#essentially drift through the real apex

[rockafstw]

alain prost boring allegations are sooo egregious are we even watching the same driver??? his style and his approach to race weekends in regards to set-up is so impressive And interesting to me!

[consumedkings-archive]

ancient names, pt. vii

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt vii: anything that touches

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~6.4k (sorry I’m a clown)

Rating: M for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop.

Warnings: Language, some “light” religious blasphemy (it’s Far Cry 5). Strong canon deviance from here on out. Uhhh brief mental breakdown that implies disassociation, and also some weird Joseph/Deputy if you squint real hard. Like REAL hard.

Notes: This chapter was a blast to write, mostly because I got to revisit that ICONIC scene (iykyk). That's pretty much the last in-canon thing we're going to have; the dialogue is essentially the same, but it felt important for me to have Elliot's experience of what it was like, when she was still soft and new.

Y'all the HOPELESS romantic in me is SUFFERING through these two but. I swear!! I swear. I SWEAR. Also anyone who tells me John doesn't want a partner who can put his ass in the dirt can fight me in hand to hand combat, because home boy needs it.

Thank you, as ALWAYS, to my sweet talented beautiful incredible @starcrier for proof-reading when this stuff is still in trash stages, and the ever-dutiful and perfect @empirics, who doesn’t even go here and yet???? Still stans and ships like she do. We love.

As always, thank you again to everyone who reads/comments/whateva! I’m so grateful for anything and everything and I just want to make it clear that I would not continue writing without you. Tysm!

John had never felt dread like this.

It was strange, the way it crept upon him as they walked to the trees. It was dark out, but the clouds had cleared so the moon and stars above were perfectly visible; it wasn’t as though he couldn’t see, and the closer they got to the trees, the more assured John felt that the van was there, or had been there. He supposed he didn’t know if the cultists had made off with it or not.

No, he wasn’t feeling dread about the fact that they were on foot, or that Boomer was nowhere to be seen, or that it was dark, or that he didn’t know for absolute certain that he was going in the right direction.

He felt dread because they were alive: because they were free, because there was no cultist in sight. He felt dread because Elliot was clutching his hand in hers, and her other hand was gripping his forearm, and she no longer moved with the surety of the apex predator she had made herself out to be in a very short period of time. Her feet hit the ground with heavy, unsteady thuds, their progression through the field and to the trees painfully halting. He had a very vivid memory of Elliot telling him, I’d rather you let me eat shit when he’d tried to steady her from falling, just a few days ago.

She wouldn’t look at him, either. Not directly in the eyes. He didn’t know if this was another side-effect of whatever they’d laced her with, or if it was Elliot, or if it had anything to do with the way she’d tried to pull away from him when he’d first found her in the field.

“Elliot,” John said, trying not to sound frustrated as her nails dug into his arm, “loosen your grip a little.”

Her lashes fluttered. She said, “Okay,” but then nothing changed, even though she looked like she was trying, as though the faculties with which she normally operated were so severely hindered that she wasn’t even aware if her body was doing the things she was willing it to.

He didn’t bring it up again. Even when he thought certainly her grip was going to bruise, even when his arm began to ache.

By the time they got to the trees, the moon was high in the sky, and John’s legs burned with the effort of merely walking. That was all it had been, walking, but the longer he turned it over in his mind that they were headed into a trap, the more laborious the movements became. They waded through the trees, the moonlight only barely filtering through now, until he saw it: the van.

At first, he felt relief. And then, immediately after, crashing into any good mood he might have left, was the paranoia. Why did they leave it? he wondered, hesitating. A trap. They want us to get back into the van.

But if they were trying to trap them, why wouldn’t they have just... kept them?

“John.” Elliot’s voice dragged with exhaustion. When he looked at her, her cheeks were flushed with fever, and her pupils were still huge—but not as much as before. “I’m so… tired.” Her body swayed a little, her eyes struggling to stay open; she was crashing, hard and fast.

“Stay here.”

Carefully, John pried his arm out of her grip, sitting her down in the nook of a tree’s roots before creeping his way over to the van. It was empty, and open, as though the cultists had just taken them and left it as it was. He wasn’t about to get caught a second time, so he moved quickly—climbed into the back, grabbed the backpack Elliot had filled with food and Tylenol, and reached for where he thought the guns were.

“Fuck,” John said. Gone. Everything else was left, except for the guns. And his glasses. Fuckheads.  

He stuffed the pack of cigarettes and the lighter into the backpack before he slid out of the back of the van and made his way back to Elliot. Her face was buried in her knees, her fingers absently curling and uncurling, something that John knew was just an Elliot thing—he’d seen it when she was at her most stressed, when she was trying hard to stay rooted.

John reached out and touched her shoulder. Even though he’d been clambering through the brush, the gesture startled her, her head jerking up and her eyes looking at him for just a second before diverting.

“We can’t stay,” he said urgently. “Come on.”

She nodded numbly before she took his offered hand, hoisting herself to her feet and trailing after him past the van and out closer to the road side. He thought, briefly, about yelling for the dog, or trying to whistle the way Elliot did, but the idea of making a violent range of noise to fetch a beast from somewhere deep in the woods—if he even was there—did not sit right with him. So instead, he found them a spot that was still within the trees, but pressed into the slope that led up to the road, and sat Elliot down again.

Now that he had a moment to sit, a moment to think, his brain flipped a switch into a necessary, self-preservation panic. Just a little adrenaline, to keep him awake, surely; because he didn’t want to be sleeping any time soon.

John couldn’t push the image of Elliot, pressed against the earth, crying , out of his mind. What had she seen? What did they do? His mouth burned with the itch to ask, but he couldn’t bring himself to, not when her eyes couldn’t stay on one place for more than a second.

“They didn’t—they didn’t do it to you?” Elliot asked him, after she took the tylenol he gave her dry and picked a chocolate chip out of a granola bar. John turned his gaze to her, cocking his head to the side. She still carried with her that dreamer’s sway, that soft loopy tone to her voice that reminded him she wasn’t yet quite herself again, but he thought it sounded like she was clearing up. Hopefully.

“Do what to me, deputy?”

She blinked down at her hands. “Drug you.”

He hesitated. He’d certainly gotten something , though he didn’t think it was anything like what they’d given Elliot. “Not the same,” he said after a second. “But I was asleep, for a while. For hours. I don’t know how long.”

“I wish I had been sleeping.” Elliot’s voice was miserable. She had never been so small, he thought, than in that moment, and she tipped her body over until the side of her face was on the ground. And then, after her eyes had drifted shut and a lapse of silence had passed, she mumbled, “They probably thought I was a bigger threat than you.”

John fought the urge to smile. It only barely worked, and he was glad, because he didn’t need Elliot getting a bigger ego than she already had.

“Yes, Rook, you’re very scary and intimidating. All—what, four feet, eight inches of you?”

“I’m five foot four, you fuckhead.”

A wave of relief washed over him. He rested his head back against the tree, exhaling softly.

“Go to sleep, deputy,” he murmured,  “so you can go back to being the bigger threat.”

For the sake of both of us.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

For the first time in what felt like years, Elliot slept.

It was fitful sleep, to be sure, plagued by a strange, blurring color-scape of nightmares and fever-dreams that haunted the corner of her sleeping vision. It all just lurked around the edges, never an image that she could pin down or find, only ever something that was present enough to fill her with a persistent terror. Voice melded into each other, overlapping; fragments of noise and color drifted in and out of her, like a tree shedding petals in a fiercer wind.

When she woke, light was just beginning to try and creep over the distant mountains. It wasn’t enough to feel like a real morning, like the day time , but enough that the milky glow of it filtered through the tops of the trees; the earth smelled wet and fresh, and her clothes were a little damp from sleeping on the wet ground. The sky stretched, gray and soft as wedding silk, through the tops of the trees. She wiped the water from her face.

I smell: the earth, the rain, the grass and wind. I see: the light, the sky, the tops of the tress. I feel —

“Ah, sleeping beauty awakens,” John said. His voice sounded gravelly; maybe he hadn’t slept at all, this whole time, which somehow made her stomach twist a little even though she didn’t want to care about what John did or didn’t get to do.

“Fuck off.” She groaned, coming into a sitting position and feeling her head immediately swoon with the effort. The back of it pulsed with a splitting pain, and she remembered the red-haired man from before, telling her to go back to sleep just before he slammed her head into the floor of the van. “God—what the fuck —”

“It’s so lovely,” John intoned, and she got the impression maybe it wasn’t lovely at all, “to have you back at full capacity again, deputy.”

Elliot pressed the heel of her palm to her head. “That asshole that works for Ase smashed my head in before he drugged me.”

John’s eyes narrowed. “Let me see.”

She stilled and closed her eyes against the splintering pain at the back of her head; she heard John shift where he was sitting, and then his hands against hers, brushing them away from the back of her head. Elliot tried not to think too much about how warm his hands were, how comforting the calloused feel of them was, or how gentle they were when he combed the hair out of his way. He clicked his tongue a little, hands dropping from her hair, and suddenly Elliot’s stomach plummeted, too; the loss of contact sent her poor little drug-addled lizard brain reeling.

“Well, you’ve got a nasty cut,” John said after a moment, “which is mostly scabbed over. And a bump that will probably be the size of an egg by the time it’s done.” His voice slid her out of her strange little panic, her desire to grab his hands and put them back on her face, even when that exact nightmare she’d had was stopping her from being able to meet his eyes for very long.

Elliot swallowed thickly. “Goody.”

She thought she could hear a smile in his voice when he said, “I’m sure you’ve had worse, Rook.”

“Don’t call me that.” She tried to force more heat in her voice, but she was so tired ; it felt like she hadn’t slept at all. John made a mild noise that might have been amusement, and then shifted where he sat before coming to a stand and stretching. Elliot asked, “Did you sleep?” and then immediately kicked herself ( because why would she care ), but it was too late to take the words back.

Her gaze flickered to John’s face and then immediately away. The strange dream—nightmare?—that she’d had of him, cradling her face, his touch searing through her, my Elliot , lingered on her skin still, heavy like a cinder block tying her down. It made it hard to look him in the eyes; she was afraid she’d see the flowers again.

“No,” he replied, and if it bothered him that she wasn’t looking at him very much, his voice didn’t sound like it. “Someone had to make sure those crazies didn’t come back.”

She scoffed, struggling to her feet. “The term crazies coming out of your mouth is impeccably comedic.”

“I’ll be here all night.”

Elliot shouldered the back pack and glanced around. The forest was quiet, and there was no sight nor sound of Boomer anywhere. She could only hope that he’d been out and away from the van when everything happened, and that he’d had the good sense to stay hidden. He was a smart boy. She tried not to worry too much.

At least, she would keep telling herself that, until proven otherwise. But she wouldn’t be whistling for him anytime soon—not with how easily they’d been tracked down by Ase and her fuckhead assistant.

“I suppose we should go on foot from here,” she said, a little mournfully, regretting the reasonable nature of her statement. She saw John grimace out of the corner of her eye.

“I suppose so, deputy.”

She heaved a sigh, fingers fluttering over the cut on the back of her head absently before she nodded. Her clothes were wet, she was nursing a raging hangover from whatever the fuck she’d been drugged with, and she’d eaten half a granola bar in a little over twenty-four hours. And if the drag of her breaths in her chest — even when she was taking a normal inhale — were any indication, sleeping in wet clothes had done nothing to improve her sickness.

Elliot set off, marching through the underbrush to get out of the woods and closer to the road. They passed the van again on their way out, and she thought, fuck, I’d kill John to get one more cigarette out of there, but she knew she shouldn’t. They probably had some kind of—bomb, or tracking device, or—

But in her heart of hearts, she knew that wasn’t true. They didn’t utilize machinery the same way that Eden’s Gate did. And if they wanted her and John dead, well. They would have killed them already. So even though she knew this, and thought it to herself, she couldn’t bring herself to go back to the car.

I see your color, mor, Ase had said, her voice like a thousand whispers against her skin. Elliot’s throat felt tight. She turned to John suddenly and said, “Hey, do you speak Swedish?”

John brushed past her. “What do you think?”

“How are you so unhelpful, and all of the time? Don’t you get tired of being useless?”

He laughed, and Elliot felt a little spark of indignation light in her chest. All of John’s strange tenderness—and she hadn’t forgotten, even if it was fuzzy, the way he’d held her face and said it’s me, Elliot, like he was supposed to be a comfort to her—

(and he was, now, what a sick thought, )

—was gone, and instead she kept thinking about the stupid fucking expression on his face when he’d said, so you think I’m attractive, then , because there was nothing more irritating than John Seed knowing he was attractive. It wasn’t like he needed her to tell him, so why he’d tried to wriggle the words out of her was beyond her comprehension; although Elliot supposed it could be explained that John hadn’t had anyone chant yes at his face for perhaps twenty-four hours, so how was he still sustaining himself? He must be craving attention, starved for it.

“You are the most annoying fucking person I’ve ever met,” Elliot announced, so that she could abruptly shove any and all thoughts of John’s hands on her face out of her head, huffing a little as she worked to catch up with him.

And then John turned around so suddenly that she careened straight into his chest, his hands landing to steady her shoulders—( warm, she thought absently)—and he said, “I know,” with all of the arrogance that she knew him to have. “Give me the backpack, deputy. If they are tracking us in some sick game of hide and seek, they’re going to hear you huffing and puffing from fifteen miles away.”

Elliot mustered all of the spite she had in her—which was not as much as she would have liked—and said, “I hate you, John Seed.”

“You’re going to have to find a new slogan,” John rumbled, sliding the backpack straps off of her shoulders, “because that one just doesn’t ring very true anymore.”

She let him take the backpack; not because she liked that he was being helpful, but because her shoulders screamed in relief. The more and more sober she became, the more her muscles ached, like she had been involuntarily tensing all night, and now they burned . John might as well have punched her entire body over and over again, with his stupid rings.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she replied, fishing the tylenol out of the bag and swallowing two. John rolled his eyes.

“Look, I can tell when you’re lying to me,” he said. “And I know that I’m irresistible, not only because I saved you—”

“Do not —”

“—but because, as a man of God, I am infinitely more wise than you, as well. If there is one thing that I would know about a woman of wrath, Deputy Honeysett, it’s that the one thing she wants is to feel in control of herself, and I’m exactly the man who can give you control.”

Elliot could have, perhaps, not picked a less-Godly man than John Seed; the only exception would be one of his brothers. His words rattled around in her skull. Was this the stupid shit he told himself? That he could give her control? Here, in the woods—soaking wet, sick, split open, walking for God knows how long on foot—and that’s the sales pitch he was going with?

Her jaw clenched, blistering the headache behind her eyes under an impossible heatwave of pure ache , and she pinched the bridge of her nose. “You’re—fucking—”

John waited, patiently, much to her fury: but the words would not come to her, color fractals splintering even when her eyes were closed, driving frenzied neurons to fire off pain signals over and over again. When she opened her eyes, for a second, an aura stretched across her vision, like someone pulling saran-wrap tight right over her face. She thought she might puke.

“I’m fucking...?” John prompted, and when she only shuddered a breath, his tone shifted a little. She couldn’t tell what to , but his voice was different when he said, “Deputy?”

He sounded, quite suddenly, like he was very far away from her. She tried to open her eyes again. The world wobbled unpleasantly, and the ground stretched beneath her until it felt like she was on a moving conveyor belt. She saw herself , standing there numbly, heels of her palms pressed against her eye sockets in a desperate attempt to quell the migraine.

“Elliot.”

John’s hands came to her face, yanking her back into a painful reality. He was too close now, smelling like wet earth and forest and a little bit like sweat, the rough, warm palms of his hands holding grounding her back to reality. He said, “Earth to Elliot.”

“Yes,” Elliot managed out. She couldn’t muster up any vitriol; one of her hands gripped John’s wrist where it cut through her peripheral. “I’m here,” she added, and she didn’t know why she said it like that , like she’d been somewhere else—maybe because she had. “Just—this head wound is really fucking with me. We have to get moving, and—”

She heard, a few feet away from them, the sound of a car door slamming. Her brain immediately jumpstarted; first, she thought, oh those fucking Swedes, and then her brain tried to say, or maybe it’s Jerome, or Grace, or —

It was neither of them. Through the haze of pain, Elliot heard the sound of Eden’s Gate’s radio playing, the sound of boots hitting the pavement.

“Well,” Joseph sighed, “if it isn’t the lamb and her shepherd.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Joseph Seed is a particularly difficult man to pin down.

She never meets him once, either before she goes off to the Academy or after, and she’s glad for it. After she gets back to Hope County, after she gets cleared by the psychiatrist, after she gets back to life-on-normal, she thinks she’d be happy to never see Joseph Seed. Not because she isn’t religious, but because she doesn’t like his brand, because the doomsday-ing and the wriggling past legalities of owning land or, perhaps, even people make her skin crawl.

Elliot doesn’t think she’d ever be able to walk herself into his compound. She doesn’t think she’d ever be able to look Joseph Seed in the eye, but she doesn’t have a choice , the helicopter planting them squarely in the compound. 

The ground is wet, fresh from a recent rain, and slips underfoot. The night is clouded above with no stars in sight. She feels almost like she’s in a dream, Joey walking ahead of her as the U.S. Marshal bickers with Sheriff Whitehorse, back and forth. She’s barely listening. She feels eyes on them, burning, angry and defiant shouts coming from the onlooking Eden’s Gate members, and she hears the sound of dogs barking in the distance.

They get to the church. Inside, the congregation is singing Amazing Grace, and the crickets match its feverish pitch, sliding along her skin.

“Hudson, on the door and watch our backs,” Whitehorse says, when the Marshal— Burke , Elliot thinks absently, that was his name —acquiesces to doing things the way Whitehorse wants to do it. “Don’t let any of these people get in. Rookie, on me.”

Elliot nods, her gaze focusing sharp again. Whitehorse has taken a risk, bringing her out when she was still so green; she wasn’t going to let him down. 

Not that he has much choice. They’re short-staffed as it was anyway.

“And you—” Whitehorse looks at Burke, his expression faltering, tired. “Just… Try not to do anything stupid.”

Burke claps him on the shoulder. He is all easy confidence, surety of foot, the kind of confidence Elliot wants to have some day. She hopes she doesn’t become tired, like Whitehorse. “Relax, Sheriff,” Burke says, “you’re about to get your name in the paper.”

But Elliot isn’t paying attention to them. She’s thinking about the armed men and women skulking around, and the dogs barking in the distance, and the sound of the singing from the inside of the church.

Joey’s hand briefly touches her shoulder. Her dark gaze is soft, and she squeezes Elliot’s shoulder before she says, “You’ll be fine.”

Whitehorse doesn’t look pleased by Burke’s comment. He doesn’t even look assuaged, mildly. He pushes the door open, and Elliot sticks close to his heel, as the singing comes to an abrupt stop; the church is dimly lit, with most of the light coming from behind the man at the front, his silhouette carved obsidian so that his features are obscured to her.

They walk slow. The man says, “ Something is coming. You can feel it, can’t you?”

His voice is a rich-willow timbre, decadent. The gathering of the cultists turn, their eyes piercing into the trio. Elliot’s heart is slamming against her rib cage. She doesn’t have a gun pulled—would never, not without Whitehorse’s blessing—but she wants to, not to fire but to warn. To keep them away.

“We are creeping toward the edge, and there will be a reckoning. That is why we started the Project—”

They’re dirty, and bedraggled. Elliot’s throat tightens. Why would they choose this? Why would they want to be like this?

“—because we know what happens next. They will come. They will try to take from us—take our guns, take our freedom, take our faith.”

Burke looks back at her, his hand floating and tense, ready to pull his gun at any moment. But he beckons her with a crook of his fingers and she does as he bids. Closer now, Elliot can see that the man is not alone; to the left, a tall, rugged red-head, his arms crossed, his expression stony. To the right, a soft young woman, dressed in white, dreamy. And just behind Joseph, a handsome, dark-haired man; a man that Elliot recognizes as John Duncan, but now is told by Joey is John Seed .

Joseph’s shirtless, which should be ridiculous and comedic but only serves to make him look both polished and feral in equal amounts. Golden light from outside drenches through a window cut to be the same shape as the emblem of Eden’s Gate, and it bathes him; he is golden, soft and sharp all at the same time.

“Sheriff, c’mon,” Burke says, because he is not charmed; he, too, thinks it is ridiculous. Whitehorse holds up a hand to steady him. 

“We will not let them.” Joseph Seed’s voice flexes, furious and controlled. “We will not let their greed , or their immorality or their depravity hurt us anymore. There will be no more suffering.”

Burke is furious that the sermon —if it can be called that, which Elliot would argue that it cannot, knowing the Seeds—has continued this long. She hears him say, “No, fuck this,” and he pulls the paper out and holds up in front of the man’s face.

“Joseph Seed,” Burke bites out, “I have a warrant issued for your arrest, on the suspicion of kidnapping with the intent to harm. Now, I want you to step forward and keep your hands where I can see them.”

Elliot’s gaze flickers. She feels sick to her stomach. Joseph lifts his hands; he is soft, again, no longer fervent, no longer yelling, and his gaze fixes on her.

“There they are,” he says, his voice quiet. “The locusts in our garden.”

Members of Eden’s Gate—armed, ragged, feral —slide their way between them and Joseph.

“You see, they’ve come for me.” Other members are beginning to get angry. They’re yelling, now, as Joseph says, “They’ve come to take me away from you , they’ve come to destroy all that we have built,” and the voices raise in volume, and Burke puts his hand on his gun and Whitehorse yells for him to stand down and Elliot’s fingers itch and she thinks, oh, no, this is when I’m going to have to shoot someone.  

But Joseph steps down from his platform. His hands brush the shoulders of his supporters, and they part for him, quieting the crowd, quelling their noise. Behind him, John steps across the stage, his eyes narrowed and sharp, studying them; he moves like an animal, prowling.

“We knew this moment would come. We’ve prepared for it,” Joseph says, gentle. He ushers them away; they brush past Elliot, her head turning after them, thinking certainly one will grab her, choke her, kill her, but they don’t.

“— and I saw, ” Joseph is biting out, pointing at Burke, and then looking at the sheriff, “ and behold, it was a white horse. ” 

And then Joseph is looking at her. He lifts his hands to her. His eyes are fixed on her, and she feels a strange, uncanny thrill slide through her. Joseph looks at her like she is the only person in the room, like all others have blinked out of existence and it’s only them. 

That’s why, she thinks, the feeling of it making her heart ache a little. That’s why they choose to be this way. To belong to someone.

She knows that’s what it is. She knows that’s how he’s gotten these people to follow him: because he looks at them like this, with longing, like there is nothing in the world that he wants more than to take them into his embrace.

His voice is breathless, soft, covetous, jealously cradling her in velvet swathes: “ And Hell followed with him.”

Elliot feels frozen. Petrified. Her stomach churns. She can feel the eyes of the Seed siblings on her. Burke jerks his hand at her, breaking her out of her reverie.

“Rookie, cuff this son of a bitch.”

Joseph is holding out his hands, obedient and compliant. “God will not let you take me.”

Burke says it again, maybe different, she can’t remember because the blood is rushing through her head, so she does as he asks. Her hands might be trembling. She takes Joseph’s hands and slides the cuffs on them, and he leans into her like he’s going to breathe her in or swallow her whole and almost purrs —

“Sometimes, the best thing to do is to walk away.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

John’s hands slid from Elliot’s face. The first thing he felt when he saw Joseph was relief —sheer, pure relief, that it wasn’t the Resistance that had found them and that it wasn’t Ase and her man again, but that it was his brother. Over his shoulder, too, John could see Jacob in the driver’s seat of the truck, his face stony and hard as always.

The second thing that John felt was dread.

Joseph’s expression was unreadable. It almost always was, he supposed, but now the fact that he couldn’t tell what Joseph was thinking struck a hot cord of fear inside of him, because he was reminded—now and painfully—that Faith was still lost to them.

“Joseph,” John managed out, his hands drifting now from Elliot completely, where before they had slid to her shoulders. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“You could sound like it,” Elliot muttered, and he shot her a look before he turned back to his brother, immediately crossing the gap from him to Joseph, standing on the road. Joseph watched him steadily, and once he was within arm’s reach, John stopped, hesitating.

“We were on our way to you,” Joseph explained, his voice steady, a soothing balm to John’s frayed nerves. “We heard talk on the radios that our sister had been taken, but we didn’t get a response when we tried to contact you at the ranch.”

John nodded. “Yes, it’s—there’s so much to tell you—”

Joseph’s hands came to rest on his shoulders for a moment; and, much the same way that John had done to Elliot, Joseph took his face in his hands.

“We’re so glad you’re alive,” Joseph murmured, his expression softening just that much . John felt the relief flood his system immediately at the gentle contact—merciful, healing, the way Joseph liked to be. “And that our dear deputy is still with you. Compliantly, too, it seems.”

Elliot’s voice was hard as flint when she said, “Yeah, well, you missed the last twenty-four hours where this fucking idiot had us cuffed together.”

Behind the yellow lenses of his glasses, Joseph’s gaze flickered to wherever Elliot lingered behind John, over his shoulders. His brother stared at Elliot for a moment; there was something in the way Joseph locked his gaze on the blonde that made John’s stomach twist uncomfortably, and he couldn’t quite pin it down, either, couldn’t get it to stop squirming long enough for him to figure out what it was.

“And yet,” Joseph said after a moment, his voice a low drawl as his hands dropped from John, “you are here, unburdened.”

John turned to look at Elliot. She still had to be in pain; she might have been trying to hide it, because of Joseph, or maybe even still because of him , but he could see it on her face, in the way her fingers curled and uncurled themselves absently, absently digging her nails into her palms. But this little give-away of hers meant nothing to anyone else, because the lines of her face were sharp and unrelenting.

Elliot’s gaze did not once leave Joseph. John recognized on her face that same odd, cold calculation she’d had when she’d thought about choking that Eden’s Gate guard out. If there was, he supposed, one person that Elliot hated more than himself, it was Joseph; perhaps she was thinking about all of the ways she wanted to kill him , now.

“Well, coincidental, we were on our way to you , Joseph. There’s now a problem one size bigger than your little cult.” Elliot said, her shoulders relaxing. She crested the hill up to the road, her feet hitting the pavement with more surety than she’d had since she’d woken up. It was like seeing someone that she hated had poured adrenaline straight into her body, and now she moved with the same precision she always did—though if the weariness in her expression was any indication, she was only half capacity. “How lucky .”

Joseph gazed at Elliot, as though John didn’t exist—as though no-one and nothing else existed, in that moment, except for her. John’s stomach lurched again, once more, with feeling! a wicked voice shouted in his brain, rattling around, keeping him nice and distracted so that he couldn’t figure out quite what it was that it made him feel.

“Fated,” Joseph agreed. His voice was almost sly. “One could say.”

“One could,” Elliot shot back, “but one shouldn’t, if they don’t want to sound like an idiot.” The words shot a jolt of fearful anticipation through John—not only because he thought, Joseph is only so merciful , but because he was sure that it reflected back on him, the way she felt so comfortable insulting Joseph.

“Deputy,” John snapped, and she glared at him, her brows knitting together at the center of her forehead. Joseph smiled pleasantly.

“Mouthy,” Jacob said from the truck, his voice clipped, “for someone who wants our help.”

Elliot bit out venomously, “Fuck you,” just as John said, “ Elliot ,” their voices overlapping furiously, and she looked at him again. There was something accusatory in her gaze. John wanted to pluck it out of her, break it apart so he could figure it out: but there wasn’t any time for that now. 

Her hands curled into fists at her sides, like she was going to fight Jacob right then and there, and John wasn’t entirely sure that she wouldn’t, pushed enough. He turned back to his brothers and said, “She’s agreed to help and get Faith back.”

“Not for nothing.” Elliot’s add-in was sharp. “I get to use the radios to contact the resistance and tell them to get the fuck out of Dodge.”

Joseph’s gaze fluttered between them, just for a moment—landing on Elliot for a heartbeat longer than it did on John—and then he stepped back, gesturing for them to get into the back seat of the truck. The blonde stepped on without John, brushing past him and flinging the door of the truck open before hoisting herself inside.

“How much do you know?” John asked as he climbed in after Elliot, shoving the backpack behind one of the seats. He tried not to think about the way Elliot’s eyes stayed pinned on Joseph, or the way her body had gone rigid, like at any moment she was ready to throw her fists in the direction of the nearest Seed brother—and certainly now, she had her pick if that were the case.

“Enough,” Joseph replied. He closed the passenger seat door and Jacob pulled the steering wheel of the truck until it was turning around. “But I’m certain you’ll be of more help.”

John opened his mouth to elaborate and give what information he had at the top of his brain when Elliot said, abruptly and without pretense, “You’ve come so unguarded, Joseph. Doesn’t that make you nervous?” and John turned his head to stare at her in disbelief.

Fucking insane, he thought. She wants to die. Does she ever stop?

But Joseph only laughed. Through the rearview mirror, John saw his eyes make contact with Elliot’s, and he said, “Jacob is sufficient protection on his own.” He paused, something slick and cool in his voice when he added, “But your concern is touching .”

“That’s an interesting choice of word. Not what I would have picked, though.”

“When we heard the radio chatter,” Jacob interrupted, before John could will himself to tell Elliot to shut the fuck up while he was still within hitting range, “Joseph told everyone to hunker down while we identified the threat. For once, it wasn’t a little girl playing with a shotgun.”

The accusation lay there, unspoken: Jacob had made it clear many times that he was certain he could snuff Elliot out faster than anyone else, either deeming her useless or shaping her into the perfect killer. If Joseph would just let him, he’d said, he would see.

But Joseph had told him to wait. To let John—persuasion was his specialty. Let John show us.

And John didn’t miss the way that his brother said it; Joseph told everyone. An opinion had been overruled, and it wasn’t Joseph’s, and Jacob hadn’t forgotten.

Elliot’s mouth opened, rearing up to say something; the indignation had been lit in her gaze, furious. He would have been comforted that she was back to normal—no longer trembling, no longer somewhere far away from him—but he knew that Jacob had much less tolerant than Joseph did.

“I grabbed the cigarettes from the van,” John said tartly, before she could get going. “Smoke one.”

The unspoken words lingered. Chill the fuck out. Occupy your mouth with something else. Something that John didn’t think he’d say to her, out loud, unless he was feeling particularly confident that she wouldn’t strangle him to death in front of his brothers.

“Good thinking, honey ,” Elliot drawled. His eyes narrowed at her. She stuffed her hand into the backpack, searching until she found them. The blonde only looked mildly surprised through her rage that they were actually there. 

When she rolled down the window and lit it, John relaxed a little and continued, “We’ve had a run-in with their leader. They’re armed and organized.”

Elliot stayed quiet. She settled back against the seat, deep into the corner of it, closest to the window, as though she couldn’t stand how close to them all she was, and took a long drag of the cigarette. The orange end of it burned until it was a sunspot in his vision.

John’s gaze drifted over her for a moment. Still, she wouldn’t look at him; she only spared him furtive glances through the corner of her eye, but never met his gaze, never going farther than his mouth.

“Ah.” Joseph’s gaze remained fixed on the road, his voice interrupting John’s thoughts. “So there’s now one more breed of locusts in our garden, it seems. Easy enough to exterminate, I think.”

“And how, pray tell,” Elliot asked, her voice sly, “do you plan to get rid of a new breed when you can’t even get rid of the old one?”

Jacob’s fingers tightened and flexed on the steering wheel. John could see a small smile tick the corner of Joseph’s mouth.

“If you get one flat foot on the devil’s wing,” Joseph replied, “you can get him to do just about anything you want.”

[dailyaudiobible]

12/20/2020 DAB Transcript

Haggai 1:1-2:23, Revelation 11:1-19, Psalms 139:1-24, Proverbs 30:15-16

Today is the 20th day of December the fourth Sunday in the season of Advent and the beginning of Christmas week. So, here we are. And it's a joy to be here with you in fellowship and move through this week together. And even though we have travel maybe and festivities and just and trying to figure it all out, we have each other and we move through Christmas week together and celebrate together. And, so, let's dive into our reading for today. And it's become a custom that we’re gonna read a book a day. That’s not like all across the board true but that's kinda how it feels as the year speeds up at the end and move through the minor prophets. And we’ll be reading a complete book of the minor prophets and the tenth of the minor prophets. And by the way, there's only 12. So, we’re right at the end. And the book that we’ll read today in its entirety is the book of Haggai.

Introduction to the book of Haggai:

And like I mentioned many times, like these, the minor prophets, we don't have a lot of biography to go on. There’s some traditions and we've mentioned those, but we don't exactly know who these people were or where they were in society. And, so, reconstruction kind of happens based on the text and the time. And, so, we know that Haggai was among the first to return from the Babylonian exile. So to kind of put this in perspective, we have Jeremiah prophesying, right? “Behold I know the plans that I have for you.” And we talked about all that. And he's sending a letter to the people who are in exile telling them to “settle down, prosper. Prosper where you are. Even if you don't want to be there, prosper. Thrive where you are because I have plans and they're gonna take 70 years. So, a generations gonna go by and then I'm gonna begin bringing people back.” Well, Haggai is on the other side of that and it seems like he's the first…one of the first wave of people to return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile. So, right there that makes him compelling since we spent so much…so much time in exile because the Bible spends so much time on it. We also know that Haggai must've had access to people in power because it's indicated in the…in the text itself that his message was to be delivered to Zerubbabel, which is a name that we should recognize. He was the governor of Judah and we learned about him when we were reading the book of Ezra in the book of Nehemiah. And…and also this message from Haggai was to be given to Joshua, the high priest. So, he had access to people who had authority, both a spiritual authority as well as civil authority. And Haggai’s message is generally to get the people moving. And to begin to see why, we just have to add some time, we have to add some dates. So, Babylon conquered Jerusalem. We went through all of that in the Scriptures, lead Jerusalem's people into exile. This happened around 586 B.C. Babylon then was conquered by the Persian Empire in 539 B.C. And later, subsequently under the Persian king Cyrus the first of the exiles began to return to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel's leadership. This happened around 538 B.C. Okay. So, Haggai’s message, the one that we’re about to read comes 18 years later, 18 years after the first wave of exiles has come back, around 520 B.C. Actually in 520 B.C. Actually, Haggai’s prophecies are…are…are actually dated…maybe most precisely dated utterances in all of the Bible. August 29th through December 18th 520 B.C. Okay. So, let's like pause our timeline for a second and remember when the temple was built. Remember when Solomon built that first temple and we were at the apex of ancient Israel's civilization? Well, the temple was to be the center, the heart, the center of society, the centerpiece of the culture. Well, now these exiles have come back, and they have permission to restore the centerpiece of their culture, but 18 years have gone by and the temple remained incomplete. The people and rebuilt their own lives, rebuilt their own homes. They began their culture, but the centerpiece was missing. And, so, Haggai, his message is essentially “we gotta get moving here. God has some things to do and God has some things to say.” And, so, with that we’ll move into the two-chapter book of Haggai and we will read from the New English Translation this week.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for all of the nuances and complexions that it brings out in us as we meditate upon it. We are grateful for the Psalm today that reminds us once again there is no where we can go that You are not, and that brings profound comfort because we can never again say where are You. You are here wherever we are. You are everywhere. We cannot flee from Your Spirit - in heaven, in the grave, on the far side of the earth - no matter where we go You are with us, which means You have been with us every step of the way through this crazy year. And as we move forward into this week celebrating Your arrival, Your Advent, we are again reminded You will never leave us, You will never forsake us. And we need that encouragement now as much as we have ever needed it at any point in our lives. And, so, we rest in that, we relax in that, we lean back into it and find a cozy place in the fact that we will never be away from You. You will always be here, and You have come for us, which is what Christmas reminds us of, which is what it represents, that Your arrived, that You came in person to make things right again. And, so, help us to lean back and relax and then lean into that as we move forward, we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and that's a website. If…if the .com didn't give it away, it's the website, it’s home base for the global community that we have together that we…the Global Campfire. So, check it out. Stay tuned and stay connected to it.

Check out the community section. That's where to get connected. That's where the Prayer Wall is.

And then of course, you know, the things that are going on right now are related to the holiday season, the Christmas season because it's just days away. Like we’re less than a week. I mean a week from now Christmas will be over. It just comes and goes doesn't it? But isn’t it the buildup? Isn’t it the Advent season, the season of longing, that desire for Christ's arrival, the hope of the world? Like isn't that the buildup? And then it happens and then it's over. And, so, this is the week to really press in and enjoy and really experience the story that's going on underneath it all, which is the story of the arrival of the Savior of the world. And, so, let's press into that.

Reminding you of the Family Christmas album that can be streamed anywhere you stream music. It can be bought anywhere you buy music. So, check that out. Also reminding you new this…well…actually like a week ago we released Jill and a new Christmas single, O Holy Night, which is a classic Christmas Carol that is so deeply inspiring. Reminding you that she will be performing it at a virtual….I was just gonna say New Year's Eve party…but a Christmas Eve service and we’ll post that out on our social media channels. So, those of you who aren't able or can't participate in a candlelight service that you could do that virtually. So, we’ll put that on our social media channels. But she’ll be singing O holy night. And, so, we decided to really go for it and…and actually do it right. And it turned out well. She's a great singer. And, so, we released that and get that. You can stream it anywhere or you can buy it anywhere. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There is a link. It lives on the homepage. And I thank you…I…I mean I can't thank you enough. Everyone's who’s clicked that link over the years that's…I mean we wouldn't be in this if we weren’t in it together. I mean, I say that 100 times a year probably. It's true. It's a fact. It's real. And, so, thank you for your partnership. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if you prefer, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Oh Lord as I sit at your feet with your hand on my head teach me, guide me, show me how to let the things of this world drift away. One by one I see them leave. I physically cough out any anxiety, any pain, any held on hurt. Lord you are my healer. Breathe into me your breath of life. As I breathe in and expand my lungs I slowly exhale with another deep breath. I hold you in Lord as I do not want to let go. One more deep breath. This breath is feeding every healthy cell in my body as I exhale you Holy Spirit, I ask that you run out of this temple my body all of my pain, all of my unhealthy cells. I see them under your authority Lord marching out of me. Thank you, Lord for making me whole, for making me strong, for living in me. Where you dwell, all things are possible in Jesus’ name I pray. This is joyful J sending my love your way.

Hi DAB family Tony from Germany for a praise report. And I just want to thank everyone for prayers on this whole semester of mine. It’s been very challenging. You know that I lost my mom in April and my dad in October and health problems and it’s like I…I really feel like the Lord was telling me I’ve been in the wilderness. But, you know, that’s formation, right? That’s…I’m studying ministry, and that’s part of our formation, you know, what can God teach us. And of interest as I was reading in my one class was all on the profits where the people were in exile, And, so, it’s like I journeyed with them. But it feels as though I came out maybe of it and you know when you are coming out of a wilder…wilderness when…which is the Lord trying to get us to see things in a new way or to have a new attitude or new approach and then He shows that we’ve arrived at what He’s been trying to teach us. And…and usually, it’s by blessings. It’s so amazing because this is grad school and all of my…everything I do for assignments and write exams are all essays and papers. And my last three I got 100 in each, which is like unheard of. Like how do you…how does that happen? But I felt that was the Lord just showing, “well done”, you know because just because it’s about faith and obedience. And believe me I have failed too. But I wanted to just to thank you and I hope this serves to bless you and I am remembering you guys all in prayers. God bless.

Hey DAB fans this is me Carter my mom Jennifer. We just wanted to say we been wanting to pray for our uncle. He isn’t right with the Lord and we just want him to be right with him. Please pray. Thank you for joining together with us and believing in his salvation. We come together each morning and pray with you guys. We love you guys and appreciate all…

Hi this is AFE calling in for four MA. Just I…I just stopped midway into the prayers just to call in a prayer for…for Byron who is asking for prayers for his son Nehemiah and really just wanting to bring his concerns about treatment that insurance would cover and just asking God for a way through. And just praying with them that just…that, you know, praying with him that, you know, trusting that his decision to go forth with…with this treatment is one that God will just justify by showing a means and showing a solution even though he doesn’t know how it will all happen. I’m just praying that these treatments will be just beneficial Lord and that Nehemiah would just be able to take advantage and just…just grow, just grow through this. Also praying for…I…I forget the man’s name now, but he was asking for prayer for his…his mom, Catherine who’s in the hospital in New Jersey from Covid and for his dad as well, just talking about some of his mom’s fears and her worries. And we just pray that God you just give her comfort, you give her rest Lord you let her trust in you, that Lord though she lay down at night to sleep Lord she will rise in the morning, and Lord that this…this ailment, this Covid, this disease will be behind her Lord as she is able to give a testimony and testify to Your goodness and Your glory. All these we pray in Jesus mighty name. Amen.

[nautiscarader]

Phinbella 8

(< (Ao3) (Next>>)

Isabella wasn’t sure if what was happening to her was real, or was it just an effect of blood slowly draining from her brain, making her light-headed and drift into her fantasy. But as the world around her kept spinning, she decided to not overthink it and embraced it, clutching Phineas’ body even tighter, much to his simultaneous confusion and enjoyment.

Just a few hours ago, she was helping her boyfriend build something truly monumental for their annual end of the Summer celebration, which this year took a form of a giant ferris wheel, swinging each cabin in more than one direction, essentially giving everyone a chance to experience how it must feel to be a candidate for a pilot or an astronaut, by putting them in a massive centrifuge.

She hopped in with Phineas, put the seatbelts on, and a moment later she was spinning around, as the enormous device began rotating its long arms, and the backyard was filled with screams of twenty other students also enjoying the test ride. Despite the humongous force and velocity achieved by the capsules, Isabella didn’t feel nauseous at all, despite the fact that the horizon very rarely was seen as a horizontal construct through the windows of their cabin. Her heart was racing, and as if the thrill of the attraction wasn’t enough, she felt Phineas’ hand on hers, his fingers intertwining with hers. She looked at him and leaned in for a kiss.

But no sooner than their lips brushed, something has happened that made the entire machine jump in place with a loud, ominous rumble. Phineas’ opened his eyes wide, and after a few seconds of nervous looking around, he came to a terrifying conclusion.

- Uh, change of plans, we’re going for a flight! - he spoke to the microphone.

From an outsider’s point of view, it must have been an imposing sight, to see the swirling mess of metal rising up into the air, like a huge gyroscope operating just with its momentum, and then moving in the air currents, with no sight of slowing down. For the passengers, however, it took them a moment to realise they have detached from the mast and they were now sailing through the air, left on the weather’s mercy.

- Phineas! - Isabella cried, leaping from her seat - Can’t-Can’t we do anything? - I… I don’t think so. - he looked around. - We need to lose the speed, but then we’re gonna start falling down.

He pulled the lever in front of him, and before it reached its apex, he gave her final warning.

- Hold on, this might not be as comfortable as I thought.

But instead of the satisfying “click” of her belt, Isabella leapt into his arms, clutching him tightly, with her arms wrapped around his neck.

- I-Isabella! - Ssh - she put his mind at ease - This is the safest place for me…

She cupped his face and pressed her lips to his, letting him feel the vibrations of the capsule through her body, immersing him with the pleasure he didn’t expect to feel today. And then, Isabella closed the safety belt behind her back, locking the two together.

- Gotta stay extra safe.

She giggled and let Phineas push the lever, as her kiss deepened. She felt the sudden shaking and quaking around her, and with each, she dug deeper into him, pressing her body against his, locking the two in the most intimate of embraces. Once he had no control of the device, Phineas’ hand found its way to her back, adding another level of security.

But his hands roaming over her back paled in comparison to what she felt between her legs. As the force has pushed her petite frame into the seat, and, consequently, into Phineas, it became impossible not to notice that even in this dire situation he was still a man.

And from the feel of it, she was a very lucky woman.

Isabella’s eyes opened and she met Phineas’, equally wide and filled with the mixture of guilt and excitation he couldn’t quite contain. Isabella had only one cure for that, and it was more kisses. But this time, they were hungrier and more ravenous than before. She wished she could close her legs around his torso, and instead, she did that to the chair he was in, still getting enough stimulation she was seeking.

Phineas finally responded with a few more riskier moves of his hands and fingers that now danced around her waist and bum, a territory he hasn’t been permitted to so far, and yet, he heard no objections from Isabella about his intrusions. Her hair flowed up and down, back and forth, as the machine kept rotating, soaring down into the ground, and with each second of their downfall, Isabella placed more and more bets loving her boyfriend, knowing she might very well have no other chances to do so.

She moved up and down against him, moaning into his mouth, though their intimate kiss broke off soon as Phineas was forced to groan as well, joining his girlfriend in the carnal music they were creating. Though their bodies were pushed towards each other with the centrifugal force, physics couldn’t rival Isabella’s passion that drove her into him. Unabashedly, disregarding all norms, she was thrusting her body, feeling his length through his jeans, and hoping he can experience as much stimuli as she was. His reddened face told her he definitely felt her breasts being pressed against his chest and when he broke their kiss off again, just to leave a mark on her cleavage, Isabella cried his name, pushing his face deep into her bosom.

They were still falling, and with that, Isabella felt she was flying, high into the air, wrapped around her boyfriend, and as she was about to pass out, she let it go, and allowed the flame building in her loins to consume her. Her back arched, she trashed against Phineas so hard, the safety belt unclipped, and as they flew up, she was finally able to close her legs behind him, just as she felt his hips began jerking uncontrollably, and he started babbling her name.

Their lips pressed against each other, in the longest, happiest and dirtiest kiss they have ever exchanged, as the pleasure radiated not just through their individual bodies, but seemed to overlap and spread through each other’s, mixing and strengthening, as the two writhed against each other.

Isabella closed her eyes, waiting for the sweet release of… something, when she heard croaky voice of Phineas, speaking, or rather wheezing into the microphone again.

- Pre…preparing for landing… We… we hope you enjoyed our little controlled tu…turbulence….

He pushed a button and braced Isabella, as their joined bodies slowly fell to the roof and then to the floor, their limbs still tangled in a messy knot. It took Isabella a while to understand that they were not dead, and that they have not been plummeting to their death the whole time. The machine was slowly stopping, and soon, the metallic arms folded down, and twenty capsules were gently laid onto the ground, still in the backyard of Phineas’ house.

- Did… did you like it? - Phineas asked, his face still torn with a mixture of bewilderment and shock, though his lips were starting to curl into a smile. - Yes. - Isabella spoke - I definitely liked it. - But do you-do you mean… - Yes.

And she kissed him again, pulling him into a heated, passionate kiss, now feeling more than ever the familiar stickiness that so far she only associated with private intimate moments of her bedroom, decorated with pictures of Phineas. Their serene moment was suddenly interrupted by a an angry shriek from outside.

- PHINEAS! Were is he-Oh for crying out loud, get a room, you two! - Candace, they are eighteen… - Stacey spoke, wobbling behind her impatient friend - And well, it’s not like they couldn’t have done that earlier… - I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA DIE! - Candace screamed - I wrote half of my last will with emojis! - she shoved her phone up her brother’s face. - Easy, easy Candace. Let the two breathe…

Stacey smiled at the two and let her frustrated friend out. Phineas blinked, as only now realised that for the last minute or so he was lying on top of Isabella, and he jumped back, breathing nervously. Isabella sat up and gave him another soothing kiss, brushing his dishevelled hair, and the two stared deep into their eyes, watching as their face redden while the memories of the past few minutes flood them in a silent moment of intimacy. This one, however, was also interrupted by Candace’s loud voice, echoing from other side of the yard.  

- Where is Ferb? I gotta bust one of yo-OH GOD, VANESSA, PUT SOME CLOTHES ON! HOW DID YOU EVEN MANAGE TO DO THAT IN THERE?! AND WHY DIDN’T I BRING JEREMY?

[vietthaimeco]

2020 Toyota Supra First Drive: Automotive Husbandry

There was a time when Mama and Papa Toyota gave birth to strong, athletic sports cars, starting with the suave 2000GT, sent to boarding school in Coventry and raced by Carroll Shelby. Through the years the family grew to include lithe Celicas, stalwart Supras, even a scrappy rear-drive Corolla GT-S or two. Then something happened, and Mama Toyota found herself unable to conceive sports cars. An impatient Papa Toyota summoned his Fuji concubine, Subaru-san, who gave birth to identical twins—one of which he graciously allowed her to keep. Mama Toyota was furious and forbade Papa Toyota from ever showering his son, 86, with any affection or horsepower. To woo back his betrothed, who desperately wished to birth another great sports car, Papa Toyota hatched a plan to artificially inseminate an auspicious European egg for Mama Toyota to gestate. She’s just given birth, and now the world must determine how this half-breed stacks up against its all-Toyota siblings.

We created this origin-story myth for the joint development of the A90-generation Supra out of frustration when it proved impossible to pin down exactly what roles Toyota and BMW played in the initial design of this new car. The inline-six turbo is obviously all BMW’s—it served as the inspiration for this hook-up in the first place. (“Thy Supras Shall Have I-6 Engines” was chiseled as the forgotten 11th commandment.) Most invisible parts are shared and apparently developed by BMW, if the roundel stickers, engravings, and casting marks are to be believed. The bodywork and the tuning of every tunable element on the Supra was handled by Toyota. We’re told the joint-venture team aimed squarely at Porsche’s 718 range, with BMW targeting the Boxster; Toyota the Cayman.

As for the B58B30M1 engine, although its output roughly equates to that of the European-market BMW Z4 sibling, it does not in fact employ a particle filter in U.S. applications. This begs the question, why not uncork the extra horsepower BMW gets from its filterless U.S. application (tagged B58B30M0)? Chief engineer Tetsuya Tada answers by claiming that balancing the car’s engine and chassis at the Nürburgring led to the 335 hp/365 lb-ft rating. But we find it hard to believe that in this fanboy, numbers-obsessed market segment his team chose to remove 47 horsepower instead of fortifying the chassis to cope with 382 hp. Let’s hope that instead the strategy is to start out conservative and bring a steady stream of higher-output special editions in the years to come.

But let’s return to the essential question at hand: Is this bicontinental cross-breed a “real” Supra?

The striking design may not appeal to everyone, but at least it doesn’t look at all like any BMW and several design cues evince Toyota sports-car DNA: the hatch bustle shape and elements of the headlamp design hark to the previous (A80) Supra, and the side-window shape is pure 2000GT. The proportions are certainly fresh. It’s shorter in length and wider than any of its predecessors, with the cabin set well back behind the requisite long hood. It’s also impressive that the team managed to generate the aero forces required to guarantee stability at the car’s 155-mph-limited top speed with underbody features and the duckbill shape of the hatch surface, leaving the bodywork refreshingly devoid of external wings, spoilers, skirts, and splitters.

Inside, the 2020 Supra’s overall dash, door panel, and seat designs are unlike the Z4’s, but there’s no mistaking all the BMW switchgear—especially the entire iDrive system, complete with all BMW fonts (changing them would have reduced Tada’s budget for making the car lighter and quicker). Whatever you think of the appearance, the functionality of this interior is hard to fault. All controls are intuitive and within easy reach (Consumer Reports just rated iDrive second to Tesla among automotive user interfaces). The 14-way power seats are quite comfortable and supportive, with side wings that can adjust to hug you tight on a track, then relax for the drive home. And the whole driver’s side of the center console area is padded for taller drivers to brace their right knee against. Nice.

I drew the assignment to test out the new Supra in part because I’m old enough (just) to have been around for the 1993 A80 Supra’s launch. and I drove the 2000GT for MotorTrend Classic in 2005. Let me state right here that the 2020 Supra comes off as less exotic than either of those two. That’s OK. Evolving the A80 Supra Turbo, accounting for inflation, would have produced a low-volume 500-ish-hp car priced in the $75,000–$85,000 range, and the 2000GT’s successor was arguably the Lexus LFA.

That’s not to say that the new Supra doesn’t feel special. All new two-seat coupes are rare and wonderful these days, and this one certainly outperforms all its predecessors. Our database confirms that if the factory-estimated 0–60 time of 4.1 seconds holds up, this new Supra will outperform all previous production Toyotas (a supercharged 2008 Tundra TRD and a 1997 Supra Turbo rank as the quickest we’ve tested at 4.4 and 5.1 seconds to 60 mph, respectively).

There’s a launch-control feature to aid in achieving that number, and the standard ZF 8HP eight-speed automatic fires off lightning-quick shifts along the way. Engage Sport mode, and the faultless shift programming preselects the right gear for every corner. This mode also opens an exhaust flap, alters the audio-system engine-note enhancer, and orders up a delightful snap-crackle-pop on overrun courtesy of gloriously wasteful fuel injection during the exhaust stroke (fun fact: This is said to be the only Toyota designed with no fuel-economy target).

Supras are not drag-strip cars. They also need to be able to handle the corners, and toward that end the joint team built a strong foundation—the Supra’s torsional rigidity reportedly exceeds that of the Lexus LFA (not to mention the open Z4). The front strut suspension emulates the ‘super strut’ design Toyota launched on its AE92 Corolla in the late-1980s, featuring two separate ball-jointed lower links for reduced camber change and improved steering feel. To assist with chassis tuning, Mr. Tada once again engaged the services of Dutch Nürburgring veteran racer Herwig Daenens, who assisted with the Toyota 86 (née Scion FR-S).

Their goal was to tune for neutral handling with no surprises. “With a snappy car, the customer will experience it once and never drive it hard again,” Daenens explains as he laps Summit Point Motorsports Park outside Washington, D.C. His first hot lap strings together all the tight corners with laser precision and minimal steering heroics. He then gives me a Formula Drift lap or two, with no giant hand-brakes or diff-locks, rolling on the stock Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires inflated to placard specs (38 psi all around, cold). Speaking of differential locks, the Supra’s is infinitely variable and tuned to reduce corner-entry understeer and to maximize corner-exit traction.

When it’s my turn to duck my helmet under the low window opening and buckle in, I am struck by the intimacy of the car and cockpit. It feels as though I’m positioned near the centers of gravity and rotation, making it feel like this little world indeed revolves around me. One nit to pick—the large driver’s side-view mirror obscures the view of an upcoming apex worse than some, and the tallest drivers may be chagrinned to find the seatback tilting forward toward the rear of the seat track’s travel.

We’re instructed not to switch stability control completely off, to trail-brake into the turns, and to roll judiciously onto the throttle. Indeed, all those driving-school techniques provoke textbook responses in the Supra sans drama or surprises. The steering is extremely precise and nicely weighted, though it lacks the intimate communication of the Cayman Toyota is gunning for. Stability intervention is pleasantly surreptitious. And the super-strong Brembo brakes survive lap after lap after lap without fade, even as we all learn to press deeper into each of the closely spaced corners. Then during a later afternoon session, when we’ve probably used up 280 of the tires’ 300 tread-life rating, I even manage to string together a couple of very nice, controllable corner-to-corner drifts. I emerge, sweaty but smiling.

Once the red mist subsides and we take to the country lanes surrounding Summit Point, the car’s Sunday-drive demeanor proves equally delightful. The 12-speaker 500-watt JBL system cranks out the jams, the ride quality in Sport mode is sufficiently compliant to encourage leaving the car in this ‘fun-exhaust’ mode, and when zipping through a series of S-bends with your phone on the Qi wireless charger, a cover and sufficient fencing keep it from flying into the passenger footwell.

So is this miracle of automotive husbandry worthy of the Supra name? Heck, yeah. It reinvents the concept in a guise that make sense for today’s world, and it’s offered at a price ($50,920 to start, $57,375 fully loaded) that’s a relative bargain when measured against both its predecessor and its Porsche competitor ($58,150, $70,640 similarly equipped to the Launch Edition model). If it’s not precisely what you had in mind, the aftermarket is gearing up to help you fix that.

Want more Supra? Check these out:

8 Things We Learned About the 2020 Toyota Supra While It Was on a Lift

2020 Toyota Supra: The Aftermarket’s Take

2020 Toyota Supra: Here’s Something You Probably Didn’t Know About its Logo

Supra Returns! The Inside Story on the 2020 Toyota Supra’s Comeback

2020 Toyota Supra Design: From FT-1 Concept to Production

Toyota Supra History: Looking Back at Toyota’s Sports Car

Why Toyota’s Supra-Z4 Partnership With BMW Makes Sense

2020 Toyota Supra BASE PRICE $50,920 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, RWD, 2-pass, 2-door hatchback ENGINE 3.0L/335-hp/365-lb-ft turbocharged DOHC 24-valve I-6 TRANSMISSION 8-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT 3,400 lb (mfr) WHEELBASE 97.2 in LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT 172.5 x 73.0 x 50.9 in 0-60 MPH 4.1 sec (mfr est) EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON 24/31/26 mpg ENERGY CONSUMPTION, CITY/HWY 140/109 kW-hrs/100 miles CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB 0.79 lb/mile ON SALE IN U.S. July 2019

The post 2020 Toyota Supra First Drive: Automotive Husbandry appeared first on Motortrend.

source https://www.motortrend.com/cars/toyota/supra/2020/2020-toyota-supra-first-drive-review/

[itsworn]

Learn To Go Fast Sideways At The Cory Kruseman Sprint Car School

Oval track racing has a tendency to lull uninitiated observers into a false sense of confidence. But the foolhardy egotism of “Hey, I could do that — they’re just turning left!” tends to quickly dissolve when one finds themselves behind the wheel for the first time. Sprint car racing has the added complexity of running on dirt oval tracks rather than pavement, and the power-to-weight ratio that these tube chassis racers boast rivals that of Formula One cars – only with much less grip and a significantly shorter wheelbase. Compound that with the fact that these cars are purposely designed with the intention of coaxing oversteer so they’ll careen through each corner sideways and it becomes clear that piloting a Sprint car at speed is a wholly unique experience.

Due to the unusual setup of these cars, most of the conventional wisdom regarding track driving technique doesn’t apply. That’s where outfits like the Cory Kruseman Sprint Car and Midget Driving School come in. The Kruseman school uses competition-spec Sprint cars to train students with skills levels ranging from seasoned racers looking for more podium finishes to newcomers with no prior track experience who’re ready to go from the grand stands to the driver’s seat, all with the intention of safely learning to go fast sideways in the dirt.

The School

Kruseman, a Ventura, California native moved from karting to dirt oval track racing in 1989, where he progressively moved up the ranks from USAC Three-Quarter Midgets to standard Midget racing and then onto Sprint cars. Over the years he secured numerous titles, including the Western States Dirt Track Championship, the SCRA Championship, and USAC Western Midget Championship among others, and set a number of records along the way, several of which still remain unbeaten.

“I wanted an opportunity to share my passion with people and try to get more people interested in the sport,” says Kruseman. “There are no experience requirements – we want to try to get everyone involved. You only need to be at least 11 years old and have a pair of tennis shoes.”

Class options range from a basic half-day course – which focuses on the fundamentals with two 12-lap sessions on track – all the way to an advanced class for students who might be considering a career in racing. Here the students go one-on-one with Cory and rack up 300 laps in total over the course of two days.

Our aspirations and experience lands us somewhere in the middle, so the intermediate class was right up our alley: Forty laps over the course of three sessions with one-on-one feedback from an instructor before and after each session. Here the emphasis is on improving technique – perfecting the racing line, fine-tuning driver inputs, and becoming a smoother driver overall. Of course it helps to have some familiarly with the hardware that we’d using, so we took a closer look at our steeds before hopping behind the wheel for our first lapping session.

The Anatomy of a Sprint Car

A Sprint car’s beauty is in its simplicity. “We can build one of these from parts in about five hours,” Kruseman tells us. And once you start to really look over the thing, that incredibly short build time doesn’t seem so outlandish. Sporting a wheelbase of 86 inches, a width of 76 inches and a curb weight of about 1200 pounds, it is a race car in the truest sense – purpose built and outfitted only with components that are absolutely essentially to its operation.

With a 650 horsepower alcohol injected 360 cubic inch V8 motivating these things, they boast a power to weight ratio that would make a Bugatti Chiron jealous. Or to put it another way, a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat would need to have about 2000 horsepower to match the horsepower-per-pound performance that’s on tap in a Sprint cars. With so much power and so little weight there’s no need for a traditional gearbox, so a simple hand lever on the right side of the cockpit puts the direct drive system in or out of gear.

It’s the chassis setup that makes these cars such a curiosity. Sprint car racing is only held on oval dirt tracks in counter-clockwise configuration, which means that these cars are set up exclusively to turn left and promote oversteer. “There are hundreds of different theories on set ups though,” Kruseman explains. “That’s what makes this kind of racing so much fun.”

Sprint cars are offset significantly on the right side — our cars were equipped with a 105-inch right rear tire that is taller than the one that was installed on left, and the three-wheel disc brake system (which has no brake installed on the front right wheel) isn’t so much to slow the car down as it is to set it up for the corner you’re approaching – stabbing the brake and quickly releasing just before turn-in serves the dual purpose of transferring weight off the rear tires and on to the fronts while also promoting rotation.

It all strangely makes sense. But to really get a feel for how it all works in practice, seat time is the only solution.

On Track

“Everything you see happening on track right now – ignore it,” says D.J. Lebow, my instructor for the day, as one of my colleagues attempted to man-handle oversteer heroics out of the car during an early session. “We want you to be smooth and go fast – momentum will do the rest.”

But it’s hard to stay disciplined with over 600 horsepower at the beck and call of a throttle lever with about three inches of travel from idle to wide open, and these cars really do love to go sideways. The oddly tractor-like seating position doesn’t necessarily promote nuanced inputs, either. Still, if there’s one universal truth to driver training programs it’s to listen to your instructor. So once the push-truck eased your author’s car onto the track and I fired up the motor (Sprint car motors aren’t equipped with starters) we consciously dialed in throttle and overall pace slowly and progressively over the first session, taking stock of the car’s behaviors and reactions to the ham-fisted inputs issued to it.

For a vehicle boasting this level of performance, Sprint cars are surprisingly forgiving. Though they’re set up to encourage oversteer they’re also easy to catch and generally do not want to spin, which allowed us to build up the confidence to keep adding throttle lap after lap, and Lebow’s feedback after each session helped ditch bad habits early on and continue to refine a go-fast-while-sideways strategy.

As the speeds increase the offset stance starts to come into its own, and the trick then becomes knowing when to stab at the brake at the end of straight to put the weight over the front wheels and promote the drift, then quickly get back on the throttle at the apex of the turn to ensure that the car stays on the racing line and angled correctly at corner exit. Once the pace picks up things start to happen very quickly, so the only way to really refine technique is get into a rhythm and make small adjustments as needed.

“This sport is like crack for gearheads,” Lebow jested. “You get a taste and you don’t want to stop.” Forty laps goes by quickly, we discovered, and by the end of our track sessions we were ready for another hundred more.

Perhaps even more disconcerting is the fact that Kruseman also offers racing services for folks who want to compete but lack a car. Those rentals give advanced course graduates a chance to go wheel-to-wheel with other racer at one of Ventura Speedway’s Saturday night events.

“Once a student has done our advance course and we have an opportunity to work with the individual, we can do an Arrive and Race program,” Kruseman tells us. “We supply car and crew – all you do is show up to be a real racer for a night. Or even a whole season!” Excuse us while we go find our checkbook.

The post Learn To Go Fast Sideways At The Cory Kruseman Sprint Car School appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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