 500 industrial corporations. To him, the phenomenon of interlocking directorships was not arcane or irrelevant to daily life in Vermont. It was an urgent outrage.

In Congress, he developed “the oligarchy speech,” a bleak overview of income inequality in America. The speech became the basis of his public events, his lengthy posts on Facebook, of an entire book — title: The Speech — consisting solely of the transcript of an eight-hour speech he delivered on the floor of the Senate.

And in 2016 — the rallies? The arenas? He had 2,600 in Iowa’s hulking Mid-America Center — largest crowd of the caucus season. He hit every city he could: 5,000 people in Houston, 8,000 in Dallas, 10,000 in Madison, 11,000 in Phoenix, 15,000 in Seattle, 27,500 in Los Angeles, 28,000 in Portland — plus overflow! All those people showing up to hear an hourlong speech they already knew by heart: wages down, median income stalled, one family with more wealth than the bottom 130 million… As he spoke, they’d mouth along to their favorite lines: “Congress does not regulate Wall Street—” “WALL STREET REGULATES CONGRESS,” the crowd would shout back. “Enough is—” “ENOUGH!” they roared. The succession of grim facts — “but let me tell you what is even worse!” he’d say — became a ritual. When a small bird, later identified as a common house finch, once landed on his lectern, an entire stadium full of people cheered wildly, mouths open, their arms raised to the sky, eyes turned upward — not to God, but to the image of the bird and their candidate on the Jumbotron. There was power in the speech. He believed, aides have said, that he was literally changing a generation, person by person, line by line, with every rally.

That was the whole thing — Bernie Sanders, talking.

This is something different.

“Pamela,” he says gently, “why don’t you explain it.”

“And be loud so everyone can hear you…”

Bernie Sanders is sorry for your troubles, but that’s not the reason he’s asking you to talk about them — which he is, everywhere he goes. He wants you to talk about your medical bill — the one you can’t pay. He wants you to talk about losing your house because you got sick. He wants you to talk about the payday loans you took out to keep your kid in school. About the six-figure student debt that’s always on your mind. About living off credit cards, or losing your pension, or working multiple jobs for wages that won’t be enough to support your family.

He would like you to talk about this publicly, in detail, and on camera. He will ask you to do this in front of reporters, or in a room full of strangers at one of his town halls. Of course, the Bernie Digital Team will be there — they are always there — taping your story on camera, or streaming it in real-time to his own mass broadcast system on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. On any given day, he is capable of reaching millions of people.

“Who wants to share their story?” he’ll say. “Don’t be embarrassed. Millions of people are in your boat.”

He has, it turns out, built an entire presidential campaign around an open invitation to speak — to talk plainly about the “reality of life” in this country — to be “loud so everyone can hear.”

His suggestion, by asking you to speak up about your private anxieties, many of them financial, is that you and the millions of people in the proverbial audience will begin to see your struggles not as personal failings, but systemic ones. He is less interested in explicitly presenting solutions than naming the problem — that “we have millions of people in the richest country in the history of the world who are struggling every single day,” which is a phrase he repeats daily, almost like an exhortation, as if to grab the American working class by its shoulders. He doesn’t deal in pity or reassurance. Yes, he’ll give hugs — one arm, from the side, other hand still clutching the mic. But mostly he’ll just listen and nod, gaze lowered. Or he’ll shake his head at the crowd, like can you believe this? And then, from the gut, a clipped scoff, like of course you can believe it. That’s the point. He has heard your story before, because it’s all part of the same story: a broken system, driven by profit and greed, built to reinforce the notion that if you’re bright enough, if you work hard enough, then you can travel the path to the middle class. And if you don’t make it there…well, maybe you’re the problem. And who wants to talk about that?

He believes his presidential campaign can, he says, help people “feel less alone.”

He is trying to change the way people interact with private hardship in this country, which is to say, silently and with self-loathing. He is trying, in as literal a sense as you could imagine, to excise “shame” and “guilt” from the American people. These are not words you hear often in politics, but in interviews this year with the candidate, his wife, and his top advisers, they are central to his strategy to win. He is imagining a presidential campaign that brings people out of alienation and into the political process simply by presenting stories where you might recognize some of your own struggles. He is imagining a voter, he says, who thinks, “I thought it was just me who was struggling to put food on the table. I thought I was the only person. I thought it was all my fault. You mean to say there are millions of people?”

He still has his rallies, but “it’s a different campaign, and we do things differently,” he says. “I can give the greatest speech in the history of the world, but it will not have the significance and the impact that the real-life experience of ordinary Americans will have.” At many of his events, the antiseptic macro focus of the “oligarchy speech” — the anonymous actors on Wall Street, the greed of the American corporation, the rigged system — has been replaced by the most intimate details of someone’s life. The outrage in his voice, a booming rasp amplified across three tiers of an NBA-size venue, is softer now. The arena itself has morphed into a digital platform for one voter’s story.

Show them, he says. Show them, not me.

We understand presidential campaigns, in their most basic form, as a conversation between a candidate and the American people. The conversation is happening all the time, in person and online, directly, indirectly, at every possible scale: It’s a handshake, a speech, a television ad, a sponsored post on Facebook. It’s a policy rollout. It’s the signage at a rally, the way an American flag is steamed and hung just so on a stage. Every dollar of every campaign is spent on shaping or beautifying or amplifying some message from the candidate. Bernie’s first presidential bid, in a sense, was the unprocessed, stripped-down version of that conversation: It was the speech. In terms of the mechanics of the thing, as he put it in late 2016, he wasn’t “reinventing the wheel.”

Four years later, he is attempting to run a presidential campaign that facilitates an entirely different conversation — one between people like Pamela and the American people. The stories he collects and broadcasts across the internet aren’t just voter testimonials produced to validate the campaign or its policies — they’re aimed, in Bernie’s mind, at people validating one another.

After 50 years, this is an unlikely place for the political revolution to land. It’s more human. More empathetic. More personal than what you’d expect from a man who’s willingly played along with his persona as a perma-“outsider” and, as he put it in 2015, “grumpy old guy.”

There’s this idea that Bernie Sanders is “a man of the people who doesn’t like people” — just issues. That’s not exactly right, though the precise balance between the two can be difficult to pin down. “Policy, policy, policy,” says his wife, Jane, who is a strategic partner on her husband’s campaign. “Fight, fight, fight — which is true, but he’s also about people.”

He arrived in Vermont in 1968, full of ideas about movement politics, and began his career by raising his hand at a local third-party meeting. He settled in Stannard, a remote town with no paved roads, populated by fewer than 2o0 people, where he learned to live in isolation. But in politics, he also discovered that he liked talking to strangers about the issues of the day. In the ’80s, he hosted his own public broadcast show as mayor of Burlington. In the footage, unearthed by Politico earlier this year, he can be warm and dryly funny. On the campaign trail in Vermont, he liked to take impromptu walks and kept a pair of trunks in the car in case he passed a swimming hole. In Washington, he kept more to himself. Interviewed in 1991, fellow members of Congress described him as a “homeless waif” with a “holier-than-thou” attitude who “alienates” his potential allies, who “screams and hollers,” one said, “but he is all alone.”

Part of the problem, of course, is that Bernie Sanders is not an open book. He will snap at reporters when they ask him to talk about himself or, god forbid, how he’s changed as a person, because what does that have to do with Medicare for All? “You’re asking about me, and I’M not important,” he once said in an interview. “What’s important are the kinds of policies we need to transform this country. OK?” The conversation was over after six minutes. His interior life, to the extent that it is acknowledged among his campaign staff, is a subject only a few people can address with any authority. A simple question on the subject — have you ever seen him cry? — recently reduced senior aides to various forms of lawyer-speak. “I’ve seen him emotionally affected,” one said after a long pause. Another, as if the question had been unclear and possibly even sinister, said only: “What do you mean?” With Jane, he’ll call from the road to talk about his day, but questions like “How did that make you feel?” are not a part of the discussion. “Oooh, no,” she laughs at the suggestion. “Oh no, no. Yeah, no. He doesn’t do that. No. No. Neeevver.”

He can be harsh with staff — short-tempered and demanding and sometimes rude. “Some people say I am very hard to work with. They say I can be a real son of a bitch. They say I can be nasty, I don't know how to get along with people,” Bernie told his press secretary in 1990, according to a memoir by the former staffer. “Well, maybe there's some truth to it.”

His mood is under careful observation. Aides are always noting things like “He’s in a good mood today.” When he is happy, everyone is happy. When he’s not, everyone is quiet, especially in the SUV, where he will ride shotgun with his iPad, a red Vitaminwater at his side, scrolling through tweets from @BernieSanders, maybe only speaking up to dispassionately observe that people must really care about education in this country because a tweet about education is getting a lot of engagement today. Everyone knows which staffers make him feel most at ease — a special currency on the campaign. Small signs of interpersonal comfort — watching an aide make him laugh, watching another gently brush dandruff from his navy blue blazer — can feel like extraordinary acts of intimacy. In 2016, when discussing the campaign at a bar, some staffers got in the habit of referring to him as “Earl” or “the old man,” because at the end of the day, he is 78 years old. And who would have expected this — the most emotionally driven, intimate, borderline touchy-feely campaign of the 2020 election — from “a real son of a bitch”?

Correction.

“I don’t like the word ‘touchy-feely,’” Bernie Sanders says curtly.

Everyone is sensitive about how to describe this. There’s been a lot of “experimentation” with this, one of his advisers will start to explain — before doubling back to say that, actually, “I think ‘experimentation’ is the wrong word.” There’s no precedent for it. Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren often invite you to consider your story through the lens of their own. Bill Clinton said “I feel your pain,” but he never asked people to reorient the way they feel about their own pain.

Bernie says he is trying to “redefine our value system.” Jane talks about breaking down decades of societal muscle memory: “It seems to be the American way,” she says. “That we all think it’s our fault — instead of recognizing there is a system that is making it unfair for them.” They are, as they see it, trying to dismantle the ideal of “rugged individualism,” an entire era of political thought. Ari Rabin-Havt, a top adviser who travels with the candidate every day, puts it more tangibly: The campaign is a “megaphone” for working people, he says. Briahna Joy Gray, his national press secretary, has likened the effect to “catharsis” from nationwide “gaslighting.” On the podcast she hosts for the campaign, she compares her boss to Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting: the therapist who tells Matt Damon, a young man who was abused by his foster parent, “It’s not your fault. Look at me, son. It’s not your fault… no, no, no, it’s not your fault.”

It really started late this spring, around the time he went to Alabama. The campaign YouTube page started pushing out stories like Pamela’s: a family living without clean drinking water in South Carolina; a family with inadequate low-income housing in San Francisco; workers at Walmart. On Twitter, he asked people to reply with stories of “their most absurd” medical bill. He got 50,000 responses in a week. By the fall, he was holding more town halls than rallies. In rooms from Iowa to Nevada, one person would raise their hand to speak, then another, and another, and another. “Don’t be nervous,” he’d tell the crowd. “You really are among friends.” Not every event has been as affecting as the next. On one trip, he visited a woman’s home in Des Moines to document her problems with contaminated well water. His host happened to be a fan and prepared two trays of homemade brownies for the occasion. Bernie, already late for his next event, declined to eat a brownie and left after 15 minutes. But more often than not, he is an attentive and genuine listener. At one event last month, a woman stood to say that people are “embarrassed if they don’t think they make enough money.” Bernie told her this had been “instilled” by “the system.” The campaign posted footage of the exchange on Instagram. As you watch the video, bold capital lettering runs across the top and bottom of the screen like an emergency weather alert: “THE SYSTEM WANTS YOU TO BE ASHAMED.”

“What we are doing,” he says, “is really speaking to the working class of this country in a way I’m not quite sure any candidate has ever done before.”

Eventually, when asked, he comes to describe this as core to his strategy to win.

“Here’s the gamble,” Bernie says. The gamble is there are millions of working people who don’t vote or consider politics to be relevant to their lives. “And it is a gamble to see whether we can bring those people into the political process,” he says. “One way you do it is to say, ‘You see that guy? He’s YOU. You’re workin’ for $12 an hour, you can’t afford health insurance — so is he. Listen to what he has to say. It’s not Bernie Sanders talking, you know? It’s that guy. Join us.”

And yet, on a Tuesday night, in one moment, the full force of the political revolution, all 50 years of it, came grinding so unquestioningly to a halt by one blocked artery. He will spend two and a half days in the hospital — and he will lie there hooked up to their beeping machines, and he will yell at the doctors when they try to ask him stupid questions, and he will quiz them about health care policy and obsess over what all this would cost without insurance — and there will be a crisis over what to say in the press release and when to say it and if it can wait until Jane is able to deliver the news in person to the seven grandkids before they see it on CNN, and there will be reporters stalking him outside the building, and all sorts of people will want to visit — and for days, he will say over and over again, “I can’t believe I had a heart attack… I can’t imagine how I had a heart attack… I can’t imagine…” like this is a fact he simply cannot accept, because he feels fine as soon as they finish the procedure and because he’s always had terrific “endurance”... Never thought it’d be his heart to cause him problems… Ran a 4:37 mile in high school...!

But not once, in all that chaos and frustration, will he consider dropping out.

ii.

Here is what Pamela explains to Bernie Sanders: that her family bought this mobile home in the ’90s for a trumped-up price of $114,000; that she lives on $1,000 a month; that she still owes $15,000 on the house; the house she fears will harm her daughter’s health; the house where her mother caught pneumonia and died; the house where, “when a storm comes,” she says, “we have to stay in the mobile home and just pray.” He learns that Pamela’s sister was arrested because she couldn’t afford to pay for the county garbage service. Another sister was arrested because she couldn’t afford to buy into the sanitation system. He turns to a reporter in the Alabama heat. “Really something, isn’t it?” he says. He is frowning, jowls gathered slightly at the neck, but there is no shock or judgment in his face. It will become a familiar expression over the summer and fall. He is not always an obviously comforting presence, but there is never judgment.

“So this is where the waste goes?”

Everyone is outside now, around back. Sanders wants to see where the waste goes.

He learns that Pamela, like many residents in Lowndes County, is also “straight-piping” her untreated sewage from the bathroom to her yard. She is here with Catherine Flowers, an activist who has worked with Congress on the pernicious tangle of issues facing Lowndes County: criminalized poverty, environmental degradation, inadequate infrastructure.

He peers down at a line of dark, matted grass where, a few paces from his feet, inches from the base of the trailer, sewage flows via exposed PVC pipes into a shallow open-air trench. “Is this uncommon in this part of the world?” he asks, steering the conversation for his unseen audience, and the cameras swing back to Pamela and Catherine.

The sun is beating down. Bernie rolls up his sleeves and starts talking gravely about how this is the richest country in the history of the world... “Today we’re in Lowndes County, Alabama, in an African-American community,” he is saying. “Tomorrow we’ll be in California in a Latino community, or in West Virginia in a white community, and the stories will be the same.” You can see his bald head turning shades of pink and red. Everyone is sweating. Pamela is talking about her mother’s death. It is not an easy conversation. “This is America,” he is saying.

Back in his Washington headquarters, the digital team is waiting for the footage.

In the supercharged world Bernie inhabits, the decision to stay in the race was considered not only reasonable, but obvious. Here, there is no confusion about “what we’re trying to do here.” The candidate moves amid a swirl of people you would classify uncynically as “true believers.” It’s a lot of passion in one place. The stakes always feel high. But the hard and fast question of whether they can win the nomination is, to a certain extent, supplanted by the general sense that the movement is a just and right cause and, therefore, in the end, the cause will prevail, likely in a shocking fashion when no one anticipates it or believes it can be done, à la Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And so they are always on guard against outside forces — people who will doubt them, or underestimate them, or try to actively destroy them.

This is how things go in “a politics of struggle.”

In “a politics of struggle,” as Sanders explains it in a 2015 foreword to his first memoir, setbacks are expected. There will be defeats before there can be the “breakthroughs” few people imagine possible. In a politics of struggle, the goals are “transforming a city, a state, a nation, and maybe the world.” It is already understood that this is “about more than winning an election.”

It’s in this environment that the advent of the heart attack became another motivational “setback.” Ocasio-Cortez decided to endorse. Supporters only hung on tighter. Campaign staffers spoke in grave tones about the “sheer terror” of a world without Bernie. “What is happening right now,” Briahna Joy Gray told her subscribers on the campaign podcast, “is that an old man is carrying the most colossal imaginable weight on his shoulders.” By the time he is back on the trail, the mission of the campaign takes on newly urgent, almost philosophical importance.

He’s in Iowa — a town called Toledo, Tama County, population 2,341 — coaxing people to talk to him about how they feel. “What about health care?” he says at a local civic center, roaming out from behind the podium. “Don’t tell me what I wanna hear! — I want YOU to think about it. Should health care be a human right?” The crowd, not quite warmed up yet, signals a yes. “WHY?” he replies, voice booming. “Who wants to tell me why? Don’t be shy…”

This is his first campaign swing since the heart attack. Five events in 24 hours.

He has to address the age question, of course, so he does. “I've been criticized for being old. I plead guilty. I am old!” he says at his first stop of the trip. Reporters ask him about it. Pundits analyze why it matters. Dr. Oz, the heart surgeon and television host, provides his unsolicited opinion that Bernie’s “protoplasm is strong,” a you-know-it-when-you-see-it term in the medical community for physiological sturdiness. Voters also weigh in, as if to offer reassurance. “Seniors rock!” a woman says at a town hall in Marshalltown, Iowa. Moments later, a middle-aged man raises his hand to tell the candidate that, by age 39, he’d had three heart attacks, a stroke, and a triple-bypass surgery — “and it doesn’t have to get in the way of living, all right?” Bernie takes these remarks in stride, smiling back gamely. He is in a good mood. Though you get the distinct impression that he would rather not be discussing the state of his protoplasm, or himself, at all.

During the town hall in Toledo, Jane and a few staffers can hear Bernie speaking through the walls of an adjacent hold room. She and Ari Rabin-Havt, the deputy who was with Bernie in the hospital through the whole ordeal, are sitting at a small table talking about the heart attack like family members who, maybe years later, are finally able to look back at the whole thing and laugh. Except here, it’s been days, not years. Jane is going into her own Bernie impression: “He’s like, ‘I feel fine. I don’t understand… You’ah tellin’ me I had a heart attack?? I don’t — I, I don’t understand.’”

The thing that bothered him so much about it was the relative smallness of it — like this was needlessly, stupidly about him, “and I’M not important,” remember? What did his aging body, in his mind a vessel of little consequence, have anything to do with the reality that “millions of people in the richest country in the history of the world are struggling every single day”? The answer, of course, is everything: This, like any endeavor in electoral politics, hinges on the will and presence and personality of its leader. The political revolution is no less human or fallible.

And there he was, having to ask for a chair during an event in Las Vegas — he rarely sits on stage — because of chest pains. “Ari, can you do me a favor?” he looked around the room for Rabin-Havt. “Where’s Ari? Get me a chair up here for a moment. I’m going to sit down here.” Staffers found their jobs suddenly transformed. They were dealing with the questions of a health crisis: Should they take him to the hospital? And which hospital? The closer one, or the one with the better cardiology center? But this was Bernie. Everyone knows Bernie. There would be a scene. People would ask for selfies in the waiting room. Reporters would hear about it. They did not want that. It was Rabin-Havt, in the end, who approached the front desk at the urgent care center behind the MGM Grand and discretely flashed his boss’s driver’s license — 09/08/1941, SANDERS, BERNARD — so the nurses would usher him into the back quietly and without delay.

“They're like, ‘Look, we're gonna have to put him in the cath lab,’” Rabin-Havt says. Jane, seated to his right, hasn’t even heard this part of the story yet. So they got him in the cath lab. The doctor asked, how much pain are you in on a scale of 1 to 10, which Bernie rebuffed as a useless question. Then they asked him to please remove his wedding ring. “Really?” he growled, removing the ring. Then they asked for his glasses. And that’s where he drew the line. “JESUS CHRIST! I'm not gonna do that,” he said. That night, Rabin-Havt and another staffer took turns wearing the wedding ring so they wouldn’t lose it. “Oh my god,” Rabin-Havt says. “It was the scariest part.”

The next morning, when Jane arrived from Vermont, she found her husband unchanged. He was talking about how someone without insurance maybe wouldn’t have gone to urgent care at all because of how much it would cost. “That’s his brain,” Jane says. She turns to Rabin-Havt. “Did he say anything to you?” “Not during,” Rabin-Havt says. “The next day when he woke up, he was like, ‘What do you think this is going to cost?’”

His room became the center of activity in the hospital. He held policy discussions with the nurses. He asked the doctors about the hospital's finances. That was a relief, Jane says — to see “the same old Bernie.” Back in Washington, the press team kept obsessive watch over the news coverage, demanding corrections from reporters who described the stent procedure as a “surgery.” There was no surgery, they said breathlessly. It was a procedure! “I’m talking to the doctors,” Jane recalls, “and they’re saying ‘procedure,’ not surgery. It was not a surgery.” Rabin-Havt nods: Not a surgery. Once they finally got the diagnosis — “heart attack” — they needed a statement. So they hunkered down in a hospital break room. The doctors (multiple) started dictating to Rabin-Havt, who tapped out notes on his iPhone. Their first draft was a bit medical — too much jargon. One of the physicians, an English major in college, cut in: “No, no, no — we can do this so the press understands.” So then that doctor tinkered. Once they had their finished product, Rabin-Havt emailed it to the doctors and asked for a formal reply affirming the statement as their own. Proof in writing, presumably, in case of conspiracy theories.

“Yeah, it was fun,” Jane says, laughing. “Well, it was — it was not fun.”

You might wonder, reasonably so, why a 78-year-old man would rather be here, back in Iowa, still doing this, likely at some risk to his health, when he could also just drop out, endorse Elizabeth Warren, and spend his days at the family home on Lake Champlain. Maybe this is especially true if you also believe that Bernie Sanders stands no real shot at winning the Democratic nomination and probably knows it — but will take his diehard supporters, his loyal 15%, a big enough chunk to influence the debate and stay relevant, as far as they can carry him. But then, of course, you would be ruining his good mood and missing the point entirely.

“Honestly,” his wife says, seated at the small table, “I think things are getting worse. Things are getting worse.” By which she means wages, costs, bills, just not knowing if you can keep a roof over your head. “And this is an opportunity. I don't know that the opportunity was there in 2016, where it was so widespread in the same way, the feeling among people of, ‘Wait a minute. We deserve better. This is not OK. The system is completely broken.’ There were some people who saw it in 2016, but it has gotten so much worse over the last two or three years.”

“We’re losing ground as a people. And that angers him,” she laughs dryly, and from the other room, you can hear that he does sound angry — angry about how people go bankrupt for getting “CANC-AH,” angry about our crumbling “IN-FER-STRUCHRR,” angry about his colleagues in Congress who say everyone “LOOOOVES” their private health insurance. “THAT TRUE?”

He is yelling, yes, but Bernie Sanders is “happiest and most comfortable in rooms like this,” Rabin-Havt says, gesturing to the event across the hall. “When you put him in a room full of political hacks — like, phonies — that’s not his room. He’s not going to like it.”

Jane nods. “And he’s going to be gruff.”

“He’s going to be gruff,” Rabin-Havt says, “and he’s not going to know how to deal with it. You put him in a room with real people telling their real stories and—”

“And he’s a different person,” Jane says. “If you have politicians and, uh, media personalities just trying to play gotcha politics or talk about the polls or other candidates — and never asking the real questions about what's affecting the people, he has no time. He has no time.”

Jane, like most everyone around her husband, is a true believer. The two grew up in the same area of Brooklyn — 10 blocks apart, where her father worked as a taxi driver — but they wouldn’t meet until 1980 in Burlington. She was a community organizer. He was running for mayor. She had never heard the name “Bernie Sanders” when she helped organize a debate for the candidates at a Unitarian church in town. “Nobody liked the incumbent mayor in the community groups. Being a good Catholic girl, I greeted him and made sure he was all set up. I didn't even talk to Bernie! But everybody was interested in Bernie. And then I sat in the second row, and I listened to him, and so did the entire Unitarian Church,” she pauses, then continues slowly, “and I felt that he embodied everything I believed in. The first time I heard him speak. And I knew I would be working with him from that moment on.”

There is a stunning intensity in the belief — one made very real by the heart attack, one held firmly by his staff, his wife, by the candidate himself — that if Bernie Sanders isn’t going to be telling the American people these stories, then no other candidate will.

“It was a gut check for a lot of people,” Jane says. “Everybody was thinking cerebrally, ‘well, you know, we'll see how it plays out. The polls don’t seem to be doing that well right now. Who knows whether it's gonna be Biden or Elizabeth or Bernie…’” She waves her hand in the air.

“And then when people — I mean, I felt it very strongly from so many people — when people heard that he had a heart attack, it was like, ‘Oh my god.’ And envisioning, OK, without Bernie's voice, oh my god, this would be a totally different race. It would be a totally…” her voice trails off. “People understand that he's the one that can affect real change…”

“This is not a, uh, an intellectual discussion.”

At some point, the sound of Bernie’s voice from the other room drops out.

Jane goes silent. The staffers go silent.

Everything is abruptly quiet, and there is an instant, a half of a split second, when the mind imagines that maybe something’s happened — and then there’s the sound of Bernie Sanders speaking again.

“Somebody was just asking a question,” Jane explains.

“Oh, OK,” Rabin-Havt says.

“OK.”

iii.

The video team is still rolling outside Pamela’s house.

After about 25 minutes, the visit is over. They are all standing in the front yard — Bernie, Pamela, and Catherine. Two campaign vans are idling silently in the driveway. Both women have dealt with politicians before: Catherine has worked on legislation with US senators, including another presidential candidate, Cory Booker, to address rural wastewater problems. Pamela has testified before a congressional forum on poverty convened by Elizabeth Warren.

“Thank you,” Pamela tells her guest.

“I want to thank YOU,” he replies. And suddenly, there are tears. Catherine is hugging him, and then Pamela is hugging him too and crying into his blue button-down shirt — and then they are all hugging together. “We won’t forget you,” he says. “This is just the beginning.”

After they leave the house, he turns to one of the political reporters with him. “Learning something?” he asks.

The visit is still heavy on his mind. There is some light conversation about the trip — and then you see his face turn to a grimace. The reporter asks about Joe Biden. At this particular juncture in the horserace, there is a thirst for conflict between the two candidates.

“One day at a time…” he responds.

The reporter tries again: “Do you think Biden’s message is resonating in the South?”

“We’ll take it one day at a time, I have no idea. Nor does anyone else.”

He is, of course, annoyed. “You have all heard me rant and rave,” he starts telling the group. “I don’t think that the media is the enemy of the people, that it’s fake news. God knows I don’t think that.”

“But I do think we have to do a better job in looking at issues that impact ordinary people.”

“There are millions of people in this country…”

Later in the day, he relays Pamela’s story to the crowd at his town hall. The following month, his campaign releases a two-and-a-half-minute video about the trip, titled “Trapped.” Eventually, it hits 750,000 views.

In the middle of an interview, he bats back a question to ask one of his own.

“Do you know what it’s like to live —”

He is about to say “paycheck to paycheck,” but he stops himself. As he sees it, the media doesn’t know anything about that. Reporters, even the well-meaning ones, he thinks, don’t have a clue. “I mean, I do,” he says. “I grew up in that family.” His father, a paint salesman, worked hard but never made much money. The family lived in a three-and-a-half-room, rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn. Both parents died young. As a young politician in Vermont, Sanders had to borrow gas money to campaign. The windshield wipers on his Volkswagen bug didn’t work. He struggled to pay bills. After his swearing-in as mayor of Burlington, he bought his first suit at age 40. He was, in those days, the same voter he’s trying to reach now. His old notebooks, legal pads fished from the archives by a Mother Jones reporter earlier this year, include rambling notes on his inability to do better for himself and his young son. The internal commentary is scathing and unkind. “Not only do I not pay bills every month — ‘What, every month?’ — I am better now than I used to be,” he wrote, “but pretty poor…”

The secret, it turns out, is that in addition to taking this work very seriously, Bernie Sanders also takes it very personally. The secret is that a mostly solitary man — a man who has spent most of his political career on the outskirts, who’s never really fit into someone’s idea of a politician, who’s “cast some lonely votes, fought some lonely fights, mounted some lonely campaigns” — is now trying to win a presidential campaign, maybe his last, by making people feel less alone.

This is his campaign, his theory of change, though he’s done very little to explain it to a wider audience. “I care less about the coverage, in one sense,” he says. “What I care about is that someone turns on the TV, and there’s someone who works at Walmart, or someone from Disney, or McDonald's. And they say, you know, ‘that’s me.’” He wants those people to do the talking: the people who worry about their electric bill. The people who wonder if they can afford to have another kid. People for whom “the idea of taking vacation” — he scoffs as he says the word — “is not even in their imagination even though they work all the time.” In his mind, he was those people.

He is not among the politicians “whose mommies and daddies told them at the country club that they were born to be president,” as he put it last year. He suspects his parents were Democrats, but he isn’t sure — it’s not something they discussed. So he is not drawn to Washington in the usual ways. Which is not to say that he doesn’t have ego. In 2016, staffers watched him adjust with unexpected ease to his new power and popularity: The guy in the middle seat, coach class, was suddenly flying private and showing up to watch the Golden State Warriors play the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7. But he does not have what one former president called “that wretched mania, an itching for the White House.” He is driven by a different compulsion.

You get the sense, without exaggeration, that he will keep doing this for the rest of his life. That he would die before he stops. There are some signs, after the heart attack, that this is playing on his mind. “At the end of the day,” he told his supporters in a seven-minute video he recorded after his release from the hospital, “if you’re gonna look at yourself in the mirror, you’re gonna say, ‘Look, I go around once, I have one life to live. What role do I wanna play?’”

But for the most part, his mood is notably light. His return to the campaign trail, ever since the heart attack, aka “heart incident,” as senior aides refer to it in the press, has been a happy, bordering-on-joyous affair. He starts cracking jokes during his speech. He plays basketball. He hosts his staff at his house in Burlington, demonstrating the best way to build a fire in a tiny stove. He announces plans for his own New Year’s Eve party in Iowa with food, drinks, and live music: “Bernie’s Big New Year’s Bash.” Inexplicably, he ends up dancing at a labor solidarity dinner in New Hampshire. “Our revolution includes dancing!” he declares. And then, to the sound of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and The Temptations’ “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” he sways his hips from side to side, grinning, and twirls woman after woman across the banquet hall.

The major papers describe this period as a “renaissance” and “resurgence.” In polls conducted since the heart attack, he has either maintained his position or become even more competitive. He has a shot at Iowa. He looks good in Nevada and California. He remains the only candidate with more donations than Donald Trump. And he has some $1.67 million coming in each month from people who have signed up for automatic recurring donations.

On one afternoon in late October, he travels to Brooklyn to do a few interviews.

The plan is to walk up Henry Street to the Brooklyn Promenade, a pedestrian area overlooking the East River and downtown Manhattan, but he makes a turn onto Kane Street instead — spontaneous! — another indication of his good mood, which an aide quickly notes aloud.

He walks a few blocks, greeting passersby, before ducking into Francesco's Pizzeria & Trattoria, where he orders a slice of pepperoni. His staffers also order pepperoni. “See!” Bernie says. “Can’t think for themselves!” Jane shrugs. “Well, I got cheese,” she says.

The guys behind the counter open the oven and pull out a slice of pepperoni, wet and shimmering in its own hot oil. No one is concerned, apparently, about whether pizza is a wise choice three weeks after a stent procedure. Jane doesn’t blink. His staff doesn’t blink. No one blinks. Bernie takes his plate to a corner table, where he sits for a brief interview, giving polite but clipped answers about his decision to stay in the presidential race after the incident.

In one swift hand motion, as if to dispense with this line of inquiry entirely, he lifts the slice from its white paper plate, folds the crust lengthwise, takes a large bite, and swallows.

“This is my life,” he says.

The statement is, for Bernie, as straightforward and uncomplicated as it sounds. Everyone seems to understand this. Of course he should eat pizza. Of course he is still running for president.

“Well,” Jane says a few days later, “I mean, it would be kind of ridiculous if it didn't affect him in some way.”

“I think the way it affected him was, ‘OK, this… This is my mission in life. This is my purpose. I'm here for a reason.’”

On that long flight from Vermont to Las Vegas, she thought about what she should do when she saw him in the hospital. “If he wasn’t doing well,” she thought, she would put her foot down. She would tell him no. “If he was in danger, I would absolutely say, ‘I’m sorry. You can’t.’”

Jane pauses. “But honestly, I don’t know that he would have listened to me.”

[brucewaynebrady-blog]

Prompt 3 - Write a story that begins with an alarm clock going off. 

5/11/18

This blog is a part of a series of prompts that I’m using to write more often, taken from the book The Writer’s Block by Jason Rekulak. I pick one from a random page, and see where it leads. I was inspired by some friends doing art challenges, so, I made a writing challenge for myself. Enjoy! 

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

                                              Taking Off “AAANK!!!!! AAANK!!!!! AAANK!!!!! AAANK!!!!!”

The alarm clock’s audible assault of sound bounced off the walls of James’ bedroom, shattering his sleep, and the peaceful silence. Eyes wide, he flung his covers to the floor and galloped across the room. He punched the button a few times, making sure the clock had no chance at coming back to life, but the red numbers on the digital display were enough to keep him awake: “2:30 A.M.”

His flight for California left at 6:00 a.m. and that was after a 2 hour drive to the airport. He’d packed the night before, but the excitement of the trip had kept him awake for most of the evening. Three hours of sleep would have to do for now, and maybe a quick shower would provide an energy boost.

Groggy, James yawned, grabbing a few things on the way to the bathroom, the sounds of a television in the living room fading in the background as he walked down the hall. His friend Paul had been staying with him and offered to drive him to the airport, then house sit for a few days. Paul currently had no place to stay or job, and was thankful to help out and have a place to crash. James, meanwhile, thought he might get some sleep in the car on the way. “We should have plenty of time. I’m ready when you are, man” Paul said casually, watching a show about alien abductions, his feet comfortably wiggling side to side on the coffee table. “Hm? Mmmm….yuh” James grunted, not awake enough to form words yet. After throwing his laptop bag and a backpack in the backseat, they jumped on the highway. James’ mood alternated between excitement for the trip and ignoring his body’s demand for more sleep. Paul’s sea-foam green Accord rocketed down the highway, racing to Hobby Airport in Houston. The lack of other drivers at this time of night made the trip a lot smoother, but it didn’t keep James from checking his phone incessantly, wondering how long the TSA line would take. After his shower, a stop at a drive-thru, and getting gas, they had left at 3:15. Plenty of time

As they got closer to the airport, the highway started to converge into what looked like a smaller city. All lanes led to the airport,  the tail-lights of cars ahead dotting the way forward, making it their only destination for the upcoming exits. “Gate B, that’s where I’m headed” James said, checking his itinerary. “Got it. And in record time!’ Paul replied, always priding himself on his ability to drive faster than others around him. James was happy to make it in one piece and thought that his friend was really racing himself, the other drivers always unaware they had entered his imaginary competitions. James grabbed his bags, and started toward the entrance. “See you in a few days man! Don’t have any wild parties without me” he smiled, knowing that his friend would at worst raid his fridge. “Orgy at your place? Got it. Have a safe trip!” Paul shouted back, driving away to possibly break a land speed record. James checked his phone to see “5:23 A.M.” staring back at him. He rounded the corner and saw Gate B not far away, with a line that stretched around the corner. There had to be at least 60 people waiting, to funnel into 4 lanes at the TSA check-in. After 10 minutes of standing in the same place, James could hear the grumblings of others that this “was ridiculous” and “how could they not have more staff here?” He moved to see the head of the line, where one lone, elderly woman in a TSA uniform,

slowly….

inspected…..

every……

one. At this pace, he would be lucky to get to the head of the line in time. He started to hear people discussing their flight times, most of which were later. Wondering if it would work, he said, a bit too loud “I’ll never make my 6:00 o’clock. I NEED THIS JOB!” “Your flight is earlier than mine. You can go ahead of me, if it’s ok with everyone else?” said a man, further ahead in line. Several people between shaked their heads yes, and miraculously, waved James ahead of them. “THANK YOU! I really appreciate it!” he said, moving up a bit. A few more people started asking about times, pointing at James saying “I think he needs to go ahead. His is at 6” He moved up further, until he was behind a woman, with long dark hair, about 10 spots away from the front.

“5:45 A.M.” his phone display reported to him.

Several TSA agents showed up then, and started to get the lines flowing. “I can’t believe this line. I have to be on this flight in 15 minutes and I’ve been here forever”, said the woman in front of James. “Me too” he said. “Wonder if they would make an exception for us..” James trailed off out of ideas. The woman turned and he saw that she was around his age, in her early 20s and stunning; her skin an olive complexion, her eyes large, brown and right now, concerned. James was alert and trying to think fast. He’d gotten this far. What was the next solution to this? The line moved up quickly and the woman was next. She turned to James, “So, we need to both get on this flight.  I wonder if we can get out of line together?” James, without thinking, blurted out “Maybe if we were married?” and laughed nervously. Did I really just say that? he thought, wanting to teleport back to the safety of his bed. “Yes! That’s it. You’re my husband when they call me up. Good idea!” she replied. James, shocked that she agreed, responded “Well, let’s catch...our….flight”

The TSA agent waved for the next person to step up, and they both rushed to the checkpoint. James, on only his second flight ever, hadn’t been paying attention to the process of removing shoes and belts. They both rushed through the motions, he grabbed his belt and shoes in hand, slung his bags across his shoulder, and they made a dash to the gate around the corner. “Come on!” the dark-haired woman said to James, who was making a mental note to cut down on drive-thru from now on, as he struggled to make the short jog. They rounded the corner, to see an airline employee walking away from a closed terminal door. “6:05”, the clock above the door taunted them, with this update. After pleading with the woman at the gate, they were told that the doors couldn’t be opened but they would be placed on the next immediate flight, in an hour. They agreed and exchanged their boarding passes. After plopping down on some nearby seats, James started to put his shoes on, the mystery woman sitting next to him. “I’m Nashita, by the way” she said, extending her hand. “James. Nice to meet you.” “Well, James, we have an hour to kill. Want to get some overpriced snacks from the bookstore over there?” “Let’s go for it. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon” After leaving the bookstore, they sat, and watched others shuffle through the airport for a few seconds. Nashita turned to him. “So, why was my new fake husband in such a rush? Where are you headed to?” she raised an eyebrow, waiting for his response. “Well, I’m heading to San Francisco for a job opportunity, and vacation really. Sight-seeing, tourist stuff, but mainly want to land this writing job for a tech company.” “Ooh, a writer, huh? Anything I might have read?” James hesitated, chuckling to himself, “Well, not yet, unless you follow my blog and random freelance stuff I’ve been doing for a while. I’ve been reviewing movies for sites, and writing my own stuff on the side. This job is a chance at a full-time position, in a city I’ve never been to. And, I figured, I might as well see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. What about you?” Nashita nodded “Well, good luck with that. I’m heading to L.A. I have some friends that meetup every year. It started as a birthday party for one of my best friends, and now, we just make it a point to get together since we don’t see each other often.”

“Sounds like a good excuse to have a party” James said, fumbling with his water bottle, for the first time, not concerned with what time it was. He found himself hoping if anything, the morning would slow down, so he could talk with her more. “We….know how to have a good time” Nashita laughed, brushing her hair back and getting as comfy as she could, in the plastic airport seat. She told him that her parents owned a few stores in the Houston area and of her plans to go to law school. He shared with her a lifelong interest in writing, and how it was something he’s always done, no matter what regular job he had to pay the bills; writing was always a constant. He scribbled down his personal blog site for her to check out and they noticed the hour was almost up. They boarded the next flight, and sat together. James, again was met with happiness to be on his way, but now wished they shared the same destination. He couldn’t remember the last time he so interested in just talking to someone, especially a stranger. He usually went out of his way to avoid social interaction, never knowing what to say. Words seemed to be more useful when he had time to edit them, but he’d found her delightful and easy to talk to.

Nashita took the window seat and they sat, waiting for the flight to take off. The woman in front of Nashita, leaned her seat back, just enough to make getting up a chore. As James started to laugh, the seat next to him was taken by a large man, his elbow spilling over into James’ seat and ribs. Nashita covered her mouth, and tried to suppress her amusement at James’ discomfort. They sat there for a bit, laughing at being trapped together, on this unexpected flight.

They talked more on the plane, and laughed secretly at the random activity around them. The woman in front of them had fallen asleep, the human bookend guy on the other side seemed to be engrossed in the newspaper, making occasional grunting sounds in response to the headlines, and an older lady was losing a verbal fight with her son, threatening to dispense justice when the plane landed.

The plane stopped in Phoenix for a few transfers. Nashita exited first, and quickly got lost in the shuffle. James figured she was off to her terminal and  was surprised to see her waiting for him as he exited. They started walking through the airport, and realized their gates were in different directions. James stood for a second, watching Nashita pause, smiling back at him. “Well, I’m heading this way” she gestured with her purse. “It was nice missing a flight with you” James grinned, “Yeah. You too. We gotta do it again sometime...I mean” He had no idea what he was saying. The moment made him nervous a bit. Hell she made him nervous, but in a good way. He wondered if he should ask for her number, her Facebook, social media of some kind…? He hadn’t done this in a while. “Good luck with the writing gig. Maybe I’ll get to read it someday!” Nashita said, disappearing around the corner. James stood there, realizing he had to head to his gate too, or he would definitely be sitting in Phoenix, without her this time. He also wondered why he was thinking so damn much. He flew around the corner that Nashita had just taken.

[duchesschameleon]

alright @stamkos, your instructions said “playlist” so I’m going to shuffle one of my most used playlists for this one

name the first ten songs that pop up on shuffle in my playlist and my fave lyrics

1. Corner of the Sky from Pippin // and don’t you see I want my life to be something more than long

2. Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen // There's something happening somewhere baby I just know that there is

3. Strangers Like Me from Tarzan // It all means something and yet nothing to me

4. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) by Bruce Springsteen // winners use the door, so use it, Rosie, that's what it's there for 

5. I Won’t Say I’m in Love from Hercules // that’s ancient history, been there, done that 

6. Every Single Night by Computer Games // People say don’t let your emotions control you, well how can that be without them, I never could know you

7. Brand New by Ben Rector // Like when I close my eyes and don't even care if anyone sees me dancing

8. Seasons Change by Scotty McCreery // just when you think you can’t make it through the rain, your seasons change

9. On My Way from Brother Bear // And to sleep under the stars who could ask for more with the moon keeping watch over me

10. I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston // I’ve done alright up til now, it’s the light of day that shows me how

tagging @machiavelliinadress @somanyfandomssolittletime @zachhymanaf @kavileighanna @bostonsfinest88 you guys don’t have to do it, just thought it’d be fun :) 

[onthepageoftears]

thanks for the tag @randomfandoming1​!!!

Rules: shuffle your playlist and write down the first lines of the first 25 songs that come on. Then, write down their titles and tag 10 people.

i’m so cool when I walk through ooh/ don’t walk away like you always do this time/ why do stars fall at night/they closed the park way late last night/My boy's being sus', he was shady enough, but now he's just a shadow/aaaaaa (lol)/you make me feel out of my element/you and me, we used to be together/you and me, you and me, nobody baby but you and me/yeah we talk about getting older, but there’s so much we haven’t done yet/forty days and forty nights/I’ve been running around town feeling up and down/i’ve been talking to strangers, acting like i’m a stranger/can’t stop, can’t stop the feet/this thing, called love, I just can’t handle it/please forgive me i’ve got demons in my head/clock strikes upon the hour, and the sun begins to fade/ah pretty me, i’m so alone and so blue/sittin’ all alone, mouth full of gum, in the driveway/for all I know the best is over and the worst is yet to come/i am confident but I still have my moments/we go together better than birds of a feather/everybody makes mistakes/ I been there all night/ baby baby baby, i’m coming home

To Whom it May Concern by Sam I

Get Back  by Demi Lovato

Awkward by San Cisco

Wild Heart by Bleachers

my boy by billie eilish

Breaking Ground by Ryan Miller

Chemicals React by Aly & Aj

Don’t Speak by No Doubt

You and Me by Penny and the Quarters

I Miss Those Days by Bleachers

Out of My League by Fitz and the Tantrums

I’ve Been Down by Haim

Hate That You Know Me by Bleachers

Move Your Feet by Junior Senior

Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen

Demons by Hayley Kiyoko

I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston

Thank You For All of Your Loving by Taron Egerton

bellyache by billie eilish

Told You So by Paramore

La La Land by Demi Lovato

Sucker by Jonas Brothers

Nobody’s Perfect by Hannah Montana

Side to Side by Ariana Grande

Coming Home by Leon Bridges

this was fun! I’m going to tag the same people I always do lmao @pressedinthepages @sherlocked-bitch @friendly-jester and anyone who wants to do this!

[bigtreefest]

Handiwork Masterlist

A Mechanic! Farmhand! Curtis Everett x Bartender! Reader Series

Part of the Outta Nowhere AU

Main Masterlist

Series Summary: Curtis keeps a busy life between helping out on the farm and running the garage. There are some moments and places that give him reprieve, though, and one of them happens to be a bar, where someone new to town just started working.

1. Shuffle With Me, Houston Stranger

2. Good Directions

3. Outskirts

4. Caught up in the Country

5. A Cowboy Lovin’ Night

6. Small Town Somethin’

Drabbles & Extras

Affection and Communication (ask answered)

Dynamics (ask answered)

How the Outta Nowhere AU Chapters line up

[michelleplayswithfire]

Top 30 Top 40 Hits of 1977

Honorable mentions: You Don’t Have To Be A Star (To Be In My Show) -- Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. (#1 -- peak Jan. 8) (#27 -- YE 1977) Living Next Door To Alice -- Smokie (#25 -- peak Feb. 26) Somebody To Love -- Queen (#16 -- peak Feb. 5) (#88 -- YE 1977) Night Moves -- Bob Seger (#4 -- peak Mar. 12) (#55 -- YE 1977) Carry On Wayward Son -- Kansas (#11 -- peak Apr. 2) (#58 -- YE 1977) Maybe I’m Amazed -- Wings (#10 -- peak Apr. 2) Dazz -- Brick (#3 -- peak Jan. 29) (#41 -- YE 1977) Blinded By The Light -- Manfred Mann’s Earth Band (#1 -- peak Feb. 19) (#36 -- YE 1977) Sir Duke -- Stevie Wonder (#1 -- peak May 21) (#18 -- YE 1977) Give A Little Bit -- Supertramp (#15 -- peak Aug. 27) (#78 -- YE 1977) Lido Shuffle -- Boz Scaggs (#11 -- peak May 14) (#74 -- YE 1977) I Like To Do It -- KC and the Sunshine Band (#37 -- peak Feb. 5) The Greatest Love of All -- George Benson (#24 -- peak Oct. 8) Jungle Love -- The Steve Miller Band (#23 -- peak Oct. 1) Fly Like An Eagle -- The Steve Miller Band (#2 -- peak Mar. 12) (#28 -- YE 1977) When I Need You -- Leo Sayer (#1 -- peak May 14) (#24 -- YE 1977) Best Of My Love -- The Emotions (#1 -- peak Aug. 20) (#3 -- YE 1977)

30. I Wish -- Stevie Wonder (#1 -- peak Jan. 22) (#51 -- YE 1977) 29. Rich Girl -- Daryl Hall & John Oates (#1 -- peak Mar. 26) (#23 -- YE 1977) 28. Year of the Cat -- Al Stewart (#8 -- peak Mar. 5) (#92 -- YE 1977) 27. Margaritaville -- Jimmy Buffett (#8 -- peak Jul. 23) (#14 -- YE 1977) 26. The Things We Do For Love -- 10cc (#5 -- peak Apr. 16) (#44 -- YE 1977) 25. Dancing Queen -- ABBA (#1 -- peak Apr. 9) (#12 -- YE 1977) 24. You Make Me Feel Like Dancing -- Leo Sayer (#1 -- peak Jan. 15) (#13 -- YE 1977) 23b. I Wanna Get Next To You -- Rose Royce (#10 -- peak May 7) (#87 -- YE 1977) 23a. Car Wash -- Rose Royce (#1 -- peak Jan. 29) (#26 -- YE 1977) 22. I’m Your Boogie Man -- KC and the Sunshine Band (#1 -- peak Jun. 11) (#11 -- YE 1977) 21. Don’t Leave Me This Way -- Thelma Houston (#1 -- peak Apr. 23) (#7 -- YE 1977) 20. Couldn’t Get It Right -- Climax Blues Band (#3 -- peak May 21) (#32 -- YE 1977) 19. Undercover Angel -- Alan O’Day (#1 -- peak Jul. 9) (#9 -- YE 1977) 18. Da Doo Ron Ron -- Shaun Cassidy (#1 -- peak Jul. 16) (#45 -- YE 1977) 17. Lonely Boy -- Andrew Gold (#7 -- peak Jun. 11) (#50 -- YE 1977) 16. Strawberry Letter 23 -- The Brothers Johnson (#5 -- peak Sep. 24) (#54 -- YE 1977) 15. Got To Give It Up (Pt. 1) -- Marvin Gaye (#1 -- peak Jun. 25) (#20 -- YE 1977) 14. Easy -- The Commodores (#4 -- peak Aug. 27) (#33 -- YE 1977) 13c. Go Your Own Way -- Fleetwood Mac (#10 -- peak Mar. 12) (#94 -- YE 1977) 13b. Don’t Stop -- Fleetwood Mac (#3 -- peak Sep. 24) (#52 -- YE 1977) 13a. Dreams -- Fleetwood Mac (#1 -- peak Jun. 18) (#39 -- YE 1977) 12b. Life In The Fast Lane -- Eagles (#11 -- peak Jun. 25) 12a. Hotel California -- Eagles (#1 -- peak May 7) (#19 -- YE 1977) 11. Back In The Saddle -- Aerosmith (#38 -- peak May 7) 10. Gonna Fly Now -- Bill Conti (#1 -- peak Jul. 2) (#21 -- YE 1977) 9. Devil’s Gun -- C.J. & Co. (#36 -- peak Jul. 16) (#100 -- YE 1977) 8. Black Betty -- Ram Jam (#18 -- peak Sep. 3) 7. Barracuda -- Heart (#11 -- peak Sep. 3) (#53 -- YE 1977) 6. Do Ya Wanna Get Funky With Me -- Peter Brown (#18 -- peak Nov. 12) 5. Boogie Nights -- Heatwave (#2 -- peak Nov. 12) (#93 -- YE 1977) 4. How Deep Is Your Love -- Bee Gees (#1 -- peak Dec. 24) (#6 -- YE 1978) 3. Heaven on the 7th Floor -- Paul Nicholas (#6 -- peak Nov. 26) 2. I Just Want To Be Your Everything -- Andy Gibb (#1 -- peak Jul. 30) (#2 -- YE 1977) 1. I Feel Love -- Donna Summer (#6 -- peak Nov. 12)

Albums Worth Checking Out: Rumours -- Fleetwood Mac Exodus -- Bob Marley Saturday Night Fever (soundtrack) -- Bee Gees (& others) The Stranger -- Billy Joel Low -- David Bowie My Aim Is True -- Elvis Costello & The Attractions All 'n' All -- Earth, Wind & Fire The Clash -- The Clash Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome -- Parliament Trans Europe Express -- Kraftwerk Rose Royce II: In Full Bloom -- Rose Royce Marquee Moon -- Television Aja -- Steely Dan Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols -- The Sex Pistols Talking Heads 77 -- Talking Heads Bat Out Of Hell -- Meat Loaf Rocket To Russia -- The Ramones Lust For Life -- Iggy Pop Ahh... The Name Is Bootsy, Baby -- Bootsy Collins "Heroes" -- David Bowie Maze featuring Frankie Beverly -- Maze featuring Frankie Beverly Blank Generation -- Richard Hell & The Voidoids Damned Damned Damned -- The Damned

The Bottom of the Pile: Solsbury Hill -- Peter Gabriel (#68 -- peak May 21) Money, Money, Money -- ABBA (#56 -- peak Nov. 19) Daddy Cool -- Boney M (#65 -- peak Feb. 5) Ma Baker -- Boney M (#96 -- peak Aug. 27) Sheena Is A Punk Rocker -- The Ramones (#81 -- peak Sep. 17) Fly By Night/In The Mood -- Rush (#88 -- peak Jan. 29) Tie Your Mother Down -- Queen (#49 -- peak Apr. 9) Hold Back The Night -- Graham Parker and the Rumour (#58 -- peak May 14) Needles and Pins -- Smokie (#68 -- peak Oct. 8) Sorry/That’s The Trouble -- Grace Jones (#71 -- peak Feb. 26) I Need A Man -- Grace Jones (#83 -- peak Jun. 11) “Roots” Medley -- Quincy Jones (#57 -- peak Apr. 9)

[wanderinghouston]

Landslide

Detlene: I was beginning to think my frown was going to become my one and only, permanent expression. Reluctantly, I forced myself to edge away from Houston as he took the call. I didn’t want to hover...I just wanted to be sure he was okay...I stepped closer to him...I was hovering...damn it...I sidestepped a little further away, pretending I was getting on with the cleanup. In truth, I’d just swept the same bleedin’ spot on the floor 10 times. It took a supreme effort, but I closed my hearing off to the phone call, giving Houston his privacy, though I desperately wanted to listen. Who the hell was calling and how in the hell did they know where Houston was…? Feeling my frown deepening, I glared down at the hardwood floor then shuffled over to the couch and began righting the cushions. I was glad Houston would no longer be bound to the couch. The blood exchange had been a success, if not nearly impossible to bear. I’d hated every moment of it, watching Houston suffer the effects of my blood as he healed. Even knowing it was temporary, it had been hard, on the both of us. Blowing out a breath I felt tired, damned tired. I wanted to sleep for a week. Realizing I was fluffing the same pillow for the 3rd time, I muttered a curse and tossed it on the couch, head turning to give Houston a quick glance. I caught the faint sound of his heartbeat and it increases in rate. Looking at him more intently, I tried to gauge his emotions. Someone had felt they needed to track Houston here for some reason and it was something that was distressing Houston. The simplest rationale as to how we’d been tracked was our passports. Easy enough to track that….but why? Who needed to track Houston down here? My eyes narrowed as I could sense another increase in his heartbeat and I quickly came to stand in front of him, wanting to know what the hell was going on.

Houston:  “Hello?”

‘Benjamin Devlin?”

“Yeah, can I help you?” Irritation laced my tone and I slammed the door to the fridge shut. I was hungry, tired and this fuck was using my full name. I wasn’t sure even Detlene knew my full name.

‘This is Detective Laine with the Denver police department. We have Connor Devlin here in our custody. There’s been an accident and you’ve been named as next of kin. What is your relationship to Megan O’Neill?

My heart sank with each word that was uttered on the other end of the phone call. The detective repeated his question again and then a loud ‘hello?!’ snapped me out of whatever trance I slipped into.

“She’s the mother of our son, Connor, I am his father. What ...?” I couldn’t hardly keep the phone in my hand it was shaking so much. The simple act of breathing became difficult and bile rose up in my throat when the detective began to speak again. He had practiced this, he had to have, there wasn’t any other way his voice kept calm. Automatic. Cold.

‘I’m sorry, Mr. Devlin.’

I saw Detlene’s face and knew immediately he’d overheard the conversation. His mouth was moving but I couldn’t hear anything. I didn’t hear the smash of a phone on the stone when it fell from my hand. I couldn’t feel my knees as they gave out and I too went to the floor.  

Rockslide. Nothing anyone could do. Airlifted. Those were the words that kept repeating in my head but it was as if they were in another language. Nothing was processing quite right except for one simple sentence. She was gone. Connor was alone and in some police station, scared and … I couldn’t bring myself to delve into it any further or I wouldn’t get up off the floor.  There would be more than enough time to drown in guilt for not being there when he needed me the most but right now the only focus was getting to him.

“We need to leave, Detlene. Now.”

Detlene: I glanced into the rearview mirror of the rental car for what must have been the 1000th time as we drove from the airport to Houston’s house. Connor sat in the back seat, silent and withdrawn, as he’d been since Houston and I had collected him at the police station just over a week ago. Houston sat beside me in the passenger seat, a mirror image of Connor: silent, detached. Flicking my gaze back to the road ahead, I guided the car to Houston’s house and pulled into the driveway, cutting the engine. The silence was physical. The past week had been a blur. A chartered flight from Ireland to Colorado to collect Houston’s son and to make hasty arrangement for the funeral. Now the three of us were in Arizona to collect a few things and head back to Ireland. Well, at least, that’s what I hoped would happen. Houston and I hadn’t really discussed that or much of anything. True to form, he was internalizing everything, trying to deal in his own way. Connor was doing like his father, which I wasn’t sure was the best thing, but what the fuck did I know about kids in general? My gaze flicked to the rearview mirror once more. Connor hadn’t moved. My heart ached for the kid. Christ. What a mess. The silence in the car grew, occasionally interrupted by the ticking of the cooling car engine. Shoving my hands through my hair I pulled in a slow breath. “Why don’t you take Connor inside? I’ll just grab the bags and be right behind you.” As I spoke, Connor was suddenly in motion, jerking open his car door and stumbling out of the car. As I watched, he broke into a run and headed towards the back of the house. Unsure what to do, I looked at Houston as I opened my own door and got out of the car. “Umm...you want me to go….I dunno...go check on Connor or something?” I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. We were all strangely adrift and I was clueless.

Houston: Have you ever experienced deja vu? The feeling when you swear you’ve been at the same exact moment at some point, even if in another universe, or a dream. I had memorized the dash of our rented Chevy, the damn thing uglier than sin, but it had an interesting faux wood grain that ran between the air vents. Detlene sat next to me with his hands on the wheel and a thick fog of uncomfortable small talk between us. I’ve only witnessed one other person being put into the earth and I didn’t even like him. This time it was one of the very few who loved me that was buried, cold and still as if she had never been alive, to begin with.

“I got him, babe.” One hand moved to cover Detlene’s and give it a reassuring squeeze before I left the car to find Connor. I knew where he would be before I rounded the house and found him sitting on the swing just a few feet from the water. It had been months since I left him and flew halfway around the world. We talked every other day, sometimes a few more between, the longest being when I healed my leg with Detlene’s blood. Four days.

“Hey, bud.”

Connor didn’t try to hide his face which was dripping with tears but he didn’t look at me. His eyes stayed glued to the still water that spread out before us like glass. He mumbled hello but it was one of those where you knew the conversation was dead before it started. I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t know what to say to anyone. Meg didn’t have a family but the few close friends that showed up at her funeral didn’t even look my way, which I was grateful for, but it still left me wondering how much of a ghost I had been in her and Connor’s life. No one even knew who I was.

“I miss her too,” I said.

We sat by the water's edge until the sky turned shades of pink and purple, the air now chilled to the point I could see small clouds of our breath. Connor got up first and I followed him into the house where he promptly flopped on the couch and I went to find Detlene and the bottle of whiskey I had hidden in the cabinet above the stove. We hadn’t discussed living together, neither of us ready for that, but it needed to happen. Fast.

Detlene:

After getting the few bags we had into the house, I stood at the back sliding glass door and watched Connor and Houston for a few minutes. Blowing out a breath I turned to go into the kitchen. After a few minutes of digging around, i found the number to the pizza place and ordered 2 pies. It would be the easiest thing. We’d eaten our fair share of takeout and pizza in the last week but it couldn’t be helped. I would have loved to make something but was clueless as to what Connor would or wouldn’t eat. Bracing my hands on the countertops, I leaned forward, letting my head drop down as I rolled my shoulders. It was fucking crazy how quickly things had changed. Flexing my shoulders once more to try to ease the tension, I blew out a breath and straightened. Making my way down the short hallway, I paused between the door to the master bedroom and the 2nd guest room. The other room was Connor’s. Turning to the right, I entered the guest bedroom and tossed my bag on the bed. Easing down to sit on the bed, I leaned forward, elbow resting on my knees. Two weeks ago I’d been feeling pretty confident and sure about things….not everything, but things with me and Houston. But then a damned blue sheep had crossed our path and now the death of Meg. I’d gone from knowing what I wanted to having no clue if I even belong here. Hell, I /wanted/ to be here...but how did that happen? Houston and Connor needed time to reconnect. They weren’t total strangers, but there was some ground that needed to be covered. I scrubbed my hands over my face and gave in to the urge to flop backward on the bed. Staring up at the ceiling I couldn’t help but think about Ireland. I wished we were still there, tucked away from the world. I mutter a few choice curses, lacing my fingers together behind my head. And hell, how in the fuck was I going to fit into the scheme of things now? Houston and Connor were dealing with a lot. Hell, the kid had just lost his mom. There was one fact in all of this: I was still a marked man. Sheldon’s cronies would always be looking for me. Now, it wasn’t just Houston I had to protect. Connor would be in danger, too. “Oh for fuck sake.” I blew out a breath and sat up. We wouldn’t be safe here. We needed to figure out a few things. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” I groaned and pushed to my feet. I felt every one of my 122 years. Hearing the doorbell, I headed back to the living room. As I headed for the front door, I caught sight of Connor on the sofa and Houston hunting for something in the kitchen. Collecting the pizzas I carried them to the kitchen and set them down. “Chow time, “  announced to no one in particular. As Houston turned to me, holding a bottle of whiskey I offered an apologetic smile.  I kept my voice low so Connor wouldn’t hear. “We need to talk. We can’t stay here.”

Houston: Connor collected one whole box and left us alone in the kitchen. He might look like his mother but his appetite was all mine. I threw a roll of paper towels toward the living room area and yelled, “heads up.” I wasn’t sure whether he heard me or not but fuck it, at least I tried. I flipped the second box open and poured both Detlene and I a few fingers of whiskey in mismatched plastic cups.

“I know we can’t.”

Staying here in Arizona was never an option for me once Detlene and I left for Ireland. Never did I long for the arid climate and shitty people I had dealt with on a near-daily basis. All I cared about was the large shop next door but even those things could be replaced eventually.

“Burn it down.” The words rolled off my tongue without hesitation and when I took another drink of whiskey I turned to face Detlene, wanting him to see that it wasn’t a joke and that it would happen whether he helped or not. “All of it,” I bit off the corner of a slice and continued, “ even the shop. That way we can blame faulty wiring and flammable everything.” I snorted. “Only a madman would do something like that on purpose, right?” I took a few more bites but slung the pizza down when my stomach turned in the most unpleasant way, the entirety of the situation finally settling in. I needed money, I needed a place to go. We both did. I glanced over my shoulder and then back to Detlene before letting out a slow breath. If I over thought the next question I would never allow him to do it. It would be the last time I put someone I loved in a situation like this.

“Will you help me, babe?”

Detlene: I bit back whatever smart ass remark bubbled up at Houston’s comment when I saw his face. Jesus fuck. He was serious. Dead fucking serious. I folded my arms across my chest and leaned a hip against the counter. My mind was racing as I deliberately stayed silent for a full minute, letting us both process what was being suggested. When Houston asked me for my help, that was the end of it. I knew damn well what it had cost him to ask for help. Houston didn’t ask for help. Even if he hadn’t asked, I would have forced my help on him. It was more than keeping him, and now Connor, safe. As far as I was concerned, Houston was mine. I was madly in love with him and wanted with him with me. Period. And that love included Connor. They were /mine/ damn it. “I’ll help you. Absolutely.” I took a gulp of whiskey and it tasted like ash on my tongue. “There will be no going back...but I don’t think I need to tell you that.” I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. What Houston was asking me wasn’t hard to do. The hard part would be making a clean break and getting back out of the country again in a timely fashion. And then there was the other matter of my past constantly on the hunt for me. “And when I say I’ll help you, Houston, I mean it. Not just with this..” I shrugged a shoulder to indicate the house. “I mean with everything. You’re safe with me. You and Connor. I’ll give you everything you need, everything I have. It’s yours. You name it.” Not waiting for an answer from Houston, I pushed off the counter, setting my whiskey down. “This is gonna happen now. Right now We don’t have time to dick around.” I looked into the living room where Connor sat, staring blankly at the floor, pizza forgotten next to him. “You tell Connor whatever you need to tell him. He’s gonna be scared, I’m thinking. Hell, /I’m/ fucking scared. Not gonna lie.” I laughed a little, nervously. Looking around the kitchen I spotted a few empty cardboard boxes. “Look. I’ll give you one hour. One hour and you pack anything essential you need: documents, papers, mementos...” I used the toe of my boot to nudge the boxes. “I’m gonna go to your shop and get things set up.” On impulse, I cupped Houston’s face in my hands and kissed him softly. My gaze lingered on his face a few moments before I stepped back and headed for his garage.

Houston: What I heard wasn’t just a yes to my plan but a yes to everything that included arson and possible kidnapping. Connor didn’t have a passport and while I was his father, the courts said his mom had physical custody. It would take weeks, months even, to rearrange everything legally. The time we didn’t have.

I fought my own body’s response to Detlene’s lips when they met with mine, remembering what they felt like just a few days ago while I was drunk on his blood, the fog of desire needing dampened immediately. There was a short exchange of words before he disappeared outside and I glanced into the living room where Connor was slouched on the floor, back to the sofa. It was like a cold bucket of water when his head lifted so that we were staring at each other. He looked just like his mother and his eyes told a story of loss, reminding me of the day I left them both. I had convinced myself it was better that way and this was me doing it again. But this time it would work.

“You’re not going to understand this and I don’t expect you to even try,” I spoke while I walked toward the discarded box of pizza next to Connor’s feet. “We gotta go, bud. I can’t stay here and I’m not leaving without you ever again.” I rolled my eyes. I sounded like an asshole and I was pretty sure that is exactly what the kid staring at me thought too. “Even if I let you down, I’m telling you there is no way in the world that man outside will, okay? Just trust me, please.” I crouched down so that Connor and I were eye to eye, his red and swollen from crying. “I’m so sorry.” Connor was about to say something but I grabbed him up into a hug that made my arms ache and we sat like that for what seemed like an eternity, both of us giving into our emotions once more. “Okay, okay, enough of this shit. We really have to go.” I tried to laugh but it sounded more like a croak than anything.

It took less than ten minutes to gather my “documents and mementos” as Detlene put it, and the bag I had packed from Ireland. There wasn’t much. A few pictures, the deed to the house, Connor’s birth certificate, mine and the laptop which ran my business from just about anywhere. I had zero idea what was happening in the shop just a few feet away from the kitchen door but my mind kept drifting to the customized Ducati that I had just finished before leaving for Ireland. It had yet to be delivered but if I took it before the fire, it would be more than suspicious. Just knowing that beautiful machine would be ruined within minutes cause my chest to ache. Damn it.

The rental car was packed and I had Connor in the backseat with the engine running as I paced outside of it. I still hadn’t heard a peep from Detlene but I knew whatever was going to happen needed to happen and now.

Within seconds of my thumbnail being dangerously close to chewed off I saw a plume of smoke against the deep blues of a fading sunset. Oh shit. My stomach fell into my ass and just as I came around to the passenger side of the car, outran Detlene. There was zero look of concern but he wasn’t trying to hide his preternatural assets either. In the blink of an eye, he was opening the driver's side and giving me a pointed look that said my ass already should have been in the seat next to his.

Detlene: As I moved to Houston's bike shop, I sent a few discreet texts, a photo of Connor and made sure our bases and asses were covered. Using a few well known and extremely trusted contacts, I ensured that we wouldn’t be missed, our tracks would be covered, no one would know we’d even been in the states, and Connor had a passport and a letter of consent stating that Houston had sole custody of him. A few adjustments to an arc welder machine, a few filed down wires and a few cans of used oil and I was ready. With a flick of a light switch there was a spark and then flame. Lingering only a few moments to make sure the fire grew, I hustled from the garage, reaching the car in a flash and getting in. Houston was quick to follow. A quick glance in the rearview let me see Connor and his expression of confusion and fear. Wishing we had more time to explain what was going on, I slammed the car into gear and headed back to the small airstrip where we’d landed. Another glance in the rearview showed the garage ow fully ablaze, the breeze off the lake fanning the flames, pushing them towards the roof of the house. Forcing my eyes back to the road, I drove as fast as I dared, not wanting to draw attention to us. Within 30 min we were airborne on a private charter. Once settled in his seat, Connor fell into a fitful sleep. I sat next to Houston, unsure what to do or say, opting for silence and a hand resting on his forearm. I wanted him to know I was right there for him, not just physically, but I knew he needed time to process what had just gone down. We were leaving the United States behind, his and Connor’s life up in flames, and we were bound for Ireland and a whole fuckton of unknowns.

Houston: Frantic. That was the only word I would use to describe the last hour of my life. We were eating pizza and crying, or at least I was, and now we were hurtling toward the end of a runway in a metal can to be flung into the night sky. Connor would have many questions once the numb of grieving wore off and I wouldn’t have answers, none that would satisfy his young mind anyway. I recounted all the steps even though I knew deep in my gut that Detlene had taken care of every last detail yet my mind wouldn’t rest.

“I love you.” The murmured phrase came from nowhere and everywhere as I took Detlene’s hand in mine when the wheels of the plane left the ground, lifting it from my own skin to my lips. I kissed each knuckle and then scooted closer until I could rest my body against his side. I felt a new kind of exhaustion, one that coupled anxiety and fatigue, and it left me feeling wrecked inside. The only solace I had was the man who arranged this hasty getaway and the fact our small cottage in the middle of nowhere was waiting for us. And that Connor would be included this time.

“A mother wraps her love around the heart of her son,

keeping each beat steady through the rhythm of life,

until wings take shape and it’s time for the soul to take flight.”

"Father means so many things

An understanding heart

A source of strength and of support

Right from the very start.

A constant readiness to help

In a kind and thoughtful way.

With encouragement and forgiveness

No matter what comes your way.

A special generosity and always affection, too

A Father means so many things

When he's a man like you .."

[rawrmeansmemes]

AFI’S 100 years...100 movie Quotes: a random generator meme. Send me a 🎥  and I will generate a number 1-101 and post the quote as a starter. Quotes have been shuffled for true randomization. There are 101 under the cut.

Show me the money!

Who's on first.

Round up the usual suspects.

Is it safe?

I see dead people.

Rosebud.

E.T. phone home.

No wire hangers, ever!

I'm the king of the world!

If you build it, he will come.

Tell 'em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.

What we've got here is failure to communicate.

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.

I am big! It's the pictures that got small.

Go ahead, make my day.

Attica! Attica!

Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars.

What a dump.

I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!

You talking to me?

Hello, gorgeous.

You had me at "hello."

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

Say "hello" to my little friend!

After all, tomorrow is another day!

Plastics.

Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

A boy's best friend is his mother.

Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!

Soylent Green is people!

You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.

I'll have what she's having.

Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.

There's no place like home.

We'll always have Paris.

I'll be back.

There's no crying in baseball!

The stuff that dreams are made of.

Elementary, my dear Watson.

Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL.

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.

Here's looking at you, kid.

Well, nobody's perfect.

Hasta la vista, baby.

I'm walking here! I'm walking here!

As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

They call me Mister Tibbs!

Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armor. Don't you forget it. You're going to get back on that horse, and I'm going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we're gonna go, go, go!

My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you.

Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?

You're gonna need a bigger boat.

Rumack: I am serious...and don't call me Shirley.

Shane. Shane. Come back!

Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet!

Made it, Ma! Top of the world!

Toga! Toga!

You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.

Snap out of it!

Bond. James Bond.

Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Why don't you come up sometime and see me?

They're here!

A martini. Shaken, not stirred.

My precious.

Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!

I want to be alone.

I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!

Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!

Striker: Surely you can't be serious.

Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.

I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!

May the Force be with you.

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.

Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?

You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?

Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac...It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!

It's alive! It's alive!

We rob banks.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Stella! Hey, Stella!

A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Love means never having to say you're sorry.

Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'

Houston, we have a problem.

Here's Johnny!

I feel the need - the need for speed!

I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.

La-dee-da, la-dee-da.

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.

You can't handle the truth!

Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape.

Yo, Adrian!

My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

[eternalsterekrecs]

hi there! I was wondering if you knew of any good prince!stiles & bodyguard!derek fics?

Firstly, you should definitely check our prince Stiles tag.

Secondly, here are some recs for you!

PRINCE!STILES / KNIGHT!DEREK

If I die before my time, bury me upside down by ElisAttack

The boy is all of sixteen years old, a too large crown of gold resting on his head.

The boy is sixteen years old, and Derek knows he would die for him.

Or the one where Stiles is a young King, barely holding onto power, and Derek is his most trusted knight.

just once by stilinskisparkles

“I’m your bodyguard!”

“Yeah, I know, and I get that you’re worried I am somehow living under the illusion you are Kevin Costner and I’m Whitney Houston, but Derek?” Stiles grabs his tie before Derek can stop him, pulls him close enough to murmur in his ear, “I can’t sing.”

A Devotion by TroubleIWant

There’s a boy exiting the doors as they approach. Where Derek is tan from hours outside, the boy is pale except for a few beauty marks on one cheek. He’s dressed in fine riding clothes, and flanked by a guard wearing the sign of the royal house. A noble, then. He’s younger than Derek, but, considering his higher station, a bow would be appropriate. Despite that, Derek can’t help looking curiously at the boy, who’s looking back at Derek with just as much interest. For a moment, their eyes meet - the boy’s are a deep amber in the sunlit courtyard, ringed by long, tawny lashes.

A gloved hand smacks the back of Derek’s head and he instinctively flinches away, hunching his shoulders. He loses track of the other boy as they pass one another, and as he turns to get another look, the knight grabs his shoulder and marches him forward into the stable.

“Keep your eyes to yourself,” the knight instructs. “And next time, show the proper respect to Crown Prince Stiles.”

Or: A medieval AU that's a little Princess Bride, a little bit more Game of Thrones, and a healthy side-serving of gay erotica.

Never Did Run Smooth by blacktofade and rarepairenabler

Medieval Chasing Liberty AU: As the only son of King Stilinski, Stiles doesn't have a lot of freedom, but he doesn't let that stop him from traveling for days to the biggest festival of the season with a begrudging stranger, Derek.

an exultation of larks by llassah

There are times when he feels as if they could fall into bed together, easy as breathing. If Stiles were not highborn, if he were an omega without connections, Derek would be sorely tempted. As it is, he resists. Derek wants, he yearns, but he resists. Still, the sight of Stiles in his cot is enough to test him, even now that it is familiar. At the end of each lambing season, he sleeps for a week, worn down by months of hard work, of relentless struggle. He doesn’t know how he’ll feel by the time Stiles leaves, how he’ll feel after long days and longer nights spent resisting the insistent tug of Stiles’s scent and the inclinations of his own foolish heart.

All Derek wants is to get through the lambing season with his body and spirit intact. He had thought that the blizzards would be the main danger, not a highborn omega with beautiful eyes and a stubborn streak.

By Moon And Stars by kellifer_fic

"Have you heard of this Alpha?" Stiles asks, shuffling up his pallet so Scott has room to sit. Scott does with a grateful little twist of his mouth. Stefan forces him into the Stilinski ceremonial armor when they travel and Stiles can see that it's heavy and doesn't sit well on Scott. He can't shift encased in metal and Stefan knows it.

"I know of him, mostly stories that seem a little fantastical. Shifters exaggerate just like common people. They like their war stories."

"Tell me of him. Tell me a war story."

as my lord commands by wearing_tearing

“So you are highborn,” Derek says after a few minutes. “I should be calling you ‘my lord’.”

Stiles makes a face at him.

“You do that and I’ll piss in your boots.”

Bite Down Hard by KuriKuri (not exactly prince but close enough!)

For a moment, Derek can’t breathe.

Because moles aren’t the only thing marring the pale skin of Stiles’ neck. Oh no, that’s –

– that’s a bond bite. A bond bite which Stiles definitely did not have yesterday, and which appears to have roughly the same dimensions as Derek’s own mouth.

Shit.

(Or: In which Secret Service Agent Derek Hale accidentally gets bonded to First Son Stiles Stilinski. Oops.)

[damonsbitchx]

Where Am I?

Wowza, so I think my first fic is finally done. I wanted to have it out sooner, but I got carried away trying to get it out too fast and turns out I didn’t like it. However, after a few days of careful revision, I think I’m happy with it. Please bear with me as it is my first fic. I would love to hear any feedback you have, I think constructive criticism is good too.

Summary: I got the idea to write this while re-watching season 8 episode 1 “We Need To Talk About Kevin.” Basically, it’s what happens between Dean returning from Purgatory and getting to Benny’s grave.

Warnings: Well I’m not completely sure what counts as angst yet, so maybe a little of that, season 8 spoilers, and mentions of blood, but that’s all.

Characters: Reader and Dean

Word count: 3540 lol 

1 / ?

Send me an ask if you would like to be tagged in any more of my stuff.

You’re happily driving your little ol’ chevy truck down a fairly narrow road, miles of forest on each side of you passing in a blur of green and brown and a blue sky flying above you. Your radio is playing and you’re enthusiastically listening to a Bon Jovi song which admittedly is unusual for you. When you found yourself mumbling along with him you confidently adjusted your grip on the steering wheel, smirking at yourself and singing a little louder. After a few minutes and couple miles down the road, you caught a glimpse of unusual movement weaving between the trees. You instinctively slowed down to try and get a better look and find out what it was when the figure emerged from the trees in the shape of a man. He stumbled up to the road frantically waving his right arm in the air to flag you down. You can see the stranger better and better the closer you get, he was a fairly tall and broad looking man. His short scruffy brown hair was sticking in all different directions and his face was barely visible through the dirt and what seems to be…

..Blood?

You felt the small recognizable pang of panic in your stomach before it was cut short by your foot reflexively slamming the brake pedal and jerking you back to reality. All you could seem to do for the few seconds following was stare horrified at the man standing in front of your truck with one arm stiffly outstretched, his chest heaving rapidly. You released the breath you didn’t realize you were holding and you briefly notice how his left arm is secured tightly against his abdominal area, but you don’t linger for too long as you look the rest of him over. Your eyes finally met his, locking his attention as he stood right where he was and let his arms relax to his sides. You could visibly notice the relief cleansing his features like a wave when he saw you pull your keys from the ignition and step out of the truck. 

You made your way over to him cautiously, stopping a few safe feet away from the strange man, looking him over again. He’s much taller than you thought he was, he quite intimidatingly towers over you. What’s more, he looked like he could bench press a cow, but you seriously doubted he could. 

You carefully inspected his body language as you took in each feature he carries. His caramel leather jacket covered in dried mud and his jeans looked over-worn, the couple rips in the knees didn’t seem like they were there before. You were sure if his legs weren’t bowed he would be at least 3 inches taller. His shoulders were slightly hunched over and the dark circles around his eyes made him look older than he probably was. His lips were chapped, from what, you didn’t know, dehydration probably. Out of all the handsome features on his alert face, his cheekbones were rather high and stuck out the most as well as it seems like he hadn’t been able to shave in weeks. You couldn’t really tell if he was tired, terrified, relieved, or all of the above. His slightly shaky hands looked as if he’d been working on a car and then murdered someone before you found him.

Blood. There is definitely blood.

“Are you hurt?” You spoke softly as you inched closer to him with caution.

He his eyes met and held your gaze, chest still heaving, but he didn’t respond to your question. He took a couple shuffle steps forward and winced slightly, his eyes snapped shut and you could tell he was grinding his teeth by the movement of his lower jaw. He opened his eyes and shook his head a moment later, wobbling a bit as his eyes pulled back to focus on you once again.

“You need help, can I help you?” You pressed, leaning towards him stretching your arms out in his direction, ready to catch him if he began to fall.

He nodded slowly at first, still slightly struggling to even out his breathing. “Yes,” he whispered in a low gravely voice, wincing again subtly and rubbing gently at the arm he had pinned to his midsection only a few minutes earlier. He stumbled forward slightly and caught himself with his right arm, bracing himself against the hood of your truck. You saw him begin to stumble and reflexively shot your arms out to catch him, your body following close behind. 

“Where am I?” he groaned through gritted teeth. 

“Woah woah, take it easy buddy, you’re in Houston,” you told him, your chest now pressed up against his shoulder and his t-shirt is balled up in your right hand as you desperately tried to keep him steady.

“Texas?” he groans, dropping his head in frustration.

“Well, where do you need to be?” you question him again.

He lifted his head, the stubble on his cheek catching a few strands of your hair, you barely caught him wincing again in pain. 

“I need to be in Louisiana.” he breathed into your ear. You felt the trail of goosebumps prickle on your neck following the hot breath of the stranger. The warm air sent a shiver shooting down your spine.

“What’s your name?” you managed to say, stuttering only slightly, setting your gaze to his electric green eyes that you hadn’t noticed until now.

Those eyes are gorgeous... what, NO, focus Y/N. He needs your help.

He lifted his eyes to meet yours and his low raspy voice filled your ears, “I’m Dean, Dean Winchester.”

A handsome name for a handsome man, I guess.

Against your better judgment, remembering the stranger danger rule that they taught kids, you decided you were going to help this stranger; you had just met him, but you were going to help him. You couldn’t explain why, what was different about him, but there was just something tugging at you, you had to help him.

“Alright Dean, I’m gonna help you into my truck,” you informed him after a few seconds of internally arguing with yourself. You then proceeded to sling his good arm around your shoulders and guide him carefully to the passenger seat of your truck, helping him in and shutting the door behind him. Before he knew it you had walked around the front of the truck and were at his side again, shutting your door and promptly turning your keys in the ignition. You both sat still listening to the sound of your engine turning over before you spoke again, “So, Dean…” you spoke softly, but you couldn’t seem to figure out which question you wanted to ask first. To fill the awkward silence Dean spoke up. 

“I don’t think I got your name.” He guided his gaze over to you and muscled up a grin in your direction. You huffed a small breathy laugh the goofy grin suddenly playing on his face, smiling back and you replied, “I’m Y/N.”

He seems quite charming.

“Well Y/N, uh... thanks for giving me a lift,” he said with a genuine smile forming on his lips that lit up his eyes for a brief second.

“Yeah, no problem. What were you doing all the way out there anyway?” you questioned him with a glint of curiosity in your eyes.

“I was camping with some buddies and I got lost, that’s all.” he shrugged looking out his window. You could feel some tension start to develop, so you decided to try and lay off for a while. It looked like this guy had been through a lot.

About ten minutes after you had quit speaking you could have sworn you could feel his eyes crawling all over you, carefully exploring all of your features. You glanced at him subtly to find that you were right, he was probably trying to decide whether or not you were a crazy psychopath murderer or not. 

Which is strange since he’s the one covered in dry blood and giving vague answers.

“It looks like there might be more to the story than you’re telling me, Dean Winchester,” you spoke before realizing what you were saying.

Your eyes grew wide at the realization and you internally cursed yourself, shutting your eyes briefly and sighing. He peered at you, raising his eyebrows, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. You raised your hands defensively and raised your eyebrows back at him, pulling your eyes back to the road “Okay, okay I get it, I won’t ask again, sorry. I am curious about what happened to your arm though.” You just couldn’t seem to stop, so you just smiled sheepishly at him. Your eyes desperately searched his face as much as your peripheral would allow while you anxiously awaited another defensive reaction from Dean. He simply huffed a small chuckle, though you couldn’t figure out what was so amusing about this.

Why is it so easy to talk around this ma-- Dean?

He looked down at his arm and took a breath before he looked back up at you. “I just tripped while I was running, it’s nothing I can’t handle,” he replied and smiled warmly at you. You glanced at him with a confused look because there was clearly no blood stain on his sleeve indicating he had injured it. You began to worry again the more you thought about it, so you just chose to brush it off for now. You figured you would have time to find out what really happened to him between now and Louisiana.

You both spent the rest of the hour-long car ride pretty silent. You had turned on the radio and chatted with Dean about your tastes in music, but most of the time you sang quietly to the songs that came on the radio. Occasionally, he would glance over at you and you would spot him crack a small smile every now and then at your ridiculous singing. You were actually having an okay time considering you had just met him and he was covered in blood, you really didn’t want the car ride to end.

You finally arrived at your house and it felt all too soon for both you and Dean. Perhaps in a different way for him judging by the way looked over at you as you pulled into the driveway.

“What are we doing here?” he concernedly questioned you, furrowing his eyebrows.

You rolled your eyes at him and plucked the keys from the ignition. “Well, I just figured it would be nice to get you cleaned up and let you change out of those filthy clothes you have on before you make me drive you all the way to Louisiana.”

“I won’t make you drive me to Louisiana, I can find another ride,” he retorted, sounding impatient and slightly annoyed.

“No, I….. ugh I want to drive you to Louisiana, but first you’re going to go inside and get cleaned up. I have some clothes you can have and quite frankly you look starved,” you blurted out, your voice a bit louder and more insistent than before. You immediately regretted the abomination that had just come from your mouth, but you continued to stare stubbornly at him in spite of it. He stared back at you with a bewildered look on his face for a good few seconds. You both sat in there staring each other down, waiting for the other to give. You were about to let your fed up anger take over and just drive him straight to Louisiana like he obviously wanted, but you could see his features slowly begin to soften up like he was finally going agree to go inside and get cleaned up. He rolled his eyes in defeat which triggered you to energetically hop out of the truck and run over to his door which was already open.

“Do you need me to help walk you to the door?” you asked, suddenly becoming very serious, scanning his face with slight concern considering what happened an hour ago when you found him. He glared up at you through his surprisingly long lashes and shook his head raising his hand up to assure you. 

“I’m fine, thanks,” he said sourly while he carefully stood the rest of the way up. 

The sudden feeling of a heavy hand squeezing your shoulder almost knocked you over. You realized he was trying to steady himself. Your right hand reflexively shot out and grabbed the arm attached to the hand that was practically suffocating your shoulder and the other pressed firmly against his ribs until you thought he was steady. He locked eyes with you for a moment silently telling you he needed help. So, you nodded and he allowed you to sling his right arm around your shoulders again as he shut his door with the elbow of his other arm. His eyes drifted to you occasionally while you lead him to the small white front door that so sweetly complimented your pale blue house. On the way up the few stairs, you noticed his eyes drifting to some Japanese Cherry Blossom trees in bloom on the other side of your driveway and your vibrant green yard. You smiled briefly, pulling your eyes away before he could catch you.

You pulled your keys out of your right pocket when you arrived at the door, your left arm gripping his shoulder a bit tighter than you wanted to, but then you couldn’t seem to will your hand to loosen. You unlocked the door, ignoring all the ways your hand was disobeying you as you walked Dean inside, shutting the door gently behind you with your foot. You both walked through the narrow white hallway leading into your living room and you helped sit him down on your couch, smiling at him as you briskly rounded the corner and hurried further down the hallway.

Dean sat patiently and waited for you, even with the pounding pain coursing through his body that he knew full well was rooted in his arm.

BENNY. We’ll get there. I just need to clea-- her couch smells like lavender.

Deans thoughts were interrupted by Y/N reappearing in the doorway carrying what looked like a weird tiny white briefcase that he decided was a first aid kit and he subtly rolled his eyes at you. In her other arm, she carried a pile of clothes and a towel. He watched her determined expression carefully as she gracefully set the items piled in her arms down onto the cute little wooden coffee table a few inches from where he sat, then she pulled up a chair directly in front of him. When her gaze finally met his he noticed a tint of rose push into her cheeks and smiled his signature half smile at her. The two of you sat comfortably under the other's eyes for a few long moments after she sat down, though neither of you knew why. A minute or so passed by, then suddenly she perked up, startling him a bit, and she grabbed the first aid kit in her small hands, plopping it in her lap while she reached out for his arm. 

“Here, I’ll take a look at your arm.” 

He reflexively jerked his arm away from her and stuttered as he racked his brain for a good excuse. He stared at her trying to push words out of his mouth and then blurted out, “actually I’m uh... I’m kinda worn, I think I’ll just go shower.” 

He pushed himself off the sweet lavender smelling couch while he internally cursed himself. He quickly grabbed the clothes and the towel glancing up at her confused eyes apologetically. She caught the glance he shot at her, to which she replied, “It’s okay, Dean, I understand. Take as much time as you need.” 

After that, she smiled a polite smile that didn’t quite make it to her eyes and just barely nodded her head in his direction head to assure him it was okay. 

“The bathroom is the second door on the left,” she added as he nodded. He lingered in the doorway as long as he could get away with, then spun around and hurried off to the bathroom.

An hour later you found yourself standing in the kitchen making a sandwich when Dean walked in seeing that you were busy, so chose not to bother you. He made his way quietly to the table and sat in a nice wooden chair at the far end. You hadn’t noticed him until you turned around, but when you finally did you gasped loudly jumping back and you were just barely able to keep the plate in your hands. 

“Dean,” you sighed, placing your free hand on your stomach, “you scared me.”  

You glided over to him and placed the plate down in front of him, “I thought you might be hungry, but I didn’t know what you liked so I just made you a sandwich.” 

He looked up at you, almost gleaming now and grinned wider than you’d seen. He rubbed his hands together hungrily, “thank you, Y/N.” 

He chuckled quietly before he began to dig into the delicious sandwich in front of him. You sat in the chair next to him, mesmerized, watching him greedily gobble up half the sandwich in a span of maybe a minute-thirty. He looked up at you through his lashes and paused for a few seconds smiling sheepishly with a mouth full of sandwich. He then proceeded to wipe his mouth with his wrist and chuckle lowly, “sorry, feels like it’s been a year since I’ve had a decent meal.” 

You didn’t break eye contact, you just smiled cheekily and replied, “no, please, I’m glad you like it. You seem to be feeling much better.”

He smiled at you acknowledging your observation with his mouth still full. He continued to inhale the sandwich you had made for him while you got up and scurried around your kitchen putting the food away. 

Once he had finished, he rinsed the pale red ceramic plate in your sink and dried it off, then handed it to you and you promptly put it away, fully aware that Dean was now watching you. You turned towards him after you finished and grinned.

“So, are you ready for the four-hour drive to Louisiana border?” you asked while you grabbed your jacket and your keys. He almost didn’t hear you, his eyes were so engulfed in the graceful movements of your hands until the few seconds of unnecessary silence pulled him back to reality. His bright green eyes flicked up to meet yours, which were now watching him patiently and you raised an eyebrow at him waiting for an answer while you tried your hardest to suppress the giggle that lingered behind your smirk. He cleared his throat, “Uh yeah, yeah, let’s go.” 

You both deemed it best to brush off the behavior, walking through the hallway once more. You followed close behind him until you were out the door, then you turned around and locked it behind you while he continued to make his way to your truck. By the time you finished locking the door and started making your way to your truck he was already shutting his door. 

The Japanese Cherry Blossom trees caught your eye in their beautiful prime state, so you decided you’d walk over to admire it before you began your journey. Standing in front of it for a few seconds admiring the flowers seemed to be just what you needed.

Her Y/E/C eyes, they’re so bright and liv-- ahh Benny, we’ll get there. Calm down!

Dean’s thoughts were interrupted once again when you yanked open your door and climbed in. He was startled when you grabbed his hand, pulling against your grip, but you held on, turning his hand over and watching his face carefully. His eyes were focused on your fist moving closer to his palm. Once your fingers brushed the skin of his hand you released your fist.

He glanced at you in confusion and felt something soft and weightless fall in his palm. You smiled at him and let his hand go, turning back to the wheel and turning your keys in the ignition, letting your engine turn over before informing him, “I saw you looking at them on the way in.” 

You grinned at Dean while his confused eyes became less and less confused, flicking from you to the gorgeous pink flower in his palm and you.

“You’re welcome,” you smirked winking at him and backing your truck out of the driveway. Neither of you knew it yet, but that flower marked the beginning of a four-hour car ride that would change the rest of both your lives.