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bebychangbean · 4 years

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Strangers Ch.2

Demon! Han Jisung x Reader

This chapter is kinda filler but it’s important to define the reader’s relationship with Jisung and Jisung’s mental state.

Warnings: cursing, mental health decline

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Word Count: 3.5k

Jisung hated crying. His father’s voice in his head always scolded him for showing weakness, making him believe that he wasn’t deserving of tears. ‘Tears are for humans,’ his father said, ‘You are not human.’

“Yes I am,” Jisung said out loud. You looked up at him from where you were sitting on the couch.

The five of you had been sitting in the small living room for a few minutes, trying to collect your thoughts and come up with a plan for the boys. You didn’t even notice the tears streaming down Jisung’s face until he broke the silence in the room.

“I am human,” he continued, clearly not talking to any of you.

Minho took his hand, pulling him out of his thoughts. Jisung was suddenly aware of the four gazes on him and he wiped the tears from his eyes. He must not show weakness, just as his father said.

Hyunjin had been crying too, silently, but still. He missed his family. He understood that he might not be able to see them for a long time, suddenly regretting his choice of running out of the convenience store. Had he stayed there, he would have been able to tell the police all he knew and then return home.

Hyunjin had never wanted to hug his dog more than he did at that moment.

“How long do you think we can stay here?” Chan asked, looking up at you from where he sat, cross-legged on the floor.

You didn’t know how to answer his question. You had been living alone for almost 2 months before the boys arrived and you knew your parents weren’t planning to move back from Seoul any time soon. Your brother only returned during the summer which wasn’t for another half a year. Technically the four boys could live here as long as you were alone, but you’d have to hope that your parents didn’t notice a rise in the water bill or something.

But did you want them to be here that long?

“You guys can stay here until you find somewhere else to go,” you promised. “As long as that takes.” You knew the best option for them would be to get out of the country, but their faces were blacklisted and it wasn’t likely that they’d be let on a plane. They’d have to pay someone to get them out of the country by boat, most likely.

Another issue would be money. You had a job that paid well enough and you were sure you could cover groceries for the five of you, but the boys weren’t able to work. You’d have a hard time saving money for your next year of college.

You decided not to think about that as you got up to make yourself some tea. You heard the boys whisper to each other in the kitchen while you put the kettle on the stove, boiling some extra water in case any of the boys wanted some.

“Why do I feel so bad?” Jisung asked quietly.

“Physically or emotionally?” Chan questioned.

“Both,” Jisung said.

You heard shifting on the couch and Minho whispering hushed words of comfort into Jisung’s hair as he held him gently.

Despite the danger you knew Jisung was, you couldn’t help but like the four of them. You thought back to the way you and Chan had made breakfast, humming softly and making fun of Hyunjin’s weird appetite. You thought of the way the boys took care of each other, knowing what each of them liked and trusting each other completely. You briefly wished you had friends like them.

The five of you spent the rest of the morning discussing the living situation. They would need to go shopping to get clothes and basic necessities, but they’d have to make sure to be very cautious so as to not get caught. You figured you could drive them further into Suwon and hit a mall or two.

The four boys packed into your small car and you headed toward the city. They were all wearing hoodies or hats to hide their eyes, masks pulled up to cover everything else. You only hoped that you didn’t look too suspicious.

The car ride was pretty quiet, the only sound being the soft music that played on the radio. You glanced at Chan who was dozing off in the passenger seat next to you, his head against the window. You wondered how old he was, noting how much younger he looked with his eyes closed. His eyes gave away his emotions very easily so it was your first time seeing him truly at peace.

You turned your eyes back to the road, trying to focus on the song that was playing as the fields passed by outside the car.

The boys had picked a genius place to escape to. It maybe wasn’t as far from Seoul as they would have liked, but there was so much empty land and places to hide. Besides, the police were unlikely to ask around the houses as there were mostly farming families and rarely used summer homes.

You pulled your old Mazda into the parking lot of the mall, putting on your mask and stepping one leg out of the car. You tapped Chan’s shoulder to wake him up before getting out and closing the door behind you.

The parking lot wasn’t very full so there were less people to potentially recognize any of the boys from the news. You didn’t know what would happen if one of them were spotted, but you assumed they’d make a run for it pretty fast.

The five of you headed inside the big electric doors, sighing at how warm it was inside the massive mall. The comforting smell of a nearby Starbucks drifted through the air and almost made you gravitate toward it without even knowing. It seemed Hyunjin had the same idea, but Minho caught him by the arm and you realized that you would have to take off your mask to drink which wasn’t wise.

Jisung led the way toward the H&M to start. Hyunjin and Chan went to a different store to hunt for plain black clothing.

You went with Jisung and Minho to browse the racks of clothing, the boys picking stuff rather quickly, in a rush to get out of public. Chan and Hyunjin returned in less than 15 minutes, each carrying a bag. Jisung finished paying rather quickly, all in cash, of course, in case the police were tracking their credit card usage. You guys also hit a Rite-Aid to buy some toiletries and shower stuff, the boys using the last of their pocket money.

Lastly, you stopped by that Starbucks because none of you could resist. You ordered under a fake name and made sure to keep your head down to prevent anyone from seeing your eyes.

All of you were in and out in less than an hour, record time for Hyunjin and yourself.

The drive home was a little less solemn, the boys seemingly excited at their new clothes and happy that they made it out without being spotted. The mood died down a little when Hyunjin spoke.

“Do you think this will be our last time outside for a while?” he questioned, eyes panning over the green hills.

The rest of the boys seemed to ponder his thought. You immediately realized that he was right. It would be smartest for them to stay inside your house as much as possible to avoid being seen.

It hit you again, the severity of what you were doing. Why were you empathizing with these runaways? One of them is a literal monster.

You had an intrusive thought of your own and momentarily considered crashing the car into the nearest tree.

You shook that thought away rather quickly, pinning your eyes back to the road ahead.

The next few days were spent getting closer to the boys and becoming more comfortable with each other. You had found that they were all quite fun and lighthearted despite their situation and you thought that if you had met any of them under different circumstances, you might have been able to be friends with everybody.

By everybody, you meant the other four of their friends back in Seoul. You found out that they all attended university together and that the four you were living with wouldn’t be able to cancel the rest of the semesters they were paying for.

You also decided to cut up their credit cards and burn them in the backyard, just to be safe.

The most exciting thing that had happened since they moved in was Jisung. Minho had crawled out of bed to get you one night so you could see for yourself what happened when Jisung slept. Sure enough, the boy was floating.

He levitated a few feet above the bed and you swiped your hand underneath him just to make sure. You also didn’t miss the quiet mumble of words coming out of his mouth. You weren’t as surprised as you might have been if you hadn’t previously known about it, but it was still pretty unnerving to see with your own eyes. You didn’t want to be scared though, no matter how much it freaked you out. You knew Jisung hated when people were afraid of him.

Minho showed the other boys just to make absolutely sure they knew that Jisung wasn’t lying, and they all talked about it the next morning.

“I’m sorry for accusing you of lying,” Hyunjin said to Jisung.

You nodded, apologizing as well.

“It’s okay,” Jisung said to Hyunjin. He then turned to you and added, “Thank you for letting us stay. I know it’s probably not a comfortable decision.”

They boys had been thanking you profusely for the past couple of days. They had apologized repeatedly as well for being a burden.

You honestly hadn’t felt like they were too much of a burden as you were enjoying the company quite a bit. It got boring out here with nobody to talk to. You were still going to work five days a week at a cafe in the city, but you trusted the boys by now not to wreak havoc at your house.

The days passed pretty quickly with them at home, but you could tell they were getting a little stir crazy. It still wasn’t safe to go outside as their faces were plastered all over newspapers and on TV.

Jisung had been increasingly more paranoid about getting caught and he almost fainted when he heard police sirens drive by outside the house one day. The cars were simply going into the city, but Jisung was a few seconds short of a panic attack anyway. It took Minho, Chan, and Hyunjin to calm him down.

You came home that day to find them all huddled together on the floor of your small bathroom. Jisung was nearly asleep and Minho held a finger up to his lips, silently telling you not to wake him. Your heart broke at the sight of all of their tear stained faces.

You were harshly reminded of how old they all are, nineteen year old Jisung suddenly looking like a child in his friends’ arms.

You settled on making dinner, tofu stew, Jisung’s favorite.

You nearly had a heart attack when somebody knocked on the door. Hyunjin and Chan were sitting with you at the table as you chatted over an afternoon cup of coffee. Minho and Jisung were in their room upstairs.

You glanced through the sheer curtains to see who was outside and you couldn’t miss the tall shadow of your father.

You heard your mother’s voice outside the door and Chan and Hyunjin scrambled up from the table.

Chan darted into the living room, grabbing the blankets and pillows that were on the couch where he’d been sleeping.

Hyunjin ran into your brother’s room to throw all his things under the bed and then quickly ran up to your parents room to warn Minho and Jisung.

You opened the door nervously, a fake smile plastered on your face. Of course you were happy to see them. You hadn’t seen your parents in almost three months, but the surprise visit had you sweating. You absolutely could not let them find out about the four boys who had been living with you.

You walked them into the kitchen, putting some water in the kettle and trying to stall, hoping the boys upstairs could make the rooms look as neat and untouched as possible.

“How have you been, Y/n?” your mom asked with a smile, completely missing the awkward atmosphere.

You cleared your throat and started lying. “I’ve been great! Still working at the cafe,” you said, trying not to show that you were sweating. You heard a small scuffle from upstairs and you prayed your father didn’t hear it.

“What was that sound?” he asked. You cursed silently under your breath and turned back to the stove.

“I think there’s a rat in the attic. I haven’t been up there to check, but I’ll call an exterminator tomorrow,” you said. You couldn’t stop the sick feeling in your stomach as your father stood up.

“No need,” he said. “I’ll kill it right now.”

He headed toward the staircase.

You wrung your hands as you followed him up the stairs.

The trapdoor to the attic was at the end of the second floor hallway and you cast a glance into your parents’ room as you passed. The room looked perfect. The bed was made, clothes were hidden, and there wasn’t a stray kid in sight. You let out a little sigh before continuing to follow your dad.

The door to your room was closed, so you figured they were all hiding in your closet or something.

Your father hunted around in the attic for a second, of course not finding any signs of a rat, before making his way back down to the kitchen where you and your mother were preparing lunch.

You almost pulled out enough food for the four boys as well, getting all too familiar with their presence.

“I see you’ve kept the fridge stocked,” your mom pointed out, looking over your shoulder at the generously filled fridge.

“I went shopping yesterday,” you said. It was really hurting your head to lie this much as it wasn’t something you usually did often.

You excused yourself to the bathroom when she was occupied, making sure to hide all of the boys’ toothbrushes and extra shampoo.

You walked on eggshells for the rest of the day, lying your way around conversations and trying to avoid letting your parents into your bedroom or your brother’s room, just in case Hyunjin had left anything out of place.

Your parents told you that they would only be staying for one night and heading out tomorrow. You prayed that they stuck to that as you all headed up to bed after dinner was finished.

“It smells really nice in here!” your mom commented as she stepped into her room for the first time in months. She was probably smelling the coconut shampoo that Minho used, as he usually slept on her side of the bed.

Your head spun as you tried to figure out what to say. “I got a new fabric softener,” you said, hoping to God that they didn’t ask questions. You turned and walked straight into your room, not allowing for any more conversation. You locked the door behind you and Jisung immediately popped out of your closet, dragging Minho by the hand. Hyunjin and Chan rolled out from under the bed. You were all hungry and tired, but you had to find a place for them to stay before you could finally relax into your bed (which was looking extra inviting after your stressful day).

Jisung’s sleep-talking might be loud enough to wake your parents if he was too close to their room, so you figured somewhere outside was the best option.

You knew the gardening shed was waterproof, so you gave the boys some extra blankets and towels from your closet and ushered them toward the window. They would have to drop about sixteen feet to the ground, but the landing was grass so they should be okay. You could tell they weren’t too keen on sleeping in the cold, dark shed, but they realized their lack of options and even the fussy Hyunjin complied without too much complaint. You watched them drop out of the window one by one.

You then made your way downstairs and into the kitchen where you grabbed a few snacks and some bottles of water.

Your tiptoeing seemed impossibly loud as you made your way through the house, almost drowning out the banging of your heart in your chest.

You unlocked the door as quietly as possible and gave the food to Chan, pointing to the shed a few yards past the house.

“They should be leaving tomorrow morning,” you promised. “I’ll come get you when they’re gone.”

He nodded and led the others across the yard silently, Minho pausing to cast one last look at you, giving you a thumbs up through all the blankets he was carrying.

You slept restlessly that night, tossing and turning and repeatedly looking out your window to see if the boys were okay.

To say you looked like shit in the morning was an understatement. Your mom didn’t hesitate to point that out.

“Didn’t sleep well?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, I guess not,” It felt good to say something that wasn’t a lie.

Your dad was up soon after, pulling the eggs out of the fridge.

“How does omelets sound?” he asked, already starting on cutting up mushrooms and green onions.

You almost made a joke. Almost.

You realized how much the boys had impacted your life. The past three weeks with them had you feeling so much less lonely and bored. You had become accustomed to Hyunjin’s picky eating and Minsung holding hands. And of course, Chan’s caring nature became comforting to you as well. The four of them were there for you to talk to and rely on.

“–Y/n,” your mom called, waving a small stack of plates in front of you.

You weren’t sure how long she had been calling your name, but you took the plates from her hands and started setting the table.

You bid your parents goodbye after breakfast and saw them out to their car, waiting for them to drive off back towards Seoul before you rushed back into the house. You threw open the back door and ran across the grass to the shed, hesitantly opening the door.

The four boys were huddled on the floor together, Hyunjin still sleeping with his head on Minho’s shoulder, Chan’s long arm wrapped around him. They had laid the towels on the floor of the small enclosure and wrapped themselves up in the blankets, as close to each other as possible to share body heat.

The boys unwrapped themselves slowly from the blankets and you saw Minho’s legs wrapped around Jisung to stop him from going anywhere. Chan looked as tired as ever as he squinted up at you, the sunlight blinding to his unadapted eyes. You figured Jisung’s sleep-talking was keeping him awake all night; you knew how light of a sleeper Chan was.

The boys stumbled blindly across the yard and into the house, Chan nearly carrying Hyunjin. You apologized profusely for making them sleep in the shed, but they didn’t seem mad. After all, it was better than sleeping in jail.

You made them a proper breakfast and sat at the table with them to eat. There were still only four seats, so Jisung sat on Minho’s lap. Neither of them seemed to mind.

“Your father’s voice is really scary, Jisung,” Hyunjin said, a slight bitterness in his voice. You found out that he hadn’t been able to fall asleep until Jisung woke up. He seemed thoroughly creeped out by his friend and Jisung would be lying if he said it didn’t hurt his feelings a little bit.

“Sorry,” Jisung looked down as he spoke, Minho’s arm tightening comfortingly around the boy.

You could tell Chan was also upset at his lack of sleep, but he just finished his breakfast quickly and dragged his tired feet to the couch where he fell asleep in seconds.

Jisung looked uncomfortable and he got up abruptly, shoving Minho’s hand off and leaving the room.

You glanced at Minho, silently wondering what happened, but he shook his head and told you to keep eating.

Jisung had been increasingly sensitive about his father, disliking the way his closest friends were scared of him. He was also ashamed of the intrusive thoughts his father was putting into his head. He had told his father countless times that he wouldn’t harm any of his friends, but he still had visions at least twice a day.

Visions of stabbing a knife into your back while you cooked. Visions of suffocating Hyunjin with a pillow. Visions of strangling Minho, or snapping Chan’s neck the way he’d done to that girl in the convenience store.

They were almost too much to handle and he found himself leaving the room suddenly to avoid hurting anyone.

You were grateful Minho had told you not to go after him. You might not have survived if you’d followed him up the stairs.

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hillbillyoracle · 6 years

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Why I haven’t been posting lately...

I’m putting what I wrote for a reddit post warning people away from my landlord beneath a cut. It’s been pretty hellish and I’ve been scared/nervous to talk about it but I want people to know what’s going on isn’t small.

In addition to what I wrote below, we realized the stairs aren’t well constructed after I fell down half a flight of them on Monday evening - in bare feet (no socks) on hardwood flooring. The ledges bend in different directions and I slipped/tripped on one that wasn’t level. The whole right side of my body is a series of black and purple bruises, my feet and hands got scraped up by baseboards that didn’t seem to get sanded. I’m still recovering.

More below the cut:

TL;DR: What we’ve dealt with since moving into a [landlord redacted] place:

- They were hard to get a hold of and now they won’t respond at all

- Multiple code violations they either didn’t fix or placed the onus on us to arrange for

- Zip Code is wrong on the lease which made getting our drivers licenses and such a pain

- Charged us for rent we already paid multiple times; put notice on door

- Charged us for HOA fees incurred before we moved in

- Maintenance guy is incredibly incompetent and condescending

- They’ve failed to do anything about the roach infestation

- They started up a construction project next door that’s active 12 hours a day

Other than what we’ve seen personally:

- They have code violations on record with the city

- The owner's twitter features the line “It’s all about whose ox is getting gored” - guess his tenants are the ox.

- He weirdly almost gloats about kicking people out and upcharging the next tenants

More Info:

We had to move very quickly and weren’t able to research places as well as we would have liked. So I’m writing this to make it easier for other folks to know what they’re getting into with them. If you’re okay with all of this, then by all means, I support you renting from them. But it was certainly too much for us and I wanted to spare other folks what I could.

I’m actually afraid to share this as I wouldn’t put it past them to be retaliatory, to make a up a reason to kick us out over being more public about what they’ve done. Tried to put it on a throwaway but alas.

I think the best summary of both [landlord’s] property and their service is what my partner said - “It’s not really living, it’s surviving, and that’s not really what I look for in a home.”

So many things have gone wrong at this place that I’m going to go thematically rather than chronologically. Which is wild given that we’ve only been living in the place for three months.

The workmanship in this place is horrible. There are shelves falling out of the wall. The dishwasher leaked and then the maintenance guy “fixed it” by having it overflow through the sink which leaves a bunch of crud in it. They didn’t even both trying to make the basement floor remotely level so our washer and dryer are on stilts – the best fix we can manage right now. Every now and then they come off them and rock around which I’m sure isn’t great for the machine.

They got the zip code wrong on the lease which has caused problems trying to get identifying documents switched over and other things switched over. Small but important. Since they’re nigh impossible to contact (see further down) we’ve mostly not bothered trying to get this sorted with them but it’s been a real pain.

When we moved in, we paid 6 months ahead. A mistake, yes, we know. But they kept trying to charge us for rent we’d already paid. We contacted them three times about the charges on the account and still they packing taped a failure to pay rent notice on our door.

They’ve continually tried to charge us for things we do not have to pay. They tried to charge us for a fee they incurred before we moved in and when we pointed it out to them they did not apologize. The second time they did it they didn’t contact us at all and we had to repeatedly check to see if it’d been removed.

We figured out this was because the yard crew kept pulling our trash can out and not putting it back so we asked them to stop yard services - which we never signed up for. We had to ask them 4 separate times and even then we only got them stopped when we paid for a lock and put it on the back gate and the mower came to talk with us.

The maintenance guy is not only very incompetent but completely condescending. He was two hours late and gave no heads up. I had to call to get any updates. When I tried talking to him about it when he arrived, he walked in essentially said that he’d done nothing wrong and walked away while I was in the middle of a sentence. He would not tell me what was going on and flat out ignored my questions. Our dog is epileptic and was getting nervous with all the strangers and loud noises so I decided to take him away from the apartment for a while. I tried to find the man and again was ignored. Once he realized I’d left he called to yell at me for leaving.

When we moved in they pointed out that they were aware that the basement electrical outlets were not up to code and gave us a number of an electrician to call. We called him and never heard back. Our basement is still not up to code.

They also pointed out they knew our backyard was a flood risk and said they’d be sending someone to fix that. They never have. It’s basically a pond out there when it rains and it’s filled with mosquitos.

We asked about bugs well before we moved in. We were assured they’d send someone to spray. We contacted them multiple times about it. They eventually sent their maintenance guy who left us with a couple roach traps and some spray that did nothing. Our kitchen, even after a month of keeping everything spotless is still infested. He said that the root of the problem was the abandoned house next door and he couldn’t do anything about it.

We found out two days later that the house was not abandoned and they owned it so they could do something about it. Because they began very very loud construction without any notice, construction that was happening for 11 hours a day. When we contacted them initially, they were very condescending, saying it was just because it’d been unoccupied for a while and we weren’t used to the noise (we’ve both lived in shared housing for almost a decade at this point) but said that they’d limit the hours to business hours Monday – Friday. But then without contacting us further and ignoring all our calls and emails – they continued to work 11-12 hours a day. I still cannot understand why they promised it at all and then turned around and go against it. It’s just spiteful.

They’ve ignored all of our emails for 2 weeks straight. We cannot get in contact with them.

A person we’ve never interacted with from their company called us to ask about our dishwasher, meanwhile they’d ignored 5-6 emails we’d sent trying to get more information about what was happening. What a blatant way to say we don’t care about you, just our property.

I am disabled, I do what work I can out of my home and my partner works from home several days a week. This has forced me to basically live somewhere else in order to sustain any kind of income and has taken a major toll on my health. Even if I did have a 9-5 job, I’d still be dealing with this an hour before and two to three hours afterward. When I am at the house I’m getting up early and staying out late just to not have to deal with the noise.

In trying to find out what I could about them more recently, I found that they have at least one code violation they were found guilty of and had to pay the city.

We also found that the owner of the company has a twitter in which he kind of weirdly gloats about kicking people out of their homes and doing very little work so that he can charge people more money. His bio features the line “It’s all about who’s ox is getting gored” – guess the ox are his tenants. I’m now very very skeptical of his “trouble tenants” as I wonder if they didn’t refuse to pay for a place he wouldn’t fix and he kicked them out, “upgraded” the place, and upcharged the next tenants. He brands himself as an entrepreneur and adding value but I can tell you this house is made to sell, not to sustain actual human life in them.

A warning to women and queer people: I would especially advise women and queer people away from this company. They’ve been really weird about my partner and I living together. We told them when we moved in we were a couple and yet weirdly we just get referred to as roommates or just grouped together under “ladies”. It’s really uncomfortable. With the maintenance guy being as patronizing and horrible as he was, I wouldn’t want another woman to have to go through that but it’s whatever you’re comfortable with in the end I suppose.

So that’s what I’d want people to know about doing business with [landlord]. More power to you if you want to but I would never ever recommend them to anyone.

If you know of anything we can do about this, let me know but I'm not hopeful.

Editing to Add Some Pictures

We could post a lot more but I feel like these sum it up for right now: https://imgur.com/a/uzXQPzM

#personal

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francesderwent · 6 years

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“In Need of a Generic Father Figure” A Veronica Mars Everybody Lives/Nobody Dies Meet-Cute LV AU Week Day 7 Canon-typical language, but otherwise general audiences On AO3 Inspired by this post and that one scene in Charlie Don’t Surf.

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It was supposed to be a kind of housewarming-slash-homecoming party, the kind of event that was totally low key in its formulation and planning stage but got completely out of hand once things got rolling. All their friends from the old neighborhood were coming over, and it was supposed to be all nostalgic idiocy born from the eternal familiarity of each having been present for one another’s particular flavor of shitty childhood. There were no delusions about the depth of this bond, and so they weren’t expecting it to be a great party, not the best night of anyone’s life by any means, but it was the sort of gathering you could predict, could depend on. Low-pressure, low stakes, low key.

So, precisely the kind of event which would have a giant wrench thrown into it if you were to add in an unknown factor, say, a perfect stranger to man the grill.

“But he wouldn’t be a stranger,” Dick is insisting. “He’d be a dad.”

Logan gapes at him. “Whose dad?”

Dick shrugs, ineloquently.

“So by dad, you just mean some unknown-as-yet male person who has at one point fathered a child?”

“Sure.”

“So, some unknown person’s father, standing on the corner of our property, making hamburgers.”

“Grilling hamburgers, that’s essential.” Dick looks up from his computer and gives Logan a look like he’s disappointed in him for missing an obvious point. “And it’s not just some random sperm donor, dude, he has to be fatherly and shit. I put it in the ad.”

“Ah yes, the ad,” Logan says. “The Craigslist ad, which you put up online without consulting or telling me. I read the ad. And yet here I stand, questioning the entire premise behind it.” But Dick has returned to his computer, presumably to scroll through his emailed responses. Logan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Alright, the court recognizes that grilled hamburgers are better than any alternative. But why do we need someone else to come grill? You and I are fair-to-average at setting things on fire already.”

“We don’t have a grill.”

“No, but we both have trust funds that kicked in some time ago. You may remember them. They’re how we afforded the house…”

Dick huffs. “So we just buy a grill?” Logan gives him the raised eyebrows and jazz hands: duh. Dick bangs on the space bar. “Just buy one, from the depths of our rich boy pockets, without working for it or anything.”

Logan stares. “Are you having some kind of break?”

“It’s stupid to spend money if we could just borrow one.”

“Okaaaay,” Logan says. “So why aren’t you advertising for a grill we can borrow?”

“Because!”

“Because what, Dick?”

“Your dad is supposed to teach you how to grill!” Dick bites out.

They stare at each other for a long beat, then Dick tears his eyes away and starts clattering angrily on his keyboard. Logan sighs, then gingerly sits next to him on the sofa.

“You know,” he says, careful to keep his tone conversational, “if you wanted to sign up for one of those programs for kids with deadbeat dads where they hang out with well-adjusted adult men and learn life skills, I would have happily signed up with you, but we really should have done that when we were younger.”

Dick throws an elbow into his ribs half-heartedly. “Shut up.”

“I’m not saying, like, when we were twelve,” Logan goes on, warming to the topic, “because we mostly hadn’t figured out our dads were deadbeat by then. But definitely before we finished college and joined the workforce. I’m thinking like nineteen or twenty would have been the ideal age. Our father figures could have taught us to consume alcohol, in addition to teaching us to grill.”

“We were already pretty good at drinking alcohol by then,” Dick reminds him.

“Then they could have given us a strict talking-to about underage drinking,” Logan says. “It’s far too late for that now, and we’ve missed our chance.”

“Missed our chance…” Dick echoes.

Logan looks at him sideways.

Dick catches his eye and actually sniffs a little. “I know it’s stupid. You don’t have to tell me it’s stupid.”

Logan shifts uncomfortably. “It’s not stupid, man. I just wish we knew of some actual father figure we could get to sub in for you, rather than resorting to Craigslist dads.”

“It’s not just for me, dude,” Dick insists. “I know you care about this shit, too.”

Logan cracks a smile despite himself. “If some guy with a beer gut shows up and grills me a hamburger and calls me ‘sport’, that’s not going to make the old man any less of an abusive asshole.”

“I know, but we can make some nicer memories can’t we? Some nice dad-memories?”

For a second, Logan allows himself to enter into the delusion, but almost immediately becomes sidetracked on the mental image of Gregory Peck from To Kill a Mockingbird standing in their backyard, holding a light beer and grinning affably. That would be one thing – but he can’t imagine that any fathers like that actually exist in the world. No, this dad was probably going to be more or less a deadbeat himself, or else how would he have time to babysit a bunch of profligate twenty-somethings? At best, it would be some old guy whose kids were too grown-up and busy to talk to him anymore, a dad whose desperate neediness for attention and affirmation matches Dick’s. But then again, Dick will inevitably be drunk for the entire party – he wouldn’t notice if the dad was an escaped convict in black and white stripes with a literal ball and chain on his ankle. What harm could it do? He sighs, asks in a wry tone, “Are you going to ask for proof of paternity, or is this person going to be a fake dad on top of being random?”

Dick lights up. “That’s a great idea, I’ll edit that in!” He resumes typing at a frenzied pace; Logan watches bemusedly.

Still. It’s one weird thing on one day. It won’t make any difference one way or another, in the long run.

Nobody’s life was ever changed because a stranger made them a hamburger.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

After that, Logan tries to extricate himself from the whole dad-audition process, but Dick is, as usual, both oblivious and incorrigible. Logan very quickly comes to dread the phrases “hey, listen to this” and “what about this”, since both are sure signs that he’s about to be read a joke resumé with phrases like “excels at offering positive reinforcement”, or shown a headshot of a guy in a sweater vest. So when he gets home from work and the first thing he hears is “Logan, dude, this is the one”, his first response is to groan and flop face first onto the sofa. They found the sofa at the side of the road the second week in the house and it is therefore a little worn out, so the decision to be dramatic hurts.

“Asshole,” Dick tells him absently, wandering in from the next room holding his laptop. “Listen: father for twenty-plus years, expert level jokes and manly affection, bonus secret-family-recipe hot sauce.”

“The hot sauce is a nice touch,” Logan admits, rolling over onto his back and kicking his feet up onto the sofa arm. “All of the other applicants have really fixated on the ‘dad’ part of ‘grill dad’.”

Dick nods so enthusedly it looks painful. “I know, right? And get this, there’s an attached letter from his kid,” he says. “Dear advertiser, I can confirm that the applicant has been my father for my entire life, and I can honestly say that he has excelled at the position. You would be lucky to have him at your party, where he would strike just the right balance between embarrassing and fun, call all of you by the wrong names and then substitute “son” or “honey”, and repeatedly tell you he’s proud of you. His hamburgers are to die for, and he brings his own fire extinguisher in case anything should go wrong. He has my unreserved recommendation. Also, if this is some kind of dad kidnapping scheme, I will hunt you down and kill you. Cordially, V. Mars.” Dick looks up expectantly; Logan fights a smile.

“They wrote a letter of recommendation for their dad?”

“Uh huh.”

“Hmm,” Logan says neutrally, then says, “Mr. Mars,” trying it out, hitting the ‘r’s and dragging out the ‘s’.

“Keith Mars,” Dick adds helpfully, and turns the computer so Logan can see the attached photo. Keith Mars is bald, just slightly on the portly side, staring adoringly down at the tiny pigtailed child with whom he is dancing, her feet on his – V. Mars is a girl, apparently. Dick tabs to the next picture: Keith Mars standing next to a grill holding a hot dog over the head of a plaintive-looking pitbull while a gap-toothed, elementary-school-aged V. Mars laughs in the background with a blue-haired friend. In the third picture Keith is older, wearing a suit and grinning widely, hugging someone in graduation regalia, her face obscured by her cap. “He looks cool, right?” Dick prompts eagerly.

“Yeah,” Logan says, tearing his eyes away from the graduation photo. Neither he nor Dick had had any relatives attend their college graduation, and he’d seen plenty of family reunions at the baccalaureate celebration that seemed more stiff and awkward than anything else, but Keith looks like he just might burst with pride. “Yeah, he seems nice.”

“Like a real dad, right?” Dick persists.

Logan snorts. “As if I have any experience with which to judge that quality.”

Dick offers a fist bump and Logan complies. “Trauma twins!” Dick says, sing-song. Logan rolls his eyes. “But he seems legit?” Dick says, returning to the salient point. “This is okay?”

Logan stands and claps his roommate on the shoulder. “Sure, man. If you say this is the one, I think you’re probably right.”

Dick beams at him. “I’ll tell him he got the gig!”

“Cool,” Logan says drily. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Since Dick thinks it would be acceptable to simply explain the dad-for-hire situation when their guests show up, Logan finds himself calling each invitee one by one the day before the party and beginning with the statement, “So you know how Dick has a tenuous relationship with reality?” Lilly laughs for a full minute and a half, and Duncan, no matter how many times Logan runs through the concept, just doesn’t seem to get it, but everyone else just thinks it’s sad.

“Oh my god, our lives suck,” Gia says, sounding as if she just realized it. “Does no one in our group have a functioning father figure?”

“Carrie’s dad was okay,” Logan offers. “But he moved out of state a few years back.”

“And he never knew how to grill!” Dick yells through his bedroom door.

“And he never knew how to grill,” Logan repeats.

“Yeah, well,” Gia says skeptically, “I’m bringing extra booze for when this weird-ass idea causes someone to have an emotional breakdown.”

“Appreciated.”

And when the day arrives, booze is the one thing they do seem to have enough of.

“Why did we say we were going to supply ingredients?” Logan wonders aloud as he methodically opens and shuts every cupboard in their kitchen. “You forgot to buy onions, we don’t own any spices, I don’t even think we have salt and pepper –”

“Logan. Man! Relax.” As anticipated, Dick is already halfway to trashed, and far from caring if their hamburgers are seasoned.

“This was your idea,” Logan says, accusing sliding into sardonic. “You’re the one who wanted to make some new dad-memories, and now because you were overly confident in a Craigslist ad, our new dad is already going to be disappointed in us.”

“Dude, holy shit –” Dick bursts out laughing and can’t continue his thought. Logan turns around to glare at him in exasperation. “What if –” Dick stammers, chortling, “what if he says the thing? ‘I’m not mad I’m just disappointed?’ How absolutely sick would that be?” He’s wheezing now, and Logan can’t think of anything to do except stare at him. “Just like a real dad!” Dick howls.

Logan stands, frozen, for a beat longer, and then abandons his search for the probably-nonexistent spice cabinet to reach for the scotch instead. “Gia was right,” he says flatly. “This is going to end in tears.” He pulls a little too sharply on the tab of the wax seal and it snaps off with the seal still in place. He looks at it in consternation, and it is at this point that the doorbell rings. Dick makes no sign of moving from his position, giggling slumped over the kitchen table, so Logan jogs to the front hallway, only to discover that Dick has placed all the beer they bought in front of the door, barricading it closed. He’s kicking six packs out of the way and trying to open the scotch bottle with his teeth when he finally manages to wrench open the door and is greeted by the genial but not-quite-non-threatening face of Keith Mars.

For a moment the desire to say something dismissive rises up, as if this was still high school and he was still incapable of engaging with an adult on mutually respectful terms, but Logan takes a deep breath and forces it down. “Mr. Mars,” he says.

Keith sticks out a hand. “Richard?”

Logan snorts, but accepts the handshake. “Richard is inside. I’m the roommate, Logan.”

Keith’s eyes drop to the scotch bottle still in Logan’s hand. “I hate it when that happens,” he says mildly.

Logan makes a non-committal noise. “We probably have a wine opener somewhere that should do the trick.”

“We don’t!” Dick yells from the kitchen. “I told the chicks to bring one!”

“That would be Richard,” Logan tells Keith wryly. Keith raises his eyebrows, but then reaches into his jacket pocket and offers Logan a multi-tool. “Thanks,” Logan says uncomfortably, looking down to flip through utensils instead of making eye contact. “Can I offer you anything?”

“Nope,” says Keith cheerfully, “just point me to the backyard and I’ll get the grill fired up.”

“Get the grill fired up!” Dick’s voice repeats, maniacally.

“He’s fine,” says Logan, unconvinced himself. “The backyard’s through this way.”

“No!” Dick stumbles into the hallway and spreads his arms wide, probably so as best to show off the tshirt he bought specifically for the occasion which reads “you’re all up in my grill”, a decided improvement over the grill-themed shirt Logan had to initially talk him down from, which had a meat-related innuendo on it. “I will show you to the backyard, sir!”

Keith offers a hand. “Keith Mars.”

“Awesome, dude.” Dick shakes his hand, which is apparently hilarious because he cracks himself up again. “Welcome to the party!”

Keith glances at Logan, who shrugs. “I’m just happy to be included,” Keith says, sounding, against all odds, like he means it.

“Dope,” Dick responds. “Follow me, mon capitan, I will show you to your grill kingdom!”

“Please stop mixing your metaphors,” Logan tells him, but Keith waves him off and allows Dick to sling an arm around his shoulder and lead him towards the screen door to the backyard.

“Dude, seriously, your application was whack,” Dick says. “I was like, whoa, this guy is like a serious dad!” Logan is watching them go, wondering if he’s responsible for making Keith feel safe and if he should therefore follow, when there’s a voice at shoulder-level behind him.

“So that’s the Craigslist guy?”

He turns, smoothly accepts the proffered casserole dish. “Craigslist dad, actually, or you’re missing the whole point.”

Carrie stands on her toes to look over his shoulder at where Keith is patiently observing Dick’s wild gesticulating at all the ingredients they bought. “Huh,” she says. “I guess he does kind of look like a dad.”

“I should hope so, we took the casting call very seriously.”

Carrie rolls her eyes. “That’s a fruit salad,” she informs him, indicating the dish he’s holding. “I’ve just gotta grab my guitar out of my car and then I can help set up or whatever.”

“You brought your guitar?” Logan repeats. “Are we gonna sit in a circle and sing campfire songs? What the hell kind of barbecue do you think this is?”

“A nice wholesome one, of course. You were kind enough to invite Susan and her kid, and you specifically got a random dad to come grill you food.” After a pause and seemingly despite herself, Carrie asks, “You really couldn’t have just bought a grill yourselves?”

Logan sighs. “Actually, the grill is ours. Keith had one but it wouldn’t fit in his car, so Dick went straight out and got the most expensive one there was.”

“Don’t all serious dads own pickup trucks?”

“That’s exactly what I said.”

“And now you have your own grill.”

“We even managed to work it ourselves; we made marshmallows over it last night.”

Carrie makes a face. “I can’t believe you guys are living together. You’ll both starve to death or suffocate under dirty laundry within a month.”

“Nah,” says Logan, dismissive, “we can live on marshmallows for at least two months, and we can just buy new clothes and burn our dirty laundry on the grill.”

“That,” Carrie tells him calmly, “is disgusting.”

“People who bring acoustic guitars to house parties shouldn’t throw stones,” Logan counters.

She laughs and flips him off. “When’s everyone else getting here?”

He indicates careless ignorance with a wave of the hand. “Hopefully soon. I think we need to set up a watch rotation to make sure Dick doesn’t start crying on the grill dad.”

Carrie snorts, tosses him her keys; he manages to switch the fruit salad to one hand and snag them in the hand holding the scotch. “In that case, you go grab my guitar out of the trunk. What did you say the guy’s name is?”

“Keith Mars.”

“Got it. Do not leave me out there by myself for more than a minute.”

“Of course not! In fact, I wouldn’t dream of getting in your car and driving far, far away from here.”

She elbows past him, laughing, and jogs through the house to make a dramatic exit out the back door, where she is greeted by Dick’s incoherent shouts. Logan sighs, then picks his way back through the six-packs to the kitchen to put everything down, finally open the scotch, and knock back half a drink. When he gets back out to the driveway Casey Gant is there with his newest arm-candy girlfriend, and Logan finds himself cajoled into giving a house tour so he can explain to her why he and Dick decided on this house, how all the guests know each other, and that, no, Casey wasn’t lying about the Craigslist situation. By the time Logan manages to extricate himself, everyone has arrived and is milling around the backyard. Carrie waves to him from a picnic blanket in the middle of the lawn, where she is in fact playing guitar for Susan and her adolescent daughter. He likes Susan and the kid fine, but the three of them seem to be working on a warble-y song from the latest Disney princess sensation, so he hides a grimace, waves back, and looks elsewhere. There’s a few people clustered around the grill, listening to Keith tell some story which is apparently fascinating; Logan gives them a wide berth and joins Lilly and Gia instead, who are standing off to the side eyeing the whole scene skeptically.

“Don’t you ladies want to take advantage of this unique opportunity to interact with a genuine, human parent?” he asks.

“Nope,” says Gia, at the same time as Lilly says “Not even a little.”

Logan snorts. “Well, cheers to that, I suppose.”

“Yes, cheers!” Lilly says. “To dealing with our issues in therapy, rather than projecting all of our buried hopes onto a stranger with a novelty apron who could never live up to our ideals anyway.”

“Like motherfucking adults,” Logan echoes solemnly. They clink glasses.

Gia looks contemplative. “It’s not so much that he’s a random stranger,” she says. “I even kind of trust that he’s for real, you know?”

“I know,” Lilly retorts, pausing to take a big gulp of her drink. “That’s the worst part. Dick introduced me to him when I got here, and he was immediately more interested in my life and my job than my parents have ever been.”

“Yeah, but like, actually interested,” Gia adds, “like he thought I was worth his time and couldn’t wait to hear more about me.”

“How dare he,” Logan says mildly.

Gia elbows him in the ribs. “I don’t see you over there talking to him.”

Logan shrugs. “If I met him on the street maybe I’d be able to trust that he’s the real deal, but the fact that he answered the ad just seems fundamentally suspicious.”

“Yeah, but you guys aren’t paying him, are you?” says Lilly.

“Just in beer.”

“He’s probably just lonely,” Gia suggests.

“I thought the same thing,” says Logan. “But if he’s such a good father, then wouldn’t his own kid want to see him? So why would he need us?”

Lilly pats him on the shoulder. “Logan, you’ve honed your trust issues and pessimism into quite an art.”

He huffs, irritable despite himself. “I’m just saying, don’t anyone go writing him into their will just yet.” Gia looks at him little worriedly, and he attempts a reassuring smile. “I need another drink, can I get either of you anything?” They both wave him off, and he makes for the deck where all the refreshments are, but in his haste to get away, forgets to avoid the grill group and accidentally makes eye contact with Dick. Dick, of course, begins frantically waving him over, and though Logan lifts a hand in acknowledgement and tries to stay course, this only means that Dick starts yelling his name. Logan silently swears to himself that he will not enter the fatherland without a drink in hand, so yells back that he’ll be right there and prays that they’ll be out of something on the drinks and appetizers table so he’ll have to go inside to get it, if not drive to the store. Tragically, Carrie is already there, refilling chip bowls, and when he offers to help she just gives him an unsympathetic look.

“Go get it over with, before Dick convinces everyone to start chanting your name,” she says.

Logan sighs, grabs the beer with the highest alcohol content he can find, and skips down the stairs. “Logan!’ Dick crows. “Logan’s here, guys!”

“I live here,” Logan reminds him. The obvious statement is greeted by polite laughs from the Keith fan-club and drunken giggling from Dick.

“Get this, Logan!” he says, childlike excitement radiating off him in waves. “We didn’t even need salt and pepper, Keith brought his own burger rub!”

Logan looks obligingly at Keith, who nods. “Secret family recipe.”

“I thought the secret was the hot sauce?” Logan says.

“I’ve got that, too.”

Logan raises his eyebrows. “Everything’s a secret with you, Mr. Mars. And here I thought we were just on the verge of opening up to each other.”

Keith laughs good-naturedly. “I’m an open book, Logan.”

Logan is mentally scrolling through options for sarcastic replies which aren’t overly combative when suddenly he feels very, uncomfortably cold, from the back of his neck down, and can do nothing but gasp stupidly. For a moment he thinks Dick has poured ice down his back, but Dick is standing on the other side of the grill from him, looking genuinely surprised albeit delighted. Logan cranes his neck and turns in a circle, but can’t see what’s been spilled on him, though it’s entirely clear who’s to blame. “Duncan,” Logan says, flat and edging toward a growl.

Duncan has the nerve to roll his eyes. “Come on, man, it’s not my fault.”

Logan gestures to where Duncan has clearly dropped his solo cup and half a plate of appetizers on the lawn. “And how do you figure that?”

Duncan shrugs. “You know how hard it is to hold a drink and a plate of stuff at the same time.”

“Hmm, then maybe you should go inside and eat at the table – or better yet, maybe the family down the block can loan us their high chair.”

Duncan scowls at him. “Do you have to be like this, Logan, seriously? It’s just a shirt. And it’s your freaking house, you can just go in and change.”

Logan flicks his eyes over at Keith, who thankfully doesn’t appear inclined to use his fake fatherly authority to intervene and is pretending to look intently at something across the way. Logan fakes a laugh and says as evenly as he can manage, “And it was your freaking drink, so you could have just apologized.” Keith abandons his examination of the next-door-neighbor’s maple tree to give Logan a side-eyed smile, and for a moment, Logan feels a vague sense of satisfaction, before he remembers that he doesn’t care about Keith’s approval. He makes a wry face back.

“Logan,” Keith says mildly, “keep an eye on the grill? I need to grab something I left in the kitchen.”

“No problem, Mr. Mars,” Logan answers, saluting sloppily. Keith nods at him, and then pats Duncan on the shoulder as he passes; Logan interprets the move as condescending and is pleased again, and again annoyed at himself for being pleased. As a pathetic attempt at distracting himself, he pulls his arms into what was previously his favorite gray v-neck and puts it back on backwards so he can look at the stain, and then is horrified all over again. “Duncan, what the fuck were you drinking?” he demands.

Now, finally, Duncan has the grace to look ashamed, or at least defensive. “Mike’s,” he mutters.

“Mike’s lemonade is not this color.”

“It was Mike’s hard black cherry lemonade, alright!”

There are various titters from the group; Logan snorts inadvertently and lifts up the shirt to sniff the purple-y stain, which smells more like sugar than anything else. He knows he should stop pushing, but can’t quite restrain a “Dude, really?”, which turns the titters into full-fledged barks of laughter.

Duncan snaps. “Why do you have to be such a –”

“Donut!”

Duncan freezes at the sound of Lilly’s voice.

“Quit being a drip!” she yells. “Or go home!”

For a second, Duncan turns his glare back on Logan with full force, and Logan almost thinks he’s going to spit in his face or something, but then he just kicks at his dropped solo cup and slinks off toward the front yard.

“Wo-o-ow,” says Dick, with barely contained glee. “This really is the best party ever.”

Logan rolls his eyes, grabs the spatula hanging off the grill, and starts idly pushing burgers around to have something to do. “You’re happy with your Craigslist investment?” he asks Dick.

“Absolutely, dude!”

“And the weirdness of the concept still hasn’t dawned on you?” Casey adds, snickering.

“How could it be weird? Keith is awesome, and he’s the perfect addition to the party, just like the application said.”

“Of course he is.”

Logan jumps, almost drops a burger on the ground, and then turns to find that Duncan’s place in the circle has been filled. She’s on the shorter side, with blonde hair falling down her back in waves, a leather jacket slung over one shoulder, and a completely unreadable expression on her face – and based on the looks she’s getting from the others, no one else has the faintest idea who she is either. “Uh –” Logan says.

“Keith Mars is still here, right?” she asks, voice somewhere between businesslike and belligerent.

“Well –”

“He just went inside,” Dick says, helpfully. “He’ll be back out in a minute.”

Logan groans. “Dick, remind me never to commit any crimes you’d have to be interrogated about.”

Dick shrugs, the whole movement exaggerated by drunkenness. “Look at her, man, what’s she gonna do?”

Logan looks at her, less sure that he should be unintimidated than Dick seems to be; she gives him an unimpressed once-over, but then cracks a smile seemingly despite herself. “So was it some combination of getting dressed in the dark and a wet tshirt competition, or is this a bold fashion choice?”

Logan glances down at his backwards v-neck and the damp, purple circle on his chest. “Bold fashion choice,” he answers, looking up to raise his eyebrows at her.

“I wouldn’t have been able to picture it,” she says, looking him up and down again, “but now that I see it, I guess it works. In fact, you should only wear this. Like, ever.”

Logan grins awkwardly, unsure whether she’s mocking him or flirting with him, and still unsure what he, as a homeowner, is supposed to do about strangers in his backyard, even if they are exceptionally cute.

“So, this is weird,” Dick offers.

“Hey, honey!” Logan turns; Keith is coming down the steps of the deck with burger buns and cheese in hand, beaming at the interloper.

“And it just got weirder,” Casey announces.

“Yup,” echoes his date. “More drinks?”

“You bet.” They wander off arm in arm; Casey salutes Logan with his beer can.

“What are you doing here, sweetheart?” Keith says, dumping his armful of food onto the picnic table so he can hug the blonde girl.

She shrugs, looking considerably more relaxed now that he’s appeared. “I’m an only child, dad, you didn’t honestly expect me to let you adopt a whole party without at least coming over to check up on you. I’ve never had to share before.”

Keith laughs. “Of course, why didn’t I think of that. Why wouldn’t my grown adult daughter show up at an honest Craigslist gig to make sure she wasn’t losing her spot as my favorite child?”

“I dunno,” Dick says suspiciously, “I think she might also be here to flirt with Logan.”

“You two have met?” Keith turns a surprised look on Logan, who does his best innocent blink and tries not to broadcast that a few seconds ago he was considering using Duncan’s spill as an excuse to take his shirt off in front of this girl.

“Only just now,” Keith’s daughter assures him.

Logan nods. “You’re V. Mars?”

“Veronica,” she answers. She offers her hand to shake.

“Don’t take this personally,” Logan says, “but I wouldn’t. I’m honestly kind of covered in Mike’s hard black cherry lemonade.”

“That exists?” she says.

“There’s no limit to the abominations which crawl this earth,” he replies, straight-faced. She laughs.

“See what I mean,” Dick says to Keith. Keith looks at him blankly; Dick belches, shoots Logan a complicated and incomprehensible hand gesture, and wanders off after Casey, leaving Logan alone with the two Marses. He looks back and forth between them, trying not to stare, and wondering if it would be weird to ask what kind of degree Veronica just graduated with based on the picture Keith sent.

“So!” Veronica says, into the strained silence. “You’ve been treating my dad well?”

“He’s getting all of the standard grill-dad benefits,” Logan answers. “We didn’t want to have the agency all over us, or god forbid, the unions.”

Veronica smiles in acknowledgment, but her eyes flick to her dad with something like nervousness.

“Do you two need a minute?” Logan offers.

“No!” says Keith, confidently calm. “Everything’s all fine, here. Son, can you start putting cheese on hamburger buns? Veronica, honey, help him?”

Veronica rolls her eyes, but bumps Logan out of the way with her hip so she can grab the cheese. “So, daaad,” she says, sing-song.

“Veronica,” he says, warningly.

She actually pouts. “Come on, dad,” she says, the words coming quicker now. “It’s pretty clear Logan doesn’t care about you being his fake father for the day; his entire body flinched when you called him son.”

Logan hands her a hamburger bun he removed from the block of them in the bag, says mildly, “I thought I managed to reserve my flinch to only seventy percent of my body.”

“Nope!” Veronica gives him an apologetic smile, and then turns back to Keith. “Dad, please.”

Keith glances at Logan, back at her, and sighs. “Make it quick, Veronica.”

She drops the package of cheese and reaches into her bag to retrieve a giant camera. “So-o-o,” she says, lowering her voice, “you know that guy I’ve been on all week for a completely unrelated…work thing?”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

“Well, he just walked through the front door of your guy’s house.”

“No, he didn’t,” Keith says drily. She tabs through a few photos on the display, shows him one. Keith looks at her. “That can’t be good.”

She lets out a huff of breath. “No, I didn’t think so either.”

“I can see both exits from here, honey, and I haven’t turned my back once.”

“From here?” Logan repeats.

They ignore him. “If I didn’t notice him going in, it was because I wasn’t looking for people entering,” Keith continues, reassuringly. “Nobody could have gotten away, so they must all just be inside. We’ll wait it out, it’ll be fine.”

Logan is just about to give up and leave them to it so he can find another drink, and maybe even change his shirt, but that, of course, is when the air is filled with the sound of breaking glass.

Some kind of instinct takes over and he dives in between the sound and Veronica, dragging her to the ground with him despite her incoherent noise of protest. He looks up in time to see a flailing person hit the ground below the next-door-neighbor’s maple tree, surrounded by the debris from the shattered second-story window.

“That’s yours!” Veronica gasps, but Keith has already produced a gun from somewhere under his novelty apron and is pointing it at where the fallen man has gotten unsteadily to his feet.

“Police!” Keith shouts. “Don’t move!”

There’s a stunned pause, Logan takes in the faces of gaping astonishment on his friends, and then the man takes off running in the opposite direction. Keith lets out a brief curse and rips off his apron. “He’s running,” he announces to thin air, and Logan hears a siren start up down the street, so apparently he really is police. Keith throws the apron at Veronica. “Don’t let the hamburgers burn,” he orders, and then he climbs on the picnic table, vaults clumsily over the neighbor’s fence, and takes off after the runner.

“You’re going to strain your back,” Veronica yells after him, almost petulant. She elbows Logan in the ribs and he rolls off her, not sure whether she’s about to join in the chase herself or whether she’s just going to lay into him for tackling her. She gets up, checks her camera and is apparently convinced that its not broken, but still looks dissatisfied about something. She peeks into the grill, lifts a single burger with the forgotten spatula. “They’re not going to burn,” she says, disdainfully.

“Dude.” Dick jogs over so he can give Logan a hand up off the ground. “Dude,” Dick repeats, “is it just me or was our grill-dad packing heat?”

Logan pats his arm. “Not only was he packing heat, but he was almost definitely using us to surveille the house next door.”

Dick looks flabbergasted. “Shit, man. Even my fake dad didn’t really want to spend time with me.”

“I’m sure he’ll be back, once they’ve collared the guy,” Veronica offers. As if inspired, she removes the first burger patty from the grill, puts it on one of their prepared buns, and hands it to him.

Dick looks at it suspiciously, takes a bite, and then nods, but adds accusingly, “Whatever, man. I’m going to need therapy from this.” He shoots a finger gun at Logan. “So, you do whatever you’re doing here, I’m gonna go apologize to Susan for exposing her child to all this violence.”

“That’s really mature and responsible of you, Dick,” Logan says, surprised.

“Duh,” says Dick. “It’s up to us to break the cycle.” And with that, he heads back towards the rest of the party, who are all staring at Veronica with no small amount of apprehension. She doesn’t seem to notice, but absently picks up Keith’s apron and puts it on, and starts assembling burgers.

Logan can’t help but ask, “You’re not going to follow them?”

“Nope,” she says, shortly, “not my case.”

“Do you need to go after…your guy?”

“No, I’ve got the pictures I needed.”

“Then I’m sure Keith would appreciate the backup…?”

She lets out a short laugh, and Logan sees with dawning comprehension that she’s worried. “He needs it,” she answers, “but he wouldn’t appreciate it. I don’t have the clearance.”

“You’re not his partner?”

She turns to look at him like he’s an idiot. “No-o-o,” she says. “I’m his daughter.”

Logan grins, lifts his hands in surrender. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure how deep the undercover scheme went.” She snorts, flips her hair over her shoulder, and turns back to the grill. “That one on the right is getting a little overdone,” he says, pointing.

“No it’s not.” She swats his hand away, and then moves the offending burger closer to the coals, Logan suspects just to be contrary.

“So you’re not a cop?” he tries again. She shoots him an exasperated glance over her shoulder, he grins, says, “If you’re not a cop, why were you surveilling the house too?”

She huffs a sigh, puts the spatula down with a clatter, and reaches for her bag where it had fallen on the ground. “Here,” she says, and tosses something at him. He catches it, turns it around, opens it.

“You’re a private detective?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Not a cop?”

“I’m going to throw a hamburger at you.”

Logan laughs. “So, what, you didn’t want to follow in your father’s footsteps?”

“I did, he didn’t,” Veronica says casually, returning her focus to the grill. “He wanted me to aim higher. I got accepted to Quantico, and was sent home after three weeks because of my issue with authority.” She shrugs, spins the spatula like a baton. “Turns out, I’m more suited for private eye work than I am for either the feds or the boys in blue anyway.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

Logan shrugs, thinking that she was already exceptionally cute, but she just became the most fascinating person on the planet. “I don’t know.”

She removes the last burger from the grill and spins to look at him, hands on her hips. He feels a goofy grin spreading over his face, and she rolls her eyes at him. “What, Logan?”

“You should only wear this.”

She looks down at Keith’s apron, which reads in big, bold letters, “NEVER TRUST A SKINNY CHEF”. She snorts. “If you haven’t figured out yet that you shouldn’t trust me, no amount of written reminders are going to do the trick.”

Logan ducks his head, rubs the back of his neck. “So I’m trusting, sue me.”

“Ah!” She taps her chin with one finger, mock-contemplative. “Is that how you ended up advertising for a strange dad to on-site cater your barbecue?”

“That wasn’t my idea.” Veronica raises her eyebrows, Logan adds, “I actually feel a lot better about your dad now.”

“You feel a lot better about him now that you know he deceived you?”

“Well, yeah,” Logan admits. “He seemed way too normal to be the kind of person who responds to Craigslist ads, so there definitely had to be a catch.” She raises her eyebrows at him, he adds lamely, “So it’s nice that the catch was he’s mainly here to catch bad guys.”

As if on cue, Veronica’s cell phone buzzes; she picks up on the first ring. “Dad?” The worry smooths away from her face at his response, and she mouths a quick apology to Logan before retreating into the corner of the yard to debrief. The last thing he hears her say is “I can’t believe you jumped over that fence, are you trying to kill me?”

Logan walks over to where Dick and Gia are relating the main event to Duncan, who has reemerged and is trying very hard to appear as if he doesn’t regret missing out. “Then Keith magically pulled a gun out of nowhere,” Dick says, miming in slow motion, “and yelled get on the ground or I’ll shoot!”

“He didn’t exactly yell that,” Gia puts in. “I’m pretty sure he basically just said ‘police’.”

Dick ignores her, too invested in the story. “But the guy just books it, and so Keith literally vaulted over the fence and chased after him, yelling and firing at him –”

“No,” Gia says.

Duncan rolls his eyes. “This is what you get for inviting strangers into your home,” he says derisively.

“Trained professionals to arrest the criminal who apparently lived next door to us anyway?” Logan pipes up.

“Professional or not,” Gia says, upbeat, “as soon as shit started to go down, Logan shielded the cop’s daughter with his body, which was pretty cool.”

“Aww,” says Lilly, coming up to put an arm around her brother’s shoulders. “And you were out in the car, sulking because everyone laughed at your drink choice!”

Reminded, Logan glances down at his shirt, which he’d mostly forgotten in all the excitement; it is now starting to stick to his skin uncomfortably. What the hell, Keith won’t be back for twenty minutes at least; he can definitely get some mileage out of this. He takes the shirt off. The girls wolf-whistle, Duncan groans.

“You know,” Lilly suggests slyly, “there are definitely easier ways than Craigslist to incorporate a new father figure into your life.”

“What?” says Dick, immediately intrigued. “Is there a more specific service?”

“Is there?” Logan repeats, alarmed.

Lilly starts laughing. “You’re both idiots,” Duncan tells them, with significantly more affection now that his knowing something they don’t has reestablished him in a position of authority.

Gia appears to be about ready to take pity on them, but is interrupted by Veronica’s return. “They got the guy,” she announces. “Dad is driving him to the station. Logan, he says he’s leaving you in charge until he gets back, not Richard.”

Dick flips her off; Logan replies, “I’m touched that he’s ceding authority to me in my own home.”

Veronica performs an elaborate double take, gestures at the house. “This is yours?”

“As far as the eye can see, or at least until where I imagine the police tape will be going up.”

“It’s my house, too,” Dick puts in.

Veronica ignores him. “I took you for an out-of-towner,” she tells Logan.

The fact that she thought of this means she’s not uninterested in the possibility of seeing him again. “Nope, local boy, though and through.”

Veronica eyes him thoughtfully. “And why are you half naked?”

He realizes he doesn’t actually have a good reason. “I was really starting to smell?”

She pretends to consider this. “I guess I’ll take it,” she finally says. Lilly starts cackling.

Logan tries not to preen. “Veronica, this is everybody; everybody, Veronica.” Veronica waves awkwardly.

“Are you going to stick around until your dad gets back?” Gia asks, faux-innocent.

Veronica looks sidelong at Logan. “Stay,” he says, hearing it come out somehow as if he were laying his heart on the line. He adds, more casually, “You can scold him for his fence-jumping.”

She considers him. “Do you have anything other than Mike’s hard black cherry lemonade?”

He cracks a smile. “I think I can scare something up.”

“The good stuff is all inside,” Lilly lies, straight-faced, then elbows Duncan, who says with faux-enthusiasm, “Oh yeah, and while you’re in there, maybe Logan could put a shirt on.”

“Like, if one jumps out at him,” Gia puts in. “Not every color works on Logan.”

“Yeah,” says Lilly. “He went through a whole orange phase. It was bad.”

Veronica looks bewilderedly around the circle, then back up at Logan. “I guess I could stay awhile,” she says, a smile pulling at her mouth.

“Don’t forget to grab hamburgers before you go in,” Dick says, serious. “That’s literally the whole point.”

“Right,” says Logan, not taking his eyes off Veronica. “Thank goodness for those hamburgers.”

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Yahoo answers post from user MeCasablancasIsTooCasablancas:

So a few years ago I met this really cool dad, super great, very wise, lot to offer as a father figure. I put a lot of effort into getting to know him and he’s always been totally chill. My roommate, on the other hand, barely wanted to talk to the dad, from day one. Only problem is, now that’s changed and we’re in competition, and I was wondering, how do I make sure that my prior claim to the dad is respected? My roommate didn’t even want a dad, but now just because he’s marrying the guy’s daughter everyone’s telling me father-in-law trumps the fact that I clearly called dibs? This can’t be right.

Also, the wedding is in two months, and even though there’s no way they go through with it, just in case please go to Craigslist and look for my post seeking a new roommate. If it helps, we have a grill.

#LV AU week #veronica mars #cate fic #vm #this fic brought to you by general insanity and my conveniently timed spring break #aaaaaaaand that's it for now folks!!#I promise I am working on the teachers AU #it's just very difficult to write a teacher AU #without including lots of stuff about students #which takes up space and time

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no-meconozco · 3 years

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I’m trying to remember my first good memory of my dad. I have flashes of my brother and I in the living room. It’s night and my dad comes home with a large plastic bag with all of these stuffed animals inside. And I remember having this feeling of overwhelming joy and wonder. He hadn’t been home in days; maybe a week because he’s a truck driver and a teamster. This is also an age before cell phones so nobody knew that he was coming home and it was this huge surprise. Our dad is like Santa Claus. He’s so full of joy everything feels right and surprising and exciting and I remember because I jumped so hard off of the couch, this like old antique couch with golden upholstery, and the frame cracks audibly, but no one really pays attention to it because of this electric distraction. But I remember the panic I felt and I hoped to god no one heard.

There’s a lot of flashbulb moments like that. Where the emotion is so vibrant that the details are seemingly so defined.

My first memory however, is much darker and has only gotten darker overtime. I was three years old and in preschool. It was early in the morning we’re already had breakfast and my mom is probably trying to get me ready for preschool so I wasn’t late. I was wearing A Rugrats T-shirt and probably a diaper but I honestly only remember the T-shirt. Like every mom in the 90s there were multiple Danish cookie containers that never had cookies in them. This one however it was for my crowns and I was coloring and my mom asked me too get dressed but my dad screaming at me to clean up my crayons. So logically I go to get changed first with the intention of cleaning up my crayons afterwards because that’s the order of commands I was given. He grabbed me by the neck first And I struggle to get away. I’m trying to think of the best way to describe this but it’s as if he has the front of my throat and with it bunched up the collar of my shirt with the skin underneath. He throws me into the nearby cabinet that stored our cookie sheets, cereal, and dog milk bones and I remember because the door opens and the box of bones falls out.

I still go to preschool that day. Miss Cathy is there, standing so much taller than me, with long stringy straight hair down to her chest. I loved her but that day she scares me. She looks looming and ominous. There are red marks like fingers on one side and a sharp red line on the others from how the shirt collar rubbed my skin. I’m quiet. She asks me what happened & I don’t utter a sound. She asks me who did this to you. And I say “daddy.” According to family that remember this moment, I didn’t act sad. I just moved on and played with the other kids. It was that reaction, like I had normalized it, that made Miss Cathy’s antennae twitch. This has happened before. What surprises me today, looking back on it, is that Their response was to call my mom and have me sent home. But she couldn’t pick me up. So, My dad did. And they sent me home with him. I will never understand that. It burned into me that he was right to do those things to me, that he could, and it was my fault. Which he said repeatedly and often. That I broke up the family, that I almost made my parents get a divorce. The list goes on.

It wouldn’t be until I was 29 that I would bring this memory up to my Aunt and she told tell me, “we all thought he did it.” A little dumbfounded I replied with “Did what?” Because ya, of course he did that, there was no question. “I don’t know if you remember, but you were alone in the backyard with him, and you came running into the house to wake up your mom because ‘your arm hurt.’ We all thought he broke your arm.”

My whole body went cold because I remember that day, and I remember running into the house to wake her up and I was crying. I remember going to the hospital, the ex rays that were taken, I fought and screamed because the technician or nurse was taking off my clothes and I didn’t want her to see my chest.

I had no idea that was the same day. I remember those incidents so clearly. But what did he do to me? I couldn’t tell anyone. The doctors, family, all asked me what happened and I just said over and over again, panicking, “I don’t remember.” I was erratic. Flailing, screaming, crying.

I think that was the first time he sexually abused me.

And he broke my arm in the process.

I wouldn’t remember the second time until I was 28, the night after a protest in Brooklyn, where I, a photographer and documentarian, was the the first to be taken, followed by medics and legal observers, bound and thrown into a riot truck and left alone for what felt like hours. So many people screamed for my release. I was the last to be processed, the arresting officer had failed to return to the precinct and “claim his collar” and I was passed around until i landed into a riot cop’s hands who already had someone they wanted to process. I remember being alone, the last one there, & leaning against the walls at the edge of the back door. Outside the door was Delgado, the terror of Brooklyn, and on either side of him two or three cops. They’re boasting about their conquest and his machismo, arrogance, viciousness, and large gut reminds me so much of my dad. There’s a riot truck behind Thurman and they’re leaning on it. There’s about 5 ft of distance between the number of my cage and the plume of his cigar and he leans forward, through it and examines me, deciding what to do with me and which block to put me in, the men or the women’s.

FYI, the charges were dropped. This was routine. This act. It didn’t phase me. I was more annoyed than anything. But I would have horrible night terrors following this event. Vivid, sometimes surreal and fantastical, of performing fellatio on my father. In one dream he’s this goat like demon, in another he looks normal, but reveals himself and there’s multiple phalli. Every time, though, I’m outside his work truck and the passenger door is open. Then I’m inside and on makeshift bed in the space behind the front seats where I guess my dad would sleep on the road. I’m asleep in this space, in this dream, but I wake up and I’m confused because “the stars stopped moving.” I blink and he’s looming over me and I can’t see the stars anymore. I’m crying in my sleep and my screams wake up my husband. He’s holding me and trying to soothe me back to sleep. That happens at least once a month and much more frequently at the beginning. I never tell him what the dreams are about.

I used to forgive my dad so much & for so much worse. Because throughout my life & before I remembered this horrible event and started putting these pieces together, I thought I had an equal hand in all of this. In every argument. In every literal fight. I really did think that he wanted to be a good dad, but I was the thing in the room he couldn’t understand. Or want to. We were and are so much alike and that kills me and empowers me. I think he saw himself in me and took out all of his anger and stress on me and it took me a long time to understand that none of this is my fault. I saw myself as an adult. Sometimes wise and calm, often highly anxious and erratic without any foundation to communicate what was really happening. It forced me to account for the ways I “misbehaved.” And I forgave him before I really understood. I was just a kid. Only a kid. Alone. Desperate for help.

I also think he wanted this easy fantasy life. He was in love with the idea of having a family, and I think he stuck around because my mom, although an underpaid school teacher in LA, still had more means than him. He sees my grandfather’s house and froths at the mouth to take it. He see the stability of my mom’s teaching career and clings onto her, siphoning until he bankrupts us and we feed ourselves from a church pantry. My mom was a life raft and he a sinking ship and if it that house didn’t exist, or the career, he would’ve left. Just like he did my his first wife. And his second. I know next to nothing about my half sisters, but I have to believe they are better off without him. I don’t know my dad’s side of the family. His blood relatives and his adopted are to this day, a mystery to me. My first and last interaction with my oldest sister would be during a medical crisis. I was 21 and he was in the hospital, having had 7 or so aneurysms with a dismal prognosis. my mom had her number and asked me to call. So, I did. I called just to tell her. Her first and last words to me were “I can’t talk to him, I can’t do this. It makes me sad cause, you know… because you’re my blood, you’re my kin, but you have no idea what he’s put me through all of these years.” I think I have an idea.

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cosmosogler · 7 years

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hello. i had a little trouble falling asleep last night. i like to pet eve while she falls asleep, but it’s not the most comfortable position for me, as i usually prefer to sleep on my other side. i think for the first time in weeks i actually DIDN’T have to get up after laying there for 30 minutes, which was nice, as that means i actually fell asleep 30 minutes earlier than it usually takes me. since when i get up i usually have to start falling asleep all over.

i didn’t manage to do anything productive before i left for lunch. i met with linda and david and we hung out and nibbled on our food and talked for two hours. it was nice. i made a mistake though. when they asked how i continued studying physics without any emotional support from my parents i said “because i hate myself” and they got REALLY concerned.

i guess that is kind of a vicious comment. i tend to laugh after i say it so people my age react like it might have been a joke. they cut through the usual bs i pad my depression admissions with though and asked if i was doing ok and if i was talking to a counselor.

they talked a lot about pearl and al. i remember that pearl liked to talk about linda and david whenever i went to visit, but i filed them away as “people i don’t know” even though she would tell me they lived in the same area as me. but now i know them, so now i am visiting with them.

when i got home i played outside with wiley until we were both exhausted. eve ran around a little bit, but i think she got hot really fast. wiley has thick, long fur, but eve is black.

i was way too sore and pained to do anything all afternoon. i didn’t make any phone calls. though i did pick up my prescriptions from the pharmacy and checked on my refills. and i called and talked to oz and mario for a while. oz showed me a really fun app for your phone where you throw paper airplanes around the world and stamp ones that come to you. i found airplanes stamped from all sorts of places. i showed it to dad later and he liked it too. there’s no names attached, just cities and dates.

i spent a long time downstairs hanging out with the dogs while i waited for mom and dad to make a decision about dinner. and i cleaned the pool while dad did yard work. the tree on the sidewalk that runs behind our backyard is in bloom and the little yellow flowers and pollen have coated our backyard. birds mistake the pool for a bed of flowers and try to land in it. dad had to fish a poor drowned bird out of it the other day. basically we just take a net and run it along the pool’s surface around the outside and that clears it up a little bit. the vacuum and filters are always clogged after two or three days this time of year.

then we had pizza for dinner. i don’t like the restaurant mom gets the pizza from very much. they don’t seem to mix the toppings and sauce very well. at least domino’s gets the right sauce/cheese ratio and their crust doesn’t take up half the slice. even little caesars is like, the taste is bland enough that you just kinda taste the dipping sauce.

while i was waiting for dinner i did some research on the effects of aging on dogs, and symptoms to look for that aren’t just age. i’m gonna try moving to hand commands with eve over the next few weeks and see if she picks it up while she can still hear. did you know that macaws can live like 80 years? even pigeons can hit 15 when kept as pets. urban pigeons only usually make it to 3 or 4, which is really sad and also a sign that they are probably more suited to life as pets. maybe if i figure out how to keep birds i will take in some pigeons.

hmm. tomorrow i am going to gramma’s house to prepare for the easter gathering on sunday. it mostly involves painting eggs and maybe baking a cake. according to gramma i am PRETTY GOOD at making cakes! i, at least, always like what i bake with gramma. baking and cooking are actually fun when you’re with a partner. when i’m doing it by myself i just kind of stand there and wait.

i did draw a picture today! i drew my character fern heckling asher’s character kai. it wasn’t anything complicated, really just head and shoulders, and i didn’t finish the line work or ink it, but asher liked it. and... it felt good. and i think i somehow got better without practicing.

like, this drawing wasn’t better than my previous art by a long shot, but something about it... if i draw more, i could refine it i think, in a way i couldn’t before. and i did hang on to one of the fan character “candidates.” and there was one other person i kinda looked at but wasn’t sure about because she already knows who i am haha.

god i’m so shy. it’s hard to, like, be friendly and supportive to random people when you see their profiles like “I HATE GROWNUPS” and like, i’m a grownup now??? when did that happen?

i’m also shy about people on tumblr. i haven’t followed anyone new in a long time because i’m afraid they’ll look at my posts... but i still check their pages. i am aware this would be a lot easier for me if i just followed them. i mean, i see most of their posts anyway. i feel more comfortable following other people who, like, write about their depression and stuff. even though my tumblr is about 70% not depression blogging and more “whatever i saw that i liked or thought was interesting and wanted my friends to see.”

am i the only one that finds it extremely difficult to interact with teenagers? even just to be friendly and supportive, because i know how difficult being a teenager was? i don’t even talk to my usual internet friend group any more because they brought in a new teenager and she shuts down the conversation when it isn’t about video games because she doesn’t want “the discourse.” it took two bad experiences and i’m already avoiding interacting with her... i don’t even talk to my brother about anything and i see him every day.

today i had a veggie burger with a fruit cup. it made me extremely ill. it made driving home kind of hard and disorienting. then i had some pizza with sun dried tomatoes and spinach and pesto sauce. i almost actually threw up. i went in the bathroom and stared at the toilet and put my hand against the sink and sweated and tried to breathe for a few minutes. i only forgot my medication at lunch. of course... my parents didn’t end up getting dinner until two hours after i had taken my dinner dosage, so maybe i had waited too long between taking the meds and eating.

in the evening dad started taping down some paper to the tile in preparation for painting the walls. eve was terrified of the noise the tape made as dad unrolled it. wiley joined us and “helped” by putting the roll of floor paper in his mouth repeatedly and chewing on dad’s hands and feet and then licking the paint we dripped on the floor when we wrote some stuff next to my brother’s door. dad said it was non toxic so i’m not TOO worried, but the dog would eat rat poison if we didn’t stop him. we ended up putting him and eve in my room while dad taped down my side of the hallway, so i put on some dog music and wiley and eve were dozing within 15 minutes.

we wrote “goofy goober” next to my brother’s door with an arrow pointing into the room. i snap chatted a picture of it. then my brother came home and went in his room to look for the “prank.” i took a picture of him standing there with “goofy goober” pointing at him and sent that to asher.

so i did some of the things i wanted today, but not all of them. that’s ok. i find it hard to do TWO of the things i want to do in a day, let alone three or four or five. which is the number of things i need to do. and i did three! i picked up my meds and went to lunch and drew for a few minutes.

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gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years

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Readers And Tweeters Stay At Home And Stay In Touch With KHN

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names.

A Time For Comfort

Thank you for your thoughtful piece on palliative care, “Shortfall Of Comfort Care Signals Undue Suffering For Coronavirus Patients” (March 26). The new stimulus package passed by Congress should make it easier to access palliative care via telemedicine during this crisis. The new provisions expand Medicare’s ability to provide telemedicine and expand grant funding for evidence-based telehealth networks and technologies. These provisions will help those in underserved communities access palliative care and all telehealth services.

We must ensure that terminally ill people are not forced into a hospital setting where they are made more vulnerable to contracting the coronavirus, dying more quickly or in pain; that’s why these provisions are so crucial during this time. Terminally ill people need access to end-of-life care options to minimize their suffering, including hospice and palliative care, and telemedicine provides a clear path forward for doctors and patients to achieve this goal.

― Dr. David R. Grube, national medical director for Compassion and Choices, Corvallis, Oregon

WE still have patients in need when are not corona virus victims. we need to remember them. Shortfall Of Comfort Care Signals Undue Suffering For Coronavirus Patients https://t.co/UPQvwykE7z via @khnews

— Julie Fairman (@fairmanjulie) March 27, 2020

— Julie Fairman, Philadelphia

How Long Has The Coronavirus Been Around — Really?

One of the last things my brother did before being diagnosed with “bronchitis” on Aug. 3, 2019, was fly on a plane from San Diego to New York City. By Aug. 20, he was admitted to the ICU at Stony Brook University Hospital. On Aug. 21, a shocked doctor told us my brother had an ejection fraction (EF) of just 10% and his heart was catastrophically failing. Later that night, he went into cardiac arrest. He was on an ECMO machine until Sept. 6, 2019, dying at 43 years old.

They said he had myocarditis from an unknown viral infection. The infectious disease specialists ran so many tests and found nothing concrete. What are the chances?

It is important for anyone who survives this virus to have a heart and lung scan done, later. Will there be any implementation of that? I just don’t see how you can survive this and not have any long-term damage. And I am always going to wonder what really killed my brother seven months ago.

― Trini Olsen, Patchogue, Long Island, New York

Sensational — And Not In A Good Way

The April 6 story on possible heart damage associated with the coronavirus was shocking and is beneath what I expect from Kaiser Health News (“Mysterious Heart Damage, Not Just Lung Troubles, Befalling COVID-19 Patients”).

First of all, the exploding-heart illustration was overly graphic. At a time when many are emphasizing how delicately and honestly we should be sharing information, it shocked me to see. Totally out of line. It takes a fair story and frames it as alarmist. This set me, the reader, off on a bad note.

Then, the first two authorities interviewed did not seem to have a direct connection to the story. Were they involved in assessing the cardiac impact of COVID-19? The story fields a set of generalities, with quotes from willing, go-to cardiologists, as flavor and spice, before getting to actual source information: 1) the Dr. Shaobo Shi / China JAMA article, and 2) Dr. Sahil Parikh, who seems to actually be involved. His view, and his role in examining cardiac health dimensions of coronavirus, were obvious.

Overall, I think the alarming, unrelated heart cartoon sets a misleading spin, and that it was a challenge until late in the article to determine who was the source of the heart dimension of the story.

— Paul Rowan, Houston

Stop The Madness

Instead of lambasting doctors, how about a story on who is sitting at home collecting health care dollars: health maintenance CEOs, hospital administrators, health insurance execs (“Why Hoarding Of Hydroxychloroquine Needs To Stop,” March 25)? They do so from the comfort of their safe homes while pontificating on ways to generate more income, limit costs, tell health care providers how to do their jobs while failing to provide a safe environment for them to work. Doctors have every right to do what is necessary to protect themselves and their families — especially when no one seems to care about their lives but is concerned only with the care they provide.

Health care providers should not have to work in unsafe conditions. Physicians are at risk due to hospitals, administrators and health insurance companies not caring about anything except the money that flows into their pockets based on health providers’ work. Stop the madness! This is the main reason doctors are “hoarding” meds. Tell the whole story, not just the part that makes physicians look bad.

— Dr. Patricia Perry, Burbank, California

they need to stop hoarding yes but .ake enough for all Americans in case they get the covid-19 🦠 they need to make an over abundance for 🦠,Lupis and Arthritis..if its saving lives please give it to the people that have 🦠and stop people from dying 😭😷https://t.co/l7knYZWxkF

— Lisa Skinner Escalante (@Lisa_skinnypig) March 28, 2020

— Lisa Skinner Escalante, Chattanooga, Tennessee

Meals On Wheels Keeps On Rolling

Thank you for your article regarding Meals on Wheels (“Inside Meals On Wheels’ Struggle To Keep Older Americans Fed During A Pandemic,” April 7). We are so proud of our kitchen staff, office staff, drivers and volunteers who come out of the safety of home to ensure that our 1,300 (and increasing) meal recipients receive meals and wellness checks. Thank you to Meals on Wheels programs across America, in every state, doing the same, serving healthy nutrition and caring face to face contact with our frail elderly neighbors. We honor the front-line health care staff in hospitals and emergency services who deserve the utmost recognition. We hope our role as Meals on Wheels providers is protecting many who might otherwise be among the vulnerable.

― Joseph Tornello, Staten Island, New York

By God there had better be a reckoning. Instead of all hands on deck & step lively, it was all hands below, do nothing, and shut up. || What Takes So Long? A Behind-The-Scenes Look At The Steps Involved In COVID-19 Testing https://t.co/aE6ipIoXL7 via @khnews

— James Conner (@jrcflatheadmemo) March 30, 2020

— James Conner, Kalispell, Montana

To Stay On The Safe Side Wearing Masks …

Your article “To Curb Coronavirus, What’s Behind The Wearing Of A Mask? (April 7) missed several points that should be made about trying to protect oneself from the COVID-19 virus with masks or gloves.

Using masks incorrectly can actually increase the risk of contracting the virus. People who are not used to wearing masks constantly touch and reset the mask. Therefore, if the mask really did catch any virus particles that were headed toward their mouth, the contamination will immediately spread to their hands, glasses, face, etc.

People must know that if they have no choice but to leave the house, they must use a disposable mask, or better yet something reusable that covers your mouth and nose (e.g. bandana, scarf, homemade cloth mask, etc.). They should not touch it while they are using it, and must wash their hands before and after touching it, adjusting it or removing it. Upon returning home, the used mask or accessory must be immediately discarded or washed/disinfected.

It is also important that people recognize that wearing a pair of gloves all day long does not decrease the risk of getting infected, much less the risk of spreading the virus; it increases it. Gloves give a false, unwarranted and dangerous sense of security. It makes people careless, so they touch surfaces all day long without taking care or cleaning themselves and the surfaces.

COVID-19 is non-irritating to the hands and does not penetrate the body through the skin of the hands! Therefore, it makes more sense, for most people, to do away with the gloves, stay alert and paranoid, and frequently wash hands and surfaces. Unless they are a health professional or first responder, or someone who cleans using harsh chemicals, wearing a pair of gloves all day (without changing them repeatedly), doesn’t make sense. It is as inappropriate as putting on gloves to pick up dog poop in the backyard, and then continuing to use the same gloves to arrange the patio furniture, open and close doors and, after returning indoors, clean and cook.

If people have to go out, they should avoid touching people and surfaces with their hands and must wash your hands frequently and repeatedly. Laypeople should leave gloves to the health care providers who need to wear them and change them thousands of times a day, before and after each patient interaction, to avoid spreading the virus.

― Dr. John M. Pagán, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico

Free Flow Of Ventilator News

Thanks for your article on nursing home surpluses of coronavirus ventilators (“Nursing Homes Have Thousands Of Ventilators That Hospitals Desperately Need,” April 7). As you know, ventilators are one of the keys to solving COVID-19, and everything related to ventilators is in extreme flux ― where they are and where they are needed, who is working with whom to scale up production, what protocols are needed to use them effectively, what experimental devices are in the pipeline, how staffing and meds are scaling, whether ventilators can be shared, whether BiPAP/CPAP machines can be upgraded, etc.

To help folks keep up, my company has posted a collated news page at http://CoronavirusVentilator.com. This is a public service; we have no other motive in doing this and receive no compensation. If the page is of use to you, please consider linking to it or publicizing it in whatever way is appropriate.

— Joel Lown, Knoxville, Tennessee

Rapid testing is crucial in the early stages of an outbreak such a #coronavirus because it allows #healthcare workers and families to identify and focus on treating those infected and isolate them as quickly as possible https://t.co/BOigLRb609 via @khnews

— Lindsay Resnick (@ResnickLR) March 23, 2020

— Lindsay Resnick, Chicago

On ACA’s 10th Anniversary, Let Us Eat Cake?

I just browsed through your coverage on the 10th anniversary of the ACA (“Listen: The Hard-Knock Health Law Turns 10 Amid Pandemic,” March 23), and I cannot disagree more with what that health bill has done to our health care system. Thousands of pages of legalese and pork fat that could only be passed by nuclear option, and no, it is not popular, though you will say it is because you only poll a certain demographic.

Go poll a group of patients who use the services of non-government-funded clinics that operate on donations only. Talk to my patients who were sold on the ACA then couldn’t afford it. They were promised health insurance but forgotten after the election. They are the working poor. Those who have two to three jobs to make ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck, but cannot get Medicaid because they make too much yet too little to afford the ACA and cannot qualify for subsidies. I love my free clinic with minimal staff — the Greenville Free Medical Clinic — and almost overflowing with volunteers. Our patients know they are getting the best care available — sometimes quicker than any staff member or volunteer could. We treat them with the dignity they deserve, and not like pawns on a chessboard.

The ACA was a farce to purposefully destroy the health care system in America, not fix it. It was a wrecking ball aimed at the base of it in order to allow for a socialistic model to be built from the rubble. Unfortunately for those who passed the bill, they learned it was not as popular as they wanted, and have subsequently been attacked since Day One. I am not putting in here empirical evidence because if you have eyes and a decent brain you can see what has been happening. I will let you think on the “22 million” that are now insured, actually underinsured, and the other unaccounted for people who were left out in the cold during one of the largest scams the U.S. government has ever run.

― Frances Watson, RN, BSN, Greenville, South Carolina

Between A Rock And A Hard Place

Your ongoing reporting on affordable insurance hits home. I, too, am caught between a rock and hard place. At 60, I am too young for Medicare yet my family’s AGI is above the threshold set by the feds for any subsidy. Employer-sponsored insurance is not a viable option because I need to be available at home to assist my spouse, who has a progressive degenerative neurological condition, which in my opinion is not only the loving thing to do but the most cost-effective.

I do not want a subsidy in order to pay for an individual health care policy. I simply want an affordable policy as I had before the Affordable Care Act. I also do not want to be forced to pay for a policy that covers things that do not affect me, like pregnancy or birth control. How about a policy priced to reward good health habits, like a healthy diet, exercise, etc.? What has happened to applying common sense to the way people purchase health insurance and the way health care costs are managed so that these costs are in line with most blue-collar workers’ wages? Layers and layers of federal bureaucracy bloat costs, and partisan politics keep the cycle of the dog chasing its tail alive and well.

I, for one, greatly appreciate all at KHN who appear to be on the front lines fighting for those of us who want logical solutions to the high cost of medical insurance policies and health care costs. It is tragic that in the greatest country in the world you have millions of hard-working citizens who go without health insurance and increasing numbers who postpone or forgo medical care because they worry about incurring these outrageous costs.

In my humble opinion, the solution will be that which gives financial incentives for everyday Americans to provide for themselves and their loved ones. Why does this government insist on making it so difficult for hard-working folks to be responsible and take care of themselves and their loved ones?

The poor and disadvantaged will always be among us, and when most Americans are allowed to be prosperous, be charged reasonably for goods and services, and keep more of what they earn, they always show generosity and endless compassion. None of this is complicated, yet it continues to be out of reach because those making the final decisions are too worried about that next election!

― Teresa Killion, Mount Vernon, Washington

Readers And Tweeters Stay At Home And Stay In Touch With KHN published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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stephenmccull · 4 years

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Readers And Tweeters Stay At Home And Stay In Touch With KHN

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names.

A Time For Comfort

― Dr. David R. Grube, national medical director for Compassion and Choices, Corvallis, Oregon

— Julie Fairman (@fairmanjulie) March 27, 2020

— Julie Fairman, Philadelphia

How Long Has The Coronavirus Been Around — Really?

They said he had myocarditis from an unknown viral infection. The infectious disease specialists ran so many tests and found nothing concrete. What are the chances?

― Trini Olsen, Patchogue, Long Island, New York

Sensational — And Not In A Good Way

— Paul Rowan, Houston

Stop The Madness

— Dr. Patricia Perry, Burbank, California

— Lisa Skinner Escalante (@Lisa_skinnypig) March 28, 2020

— Lisa Skinner Escalante, Chattanooga, Tennessee

Meals On Wheels Keeps On Rolling

― Joseph Tornello, Staten Island, New York

— James Conner (@jrcflatheadmemo) March 30, 2020

— James Conner, Kalispell, Montana

To Stay On The Safe Side Wearing Masks …

― Dr. John M. Pagán, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico

Free Flow Of Ventilator News

— Joel Lown, Knoxville, Tennessee

— Lindsay Resnick (@ResnickLR) March 23, 2020

— Lindsay Resnick, Chicago

On ACA’s 10th Anniversary, Let Us Eat Cake?

― Frances Watson, RN, BSN, Greenville, South Carolina

Between A Rock And A Hard Place

― Teresa Killion, Mount Vernon, Washington

Readers And Tweeters Stay At Home And Stay In Touch With KHN published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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dinafbrownil · 4 years

Text

Readers And Tweeters Stay At Home And Stay In Touch With KHN

Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names.

A Time For Comfort

― Dr. David R. Grube, national medical director for Compassion and Choices, Corvallis, Oregon

— Julie Fairman (@fairmanjulie) March 27, 2020

— Julie Fairman, Philadelphia

How Long Has The Coronavirus Been Around — Really?

They said he had myocarditis from an unknown viral infection. The infectious disease specialists ran so many tests and found nothing concrete. What are the chances?

― Trini Olsen, Patchogue, Long Island, New York

Sensational — And Not In A Good Way

— Paul Rowan, Houston

Stop The Madness

— Dr. Patricia Perry, Burbank, California

— Lisa Skinner Escalante (@Lisa_skinnypig) March 28, 2020

— Lisa Skinner Escalante, Chattanooga, Tennessee

Meals On Wheels Keeps On Rolling

― Joseph Tornello, Staten Island, New York

— James Conner (@jrcflatheadmemo) March 30, 2020

— James Conner, Kalispell, Montana

To Stay On The Safe Side Wearing Masks …

― Dr. John M. Pagán, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico

Free Flow Of Ventilator News

— Joel Lown, Knoxville, Tennessee

— Lindsay Resnick (@ResnickLR) March 23, 2020

— Lindsay Resnick, Chicago

On ACA’s 10th Anniversary, Let Us Eat Cake?

― Frances Watson, RN, BSN, Greenville, South Carolina

Between A Rock And A Hard Place

― Teresa Killion, Mount Vernon, Washington

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/readers-and-tweeters-stay-at-home-and-stay-in-touch-with-khn/

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mredwinsmith · 7 years

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Finding Ultimate in ’89 – Part 2: Learning the Game

I have been playing ultimate for 28 years. I am also a writer. After a significant amount of time trying to figure out how to combine these two skills, I settled on writing a series of stories about my life as an ultimate player which, if all goes well, will also be turned into a groundbreaking psychedelic rock opera entitled Tommy unless someone has beat me to that already.

For those who missed part 1, it can be found here.

The year was 1989.

I had just played my first ultimate game and I loved it.

In one sense, it was like my entire world had come into focus and, in another much more accurate sense, I had just recently upgraded my prescription glasses. In the first few minutes of my first game, I felt that I had finally found my sport after years of fumbling footballs, getting cut from basketball teams and being pummeled in the face and stomach with soccer ball after soccer ball no matter how much I pleaded with them to just stop already.

And though I was new, and had no real idea of what I was getting into, I was ready.

I had my cleats (the infinitely heavy, hightop Nike Land Sharks), I had a disc (my parents’ much-used orange Whammo), I had some slightly-too-sheer shorts (fashion choice) and I had gumption, or at least I thought it was gumption – turns out it was heartburn. And I was ready to dominate on the field using my cleats, disc, shorts and whatever else it took or, failing that, I was ready to participate in the hopes that ribbons would be awarded to all at the end of the season unlike the horrors of little league baseball.

The problem was, as I realized midway through my second game a week later, that I couldn’t really do anything.

At all.

Defense was impossibly hard, catching was an endless adventure, marking the thrower was an exercise in futility and throwing? Let’s just say that my throws, while horribly laughable, helped make my teammates’ throws seem infinitely better in comparison. You’re welcome.

Sure I showed up (80% of life, I read somewhere!) looking the part, but nothing I was doing on the field would been considered “playing” or “helping” or “not embarrassing himself permanently” by even the most generous and hopefully near-sighted observer. I spent my time in this second game, running around resembling some sort of farm animal being led to slaughter, holding the disc as if it was potentially explosive, and seeming “scared” and “freaked out” and “white with panic” when attempting to guard someone. It was clear to my teammates that I wasn’t going to be “bringing home the championship trophy” for us any time soon despite the clearly-homemade matching t-shirts I had made for the team before the game that said as much that were meant to inspire and hopefully make me a new friend or two..

I had to face the facts (something I never did – seemed a tad bit aggressive), I could either be satisfied being a glorified cheerleader, something that just a week earlier I would have yelped ‘YES’ to if offered, or I’d have to put aside my ego (fits in a small handbag), admit my failings (I prepared notes!) and put in some hard work (I didn’t know the meaning of hard work, literally).

As I lay on the ground, stretching, attempting to both catch my breath and not let on to anyone nearby how hard it was for me to catch my breath, my ultimate future flashed before my eyes. In this future, I saw myself having pinpoint long throws, awe-inducing endzone grabs, graceful leaps into the air, a vastly improved lung capacity and, for some reason, hair like a pony. Different story for a different day.

But how to get from point A to point B? How to go from this young man of 20, laying on the ground writhing, to this dream version of my future self?

I had tried nothing and was all out of ideas.

I wanted this future as badly as I wanted pizza for dinner, or maybe slightly more but it was hard to tell as I was really hungry for pizza. I sat up and resolved then and there to work harder than I’d ever worked before, which wasn’t saying much, but I had to start somewhere. I looked around and realized that I was alone on the grass and that everyone had gone home hours ago leaving me a cryptic note on my forehead saying “we got bored, hope you’re okay.”

I was okay. Really okay. I stood up. It was time to get to work.

After with conferring with my friends, who were like Gods of ultimate in my eyes due to their rippling muscles, white teeth and cryptic natures, I made a plan.

Step 1: Learn to throw. Step 2: Learn to catch. Step 3: Learn to play defense. Step 4: Learn the rules. Step 5: Only speak monosyllabically whenever possible to maintain my sole focus on steps 1-4.

So I grabbed a friend (without a cane – too hard to pull off without hurting his neck) and with my trusty frisbee, we threw. Day in and day out, wherever we went, we threw that plastic. We always had a disc with us and we tossed it constantly whether in parks, on the beach, on our busy side street playing the fun game of trying not to hit cars or trees or pedestrians, in that order. And yet, despite the hours of throwing, and the spectacular leathering of my skin, progress was very slow.

And then I realized, after someone told me repeatedly via direct message (which was exceedingly laborious back in 1989 – involved tons of folding of paper, driving back and forth and unnecessary gas usage) that it wasn’t good enough just to throw, but that I needed to learn to throw properly. Ahhhh, ‘proper’ throwing! Of course! It all made sense.

I realized that I needed to learn from the best, so I sought out the best throwers and decided to copy their every move. I started by taking mental notes, but my progress was slow so I took the next step. How was I to know that videotaping him in his backyard without his written or verbal consent was crossing some sort of line? But learn I did.

Despite my best intentions, my throws wobbled and veered off in random directions. It wasn’t safe to be around me while I was throwing if you weren’t dressed for a construction site, and even then. With each turfed throw and broken nail and family of ducks rudely displaced from their home, I wondered if I was long for this sport regardless of my passion.

Our team practiced once a week at a local elementary school. Each week, a different teammate would take their turn attempting to remove the wobble from my forehand, to no avail. They would often have these long, hilarious chats in front of me, dissecting my flick as if it was an under-anesthesia patient in the ER. I tried and tried to straighten and smooth it out and, along the way, experimented with a variety of grips and mental states, and still that disc refused to obey even after I resorted to embarrassing begging.

At the practices, we’d run through a few drills and scrimmage as we attempted to get better for our game the following Wednesday. I, for one, was tired of being the worst player on my team by any measurement used. Being a laughing stock was getting old regardless of how cute and infectious the laughter was. I still wanted to become a star, but I was even willing to compromise (my middle name!) and become “this side of competent” or “less below average” or, if I was lucky, “good”.

Scrimmages were the answer! I needed reps and experience and layers of sunscreen. I needed to get knocked down, only to get up again, and then get knocked down again before wondering if I had concussion type symptoms. I was determined to use these scrimmages to get ahead and, despite my slow progress, that even the nicest teacher would label as “nice try” on my report card, I was still just so excited to learn, sort of like an excited drooling and yappy puppy dog, which I brought along to a practice for comparison’s sake only.

And I was determined to be a sponge (harder than it sounds) and soak up all of the suggestions and comments and sudsy water I could get. The advice was as frequent as it was bewildering.

One person told me “I was running too much”, while another told me to “get on my horse”.

It was suggested that “I would only improve by attempting throws in game situations”, while someone else suggested that I should “never throw forward for any reason whatsoever because we are trying to win.”

One teammate offered that I should “fake left and cut right”, while the same teammate told me that she wouldn’t be accepting any more rides home if I continued that practice while driving.

As I sat afterwards at my parent’s dining room table, nursing my injuries both real and imaginary, I whined and whined about how hard it was to be a beginner.

Even though I was only 20, it had been a long time since I had been “the new guy” at anything and it was frustrating! The other sports I played (tennis, squash and racquetball), I was proficient at and had the confidence, attitude and leg warmers to match. It had been years since I was flat out bad at something and it was constantly humbling to be so inconsistent on defense, as a thrower or while attempting to secure the rare frisbee thrown my way. (Note: a disc thrown out of pity is hard to distinguish from a regularly-thrown disc while sweating profusely.)

I wanted to improve so badly.

I wanted to really learn this game.

I wanted to be an asset on the field.

And sure my friends cheered me on and were supportive, mostly, but my interest started to waver by the end of my first season. It is just so hard to stick with something, anything, you are learning until you can see that you are progressing and improving and not beating your head against the wall, even if you are (I wasn’t). I couldn’t see any progress, at all. Despite not wanting to be labelled a quitter, I was debating an indefinite hiatus, a change of course, a ride off into the proverbial sunset (real sunset way too bright).

But, I didn’t.

Now, I’m not wanting this to sound like a made-for-TV movie unless you are an interested Hollywood executive, then I’m all ears (two, to be exact), but this story does have an overly-sappy happy ending. Somehow, against all odds (that’s right, my ‘friends’ were gambling on it!), despite myself, I actually started getting it.

Throws became crisper and ended up where they were intended, cuts were more purposeful and powerful, discs started being snatched repeatedly out of the air and defense…well, at least the rest of my game was improving. After hours and hours and hours of practice, slowly skills started to rub off on me like an infectious disease (not that I would know anything about that). As each game came and went, I slowly realized that I was turning into an ultimate player. And as my skills and confidence grew, my role on my team shifted from being “just some guy” to “even though he is just some guy, he is wide open and he screws up a lot less than he used to” to “the left-handed, red-haired assassin” (to be clear, no one aside from me, alone in my bedroom, writing in my diary by flashlight ever uttered those words).

I got thrown to on a regular basis, became a threat to score, finally put two and two together (four!) and started generating some real spin on my throws and cracked open the secret chest revealing all of the benefits of being a lefty. The wobble, the endless and clueless running around and the general hopelessness was in the rearview mirror. Also in the rearview mirror, for some odd reason, a huge number of black unmarked vans. My first set of cleats were replaced with a lighter version, my old frisbee was replaced by an Ultrastar, and my shorts were still slightly too revealing. Baby steps.

I was now ready for the next level.

Tournaments.

Stay tuned for part 3 of my ultimate story coming soon.

The post Finding Ultimate in ’89 – Part 2: Learning the Game appeared first on Skyd Magazine.

from Skyd Magazine http://ift.tt/2oJmbPO

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