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pallasperilous · 3 years

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Occursus

Castiel/Dean Winchester Gen/Teen, 4341 words 15x20 coda AO3 version “The natural environment of the human soul is a human body,” Cas says. “Humans have yet to meet a foreign substrate that they don’t immediately attempt to colonize. My form in Hell was not an exception.”

Then he shuts his mouth very deliberately and gestures back to Dean like his mic is going live in three, two. “Or the bit where my soul gave you some kind of STD?” Dean finishes. “It was a poor analogy. I apologize.” “So what’s a better one?” Castiel drums his fingers for a second. “It’s more like…the way a parasitic jewel wasp injects a cockroach with venom, and transforms it into a willing host for wasp larvae.” “Holy shit are you ever bad at this,” Dean says, with that signature brand of fond horror he special-orders just for Castiel, Angel of the Gourd.

It’s half past midnight by the time Dean gets another run at Cas.

Granted, what the fuck does half past midnight even mean here, where time is as free as tap water? Why does anybody even bother? For all it matters, Dean could set his watch to eleventy minutes past twenty o’ nope and still never miss last call.

Then again, somebody felt it necessary to invent the idea of Tuesday in the first place, and Dean’s not gonna volunteer himself for the task of replacing it with something better. What’s important is that he’s survived (or rather, he hasn’t survived) a battery of poignant moments and tearful reunions. He and Sam hugged out burdens registering in the triple digits. They even had a little fight, pretty much for the fun of it, while Ellen fucking Harvelle watched them over the bar with her eyes shining. She still charged them, though.

Right at the beginning of the party Dean and Castiel had their eyes-across-the-room thing, followed by the same magnetic, exhausted embrace they’ve shared on just about every plane of reality now. Dean supposes he could ask Cas for a nickel tour of the Empty just so they could hit for the cycle, but he’d really rather not. Sam let them eke out a few gruff, tear-choked monosyllables before diving in, sweeping Cas up in a bear hug and laughing like a fucking kid. Dean doesn’t push it, because it’s been longer for Sam, after all. Or something.

And now it’s quiet, just the jukebox and the clink of glasses back in the kitchen, a few folks murmuring in booths. It might be dark outside, it might not; it’s waiting on Dean’s opinion before it commits to anything. And so is Cas, who is standing in the warm glow of the jukebox, hands in his pockets.

Dean walks up, leans against it, bottle still dangling from one hand.

“C’mon, sunshine. I’ll show you yours, you show me mine.”

Cas looks up and into Dean’s eyes with the wary, elegant patience of a deer. “What is it that you would be showing me, Dean?”

Dean gives him a long, languid blink and bites his lip, and Castiel lags for half a second before rolling his own eyes. “I see death hasn’t refined your sense of humor.”

“Nope. Guess the billionth time aint the charm.”

Cas remains stonefaced, which means a corresponding you dumbass blush starts crawling up the sides of Dean’s neck. The jukebox switches records like it’s making a suggestion.

“I’m gonna sit down outside,” Dean says. “C’mon and sit down with me. There’s a patio somewhere, right? Ellen was always talking about adding one out back. No way she hasn’t bossed somebody into buildin’ it.”

“There’s a patio,” Cas says, taking his hands out of his pockets.

Heaven’s patio is pretty nice; twenty square feet, some scattered picnic tables, fences covered in ivy and string lights. It still smells like fresh pine boards. There’s even a fire pit, which seems kinda bougie for the Roadhouse, but hell with it, it’s warm and pretty, and since when did pretentious people get to lay claim to “a hole with a fire in it”? There’s no moon overhead, and so the Milky Way is giving them the full monty — the runnelled spine of it, the ribcage packed with galaxies.

“Are they all alive?” Dean asks. The warmth from inside leaks out of his collar, wisps away.

“Who?”

Dean points up. “The stars. They always make a big deal about how most of the stars you can see from Earth have been dead for millions of years by the time we get the light from ‘em. That still true here? Or is everything on auto-renewal?”

“That’s a very complicated question,” Cas says, not looking up, only at Dean. He does that a lot, Dean knows, but it turns out to mean something different than what Dean had always assumed, which was ironically pretty similar to what it actually meant, but was reassuringly unactionable and therefore unfuckupable.

“I’m a very complicated guy,” Dean says.

Castiel smiles at that. “I don’t actually know the answer,” he admits. “And it would take an extremely long time to investigate. There are some other things I’d rather do first.”

“What, you can’t just call the kid for directory assistance?”

Castiel lets a good-humored sigh. “Like many young people these days, Jack prefers to avoid the phone.”

This is a solid riff, and Dean respects it. He picks the table closest to the fire and takes a bench and Cas sits next to him, instead of opposite. Dean thought he managed to break him of this habit a few years ago, but here all things are made whole again.

“So what,” Cas says, without a single molecule of playfulness or seduction, “is it that you want us to show each other?”

“Yeah, I was…it was a dumb joke. But I mean it, just not in a ‘playing doctor’ way.”

Castiel frowns, tightens his lips; the firelight throws a fluttering shadow across his face.

“I mean…Christ.” Dean takes a medicinal slug of his dwindling beer. “I don’t really look like this anymore either, right?” And he gestures at his usual shitshow personal presentation, which death has also noticeably failed to refine.

Castiel frowns, smoothes his hand across the surface of the table. “This is a corporeal world, Dean. It operates on a different set of rules, but your body here is no more of an illusion than it was on earth.”

“Seriously?” Dean ponders a second, squints through the dim light at his fingernails, at the high-resolution grime contained therein. “Jesus, that sounds like a lot of work. At least compared to Holodeck Heaven.”

“It is. But we didn’t build this place to be a...a…doorprize. It’s a real world,” Castiel enthuses, looming forward. “It’s the one that should have been created for all of you in the first place.” He pauses, glances down. “For all of us.”

Dean shrugs. “Okay, so no holograms. I’ll keep all that in mind next time Charlie tries to convince me to go skydiving.”

Castiel snorts, but not in pure aggravation, so Dean feels like he’s finally got a point on the board. “What I’m sayin’ is…physical or not, this place has different rules, right? So could I look at you without my eyeballs exploding? The…you know, the angel parts of you. Not just your vessel,” and Dean fwippies his hand at Cas to indicate that true beauty is contained within and Dean is completely indifferent to the fact this dork-ass alien managed to bodysnatch a guy who’s never dipped below an 8.5.

“It isn’t a vessel anymore. We can create our own bodies, now.”

“Peachy,” Dean clips, because that shit is a little late coming off the line.

Castiel sighs. “You could see me in that form without coming to harm. But you should know that I don’t consider it any more a reflection who I am than this form. Not anymore.”

Dean rolls the bottle towards him, nudges a knuckle. “You’re a real boy now, huh?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Castiel says, and smiles a smile so small that Dean would need a microscope to figure out if it’s pleased or pained.

So Dean thwacks the bottle down on the totally-real table and claps his totally-real hands. “Well then let’s go. Hit me with that angel weirdness. If we’re gonna do this, I gotta taste all thirty-one flavors.”

Castiel smiles a little more convincingly, but it still doesn’t reach his eyes. “There are really only the two,” he says, and holds his palms out to the warmth of the fire.

“Great, then we’ll be done in time to catch Letterman. Then if you’re good maybe you can help me shimmy out of this thing.”

Cas cocks his head. “Out of which thing?”

“This super real heavenly meat-suit, dude. It’s not fair if only one of us gets naked. Peep show has to go both ways. I see your angel-face, you see my soul.”

Cas looks stricken, like Dean is asking to suck on his toes next to a playground. “I mean, unless that’d fuck you up,” Dean adds.

“No,” Castiel replies, a little absently. “It wouldn’t fuck me up. But it…wouldn’t really accomplish anything, either.”

“What, no soul kink? That’s bullshit and you know it. You love this crap.”

Castiel replies, “Your soul is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” with the easy confidence of a regular latte order. With the same uncanny, 2 Blessed 2 B Stressed face he had when Dean plowed Ruby’s knife hilt-deep into Jimmy Novak’s sternum, that he had when the Empty collapsed him like a carcass in an acid bath.

That face shuts Dean right the fuck up, because it sends him skipping backwards into that fucking basement, where his phone is buzzing and the gritty concrete chill of the floor is seeping through his jeans into the useless meat of his legs and leeching into the hot, wet channels of his piece of shit heart.

Turns out you can work up a good little panic attack in heaven, which seems like a significant oversight.

From a million miles away he feels Cas’s warm, dry palm slide over the back of his hand –– there’s a ring there now that Dean lost down a motel sink drain ages ago, is nobody spotting continuity errors here?—then Cas’s hand tightens on his and it feels like a Xanax kicking in. (The good kind, direct from the hot nurse with the little paper cup, not the kind you get in a from a shady burnout at a truckstop, that’s been ground up with baking soda or benadryl and carefully remolded, as if you could possibly give that much of a shit when you’re freaking out bad enough to buy Xanax at a truckstop.)

Point being, he calms the fuck down.

Cas has good hands. They can do a lot of impressive shit, and they look nice doing it. They don’t look like –– they’ve never looked like –– they belong to somebody whose main job is destroying people, places, or things. They’re hands that how to play the cello, or make tables from reclaimed wood, or give soapy, encompassing handjobs in the shower on cold evenings.

“It’s been years, though,” Dean rasps, not looking up yet. “I was a kid when you got me out of Hell, Cas. I’ve done a lot of shit since then. Maybe souls get stretch marks.”

Castiel’s hand tightens on his, clamps it down on the table. “I’ve always been able to see it.”

“Okay,” Dean mumbles, but Cas keeps on going –

“The only time I couldn’t see any part of your soul was when I was without grace, and I promise you that was one of the greatest deprivations imaginable.”

Dean snorts, looks away, but his hand is still on lockdown. “Worse than going hungry, huh?”

“Much.”

“Hey, what about Sam? Or, hell, fucking Donatello. They both were both walking around minus their creamy filling, and you didn’t say boo.”

Cas shrugs. “I can’t see their souls under ordinary circumstances.”

“So what, mine’s just extra loud, or day-glo, or what?”

“It’s both of those things, but that isn’t why,” Cas answers, and the boy is downright wry.

Dean tugs his hand out, raps his knuckles against the wood. “Okay, so stop bein’ coy and tell me before I get a complex. And if you say it’s because of love or some shit, I’m bailing to Rowena’s.”

“You infected me,” Cas says.

“Uh,” says Dean.

The fire pops and a log shifts; Cas glances over at the kerfuffle, absently lifts his fingers to his chin like he’s looking for an old scar. “In Hell, when I retrieved you…I had to grip your raw soul. I was meant to wear a gauntlet, so I wouldn’t be burned.”

Dean snickers. “You’re telling me you were supposed to be wearing a soul condom. What happened, you get too excited and forget to suit up? It’s okay, I know I’m a lot to take in.”

Castiel purses his lips. “No, I was properly armored. But my arm was torn off in combat shortly before I reached you.”

“Ouch.”

“Ouch,” Cas agrees. “I didn’t have time to retrieve the arm or its protection from the pit, so I had to grow a new one very quickly.”

Dean really should’ve switched to whiskey before starting this. “What, you didn’t pack a spare?” He wheezes.

“Ordinarily, yes, I would have had the resources, but I was equipped very lightly for that mission. It was a raid, not a siege. You understand the difference.”

“Sure, yeah, you left your emergency arms in the trunk. So you just popped out a new one. No big.”

“It was a big. Your soul was close enough that it forced me to grow a human arm, instead of a much quicker and more powerful extensor.”

“Okay, uh,” Dean pinches at the bridge of his nose, “there’s a lot to unpack there.”

“What part of it confuses you?”

“I dunno, the bit where apparently angels are I guess heavenly octopuses,”

“The plural in the Greek is octopodes,” Cas interjects, not without pleasure.

Dean glowers. “Or the part where you can apparently swap in different drill bits,” Dean continues,

“Mm,” Cas notes, careful not to open his mouth,

“Or that I, like, accidentally bullied you into growing a person arm,” and Dean pauses for breath here, which Cas evidently takes as permission to dive in with more Planet Earth commentary.

“The natural environment of the human soul is a human body,” he says. “Humans have yet to meet a foreign substrate that they don’t immediately attempt to colonize. My form in Hell was not an exception.” Then he shuts his mouth very deliberately and gestures back to Dean like his mic is going live in three, two.

“Or the bit where my soul gave you some kind of STD?” Dean finishes.

“It was a poor analogy. I apologize.”

“So what’s a better one?”

Castiel drums his fingers for a second, listens to the fire pop in its little cage. “It’s more like…the way a parasitic jewel wasp injects a cockroach with venom, and transforms it into a willing host for wasp larvae.”

“Holy shit are you ever bad at this,” Dean says, with that signature brand of fond horror he special-orders just for Castiel, Angel of the Gourd.

“What I’m trying to avoid saying,” Castiel sighs, “is that you rubbed off on me.”

Dean nods. “Yeah. That’s fair. I wouldn’t be dumb enough to say that around me, either.” He lays a couple little pats on Cas’s hand. “Lookit you, though, seeing around that corner. I’m proud of you, man. That would’ve totally flipped your breaker back in the day.”

“Just one of the many ways you have reshaped me, Dean,” Cas says, with warm sarcasm.

“Alright, so you rawdogged me, I whammied you. Chocolate, peanut butter, peanut butter, chocolate.”

Cas’s forehead wrinkles in skepticism. “I still prefer the cockroach. But some part of your soul injected itself into one of my more exposed frequencies. Under different circumstances, I would’ve stopped and excised the affected area before it spread, but. I was being pursued, and the mission had taken much longer than any of us anticipated.”

“Us? Thought it was just you down there.”

Cas looks vaguely offended, straightens and folds his arms like he just remembered he’s giving a deposition. “No, of course not. Michael assigned sixty-six angels in eleven groups of six, each escorted to the field by a seraph. We struck simultaneously at six different areas in perdition. From there we dispersed to individual targets –– to cause as much chaos as possible in order to help obscure the object of our mission, and to increase the odds that one of us would actually find you.”

“And you were the lucky winner.” Dean pushes down a touch of sick shame at the thought of it — he’d been coiled up like a snake around somebody else’s torment, anesthetized by it. It was one of the random rags of infernal time where his own pain decreased in proportion to how much he dealt out, and that was the closest thing Hell had to a Friday night.

“I was,” Castiel nods. “I took some liberties with my assignment,” he adds, squinting. “I flattered myself that I shared a special affinity with The Righteous Man.”

“That guy always sounded like kind of a cunt to me,” Dean notes. “You know, not withstanding the fact that I’m him.”

Castiel shrugs. “I found you, and I did what was necessary to save you, and my siblings did what was necessary to save me.” A little falter enters his voice. “Only twelve of us returned from that mission.” Cas looks up, out, away. A dove coos somewhere nearby of the Roadhouse; did it have a run-in with the windshield of an eighteen wheeler one day and show up here, Dean wonders, or does heaven make its own birds from scratch? That’s gotta be a softball compared to whether Betelgeuse is still open for business.

Castiel waits until the bird shuts up, then says, “Of those twelve surviving angels, I personally murdered nine, in everything that followed.”

After a moment Dean says “Yeah,” with practiced neutrality. He’s got some similar tallies, written in Sharpie on the back of his eyelids.

Cas sighs and his attention comes back down to the table. “By the time I received the authority to restore your soul to your body, the infection had spread almost past the point of containment. That’s why I resisted taking a vessel at first. I worried that occupying a human form would speed up the process.”

“Hey now. I thought you showed up naked because you thought I’d be one of those special people,” Dean quips, “Who can handle angel stuff without going all kibbles ’n bits.”

“That was only a partial truth.”

Dean tips the beer bottle in salute. “You’re a real special flavor of asshole, Cas.”

“So I’ve been told. I was right, though. When I took Jimmy as a vessel, I contracted — condensed — myself very severely. The infection had a much shorter distance to travel to reach all of my extremities, and a human form was the most hospitable environment possible.”

“You got a raging case of the Deans.”

Cas’s head kicks back in a laugh that kinda surprises them both. “Yes,” he says, grinning. “I did. I was very displeased, and very concerned I’d be found out and judged unfit for duty. And I very much was. Unfit, that is. Though I was not found out.”

“C’mon, never? You went rogue on the company.”

“Uriel suspected. Naomi certainly detected it later, as did Metatron. But in the moment, no. The Host’s attention was focused on the Apocalypse ahead, not on debriefing a mission that was considered a success. After the Cage was closed, I had too much influence to come under that level of scrutiny.”

“Hmh.” Dean realizes he’s been systematically picking down the label on the beer bottle, so he sets it on the ground before he gets sticky little shreds everywhere. “So I gotta ask. My little souvenir, the handprint. That’s where you grabbed me, with your lil…Mister Potato Head human arm?”

“It is.”

“If I’m the one who infected you, how come I’m the one who got burned?”

“My hand didn’t burn you.”

“Well, it ain’t fingerpaint.”

“Your own soul burned it, as it flowed out of your flesh and into mine. It burned until the moment when I finally released you from my grip. My hand healed itself; your arm did not.” Castiel gives a thin scoff. “I hadn’t planned to leave you interred.”

“Oh, no? Well that’s nice to hear, you know, a decade after the fact. I still have nightmares about that shit.”

Castiel winces. “It’s no excuse, but I was in a great deal of…the equivalent of pain. It took an immense effort to break off the inflow of your soul, and when I did manage it, I was thrown quite a ways by the recoil. By the time I recovered enough to return, you were already looting a gas station,” He finishes, dryly.

“Yeah, well, Dad didn’t think much of leisure as a virtue. Also I was thirsty, because I’d just crawled out of my own grave.”

“And I was distracted, because I’d just fought my way out of the inferno while being digested by a demented human soul.”

“You wanna call it even?”

Cas lifts his brows. “If you don’t mind.”

There is a long, dark breath, during which their little smiles fade.

“So, all that,” Dean says, because he’s a fucking coward.

“All that,” says Cas, because he isn’t.

Dean clears his throat. “That means you can see my soul-stuff 24/7, huh?”

Castiel slides one leg up onto the bench, shifts to sit astride it, like he’s maybe about to deliver an after-school PSA on the Real Deal About Drugs. “I can always see myself, and extensions of my self. And since your soul made itself into an integral part of me…I can see you.”

“I take it that’s not exactly in the manual.”

“No. I didn’t entirely understand it at first — for a long time, I convinced myself it was because you were designed to be a celestial vessel, and that I had been destined to save you from Hell.”

That thin, acidic feelings starts to rise up in Dean’s chest again. “Do you…” A dry swallow reflex grabs his throat. “Hm. Fuck.”

“What?” Cas asks, scooting forward. An angel. Scooting. What a world. “You can ask me anything, Dean. I hope we’re both past being offended.”

“Have you ever thought that. This whole deal. Our…thing.” Dean lets out a breath. “The way you feel about me. The way I feel about you.”

“Do I worry that its only basis is our shared material?”

Dean licks his lips, works a jaw muscle, forces out a nod.

Cas frowns, sets one elbow up against the table, then lets his head tip to the side. “Why do you love Sam?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I get it, he’s my brother. We got shared material, too. But we’re not talking genetics.”

“Genes were the initial basis of your love for Sam. But you share half as much material with Adam. Do you love him fifty percent as much as you do Sam?”

“One, love doesn’t work that way and you know it, and two, fucking of course not. I barely know the guy, and what I’ve seen didn’t exactly blow me away.” Not that the poor dumb kid ever really had a chance. “Sam’s Sam, he’s earned it a million times over just by bein’ him.”

“Then you understand.”

“But Cas, man…I…” Dean laughs, which is an abbreviated form of screaming, “I treated you like shit.”

Cas nods. “You did.”

“Okay, the rules say you’re not supposed to agree with me.”

“But the balance remains in your favor. Dean, are you genuinely afraid that you — care for me…” and Dean can hear the FCC live-bleep in that one, like does his total cowardice have a special color Cas can see with his soul-o-vision? “Only out of some compulsion?”

“No,” Dean says, to the great surprise of his frontal cortex, which was busy kicking the shit out of itself. “No,” he says again, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, that that answer actually came out of him and entered the living air between them.

Then the wave is rolling towards him and he enters that slim moment of body-physics where you either take a lungful and commit to diving under the break, or you kick out against the undertow, arch your back to meet the blow, and let yourself be flown all the way up to the waiting shore––

“No,” Dean says, “I love you.” And he chokes up a little, first at the release of saying it, then at how much of exactly jack-shit it changes anything so what was he even scared of, and then at the look on Cas’s face: how he’s frozen. Like that dog from that video, the one that loved tennis balls so goddamn much that his owner bought him a thousand fucking tennis balls and dumps them out all at once and the dog absolutely stalls the fuck out, just seconds on end of underspecced dog-brain hang time before he finally snaps back to reality and loses his absolute shit scrabbling all over the porch.

Castiel comes back online with a little choking noise of his own, and a kind of awkward scrabble for Dean’s hand.

“I have for a long time,” Dean continues, because apparently he’s continuing, “I’ve loved you for fucking ages, Cas. In people years, anyway, I’m sure that mean’s fuckall to somebody who’s a zillion––”

“I don’t,” Cas says thickly, “really give a damn about the age difference, Dean,” and cracks into a chuckle.

“So how come you never knew it?” Dean asks, feeling freedom turn into a hunger or something like vertigo. “If you can see my soul, how could you not know?”

Cas shrugs, a bit helplessly.

“Seriously,” Dean laughs, “how did I manage to hide that shit so well? Sammy found every nudie mag I ever shoplifted.”

Cas shakes his head. “You’ve never actually been able to hide anything from me.”

Dean scoffs. “C’mon, man. I snowed you plenty, or else we woulda had this conversation dirtside a long time ago.”

“Whatever I missed, Dean…it wasn’t because you succeeded at hiding it,” Castiel says, softly. He takes a slow, shaky breath, and meets Dean’s eyes with a smile. He lifts a hand to Dean’s face, bone and flesh on flesh and bone. “I just loved you enough to look away.”

It’s a long time before they go back inside. By any measure. {AO3}

#spn fanfiction #spn 15x20 #destiel #deancas #dean winchester #castiel #bless you all for your sexy and angsty coda fics please enjoy this massive wodge of angel lore wankery dating back 11 seasons

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xserpentlife · 4 years

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50 questions tag !

Tagged by no one but I saw @romanticgumchewer do it and thought it was cool so

1.) What color is your hairbrush?

so like i have bout 5 probably but now i only use one in the shower ad its this turqiouse bue color cause ya’ll if you got frizz or curls dont brush ya hair really at all just use ya fingers but also do it with conditioner and in the shower

2.) Name a food you never eat

freaking seafood eh blegh

3.) Are you usually too warm or too cold?

warm. all. the. time.

4.) What were you doing 45 minutes ago?

uhm swimming... no dinner and smelling disgusting seafood that made me wanna barf cause thsts whst my aunt/uncle and grandparents were making for dinner

5.) What’s your favorite candy bar?

oo idk uhm crunch noooo a flake bar they are from europe no like ireland i think so fucking good lemme tell you

6.) Have you ever been to a professional sports game?

yeah. Eagles, flyers, and phillies, and the reading phillies if you count them, oh and the 76ers and some college gsmes i think that is it

7.) What’s the last thing you said out loud?

nope i don’t want a smore

8.) What’s your favorite ice cream?

yall i got so many lemme get you on this shit. okay so ben and jerrys we talkin then its gottabe phish phood oj shit, but like all in al my fav is black raspberry tbh but also like i do keto so i do love me some coffee ice cream cause i can usually find that in “keto” ones. i like keto enlightened ice cream bars they are decent and low carb

9.) What was the last thing you had to drink?

crystal light or it may have been turkey hill diet green tea

10.) Do you like your wallet?

i mean yeah its a black michael kors it does it purpose lol, mostly i like it cause it has a lot of space for cards which like all my gift cards go there the only thing i don’t like is that the bitch gets hela heavy when coins get in it like jesus

11.) What’s the last thing you ate?

ham and cheese roll ups for diner cause they had fuckin seafood lol boutta be carots, but also wasn’t that hungry lol

12.) Did you buy any new clothes last weekend?

nope!

13.) What’s the last sporting event you watched?

i believe that it was UFC

14.) What is your favorite flavor of popcorn?

butter or white cheddar

15.) Who’s the last person you sent a text to?

my best friends so my friend from vegas and @wayward-river

16.) Ever go camping?

yep!

17.) Do you take vitamins?

i take a probiotic

18.) Do you go to church every Sunday?

nope

19.) Do you have a tan?

yupppp

20.) Do you prefer Chinese or pizza?

oooo uhm depends on what type of piza but ima say pizza... i have a cheese addiction

21.) Do you drink soda through a straw?

i don’t drink soda anymore

22.) What color socks do you usually wear?

vans socks in literally any color usually not black i try to get colored ones cause if i get the black i can never tell te old from the new unless they are like streched out or somethin

23.) Do you ever drive above the speed limit?

uhm yes lol. its my downfall but also like either go the speed limit or go 5 miles over do not go under becuase that is just not an option

24.) What terrifies you?

many things.

25.) Look to your left, what to you see?

flowers

26.) What chore do you hate the most?

vacuuming the sound drives me nuts. or no putting away laundry like hanging it up idk why i hate it but i do lik ill wash shit and fold it but actuly putting it way drives me nuts

27.) What do you think when you hear an Australian accent?

uhm hiiii but also adelaide idk why

28.) What’s your favorite soda?

dont drink it i drink ice drinks instead or the safeway brand sparkling water

29.) Do you go in fast food or in the drive through?

drive through

30.) What’s your favorite number?

31.) Who’s the last person you talked to?

in person? my little cousin

32.) Favorite cut of beef?

chicken just so many things can be done. chicken parm, grilled chicken, bbq chicken need i go on

33.) Last song you listened to?

welp i checked spotfy we were at the pool and it was me and my little cousin i was playing ehr playlist so it was did i mention from descendants hahah

34.) Last book you read?

oh god uhm i have no idea

35.) Can you say the alphabet backwards?

no unless i go throguh the whole thing letter...... by.... letter

36.) Favorite day of the week?

thursday

37.) How do you like your coffee?

Iced with heavy cream i prefer cold brew or espresso tho, but usually cold brew

38.) Favorite pair of shoes?

Vans

39.) Time you normally wake up?

10- 10:30 sometimes 9

40.) Sunrise or sunsets?

sunsets

41.) How many blankets on your bed?

usually just my comforter sometimes my comforter and one or two otehrs dring the winter cause i like to be cold and keep my window open i keep my bedroom door closed and the heat in my room off

42.) Describe your kitchen plates?

i live with my aprents im still in college but when im at school rndoms hit that is cheap

43.) Describe your kitchen at the moment?

tiny dorm kitchen or it will be first on campus apartment that looks like an insane asylum checkkkkkkk

44.) Do you have a favorite alcoholic drink?

i mean its not legal to sayyyyy

45.) Do you play cards?

yes omggggg my grandma s from the south i grew up on card games 500 rummy, oh hell too, i played poker with my grandpa to and 21

46.) What color is your car?

dark blue... kiki

47.) Can you change a tire?

yeppp!

48.) Your favorite state, province, country, etc.?

uhm idk i live in pennsylvania but I wouldn’t say i have a favorite state at least not yet

49.) Favorite job you’ve had?

I worked at this axe throwing place and honestly it was my favorite job i had. I was an axe master I basicaly taght people how to throw axes and like led mini games for hour long sessions it was hella fun, but my college scheldue and doctors appt got in the way so i got let go but it was fun while it lasted. or my own business i do photography on the side so that is also amazing and i absolutely love it and ned to do more of it.

50.) How did you get your biggest scar?

oh god i don’t even know.. i have huge scards from my chronic skin condition so either that orrrr maybe the scar on my leg it is not that big though like size of a nickel where a kick stand went into my leg, a lot of my scars are smaller or like blend into my skin fairly ell cause of my other scars or honestly i forget about them cause. i hae so many so i realy am not sure.

i tag @wayward-river @the-gargoyle-queen @whenallsaidanddone @riverdalebingo @theangriestpea @southsidevixen-blog

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madmandex-blog · 4 years

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Dexter Family Newsletter 2019

As I reflect back on our year, I can’t help but think of Charles Dickens and his classic line…..It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…...and how appropriate it might be to summarize our 2019.

It was the age of wisdom…….as in Kelsi completing her first year in grad school at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. If you didn’t know Kelsi and listened to her talk about school, you might think she is barely passing. If I had a nickel for every time Kelsi told me something like….That final exam did not go well; I did terrible….Only for me to later find out that she got something like a 107 on the test, well then I might have a lot of nickels to jingle in my pocket. Kelsi is getting all A’s as usual and well on her way to graduating in 2020 with a Masters in Speech Pathology. She is enjoying her classes and her clinical training, and has a great supervisor who is guiding her to be gainfully employed later in 2020, most likely in a school setting. Nic is also excelling at Rockhurst and working on his Doctorate in Physical Therapy. What impresses me most about Nic and Kelsi is that they indeed have wisdom in their respective areas of study. In other words, they really seem to know their shit. Meanwhile, Kaylee Jo is now in her sophomore year in high school where she obsesses about getting good grades, which she always does. Ava Jae is in 8th grade and doing well. Don’t tell anyone, but, I consider her my smartest kid.

It was the age of foolishness…….as in Mike spending countless hours managing and competing in a mere 7 fantasy football leagues, or in Mike completing his 42nd Old Chicago World Beer Tour. Along the way, I earned a leather lettermen jacket which Kelly just today told me that I looked like my Dad when wearing it. I took that as a compliment and proudly wore it about town where people looked at me in awe, as they often do, but, I digress. Mike also became a more well-rounded drinker in 2019. You see, I was lucky to get to spend a lot of time with my eldest daughter this summer who not only got me addicted to the Crime Junkies Podcast, but also too good wine. Credit is also due to the great Tackes family for showing me the redeeming virtues of drinking wine and now even whiskey. So don’t be surprised to see me knocking back a Red Cab or sipping a bourbon in a cool sophisticated fashion. If only, I had known about these things years ago…..what might have been, or perhaps not been, like 42 beer tours.

It was the epoch of belief……..in love and marriage as Kelsi became Mrs. Nic Arnone on August 10th in what turned out be an awesome ceremony and beautiful day for the two of them. When they were both working on details like what are we having for having for dessert a couple of days before the big day, I was frankly a little worried, but, as it turns out the two of them are master wedding planners. Everything was great from the venue, to the decorations, to the caterer, to the photographer, and most importantly…..to the bartender, backed by yours truly stocking the bar. Yes, we had an awesome reception and we were so blessed to have so many of you travel all the way to Kansas City to celebrate with us! In case you weren’t able to be there, rumor has it that there is video available of Mike’s fantastic wedding toast speech. Sure, there are critics like Kaylee and Ava who will say, it wasn’t all that, but, most of those at the reception gave me high fives for my performance…at least the ones who were drinking that is. Kelsi is most happy that as a Speech Therapist that I finally learned how to pronounce her new last name. For those of you who don’t know, you need to emphasize the last “e” in Arnone as it is an Italian name. After meeting Nic’s family, I finally believe he is indeed Italian, after I had long presumed he was Norwegian or Swedish given his fair skin, blue eyed, blonde hair good looks.

It was the epoch of incredulity…….and speaking of family heritage, Mike took the Ancestry DNA test in 2019. Upon arrival of the test kit, I was in great disbelief as to how hard it actually is to fill up a one ounce test tube with saliva. Trust me, it was challenging. As it turns out, I am 59% English, 33% Irish, 3% Swedish, 3% German, and 2% Norwegian, which makes me 110% Awesome, which I didn’t need a DNA test to know. So far, it is incredulous that I have not found any long lost rich relatives who want to connect with me, but, I will keep the hope. Speaking of incredulous, Ava will be in high school next year, while Kaylee will have her Driver’s License in as few as 17 more days! I for one can’t believe we all survived her driver’s training, which started in local parking lots and proceeded to hairpin turns, around tight corners, at the speed of light. Only A.J. Foyt could have pulled off some of the harrowing driving miracles that I witnessed at times this summer! But, we all survived, and with no dents in our vehicles! I joke (sort of); Kaylee is actually a very good driver and was even told that she best driver in her Driver’s Ed class. So you can feel safe when you see her drive by you in her 2007 BMW, which Drew gave to her as a Christmas present to her shrieking delight. This is now the 2nd time Drew has given a car to one of his sisters. I can only hope that he has another one to hand down to Ava in a few years. The good news for Ava is that Drew has said that his next car will be a Tesla.

Even more incredulous is that a once self-proclaimed liberal, who once carved a pumpkin in the likeness of then candidate Barack Obama is morphing into a conservative right before our very eyes. Yes, people are in a state of disbelief over these developments. While he does not yet host a show on Fox News, many have looked in disbelief at Mike as he shares his theories on the likes of capital punishment. Not to mention, the poor teachers of Dunlap who look to their email boxes in fear that they might receive another long diatribe from Mike on what is wrong with our educational system. Don’t worry, Mike still has a few liberal ideas and is still proud of President Obama. But, might we see a Trump carved pumpkin on Mike’s doorstep in 2020?

As a final point on incredulity, I bet you can’t believe how long this newsletter is as I can’t believe you are still reading it. Don’t worry, more good stuff is coming.

It was the season of light……for Nic and Kelsi who enjoyed an awesome honeymoon trip to Disney and the bright beaches of Ft. Lauderdale. Kelly and Ava also traveled to sunny Florida, with stops at Disney and the beaches of Tampa-St. Pete, while attending Ava’s Starquest World Dance Finals in Orlando. Ava and her dance teammates at MLSD continued to shine on the dance floor, while bringing home lots of trophies along the way. Ava and her DMS POMS teammates also brought home a trophy from the State Finals this year in the Jr. High Division. Ava is again on the DMS POMS team and also spending lots of time at the MLSD dance studio. We can’t wait to see her compete again in 2020, which will include her first ever solo performance. And, her latest dance project involves trying to teach her Dad how to dance in Tik Tok videos with her! These will surely go viral. Meanwhile, Ava is still Ava….always energetic, always wanting to do something, always wanting Starbucks, and always, always asking me for something or to do something. She is my constant season of light. In fact, I sometimes think of Ava as Carol Anne like from the Poltergeist movie. You see she has a life force that is hard to match and keeps me smiling, cursing, smiling, yelling smiling and speaking of yelling….. Kelly might occasionally yell at Ava (as she is this very minute!) and/or Kaylee for their continued inability and/or unwillingness to do seemingly simple things like throw a wrapper in the actual garbage can, maintain a room where you can actually see the floor, etc. Kelly is still Kelly, the straw that stirs our drink, the one who tries to keep us in check, and the one we, including our dogs can all rely on. Kelly continues to work with awesome kids, who happen to have a few special needs, at Dunlap Middle School. I likely have said this before, but, they, like us, are lucky to have her.

The season of light was also in full effect for Drew in 2019. Like most people do, he took a month vacation, this time in sunny South Africa, where he did things like go on a safari, dive into the ocean in a shark cage to see a Great White, see the great water falls of Victoria Falls, hang out in the desert of Namibia, and lounge on the beaches and climb the mountains of Cape Town. He also spent a month in Manhattan for work. Drew lives in the River North area of Chicago, where we all enjoy visiting him. Thanksgiving in Chicago was a highlight. In January, Drew has plans to visit Vietnam for a few weeks and make a stop at Boracay in the Philippines. Yes, it sucks to be Drew. He will also have extended work assignments in Boston and Washington, D.C., so stay tuned to his social media pages for amazing photographs and drone videos to document his journeys.

It was the season of darkness…….for both Mike and Kaylee, who unlike the rest of the family did not feel the sand under their toes of the warm sunshine upon their faces. The longest trip these two took in 2019 was to Rochester, Minnesota, in the midst of winter, to attend Kaylee’s Speedo Sectional Championship Meet. Despite the cold and snow, we both had fun. And in the hopes of coming out of the darkness, I admit to the world (and mostly Kelly) that I received a speeding ticket on the way home, while dodging potholes and trying to stay interested while driving the monotonous roadways of the northland. This has been a secret that only Kaylee and I have shared, with Kaylee often smiling and blurting out a whoo-whoo-police siren like sound anytime she felt it necessary to seek favor with me, while in the presence of my wife. So, Kelly, my beautiful, loving, forgiving wife, now you know and Kaylee, you have nothing to hold over my head any longer, at least for the time being.

It was the spring of hope…….for Kaylee and her commitment to the sport of swimming. She continues to love the sport, and work hard, and has renewed resolve to achieve her goals. She has a group of great friends on the team and is driven by Jersey Mike, her new coach, who yours truly worked hard to recruit to Peoria, along with the rest of it was the PAWW team. Kaylee made a tough decision to forgo her high school swim season in favor of making a greater training commitment. I was proud of her resolve in making this decision and remain proud of her in all aspects of what she does, and who she is, with the great exception of her sense of what a clean room is J.

It was the winter of despair…….as Kelly and Mike look around their house and dream of home improvements in 2020, while still wondering how we can pay for things like dance classes, swimming, and college. Kelly and Mike did close out the year by replacing our 20 year old kitchen appliances. Back to those kids who can’t seem to hit the broad side of a barn with a wrapper, let alone a waste basket, we purchased a fancy new waste can in a last ditch effort to solve the problem. The new stainless steel trash can is our new pride and joy and opens automatically at the wave of the hand. While enjoying all this new technology, our dryer just went out, so back to Sherman’s we go! Speaking of technology, Kelly and Mike finished the year with a fun night in Chicago where a true life robot delivered “forgotten toothbrushes” to our room. In addition to home improvements in the New Year, more resolutions for Mike include meditation, yoga, and drinking more wine (but only the good stuff). I think all three of these can likely be done at the same time.

Yes, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times….Like all families, we had some challenges to deal with, but those were far outweighed by many blessings. I am very lucky to have an awesome wife, four awesome kids and new son-in-law, our two awesome dogs Tahyo and Isla, along with our awesome family and friends. We have had a wonderful Christmas as a family and look forward to a great 2020! Thank you and Merry New Year to you all! May God bless you in new ways in the New Year!

P.S. – I consider this a living document in that I will likely be asked to edit for omissions, inaccuracies, offenses to my beloved family members, or over the likely fact that I wrote some of the same exact words last year.

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mysteriesofmilo · 6 years

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Phineas and Ferb references

The Phineas Flynn’s Law YouTube channel has made two different videos so far on all the Phineas and Ferb references in Milo Murphy’s Law. But I’ve come up with 18 more since watching those videos.

References will be listed in episode order, through season 1.

1. In Sunny Side Up, Melissa says "We are going to crack this thing. And by that I mean, we are not going to crack this thing." One of Doofenshmirtz's favorite phrases is in the format, "Ah, Perry the Platypus! Your timing is [negative adjective]! And by "[same negative adjective]" of course I mean COMPLETELY [same positive adjective]!"

2. In "Smooth Opera-tor" and "Bubble Boys"/"Isabella and the Temple of Sap": Amanda and Baljeet have both planned out every single minute of their entire day.

3. Someone says “Crepe Suzette?" in both Rooting for the Enemy and Rollercoaster the Musical

4. In Rooting for the Enemy, Milo says, “I think I broke my thumb,” and in Thanks But No Thanks, Baljeet says, “I think I pulled my sigmoid colon.”

5. From The Doctor Zone Files, The Substitute, The Llama Incident, and Invasion of the Ferb Snatchers: "The End?"

6. When Melissa talks about her fear of rollercoasters in Murphy’s Lard, Zack talks about the odds of it happening again. This is an obvious reference to Rollercoaster the Musical.

7. In the song Chop Away at my Heart, they ask the question "If I fall, do I even make a sound?" while comparing themselves to trees. Now I know this is an age old question that philosophers have been asking for generations, but Doofenshmirtz had a scheme based around it in My Fair Goalie.

8. In the episode We're Going to the Zoo, Dakota lists off different things that could possibly stop their mission. One of those is a potted plant. Like, maybe, Planty the Potted Plant from the episodes No More Bunny Business and Just Our Luck?

9. In Missing Milo, Cavendish says about Milo, “Yes. Yes, he's alright.” It’s a possible reference to the “too young” line.

10. Some Like It Yacht had a whole slew of them. One is that a green squid gets stuck on Mrs. Murawski’s head. In Swiss Family Phineas, Candace pulls a few things off her head, one of which happens to be a green squid.

11. Diogee’s entire sequence in the song I’ll Get From Here to There looks suspiciously like Perry's entrance in Crack That Whip, or really in any given episode.

12-13. At the end of the aforementioned song, Milo asks Diogee how he got there. He then stands there with his eyes looking in opposite directions like Perry does in his “mindless pet” mode. Milo then says “I think he's having a flashback.” This is an obvious reference to the running gag in Doof Dynasty where people (and platypeople) have flashbacks and others comment on this fact, as well as the fact that they can’t see it.

14. When the H.M.S. Indulgence wins a surfing competition, the school board gets exactly the amount of money they need to fix the yacht, with $2 left over. Someone says “We can buy a candy bar and a half!” This is a reference to the running gag in Phineas’s Birthday Clip-o-Rama where somebody says “If I had a nickel for every time...” and then there’s a montage of that thing happening, and then the person says “Huh. I guess I could buy a candy bar.”

15. In The Race, one of Milo’s inspirational shark mantras is “Don't stop swimming, or you'll die.” In Raging Bully, Ferb says “Sharks have to keep moving forward, or they’ll drown.”

16. In The Island of Lost Dakotas, the lady that Dakota talks to on the bus is named Frances. Francis is Major Monogram’s name.

17. In the other plot of The Island of Lost Dakotas, Milo uses his shoelaces to tie himself to a telephone wire and swings from them. Candace does the same thing to get herself, Melissa and Isabella out of Phineas and Ferb’s maze in We Call It Maze.

18. This one is probably a stretch, but in Fungus Among Us, when Dakota is dressed as Time Ape, he says “I’ve got hands on my face. I’m handsome.” And in Quietest Day Ever, Doofenshmirtz sings the song “I’m Handsome.”

#milo murphy's law #MML #Phineas and Ferb #pnf

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stephenmccull · 3 years

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‘Kicking You When You’re Down’: Many Cancer Patients Pay Dearly for Parking

For cancer patients, the road from diagnosis to survivorship feels like a never-ending parade of medical appointments: surgeries, bloodwork, chemotherapy, radiation treatments, scans. The routine is time-consuming and costly. So, when hospitals charge patients double-digit parking fees, patients often leave the garage demoralized.

This story also ran on NBC News. It can be republished for free.

Iram Leon vividly remembers the first time he went for a follow-up MRI appointment at Dell Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas, after he had been treated at another hospital for a brain tumor.

The medical news was good: His stage 2 tumor was stable. The financial news was not. When he sat down at the receptionist’s desk to check out, Leon was confronted by a bold, red-lettered sign on the back of her computer that read: “WE DO NOT VALIDATE PARKING.”

Below that all-caps statement was a list of parking rates, starting with $2 for a 30-minute visit and maxing out at $28 a day. Lose your ticket? Then you could pay $27 for an hour.

“To this day, I remember that sign,” Leon, 40, said of the 2017 appointment, which he posted about on Facebook. “These patients were people who were coming in for various types of cancer treatment. These were people who were keenly aware of their own mortality, and yet the sign was screaming at them, ‘We do not validate parking.’” (Hospital officials did not respond to requests for comment about their parking policy.)

JulieAnn Villa, who was diagnosed in March with her third bout of cancer, estimates she has spent “thousands of dollars” on parking fees during her years of treatment and follow-up care. She faces a transportation dilemma every time she commutes 6 miles to Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital from her apartment. Should she take public transit? Call a pandemic surge-rate Uber? Ask a friend to drive her? Or pay $12 to $26 (with validation) to park in a garage where each floor is named after singers like Dolly Parton and Frank Sinatra?

She was hospitalized for multiple days in April after spending 23 hours alone in an overburdened ER, because she didn’t want friends to pay to wait with her. “I almost drove myself, and I’m so glad I didn’t,” Villa said. “That would have been expensive.”

Long a source of frustration for patients, the costs of parking while in cancer treatment is finally drawing national scrutiny from oncology researchers and even some hospital administrators.

“If you want to rile up patients or caregivers or family members, just bring up parking costs,” said Dr. Fumiko Chino, a radiation oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York who studies the “financial toxicity” of cancer treatment, including costs not covered by insurance, such as parking fees.

Chino, who enrolled in medical school after her husband died of a rare neuroendocrine cancer in 2007, added, “For people who have to pay $15 to $18 every single time, which is what I remember paying, it really feels like the last straw, frankly — like kicking you when you’re down.”

Public transit is possible for some cancer patients in larger cities, but not for those too ill or immunocompromised. Others have accessibility issues. Many must travel to get care, making driving the best option.

Parking fees can have implications for more than just the patient. “Some patients say, ‘This is the reason I didn’t participate in a clinical trial, because I couldn’t afford the parking,’” Chino said.

At a time when hospitals and drug companies are under increasing pressure to diversify clinical trial populations, testing only patients who can afford high parking fees is problematic, Chino said.

There are some pilot programs to improve access to drug trials, and some charities, such as the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, offer travel grants, but accessibility remains a substantial barrier to cancer care, said Elizabeth Franklin, president of the nonprofit Cancer Support Community, which offers financial aid to patients and advocates in Washington, D.C., for “patient-centered” health policies.

“The true definition of a patient-centered health care system,” Franklin said, is one that allows patients to choose the best means of transportation. “It’s not making them go into debt because they’ve had to pay a ton of money for parking each time they go to the clinic or the hospital.”

Chino and colleagues published a short study in July showing that some cancer patients pay $1,680 over the course of treatment.

According to readership statistics released in late March, the study was the most read and downloaded article in JAMA Oncology last year, and it continues to prompt a lively social media response. A thread on Reddit has logged more than 1,100 comments, including many from patients in other countries voicing surprise at U.S. parking policies.

The researchers calculated the cost to park at 63 National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers while receiving the standard number of treatments for each of three types of cancers: node-positive breast cancer, head and neck cancers, and acute myeloid leukemia, or AML. They did not calculate costs for follow-up appointments, blood draws, routine scans and immune-boosting injections.

They found that, while 20 of the hospitals provided free parking for all cancer patients, the other 43 had widely varying fees.

“The range was $0 to $800 for breast cancer,” Chino said. “That’s huge, and it’s not like the person who’s paying $800 is necessarily getting any better treatment.” The maximum charges for a standard course of therapy for head and neck cancer were $665 and for AML, $1,680.

Practices should change, Chino said, “to alleviate this strain for our patients.”

Of the 63 hospitals, including those where parking is free for cancer patients, 54% offered free parking for chemotherapy and 68% for radiation treatment.

The top daily parking rate, according to the researchers, is $40 at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital. (A spokesperson for Mount Sinai declined to comment.) Chino’s own institution, Memorial Sloan Kettering, is not far behind; parking at one of its main garages begins at $12 an hour and maxes out at $36 a day. A spokesperson for the hospital said some locations do offer free parking, and all patients can apply for aid to cover parking costs.

A few colleagues scoffed when Chino said she was researching parking charges, she said, but a growing number of mostly younger oncologists are concerned about indirect costs that contribute to the financial toxicity of cancer.

“It seems ethically incorrect to nickel-and-dime patients for parking charges,” a trio of doctors wrote last year in an editorial published by the American Society of Clinical Oncologists. They acknowledge that most top cancer hospitals are in urban centers, where parking costs are often high and third-party agencies may operate the garages. “Nevertheless, in 2020, with our multibillion-dollar cancer center budgets, we as health care systems should do everything we can to help patients and caregivers,” the editorial said.

City of Hope National Medical Center in Los Angeles is one of the 20 NCI-designated hospitals that do not charge patients for parking. Dr. Vijay Trisal, a surgical oncologist who serves as City of Hope’s chief medical officer, takes pride in that distinction.

“Charging cancer patients for parking is like a knife in the back,” he said. “We can’t control copays, but we can control what patients pay for parking.”

While Trisal would never want a patient to choose City of Hope for the free parking alone, he acknowledges the policy gives his hospital a competitive advantage.

“You would not believe how many patients have said to me, ‘Thank you for not charging for parking,’” he said.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

‘Kicking You When You’re Down’: Many Cancer Patients Pay Dearly for Parking published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years

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‘Kicking You When You’re Down’: Many Cancer Patients Pay Dearly for Parking