#VACCINE drive on wednesday

[charliemwrites]

Chapter 1

Content: Violence, Murder, Horror Elements, Masturbation, Kidnapping, Threats, Mild Pet Play, the One (1) use of an ableist slur

It’s the middle of October when Soap convinces you to go camping.

Autumn has sunk its teeth deep into the countryside, bleeding green from the trees and leeching warmth from the days. Deep shadows and lengthening nights are cold enough to condense breaths into pillows of steam. All of the little critters are fattening up and bedding down for a frigid winter, prepared to be snowed into burrows and dens until spring pries away the ice.

Your hip already aches through the first half of your morning exercises. The ghosts of splintered shrapnel prick beneath tender scar tissue until the rust of sleep flakes away. Lying on hard, cold ground sounds like a one-way ticket to agony. You’d much rather be one of those fluffy bastards curling up to hibernate. You tell Soap this on Monday when he initially proposes the idea.

Besides, you add, trying not to chug your coffee, Soap’s in no condition to be fucking about in half-frozen woods either. Not with his finicky nerve pain.

On Wednesday, when you meet up again, he takes a different route. It’s been too long since you two last dipped into a civilian-appropriate but military-adjacent activity. Paintball, knife-throwing, base-jumping…

Your bed is starting to feel too soft and too big again. The city is loud but not the right way. The tedium of self-imposed routines is starting to grate on nerves still tuned for combat. If you don’t get out before the trap of winter snaps closed, you might go mad. You can see it in Soap’s eyes too, a manic glint behind glass blue.

But still. Camping feels too much like what you’ve just left – the shrinks probably wouldn’t approve. Not that you’d ask them.

On Friday, Soap offers a compromise. His grandfather (“Seanair”) left him an old hunting cabin out in the countryside. Nothing luxurious, but it’s got a fireplace, cots, kitchenette, bathroom. It’ll be more like holing up in a safehouse than roughing it for a mission. More importantly, it’ll be gentler on your battle-worn bodies.

That next Monday, you meet him at the café with supplies packed and an honest anticipation for a week off the grid.

*

“Yoohoo! Any murderers about?” Soap calls. “Any armed psychos? An angry raccoon, perhaps?”

You scowl, caught behind him in the doorway. “I thought you checked it out already?”

“Aye, but ye ne’er ken,” he reasons, shrugging. He shuffles in as you nudge him. “We’ve the luck o’ the devil, you an’ I.”

You snort as you start kicking off your shoes. “True enough, I s’pose.”

“Course, I like our odds against any weirdo wi’ a knife, don’ you?”

You shrug. “Maybe. Not so sure about a raccoon though. Think we’d be fucked.”

“Och, tha’s right. I remember your lectures about rabies.”

“Good.”

You snicker at his grimace, likely feeling the phantom sting of vaccines.

The cabin is cute, honestly. There are only three rooms – the living room/kitchenette, the bedroom, and the bathroom. The bathroom is small enough that you could stretch your arms across the width of it and touch both walls, but it’s got a working shower so you’ve no complaints. The bedroom has a dresser and a nightstand, plenty for you and Soap.

While you set to work putting the groceries away, Soap putters about opening windows and making up the beds. The two of you don’t immediately have much to talk about, considering how often you see each other and the long drive out. It’s alright, though, you’ve long grown comfortable in stretches of silence together.

Once settled in, you suggest a walk to explore the area. Part of it is genuine interest in appreciating nature before the sun sets early. But there’s also a large, paranoid part of you (sounding like your old captain) that demands you get your bearings. Just in case.

There’s a loch about a mile from the cabin, a beautiful sheet of dark glass big enough for decent fishing. You’re able to see the row of holiday homes on the other side but wouldn’t be able to see any people on their docks out there. You and Soap follow a deer trail for a way, exchanging stories of your respective childhoods.

No surprise that John MacTavish was a wild child with a rebellious streak that got him in trouble more often than not. He gets you laughing bright and easy before long, and for once it doesn’t feel like playacting as a Normal Functioning Person.

When the sun starts to skim the evergreens, you return to the cabin. You start up a pot of cheesy mac while Soap gets the fire going, pyromaniac that he is. Once it’s burning nicely, he starts closing up the windows. Not too soon either – the temperature is starting to dip and twinging at your hip, unhappy from sitting in the car so long.

The two of you hum over empty carbs and excess dairy by the fire, a glass of scotch for each of you. When you’ve had your fill, he washes the dishes, you pour another round, and the two of you settle together on the old sofa.

“Almost been a year,” Soap says after a while.

You sigh through your nose, stare into the dwindling pool of amber in your hand. “Three more weeks.”

“You miss it too.”

Against your will, your eyes slide sideways, to the hand he’s clenching and unclenching on his thigh. There’s a wicked line of scar tissue beneath the sleeve of his shirt where the surgeons salvaged what they could. Mostly successful too, apart from the damaged radial nerve that ruined his career.

“So much, Soap, fuck.”

You didn’t mean to say that. You’re supposed to be the healthy one here, encouraging this necessary and healthful change to your lives.

As if reading your mind, Soap hums, bumps his elbow into your ribs. “No shame in it.”

You shake your head. “I don’t even know what I miss.”

“Feeling useful, I reckon. Feeling… necessary,” he muses, subdued.

It’s insightful but too accurate. Too selfish. You rub your thumb over the lip of your glass.

“I hate that I can’t keep an eye on Price and Gaz,” you say. “Feels like I’m always waiting to hear the worst, ya know?”

“Yeah,” he whispers roughly. “I ken.”

*

The two of you end up falling asleep on the couch. Soap, sitting up with his sketchbook, and you folded into the corner against the arm, book pages fluttering between lax fingers. At some point, the cramped position aches enough to wake you. Your eyes flutter open, low fire throwing long, deep shadows across the wooden wall.

Something is watching from the window.

You jolt up, hand reaching for the gun you no longer carry on your thigh. The movement jostles Soap awake as well. It involuntarily draws your eye, just a fraction of a second. But the haunting shadow is gone by the time you turn back.

That’s not enough for you. You roll to your feet, hiss as your knee threatens to give. But you manage to get your balance and snatch your combat knife from your boot as you storm towards the door.

“Kit? Kit! The fuck is going on?!” Soap calls.

“Saw something!” you reply.

There’s a flashlight hanging by a hook next to the door. You grab it as you burst out into the chilly air, tensed for a fight. A quick sweep of the front yard and immediate tree line reveals nothing. Steps soft and careful, you approach the side of the house, expertly gripping your knife.

“On your six,” Soap breathes behind you.

“Copy.”

You round the corner, eyes scanning the trees, the brush. There’s no movement, no suspiciously rustling branches. You tilt your head, listening for anything past the normal sounds of the night. But there isn’t even an unusual silence in the dark world around you.

“Just a dream, then,” you sigh.

It wouldn’t be the first time. Unusual, though. Your nightmare-induced hallucinations usually conjure guns in your face or teammates bleeding out on the floor. Not strange figures at the windows. Still, you can hear the explanation of your shrink trying to soothe you. Middle of the night after drinking, in a new and atmospheric environment. Plus, there’s been all that fuss on the news about a serial killer; nowhere near you and Soap, mind, but still. Subconscious or some shite.

“Let’s do a sweep anyway,” Soap says.

Your chest warms. “Alright.”

Naturally, there’s nothing. Soap only gives you a one-armed hug as you return to the cabin. One final check of the interior – since you did leave the door open when you rushed out – and then the two of you turn in for bed.

*

The next day starts lazy and slow. A strange reprieve from your body’s military-trained urge to wake early. It’s nice, though, to snuggle beneath the covers with Soap’s soft snores only a few meters away. You play pre-downloaded games on your phone while you wait for him to wake, enjoying the lie in.

Breakfast is enjoyed on the little porch out front; you bundled up in a woolen throw while you sip coffee. It’s shaping up to be an unusually sunny day, and you agree to a longer hike around the loch before lunch. When you return, you settle on the porch again to read while Soap chops wood.

Which, well.

You don’t mind a bit of entertainment between pages… or paragraphs… or…

Soap hasn’t neglected his physique at all since the discharge. All corded muscles, broad shoulders, and tapered waist. Watching the bunch and release of his arms has always been a guilty pleasure of yours, and so blessedly indulged during training sessions in the 141.

You try not to sigh and drool over it (him) like a repressed Victorian.

“Ach, fer fucks…”

You snap to attention, book set aside. “Is your arm acting up?”

He’s set the hatchet down, grabbing at his elbow with a pinched expression.

“Aye,” he grumbles.

You trot to his side, pleased that he still instantly submits to your care. He lets you manipulate his arm, prod along the nerve pathways and bunched muscles that are spasming in pain. His groan has no business being that low or rough or close to your ear. But you ignore it like you always have, focus on getting him right. Barely even register when he sets his jaw on top of your head.

A few minutes pass in silence while you try to massage away the worst of the flare up. When he finally sighs, slumping into you a little, you gently squeeze his forearm.

“Bampot,” you huff.

“Aye, I ken,” he mumbles.  “’S why I have you.”

You click your tongue. “Someone’s gotta keep you alive. Next time let me help.”

“Not on yer life.”

You pinch his side, grinning wickedly when he yelps and jerks away. Little shit. Your favorite little shit, damn him.

He allows you to help carry the firewood to the rack next to the tiny shed. It’s round back of the cabin, covered by an old blue tarp. Soap is in the lead and sees it first.

“Oh, well isn’t that pure dead brilliant,” he huffs.

“Hm?”

You peak around him and blink at the rust-colored splatters decorating the side of the shed. There’s a dark patch in the scraggly grass as well and drag marks into the trees. Clearly, some prey fell victim to the circle of life here. Recently, too, from the color of the blood.

“What do you think it was?” you ask. “There aren’t wolves here.”

“Nah, but coulda been a fox.”

You scrunch up your nose. “This close to us? Usually foxes steer clear of humans.”

“Feral dog, then, maybe.”

Maybe.

It’s a lot of blood for anything a dog or fox would risk taking down, though. Even a feral one.

“C’mon, let’s get inside. Need a coupla pills ‘fore mah arm starts taking the piss again.”

You help him stack the firewood and then follow him back to the cabin. And if you linger on the blood, your random dream, and the lingering sensation of eyes on you… well, nothing new for you.

*

It pours all of the next day. Soap says it’s good timing, that he won’t have to wash the shed himself. Both of your injuries are acting up, though, and you spend the day trying to find different positions to appease the ache in your hip. At one point, he has to help you to the shower, your leg feeling too weak to support your weight. It’s frustrating, but you’ve had nearly a year to learn to cope.

Soap lifts your spirits, though, like always. Convinces you to play Scrabble and keeps insisting that he’s just using Scottish words. It ends the way it usually does – you and him wrestling like children, trying to trap the other to determine the winner. You only just manage to get a hold of him, though he puts up a good fight. He eventually admits that “daylich” isn’t actually a word and he didn’t deserve the triple word score.

Then he breaks out a pack of biscuits as a peace offering and all is forgiven. The two of you nibble on those while watching a movie on your laptop and then shuffle off to bed.

Long after Soap has fallen asleep, you’re awake. The memory of his body against yours always leaves you feeling branded. Like the heat of him burns right through your clothes. It’s been… probably too long since you last got off. Way too long since someone else got you off. And yeah, you had a couple of shameful secret wanks around teammates back in the day, but things are different now. You’re not high on adrenaline in the military anymore. No excuse for shoving a hand down your pants.

Still, your thoughts spiral as you finally start to doze. Rough hands on your hips, your thighs, your throat. Gentle but teasing at the true strength they possess. A hot tongue along your cheek, treating you like something to savor… or to devour. A shadow looming over you, dwarfing you. Phantom sensations that you crave as much as you shy away, wanting it but knowing you shouldn’t.

The throbbing between your thighs rouses you. Sleep-addled, you give in. You’d be embarrassed of how wet you are if anyone else were to know. And of the soft, needy noise you make when your brush your fingertips between your thighs. But Soap is still snoring steadily, and the pounding of the ongoing rain makes you brave.

You stroke slowly and gently over the bundle of nerves at first, mimicking those dreamt touches. It’s almost as maddening even when it’s your own hand. Sleep is half-dragging at you, though, and you speed up, drawing tight little circles at the top, teasing lower to stoke the heat burning in your gut. Your breathing picks up, little breaths past an open mouth.

It’s really not going to take much. Not with how long it’s been, how much you want it, vague thoughts of your darkest fantasies flickering through your hazy mind. You tilt your hips down, get the pressure of your heel against your empty, aching hole. You rock a couple times, high-pitched noises caught at the top of your throat.

You come imagining a big hand around your neck choking off those sounds. Have to slap your free hand over your mouth as you shake and writhe through it. Drag your nails up your bare thigh just to balance out the unbearable pleasure. And then you go limp against the pillows, panting and shuddering through aftershocks.

When you extract your hand from beneath the blankets, you blink at the wetness coating your fingertips for a moment. If someone asked, the excuse you’d give is not touching anything with your wet hand. But truthfully, you’re just indulging in impulsive hedonism as you suck your own fingers.

“Fuck,” you whisper to the shadows.

Then you climb out of bed for a proper cleanup, ready to finally fall asleep and definitely not think about how much quicker you came knowing that Soap was right there the entire time.

*

It’s raining on and off the next day. You and Soap take a little walk during one of the dry patches, though it’s cut short with how sore your hip still is. Soap collects more firewood from the shed, keeps the flames well fed while you putter about. Nap for an hour, start rereading one of your favorite books, watch a scary movie with him, make American flapjacks just for the sake of it.

Even though you should be feeling stir crazy, Soap has always made for good company. The day passes pleasantly into an early night, the sun standing little chance against the thick cloud cover.

You and Soap are settling in with scotch when frantic knocking interrupts the peaceful quiet.

“Help!” a ragged voice screams. “Someone please help me!”

You hardly exchange glances before the two of you are up. Soap goes for the door, gun in hand. You scramble for the ever-present medical kit that earned your call-sign, left out on the counter.

Soap yanks the door open; a man tumbles in. Middle aged, lanky build, bleeding from a long cut on his forehead. His ankle is twisted at a damning angle. You scan him for obvious weapons, but his t-shirt and muddy boxers reveal nothing but bruising and scraped skin. His hands are empty as they scrabble at the floor, trying to drag himself inside. Soap slams the door closed and locks it.

“Please!” the man cries again. “You have to help me!”

You drop to your knees beside him, already popping your kit open.

“We’re going to help you, sir,” you say evenly, “but you need to calm down.”

“You don’t understand,” the man gasps as you help him sit up. “H-He… he’s out there.”

“Who?” Soap asks, grip shifting on the gun.

“S-some psycho,” the man answers. You work easily past his shaking, getting a look at his swelling ankle. Definitely broken… with force. “In a mask.”

You blink, shoot Soap a look. Have the two of you fallen into some weird horror movie by accident?

“What did he do?” Soap asks.

“H-he attacked us with a big bloody knife.”

“Who’s ‘us’?” you ask. “Who else was with you?”

“The lads – my friends – my brother. Oh, god…” He pales further. You brace him, eyeing the packaged shock blanket peeking from your kit. “Danny is dead. There was so much blood.”

“How many?” Soap asks, voice hard. “How many of you are still alive?”

“I-I don’t know. I barely got-got away. Oh, god—”

He dissolves into tears and whimpers. You rip open the blanket and drape it around the man, then scoot down to his ruined ankle. Over his head, you frown at Soap. Something is missing here. This man was with at least three other people, but one man attacked them? There’s something to be said for shock and surprise and fear, but still…

“Soap?”

“Gonnae see if I can find survivors,” he says. “I’ll send ‘em your way if I find any. You stay here, take care of this ‘un.”

“That’s stupid,” you argue. “You can’t go by yourself!”

“No different than recon, aye? Not gonnae engage, but we cannae leave anyone bleedin’ out there.”

Your mouth twists. No, no you can’t leave civilians potentially wounded with a killer out for blood. Discharged or not (war criminals or not… and you both are, technically) you’re both too dutybound for that.

“RV here in ten and I’ll have the car ready for exfil.”

“Affirmative.”

He crosses to you, knocks your foreheads together – a pre-mission gesture you never thought you’d receive again. You close your eyes for a second, squeeze the back of his neck. Then send him off with a firm nod.

You lock the door after him, then return to the man.

“Are you two military or something?” he asks.

“We were,” you answer, “medical discharge.”

“Oh brilliant! You’re telling me that my only hope is a couple cripples?!”

You level him a flat, unimpressed look. “I’m a medic with more kills than you’ve got chest hairs, understand? Shut up and brace. I need to wrap your ankle.”

He whimpers and whines and curses while you set and compress it. Nothing you haven’t heard before, vehement as it may be. Ungrateful, though, you think vaguely. Save a guy’s life and he’s calling you all sorts of derogatory names while you try to salvage his ability to walk.

“You done?” you ask, interrupting his latest stream of expletives. “I need to hear if someone is coming.”

That only shuts him up for a moment before he’s piping up again. “Do you have a weapon?”

You tug your pant leg up to show the knife strapped to your calf.

“Do you even know how to use that?!”

“Look, I know this is a lot for you, so maybe you should stop talking for a while.”

His face twists, brain turning to anger as he tries to cope with his own fear and new trauma. You don’t pay him any heed, wiping off his head and closing the still-weeping cut with butterflies. All you can hear over his wheezing is the rain outside. No footsteps or screams or, most importantly, gunshots.

With the worst two of the man’s wounds seen to, you take stock. You’re not dressed for any sort of confrontation in lounge pants and socks.

“Here. Start treating your legs and arms,” you say, pressing gauze and wound wash into the man’s hands.

“Where are you going?!” he protests.

“Need to prep to leave,” you explain. “Shout if you hear anything.”

He doesn’t look thrilled, but you’re already up and hurrying to the bedroom. You climb into a thick pair of cargos – relieved that your fashion sense hasn’t improved since the army – and a thermal shirt. Your pistol is waiting in the side pocket of your duffel, loaded and holstered. The weight of it is comforting against your thigh; you’ve missed it.

You grab the bags and carry them back to the door, check your watch. It’s only been four minutes. If Soap isn’t back in another six, you’re going out to get him yourself, injured civilian be damned. Everything you’ve gone through together; you’re not going to lose your best friend to some overdramatic wanker with a knife.

“What are you doing now?!” the man asks.

You give him another once over. He’s done a decent job prioritizing the worst scrapes and cuts, they look clean enough. Most importantly, he seems less faint than when you left. Giving him something to focus on must have helped.

“Checking the car. We’re leaving as soon as Soap gets back,” you answer.

“A-at least give me something to protect myself with!”

You try not to sigh in annoyance. What good would he even be, unable to walk and shaky on adrenaline? Still, you take pity and tug the knife from your boot, offer it to him handle first.

“Not the gun?” he complains.

“No.”

You jog out to the car, gun in one hand and duffels in the other. It’s raining again, getting harder by the moment. There’s a steady, sharp pain radiating throughout your leg, threatening to knock it out from under you. You grit your teeth as you toss the bags in the backseat and move to the ignition.

And the car doesn’t start.

“Shit.”

You don’t waste time trying it again. It should be in perfect condition; it must have been tampered with.

When you approach the house again, you hear shouting from inside. You pick up the pace, nearly skid across the wooden floor when you get there. The man is huddling up by the couch, white knuckling the knife.

“I-I heard something!”

“Where?” you demand, scanning the immediate area. Thank fuck that Soap’s seanair believed in minimalism.

“In the back.”

You frown. “The only way in is through windows back there, and those are locked.”

Right?

“I know what I heard!”

“Stay here, then.”

You click the safety off and pad the short hallway to the bedroom. Don’t bother announcing yourself, or any idiotic “who’s there”. You kick the unlatched door open and sweep through the room just like you would for a raid. The tiny lamp on the nightstand is still on, illuminating the sparse space.

You check under the first bed, then sidestep and tilt your head to check the other. Nothing.

“There isn’t—”

The window is open. The window is fucking open. How?!

You spin on your heel, just in time to see a hauntingly familiar mask bent over the gurgling body of the man. There’s no hesitation as you raise the gun and fire twice, but the killer has already rolled out of the way. Well fuck that.

You rush from the bedroom, fire another two into the couch as you round the corner. He’s a fast fucker, waiting by the wall adjacent to the hall as you exit. And he’s fucking big. Slams into your side – your bad side – like a tank. It fucks your balance, and you go down with a snarled curse, winded as all his weight lands on your much smaller frame.

On training and instinct, you slam your elbow back. There’s a crunch, a grunt of pain. But damn him, he doesn’t let up. A big hand finds yours on the gun. You yelp as he squeezes hard enough to feel the bones bend. The gun fires – bang, bang, bang. His head is right by yours, the hard edge of his mask pressing into your temple, panting in your ear.

You lash out with your other arm, though your aim is off. Instead of hitting his throat, you get his jaw instead. You plant your boot on the floor and push, trying to get out from under him. Instead, he rolls with your back against his chest. The gun clatters as he snakes a thick arm around your throat. You grab at his forearm, but you know you have no hope of matching him in strength.

You scrabble for the knife in your boot, but it’s gone.

Fuck, you gave it to—

The cabin ceiling is getting spotty.

Your fingers brush the killer’s leg, find a familiar shape tucked at the side of his boot. You snatch up the knife and drive it into his calf. He growls, but the arm on your throat blessedly disappears. You suck air, blinking past dark edges. Twist onto your front and blindly fumble for your gun.

Manage two shots right to his chest. He falls limp. You wait a beat, two. He doesn’t move again.

You click the safety on and holster the gun. And then, out of morbid curiosity, crawl closer to the body.

“Holy hell,” you breathe as you get a good look at the mask.

He’s wearing a skull over a black balaclava. Not just a prop either you realize when you tap at it. It’s real. Human. Thin cracks spiderweb along the front orbital bone, the corner of the eye socket – from where you elbowed him, you think. Beyond them, his eyes are closed and still, the skin painted black.

“Big scary fucker,” you murmur. And if you’re a bit admiring… well, it between you and a dead body. A couple dead bodies. Can’t forget about the other guy. “That was almost fun.”

“Kit!”

You jolt, barely able to hear Soap’s voice over the pounding rain, but relieved to hear it. A hiss escapes between your teeth as you get to your feet, hip protesting. You have to grab at the couch to catch your balance. Then brace yourself and walk carefully towards the door.

Your fingers are just centimeters from the doorknob when an arm wraps around your neck again. You flail, try to kick off the door, but it hardly even makes him stumble. Then there’s a sharp pinch in your arm, sibilant shushing by your ear, and the world goes dark.

*

The world comes to you in bits and pieces.

Something soft under you. A slight ache in your hip. Fabric around your bare legs. Voices? You think you recognize the rumble of Soap’s brogue, but not whoever he’s speaking to.

Soft golden light creeps past your fluttering eyelashes. Soap is sitting across the room on… a big floor cushion? You blink a couple times, adjusting your slightly blurred vision. But yep, that’s him, sitting on a gigantic pillow. And… is that his throat mic?

“Mm… John?” you call, rubbing at your eyes.

“Aye, Kit. Nice ‘n slow now. We’re alright.”

You hum and push yourself up, limbs heavy. Once you’re sitting, Soap speaks again. Gentle and calm.

“You remember what happened?”

You pause, frown. It comes to you in a slow trickle. The trip, the forest, the cabin… and then it floods back. The injured man at the door, the killer, the struggle. The ambush as you were going to meet Soap at the door.

“Fuck,” you whisper.

“Aye.”

You give him another once over. That’s not a throat mic; it’s a collar. A thick black leather thing, complete with a silver chain that trails off somewhere behind him. You stare for a second, bewildered.

“Don’t be jealous. You match.”

Your head whips around to the hulking figure in a doorway to your right. He’s just as imposing as you remember, tall and fucking built, dressed in all black and mask still on. The soft lighting casts spooky shadows across the eye sockets.

The words process a moment later and your hand darts up to your neck. Sure enough, there’s a wide leather band around your neck. You’ll give it this, though – you didn’t even notice it until he said something. Not too tight, comfortable even. Clearly made with long-term wear against skin in mind. There’s a chain attached to yours too and you follow it to an anchor in the wall.

“If it’s any consolation, ye look right bonnie,” Soap calls.

You snort. “’Course I do.”

The killer shrugs off the wall. You watch as he saunters closer in long, heavy strides. No point in scrambling away or trying to run – you’d have a limited radius of escape if he didn’t grab you first. Besides, you’re not about to cower to some spooky bastard with a couple dirty tricks up his sleeve.

He crouches down well within your reach, clearly not concerned about you lashing out. You tilt your head in defiance, meeting his eyes for a moment before he flicks his gaze down. He reaches out, gloved fingers catching your chin. Not hard, but firm enough that there’s no arguing when he tilts your chin up.

Fabric brushes the sensitive skin of your neck, above and below the collar.

“Pretty kitty,” he purrs. “Glad I didn’t bruise this lovely neck.”

Two fingers press against one side a little harder, edging beneath the leather. You recognize the gesture as you swallow. He’s checking your pulse. You’re proud that it’s still steady and unhurried.

“Not scared?” He doesn’t say it like it’s a question.

You arch your eyebrows. “Should I be?”

His eyes flicker. “Not if you behave.”

You run your tongue over your teeth, resisting a sneer. Past his shoulder, Soap is watching with a smirk. Unharmed, you note again. He’s fine. You’re fine, despite slight soreness from the brief struggle. If there was something to be concerned about (apart from the obvious) he would have let you know right off the bat. So, you take a calculated risk.

“Yeah? And what do you consider behaving?” you ask.

The corners of the killer’s eyes crinkle. You knew enough masked men back in the military to recognize a hidden smile. He’s amused by your snarky question. Another good sign.

“Good pets obey their masters.”

You blink, breath leaving you in a soft rush. It… makes sense. Just not the answer you expected. Stupid, maybe, given the collars, leashes, and dog beds. You’ll have to blame the lingering drugs.

“There are so many shelters, you’ve got to be kidding me,” you blurt, bewildered.

The man snorts, hooks a finger under your collar and gives an almost playful tug. An entirely instinctive part of you catches its breath. You’re glad he’s not measuring your pulse anymore.

“Those can’t talk back,” he answers simply, shrugging.

Soap barks a laugh. “Well, you’ll get what you asked for with us then.”

You grin crookedly, showing all your teeth. “And then some,” you agree, reaching up to tug the hand from your collar.

He jerks harder this time, unbalancing you towards him. You catch yourself on both hands, feel a blaze of heat across your nose and glare up at him through your lashes.

“No touching, kitten,” he says. “You’ll have to earn that.”

You try not to roll your eyes, not quite willing to push your luck too far yet. But it’s a near thing.

“Sure, let me get right on that,” you scoff dryly anyway.

He clicks his tongue, but no further retribution comes save for one last warning tug. Then he’s standing, towering over you again.

“I need a shower. You two settle in.”

And he just walks off. Like he didn’t just take two former SAS operatives as human pets. You wait until you hear distant water before turning to Soap.

“What happened?”

“Ambushed me,” he grumbles, sitting back against the wall. “Snuck up as I was trying to get you untied. Bastard is trained.”

Soap’s pouting, even though there’s an entire police case of victims who weren’t as lucky as him.

“Trained like us, you mean?”

“Aye.” Soap pauses, looking at the floor pensively, brows furrowing. “Means he had every reason and way to hurt us.”

You nod. “He had me in a hold and his knife hand free. Could have done anything with it. Let me stab him instead.”

Soap hums. “And, well, there’s a basement. Could have brought us there too, I reckon.”

He glances at the doorway the killer was lingering in when you woke. You get what he’s saying – or not saying, as it were. The two of you are hale and whole only because the killer decided to make it so. Because, as all evidence seems to suggest, he wants pets.

“You figure he means it? About… us?” you wonder.

Soap shrugs. “He’s no reason ta lie.”

That’s what you’re worried about.

“News says he’s a sadist,” you point out. “His idea of a pet might be...”

“Aye, but then why do all this?” He gestures to the big soft beds, which you know must have been a bit expensive for their size and comfortability, and the well-made leather collars. You’ve even got a blanket at your feet for the cool air. “Nae, I think even sadists miss a bit ‘o companionship now n’ then.”

You hum. Makes sense, in the part of you that’s seen the worst humanity has to offer and risen up to greet it. You’ve seen plenty of shit, plenty of people, and the things they’re capable of. But even “monsters” go home to family, to hobbies, to entirely wholesome things that they enjoy just because.

That’s the hard part about war. Seeing the most depraved and evil examples of humanity and reconciling that they have qualities one can recognize in themselves.

“The plan, then?”

“Say we go along with it for now,” Soap says, shrugging. “Not like we could get free as we are anyway.”

You hum in agreement. The chain is clipped to the wall anchor by a thick padlock, and feeling at the collar earlier, you know it’s the same on the other side. The collar itself is too high-quality to come apart without something sharp. So you’re stuck. Even if you did will a lockpick into existence, you’ve no intel on the rest of the house or even where you’d go from the house.

“But listen, Kit, I’m no’ gonnae let anything happen to you. If this gets violent, I’ll tear the walls apart with my hands if I hafta.”

You smile, wish suddenly and fiercely that you could hug him. He looks like he could use it; god knows you could.

“I know, John,” you soothe. “I will too.”

He nods, jaw twitching, then sighs and sits back again. The two of you sit in silence for a few moments, digesting the plan. You take an actual look at the room you’re in – a den, it seems like. A fireplace in one corner, a decent sized couch to your left. Beyond it, you can see a clean and modern kitchen. There’s a coffee table, end tables, lamps, a goddamn rug. It’s downright cozy; like something out of a magazine.

“Nice voice, though, aye?” Soap chirps suddenly, snapping your gaze back to him.

“Soap.”

“Och, don’t ‘Soap’ me,” he grumbles. “You look me in the eye and tell me tha’s no’ a voice made fer sex.”

And damn him, you can’t.

“Can’t say I was thinking about his voice when he was waving a big knife at me.”

“He can wave his big knife at—”

“I’m gonna kill you myself—” You snarl, balling up your blanket and chucking at his stupid, wiggling eyebrows.

“Oi, you two,” aforementioned sexy voice chastises from the hallway.

You wrinkle your nose as Soap grins at you, a shadow in the corner of your vision as the killer comes into the room again. He brings a cloud of clean water and bergamot. He smells good.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” you hiss, dismayed.

“Problem?” the killer asks.

He’s got the mask on again (or still? You hope he doesn’t shower with it on, that’s unsanitary) but you can hear him arching an eyebrow. Stubbornly, you turn away to glare at Soap some more. It’s obvious he realizes what you’re referring to from the way he smothers a snicker, though.

Shithead.

You don’t get away with it for long before a hand is pulling your jaw up. Rough only because you resist for the briefest fraction. Once he’s got your face where he wants it, though, your captor’s grip isn’t painfully tight.

“When I ask you a question, I expect an answer, kitten. Understood?”

Your hand twitches to grab at the hold but remember what he said about touching without permission. Stubborn as you may be, you’re not actively trying to incite violence against you or Soap. The plan is to go along with… whatever this is. So you swallow a bit of your pride.

“Understood.”

He hums like that’s not quite the answer he wanted, but it’s acceptable for now.

“Now, is there a problem?” he asks again.

“Apart from the kidnapping?” you snip. “Everything is right as rain.”

He snorts, smooths his thumb over your chin, slow and dangerous. You go still, refuse to falter but careful not to provoke further.

“You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?” he muses almost to himself.

“Must have expected it,” you reason honestly, “know you watched us for a few days.”

He tilts his head, eyes eerily unblinking within the unholy shadows of the skull. “Longer’n that, pretty thing.”

You open your mouth but don’t know what to say. Longer than the days at the cabin? How long? And how did you and Soap not notice?

Your spiraling thoughts are interrupted by fabric gliding over your bottom lip. His thumb threatening to slip past. You snap your jaw closed, nearly catch the tip of his finger in your teeth. He chuckles and finally releases you, making for the nearby couch.

He settles in with sigh and flicks on the TV. There on the screen is a flashing headline:

Another Ghost Victim Found.

Next

Masterlist

[roosterforme]

The Younger Kind Part 32 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Bradley is used to feeling comfortable around you, so when he arrives home and things feel strained, he wants to understand why. The more you tell him about what has you so upset, the more he wants to try to fix everything. But you don't know if he can do anything to mend your confidence.

Warnings: Angst, swearing, fluff, and age gap (18+)

Length: 5600 words

Pairing: Single dad!Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x babysitter!female reader

Check out my masterlist for more! The Younger Kind masterlist.

Nat called and texted the next day to check in with you and Noah. It didn't matter how many times you lied and told her that you were just fine, she said she wanted to be sure. But you knew you were barely holding on, and the next two days without Bradley were going to be really hard. 

Because now it wasn't just the USB drive. It was also your hand. And the broken glass. And the way Noah cried. You were currently curled up in Bradley's bed with Noah sound asleep in your arms, and you didn't even want to go to work tomorrow. Your hand was aching, and the gash looked terrible. Even though you had done your best with it, you knew you should have gone for stitches. But you also knew it was too late for that now.

After a moment of contemplation, you decided to keep Noah in bed with you for the night. You opened up your email one more time with the arrival instructions from Bradley even though you had them memorized. But you didn't want to mess this up. 

When you got to work the next morning, while you were still trying to decide if you should report the break in, another layer of embarrassment was added. Dr. Kelly pulled you aside and glanced down at your hand as she said, "Would you like me to take a look at that?" 

You'd done a pretty terrible job of bandaging it up on your own. "Sure," you said softly, and she unwrapped it and winced.

"This didn't happen at work, did it?"

"No," you replied quickly. "At home."

She met your eyes with startled ones. "This is a nasty, irregular cut. You live with your boyfriend, correct?" When you nodded, she added, "If there's any sort of issue with... violence at home, please know that you can always come to me."

Your jaw dropped open, and you gasped. "No! He's not even here, he's deployed! It was an accident!"

"Okay," she said right away. "I believe you. Let me get it cleaned up. It's looking angry, and you should have probably gone somewhere for stitches over the weekend."

Instead of responding, you silently followed her to one of the exam rooms where she carefully disinfected your palm and applied an adhesive that would work on your skin. "I can reapply it later this week for you."

"Thanks." As you got back to work, you were starting to think you should have reported the incident with the police. Panic rose inside you as you were instructed to prepare some vaccination syringes for the ten year old in exam room five. 

Should you wait until Bradley got home on Wednesday? Should you call the police after work today? Your cut up hand was bad enough, but Noah could have been the one who got hurt. And you'd honestly never be able to forgive yourself if something happened to him. You had protected him from Meredith in the park, so why was this any different?

You rushed back to Bradley's house after work and ran inside, completely exasperated by his old man tendencies. You had to search for the list of phone numbers he gave you which would have been much better if he just saved them to your contacts in your phone.

Noah needed to be picked up in the next forty minutes, and you didn't know how long she would be in her office, but you tried to reach Tracy anyway. When you gave your name to her receptionist, you were shocked that he put you right through to Bradley's lawyer.

"I hope Bradley thanked you for me. The Red Bulls were very sweet of you."

You laughed at Tracy in spite of the fact that you felt like crying. "It's the least I could do." Then you took a deep breath and said, "I was wondering if there is any way you can help me? I don't want to end up with Bradley having to pay you if you give me advice over the phone or anything like that. But I think I need some help right now even though he should be back on Wednesday."

"Your boyfriend basically has me on retainer for you. What do you need?" Tracy asked.

"Retainer?" you asked. No, that couldn't be right.

"I was given explicit instructions to help you with anything you might call about. We're not going to worry about any billing, because he certainly wasn't worried, okay? What can I do for you?"

You sucked in a deep breath as you paced around the kitchen. You felt defeated. That damn USB drive was on top of the refrigerator. The coffee machine you could barely figure out how to use was on the counter. The list of phone numbers in Bradley's handwriting was on the table. So you walked out back and forced yourself to say, "I think Meredith broke into my rental which I had already moved out of. And I saw her at a gas station before that."

There was a long enough pause that you were about to repeat yourself, but then she said, "I think that if she did break into your rental, it was purely out of spite. Because I actually have some news about Meredith that I was waiting to tell Bradley. But I think you and I should have a conversation first, and then you should decide if you want to call the police."

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

Bradley just wanted to get off this aircraft carrier. He had one night left in this fucking bunk with Carl, and then he could go home to his cozy house and sweet son and your warm, welcoming body. Maybe you'd let him snuggle with you and Noah on the couch, and then after Noah's bedtime, he could take you to bed. He couldn't stop thinking about every single way he wanted to have you. And then he could fall asleep with you wrapped up in his arms and your soft breath on his skin.

He was almost getting hard just thinking about it. It had been a long time since he had someone to come home to, someone who was waiting just for him. He felt like he wanted to reward you for it. God, he wanted to give you everything. He had to tuck his hands up behind his head in his bunk and force himself to try to go to sleep. But he dreamed about your voice and your fingertips on his face.

The following day went quickly as they docked in the afternoon. Once he was able to text you, Bradley was pleased to see that you were more responsive.

I'm docked, Princess. We got in a little early, but I haven't deboarded yet. I know you're at work, but I can't wait to see you whenever you can come pick me up.

My Princess: I'll be there by four with Noah. We missed you so much!

When he was able to finally collect his things and start down the ramp, Bradley's heart was thudding in his ears. It wasn't four o'clock yet, and he knew he might have to wait for you to get there, but then he was pleasantly surprised. As he started walking along the fence to the parking lot, he spotted his Bronco in the last aisle. You had parked it away from everything and everything else, and that brought a smile to his face. 

And then he saw you, carrying Noah and hurrying toward him in your new work scrubs that he hadn't even seen yet. A smile broke out on his face as he rushed to close the distance. "Noah! Princess!"

"Daddy!" Noah squealed with delight, practically jumping from your arms to his. Bradley wrapped Noah up in his right arm and kissed him all over his face, reaching for you at the same time with his free hand. "I love you, Bub. Did you have fun with Princess?"

But you hesitated. And when Bradley met your eyes, he was still reaching for you, but you were only very slowly stepping toward him. "Come here," he rasped, slipping his arm around your waist until you were snug at his side. "I love you." Those words seemed to do the trick as you melted against him, and your chin tipped up as you looked at him.

"I missed you so much," you told him, your voice soft and maybe a little sad? And Bradley kissed you hard and heady in front of everyone including Noah, letting his hand rest on the swell of your butt. He didn't care. You belonged with him. He wanted you there forever. 

But even though you were clinging to his uniform shirt now and returning his kisses with a soft moan, he could tell you were holding back. He trailed a few kisses along your jaw back toward your ear and whispered, "I love you, Baby," and you shivered for him. But when he reached for your hand, he found it was bandaged up. And you looked at him with barely concealed frustration. He could just tell something was wrong. 

"What happened?" he asked, repositioning Noah in his arm and letting his son's cheek rest on his shoulder. He kissed your fingers and ran his thumb along the bandage. "What's wrong with your hand?"

You tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn't let you. "Can we talk about it later? Tonight?"

"Yeah," he agreed, suddenly even more apprehensive. "We can."

"Great," you replied, leading the way to the Bronco with your fingers loosely tangled with his. And while Bradley walked with his lips pressed to his son's forehead and his duffle bag on his back, he was worried about you. 

You were still quiet when the three of you pulled into the driveway and headed inside. "I have a lasagna ready to go in the oven," you told Bradley when he followed you into the kitchen. "Should we start doing your laundry?"

He laughed softly as he put Noah down in one of the chairs and dropped his bag to the floor. "Princess," he whispered, reaching for your soft cheek. "Baby, I don't care about my laundry. I don't even really care about dinner, but I love that you have something ready to go. I just want you to tell me what's bothering you."

He watched you swallow hard, and he thought he saw your eyes dart toward the top of the refrigerator. "Bradley," you muttered.

"You know I thought about you nonstop, right?" he whispered, remembering how it felt to have his fist connect with Carl's face as he made sure he got his polaroid back. "On repeat. I just wanted to be home." He kissed your lips over and over again, stroking your soft skin with his thumb. "So I'll take care of whatever has you upset. You know I will."

You just nodded and let your eyes flutter closed. And all you offered him was one word. "Later."

After dinner was eaten and cleaned up, Bradley spent some extra time giving Noah a bath. The tub was absolutely filled with toys, and Bradley ended up removing his soaking wet undershirt, kneeling on the floor in just his underwear and service khakis. "I missed you so much," he said, kissing his son over and over again. "But I know you had fun with Princess."

Noah held out a green duckie for Bradley to take before he said, "I want Princess to be my mommy." 

Bradley met brown eyes that matched his, and he easily said, "I do too, Bub. She would be really good at it." You already were good at it. But something was wrong, and he needed to figure it out. The two of you weren't acting the way he had hoped you would after being apart for weeks. And now he was questioning whether or not you'd actually want to marry him someday.

It was late. Definitely after Noah's usual bedtime. He was yawning now, but Bradley had been so excited to see him, he let him stay up. With one more big yawn, Bradley scooped his son out of the tub with a towel and drained the water. Then he stopped in the living room where you were sitting on the couch, and he let Noah give you a goodnight kiss. And he leaned down and kissed your cheek as well. "I'll be back out in a minute. We'll talk."

"Okay," you said softly, and then Bradley was thankful that Noah was already falling asleep as soon as he was in bed. On his way back out to the living room, he stopped in the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of merlot and a bag of Skittles he had stashed away. 

After he opened the bottle and took a sip, he met you in the living room. Your gaze took in his naked torso as you bit your lip, and when he handed you the wine with no glass, you took a sip from the bottle as well. 

"Let's talk?" he asked, settling down next to you. He opened the bag of candy and patted his thigh. "And snuggle? I've been saving the wine and Skittles for our reunion, but you'll have to remind me which color goes best with merlot."

He could tell you were trying not to smile as you scooted across the couch and onto his lap while you sipped the wine. "Red, Daddy. Red Skittles pair with merlot."

"Yes," he rasped, kissing the side of your neck. "That's right. Now that I'm all yours again, just like I'm supposed to be, why don't you tell me what's bothering you?"

You handed him the bottle in favor of the candy, and you crunched on a few pieces before you said, "I moved all of my stuff in. And I used your address for my new hire paperwork."

Bradley had to hold back a moan. That sounded so fucking perfect to him, he wanted to take you on the floor right now, right in the middle of the area rug. But instead he just tightened his arm around your waist. "Mmhmm, you know just want to say to make me happy. And you did so great with Noah. I knew you would be perfect, Princess."

But then you met his eyes and held up your bandaged hand. "I had to call Tracy on Monday," you said, and Bradley's heart dropped. 

"Why?"

You pressed your lips together and looked down at the bottle of wine before taking it from his hand and drinking some more. "I saw Meredith at the gas station near Noah's daycare," you whispered, your voice soft and harsh. 

"She broke the restraining order?" he growled. "What the fuck?"

"It was just a gas station," you replied quietly. "And I think she was already there when I pulled in." Bradley was about to rage, but then you kept going. "But then someone broke into my rental, and I cut my hand when Noah was with me. And it must have been Meredith, so I called Tracy, because you weren't here, and I wasn't sure what to do." When you took a deep breath there was a little sob with it that made Bradley clench with the need to protect you. 

"Shit! I wish you didn't have to do this by yourself," he replied, heart skipping faster. "But I'm proud of you. What did Tracy say about Meredith?"

"She helped me file a police report, and they said they are looking for evidence, but my landlord is pissed off that the window is broken. He was supposed to have a new renter move in this week, and he's threatening me about paying for another month. He told me to fix the glass, but the police won't even let me. And you and I are supposed to go meet up with Tracy tomorrow." You hiccupped when you finished talking. 

"Shh," Bradley said, setting the bottle down on the end table and pulling you to his body so your cheek came to rest on his chest. "Baby, I'll take care of it. But back up, and go slow. Did Meredith threaten you or Noah?"

You shrugged against his body, and Bradley focused on every single word you had to say about the gas station and your broken windowpane and the note that was left. And how the police and Tracy both agreed that there's probably not enough evidence to prove anything one way or the other. And then you seemed wrung out as a tear slid down your cheek when you said, "Tracy did tell me that Meredith was on trial for the fraud charges I brought up against her during the custody hearing. When I saw her at the gas station, she told me I ruined her life. And then my window was smashed, probably just because she's such a horrible bitch."

"Make sense," he mumbled against your hair. No wonder he had several unread emails from Tracy that he knew he still needed to go through. Shit. You'd dealt with an awful lot in his absence. He wondered if that meant Meredith was being sentenced. "And we have an appointment with Tracy tomorrow?"

"Yes," you whispered, curling up tighter against his body. "During my lunch break."

"Okay." He kissed your forehead and ran his hands up and down your back. "I'm still off tomorrow. I'll drop you off at work in the morning, and then I'll come back for you whenever you want. And we'll go talk to Tracy, and I promise you, I will take care of everything." You were practically shaking as he added, "Because you take care of us."

You were nodding as you finally looked up at him, and as angry as Bradley was about more bullshit from Meredith, you and Noah were safe. And Tracy would probably have more information for him tomorrow. But right now, you needed someone to take care of you for a minute. "I love you," he promised, considering how exhausted you looked. "Let's take a shower and get in bed?"

Whether you were nodding in agreement or because you were still shaky, Bradley wasn't sure. But he carried you into the bathroom and set you down gently as he turned the shower on. Once you were undressed he helped you in and carefully unwrapped the bandage on your hand. There was a jagged cut on your palm that made his heart lurch. "I'll clean it and rebandage it, Princess," he said, trying to hide the anger in his voice. You didn't deserve any of the shit you'd repeatedly gone through since you met him.

"Okay," you whispered, and as soon as he was out of his khakis and underwear, you were pulling him in with you. Bradley was helpless in his feelings for you. Very carefully, he took his time and washed you so you didn't irritate your cut further. And he let himself just enjoy the feel of your body against his as he gently held your hand.

When he turned the shower off, he wrapped you in a towel and carried you to the bedroom. Everything looked exactly as it should: your purple crown was on his bedpost, everything was tidy, and the bed looked inviting. But you still didn't look relaxed as he helped you into his gray sweatpants and a soft undershirt before bandaging your hand again.

"What will make you feel better?" he asked, pulling on clean underwear as you climbed into bed. "Tell me, and I'll do it. I just want you to know how much I missed you and how happy I am that you moved all your stuff in while I was away."

You peeled the blanket back on his side of the bed and whispered, "Snuggle with me?" 

You looked so perfect and innocent, and Bradley slid in bed with you and collected you in his arms. "Come here, Baby. Let me tell you how much I love you."

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

You started to fall asleep in Bradley's arms while he rubbed small circles on your back through his undershirt which you were wearing. You had been on the brink of erupting into tears all night, and you hadn't even mentioned the USB drive. And now that he was home, you didn't know if you were strong enough to bring it up at all. 

If he knew it was in that box in the attic, then you were going to make a fool of yourself. And if he forgot about its existence, he was going to think you were snooping through his things even though he gave you permission to use the attic. Either way, you weren't going to mention it, at least not yet. 

There were too many other things to think about anyway. Like whether or not the police found anything in your rental. And how you were going to fix the window. And if Meredith was actually going to attempt something with you or Noah, or if she was just bitter that she might be facing jail time. 

"Daddy," you whispered, and Bradley's arm tightened around you as he kissed the top of your head.

"Just sleep, Baby. I'll be right here."

As you dozed off, you realized you didn't have to be on full alert at the moment. For the first night in so long, you could just sleep and know he was with you and Noah. And then you were out. 

Next thing you knew, it was light inside the bedroom, and Bradley was waking you up with gentle kisses on your face. You reached for him, and then his body weight was on top of you as he chuckled. "Baby, we'll be late."

"Good, I want to stay in bed all day," you whined, but soon you were dressed in your scrubs and making breakfast while Bradley got Noah ready for daycare. You hated the way you felt like you were holding back being as physical as you wanted to be with your boyfriend. 

And then a flash of panic shot through you. He must have been expecting you to have sex with him last night, when instead you fell asleep as a bundle of nerves. You were still a bundle of nerves, but now you felt like crying as well. But he was acting so normal when he brought Noah into the kitchen to eat pancakes. "Just leave the mess in the sink, and I'll take care of it later," he said casually, reaching for your good hand to give you another kiss. 

But you were thinking about the USB drive, and your meeting with Tracy and your job. And you barely kissed him back this time. "Okay," you agreed before picking at your breakfast. 

Bradley looked concerned now, and he continued to look concerned a little later as he pulled into Noah's daycare parking lot. "I can take him in," you muttered, but he had already turned off the Bronco's engine. 

"Let's go together," he replied, eyeing you skeptically as he climbed out to get Noah. And when you were walking in, side by side, Bradley asked, "Will you tell me what else is on your mind?"

You just shook your head, because you didn't want to get into this right now. But he took your hand anyway.  And of course the same girl was working at the front desk with her clipboard. 

"Lieutenant Bradshaw! Good morning!"

"Hi, Casey," he replied smoothly, his fingers laced with yours. 

"How was your deployment? We really missed you here." She gave you some serious side eye, and you just knew she wished you weren't even around.

"It was fine," he replied, setting Noah down and kissing him. And then Noah turned to you for a hug before he walked back to the playroom. Then Bradley tugged you a little closer to him and wrapped his arm around you before signing the clipboard with the back of your body snug up against the front of his. He kissed your neck while Casey watched. "Let's go before you're late for work, Princess," he whispered next to your ear. 

He handed the clipboard to Casey without even looking at her, and you were so mixed up inside, you wanted to scream. Five minutes ago, you were dreading the idea of being intimate with Bradley without showing him the USB drive first, and now you wanted to fuck him in the front seat of the Bronco.

"Listen," he said, voice stern as he pulled out into traffic and headed toward your medical complex. "Something is bugging you. I want you to be honest with me. After we talk to Tracy together, you and I are having a conversation later today. And by the end of that conversation, I want you and I to feel the way we are supposed to feel again. Because you moved all your stuff into the house, which I think is us officially taking the next step in our relationship. And I'm used to feeling comfortable when I'm with you. Okay?"

You pressed your lips together. There was no getting around it now. "Yes."

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

"I really like Tracy and all, but I was hoping I'd never have to come here again," Bradley said as you and he rode the elevator up to her office. 

"I'm sorry," you whispered, running your hands down the front of your now wrinkly scrubs. "It's probably my fault."

Bradley did a double take. "Your fault? How would this possibly be your fault, Baby?"

You sighed and exited the elevator, and Bradley just wanted you to look happy again. "Because I'm the one who mentioned all of Meredith's insider trading and shady deals in the first place."

"Hey," he said, leading you down the hallway with his hand at your back. "This is one hundred percent Meredith's fault. And the fraud charges were probably coming whether or not we said anything about it during the custody hearing."

Then Tracy's receptionist was waving the two of you past his desk without question, and Bradley thought that was either a very good or a very bad sign.

"Meredith is in custody," Tracy announced as soon as her office door was closed behind Bradley. 

You gasped and said, "She's in prison."

"Yes. Now have a seat," she replied, pointing to the small conference table. "Because we have some things to discuss. Welcome home, Bradley." Then she set down a copy of Meredith's mugshot and arrest information.

"What a warm welcome," he muttered, skimming the paperwork. "She turned herself in?"

"She did," Tracy told him, taking the empty seat across the table and cracking open a Red Bull. "Probably broke the window at your place for fun as her last hurrah before turning herself in."

"Did the police find anything?" you asked her. "My landlord is so mad about the window."

Tracy just kind of shrugged. "Like I told you before, it's probably a lost cause. Nobody picked anything up on a doorbell camera, and it's impossible to tell exactly when it happened since you haven't actually been living there for a few months." You nodded, and then Tracy asked, "But if they do find evidence, would you like to press charges?"

"No," you replied immediately, and Bradley leaned in a little closer.

"Are you sure? We can absolutely press charges if you want to."

"Come on, Bradley," you said quietly, even though Tracy could still hear. "I don't want to cost you any more money. And I can't afford Tracy on my own." 

You looked at him with pleading eyes, and he leaned in even closer to you. How many times had the two of you had this fucking conversation? Too many for him to keep track of, and it annoyed him every single time. "Look at me," he whispered when you started to turn away. As soon as you met his eyes again, he kissed you softly. But his voice was rough around the edges as he said, "I would defend you with my life. Why would my money be any different? Why is that the thing that is always too much for you?"

With a soft gasp, you gaped at him. "Your life?"

"Yes, of course," he said, brow furrowed. "So I really need you to stop making a fuss about everything else. Because it doesn't matter compared to you. Or compared to Noah. Or compared to us. And I'm getting pretty fucking sick of having this conversation over and over again with you."

"Bradley," you whispered, wrapping your arms around his neck. He chanced a glance at Tracy, but she was simply scrolling on her phone now. And he could hear tears in your voice as you said, "Money isn't as important as you either."

"Exactly," he growled, holding you tight. "Fuck, Princess... don't cry. I didn't mean to make you cry. I'm sorry. But if you want to press charges, if there's even a reason to press charges, I will gladly pay for Tracy. She's expensive as hell, because she's very good."

"That's right," Tracy murmured, still scrolling.

You pulled away from him and kissed his scarred cheek a few times before you said, "Can I think about it? I mean, Meredith was probably just acting like a petty bitch because she could."

"We can wait for a police report," Tracy supplied, setting down her phone. "And I can get more information about Meredith as well."

You nodded and looked up at Bradley. "That's what I want to do."

"Then that's what we'll do," he agreed right away. 

"Tracy, do you know when I'll be able to replace the window? My landlord is threatening me with another month of rent."

She just snorted. "Send me a copy of your lease agreement. I'll make him cry."

When the three of you stood, Bradley could tell you seemed more relaxed, and he kissed the now dry tears from your cheek. "How much do I owe you for today?" Bradley asked Tracy as he took your bandaged hand in his.

"No worries. I'll bill you."

"Worth every cent," Bradley told you once again as you rode the elevator back down. 

You had your head resting on his chest as you pulled out your phone, and he could see your screen as you said, "Dr. Kelly texted me. She told me to just take the rest of the afternoon for myself."

"Do you want to head home?" he asked as you tucked your phone away again.

"Yeah, I'll make us lunch."

"Perfect," he replied. "And then we can talk."

And you seemed fine on the way home, changing radio stations in the Bonco and talking about how you hoped Meredith would have to serve the full fifteen years she was being threatened with. Bradley didn't really give much of a fuck about Meredith as long as you felt safe and happy. As long as things went back to normal for the three of you. 

But as soon as you walked into the kitchen, you seemed apprehensive once again. He watched you carefully get some butter and cheese out of the refrigerator, claiming you were in the mood for a grilled cheese sandwich. But then you tossed everything onto the counter and spun to face him. 

"I can't take it any more, okay?" You were nearly shouting at him, fists clenched at your sides. Your pretty face was all pinched like you were in pain. 

"What?" Bradley asked, rushing to you. "What's wrong?" And then he saw one rogue tear streak down your cheek. Something was making you cry again, and he needed to know what it was. 

"She's so many things that I know are horrible, but she's also so many things that I wish I could be... but I'm just not." You took a deep breath and reached up on your tiptoes to take something down from the top of the refrigerator. "I just want to know why it's here, okay?" you asked him, your hands shaking as you reached out with a blue USB drive on your bandaged palm. "Just don't lie to me about why you have this, Bradley. I know it's a few years old, but I just don't understand why you had it in the attic with Noah's baby clothes."

He took it in his own hand, and it seemed familiar. When he looked up and met your eyes, you were crying and trying to swipe the tears away. "I'm confused..." 

You pointed at his laptop which was charging on the table, and said, "Just tell me the truth," as you sobbed. 

Bradley opened the computer and tried to keep a wary eye on you at the same time. But as soon as he inserted the USB drive and the folder automatically opened up, he heard you softly say, "I can't," before you rushed out of the room. 

He was still baffled as he tapped on the video thumbnail. And then he wanted to throw the computer across the room. His blood ran cold as he remembered making this video. The details were hazy, but when he heard himself tell Meredith that he loved her, he wrenched the drive back out of the laptop and heard it clatter across the floor as he ran after you.

"Princess!"

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

Fix it now, Daddy!! You better fix it! I hope you enjoy your babysitter story @beyondthesefourwalls and thank you @mak-32

PART 33

@hotch-meeeeeuppppp

@swthxrry

@chassy21

@yaboid19

@solacestyles

@avoirlecoupdefoudre

@daisyhollyxox

@throwinsauce

@awesomebooklover17

@wintercap89

@whosyourgnomie4

@rosesinmars

@blog-name6996

@bcon24

@wishfulwithwine

@backinwonderl4nd

@tetragonia

@gingerbreadandpaper

@emptyloverofmine

@chaoticassidy

@missmirandafe

@changlingkhat

@sugarcoated-lame

@avada-kedavra-bitch-187

@katiebby04

@marantha

@averyhotchner

@abaker74

@heli991113

@k-k0129

@noz4a2

@tallyovie

@shanimallina87

@teddyluvs2sing

@little-wiseone

@ccbb2222

@lilyevanswhore

@o-the-o-grim-o-reaper-o

@xoxabs88xox

@thedroneranger

@bradshawsbitch

@cherrycola27

@fanboyswhore9

@xomrsalliej4787xo

@desert-fern

[abirddogmoment]

Rory has been here a week today! Let's do a recap:

I've been trying to do targeted socialization outings to practice neutral behaviour in lots of settings!

Sunday: Hotel lobby

Monday: Vet (wellness exam)

Tuesday: Outdoor light display

Wednesday: Vet (vaccines)

Thursday: Bus stop

Friday: Canadian Tire (dog friendly)

Saturday: Bus stop (post-event)

She's been crushing general good citizen behaviour! She has also been crushing:

House training (no accidents so far!)

Crate training

Offering engagement

Tolerating nail trims (50/50)

Sit/Down/Stand

General bravery in new situations

I'm very proud of her 💜

Areas for improvement include:

Stop bullying Pike

Stop chewing her own ears

Excitement around people/dogs

Demand barking (already improving)

Our biggest victories for the week:

✅ Worked through noise sensitivity from cars driving by, can now ignore them!

✅ First baby "hike" with phenomenal enthusiasm despite the cold and snow!

Big goals for next week:

✴ More polite play with Pike

✴ Staying home alone while the humans work

✴ Reduce demand barking

Overall she is a perfect puppy and I love her very very much 💜

[callmewrinkles3]

Book Extract 3

Perth, July 2035

Content warning for mentions of pregnancy loss.

I never thought that balancing parenthood and racing would be one of the hardest things I’d ever have to do, but it really was. I know it sounds stupid, and I’m well aware that I’m not the only driver who’s ever had to deal with it, but it felt impossible at times.

From the second my eldest daughter was born, the best thing in my world was being a dad. There’s nothing I love more than being my kids dad and Emmy’s husband. My family’s my priority. Don’t get me wrong, I adore racing, but the second being a parent was a possibility my priorities started to shift. And the moment she was born they changed entirely, Em had to talk me down from quitting my first season back with Red Bull before the season even started. We felt so lucky to have Lulu, for so many reasons.

A quarter of pregnancies end in miscarriage and we’re part of that statistic. It’s why we deliberately kept Em’s pregnancy private for as long as we could, we were terrified that it could happen again. But it didn’t and then we had that gorgeous little girl and we were over the moon. The fact that this tiny, precious, fragile baby girl was half me and half my wife? Half the best woman I know? That after wanting her and waiting for her for so long she was finally in our arms and looking up with us with her big brown eyes? There was nothing else that I could ask for. Everything I wanted was to be there by my girls side and being the dad I wanted to be.

That’s why being a part time dad on race weeks killed me. Monday and most of Tuesday I got to be a dad, changing nappies and feeding and burping Lulu. But from Wednesday on I barely got to hold them. I got to be with them in the morning before running to sim time or meetings or getting to the track, I got to give a kiss to them at lunch and see them at dinner, and Em insisted on staying up until I got to bed at night. I could count on one hand how many hours I got to spend with them on race weekends and that guilt was nothing like anything I’d felt before.

I was so lucky. I was so, so incredibly lucky. When Christian gave me the call and told me that Checo was retiring and after my Silverstone podium that they wanted me to take the seat I told Emmy that it was more than ok if she didn’t want me to take it. If she said no and wanted us to call it a day and go home we were going back to Perth and have our baby girl and settle down like we said we were going to in the future. But instead of picking the easy road, the crazy, wonderful, strong willed woman I married decided that the easy road wasn’t the road we were ever going to take. She insisted that I needed to go back. She knew it was what I really wanted to do, so it was more than ok to be selfish and do it.

We made a deal moving forward. Em and Lulu were coming to the races with me, and Em was going to do all the parenting when I had driving duties. If at any point she wanted to call it quits then we were going home. She was the one doing most of the family work for us, so she got to make the call. The decision was easy. I’d race until 2026 and we’d go home then to settle in Perth so Lulu could start kindy on time at home and have her parents there. But what we didn’t expect was for my first year back in the car to have everything happen then.

Every single racing driver races to win. We have fun doing it, doing a good overtake is brilliant, but we’re there to win. I was there to win races and spray the champagne, but I knew that first season back I was going in as a second driver. I never imagined I’d be seriously fighting for the championship. Maybe in the second year I could try, but definitely not in the first one.

But by putting all that effort into winning I had to leave all the parenting work on my wife. I missed doctors appointments for Lulu’s vaccinations because I was in the sim. I wasn’t home when Lulu had her first illness because I had to be at a sponsor event. When she had her first cold - in Baku of all places - Em decided to sleep on the couch in our hotel room because she was terrified of me getting sick and having to drive while feeling like crap. The same thing happened when Lulu started teething and Em had to stay up most of the night to calm her down and let me get some sleep before a race.

If Lulu had a (fortunately rare) night before I got in the car, Em didn’t let me get up. It was the same when she needed to be fed at night.

“You’re driving at 300 kilometres an hour this weekend, Baby. You need to sleep. I‘ll nap on Monday.” That’s all she said when I offered.

One of the things I admire most about my wife is that she did that for two years with a smile on her face. She adapted to being a new mother and carried a baby around the world so I could live my dream, and she never complained about anything. I knew she was exhausted nearly every day but she never mentioned it. She had to be a single parent for half the year and she never made one comment. The internet made enough of them for both of us really. She had the right to complain every single day, but she just kissed my cheek and told me to go get her another win to tell our kids about in the future.

And that’s exactly what I did.

Every single win was for Em, Lulu, and our future kids we hadn’t even dreamed about. It was for the baby we never got to meet. Every single time I got to stand on the top step of those podiums I got to look down at her and our baby girl cheering for me. But when the fuss was over and the champagne got washed away I got to go back to being a dad. I’d hold my girls as tightly and as much as possible until the cycle began again.

But it was also back to the guilt. After the photos were taken from that first race in Australia and we did Lulu’s own tiny shoey, I was so close to quitting. The guilt was all encompassing, and Emma was the one who talked to me and stopped me from quitting after the first race. Lulu was so small, Emma was so tired, and I just wanted to bring them back home and keep them safe. It’s what you do when you want to protect your family.

And then there were all the comments. I talked to Kevin Magnussen about them and he’d had some of them too. People made a comment about every single parenting decision you make, that we were insane for bringing a barely four month old around the world to every single race. It makes you overthink everything you’re doing and if you’re doing the right thing. It was especially hard because we were first time parents and while we had people around us, the world knows that only one side of our family was there for us. We were learning as we went, and we were working out how to be the best versions of ourselves for our daughter. We were as new to being parents as she was to the world.

But this was the best decision for us, and that’s what mattered. Having Em in Perth or London raising our daughter on her own wasn’t even a possibility. Being hours and time zones away from them wasn’t something that either of us were willing to consider. If I couldn’t get to see them in between meetings it was hard enough, being away for days or weeks wasn’t an option. If anything at all had happened to either of them and they were only in hospitality that was one thing. Being potentially a full day of travel away in an emergency? I couldn’t do it. So we made the decision and it’s the best one we could have done.

When I had my first win in Australia Em was right there at the barriers waiting for me, and I got to hug them and kiss Emmy’s happy tears away. When time zones and jet lag were messing with all of us and had Lulu upside down I could hold her and sing her out of tune lullabies until she got to sleep. When I crashed in Austria I got to hold my girls as soon as medical cleared me. The days that Emmy was exhausted and needed naps in my driver’s room to get through the day, Uncle Blake could look after Lulu and I could hug my wife and thank her for giving up so much to let me fight for my dream. It was so hard, but they were there and we were together and I got to see them every day in person instead of through a screen. It was entirely worth it.

But people liked talking about our bad choices as parents, and then they started talking about how I shouldn’t focus so much on my family and should concentrate on the championship. Someone one day chose the wrong words and told me to stop focusing on my family, and I’m not ashamed to admit I exploded. I apologised for my language after, but not being angry.

That was a particularly bad day. It was a bad weekend in general. We’ve been so lucky that once they arrived each of our kids were very easy babies. They were little saints who barely complained or cried. Not a lot of parents get that lucky, but we did. Lulu never gave us problems or headaches, even when she was spending the first two years of her life wandering around the paddock clutching Ony.

That weekend Lulu was teething, Em was looking after her and was exhausted, but it was Saturday night before a race and I had to sleep. But I’d gotten too used to Em sleeping beside me, Lulu in her crib in her room. I couldn’t really sleep without them. It’s one of those nights when I felt powerless, like I should have been able to do more. I should have been able to help my wife and daughter, but I was there in bed. If I went out to the living room of the suite Em would send me straight back to bed to rest. And then that stupid comment happened and I lost my temper.

How could someone ask me not to focus on my daughter? How could I not pay attention to the little girl who’d lit up our lives when she was born? They were essentially saying that my daughter was a distraction. And the biggest problem with that was it was exactly what had been said about Emma in the paddock before.

I don’t think anyone could understand exactly how it feels to be told that the person you love the most in the world is a distraction and the reason you’re losing your job. That unnamed people have seen her flirting - and more - with strangers. That she was sleeping with the men we consider brothers.

We knew it was all lies. I completely knew it was lies but Em was terrified for her reputation. It took me too much time to find out why certain people were sharing those rumours but then I finally learned that people who were supposed to support me and have my back wanted Emma out of the paddock and my life because “she’s a distraction”. They wanted to use her as the scapegoat for a much bigger issue that had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with a car that nobody listened to my feedback about.

What they didn’t know - what almost nobody knew - was that Emma was one of the people who kept me going. Emma, Michael, and Blake were the ones who kept me going, but Em kept me sane. Every race I won or was on the podium for after Monaco 2018 she was there for. She was the last person to wish me luck before my helmet went on, and the first person I saw when I got back to the garage. You need people who will support you, and those three are my family. It was the four of us against the world, and when I won Monza I won it for them.

Blake always says that whenever I see Em I turn into a little kid who wants candy. And he’s not the only one. The easiest way to make me do anything I didn’t want to do was to tell me that Em was waiting for me when I was finished. It worked every single time, either that or getting her to tell me to do it. I am an absolute sucker for that woman. Internet commenters called me a simp, and it’s absolutely true.

Someone told me in a very rude way that she had me eating from the palm of her hand, and it was entirely fucking true. Sometimes in interviews near the end of the 2022 season I got distracted by looking at her. Maybe it was unprofessional, but it was a distraction from just how bad things were in my professional life. I desperately needed to make it to the end of the season, and seeing my wife smile at me made the difference.

There were points where things were so bad I didn’t even want to go to the sim. I didn’t want to go to the MTC, I felt betrayed every time I walked through the doors. It didn’t seem like there was a point. I knew I didn’t have a seat for 2023, so all the extra hours I was putting in meant nothing. But it was part of my job to get out of bed and show up and do my job with a fake smile on my face, even when I was exhausted. And because her job was to be my assistant, Em took hers as seriously as I was taking mine. She became my shadow, even when she was still recovering from the start of that awful year. She knew I needed her more than ever, so the woman who hates waking up before she has to got up before me, got my shakes ready while I stretched, made breakfast while I worked out, ate with me and then drove me from London to Woking. Three hours in a car on days she didn’t have to go back to London, six on days she did. And she did it without complaint.

Em bought a car that she was more comfortable driving so she could bring me to work and make sure I had the support I needed. Some days she stayed in Woking, hopping between coffee shops to work. Sometimes she went back to London for meetings or to check on stuff, and then she’d go back and pick me up. She listened to me rambling about how things were and let me rant about what wasn’t great. We’d get home and she’d make my favourite meals to make me happy. Mum gave her recipes so I got home cooking and she cooked all of it. She loaded the dishwasher after dinner while I looked for something to watch on tv before going to bed. And even then she didn’t let herself sleep until I was asleep, in case a nightmare started so she could wake me up. I was useless in our relationship for a large part of those few months, but she didn’t give up on me. On us.

People asked how I came back after the summer break when everyone knew what was going on and looked like a new man in 2021. Em happened and I won Monza for her. And then in 2022 when things felt even worse and harder she loved me more and pulled me through. I love her and she loves me and we promised over that summer that we wouldn’t let ourselves lose each other, that we were together forever. Two weeks off with her in LA where we exorcised our demons happened and it was perfect.

My Emmy is the woman who kept me from blowing up my life and my career by quitting in the middle of the 2022 season. She’s been everything except a distraction when it counts, and if she was a distraction then she was the best distraction of my life. But it felt like the cycle was repeating itself somehow. The first time I had no idea what to do to protect Em apart from hiding us away and it nearly ruined us. But now I knew perfectly well what I needed to do, and it was to prove I could win that championship, even when looking after my beautiful little brunette distractions.

So I went and won a championship for my girls.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Shuham at HuffPost:

The founder of the conspiracy theory website Gateway Pundit said Wednesday that the company was declaring bankruptcy while it fights ongoing defamation lawsuits.

Jim Hoft, the site’s founder, said in a post that Gateway Pundit’s parent company, TGP Communications, had decided to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections in the Southern District of Florida “as a result of the progressive liberal lawfare attacks against our media outlet.” Hoft stressed the move was “not an admission of fault or culpability” and said the site would continue publishing. Gateway Pundit did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment. For two decades, the site has published falsehoods and conspiracy theories on everything from vaccines to election fraud. Donald Trump frequently shares its material. The most notable lawsuit against the website is from Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. In 2021, they sued the Gateway Pundit, Hoft and his twin brother, and website contributor Joe Hoft in St. Louis Circuit Court for defamation and emotional distress. The website had falsely alleged that the mother-daughter pair had purposefully manipulated the vote count in Joe Biden’s favor.

[...] Gateway Pundit, despite its often-untethered coverage, has played an outsize role in the conservative mediasphere ― though its traffic peaked in 2020. Multiple Republican-led states pulled out of a popular anti-voter-fraud organization after the site falsely reported that it was “founded” by George Soros and was a “essentially a left wing voter registration drive disguised as voter roll clean up.”

Far-right pro-Trump conspiracist disinformation website The Gateway Pundit declares bankruptcy. The Gateway Pundit is founded by right-wing propagandist Jim Hoft.

[iantimony]

sick and weak shabbosposting

thankfully that is a woe-is-me exaggeration. my therapist last week said she was getting over a cold but was no longer contagious and i, like a fool, believed her!!! woe!!! agony!!! struck down by seasonal cold!!! and yet i persist

listening: about halfway through episode 5 of partizan! so far i have laughed a lot more than i thought i would, the most recent bit that had me cackling was about "donating" their "extra mech" to midnite as "charity". really really good. am keeping up with SSHG episodes, i am very excited for them to watch the first hunger games movie at some point.

reading: we're back on the academic papers. i'm giving a general-audience presentation on my research on monday to other graduate students and needed to make sure that i actually understood the fundamental assumptions that we made about the topic. the good news is i think i do! the bad news is uh oh, gotta make a presentation... some articles i read this week: against access, john lee clark: this was a really really cool article. definitely has made me re-think the way i should be doing captions on images. the poetry of the tactile descriptions of people involved with protactile made me a little emotional. vanishing words, grazia rutherford-swan: i'm not sure how to articulate how i felt about reading this. it's raw and it's good. content warnings for abuse and assault. crying in luke's lobster, byran woods: i am not a public crier and i do not think i will ever be but i am working on being more vulnerable and allowing myself to cry in therapy right now. i think if i were to be a public crier, train station restaurants in NYC are probably the ideal choice, followed closely by airport food courts and library stacks (does this count as public still?)

watching: last weekend i watched the cowboy bebop movie with the boyf!

COMPLETELY unrelated but at this point in writing this post a car driving down the main street my apartment is absolutely BLASTING you're out of touch i'm out of time. incredible. no notes.

anyways i enjoyed the bebop movie! once again they are soooo weird about native americans. it is a little funny to see the like...the way western media others the "far east", but it's japanese media doing that but about native americans? there's something to talk about there that someone more articulate than i can take care of. some of the timeline of this movie didn't quite track to me but it's fairly easy to hand-wave (vincent would have had to have been made immune to the nanomachines BEFORE having ~relations~ with elektra and then lost his memory in some separate incident i guess? or lost it just as time went on? who knows, also the implication of the Sexually Transmitted Nanomachine Vaccine is sooo funny). i really liked the comedy relief old guys getting a job to do!! good movie overall, 9/10.

making: i gave up on intarsia for my stupid vertically striped scarf and instead have cast on [drumroll] three hundred and sixty nine stitches!!! give it up for three hundred and sixty nine stitches!!!! my main worry now is that one 50g skein of each color will not be enough and i'll have to order more and risk the dye lots being crazy different...

anyways, ceramics! last saturday i took a day trip to an art museum and nearby ceramics supply store and got a bunch of underglazes, so i'm excited to try out some of those!

did a carving of an illuminated manuscript-style dragon inspired by this beastie on a mug! obviously he is difficult to photograph because curved object, and also isn't colored in yet so it's a bit difficult to pick out, but i'm hoping some fun and creative glaze application will make this guy really really fun

misc: very thankful that i have a work-from-home friendly schedule right now! wednesday suuuuucked, thursday was a little better, and i feel a little better again today, so hopefully with the weekend to recuperate i'll be good for my presentation on monday!

[mushi-shield]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman who authorities say fatally stabbed her partner at their Los Angeles apartment Monday then threw her two children from a moving SUV onto the freeway, killing her infant daughter, was an astrologer who called the impending solar eclipse “the epitome of spiritual warfare” in an online post days earlier.

Los Angeles police believe Danielle Cherakiyah Johnson, 34, posted on X as an astrology influencer and recording artist with the moniker “ Ayoka,” in the days leading up to the violence, which began hours before the eclipse peaked in Southern California, said Lt. Guy Golan.

While detectives have reviewed Johnson’s posts, police are not considering the eclipse to be a precipitating or contributing factor to the slayings “because we just don’t know why she did what she did,” Golan told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

“We’ve taken all the facts we can, but without being able to interview her and without having something more tangible than a post on X, I don’t know how much weight you can give to somebody (saying) there’s an apocalypse and attribute it to one of the most horrific murders we’ve had in LA,” Golan, who is head of the homicide unit investigating the case, said.

Authorities say Johnson and her partner, 29-year-old Jaelen Allen Chaney, had an argument around 3:40 a.m. Monday in their apartment in Woodland Hills, about 25 miles (42 km) northwest of downtown LA. Johnson stabbed Chaney and fled with her kids, an 8-month-old girl and her 9-year-old sister, in a Porsche Cayenne.

Johnson then drove along Interstate 405 in Culver City and threw her daughters out of the moving SUV around 4:30 a.m., police said. The baby was pronounced dead on the road, but the older daughter — who witnessed the stabbing — survived with moderate injuries.

Johnson traveled southwest to Redondo Beach, where a half-hour later she was driving over 100 miles per hour (160 kph) and crashed into a tree. The LAPD is investigating whether the solo crash was an apparent suicide.

The Los Angeles Times first reported on Johnson’s social media activities in connection with the killings.

“Get your protection on and your heart in the right place,” she posted April 4 to more than 105,000 followers on X. “The world is very obviously changing right now and if you ever needed to pick a side, the time to do right in your life is now. Stay strong you got this.”

On April 5, she posted in all caps, “Wake up wake up the apocalypse is here. Everyone who has ears listen. Your time to choose what you believe is now.”

Her social media also included a mix of antisemitic screeds, conspiracy theories about vaccines and warnings about the end of the world alongside astrological predictions and positive affirmations. Also on April 5, she posted the word “LOVE” dozens of times. Her personal website offers a variety of services including “zodiac healing work,” “alcohol balancing system” and an “aura cleanse.”

Johnson’s internet presence and online following dates back years. The Fader, a music magazine, interviewed her in 2016 as an astrology personality.

“She was very standoffish,” said Norman Linder, a Woodland Hills neighbor. He only saw Johnson and her daughters a few times before in the apartment complex.

Another neighbor, Anita Mazer, told the AP that when she saw the family, “I just said ‘hello.’ The baby was really cute,” she said Wednesday. “It’s horrible.”

Golan said there were no calls for police to respond to the couple’s apartment prior to Monday’s killing, when neighbors called 911 after seeing the door open. Johnson did not have a felony criminal record in California and there were no indications of reported domestic violence.

Detectives did not immediately link the Woodland Hills slaying to the daughters, Golan said. He was in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood when he started getting push alerts from news organizations on his cellphone about the infant’s death on the roadway in Culver City. Investigators realized there might be a connection between two missing children from the family’s apartment and the tragedy on the interstate.

“I was like ‘Oh, there’s two young girls who were stranded on the 405 Freeway.’ That is such a random and terrible thing to hear about. And we knew there were two young children,” Golan continued. “We were setting up an Amber Alert.”

Golan said detectives discovered candles and cards inside the apartment, but he was not sure whether they were tarot cards.

“They didn’t look like your standard deck of cards that you would play poker with,” he said.

The solar eclipse’s path of totality stretched from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Newfoundland, Canada, a swath approximately 115 miles (185 kilometers) wide. Revelers were engulfed in darkness at state parks, on city rooftops and in small towns when the moon blocked out the sun, though Southern California only saw a partial eclipse that peaked at 11:12 a.m.

Across the globe, the celestial event spawned fears of the apocalypse and other suspicions rooted in religion and spirituality. But Golan noted that others who posted online about their eclipse-related worries did not commit violence like Johnson.

“How many people wrote about it,” he said, “and didn’t go out and murder somebody?”

[beardedmrbean]

Tampere-based Aamulehti (siirryt toiseen palveluun) reported about the Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services, Krista Kiuru (SDP), announcing expanded availability of Covid-19 booster vaccines.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Kiuru said the ministry's recommendation was to offer fourth doses to those whose vaccination is considered justified by a physician. 

Municipalities, and soon welfare regions, will also be able to determine which groups of people they plan to offer doses of the vaccine—such as those working in the healthcare sector. 

"Municipalities or welfare regions can decide whether to follow the current recommendations of the Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). Although the ministry's Covid-19 working group outlined that vaccines can be provided to people working in the healthcare sector, it's possible that not all providers do so for one reason or another," Kiuru said.

Kiuru added that her ministry is working on an even wider rollout of fourth vaccine dose that would apply to most of the country, echoing her statements last month. 

THL announced in October that it is not changing its vaccination recommendations for the time being. Currently, the institute recommends vaccines for people over the age of 65 and those belonging to at-risk groups over the age of 18. 

Kiuru said she hoped that healthcare sector will quickly be involved in the Covid-19 vaccination and that it would be able to administer both Covid-19 and influenza vaccines at the same time.

Teen driver expansion faces delay

Keskisuomalainen (siirryt toiseen palveluun) reported that a reform of lowering the driving age to 17 may be delayed until next year. 

Suna Kymäläinen (SPD), parliament's chair of the Transport and Communications Committee, told Uutissuomalainen that it will be delayed because the committee's report is still being prepared. Initially the new law was scheduled to enter into force at the beginning of October. 

Parliament only approves or rejects a government bill once the committee's report is ready.

According to Kymäläinen, the report may be delayed until the opening of the spring session of Parliament, which starts on 4 February. 

On Monday, Uutissuomalainen reported, based on information from the National Police Board, that 17-year-olds with a driving licence as an exemption to the law are more often guilty of aggravated endangerment of road safety than their peers a year or two older. 

In August, the Finnish Road Safety Council said lowering the age limit would be a mistake. 

At the beginning of May, the government proposed a law that would allow 17-year-olds to have a limited right to drive in category B with the consent of a guardian. At the moment, a 17-year-old needs a legal exemption permit to get a car driver's licence.

Under the government's proposal, a 17-year-old's licence would not allow them to drive between midnight and 5am.

Not quite November weather in Finland

Iltalehti (siirryt toiseen palveluun) reported that the end of the week is forecast with exceptionally warm temperatures. 

While Finland's November is typically depicted as chilly and grey, IL noted that Foreca projected the weather to turn exceptionally warm and sunny in certain parts of the country. 

"According to the current forecast, daytime temperatures will rise to between 9 and 13 degrees Celsius in the south and west of the country on Friday, with temperatures of up to 14 to 15 degrees Celsius possible in Åland," said meteorologist Anna Latvala. 

On the other hand, the warmth will not be felt throughout the entire country, as parts of Lapland may see up to 15 centimetres of snowfall. 

With projected weather systems moving through the weekend, Sunday—Father's Day in Finland—looks to be the least rainy day of the week. 

However, the warm weather is not expected to last. 

"By Tuesday morning at the latest, it will be mostly freezing in southern Finland too. Compared to the weekend, the early part of the week will be much cooler," Foreca meteorologist Juha Föhr told IL. 

[warningsine]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/21/world/asia/thailand-mpox.html

Thailand reported on Wednesday a case of mpox suspected to be caused by the new and potentially more deadly version of the virus. If confirmed, it would be the first such case in Thailand and would come a week after the World Health Organization declared the disease a global health emergency.

The case involves a 66-year-old European man who works in an African country with an ongoing outbreak, health officials said at a news conference, without specifying which country. The man, who has a home in Thailand, was not reported to have severe symptoms.

Officials said they were awaiting test results — likely due Friday — to determine if the man has been infected with Clade Ib, the version of the mpox virus that has been driving a rise in cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to health officials, the man flew from Africa to Thailand, transiting in a Middle Eastern country, before arriving on the evening of Aug. 14. The next morning, he started to develop a fever and found small bumps on his skin.

Tests at a hospital showed that he had mpox.

Thailand’s Department of Disease Control tracked down 43 people who had been near or in contact with the patient, including those seated near him on the plane, health officials said. Those people will be monitored for 21 days. Currently, none of them has shown any symptoms.

Since 2022, Thailand has had more than 800 reported cases of mpox, previously known as monkeypox.

Mpox spreads primarily through contact with infected animals or people, or through the consumption of contaminated meat. It can also be spread through sexual contact or transmitted in utero to a fetus.

Thongchai Keeratihuttayakorn, general director of the of disease control department, told reporters that mpox was not as infectious as Covid-19. “You have to have very close contact,” he said.

A virus endemic to Central and Western Africa, mpox spread rapidly to over 70 countries in 2022, prompting the World Health Organization to declare it a global health emergency in July of that year. Since then, it has affected nearly 100,000 people in 116 countries.

That outbreak was driven by a version called Clade IIb, which is predominantly spread through sexual contact. Men who had sex with men proved to be the most at-risk population, but behavioral changes and vaccinations curbed the spread.

The difference this time is that Clade I — the version of mpox that has been spreading in Congo — is deadlier, with a death rate of 3 percent, much higher than the 0.2 percent death rate observed in the 2022 outbreak.

Clade I is further differentiated by how it is transmitted, and who is most vulnerable. Clade Ia, epidemiologists have said, is spread through household contact and exposure to affected animals, in addition to sexual contact. So far, it is young children who are most vulnerable to this subtype. Clade Ib appears to spread mainly through heterosexual sex.

[calgymnasticsclub]

FALL 2024 ANNOUNCEMENTS!!

Hello Flippers!!

We're all very excited for a new semester of gymnastics WOOOOO!! 🥳

TLDR: For returning members, fall practice is starting Monday August 19th @8:30 pm. All club meeting is on Friday, September 20th; mandatory for all members. Before coming to practice, you need to:

1. Pay your membership dues

2. Pay the carpool fees ($90)

3. Sign the code of conduct [if you have not previously signed it].

4. Fill out the COVID vaccine and booster form [if you have not previously signed it].

We have some exciting announcements as we approach the start of the new school year! Please read this post in its entirety, and as always, don't hesitate to reach out with any questions.

Our Fall semester practices will officially begin on Monday, August 19th. Dues will be collected on this date prior to attending practice, through either our venmo (@calgymalumni), or our paypal (calclubgymnastics@gmail.com). Feel free to pay now, or on your first day of practice. Check out our website for detailed information on these fees and in this table below. 

RETURNING MEMBERS

During the first few weeks of practice (August 19th-September 5th), only returning members will be allowed to practice. Practices will occur on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings from 8:30-10:30 pm. During these initial two weeks, we will not have a set carpool, but existing members are encouraged to unofficially organize carpool rides. 

FREE TRIAL/CARPOOL

Our Free Trial Period will occur during the following week (September 9th-September 19th) for new and interested members to check out the club! Practices during this week will be on Mondays from 8:30-10:30pm, Wednesdays from 8:30-10:30pm, and Thursdays from 8:30-10:30pm. During this period, we will have an organized carpool, and those interested will only have to pay a carpool fee for that week. Carpool fees will be $25 for the entire period, $15 per week, or $5 per day. If you are a returning member who has paid for membership already, the carpool fee will be a $90 flat semester fee to cover driver expenses. To ensure that all members arrive on time, if you arrive at the carpool later than 7:55pm, you will owe the club $5. Drivers will be compensated $5 for every day they drive.

Prior to your first practice, all members, returning and new, will be asked to fill out this form with our new Club Terms & Conditions, this form with covid-19 vaccination proof, as well as make an account on the Ultimate Sports Connection website, which can be done here. After making an account you must register yourself as a student.

ALL-CLUB MEETING

Our All-Club Meeting - mandatory for all existing and new members - will occur on Friday September 20th in the evening, Location TBD. During this meeting, we will discuss club structure, fees, carpooling, general rules, as well as answer any questions that arise. We will also have sign-up sheets passed around for carpooling, our email list, payment links, etc. An option to call in via Zoom will also be available, with a zoom link sent out to the email list prior to the meeting. If you cannot make this meeting, please let myself or another officer know as soon as possible. 

SOCIALS

We also have some exciting club socials coming up, where we want to see all your lovely faces! These are open to all members and will be used to encourage new members to join the team. We highly encourage all returning members to come and meet the new folks! [some times and locations to be announced at a later date]

--The first social is being held on Friday September 6th, Board Games!! 

– The second social is being held on Wednesday, September 11th, at 6:45 pm, where we will meet at Sather Gate, and then get boba as a team!

--The final social is being held on Sunday, September 15th, for a Glade Picnic!

TABLING

Come see us out tabling on Sproul during Calapalooza Thursday August 29th from 2-6 pm! Further tabling dates to be sent out soon!

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us via email (calclubgymnastics@gmail.com). You can also find us on Instagram @calclubgym. You can also join our Discord. Hope to see all of you at free trial!

[gingerwerk]

it's wednesday my dudes aka wip wednesday so here is another blurb from my current wip

*

“Good morning, Walter,” Eugene Roe greeted Walt kindly as he slowly stumbled into the blindingly bright and empty clinic lobby at eight o’clock sharp Saturday morning.

“Uh, it’s Walt, Doc,” he reminded the man through a heavy yawn; Doc Roe had been running the clinic in town for the majority of the past decade now and even though the man saw him regularly for yearly vaccinations and multiple semi-serious bumps and bruises, he always seemed to forget that not a soul alive called him Walter.  

“Right, of course,” the doc nodded. “Now, lemme show you what you’re gonna be helpin’ us with today.”

As Walt followed Doc Roe behind the front desk- both men politely nodded to Anna, the head nurse, who was busy typing away on the ancient computer -and down the hallway that led to the examination rooms, he took in the man’s appearance. Between the blinding fluorescent lights, the pale blue scrubs he wore, and his inky black hair, Doc Roe had the unfortunate habit of looking perpetually washed out, making his already pale complexion more extreme in this setting. Walt remembered a time after he first took over the clinic when there was a rumor amongst his grade school friends that the quiet doc was actually a blood thirsty vampire in disguise.

“It makes perfect sense,” Ray had persistently argued whenever he had a minute to fight for his case. “Vampires acting like classic Dracula wouldn’t fly nowadays, there’s too much surveillance. Cops and doctors would easily be able to figure out it’s vampires when bodies start dropping drained of blood. But Doc’s smart- by playing doctor, he can work night shift and he has constant access to human blood that he can just sit back and enjoy like a Caprisun. Why d’you think he’s always promoting blood drives?”

As fun as that theory was for Walt and his friends to argue about, it eventually got thrown out the window after Dr. LeMaire joined the team and Roe could actually be seen out and about Matilda during the daytime. Despite other recent additions to the clinic, the poor man always seemed to be running himself ragged and had perpetual dark bags under his eyes. Walt had no idea what he was getting roped into with his community service assignments but at least he would probably be doing something actually helpful to the overworked Doc instead of wasting time getting sunburnt in that stupid reflective vest.

“I don’t know if you’re aware but every couple months we do an inventory of all the supplies we carry in the clinic,” the Doc spoke, bringing Walt back to the present. “It’s a time consuming process but unfortunately regular work at the clinic don’t stop to let us count all the cotton balls. So we usually have’ta rely on help from the community during this time to get it done.”

“So, I’ll be counting cotton balls all weekend?” Walt asked flatly, shoving his fists into his hoodie pocket and thinking that at least he wouldn’t get eaten up by bugs or come home smelling like hot garbage.

“And tongue depressors, bandages, and gauze,” Doc corrected him with the faintest hint of a smile. “It’s an extremely important part of keeping this clinic runnin’, so you’ll be doing us a big service.”

“Right,” Walt muttered skeptically.

“It’s the truth,” he persisted, blue eyes locking onto Walt’s with an unexpected intensity. “This clinic runs mostly on government funding and the government loves to know exactly how many bandages, scissors, and Tylenol we got before they’ll think about sending us another penny.”

“So, I guess I better not fuck up,” he realized after a beat.

“Important work don’t always mean complex. I think you can handle it.”

[kevin--of-desert-bluffs]

WTNV quick rundown - live show - A Spy In The Desert

Read the rest here!

Featuring the voices of Jeffery Cranor as Lee Marvin, Kate Jones as Michelle Nguyen, Symphony Sanders as Tamika Flynn, Joseph Fink as Telly the Barber, Meg Bashwiner as Deb the Sentient Patch of Haze and Emma Frankland as Sheriff Sam.

A tisket, a tasket. My god, what’s in that basket?! Welcome to Night Vale.

There is a infamous spy currently know as 'The Mink' in Night Vale. They are a master of disguise and have stolen many world secrets, only to hoard them instead of revealing them. NV, which is buildt on secrets, naturally does not want it's secrets taken. Cecil encourages people to report anyone they don't know to the SSP for possibly being The Mink.

Deb is running an add for Folger's today. During the conversation she reveals that she already knows all of NV's secrets and reveals one about a woman called Joanne to Cecil because Cecil is a gossip and wanted to know. Cecil also says he went to Italy on his vacation and had an authentic macchiato. Deb is unconvinced that Italy even exists.

Lee Marvin, turning 30 yet again, gives tips on spotting The Mink based on his knowledge of acting. One tip includes a simple disguise where one puts their hand over their face and just says who they are. This fools Cecil every time.

Wednesday is 80's night at Dark Owl Records. Michelle is not worried that the Mink will steal her secrets because she says she has none. She then reveals that her mother had access to a time machine, is the one who taught her about music, would encourage her to listen to whatever made her happy but only in private, elsewhere 'playing the game' of a disingenuous facade. One day her mother went back to prehistoric times and never came back. She also reveals that she knows, somehow, that Cecil does a chereographed lip-sync to Robyn's 'Cry When You Get Older' every morning and then cries, because he's gotten older.

Tamika's segment is unfortunately dotted with many Harry Potter references as they discuss how taking secrets and saying spoilers from the series are the same and a vague plan she has to disguise herself as a manila envelope with 'top secret' on it and then when someone tries to snatch her, to beat them with a book. She later chases and corners The Mink, who just about manages to escape.

Telly has apparently been giving haircuts to The Mink all week. He frequently mishears things (such as Carlos wanting a bit of a trim and giving him bangs and asteriks shaved into his head) and hurts himself a lot.

Archeology professor Joel Eisenberg and Jackie Fierro also have runs in with The Mink.

Sheriff Sam can read minds with a special 'ray' they have and plan to use that to capture The Mink.

The Mink tries to infiltrate Cecil's studio by pretending to be Deb but is figured out by Cecil. There is a huge chase between The Mink, Tamika and the SSP which results in Tamika capturing the Mink. Tamika has and can drive a motorcycle by the way, she's a very talented 16 year old.

Cecil says that his interest in The Mink was mostly because he had a two year secret he really wanted to tell someone who would not reveal it to anyone else. The Mink then escapes (for some reason Tamika brought The Mink to Cecil).

Weather: “Company Man” by Dane Terry, https://daneterry.bandcamp.com/]

Fitness Initiative Jin Housong says more kids need to get active outdoors, because they want to monitor them for sending to fight the Blood Space War.

In the children's fun fact science corner he says the moon was invented in 1872, to try and make werewolves real, but whilst catapulting it into the air the side that has a werewolf doing a thumbs up painted on it ended up faced away instead. Now there's a vaccine for werewolves (penicillin) and nobody really cares about the moon.

Citizen Bernadette Flynn loses Tuesday somehow.

Sports news describes a fairly normal run of American Football up to the spiked football splitting open, revealing a horrible creature which bites a lump of flesh from the player which spiked it, which the ref then blows into a new ball and play continues.

So stay tuned next for the quiet roar of your secret thoughts, some of which you may some day share. And for the secret heart of my secret self,Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

[nomfundon]

Nurturing futures, the vital role of maternal and child health in society and occupational therapy practice

Maternal and child health is not only a vital indicator of a society's well-being but also a cornerstone for its future prosperity and development. In this blog post, we'll explore the significance of maternal and child health to society and analyze its implications for Occupational Therapy (OT) practice, particularly at a community level, within the context of Cato Crest, Durban, in KwaZulu Natal.

Ensuring the well-being of mothers during pregnancy and childbirth, as well as the health and development of infants and children, is not only a matter of moral imperative but also a strategic investment in the future. The World Health Organization (WHO) underscores the significance of maternal and child health, asserting that healthy mothers and children are fundamental to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those related to health, poverty reduction, and gender equality (WHO, 2020).

Improving maternal and child health yields multifaceted benefits that extend beyond individual well-being to shape the fabric of society itself. Firstly, by reducing mortality and morbidity rates, particularly among mothers and children, societal health outcomes are significantly improved (WHO, 2019). This reduction not only enhances life expectancy but also elevates the overall quality of life for all members of the community. Secondly, investments in maternal and child health serve as a catalyst for enhancing human capital, leading to academic, social, and economic prosperity (UNICEF, 2020). Healthy mothers and children are better positioned to contribute meaningfully to their communities, driving sustainable economic growth and societal advancement. Thirdly, adequate maternal and child health care disrupts the intergenerational cycle of poverty (WHO, 2019). When families are equipped with the resources and support necessary for maintaining health, they can more effectively escape poverty traps, participating fully in education, employment, and community life. Lastly, access to maternal and child health services empower women to make informed choices about their reproductive health and overall well-being, thus promoting gender equality and social inclusion within societies (AOTA, 2019). In essence, prioritizing maternal and child health not only nurtures healthier individuals but also cultivates stronger, more resilient communities poised for long-term growth and prosperity.

In the vibrant community of Cato Crest, Durban, Occupational Therapy (OT) interventions are tailored to address the unique needs and circumstances of its residents, encompassing cultural beliefs, socioeconomic status, and access to resources. Community-based programs are integral to this approach, focusing on maternal and child health promotion through initiatives such as early childhood development support. A notable example is the Philamntwana project implemented in Catomanor, this project is done by Occupational therapy students (Level 4), where comprehensive screenings, health promotion activities, and support groups are conducted every Wednesday at the community hall. Mobile clinics are deployed to reach remote areas within Cato Crest, providing essential maternal and child health services to residents who may have limited access to healthcare facilities. These clinics offer prenatal care, vaccinations, and health education sessions tailored to the specific needs of the community (Katz et al., 2017). Furthermore, occupational therapists in Cato Crest adopt a holistic approach to care, recognizing the interconnectedness of physical, emotional, and environmental factors influencing health. This holistic perspective involves collaboration with healthcare professionals such as nurses, and local leaders to create comprehensive support systems for mothers and children. Additionally, OT practitioners advocate for policies and programs prioritizing maternal and child health within the broader healthcare system, raising awareness about the significance of early intervention and preventive care. Through these concerted efforts, families in Cato Crest are empowered to take proactive steps towards improving their health outcomes, fostering a community where the well-being of mothers and children is paramount.

During my observation at the clinic, I encountered a child with developmental delay, whose mother mentioned administering "jikijela powder" to aid the child in gaining weight. This highlights the prevalent concern of malnutrition, prompting the need for effective nutrition programs. Nutrition programs, as outlined by (Lassi et al.2013), are designed to enhance maternal and child nutrition through various initiatives, including the distribution of nutritious food supplements, this also highlights how OTs work together with other health care professionals such as a dietician. By addressing the underlying factors contributing to malnutrition, such programs play a crucial role in promoting healthy growth and development among children in communities like Cato Crest, Durban.Top of Form

Cato Crest, located in the vibrant city of Durban, KwaZulu Natal, presents both challenges and opportunities in the realm of maternal and child health. Despite its rich cultural heritage and strong community ties, Cato Crest grapples with issues such as poverty, inadequate healthcare infrastructure, and limited access to education.

However, amidst these challenges, there lies a resilient spirit and a collective determination to build a brighter future for the next generation. By harnessing the expertise of occupational therapists and engaging with local stakeholders, we can transform the landscape of maternal and child health in Cato Crest.

Together, let us strive to create a community where every mother and child has the opportunity to thrive, where healthcare is not a privilege but a fundamental human right, and where the seeds of hope planted today blossom into a tomorrow filled with promise.Top of Form

References

World Health Organization. (2020). Maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/en

United Nations Children's Fund. (2020). Maternal and newborn health https://www.unicef.org/health/maternal-and-newborn-health

American Occupational Therapy Association. (2019). Occupational therapy's role with maternal and infant health. https://www.aota.org/Practice/Children-Youth/Facts/Newborn-Infant.aspx

Katz, I. T., Bogart, L. M., Fu, C. M., Liu, Y., Cox, J. E., Samuels, F., ... & Bangsberg, D. R. (2017). Barriers to HPV immunization among blacks and latinos: a qualitative analysis of caregivers, adolescents, and providers. BMC Public Health, 17(1), 1-12.

Lassi, Z. S., Das, J. K., Zahid, G., Imdad, A., Bhutta, Z. A. (2013). Impact of education and provision of complementary feeding on growth and morbidity in children less than 2 years of age in developing countries: a systematic review. BMC Public Health, 13(Suppl 3), S13.

[lszdlp]

Individual stock information

The Phase III trial of Pfizer's (PFE.US) RSV vaccine was successful. Pfizer announced that its RSV vaccine Abrysvo has achieved positive results in a Phase III clinical trial targeting high-risk individuals aged 18-59 years.

Nvidia once entered a technical adjustment zone. Although NVIDIA performed better than the U.S. stock market on Wednesday, bucking the trend and closing up nearly 2%, as an important driving force for the rise of U.S. stocks since the beginning of the year, it entered a technical adjustment zone this week, which deserves vigilance.

Technology giants have successively launched new AI chip products that "go to NVIDIA". This time it is Meta, and MTIA has another update. Meta released its first training and inference accelerator (MTIA) product last year, and the self-developed chip announced on Wednesday is the latest version of MTIA, which is used to help rank and recommend content on Facebook and Instagram.

Adobe (ADBE.US) has begun sourcing videos to build its artificial intelligence (AI) text-generating video model, trying to catch up with competitors after OpenAI demonstrated similar technology. https://chat.whatsapp.com/IGgMNx1mMfXDJNepmgMmep

[demerarawaves]

No new chickenpox cases at Lusignan Prison; everyone being vaccinated

A nurse vaccinating someone against chickenpox at the Lusignan Prison. Even as the Ministry of Health continued its chicken pox vaccination drive at the Lusignan Prison, East Coast Demerara, the Guyana Prison Service (GPS) on Wednesday said there was no new case of the viral disease at that penal facility. “So far, there have been no new cases of chickenpox detected at the prison facility,” the…

[crispyfryenperu]

Another day another pet another

I haven’t updated the blog in what feels like ages, but when I look at my last post, little has changed.

Last week had incredible ups and downs. 

On Monday I had a higiene class in my main school. I worked with a new teacher and everything went well.  I went to schedule another event with the health post. As I walked out and to the plaza, I was lost in thought and walked a meter from a sleeping dog. At the last moment i looked down at it, we locked eyes, and he bit me. I walked straight back to the health post. Fortunately the bite wasn’t bad at all, and the nurses agreed. I washed it out at home and called my Peace Corps doctors. They said they would send me rabies vaccines. Then, since the electricity went out in the morning, and no one could work on their computers, it was a great opportunity to force a meeting with my counterparts about our project. We were able to solidify the dates of our food higiene classes. By evening, phone service was also gone. Like people in the 20th century,  I walked over to my friends house to see if she was home. We joked around, and I bought a homemade chocopecan Paneton from her in a really cute Calango box. I went home to watch my favorite show and taste the paneton. It was very good! Then my host Mom said that something happened. A few hours earlier she had found our cat dead under a wheelbarrow. 

What had happened to our dogs was HORRIBLE. And this felt horrible as well. I think my cat was sick, and that’s why she died. She had had TWO litters of kittens, and her body couldn’t handle it. We had plans to sterilize her, we were truly going to take her to the very next campaign. They often do different types of campaigns in Peru like sterilization of animals, COVID or flue vaccinations, or opportunities for eye tests and glasses. These campaigns cost usually 1/3 or 1/4 of what it would cost if you went to the doctor or vet on a normal day and booked an appointment. A couple months ago, i took our other cat, Negris aka Michicucho, to be sterilized in a campaign in a farther part of Mala. (They never do them in Calango) I hadn’t taken our other cat, the Michcucha, because she was pregnant at the time. So that’s how negligence killed our cat. Michicucha was a kitten who had just arrived to Calango at the same time I had. I thank her for all the time she spent with me and I’m sorry. Hindsight is 20/20 is true, but it’s obviously inexcusable to let someone you love (or anyone for that matter) die. 

The next day I had an 8 am meeting time to go check out the chlorine in all of our reservoirs with my socia. I woke up, iced my puffy eyes for 15 minutes, and ran out of the house. My socia put her raeggeton on in the truck, and danced furiously in the car (she wasn’t driving). The views from the reservoirs are beautiful. As usual, no one is disinfecting the water, only the Calango JASS.  I got back in time for another higiene class with fifth grade of high school. They were preparing Christmas desserts in groups, and presenting how they made them and maintained kitchen higiene. Funnily, I was their invited guest, so they directed their presentations towards me, and I was the first to try all the desserts. Crazy to say of any event in this chaotic school, but it was a lovely class. I spent the rest of the day writing invitation letters for my bosses who were coming to visit on Thursday, and feeding three kittens we had managed to keep. 

Wednesday I went to Mala to pick up my rabies shots, visited Nathy, and ate a delicious pizza. In Calango I  had one more higiene class. It felt like a disaster. We were making fruit salad following kitchen higiene. A teacher was having a Zoom meeting in the laboratory classroom, and we ended up having to work outdoors with no chalkboard. The girls automatically took control of the fruit salad, cutting and disinfecting. All of the boys in the class refused to help cut. I sent them to wash their hands, and another teacher angrily scolded them for starting a water fight and told me to watch my kids. They came back to the class, and finally I gave them some apples to cut - that is, if they wanted any of the fruit salad. They claimed they didn’t know how to cut, and when forced to cut, it truly did appear as if they have never cut an apple in their life. Well, they had better learn.

Finally the fruit salad was complete. The apples cut by the boys were set aside especially as a BOYS ONLY food (the girls didn’t want those crusty apples), and everyone was served in tupperwares that they each brought. (yay for the environment!) They put condensed milk and cereal on top. I brought whipped cream, and put a bit on top of everyone’s fruit salad. I was surprised they were extremely wary of the whipped cream - frosting exists here but whipped cream in a compressed can is unheard of! But everyone who tried it liked it. The students rushed to their next class and I sat with the Profesora eating our fruit salad. Despite the chaos, the fruit salad was deliciously worth it.  

Afterwards, I worked on my presentation of all my work in Calango. I stayed up until almost 2 am perfecting it, with way too many pictures. At 8 am I walked over to the municipality to prepare for my boss coming. There were three car accidents and she was 10 minutes late! But once she did get here, she wondered where the mayor was and said we would wait for him. While the mayor nor his second in command ever came down, they sent another worker down in “his representation.” I presented everything, we talked about our future plans, and people suggest some ideas for summer school classes. My boss them came over for lunch, and my host mom made us Calango apple juice and yuca a la olla - which is my favorite dish! After lunch my boss came to a higiene class with fifth grade of high school, and then she went back to Lima.

The highs on this day were realizing how much work and photos I had to show for myself in my presentation, as well as being grateful to all the friends, family, and coworkers here in Calango. The low was the number of participants who came to my meeting, mainly a few who told me they would come and didn’t. But those who did come were impressed and excited to work more closely.

I took a nap, and at 7 pm went back to the muni to meet up with the La Capilla JASS and discuss the water fee per family. This went well, I have been trying to work with the La Capilla JASS, which is brand new, for several months now. 

Friday I finally relaxed, but by 3 pm had to go back to La Capilla and finish working with them on the water fee and the annual budget for the water system. We didn’t have enough time before their general meeting, which began at 5 pm. But I explained to them what we needed to do, and how we would convince the public. The public/ the families, have to vote to approve a change in the water fee and to approve the annual budget. It’s very difficult to get them to raise the fee - even though they currently pay 6 soles PER month PER household (~1.7 USD)!! And we only want to raise the fee to 7 soles per month. I explained to them that it would be necessary to raise the fee very soon. by 7 pm, the municipality sent a car to pick me up, so I left the meeting after my speech. The meeting would go on for several more hours. 

At the start of this week, we fed 8 cats. We had previously had 13 cats but my host mom gave away 5 kittens. Why did we have this many? Well, we had one cat. Michicucha. Michicucha grew quickly and got pregnant quickly. From her litter we kept one cat, Negris. Then Michicucha got pregnant again. While pregnant, she brought around her husband, who began to steal food from our house. Then we found out that her husband, was actually another pregnant cat! So we continued giving her food. The friend then gave birth to 5 kittens in the back of the house. A week or so later, Michicucha gave birth to 6 little kittens in the backyard. They each took care of their own kittens. Cande gave away 5 kittens - it seemed to be 5 of the little ones (Michicucha’s Michicuchinos). then we had 6 kittens left. Cande put 3 of them in a cage to bathe them. The friend cat seemed to leave, and take the other three kittens with her. Then we had three kittens and one mom left, Michicucha. And of course, Negris. Then Michicucha passed away. Then at some point during the week, we found that a kitten had fallen in-between two tight walls of the house, and had also passed away. But somehow, we still had three kittens. THEN Thursday night an orange cat, never before seen, was prowling around our house. The kittens, even though they had food, shelter and water, followed this orange cat. And now we have only Negris. What a nightmare. Calango is in desperate need of animal control.

So that’s another week in the Peace Corps. There were a lot of great moments but they were accompanied by tragedy. Although many weeks are a struggle to find work, and to get kids to listen, they usually aren’t so sad. 

Where's the boy?