#here Asher has been a presence for as long as he can remember and is far more willing to knock him on his ass

[grey-eyed-menace]

It smells like cigarettes and alcohol.

Nathaniel's expression is distinctly pinched in distaste at the smell, and Asher is vaguely reminded of all the times they've had to deal with Lord Verrine in the last few weeks, the expression not unlike what he showed during the times they had to deal with his Lord Father.

It probably doesn't help that this is a brothel, small and unassuming, a bar as a front, the girls descreet, she and Nathaniel look incredibly out of place amongst the patrons at this time of day, as few as there are.

The pale, impossibly frail, young woman and the disgusted redhead, wonderful work they were doing.

[kadewinstcn]

                                                                                 1ST NOVEMBER

Kade Winston understood fully, that forty eight hours in holding was but a blink in the eye of time. He knew that the cold concrete and the constant shuffle of footsteps past the cell eventually became little more than white noise and a solid place to land, instead of the menial jolt of hope that might bring someone familiar down the corridor. Already, he’d served time for the murder of Kelsey Hannigan, an innocent twelve year old girl who didn’t know what she was moving towards as she hit the curb of East 109th street and became witness to something that would inevitably make her a loose end. The brutal murder had been splashed across every news outlet, almost as vividly as her brain matter had hit the pavement and it was honestly anyones guess how he managed to steer clear of an arrest for so many years following. Yet, it all caught up to him - as he knew it would. After watching the years catch up to his parents, first his father and only more recently his mother, Kade knew the inevitable. He was born for pain and anguish, and the only way out was death itself, but he’d suffer first. He’d suffer endlessly.

The dim lighting that spills through the room is heavy, it holds a stale scent and the dust that doesn’t seem to want to settle in the air can be seen, floating in mid air as he gently pushes the door to his parents bedroom open. He remembers a time when it wasn’t like this, when recreational use was mild - though he remembers through broken, fragmented memories that he’s not even sure are real. Perhaps his imagination had given him something else to live with to bury the pain of being forgotten. His mother is spread out on her back across the covers, her arms are flailing to the faint sound of the radio as she clicks the lighter - once, twice..- holds it beneath the end of the small glass pipe, stained black from the open flame. “Mom,” his voice hasn’t raised above such a quiet octave in so long, he’s not even sure what it sounds like anymore. Still, she ignores him, sitting up, legs crossed beneath her in a gentle sway that somehow doesn’t match the tempo of the song playing. “Mom --- there’s no food and there’s another eviction notice on the door.” Returning from school that morning after his father had called the principal and demanded that he be sent home for a family emergency had already seen him in low spirits without seeing that bold red lettering stapled to the creaky, wooden door. The family emergency? There was nobody here to look after Asher, and that was his responsibility.

The cells, now void of his brother's presence, sought to rip apart the terrible, metaphorical stitch job that he’d somehow managed on his own. A near menacing echo of Asher’s vice carving and scratching at the walls like the claws of endless solitude. That’s how much your stupid fuckin’ life means to me.... That’s how much your stupid fuckin’ life means to me…. That’s how much your stupid fucking’ life means to me….

Was it? Always going to be like this? Was there any other way? Kade certainly could never see anything other than what lay directly in front of him, and the shadow of innocence that would be there at every turn to remind him that he wasn’t worth shit. The only sentiment of relief existed in the fact that it’d been months since he’d seen his father. Longer still, since he’d felt the effervescent sting of words that never seemed to fade with the mottled bruises. “Where were you?” The gruff voice sounds loudly. Louder than necessary in the pitch black of the kitchenette when Kade returns home. The small shopping bag of bread, apples, eggs and a small bottle of cough syrup has ripped slightly from carrying it so far and the surprise of his dad’s voice sends it toppling in his hands to rip open entirely. Eggs shatter and the bottle of medicine rolls beneath the fridge. He makes a mental note to get down on his stomach later to get it - he knows how shitty the night might be for Asher if he didn’t get it. “Where’d you get the cash for all of that?” All of that, as if the haul equated to a life of luxury. “Mom gave it to me.” Which she had, out of his wallet, promising that it would be their little secret. “Like shit she did, your mother doesn’t have a dime to her name.” Incidentally, he wasn’t wrong, because anything she had, he kept on hand and really only pandered to everything she wanted in an effort to appear needed. Bending over to pick up the loaf of bread, Kade felt the uncertainty shake in his voice - nothing audible, because when did his dad ever believe him anyway? “You stealin’ from me again?” The harsh grip that curled vice like around the back of his neck forced Kade’s spine to grow rigid, his shoulders rising in some attempt to shrug the discomfort off. “I..-- no, I didn’t..” Though, whatever he’d intended to argue fell to deaf ears as his cheek collided with the tiled wall with a sharp crack. Seventy two hours, and the oblivion that came with such a familiar numbness had begun to sink in again. Gently, Kade tapped the back of his skull against the concrete wall. Listening to the Syndicate Attorney argue, loudly, about how keeping him here was absolutely overstepping the boundaries that Chicago PD held without the evidence to hold him. The sharp jingle of keys isn’t even enough to pull him out of the ghost of the conversation he’d had with Asher, every word he’d spoken sharp and without reason - how could he have spent the better part of his teenage life ensuring his brother never had to endure what he had? Only to become the problem when he couldn’t hold himself together anymore? Iron squealed, the hinge of his cell screeching out for his attention as it swung open. Lidded hues cast upwards, irritation stoic in his expression as the officer returns the sentiment. “You’re out, Winston.” The huff that sounds is almost amused and he already knows why, “For now.” He stands, brushes dust from the palms of his hands onto the thigh of his jeans and saunters to the cell door. The attorney, who he’s now known for years, hands him his belongings. He doesn’t reach for the jacket, nor the phone that’s scratched and cracked and doesn’t look like it had any life left in it at all, surpassing both for the packet of cigarettes. Pulling one out, he tucks it between his teeth and lights it. The sound sparks the same memory of his mother, the dust settling in the air as he inhales and pulls the slightly bent smoke from between his lips, “Between now and then, you might wanna’ lay off the pastries, Officer Tubbs.” The haze billows with each word spoken and without so much as another word, he’s shoved towards the entrance and cussed out of the building. It’s only a matter of time, really. The night of the palooza, it’d been a known risk to do what he had, and much like anything else Kade found himself knee deep in, the risk was all it took to drive him. Without it, he’d never think twice. Stabbing Vasili Vronsky had been the one thing to inevitably seal a deal wish that he didn’t even realise he held until the knife slipped so easily through flesh.

The bank card cut through the product so precisely it was almost mesmerising, though Kade had long since learnt not to pay any mind to the shit. As long as they didn’t leave it lying around when Asher was home. A rule that he’d instilled after taking over the rental payments. It’d been a fight and a half, and he’d earned himself a welt or two across his back for the insolence, but clearly, they’d figured that the less money Kade asked them for, the better it was for them. Never mind the fact that he’d had to sell some of his more valuable belongings, his mothers car and some of the product that he knew his dad kept stashed away, the fact remained that he’d find anything he could if it meant a little more cash in his pocket for the next year. With Christmas only a week away, Kade’s fear of having the heat or the electricity shut off for another year just didn’t sit well with him anymore. Not now, when he knew how excited Asher was for what Kade had promised would be their very best Christmas yet. The new bike, encyclopedia and remote control helicopter that he’d pieced enough money to get - with the help of a five finger discount, remained stashed away at his friends house and as far as he was concerned, that’s where they would stay until the early hours of the morning.

“I get it, don’t leave town.” Kade repeated the words for his attorney, unwilling to suck down his pride and admit any fault in any of this. It wasn’t his job to keep her informed of what had happened, or what she needed to know - that was far above his fucking paygrade; something he’d be sure to mention to the Ozdemir’s next time he saw them. Admittedly, he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty, but it came with a price that he wasn’t willing to settle against anymore. Not after what had happened to Azra - a woman who had done nothing to the Bratva personally.

The dark confines of his apartment were cold. Colder than the concrete cell somehow, the chill in the air biting at the tips of his fingers as he slid open the door to the small balcony to let more of the frigid air seep in. He burned from the inside out, as he always had. He could have done more - he should have done better. Who was he to let down though? His father never sought to give him anything but a brutal reminder of how weak he was, his mother, only lucid enough for the smallest tokens of love that were so shrouded in the carelessness and backhanded nature they twisted into, that they never really meant anything at all. His brother, gifted with the earliest decade of his life knowing something that Kade never would. An understanding that love existed, that his older brother once cared for nothing more than him - tained and poisoned to become little more than a reflection of everything Kade hated about his parents. 

I could have done better. I should have done more…

It seizes within the confines of his throat, the idea that Asher had made it so far in life without blood on his hands. That the only reason such stains existed was because of him - because of one of the many mistakes he’d made in some effort to stitch each torn piece of himself back together. However human Frankenstein was willed to be, in the end, he was only ever a monster. The small bag of white powder popped open easily enough, it’s contents spilling out across the small mirror that rested on the table. The knife once embedded into the wood twirled almost expertly between his fingers as he cut several lines and immediately inhaled one. Fingertip pressed roughly into the side of his nose as he breathed in heavily, the excess product brushed away and drawn across the top of his gums. Another two lines followed before Kade allowed himself a real moment to breathe - to feel the heat rising in his chest as the overwhelming feeling to scream was engulfed in the rigid shake of his vision, his thoughts all swimming into the darkened whirlpool that he knew he had to sink into.

Sink. Sink. Sink. The knife flung from his fingertips, embedding itself in drywall with a heavy thud.

The same thud that sounded as the bat he’d held collided with Kelsey’s skull. It echoed, empty yet somehow solid all the same. When he looked up, the blood that crept across her features as she screamed oozed from the knife, across the faded, off white paint.

Thunk. Bone cracked, much alike the mirror beneath his hand. Subtle, and yet altogether sharpened, like a twig underfoot. A sound that could so easily be hidden, and yet in the depth of night, it sounded for miles. The chime of his phone rings out, and he can’t quite piece together what the message says, his brain doesn’t have the immediate capacity to see anything more than simple shapes. The splatter of brain matter, droplets of blood, the steeled lines of cell bars and the stoic definition of Asher’s disappointment.

“Luc,” he says, hearing the phone call he barely knows he’s made connect, “I..I can’t fucking do this anymore.”

Her voice is muffled, or perhaps it’s clear as day. The line between the two is so blurred that he doesn’t know if it’s him, or her speaking anymore. Physically, his presence is all that holds him here. Mentally, he’s back in that house, back in that bedroom, running through the streets. Lying on the pavement with a splitting ache blossoming in the back of his head.

Lying on the pavement, preparing for the next blow to come, as he looks up through blood, sweat and tears, and sees Asher swinging the bat that will end it all.

[lizzieraindrops]

Chapters: 6/6 Fandom: Destiny (Video Games) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eris Morn/Ikora Rey Characters: Eris Morn, Ikora Rey Additional Tags: 5+1 Things, Hello destiny sapphics; allow me to introduce myself, Femslash, if nobody is going to write the content i want to see then i will create it myself, listen. it's about perceiving the weak and wounded places in someone you love, and lavishing love and care upon them even when they won't admit they need it, it's about the Mutual Support, it's about being kind to them even when you don't know how to be kind to yourself, Light Angst, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, oh and ikora has the most Distinguished Bisexual energy i've ever seen so jot that down, it doesn't come up but you needed to know, this is all just a bunch of softness and tenderness don't @ me okay

Summary:

Five storms Eris and Ikora weathered and one they didn't need to.

The Shadowkeep weblore lives in my head rent free. Set post-Taken King and mostly during Shadowkeep.

“As I told Asher, there is a storm coming...” “Oryx is dead. We’ve weathered the storm.” Ikora is upset. She has yet to understand the bigger picture. “Yet his sisters would see his will done. There will always be another storm.” “Then let’s weather it together.” -Shadowkeep Narrative Preview #1

Many thanks to @hencegoodfortune for the beta read and of course for the memes.

Chapter: |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  +1  |

Set just after The Taken King.

Eris knows she is not in the Hellmouth. Although the Tower has never felt the same since her ordeal on Luna, she recognizes it easily nonetheless. At every moment, the freshness of the open air reminds her that she is here, she is on Earth. She has been for some time now.

However, she has never forgotten how to move like a ribbon through the darkness, arcing undetected round predator and prey alike. She doubts that she ever will. Sometimes the habit returns of its own accord, and she’ll find her feet and hands floating weightless as she moves. Joints and muscle and sinew flex in careful concert to absorb every sound before it is made. The lines of lightly tensed limbs spiral seamlessly into the coiled core of her, tethering her in perfect silence. At the same time, she remains ever ready to fight, ready to flee. How often has Eris’ last, Lightless life lay along the knife’s edge of a split-second choice, the divergence between action and stillness, vengeance or survival?

Somehow, the smooth stone of the Tower’s level floors is harder to walk quietly on than the rough winding warrens through Luna’s porous rock. There are no edges to test with the edge of her boot, no uneven surface to ease her soles onto by swift and silent increments. There is only the unsubtle strike of heels on a flat, unforgiving surface. She makes the most of it, as every Hunter here does. Still, it leaves her uneasy. Her feet cannot quite keep to the ground.

Consequently, she often finds herself pacing, wandering from her post in the heart of the Tower whenever she grows restless. Every step falls lighter than the last, chasing silence in a meditation on weightlessness. It does not make her feel any better.

After so long underground, she is unaccustomed to the plenitude of open space here. While she has traced much of the Tower’s perimeters, the negative spaces in the centers of broad rooms and vaulted halls she leaves less frequented. She is too exposed there.

Yet maybe she is less affected by the empty space than the sheer number of souls that so often fill it. After so long so alone, they are simply so many, pressing at her survival-sharpened awareness from every angle. Not to mention she attracts too many of their stares in the crowded plazas. Although detection here is not followed by shrieking howls or the lightning strike of boomers, distrustful eyes still make her hunger for shelter. The choice to endure or to withdraw still needs to be be made. And whether well-meaning or ill-intentioned, a close approach still makes her instinctively recoil.

Eris has scraped out a place for herself here, lingering close enough to share with those who will listen the knowledge she has gained at a terrible price. But it has been made clear enough that she does not belong here anymore, not as she once did. If the condemnation of the Speaker and the only begrudging trust of the Vanguard’s Commander were not enough to tell her that, then the wary regard of most of the Tower’s populace would. So she holds herself back, toward the edges of things. It is difficult to do so at her station so near the Hall of Guardians, the greatest locus of Guardian activity on the planet. She draws herself to her full height and stands there proud, but never takes the ground she stands on for granted. When it becomes too much, like now, she paces.

This time, her pacing has led her to the edge of the Tower where her ship was once tethered. With how wary she has grown of exposed spaces, the open sky above that lays bare every courtyard and balcony should send her seeking cover - and yet, it does not. If anything, its incomprehensibly vast expanse calls to her. Strange.

Eris has traversed the spaces between planets with her own fragile body, with only a ship’s hull to keep the cold from swallowing what remains of her. Yet from Earth’s surface, a few mere miles of atmosphere transforms that emptiness, and its beauty holds her spellbound. It scatters sun into prismatic slices of light. The stars’ unblinking gaze softens into a flutter of eyelashes. No longer can she see the narrow spectrum of colors that humans evolved to discern; it has all faded into endless shades of the same hue. But the contrast of such brightnesses against the dark have become sharper than ever. Indeed, daylight has become a blaze to truly blind her. These stolen eyes of hers were made instead for depths and shadows.

Even so, she often finds herself staring out into the searing sky until her head aches. The sensations make her remember. She is no longer buried beneath stone, lost to this cosmos. She is free now, in some ways.

Eventually, her wanderings bring her back to the shaded refuge beneath the stairs just outside the Hall of Guardians. She is glad for this, too. Her station provides some small respite for her sensitive, ever-weeping eyes. And there she stays, until exhaustion drives her to rest, or else grief or fear or restlessness or her ever-smoldering rage drive her to pacing once again.

It’s true that many other eyes pass by that shadowed alcove of hers. Guardians constantly sweep in and out on either side of her, running and jumping and gliding up and down the stairs with urgent reports and important orders and burning questions for the Vanguard. They are so bright. Few of them spare a glance for her, these days, save for startled new Lights.

There are a few, though, who look upon her not with distrust or fear or begrudging tolerance, but with recognition. Once in a great while, cousin Asher will grace her with his inimitable company. It gladdens her heart, even when he merely stops to exchange research notes or brief insults. He cleaves to his research with a passionate vengeance, as does she. Unlike most, he pays more attention to her knowledge and her current work than her past. With the way he helped care for her in the months after her escape from Luna, she has come to hold him in close confidence.

On occasion, her friend the Guardian, who avenged her fireteam upon the very souls of Crota and Oryx, stops to greet her. Sometimes they bring her news from Luna or Mars. Words are few with that one lately, though. These days, their outgoing ghost is the one who relays whatever tidings they carry. The change leaves a cold shadow over Eris’ heart. Therefore, she values their quiet presence all the more. She fears for them.

Of course, Ikora’s is the kind regard she is subject to most often. Eris has never forgotten that Ikora believed her since the beginning. Most met her genuine warnings of inbound danger from the Hive with distrust, dismissal, or fear. Ikora not only listened, but met her with endless kindness. Even now, as the Warlock Vanguard steps into nearer chamber of the Hall for a brief consultation with Lord Shaxx, she spares a moment and a smile for Eris.

Ikora’s smile has always been warm and real and reassuring, a balm on the fibers of frayed nerves. Among the very few who welcomed Eris back to Earth, that smile was a signal of genuine care and safety that she homed in on immediately. The one directed at Eris now is subtle, a mere quirk of the lips. Yet it hints at the vast depths of passion and compassion below the surface, like a ripple that disappears swiftly on the surface of a deep, deep pool.

Ikora’s outward cool composure that obscures that intensity is not a façade. It is more an ingenius piece of architecture, a mighty aqueduct capable of holding and channelling the endless font of her inner immensities. It is an elegant and functional work of art well-kept and expanded over centuries.

The warmth that must be behind such a small yet genuine smile is palpable; it falls on Eris like the creeping warmth of sunlight, sinking in deep even though it scarcely touches her skin. Even the lower half of her face, where her many layers do not shield her from long-lost Sol, is still sallow and nearly as grayed as the dust of Luna. She hadn’t known at first, with the changes to her vision, not until Asher had told her. He never does shy away from the speaking of truth. In those endless years of darkness, the lack of light and loss of Light took something from Eris, sapped something vital, and left something strange in its place.

Yet Eris can feel the sun again, now. She can walk out into the courtyard at any time of day, find a south-facing wall to lean on, and bask in the radiating warmth like an ectothermic reptile.

Even without leaving the cool shadows of her post, another warmth still reaches her. Ikora offers her one more smile as she goes to return to her own station. Eris stands a little taller under the aegis of her regard, her spine the stem of a sunflower lifting her toward its steady kindness.

Eris takes not a single one of these boons for granted. Each one is a precious gift far beyond what she ever expected to experience again, after her descent into the Hellmouth. Yet none of it can quell her restlessness, for it springs from the same source as her gratefulness. It always comes back to what happened to her on Luna.

Each time she returns to her pacing, the Tower feels a little smaller. The scope of the sky distracts her for a shorter time. Now, even after her sworn vengeance upon the Hive has been fulfilled twice over in double deicide, the path of her vow still pulls her feet forward. She does not know where its shrouded course leads, only that there is still a threat yet to be met along it. More and more, she is certain that she cannot wait here to meet it, or it will be too late.

However, she never expected to leave behind wounds when she leaves. After she departs to sight the next storm on the horizon, she is haunted as often by the surprised hurt that she left in Ikora’s eyes as by the memory of her smile.

[fieldsofplay]

Favorite Albums of 2020

25. Dehd – Flower of Devotion

Rather than look back on the shit year that was 2020, lets keep our eye on the hope of the horizon.  Speaking of which, Dehd herald much of what’s to come on this here list.  While as previously mentioned a shit year for most everything besides presidential politics, 2020 proved to be a great year for good old fashioned guitar music.  Could I be accused of curling up with my version of musical comfort food? Perhaps.  But starting off with Dehd, we have a type of band that used to be everywhere and now seems to be almost nowhere.  Jangly lo-fi guitars, perky drums, and straightforward unadorned singing.  About five years ago you couldn’t throw a rock in Brooklyn without hitting a band like this, but now that that fad is long gone.  I’m glad that Chicago’s Dehd are still carrying the torch.  

24. Perfume Genius – Set My Heart on Fire Immediately

I’ve always liked Perfume Genius, but for whatever reason Set My Heart on Fire Immediately is the album that took him out of the realm of casual background musical encounter to something I sought out.  Chamber pop has never really been my thing (except for those couple summers where Grizzly Bear was totally my jam), but here the torch songs catch fire by the compressed force of Michael Hadreas’ longing.  This record also pulls off the impressive feat of each song gradually morphing just a bit from what proceeds it, so that the whole record sounds similar and yet each song carves out its own little generic niche, the whole thing united by the quivering power of that pleading voice.  

23. 2nd Grade – Hit to Hit

If you ever found yourself wondering what Guided by Voices would sound like if they wanted to be Big Star instead of punk rock Kinks, we now have the answer, and it’s Phily’s 2nd Grade.  In the noble tradition of Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes, Hit to Hit’s 24 tracks breeze by in a mere 41 minutes and 8 seconds.  An earworm sunny melody, a quick guitar hook, a second verse (maybe), and poof, each song is gone before you could ever miss it.  You would think variation would be difficult working within such tight musical corners, but while each song clearly shares common DNA, there is actually a lot of variance here, from weepy country ditties (“Bye Bye Texas”) to overdriven stompers (“Baby’s First Word”) though they all tend to orbit the same (big) star.  

22. Tame Impala – The Slow Rush

I’ll be the first to admit that The Slow Rush isn’t my favorite Tame Impala record, not by a long shot.  Having said that, this album still feels like it got short shrift this year (not that anyone can really complain about that in these here times).  If we never knew that Lonerism or Innerspeaker or Currents existed, I wonder how much people would be head over heels for this album.  “One More Year” “Is It True” and “Posthumous Forgiveness” are all top notch Impala jams.  Seems like this album is the soundtrack for the chilled out summer hangs that we never got to have, and thus it’s fitting that it seems condemned for the ash-heap of history rather than the late-night come downs we never got up to.

21. Against All Logic – 2017 – 2019

Ah, speaking of complicated musical relationships, I can never seem to chart a clear course with Nicolas Jaar.  The music he puts out under his own name never seems to do much for me, but I dug his collaboration with Dave Harrington as Darkside, and I really love most everything he’s put out as Against All Logic.  While admittedly not a great year for house music—normally a liberating genre of communal interconnectivity, now a cruel reminder that we all live in Footloose—a banger remains a banger, and 2017-2019 is full to the brim with them.  While I honestly can’t remember the last time I went dancing, I’ll still crank up “Fantasy” and bop around my living room, literally dancing by myself (lets be honest, something I would have done pandemic or no).  

20. Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Fetch the Bolt Cutters has had a lot of great things said about it this year, so I don’t really have to add that much.  What I will say is this is perhaps the most interesting percussion I’ve ever heard on a record.  There is percussion all over the place, but almost none of it in the form of full-kit drumming.  Fiona always used the left hand on the piano as the rhythmic center of her songs, but here there is drilling, tapping, rapping, patting.  The phrase DIY gets tossed around all the time (and almost never applied to big money, big label Fiona) but to me the most impressive thing about this record is how it always sounds like she is sitting at a rickety upright piano in the corner of a living room, while everyone congregating around keeps the beat by tapping on pots and pans, the walls, whatever is at hand.  I’ve truly never heard anything like it.  

19. Advertisement – American Advertisement

Godbless Seattle’s Advertisement. So long as there is cheap beer, old shitty cars driving with the windows down, and the U-SofA, there’ll be bands like Advertisement.  Straight out of the vein of Cheap Trick and the more recent White Reaper, Advertisement play power pop with the emphasis on the power.  Sometimes this type of music gets called sleazy, but honestly I don’t get it.  I think its probably because you can imagine it playing while Wooderson drives around Austin looking for redheads. While we rightfully cancelled the song of summer this year, “Upstream Boogie” would have gotten my vote, perfect for backyard bbqs and cannonballing into creeks.  

18. Nation of Language – Introduction, Presence

I didn’t set it up this way, but if Advertisement has a diametric opposite, its probably Nation of Language.  Where Advertisement is all frayed edges and foam, Nation of Language is as buttoned up as those terrible sports jackets people wore in the early ‘90s.  While its not as good as my beloved Black Marble, those bands share enough DNA to make me a big fan of this synth pop gem.  It’s not as dark as the cold-wave Black Marble, but it does share that bands fondness for stark baselines and crisp arpeggios.  If you’ve ever envisioned your life as a scene from a John Hughes movie, Nation of Language could easily be playing in the background.

17. The Soft Pink Truth – Shall we Go on Sinning so that Grace May Increase?

Indulge me in a moment of naval gazing.  Every year as I put these things together I reach a point where I’m lack “damn, this album is this low on the list?” And the point at which that thought enters my head is usually indicative of how good a year for music it was.  Now 2020 wasn’t a good year for anything, and I probably spent the least time of any year listening to music, new, old, whatever.  For the most part I just listened to the Grateful Dead and ambient albums.  However, for my idiosyncratic tastes, 2020 was actually a pretty fucking incredible year for new music, as evinced by the fact that this album is all the way down at 17.  

Earlier on in 2020 as I was bombarding my poor local music text thread with yet more of my inane musings, I think I declared this a top 3 album of the year.  And I wasn’t lying!  “Pretty” is often a dirty word in aesthetic appreciation, but this is certainly the “prettiest” album of the year in the best sense of the word.  From the Drew Daniel half of Matmos comes Shall we Go on Sinning so that Grace May Increase?  A record that is somehow simultaneously deep house and feather light, so much so that it needs its own dumb internet music writing moniker—shallow house? wide house? vacation house? (actually kinda like that last one).  With vocals from Jana Hunter, Angel Deradoorian, and Colin Self (with whom I wasn’t previously familiar) this thing will simultaneously make you want to tap your foot and drift off into the clouds.  This is album is like the prayer Madonna sang about all those years ago.  

16. Kurt Vile – Speed, Sound, Lonely KV

It’s not at all surprising that if Kurt Vile decided he wanted to go country western he’d be really fucking good at it.  First of all, he’s an exceptional acoustic guitar picker.  Secondly, his voice, while always befitting his hazed out urban rockers, has just enough twang to it that in retrospect it always sounded a little bit country.  This record also gives me room to offer up an homage to the late great John Prine, for whom the EP is essentially a tribute.  Vile covers two Prine songs, dueting with the man himself on “How Lucky.” Saying goodbye is never easy, but on Speed, Sound, Lonely (both the album, and the song more or less by that name) Vile manages a fitting tribute to a lost legend.  

15. Lomelda – Hannah

The reviews of Hannah really did Lomelda a disservice.  Sure, they were glowing, but they made it sound like this was some weepy milquetoast singer songwriter affair, when it’s actually a knotty album full off elliptical piano and fuzzed out electric guitar.  Its 14 tracks hurtle by, largely due to the fact that almost all of them are under 3 and a ½ minutes.  Things really get going with the second track, “Hannah Sun” with is squiggly synth effects and driving acoustic strums carrying on Hannah Read’s musings.  It’s an album of relentless forward musical movement even if the vibe feels like it’s always looking back over its shoulder.  Basically this album is what emo would sound like if it wasn’t made by the worst people in the universe.  

14. Shabaka and the Ancestors – We are Sent here by History

Jazz! Another great year for jazz (Asher Gamedze’s Dialectic Soul and Keefe Jackson, Jim Baker, & Julian Kirshner’s So Glossy and So Thin are with a strong group that just missed the cut).  In the midst of an excellent jazz renaissance (you gotta use super annoying words like “renaissance” when talking about jazz) Shebaka Hutchins remains my absolute fave of the bunch, and We are Sent here by History is probably my favorite thing he has put out so far.

13. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud

While I really liked Waxahatchee’s low-fi emoish debut—American Weekend—I’ll readily admit I wasn’t much about the popier albums that followed, frequently jesting, honestly, that Allison was my preferred musical Crutchfield sister.  All that changed for me with Saint Cloud.  I’ve certainly drifted far off into country and Americana as I’ve aged, and it appears the same came be said for Katie Crutchfield.  These songs have a giddyup to them but they never break out into a gallop, allowing the strength of the melodies to carry them along across the plains, with just the right hint of twilight.  Saint Cloud is the sound of Patsy Cline if she played to roadside inns rather than the Grand Ol’ Opry.  

12. Neil Young – Homegrown

This was the hardest album to place on the list this year.  For starters, should it even count? Clearly I say yes.  While some of these songs have been available for over 30 years, as an album, Homegrown was a “new” release here in 2020, even though it was originally slated to come out in ’75 between On the Beach (my personal fave Neil record) and Zuma.  As a pure piece of music, is it better than most, if not all, of the records that follow? Of course yes.  But what does a new Neil Young record mean in 2020? As a thought experiment its fascinating.  Do we value this album within the musical context of 2020 or 1975? Fortunately, it’s an even more enjoyable listen than it is a thought experiment.  From the first strums of “Separate Ways” you’re like “oh shit, this is the vintage stuff.” Gentle amber acoustic numbers (“Try”) share space with electric stompers (“Vacancy”).  The best thing you can say about Homegrown is that if Neil had originally decided to release this instead of Tonight’s The Night, it would have fit right in amongst his unimpeachable run from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere up through Zuma.  A classic is still a classic, no matter what year it finally sees the light of day.  

11. Destroyer – Have we Met

Ah Dan Bejar, boy was I wrong about you.  I kinda got into Destroyer’s Rubies, I loved his contributions to Swan Lake and The New Pornographers, but yet when Chinatown started really making waves, I just couldn’t do it.  It was soft rock! I hate soft rock! I hate everything about it!  This preconceived notion wasn’t helped by the fact that I saw him open for the War on Drugs in Pontiac once and he was so drunk he could barely stand up and had to read his own lyrics from a sheet.  And yet, for some reason I never really gave up on it. I can’t tell you why exactly, but two summers ago Chinatown just slowly became my go-to for early morning / late afternoon strolls. I found comfort in giving myself over to its pillowy soft embrace / cheating on my own aesthetic judgments.  Now that I’m card-carrying Bejarhead, I greeted Have we Met with open arms, and I was not disappointed.  The synths glimmer, the guitars add just enough punch, and his lyrics remain sharp as ever.  Its fitting that this was the last concert I saw before the iron curtain fell.  The one thing I had always turned my back on ended up being the last memory of dionysian group enthrallment I had to carry with me out into the desert of social isolation.  Come back soon Destroyer, come back soon, everyone.

10. Deeper – Auto-Pain

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready, because post punk is back! I always say my favorite genre is ‘sad songs you can dance to’ but post punk is a close second.  When I was in college post punk underwent a bit of a renaissance in the form of Interpol (back when they were still good), Bloc Party (ditto), Franz Ferdinand, and a whole slew of British one hit wonders (Maximo Park, Futureheads, Art Brut, the Bravery).  Fortunately, as is always the case, what’s old is new again, and stark melodic bass lines, angular guitars, and moody introspective speak-singing are back in full force.  Of the three post punk bands gracing this here top ten (Deeper, Fontaines DC, and Crack Cloud) each has its own little slice of the generic pie.  Fontaines have the deep gloom of Interpol/Joy Division, Crack Cloud ripple with the staccato energy of Gang of Four, and Deeper have the wiry dancieness of, well, Wire. So long as leather jackets and black and white photography remain cool, there’ll always be bands like this, and thank god for that.  In a true sign o’ the times, I learned about this band from some random girl’s Tik Tok in my for-you feed.  She repped five bands, two of which are in my top three, so I was like, sure I’ll give this band Deeper a go.  God bless the internet.  Finally, Deeper get bonus points for naming a song “This Heat,” who I’ve been spending a lot of time revisiting this year, and whose spikey guitars are all over this record.  

9. The Flaming Lips – American Head

There are few things as satisfying in art as being genuinely surprised by a beloved artist you had given up as culturally dead.  Since putting out their last masterpiece (2009’s Embryonic) the Lips have put out a string of good, if inconsequential, albums that befitting the ethos of the band could best be described as half baked (The Terror, Oczy Moldy, and a series of collaborative experiments).  Basically, they had reached that dreaded nadir where I was no longer interested in listening to their new output (cough The National, cough cough Arcade Fire).  So what made me give American Head a chance? That reader, is the point of art criticism! I can’t remember how the blurb on pitchfork read exactly, but I knew it referenced Tom Petty and a return to a preoccupation with more Earthly concerns—namely ‘70s heartland rock.  Well, this sounded intriguing, and boy was I not disappointed.  Sure, the Flaming Lips have already reached their sell-by date twice over (first in 1992, immediately followed by their MTV reinvention on 1993’s Transmissions from the Satellite Heart; and then again in the late ‘90s with the departure of guitarist Ronald Jones, followed by their creative pinnacle, ‘99’s symphonic masterpiece The Soft Bulletin), so it shouldn’t be all that surprising that this band could rise from the dead a third time.  Only, for the most part, they didn’t.  I guess I’m not surprised that American Head failed to reach a broader audience. Most people probably aren’t even aware that they are still a going concern, and after the failures of the last decade it makes sense that most weren’t interested in more tunes from the Oklahoma freaknicks.  But for those willing to give the band another chance, American Head easily delivers their best album since Embryonic, if not all the way back to Yoshimi.  Mixing ‘70s Americana with the star gazing of Soft Bulletin’s “Sleeping on the Roof,” the Lips deliver their best album in decades by foregoing the parlor tricks and returning to what they do best, taking trips to distant galaxies while keeping their feet firmly planted in the soil and songcraft of Oklahoma.

8. Cut Worms – Nobody Lives Here Anymore

This one is pretty easy.  Do you like George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass? If yes, listen to Nobody Lives Here Anymore and revel in this double album’s upbeat acoustic rock mediations.  If no, well there’s plenty of other good stuff out there.  Not quite as metaphysical or orchestral as All Things Must Pass, Nobody Lives Here Anymore still manages to hit that rockabiliy-pop sweet spot that Harrison used to mine.  I’m not quite sure what the definition of “troubadour” is, but it feels safe to call Cut Worms a troubadour, which is certainly better than his terrible stage name.  

7. Cigarettes for Breakfast – Aphantasia

Similar to Cut Worms, Cigarettes for Breakfast also involves a simple influence equation.  Do you pray at the altar of Loveless? If so, Aphantasia is just the record for you.  Sure, it’s a bit of My Bloody Valentine paint by numbers (“Breathe” even features the same squally guitar noise [it’s really hard to try and describe My Bloody Valentine effects ha] as “Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside)”) but when you’re as into shoegaze as I am, that’s never really a bad thing.  Plus, I’m being a bit unfair.  Everyone with textured tremolo heavy wall-of-sound guitars and cooed vocals is going to inevitably be compared to MBV, and Cigarettes for Breakfast do enough to chart their own course.  Perhaps most interesting is the musical journey this record charts.  Its loudest moment is its opening, where pummeling guitars more reminiscent of Sonic Youth with a touch of Dinosaur Jr. rip across hardcore style drumming. From there each song becomes a little more ambient, until closer “If Someone Could Help Me, Please” more or less floats away on its shimmering sheets of beautiful noise clouds.  In this sense, it bears a resemblance in structure, if not in sound, to Deerhunter’s Cryptograms, another album I spent a lot of time revisiting this year.  A shutout here is owed to the fine folks at Radio K, who had me diving for my shazam as this thing ripped across their airwaves.  So long as there is college radio, there’ll be a new crop of kids discovering via Kevin Shields that the electric guitar contains endless sonic possibilities.  

6. Fontaines D.C. – A Hero’s Death

The second entry in our top-ten post punk trio is A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C.  I’ll admit, on first blush it’s kind of a dumb band name (I just assumed they were some hardcore band from Washington DC chasing those Dischord Records glory days), but when you learn that the “DC” stands for Dublin City, it all clicks, as this band is sorta inescapably Irish in the way that James Joyce is.  Now this fact at first was also off-putting—if I went the rest of my life without ever hearing the Dropkick Murphy’s again I’d be quite content—but eventually it becomes integral to their sound, and not just because of the brogue in Garin Chatten’s vocals.  “Love is the Main Thing” is an incredible song in many ways, most notably because of the hypnotic quality of the drumming with its counterpoint between riding cymbal and staccato toms, but perhaps in the main (*wink*) for the way it manages to connote the weariness of a grey urban environment without ever being explicitly about it.  Just as Turn on the Bright Lights managed to perfectly capture New York in 2001, A Hero’s Death to me is the aural equivalent of a dense urban center like Dublin, especially after nightfall.  

5. Imaginary Softwoods – Annual Flowers in Color

It should come as no surprise that I listened to A LOT of ambient this year, and to me there was no better electronic record to chill the fuck out to during this insane year than Annual Flowers in Color.  I absolutely loved Emeralds’ Does it Look Like I’m Here? and was devastated they never followed that gem (*wink*) up.  In the immediate aftermath of the demise of Emeralds Mark McGuire’s solo albums got a lot of attention, but apparently the person I really loved in Emeralds was Imaginary Softwoods’ John Elliot.  Annual Flowers in Color is like if Dead City’s, Red Seas, Lost Ghosts were waiting in the departure’s lounge of Eno’s airport.  At the heart of the album lies the 10 plus minutes of “Another First/Sea Machine.” I could listen to this song forever, and on some particularly WTF 2020 lakewalks I more or less have.  Chunky synths, arpeggios that drift off to infinity, ‘80s soundtrack nostalgia.  I could live in these Softwoods for the rest of my sonic days.  

4. Pottery – Welcome to Bobby’s Motel

In another moment of nostalgia for my college years, Pottery are a welcome return to weird ass experimental Canadian bands.  They don’t sound anything like the Unicorns, but in spirit Pottery kind of remind me of them.  I’ve spilled a lot of digital ink here and elsewhere bemoaning the fact that Pitchfork (or perhaps, me) isn’t cool anymore, and to me no band embodies this more than Pottery.  They take a bunch of fun disparate elements—Talking Heads dance art rock, periodic weird pitch shifted vocal effects, hazy deep purple style guitars, and Queen style machismo disco—throw them into a witch’s cauldron, and come up with something off the wall that sounds like nothing else but is also instantly familiar.  This is the type of thing Pitchfork would have been all over in 2007, but instead now they’re too busy chasing conde nast clout clicks.  Oh well, nothing gold can last. But enough negativity, this here is a celebration of the joy of new music, and no new band embodies that unbridled joy like Pottery.  Along with Fontaines DC, this is the band I wish I most could have bopped around to with a bunch of sweaty strangers in the 7th St. Entry or Turf Club.  You can just imagine the call and response vocals and funky grooves getting the people moving.  Oh well, hopefully we’ll soon all be rocking the vaccine, they can breeze through town, and I’ll be the first person on the dance floor embarrassingly pumping my fist a half beat behind the rhythm.  

3. Pure X – Pure X

To paraphrase Same Elliott in the Big Lebowski, sometimes there’s a band, and well, sometimes there’s a band.  For me this year, that band was Pure X.  I absolutely loved their debut Pleasure way back in 2011, when lo-fi reverb heavy slow guitar music (ie, Galaxie 500) was all the rage. Their follow up Crawling up the Stairs was so bad I didn’t even bother listening to Angel, though perhaps that also owed a decent amount to just how terrible the art on that record is.  (I’ve since remedied this mistake; turns out that record rules).  Being that as it may, I can’t particularly tell you what drew me in to this year’s self-titled album, a full nine years after Pleasure first graced the stage.  In one sense it’s probably because Pleasure is one those albums that just never went out of my rotation.  Whenever the fahrenheit tips past 90 and the walk to the bodega is a few blocks longer than you’d like, that record always hits the spot.  Maybe I just knew this was the record I needed this year.  Either way, from the first bars of “Middle America” I was hooked.  The guitars crash over you, but never in a threatening way. Rather, they envelop you like a weighted blanket, comforting you in their sonic embrace.  Nowhere is this more true than on “Fantasy,” easily my favorite song of 2020 (especially since this was a year entirely devoid of dance floor bangers).  If this album came out in 1999 rather than 2020 I would have hit the repeat button on my discman and listened to this song forever.  

2. Crack Cloud – Pain Olympics

Pain Olympics is the answer to the question that no one asked: what if Arcade Fire’s (back when they were good) communal uplift was paired with Gang of Four’s stark anthem’s of industrialism’s collapse?  While on first blush this might sound like your standard album of punkish fist pumping angst, from when the female vocals (sorry there are too many people in this band for me to be able to figure out whose who) come in on opener “Post Truth (Birth of a Nation)” Pain Olympics reveals itself to be a very strange animal (likely a unicorn of some sort), especially as little orchestral swirls creep into the mix, giving it an almost Judy Garland (in hell) quality.  This subtle genre pastiche is given its best effect on stunner “The Next Fix.” That song starts out as an elastic spoken-word call and response addiction rumination, at the minute mark it starts to segue into a vocoded chill raver, then some horns crop up out of nowhere, then a spoken word passage, then at the two minute mark a chorus of voices come in, doing their best Broken Social Scene in the truest sense of the phrase.  This is perhaps one of the strangest records I’ve ever heard, but what is strangest of all is just how beautiful it is.  Crack Cloud are not for everyone, but if you really give it a chance, the returns are limitless.  

1. SAULT – Untitled (Rise) / Untitled (Black Is)

You cannot tell the story of 2020 without SAULT, which is why this pair of records is here at the top, even if under the influence of sodium pentothal (lets be honest, veritaserum) I might lean more towards Pain Olympics.  In June, the “anonymous” London project put out Untitled (Black Is), and then quickly followed that gem up with September’s Untitled (Rise).  Perhaps more amazing still is that these two albums, released so close together, have unique personalities.  Black Is is more pop/R&B whereas Rise has a dancy, electr(on)ic feel.  I lean more towards the latter, but honestly, both albums are so overstuffed with amazing moments that it’s borderline unbelievable that one outfit could put out so much amazing music in such a short span.  While these records would chart high even if sung in Hopelandic, there’s no escaping the social import of the lyrics.  One need look no further than Black Is’s “Don’t Shoot Guns Down” for the 2020 dance party at the end of the world.  As if that weren’t more than enough, it finds its analogue on Rise’s “Street Fighter,” and that’s SAULT in a nutshell: two albums in constant communication with one another, and more importantly, with the state of the world.  Guns down.  Don’t Shoot.  Let’s dance.  

[vanchlo]

The Assistant / Chapter Thirty-Eight, “Almost There”

Clickable Links: 

- Masterlist feat. all chapters and Character Surveys

- Inspo tag

- Playlist

- *NEW* Hecky Blurb from The Sex Bucketlist Fic Challenge (currently an extra chapter)

- Becky Character Survey #2 

- Harry Character Survey 

Word Count: 7.4k words

Warnings: None

                                  SNEAKKKKKKKK PEEEEEK

“At moments throughout the day, I could’ve cared less that I was being paid for all of this, because being in Harry’s presence for almost every second was rewarding enough. I got to remember the dark little freckles smattered across his face, the tan ones peppering his nose you can see if you’re close enough, and how utterly happy I feel being around him. He quickly felt like the sun and I was the orbiting planet, constantly around him and hanging onto his every word.”

Music Inspo: Sweet Tooth by Cavetown (click to listen)

P.S. - Talk about the most perfect gif up top of happy lawyer Harry c:

                         “I have a million things to talk to you about. A million things we have to talk about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning.” - Haruki Murakami

“So, Hare, ya think she’ll like it?”

“I bloody hope so afta all tha cleanin’ and buyin’ new stuff,” I respond with a tired sigh, crossing my arms over my chest, sure there’s still dust clinging to me in places.

“We didn’t do any cleaning, you goon, the cleaning company we employ did,” Myles chuckles, bringing warmth to my cheeks. “I think we did good, though- I reckon you did good, seeing as you did most of the work, mate.”

“Thanks,” I tell him, taking a good look at the office that’s sat unused since the remodel.

“When’s her orientation with you, did you say?”

“This Friday,” I answer him, my hand wandering to my mouth where I bite at my fingernail, inspecting the clean office. Even after all of the work that’s been put into it ever since she was hired, I still doubt myself if Becks will like it. Will she like the desk that I chose, or the Merlot colored sofa against the wall, or the chair that I splurged on? She’s going to be the one spending time in here, not me, and I really want her to like it.

“Have you asked her out on that date yet?” Myles questions, stepping forward to adjust the black modern desk lamp, even though I’m sure she’ll move things around once she steps foot in here. I want her to change it to how she likes, just how she likes. Wait, what did he say?

“My’, what tha fook are ya goin’ on ‘bout?” I chuckle, holding out my hand in question to help me talk.

“What, mate? You’re wasting precious time here, you’ll be thirty in a few weeks. I thought we’d have kids and they’d be best mates by now.”

“Oh, shuddup, thirty isn’t that old, and no, I haven’t asked her out yet.”

“And why’s that? You said you ran into her at the supermarket last weekend, and you met her for dinner and drinks the Friday before. It sounds like you had plenty of opportunities, and once again, you didn’t take them,” he almost groans, opening a box of black pens that he pours into a tall black mug with ‘Styles & Lawson’ written on both the mug and the pens. It was his touch, not mine. I know Becks will hate it, she’ll find it gaudy. “Y’know I don’t care if you lot date, just keep it behind closed doors, is all I ask. Keep it professional.”

“‘s too soon, My. I know ‘s already a lot fer her t’ be startin’ a new job, ‘specially her first official lawyer job. I want her t’ get settled in first befo’ I do anythin’, and overwhelm her mo’. And I know, I wanna do all o’ it right.”

“That’s fair, Hare, but you better hurry up. I was telling Rory about her starting, and when he asked to see a photo, he couldn’t stop talking about how pretty she is,” he comments, breaking the box apart before tossing it in the empty bin, giggling.

“My’, don’t bloody encourage him. Rore’s a prick, tho’, even he knows it. She’d neva go fer him, anyways.”

“Are you gonna tell him how you feel about her then, y’know, so he doesn’t try anything?” Myles continues, walking behind Becks’ ‘Autumn Cherry Mahogany’ desk, pushing in the chair as he does a once over.

“I reckon I should, if tha idiot keeps quiet ‘bout it, which’d be a bloody wonder in itself. Watch him try t’ gimme relationship advice, as if he’s had a girlfriend lately fer longa than two weeks.”

Myles chuckles at that, tapping a pen against the desk barren besides the lamp, pens, a desk calendar, and the phone. I laugh along with him, turning around to glance at the wooden shelves that look rather pathetic with the few law books claiming them, but that’s the last thing on my to do list. I reckon she’ll want to add some of her own, anyways.

“You’re really going to leave the walls empty besides that bloody shelf and clock? It looks sad in here.”

“I told ya ‘m gonna let her pick out some prints, and tha firm will pay fer ‘em. There’s no use in buyin’ sumthin’ that she’ll end up not likin’, My. Oh, and tha rug ‘s s’posed t’ come in t’morrow, as is tha new iMac that one o’ Asher’s blokes will set up,” I repeat with a roll of my eyes, forgetting the books and finding him straightening the violet-colored clock on the wall.

“The firm is paying for it, is that right? Jeepers, Harry, she’s making you all soft again. I can’t complain though, because it means you’re far nicer to me for a change.”

“Shuddup,” I giggle, plucking a new pen from her desk to launch at him. “Ya I dunno, she has tho’ and I don’t really mind it. I guess ‘m used t’ it, but it was hard in tha beginnin’.”

“It’s a good thing, really, I mean it. Oh, by the way, did you let her know she needs to frame her degree to hang up in here? Preferably behind her desk,” he questions, turning to point to the eggshell-colored walls that were painted months ago, the exact shade of all of our offices.

“Thanks fer tha reminda. ‘ll hafta text her ‘bout it, I forgot.”

“Yeah, you can thank me for a good excuse to text her,” he grins, his hands falling from the clock until his attention is captured by something else. “Also, why’d you buy a bloody plant? Does she even like them, or know how to take care of them?”

“I dunno, she mentioned once she likes succulents, and there’s a huge ass window right there t’ give it sun, so ya jus’ need t’ water it,” I snicker, pointing to the floor to ceiling window taking up the wall across from her door, like all of the offices. “‘s some kinda succulent, I can’t rememba. I figured she’d like it, but thanks fer yer bloody vote o’ confidence, Mr. Lawson.”

“You’ll get my ‘bloody vote of confidence’ when you fucking finally ask her out, Hare. ‘s been two years, mate,” he insists, flicking the light off as I step out into the hallway.

“I know, My, ya think I don’t bloody know that?”

“I don’t know, Harry, but y’know how I feel about second chances. They don’t come around again, and you got one, so use it wisely and quickly,” he tells me, wagging a finger at me as he closes the door before walking off.

“I know, but I don’t wanna screw it up,” I whisper in defeat to none other than myself, messing with the silver rose ring on my left hand, just as my eyes pan over to the frosted glass door. At the sight of her full name etched into the door, my heart does a jump, from nerves and excitement. “See ya soon, Becks,” I finish softly, patting her name carved into the glass, a bubbly warmth filling my insides with anticipation.

I dunno how much longer I can wait for her.

+

“Alrighty, then let’s start with’a tour. Follow me right this way, Ms. Holte,” Harry says, leading me out of his office and can I say, giving me a perfect view of his gorgeous bum. Now, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed a bit, I decide silently as I take a quick glance around his office.

“Please stop with the Ms. Holte thing, it’s weird,” I giggle, watching him close his door behind him, and he winks at me.

“What, how come? Yer a lawyer now, Becks, ya gotta be all formal.”

“See, that name sounds much better, doesn’t it?” I tease him, and he shakes his head with a grin.

“I admit it does, but y’know yer gonna hafta decide what ya want people t’ call you. Rebecca, Becky, Ms. Holte, etcetera. But fer formal proceedings, like during cases you’ll be Ms. Holte, so ya betta get used t’ it.”

“Yeah, Ms. Holte isn’t happening if I can help it, it makes me feel old. I’m not a bloody teacher or something,” I remark and he nods his head, his fingers getting lost in his curls as he stops.

“Very true. Well t’ begin our tour, yer familiar with this hallway as it’s tha main one. My office is behind us at tha very end, Myles is down and on tha right as y’know, then Rose’s ‘s on tha left,” he explains by pointing a long finger in different directions, the pink nail polish from last weekend almost entirely gone. I guess Harper needs to give him a touch up, or I could. God, I wish. “Rory’s office ‘s down that way t’ tha right o’ mine, as ‘s Jennings as y’know. Mick’s ‘s down tha way afta his, then Gwen’s, Tate’s, Holly’s, Connor’s- Y’know what, let’s jus’ go and say hi t’ ‘em, I reckon that’ll be easier fer you t’ make sense o’ it all. I was plannin’ t’ introduce ya t’ e’rybody anyways, so we’ll see who’s here t’day and not stuck inn’a case.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” I hum, unsure of how good of a job I’m doing masking my anxiousness, it’s hard to tell.

Evidently, I’m not doing that great of a job, because when Harry looks to his left at me, it’s fair game. “‘s okay, Becks, don’t worry. They’ll all love you too,” he smiles, patting my arm, calming me down and exciting me at the same time with his words and touch.

“God, I’m an open book, aren’t I?”

“Eh, I dunno really. I guess ‘m jus’ good at readin’ ya by now,” he responds with a short wink before stopping in front of another frosted glass door. After a short knock, the door opens and like every other time, I’m amazed by her fiery red hair. “Hey, Rose, ‘m not interruptin’, am I?”

“No, Harry, you’re not,” Rose answers, hanging onto her door, and I watch her eyes pan over to me. “Hi, Becky! I haven’t seen you in ages. How are you, love?”

“I’m good, thanks. How have you been, Rose?”

“Eh, I’ve been better, it’s not easy working for this guy. You should get out while you still can,” she answers teasingly, nodding her head over to Harry.

“Hey, don’t say that! ‘m givin’ her tha tour right now, ya don’t wanna scare her away already, Rose!” he scoffs jokingly, and quickly we’ve left him behind with our laughing that he doesn’t partake in.

“Quiet down, Harry, she’s come back for seconds so she must know how to deal with you by now,” she quips, looking over to me with a blushing smile. Oh, I’m liking it better and better the longer I’m here.

“God, I hope so,” I joke, spending a nervous laugh at the end of my words and so does everybody else, although in a self-deprecating way.

“I’m glad you’re back though, Becky. It’s so great to have you a part of the lawyer team now.”

“Thank you, Rose. I’m really happy to be a part of it too,” I answer shyly, and when I look over to Harry he’s wearing that sunshine smile again that I’d gladly look into, even if it blinded me.

“Thanks fer yer time, Rose, we’ll be movin’ along t’ meet e’rybody else now. There’ll be a formal meetin’ her first day t’ properly introduce e’rybody tho’,” Harry says, patting her on the shoulder before we move on.

We make our way down the hallway, and then soon reunite with Jennings, which wasn’t the best reunion per say after how he treated me at times.

“Don’t worry, I told him he has t’ be on his best behavior ‘round you,” Harry comments with a warm smile, doing a good job at smoothing over any bumps I feel in the road, like he so often does.

A few of the lawyers were gone for the day, including Gwen and Mickey who I’ve yet to hear anything about or meet. I got to meet Holly, Connor, Tate, and Brien who were all very kind. It was nerve wracking, but they were easy to talk to, and it was neat to see their difference in ages, their characters, and their offices. As for those we missed, Harry said I’d meet them the next time when I have my first official day.

“And this ‘s Rory, which requires a bit o’ prep fer meetin’ him, he can be a lot t’ handle sumtimes,” Harry prefaces, stopping in front of the ajar door, but his face falls when he peeks in, saying it’s empty. “‘m not bloody surprised, I can neva find tha idiot when I need him.”

“Looking for me, Harold?” a voice calls, pulling our attention down the hall and towards the lobby. I can almost see where my desk used to be from here, almost.

“Oh, so he can call you Harold, but I can’t?”

“No, neitha can he, he jus’ thinks he’s funny. He’s prolly tryna show off fer you,” he comments, cocking his head to the side as he looks at this Rory fellow questioningly. “Y’know I don’t like bein’ called that, Rore.”

“And what do I care?” Rory replies, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly as he approaches us, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. “Ooooo, who is this lovely lass?”

“Rory, this ‘s Ms.- I mean, Becky Holte, ‘ve told you ‘bout our new associate,” Harry explains, pointing his elbow to me as his hands sit in his pockets. Slowly with each new introduction, I’ve noticed Harry resume his professionalism, but it feels stronger whenever he says my name. It’s a little hard to get used to after all of the moments we’ve shared over the last two years, but I know that I’ll have to get used to working with him again, and all that it entails.

“Ah, so this is Becky,” Rory smiles, stepping forward to put out his hand as his eyes flit to Harry. With a confused look on my face, I take it and he shakes my hand with his other covering mine. My eyes race to Harry next with a question, but his are stuck to Rory’s with an annoyed expression. “I’ve heard loads about you, love. Welcome to the firm, we’re all happy to have you here working with us. I know Harry is especially.”

“Um, thank you, Rory. I’m excited to be here.”

He nods before stuffing his hands in the pockets of his gray slacks and sauntering off, loud music soon coming from his office.

“He’s uh, different,” I comment slowly, looking over my shoulder as we walk away.

“Ya, he’s a prat ‘s what he ‘s,” Harry comments quickly, rubbing a knuckle along his hairy chin.

“So, you told your colleagues that you’re happy I’m back?”

“Perhaps,” he shrugs, saying it like he’s not sure of his answer either, but I take it and I run with it. “Perhaps very much so,” he finishes just as his steps cease in front of another closed door. I don’t get the chance to read the name on it, because quickly he’s opening it, and it’s already hard to tear my eyes away from him after he said that. Who do you think you are just saying that kind of stuff and not expecting me to freak out? It gets even worse when he finally meets my eyes with the cheekiest grin sitting there, waiting for me.

“Wow, this is a really nice office. It even smells good, like palo santo or something,” I comment, taking a step into the immaculate looking space. The room is lit up when Harry flips the light switch, bathing the shining desk in light, as well as the wine-colored sofa against the wall to my right. “Look at that view! Dang, whoever’s office this is sure is lucky. They even have a cute little plant on their desk, awe. Whose office is this, anyways? I don’t want to intrude, or anything,” I say, fawning over the cozy room and even how there’s two little tasseled pillows sitting on the sofa. When I bring my eyes back to Harry, he’s leaning against the door frame, arms and legs crossed amongst his tall body. In his eyes sits a tale that I can see he’s itching to tell, a sparkle in his eye.

“Consider yerself lucky, Becks, this ‘s yer new office,” he grins, his cheeks disappearing when the smile almost reaches his ears.

“Shut up!” I exclaim, my hands flying to my mouth as I look at the room in a new light, per say. “I get my own office? I didn’t even think I’d need one, since I’ll always be in yours. Harry, you shouldn’t have!” I sigh happily, hands falling as my eyes start to water.

“‘Course you’ll have yer own office, Becks. I mean ya, you’ll be with me in mine loads, but sumtimes we’re bound t’ get sick o’ each otha,” he says, lifting his crossed arms in a shrug as if they hold words as well. My head falls to the side as I look at him, telling him silently he’s stupid for saying that, and he giggles because he’s just too good at reading me. It’s going to be a long time before I get sick of him again. A very long time. “It’ll happen, I promise ya that. But sumtimes ‘ll be in partner meetings or sumthin’, and ya can do yer research and prep fer tha cases in here. Also, I wanted ya t’ have yer own space since ‘s no fun bein’ stuck in me office starin’ at tha same four walls all day long. And I know ya didn’t really have yer own space befo’ at yer old desk, and ya should’ve,” he completes eloquently, always knowing what to say and how to say it. I hope he can teach me how to do that, because I’m really going to need it. For more than one occasion, and both inside and outside of this firm.

I want to hug him so badly I can’t stand it, because the gratitude and happiness bubbling to the surface yell at me to, and he just looks so cute standing over there so proud of himself. The whole rule about being professional that stuck to me again the second I got off the lift comes back to me, and holds me back from surprising him with a bear hug. Boy, is it hard, and it gets even harder when I don’t see him trying to give me one, either.

“You’re so sweet, you know that?” I almost blurt out, wishing for that eloquent speech trait once again.

“Thanks, bug, I try. ‘m really glad ya like it, really. I have a few sites ya can look at when ya have tha time t’ pick out some prints fer yer walls. Oh, and yer welcome t’ bring in any books ya’d like t’ place on yer shelf and anythin’ else fer that matta, ‘s all yers. All of it,” and with the sunshine smile leaking through in those words, the first tear falls onto my cheek and I couldn’t even care. “Hey, don’t cry, bug. C’mere, come gimme a hug.”

“But I have to be professional, and employees don’t hug their boss.”

“Hush, li’l one. ‘m not yer boss anymo’, ‘m yer colleague,” he contends shrugging, removing an arm from where it’s crossed over his chest to wave me over to him.

“A mentee shouldn’t hug their mentor,” I continue, the next tear falling as indecisiveness buzzes inside of me.

“Rebecca Ann Holte,” Harry insists firmly, and this one triumphs all others. It hurts more than any other, brings back the most memories, and makes the happy tears come even faster. And shit, does it get me going. “Come ova here and hug me, now,” he giggles with a finger pointing to the floor, and I swear it’s the best song I’ve ever heard in this whole entire world, next to the very words he just spoke.

But I can’t get my feet to wake up and in a blink he’s moving over to me with that sunshine smeared all over his face. I feel it cover my body when his long arms come around me, pulling my face against his chest.

“I don’t like my full name,” I confess into his button down, hoping I’m not smearing my blubbering makeup all over it.

“I do, ‘s pretty . . but I like ‘Becks’ betta. Yer my Becks,” he hums from above me, running miles up and down my back with his large hands. His hugs that can fix everything and anything.

“I’m sorry I always cry.”

“‘s okay, bug, ya don’t gotta apologize. I know it means yer really happy,” he muses, eliciting a quick nod from me that sings a happy giggle from above. “‘m so happy ya like it, I worked so hard onnit coz I wanted ya t’ love it.”

“You did all of this?!”

“Well, with a li’l help from me friends, ‘course,” he titters, the sound heard under my ears and overhead. His name leaves my lips in an amazed sigh and he only laughs harder. “Think that means ya like it, hmm, Becks?”

“Yes, I love it, Harry. All of this,” I answer, finding handfuls of his silky blazer in my hands, and his peppery vanilla scent. Too afraid of ruining his shirt, I back up and let go of him, wiping under my eyes embarrassingly.

“Alright?” he hums softly, brushing the hair away from my face and behind my ear. Even just his finger brushing my ear gets me going. Good God, Harry. “Here, lemme look.”

I oblige after doing most of the work and meeting his eyes that I swear I could melt looking into, and I should know because I have so many times. The happiness pours into me at the thought of getting to do it day after day, for as long as I like. Kind of.

“Doesn’t look too bad. Ya still look like me pretty Becks, but don’t wantcha cryin’, haven’t even been here an hour, love.”

“Oh, you knew I was going to cry when I saw the office,” I laugh and his quickly falls behind, tickling my ears.

“Ya, I admit I knew,” he titters and I playfully push at his chest, suddenly kicking myself for ending that hug so soon, unsure of the next time I’ll get one. “Well, shall we keep goin’ with this tour, or ya need anotha minute, bug?”

“I’m okay,” I answer and he nods.

“If ya say so, Boops,” he chirps, brushing the tip of his finger against my nose cheekily. “C’mon, ya have plenty o’ time t’ check this place out. I wanna show ya tha new law library, ‘s a real treat.” I follow his lead, even with tear streaks down my cheeks, because I know that if I’m by his side I’ll always be okay.

Well, so much for that whole ‘being a professional thing’, huh, Mr. Styles? He sure threw that out the door just now, as well as a few more doubts I had about the way he feels about me. Goodness gracious, I’m in real trouble.

I can’t wait.

At moments throughout the day, I could’ve cared less that I was being paid for all of this, because being in Harry’s presence for almost every second was rewarding enough. I got to remember the dark little freckles smattered across his face, the tan ones peppering his nose you can see if you’re close enough, and how utterly happy I feel being around him. He quickly felt like the sun and I was the orbiting planet, constantly around him and hanging onto his every word. Luckily, I was able to do a lot of staring, since I’m familiar with the firm and could tune out at times. He still gave me the grand tour which was a little different at times due to the remodel. I realized there was a post room that I had totally forgotten about, although I’m not sure how.

Harry made it fun, like he always does, but I noticed that he was ‘Boss Harry’ today. At times, he kept the personal talk to a minimum when there was stuff to get done, especially after the scene that unfolded in my office. God, I can’t believe any of what happened in there, and I try not to think about it, because I know I won’t be able to handle it. I called him ‘Mr. Styles’ on a few occasions and I think he liked the sound of it too. Fortunately, for my sake, he only remembered my last name aloud a few more times, because I think we’re both uncomfortable with anything besides ‘Becks.’ But I wouldn’t want it any other way, and I quickly realized that, when that’s how he introduced me to his- well my new colleagues before correcting himself. He really is just the cutest.  

“I didn’t dump too much on ya t’day, did I?” Harry asks with a sunny smile, falling down onto the sofa across from me.

“It’s debatable,” I shrug softly with an added laugh, my hand diving into the cloth bag sat between us.

“Hey, I did me best,” he pouts, pulling up his pastel slacks to get comfy, crossing his legs in front of me. Goodness, I really wish he wouldn’t, because it is the best and worst view I’ve ever seen. He looks too damn fine in those pants that hug him in all of the right places, fuck. Fuck me.

I’m sure you want him to, Becky.

Go away, demon, I’ve got this handled.

Pfffft, yeah right.

“I hope ya didn’t cheat while I was in tha loo,” he remarks, pulling his lips inwards to make a popping sound with his mouth, just like that part in Shrek 2 where Donkey does it in the carriage.

“I would not! I can’t believe you don’t trust me.”

“Oh, I trust ya, Becks, jus’ not when it comes t’ Scrabble,” he quips, dropping several tiles onto the thick cardstock board. I hold back a comeback comment as I watch him build off my word, forming one of his one.

H O T D O G

A devilish laugh leaves his cherry lips as I pluck my pre-chosen tiles from my rack. Meanwhile, he adds up his new points aloud and tallies them up.

“What kinda prints are ya gonna buy fer yer office, y’think?” he mumbles, the pen scratching against the yellow legal pad in his lap, doing one good thing, which is covering it from my prying gaze.

“I’m not sure yet, do you have any good suggestions?” I reply, turning over a D that had gotten flipped over, lining up my tiles from his G.

G O O D B Y E

“Nice long one, bug, and I dunno. ‘ve accumulated mine ova tha years, and they’re mostly prints o’ artists I love.”

“Yeah, I see that,” I respond, lifting my eyes to his spacious office that still surprises me with how different it does and doesn’t look from before.

As he said, more framed prints cover his walls. Before, he only had a Rolling Stones black and white picture above the sofa we sit on. Now, he has one of The Beatles from their Sgt Pepper launch party, a print of Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks on the cover of Rumors, a smiling portrait of Cat Stevens playing guitar, and a moody photo of Simon and Garfunkel. The shelf above us is also brimming with new books, including biographies of previously mentioned musicians, and even Uncle-ing for Dummies.

“I like them. Maybe I’ll frame some favorite sheet music of mine, I have no idea,” I joke with uncertainty, finding his smiling eyes across from me, lifting from the pad of paper.

“There’s no rush, Becks, ya got loads o’ time t’ decorate. I jus’ wantcha t’ be at home in yer new office. I mean, ‘m still decoratin’ and ‘s been ova five years,” he comments, setting the pad to the side. “Don’t forget t’ pull new tiles, love.”

“Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder. It’s just weird, but in a good way, because I’ve never had my own office,” I say, reaching my hand into the bag and feeling the cool tiles once again.

“‘Course it’d be weird, ‘s sumthin’ new, but you’ll get used t’ it. ‘m sure you’ll figure out how t’ make it yer own, ya deserve it,” he exhales, his hands folded together against his mouth as he stares at the board intently.

“Thank you, you’re right . . The tiles aren’t going to arrange themselves if you stare that hard. You do know that, right?”

“Yes, Ms. Holte, ‘m well aware, thank you. Bloody hell, already feelin’ like we’re a hotshot coz we’re a lawyer now, are we?” he tuts teasingly, dropping his hands to his rack as he flits his eyes to me with a toothy grin.

“I am not, and watch the name, or no brownies for you!”

“Fine,” he sighs, his bottom lip catching between his teeth as he contemplates his move, but his focus is lost when his phone dings.

I try not to intrude, but the look on his face feeds my curiosity, and when his expression does a three-sixty and then another, I can’t look away. He doesn’t share anything though, just types back a brief reply to whoever and returns his attention to the game board. I try to do the same, planning my next attack on the board, but it’s futile because the worry I feel for him creeps up again like it so often does.

“Got any big plans fer t’night?” he muses aloud, laying down the ceramic tiles he’s chosen to form a short word off of my E.

B A K E

“Nah, just finally finishing New Girl after procrastinating it for the last few years. It’s always sad when a show ends.”

“Ah, guess yer busy then, nevamind,” Harry comments, adding up my points aloud before jotting them down. Wait, sir, you can’t just tease that at me. Well, whatever that is.

“Mr. Styles, what ever do you mean?” I ask calmly, placing heavy emphasis on his formal name, one that started as a joke but now I’m liking it more than I’d care to admit.

He doesn’t say anything right away, because of course. He just busies himself by picking out new letters and organizing his rack of tiles. I forgot about my new word long ago, because if I’m honest at least to myself, as soon as the short-hand had reached the three on the clock, I was already feeling melancholy. Now, no fewer than fifteen minutes of my orientation day remains, and the aching in my chest has only kept reminding me that I have to leave him soon. Talk about distracting.

“I mean t’ say, my sista had t’ cancel dinna coz Harper’s sick. So, how d’ya feel about dinna and drinks round two?” he suggests, finally meeting my eyes with his that have a little bit more sparkle to them.

“I’d love to, Harry. Maybe I could get that motorcycle ride already,” I comment, flitting my eyes over to the metallic gold helmet sitting on the edge of his organized desk.

“Maybe ya could, Becks,” he chirps after seeing where I’m looking. That sticky smile winds its way up his face, and finds the hole in the armor around my heart.

Am I in trouble with this man, or what? Fuck yes I am, and I can’t wait to dive right in.

The January day could be warmer, but it could also be colder, and yet with Harry by my side I don’t even notice. We both ditch our bags in my car for the time being, and suddenly I question a few things, mostly the intelligence of this idea seeing as what I’m wearing.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I say, voicing my concerns aloud and I regret it immediately when Harry looks over to me quickly, the disappointment building on his face.

“Oh, that’s alright, we don’t hafta, love.”

“No, I’m talking about the motorcycle ride. I want to, but I’m wearing heels,” I shrug giggling and he nods softly, biting his lip as a thought buds in his eyes. “Oh wait, I think I have trainers in my car somewhere from that one yoga class I went to years ago.”

I hear his delightful laugh in the corners of my mind as I pop open the boot of my car, grateful to my past self for cleaning it once, whenever the last time that was.

“Y’know, ‘m I eva gonna be able t’ get ya t’ go t’ a yoga class with me one o’ these days?”

“Most likely not, if you want my honest answer,” I tell him and he chuckles, but I hear the sadness in it. It goes both ways, being able to read each other like an open book. We may not open ourselves to other people that way, but I think we had let the other person in long before we can remember.

“Here they are!” I exclaim once I locate the old black shoes, soon taking a seat on the edge of my silver car. Harry chirps a ‘good’ as he unbuckles the black leather box on the far back of the motorcycle seat, pulling out a matte black helmet.

I’m reminded of the bitter cold through the thin fabric of my black dress pants that I tuck into my long socks, although it looks dorky.

“Nice socks,” he jokes, lips sputtering with a laugh as I approach him.

“Shush,” I retort playfully, fastening the last few buttons of my long violet peacoat.

“Lookin’ good, Becks.”

“Oh, I know, very motorcycle chic,” I agree jokingly, taking the helmet from him that he holds out to me.

I slide it over my wavy dark curls, and lift my chin to the ceiling of the parking ramp to try and fasten the clasp. After several seconds of trying, I still can’t get it. I grow anxious when I hear the thrum of the engine come to life.

“Okay, I’ve ridden with Robbie on his bike so many times, and I can still never get these stupid helmets buckled. Can you help me, please?” I ask, my hands falling with a sigh to find him zipping up his bulky North Face, a gray hood from his sweatshirt falling over his back.

“‘Course, love,” he snickers, and I know he’s just enjoying watching me struggle. “Didn’t know ya were familiar with bikes, kinda disappointed ‘m not givin’ ya yer first ride.”

“If it’s any consolation it’s my first ride in years, and anything will be better than riding with Robbie. He’s scary on that thing.”

“Don’t worry, ‘m a good driver with anythin’ that’s not a shopping cart. Here, lemme help,” he says softly, his brown leather Chelsea boots echoing on the cement ground as he nears me. The closer he gets, the more my heart starts to race in anticipation for the next moment, and it feels like it stops altogether when I feel the guitar calloused pads of his fingers on my chin. “Lift yer head, please.”

“Yeah, I guess you were a good driver the few times I’ve ridden with you in your Rover.”

“‘Course I was, and ‘m jus’ gonna ignore how yer bein’ a sarcastic li’l ass ‘bout it,” he quips, pulling a laugh from my lips. No longer can I stare at the ceiling or the top of the helmet, and so I finally look to him through the partition although nervously. “Here, I think I almost got it,” he announces, a tune soon flowing from his lips that he hums. Again, it’s that same song that I can never figure out and it’s driving me nuts, but just hearing him hum it makes my heart slow down and relax. I don’t even know why, I guess because I’ve heard it so many times now, and he can relax me without hardly trying. When it comes to touching him, it seems to excite me in a nervous way right from the get go.

Somehow, I had forgotten how dark and long his eyelashes are as they flutter against his skin while he focuses on fastening the strap under my chin. His tongue dots across his lips at times until his bottom lip becomes trapped between his teeth, his thick brows falling in concentration. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen anything cuter, but then the brisk wind catches his curls, again I’m uncertain.

“Don’t focus too hard now,” I tease him as the strap tightens under my chin. His features relax with a grin that doesn’t return a comment.

“There ya go, love,” he says, his warm vanilla touch falling away from me and he smiles as he pats the top of my helmet. “Oh here, almost forgot these.”

“What?” I answer, following him over to the bike as I lock my car, shoving my keys into the pocket of my coat. With his back to me, he plucks something from the leather bag of sorts and turns around, placing a pair of suede black gloves in my hands.

“Sorry, they’re prolly a bit large on ya, but ‘s betta than nuthin’,” he explains, and I only answer with a nod, watching him pull on a similar pair. “Ya still wanna do this?”

“By all means,” I agree aloud enthusiastically, stopping at the side of the gleaming black Harley. For some reason, it impresses me even more how the bike reminds me of how good he takes care of his things.

Now, I know I’m really falling.

“Hop on behind me then,” Harry instructs, swinging a long leg over the Harley to take a seat. My, was that a sight. I do as he says and settle onto the cushiony seat behind him, trying to ignore the bitter cold seeping in through my pants, but I’m sure he’s dealing with the same thing. “Ya warm enough, love?” he asks, raising his voice so I can hear him over the engine.

“Yeah, besides my bum, but what can you do?”

He chuckles with an agreeing nod, “Can ya find tha little footpegs with yer feet? Yer feet need t’ go on there and stay there, don’t wan’ ‘em touchin’ any otha parts o’ tha bike that’re hot.”

“Yeah, let me see,” I mumble, looking down and soon finding the little silver footrests. “Found them.”

“Good, now how does gnocchi soup ova on ninth sound?”

“Sounds great. I can’t remember the last time I was there,” I answer with a smile, wishing he could see it, and that I could see his. But I find that I can’t complain when I feel him grab my hands in each one of his, pulling them forward and around his middle to rest on his stomach.

“Neither can I, now that I think o’ it.”

“How come?” I wonder aloud. 

“Dunno, jus’ wasn’t tha same without ya there, Becks . . . Gotta hold onto me, ‘kay? ‘s notta very long ride, but that way we won’t get too cold goin’ jus’ ova there. Ya can fold her hands togetha too, if ya like,” Harry instructs, and I’m uncertain how many of his words I just heard after the very thing he just did. Shit, can’t I get a warning when you’re going to touch me? I need to prepare myself for something like that.

“O-Okay.”

“Alright?” he asks softly, projecting his voice over the loud rumble of the engine.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” I answer, my eyes dipping to the space in between us on the seat that I can’t get myself to close, no matter how much I’d like to.

“‘Kay, we’re gonna leave inna sec then. But if ya need anythin’ just, I dunno, pat my chest or sumthin’ since it’ll be loud. I won’t go very fast tho’. Hopefully I don’t have t’ do too much t’ be a betta driver than Robbie.”

“No, you definitely don’t,” I comment and we both laugh before I hear the click of the kickstand lifting, and then the weight of the bike resting on its two wheels.

“Ready, bug?” he asks, sitting forward a little to settle his hands on the handlebars.

“Yeah!” I call out to him, grabbing onto the front of his coat and feeling him under my touch, but the shyness keeps me from feeling more of him. It always manages to keep me from getting closer to him, all throughout the last few years.

He nods in front of me and within seconds he backs out of the parking spot slowly, then pulls down the aisle with a rumble of the engine. Luckily, we meet few cars in the parking ramp and soon we’re joining traffic. Harry was right, he is a good driver and already a better one than Robbie on his motorcycle. I can’t keep count of how many times over the years he’s made me feel safe so effortlessly, and once again he’s done it, and it only makes me fall harder.

Harry’s long legs come to sit on the tarmac when we approach a red light, but it quickly switches to green and he turns, the engine purring beneath us. The wind whips past us, but the helmet helps with some of it and so do his borrowed gloves that do indeed swallow my hands. They’re warm and cozy inside, likened to the feeling consuming my chest in this moment.

I’m not sure if I’d admit it to him, but this is the most fun I’ve had on a motorcycle ride before, although again it’s not that hard to beat the past rides I’ve taken part in. Somehow albeit unsurprisingly, this makes me find him all the more sexy as he drives us safely through town and expertly. The only thing that could make it better is getting to rest my head on his back, or in the crook of his neck. Despite knowing he wouldn’t mind, I refrain. Louder in my mind is the desire to scooch forward and have my chest against his back, but that too seems too intimate and it kills me to stay away.

“How ya doin’, bug?” Harry calls over the noisy traffic and engine when we come to another red light.

“Good, thanks!”

“Glad t’ hear. Are ya warm enough?” he continues, the bike stilling when he places his feet on the road.

“Yeah,” I answer, never sure if I’m speaking not loud enough or too loud.

“‘Kay. Ya don’t hafta be so far away y’know. I don’t bite, Becks,” Harry comments lightheartedly. “Scooch closer t’ me, you’ll be warmer that way.”

I nod, again feeling stupid because he wouldn’t know the difference if I nodded or shook my head. I oblige and close the distance between us like I’ve been itching to do, soon feeling the warmth from his body against my front.

“There ya go, ‘s that betta?” he says, patting my knee, once again scaring me in a good way. I respond with a short affirmation and a comment about how warm he is, and his head moves up and down. “Good, you’ll help me stay warm too, y’know. Ya’ve always been like a li’l heater.”

I’m not sure if he hears my laugh, but I’m okay if he doesn’t, because this is all more than enough. It’s just enough to be with him, and now behind him on his bike resting against his back with my arms around his middle, I don’t know how I could ever have anything to complain about. But then I remember all of the things I want with him, and how they’re just an arm’s reach away and not again for nine days. I smile sadly against the inside cushioning of the helmet, assuring myself that I’m getting closer to that with every day that passes, and that not even a month ago I never would’ve believed where I’d be today.

“Almost there, Becks,” Harry tells me over his shoulder as he returns his feet in front of mine while the traffic moves ahead.

“Yeah, we’re almost there, Harry, after all of this time. Almost,” I mumble aloud, the words dancing across his back and taken away by the wind.

Maybe he heard me, and if he did I don’t care, because we’re so close. I can’t help but wonder if he thinks it too.

[kabane52]

Abraham’s Twofold Heritage

At one point I strongly contested any continued significance in God's election for the Jewish people. Abraham's seed was the church and the church was Abraham's seed- Jews were no more nor less covenantally significant than any other people. My argument for this was not based so much on a particular set of scriptural texts as it was on a way of reading the biblical story arc. There was, I believed, a definite structure to the prophetic and messianic hope: the seed of Abraham would undergo two exoduses and two covenants. The old covenant is described in Deuteronomy 29 and the coming to pass of its curses is specified with absolute certainty. The new exodus and covenant is described in Deuteronomy 30: Israel's heart would be circumcised, they would be gathered in from exile, and their right standing with God would endure.

Most simply, it seemed to me that the family of Abraham and the people of Israel were identical in every way. The apostles describe the nations as having been brought into Abraham's family, and there seemed to me to be no justification whatsoever in distinguishing Abraham's family from Israel. The New Testament is permeated by texts which describe the church as the fulfillment of promises made to Israel. In Romans 2:25-29, gentiles receive what is promised to Israel in the second exodus of Deuteronomy 30:1-6. The "new covenant" which God promised and which is identified by  Jesus as His work is a covenant between God and Israel.

I still believe that this argument has not been properly considered in Messianic Jewish literature. [Please recognize that Messianic Judaism is a much larger world than "Jews for Jesus" and there are some very sophisticated Messianic Jewish scholars.] Yet I have come to believe that it can be answered. Its answer is to be found in a constellation of texts ultimately unfolding from Genesis 17-25. We often think of Genesis 17 as the creation of Israel- "the circumcision" proper. But what we sometimes fail to recognize is that without "the circumcision" there is no such thing as "the uncircumcision." The dyad of Israel and the nations comes into existence with the circumcision of Abraham's family. Moreover, in this very text Ishmael and his descendants are the subjects of an enduring promise that is not the promise made to Isaac and his descendants. In Genesis 25, we have a genealogy of Abraham's children through Keturah and through Ishmael. Isaac is the heir of Abraham's estate, yet Abraham sends these other children east with gifts.

Here is the key: in Isaiah 60, we hear of those "from afar" coming to beautify and glorify Mount Zion, newly permeated by divine beatitude and uncreated light. The light of God attracts the nations as a fire attracts a crowd on a cold evening. But one detail could easily be missed: the first nations which are described are the children of Ishmael. As Abraham sent them away with gifts, now those gifts have matured and are consecrated on God's altar. The newly fermented wine which was given in the time of Abraham has now aged to perfection and is made holy on God's altar in the time of the Messiah. Actually, Matthew 2 echoes this passage. The magi are "from the east" and a strong case can be made that they are Ishmaelite Arabs rather than Persians. As the nations are drawn by light, so also are the magi attracted by the star. Two of the gifts mentioned in Isaiah 60 are gold and frankincense, and the magi bring these two gifts along with myrrh. Isaiah 60 is sacral in character: the nations are drawn by the divine presence in Israel, and so also Matthew 2: "God with us" has come to dwell with mankind, and the magi "worship" Him.

This twofold Abrahamic promise is something of a theme throughout the Tanach. The healing of Jacob and Esau's relationship is taken up in Malachi as a prophetic image for the healing of the rift between Israel and the nations. As the "sun rose upon" Jacob on the morning of his meeting with Esau, so also will the nations offer Tribute to God "from the rising of the sun." But the most pervasive image used to describe this twofold structure is that of the two houses of Israel: Ephraim and Judah. Consider the prophecy in Zechariah that "ten men" will take hold of the "wing" (the blue tassel or tzitzit which Jews wear) of a "Jew" (i.e. a Judahite). Ten is a significant figure here because of the northern ten tribes. The promise is given as part of a constellation of promises related to the reunification of the two houses. 

In a way, the nations correspond to Ephraim while the Jews, Israel according to the flesh, corresponds to Judah. Genesis 48 gives further support to this idea: Ephraim will become a "multitude of nations." The fact that the northern kingdom is the "house of Joseph" (remember that Joseph's double portion from Jacob meant that he was a double-tribe: his children Ephraim and Manasseh each became a tribe in the confederation of Israel) is also suggestive towards this end. The illumination of the nations of the world was Joseph's great work, a work which he carried out prior to his reconciliation with his brothers according to the flesh. Indeed, while his family believed him lost forever, Ephraim and Manasseh were present in Joseph's own household.

The New Testament is filled with quotations from prophetic texts about the ingathering of the ten tribes that are identified as having been fulfilled in the ingathering of the gentiles. Nor is this an apostolic innovation: the two ideas seem to shade into each other in many of the prophets themselves, as in the above referenced text from Zechariah. The prophet even refers to the ten tribes being "sown to" the nations and "swallowed up" therein. That word is only used four times in the Twelve- twice in this context and once in the Book of Jonah, where the Prophet is "swallowed up" by a "great fish" before bearing witness to Nineveh. The "great fish" is a symbol of the "great city." While some of the northern tribes were assimilated into Judahite culture and returned from Babylon (note for example that the prophetess Anna is from the Tribe of Asher) most were assimilated into the gentile nations. It seems that one function of this assimilation was to tie together the destiny of all nations with the destiny of Abraham's seed.

*Why* this sort of bond functioned to tie the nations with Abraham is something I do not presently understand. Nothing is merely typological. Types and symbols exist because they manifest the real, concrete, and cause-effect structure of the world. Every type of Christ serves to bring Christ's presence truly closer to fruition. And so we must not simply say that the assimilation of the ten tribes tied the nations to Abraham because of a typological link: that principle which perpetuates the rhythm of the world is also the principle which makes it beautiful. Every aesthetic perfection is also maximally functional. I am perfectly sure that there is an explanation, and that this explanation will teach a great deal about the significance of the human family and its structure as a genealogy of interrelated nations. But I do not know it yet.

In any case, this answered my most serious objection: that there was simply no available category for a covenantally bound member of Abraham's family who was not in every way a member of Israel. There seems to be exactly such a category in Abraham's extended family- from Hagar and Keturah, as well as in the assimilated Israelite tribes. The church shares in Israel's covenant and destiny through her identity as the Body of a Resurrected Jew. In that sense the church takes on the name and title of Israel. But just as we take on Christ's Name (Christ-ian) without dissolving the unique application the title has to the person of Jesus Christ, so also is the church joined to the name of Israel without taking away its special connection with the Jewish nation, Israel according to the flesh- the Messiah's own flesh whom He yearns for with uncreated affection. The first person to ever wail at the wailing wall was our Lord, as He wept at the fate He knew was to befall His own people. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, He was in tears. These tears will not flow forever, for when Jesus wept on another occasion- an occasion very shortly prior to His riding into Jerusalem- He acted by telling the Jew for whom He shed tears to "come out" from His Tomb. There were those present who figured that Lazarus had been dead too long. But Jesus' words were fulfilled all the same. 

Perhaps the most precise expression of the church's identity in relation to Israel is in Ephesians 2:12. The church is the "citizenship" or "commonwealth" of Israel. We are enrolled in the citizenship of Zion to carry Zion to the far end of creation. But that river which Zionizes the creation must circle back to Zion proper to enrich it with the splendor of all nations- see Isaiah 65-66. The nations will "flow" to Jerusalem just as Jerusalem in the person of Jesus and the Apostles flowed to the nations.

[ambitionsource]

Any Asher Lucas head canons I really love their friendship?

hello anon i am back as promised with the second half of answers to the lucasher asks i got a handful of weeks ago!! seeing as its the tail end of asher’s appreciation day, i am here to deliver on discussing their friendship

so to start, i would say that marking dylan as an outlier and not to be counted (especially on asher’s end), both of them would without a doubt call the other their best friend. asher flexes a bit on this, as jade is also arguably his bestie, but for lucas there’s absolutely no contest. asher is his best friend -- he even said so in 209, which took a lot of emotional vulnerability for him to manage to verbalize -- and that title really means something to him.

to that point, though, i think it took the events of s2 for that to really cement. as we know, lucas has issues with connecting with + trusting others, and so he kind of keeps people at arm’s length. i think asher has always been a bit of an exception to this rule (which i’ll explain in a bit), but lucas was mentally able to still keep him removed emotionally in his mind bc he was like... you know, his inferior in rank / his lieutenant rather than an equal. i don’t mean that he like thought of asher as inferior, because he doesn’t -- lucas hates himself so he thinks everyone is better than him anyway lmao, but he’s also had a lot of respect for asher -- but there was able to be this... mental barrier in his head, if that makes sense. but when asher finally stood up to him, multiple times (in 207 with their argument and then in 208 when he Truly put his foot down and basically walked out of his life), that put them on equal footing on all levels and broke that barrier in his brain. and, thusly, is part of the reason lucas was suddenly able to articulate it in the following ep

but, on that note, one thing that i think makes them such good friends is that they’re both very like... not mushy. at least, not with each other. they both don’t mind side-stepping more complicated emotions and just assuming things are unspoken but understood, but are getting better at knowing the moments where something should be said

but they’re like equally weird about the same stuff, like they both don’t like birthdays + being paid attention to on their bday bc they don’t know how to process it (sans the exception of dylan, who of course asher will allow to be extra on his birthday), so they will straight up just like not tell each other happy birthday on their bdays and people are like doesn’t that upset you?? did he forget?? and they’re like no actually lucas / asher is my favorite person bc he ignores my birthday fDSJLFKGSJKGLJSGL like... they’re so fucking weird

asher is constantly trying to improve lucas’s fashion sense + design sensibility and it does not work. like nothing sticks. asher will spend an hour casually (but actually very intently) telling lucas about the nuances in color between shades and then later when he asks him a question about which shade of red they should use in the set design lucas goes “idk they look the same to me just pick one” and asher is like. bitch ur jokin... it’s lowkey funny that he keeps trying tho like lmao

so in terms of asher being slightly different than others even early on, the way this most manifests is that i think for whatever reason, asher feels safe to lucas. its an inexplicable thing, and something i dont think lucas even really realizes consciously. but he starts their friendship being like oh i’m gonna protect asher the strong must protect the sweet this lame nerd needs me, but then what it actually ends up being is more that lucas needed asher. like yes he gets asher to loosen up and let out more of his authentic self, but asher gave lucas a friendship to anchor to, someone who seemed to genuinely like him not because he was reckless or cool but just because of who he is. and even when he fucked up, asher still seemed to believe he could be better / saw him as more than that, and lucas had never had anyone in his life before like that, let alone someone where it felt that way (i.e. dylan also sees lucas that way especially now, but something about asher just made it so pointedly clear)

and how this ends up changing things is that lucas finds that like... he wants to talk to asher. he wants to be real with him, not put up the defensive, aloof façade. so you have lucas going to convince him to sneak out freshman and sophomore year so they could hang out just the two of them (a thing featured briefly in the “younger” sequence in 208), and those were the moments where he got in those conversations. and asher liked those nights too because they made him feel special, like all the people lucas could choose to hang out with and he chose him to bother and coax out into the night... for a kid like asher, younger than everyone else and an anxious mess and nerdy and he knows it, that’s like. the craziest thing ever. so those one-on-one hangouts meant a lot to both of them, though for different reasons

what’s nice too is that their friendship definitely matured and grew with them the longer it lasted, because there was an element of hero worship on asher’s end and almost belittling underestimation on lucas’s end when their dynamic started, but then it grew organically past that. and when they actually got to know one another, for all their complexities, it made them better friends. and now those misconceptions are long gone, but they still hold a lot of respect for one another.

also to this point, i do not remember if i’ve said this yet on the blog or not but so major point here -- asher was actually lucas’s first (and only, pre-riley) crush. being demisexual, he has to form a deep emotional connection with someone before he really falls for them (riley being semi the exception to this because even though he didn’t really fall for her until they became friends from the get-go he was like okay so she pretty....... whatever tho idc like uh huh sure lucas). and like late in freshman year, maybe even early that summer, lucas and asher had become pretty good friends and were spending a lot of nights hanging out together and talking, and one of those nights they were talking about something semi-serious, and lucas was just looking at him and just realized like wow hm i could kiss asher... and then he was like WAIT HUH?!?!?!?!?!?! cause he’d NEVER had thoughts like that before and suddenly he was having them about his best friend, and that best friend was dating his other good friend and it just FREAKED him out he was like HELLO BAD WEIRD WRONG??? so he stifled that deep down and lowkey ignored asher for like two weeks until it passed -- which of course made asher worried he did something wrong or pissed him off, but thankfully that passed without much commentary or further discussion. lucas has mostly forgotten about it now.

that being said, if you ever told asher he was lucas’s first crush, he would never ever believe you.

they really enjoy discussing / debating each other, especially since lucas is truly equally as clever as asher, but it’s a really careful line because one wrong comment from either of them can send them tipping into actual argument bc they’re also very good at pushing each other’s buttons. this is why dylan’s presence is extremely helpful at keeping them balanced.

and this is kind of a key trait to their best friendship, which is that they make awesome best friends, but my god they would make TERRIBLE romantic partners. they cannot communicate when it really matters (especially about stuff that makes them embarrassed like romance, which they can barely do with their actual partners); they push each other’s buttons; they love each other’s flaws as friends but would drive each other crazy as lovers. like the people they’re with for love are exactly the people they need, understanding, soft, patient, and good at communicating. if lucas and asher dated, they would kill each other within the first week.

one of the first times dylan, asher, and lucas really hung out as a trio involved “wilding” asher, which meant dressing him like lucas and getting him to be more reckless and freewheeling for an afternoon. they didn’t do anything crazy, but lucas let asher borrow one of his t-shirts and snapbacks for the occasion. asher still has both buried in his closet, mainly because he keeps forgetting about it but also because there’s a sentimentality to them. not that he would ever ever wear them again -- yuck. asher would rather vomit

it should not be understated that the first people lucas verbally said i love you to were asher and dylan. it’s important. don’t ever forget it.

-- Maggie

[multimetaverse]

Andi Mack 3x11 Review

One in a Minyan was a truly historic episode and one of the best, if not the best, episode of the series so far. Let’s dig in!

Positives: 

Cyrus saying the word gay was such an important moment; the kind of moment that will long outlive the show itself. There’s a power in naming things and Cyrus not being allowed to use the word gay was a black mark on the show that has now been scrubbed clean. I never thought we’d see this day until Josh hinted at it last week; we’ve come so far from the days when the Mack chat kids were visibly straining to avoid saying the word gay after Cyrus came out to Buffy in 2x01. I commend Terri for getting this approved which I’m sure wasn’t easy. It will really help a lot of kids and adults to see an openly gay boy on a Disney show say that he’s gay and will hopefully open the door for more moments like this on other shows and networks

And such growth for Cyrus; he was so sad and scared when he came out to Buffy and now look at him

Stellar acting and writing all around. Josh delivered a show stopping performance and Asher did great as well. Jonathan Hurwitz should be commended for such a great script; there were some really sharp lines

Loved the dark humour in this ep. Cyrus saying they just buried Bubbe so she’s probably not coming, to the old ladies wagering on who would die next, and Cyrus telling Jonah that if he died they were set up for Shiva

And some very heart warming lines as well. It’s always nice when Andi can be involved in Cyrus’ sexuality story line as it makes it more powerful when lines on Andi Mack are being delivered by Andi Mack herself. Her telling Cyrus that it was his choice when to come out or to whom but he didn’t need to be afraid as people love and care about him was very moving.

I liked the poignancy of Cyrus regretting not telling his Bubbe. He’ll never get to tell her but he still has a life to lead and people he can tell

Andi hugging Cece and telling her that she still has her Bubbe was lovely, we don’t get to see too many moments like that between them. Loved Celia still not liking being called a grandma in any language

Jonah’s chill reaction to Cyrus coming out to him is very in character. They’ve done a wonderful job of building a deep friendship between Cyrus and Jonah that they weren’t allowed to focus on while Cyrus still had a crush on Jonah

TJ’s scene was brief but very nice, it was a sweet gesture for TJ to bring challah. Having Andi ask if that was TJ was a sly way for the show to direct more attention to his presence there. It wouldn’t shock me if we see a callback to the ‘’You came/Of course I did’’ moment towards the end of the season. I liked the subtle touch of Cyrus smoothing his shirt as he stood up to greet TJ. And interesting call back to have the same music for their scene and there was for Cyrus’ first kiss with Iris though only the most dedicated of fans will know that

It’s subtextual but I’d hope the casual audience would clue in to TJ arriving right after they discuss Cyrus’ former crush on Jonah and right before Cyrus and Andi tease Buffy about Marty not to mention the very fact that he even showed up in this Cyrus focused episode and realize that he’s Cyrus’ love interest

This marks the 3rd ep in a row where a love interest has shown up briefly at the very end of the ep: Walker, Marty, and TJ. 

As an aside it’s noteworthy that they’re flying in recurring characters for such small scenes when they didn’t really do that for S2; a sign of the shows increased budget and a side-effect of Bowie being a main and needing more screen time

I think this ep was probably the most successful at balancing the Macks and the other characters so far this season. The Cloud 10 scene was out of place but otherwise they all fit in very nicely. Bowie’s dramatic exit was funny and I think this may have been one of the eps with the least amount of Bex screen time which worked in its favour 

Celia was used perfectly, I loved the cold open with her and Andi. It really showed how much Andi and Celia have in common; they can both be brusque and can have a harshness to them that Bex and Bowie lack. 

I liked the callback to the pilot with Andi making a lamp out of Bex’s old cd’s. We know that Andi explores her art later on in the season and I wonder if we’ll see her centrepieces at the wedding

It was great seeing the focus on Jewish culture; all the small details were interesting to see and look up later. And I liked that they got the same Rabbi they used for 2x13 back, a nice little bit of continuity

I’m glad that Andi and Cyrus aren’t even pretending that Buffy isn’t interested in Marty romantically to some extent, it’s going to make the dramatic journey from here to Machel sinking in 3x17 that much easier

It was nice seeing Cyrus’ parents even if briefly. They didn’t bother bringing back the step parents which isn’t super surprising; it was great to have Cyrus come from a complex family but having 4 parents makes it way too hard for the show to give them any focus

I’m assuming Bubbe Rose was Norman’s mother since Leslie referred to her as Rose rather than as her mother

Aunt Ruthie being so hetero-normative was realistic and I’m glad they had Andi have that encounter with her rather than Cyrus

I’m glad they went with One in a Minyan as the title especially as it doubles as a touching tribute to Terri’s father it being the inscription engraved on his headstone

Looking Ahead:

I’m going to skip the negatives section for this ep; we all know the restrictions imposed on Cyrus’ story line and there will be plenty of time in the coming months to dig into the price the show paid for what got approved this episode. It’s a shame Cyrus won’t come out to his parents though it wouldn’t shock me if we get a brief mention of it in the show or in the texts towards the end of the season

We already knew from Josh showing that title page for 3x12 that they filmed on the day they also filmed at the amusement park which was in the middle of filming ep 13 but it looks like all the park scenes are for 3x12. I trust Luke’s imdb which has been very accurate so far so I’m inclined to think that him and Raquel were just at the park to hang out once the other kids were done filming

Finally the wish gets revealed; I wonder how much of the audience still remembers it by this point

If Buffy assumes that Jamber is back together then that likely means Jibby is already sunk; we’ll see what the texts mention these next couple of weeks

I don’t think Jamber is back together though I do hope we at some point get Amber apologizing for her mistreatment of Jonah 

The promo certainly makes it look like Andi knows for a specific reason that Jamber aren’t back together and if the wish is Jonah’s and it is about Beck family issues then I could see his closeness with Amber being because they are supporting each other with their family problems

Not happy to see Miranda or Morgan back. I wonder if she causes trouble by trying to plant the seeds of doubt that one of either Bex or Bowie really wants another kid or if she mentions being married and getting divorced

Peyton’s dad guest stars next ep though he had been listed for 3x13. Bex does look like she could possibly be getting cold feet and if the wedding will go awry before being brought back on track it has to happen soon

I think the set up of this ep is close to what we’ll see in the finale; lot’s of small moments with lots of characters mostly taking place in or around the Mack house

It will be very interesting to see if they let Cyrus or TJ use the word gay again or if this was a one time deal. If TJ could tell people he was gay in 3x19 it would make it much easier to get to the Tyrus confession scene in 3x21; presumably Cyrus and I’d hope his friends, would have to have some reason to believe that TJ could reciprocate his feelings 

I’ve never subscribed to the Jonah will figure out Tyrus’ feelings and play matchmaker theory because it’s wildly out of character, his obliviousness has been his most consistent trait. But I do find it noteworthy that they’ve spent all this time building up the friendship between Cyrus and Jonah and also dedicated an ep to having Jonah and TJ become friends. It would be very subversive to have Cyrus go to Jonah for romantic advice; it’s not often we see a straight guy giving his gay best friend advice on guys and it does make some sense with Jonah having had the most relationships of any of the characters. The safest and easiest route is just have Cyrus talk to Buffy about his feelings in 3x19 and there would be nothing wrong with that especially as Terri wouldn’t have had much leverage left when negotiating the final eps with Disney but it does seem like the kind of progressive move she would go for if allowed

It will be interesting if anyone else other than TJ finds out that Cyrus is gay. If Marty and Amber and Kira can never find out then that limits what can be done in the finale

And one last interesting thing is that unlike the Tyrus bash mitzvah scene their scene tonight didn’t get cut and partly that is because it involved other characters in a way that makes it much more difficult to cut or edit. I’m sure the Tyrus confession scene will be just the two of them but I do think there will be some linkage before or after to other characters to make it harder to cut should Disney have gotten cold feet (which I don’t think they will at this point)

Only 10 eps left! There’s really no other show like Andi Mack out there. It’s going to be a wild ride these finals eps

[iimmcrtalis]

CHARACTER INTRO — ASHER O’HARA

tws. death.  template ( XX )

——————

    “What’s the fuckin’ year now?”

     “2019.”

    “Fuck me runnin’,” he curses through teeth holding a cigarette. He could feel people looking at him, disgusted. ‘Those will kill you, you know.��� Jokes on them, he’s already dead. And, if his math’s right, and by now it’s either right or he just didn’t give a fuck, he’d been dead for 101 years.

Hundred one fucking years.

Not the longest time, by any means. But a long time to be stuck in Vermont, by yourself. Long time to be alone, wandering in and out of view. To be real but not real to most. It was a long time to contemplate why he died.

      “What’s wrong?”

      “Just rememberin’ something.”

    Remembering how the campus used to look. So much has changed. Built, destroyed, rebuilt. Abandoned. Torn down. He wonders what the date is sometimes, tries to remember his birthday some days. Not really a point to it, after you’re dead though. (Less, he guesses, that’s the day you died. Which yikes, sucks for those people.)  But, it also wasn’t as important as his birthday, so it got lost usually.

    Hundred one god forsaken years without him.

   See, when he was alive, he had a boyfriend. Tall, athletic type. Good jawline. Big muscles. Nice, dark hair. Bright Eyes. Beautiful smile, even more beautiful laugh. One girls drooled over. One he drooled over. 

   They’d known each other for so long. Irish Catholics in New York back then stuck together. For a long time, they felt wrong, out of place. The small touches in the pews. The way the wrestling sparked something in his chest. The way they looked at each other without realizing they would be hated for it one day.

   Said boyfriend, Patrick ( Patty, typical he knew, ) wasn’t great at sports. Wasn’t going to the Olympics or anything. He was good at school, kept the good grades. Just didn’t want to go to college then. Instead, he helped pay for Asher’s schooling, got them a nice little house not too far from campus. It was their home. Eventually, though, he decided maybe a career would be better. So he signed up for the military;

   “It’s just two years, and then I’m out. We can get a better house-”     “What’s wrong with this house?”     “Nothing! But- Wouldn’t.. Don’t you want more? I’ll join up, they’ll pay for my schoolin’ and then.. We- We can live better.” 

   Except a tiny little detail; War. War because some bastards in Europe thought they should murder some dumbass Duke or whatever. And then it turned into a dick comparison and a nightmare. Well, dear ol’ Patty got dragged into it when America did. Now, they definitely spent hours crying. He didn’t want to go. They were scared. But he had to. Promised a life afterwards, they’d move to Vermont, proper. Somewhere in the woods, or maybe, forget Vermont and the east coast all together, go to the west coast. They spouted dreams, promises of a home together where they would wake up in each others arms.

"You promise me right now Patrick Mac Neil, that you'll come home, with a fancy ring just for me."

"Oh so you want to be my husband? Is that it? You proposing here and now, Donovan O’Hara?”

A smile. A soft press together, fingers intertwined. Foreheads pressed together, eyes only able to look at his. “One day, Patty, even if it is a hundred years from now or maybe more. However long it takes, we’ll live for that day, won’t we?”

    Donovan then, now Asher, died in 1918, two months before the war ended. Not murdered, he thinks. No, just some stupid dare that got him killed. He doesn’t really like remembering the details. It wasn’t a fun experience, even drunk and high as he was. 

   No one knew for awhile. Not even him. No one remembered daring him. No one remembered seeing him after a party that night. No one. 

   Patty came back when the war ended. Came to find him. Never did though. Even when he was right there, screaming in his face. Even when the windows cracked from him trying to make him feel his presence. Even when he held his hand, and felt like the world was shattering. He watched him in the backgrounds, watched him in the corner of the room. Sat with him on the couch of his apartment, held him when he wept. Heard him begging on his knees, heard him praying to any god that would listen. A hand on his shoulder, and the repeated phrase                 I’m right here. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.

   Didn’t mean that Patrick had to stay. That he wouldn’t go anywhere. Of course, it wasn’t his choice, not really. After a month or two, his and Donovan’s mothers, came to get him. His mother, his own mother, stared at him for a moment once. Smiled towards him for a moment. But it was a picture of him, behind him. Him with his siblings. With Patrick.

   A hand on Patrick’s as he left, like they had before he left for the war. The longing look back towards him, but now towards their home he was leaving behind. If he knew he’d never see him again before the war, he would have begged him to not go. If he knew he’d never see him again from that day forth, he would have found a way to say his goodbyes.

    How to say I love you, one last time.

   Instead he watched him drive away with all their things. With all the pictures and trinkets. The tickets from their first date. The book of his pressed flowers that Patty had given him. The letters from the war. All of who he had been.

Now, he’s standing in the campus courtyard of a school he went to over a hundred years ago, taking a long drag of a cigarette he can’t taste. Staring at the sky as the smoke leaves him. 

 “Don’t go fuckin’ swimmin’ in the river less you got someone with you, kid,” he warns, looking down towards the girl next to him. She rolled her eyes. She was from here, so she knew better.

He’d count his blessings that she wasn’t stupid like he is — was.

[residentanchor]

The Seeds We Sow ch. 3

<<Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Summary:  Roman and Logan sit and have a little discussion with one another. Fun Fact: I ended up pushing the scene that WIP ask said until the next chapter. Oh well.

Word count: 2812

Logan knew he had said the wrong thing when Roman continued his tour if that was even the correct word to describe it anymore. He pointed out the things Logan had asked about but answered no questions and sped through it, almost as if it were a chore for him. Keeping his lips tight, the visiting prince stayed silent for the remainder of the tour as to not upset the other further. Roman would occasionally shoot a quick glance over his shoulder and Logan wouldn't acknowledge it. It wasn't very polite, but the two seemed to be too stubborn to give into the other. Logan could almost hear his father complaining about his lack of effort and manners.

At the end of it, Roman summoned a servant to take Logan to his quarters and left him without a word. Luckily, this random servant had known which room his belongings had been moved to and happily lead the way, giving a small apology for their prince's stiff behavior. He shrugged it off, not too concerned about Roman at the moment. Logan was glad to have been left alone for the first time since his travels started. "A week," Logan muttered to himself. "I am here a week and then I go home."

The dinner that night was rather informal all things considered. Roman looked over at Logan as the king asked about the tour Roman had given.

"It went well. I was feeling rather tired from my travels and Roman was kind enough to speed through it a bit for me." He glanced over at the other prince who simply looked shocked before turning away. "Perhaps I may get a proper one at a later time?"

"I'm sure you two will have your fill after the meeting tomorrow, but I can have your servant show you around tomorrow if you'd like." King Asher raised his goblet and took a sip.

"My servant?" Logan asked. "I'm afraid I traveled a bit light, only my personal guard came with me."

"Yes, well, that can be easily rectified. I can ask for one to be assigned to you this week." He turned towards his son. "Roman, could your personal servant choose a suitable member of the staff to help out?"

"Oh, of course." Roman raised a hand and a man quickly ran over. "Do you have anyone in mind?"

"Yes, sir. One or two people come to mind, I will see to it that someone is at Prince Logan's chambers shortly after supper."

"Good. Thank you, Reginald." The man smirked and playfully rolled his eyes before stepping back to the side before quietly excusing himself. After he left, Roman smirked. "His name isn't actually Reginald, I just think it's better than Scott. Rather boring if you ask me." He waved off the comment and turned back to the table. "He's been my servant for years, he really doesn't mind it."

Logan smirked a bit and looked back down. "You certainly are an interesting one, Roman."

"And what do you mean by that?" Logan chose to ignore the other, turning his attention back to his food as he continued to eat. Roman watched for a moment before smirking at the other, noticing the look of amusement he father gave.

Sure enough, when Logan returned to his room a servant stood beside the door and greeted him appropriately. He bowed his head as he spoke. "Your majesty, it is an honor to serve you while you visit. Please do not hesitate to ask anything of me. It would be my pleasure."

Logan hummed in response as he stared the man down before smiling. "Of course. I'm fine for this evening, but do return in the morning."

--- Morning arrived slowly for Logan who spent most of his night tossing and turning in the unfamiliar bed until he grew too exhausted to stay awake. He was used to sleepless nights but usually due to work or a book he could not put down. Once the servant from the evening before entered with a tray of food for breakfast, he immediately asked to show where the library was once more. Perhaps a book would help him unwind enough for him to sleep peacefully tonight.

He was led back through the halls at a bit of a slower pace as he was given a bit more detailed tour Roman had glossed over the day before. Thinking about the upcoming meeting with the other prince almost brought a pounding ache to Logan's head just at the mere thought.

He was eventually brought to the library and left to browse on his own with the promise that he will be summoned once the meeting in the late morning was to begin. Logan had quickly, and perhaps a bit rudely, waved the servant off with his nose already in a book before he finished talking. He picked up and replaced a few books before settling on a few and taking a seat in the library. Logan was surprised at how quiet it was, even for a library. Despite it being early in the morning, his library usually had a few people bustling around to and fro. This one was well maintained and dust free which led him to believe it usually remained unused until later in the day. Logan heard scuffling about and ignored it for the most part as he tried to read as much as he could before he was whisked away. He had heard talking as it grew louder and suddenly a loud gasp was enough to draw his attention.

A man and a woman rounded a corner of one of the bookshelves and had been caught by surprise. The man stretched an arm out protectively, watching Logan curiously. By their attire, they probably worked at the castle and hadn't expected anyone inside the library so early.

"I'm terribly sorry if my presence startled you. As long as you do not disturb me, I will return the favor in kind." Logan returned to his book as he spoke, waving off the whole ordeal.

"O-of course, your majesty." The man mumbled, causing the woman to gasp. She probably hadn't been there upon his arrival and hadn't recognized him. "W-we will be on our way. Come, Morgan."

"One moment." The man had frozen and turned back, bowing his head. The woman looked at him and quickly jumped to match his movements. "I was curious as to when the one who takes care of the library usually arrives."

The man peeked up and nodded his head. "They don't arrive until late morning. Usually, the library remains empty until around then." He cleared his throat and Logan could make out the signs of a smirk the man tried hiding. "Prince Roman isn't very fond of early mornings, you see. Some parts of the castle operate at slightly later times to adjust."

Logan smiled and turned back towards the table. "Very well, thank you for your input. You may go." Footsteps quickly scurried away. Logan stole a quick glance as they turned around a bookshelf and out of view before turning back to his reading.

After a bit, Logan returned the books back on the shelves and stretched a bit, having been hunched over in a chair for a bit too long, not used to one not as comfortable as his own. He took a book with him and retraced his steps back to his room as he remembered the way in as much detail as possible earlier. Just as he reached his door, someone had walked up and informed him that the prince was ready and waiting for him.

The room was a fairly small one and a guard in the same attire Logan saw yesterday from the group that was sparring stood at the door. He nodded and stepped aside for him to enter. Logan assumed such attire meant that this particular knight was part of the royal guard. Entering, he spotted Roman at the table, leaned over and staring down at a few parchments spread across the table. The noise brought his attention up and he smiled at Logan as he entered. "There you are. Come, the sooner we start the sooner we can get this over with."

The door clicked closed and Logan smirked, making his way over to the table. "I am here a week, there is no need to try and get rid of me so quickly is there?"

"I suppose you are right." Roman turned and walked around the table before sitting in a chair. "Still, we have much to talk about and I have a feeling a week will not be quite enough."

Logan took the seat opposite from Roman and glanced at the notes Roman had come with. "It is not for us to get anything accomplished more than to get familiar with one another for those meetings in the future. Or to simply put it, we should try and get along since we will hopefully be allies for as long as possible."

Roman threw his head back and let out a quick laugh. "I suppose you are right. Well then, I hope the servant assigned to you hasn't caused any trouble then?" Roman turned and Logan finally noticed 'Reginald' standing to the side with a tray of food and drink next to him. "You gave him our best, Reg?"

"Well, our best is currently running around and training a new member of the staff so I gave him the second best. I do apologize for my utter failure, your majesty." Despite his words, his tone was bright and the smile on his face showed nothing but good will.

Roman sighed dramatically and slouched over. "Reggie, you're such a disappointment. Come, fill my glass so I may learn to forgive you."

Logan watched in amusement at the two joking along with one another, curious as to just how long Reginald had served at Roman's side. "You said they were training a new member of the staff," Logan spoke up, grabbing the attention of the others. "Do you have them do that often?"

"Well, he's a bit of a special case," Reginald spoke up, pouring a glass for Roman. "He's worked in pretty much every part of the castle and knows how to do pretty much anything. When we get new staff, they usually spend a day or so with him and the rest of the time with the head of whatever they will be doing."

"Really?" Reginald brought the glass over and placed it in front of Roman. "Has he been working here that long?"

"Since he was a child, my lord. I'm sure you've seen him around. He's a bit quiet though unless you manage to get him talking."

"I wonder though," Logan asked, thinking back to earlier that morning. "A bit longer, darker hair, roughly my height? A bit scrawny perhaps?"

"Never seen him." Roman reached for his glass and took a swig.

"That sounds like Virgil. I take it you have met him already?"

Logan nodded. "Yes, just this morning while I was in the library. He didn't expect to see me, it seems he's easily startled. The woman he had with him was the one he had been training then, I take it?"

He receives a nod as his answer. "Yes, though I do not remember her name. There's an old servant's entrance that way he likes to use since the library usually remains empty until about this time."

"There is?" Roman turned to his servant. "How are there all these things about my castle I don't know about?"

Reginald shrugged and smiled, stepping back to the side and almost out of sight. Logan sighed softly to himself and shifted in his chair. "Now that we have gotten that out of the way, we should probably continue with the reason we are actually here?"

"Right, right." Roman shifted through his papers before glancing up at Logan. "Are you sure you came prepared?"

Logan folded his hands in front of him with his usual stoic expression. "Anything I will need to know for this meeting I have memorized."

"Lucky you." Roman glared down at the parchment in front of him. "I've been preparing for this for days and I still feel useless without them."

"May I suggest something?" Roman looked up as Logan waved to the parchment spread out across the table. "Simply ask me questions and see how much you really need them. We are having a more informal discussion today anyway, there is no need to worry. Our kingdoms are at peace, the more relaxed we are the easier this will be."

Roman scrunched his nose up in thought before gathering the papers and pushing them to the side. "Fine. We both know the basics of each other's kingdoms anyway, I guess this is more about what we plan on changing when we take over, right?" Roman sat up tall and proud, completely different from the unsure Roman he had seen before. Certainly, Logan could see why the man in front of him was royalty, which caused him to smile at the change. "So there are a few ideas I have that my father is blind to."

"I do as well, however, I'm sure I know what you are going to ask without my say so."

Roman almost glared back at the other prince. He seemed to have had an entire speech planned on the tip of his tongue and Logan practically threw it away. "Oh, do you now? Can you read my thoughts?"

"No, nor am I clairvoyant, I simply know what you will eventually try to avoid before outright asking."

Roman's expression did not change for a moment as he watched Logan carefully. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed and his nose scrunched up in a look of anger. "Are you saying you're smarter than me?"

"That is not what I said. However, if that is the way you interpreted it then there is nothing I can do to change that."

"Well, maybe saying that you aren't smarter than me?"

"That would simply make me a liar."

Roman stood, his chair scraping against the stone floor loudly. Reginald raced forward and grabbed it as it tipped over, placing it back on its legs. Roman slammed his hands down on the table and leaned forward. "Let me guess, you think you can run your kingdom better than I can run mine?"

"Certainly, seeing as mine already does." Roman's face grew redder with his rage as Logan watched him bite his tongue. "We simply have advanced in ways you choose to ignore."

Roman seemed to understand what Logan was referring to. "Magic is a poison on this world, Logan. It isn't some fix all thing that you think it is!"

"Of course not, but it is flexible and can do a lot. Choosing to ignore a powerful tool given to you is--"

"IT IS NOT A TOOL!" Roman slammed his hands back down on the table. "It is a weapon and that's all it ever will be!"

Logan stood up and made sure his chair did not fall over in the process. "It is a weapon because that's all you will allow it to be. If you just gave them the chance-"

"We DID, mister know it all! All that accomplished was my mother dying for nothing!"

Logan leaned back from the table, his anger simmering a bit. "Is that how you see it, Prince Roman? Your life that she gave everything to create is meaningless?" Roman finally pushed back a bit off the table, still angry but not willing to speak. "Magic helped create your life. Yes, it was a tragedy what had happened, but a weapon cannot do that. A weapon can only destroy."

"So one time, something remotely good happened," Roman grumbled to himself.

"It saved my life as well." Roman looked shocked at the news as his eyes met Logan's. "I had asked if you heard about my recovery as a child. Did your father never tell you that a mage's son snuck into the castle and cured me? The same boy who had lost his father to the rules mine had created had risked everything for me. He chose not to hate when hate was the easiest option to choose." He watched Roman silently as the awkwardness in the air became almost unbearable. "Hatred is always the easiest option." He whispered, almost begging Roman to listen.

Roman watched silently a bit longer before turning and retreating out of the room. "This discussion is over." Chapter 4>>

[amoralto]

Quotes for curious contemplation: John’s jealousy and possessiveness manifested in terms of family. (a compilation in progress)

Consider this a(nother) supplementary post to this ask, where I touched upon John’s absolutist outlook on relationships. Instances are specific to family, as I’ve noted in the title. More will be added as and when it occurs to me. (Other quotes for curious contemplation: John on distinguishing between best friends and partners, creative and romantic, male and female.)

If you’re wondering who else may have contributed to John’s perspective of love as a zero-sum game, here’s Aunt Mimi accusing John of, amongst other things, betraying her love by being generous to his estranged father and spending time with him:

I’ve been hurt. Cut to the quick. What do you think I felt like, when I’ve been with those Beatle parents, and have heard what they’ve done, for them? I was foolish enough to think, as I had you, and waited for you to be born, that I was father and mother to you. But my goodness, John, you didn’t want me. [laughs; bleak] You didn’t want anything to do with me. And a lifetime’s work was just thrown on one side as nothing.

And you say The Beatles were dumb. They may have been… but in many respects, they could’ve taught you a thing or two. The first thing they did was to make their parents secure. Forever. Knowing very well that they would always get it back. But oh no, you, right, left, center – anyone could have in. And then I had to ask you, this year, to help me out – a terrible thing for me, I’m telling you, it nearly killed me. I’d had the same money from 1962, and anybody with a little thought would have known that what I had was melting away, during that eleven years.

And it seems as though you hated the sight of me. You couldn’t bear the sight of me, and you never missed an opportunity to cut me down dead – in front of other people as well, which was even worse. But it didn’t do you any good, for people noticed. But you were very kind to Alfred Lennon, taking him round the West End and having him in your home. I don’t suppose it ever once crossed your mind that that would hurt me. Especially when you couldn’t stand the sight of me.

— Mimi Smith, recorded letter to John Lennon. (Early 1970s)

And because possessiveness and a sense of entitlement can linger long after the love has been lost or at least temporarily misplaced (see also John writing a song, well into househusband years no less, about the blustery American cowboy he suspected Cynthia was having an affair with in India), here’s John expressing his relief that he still effectively is the most looming presence in his father’s life and doesn’t have anyone else to compete with (while still being mindful of Mimi’s distaste for Alfred): 

Dear Alf Fred Dad Pater whatever,

It’s the first of your letters I’ve read without feeling strange – so here I am answering it – ok? As you know I’m pretty tied up at the moment, there’s a hell of lot to do – if I get time I’ll give Uncle? Charles a ring – but anyway I’ll get in touch with you before a month has passed – after that I’m going to India a couple of months so I’ll try and make sure we meet before then. I know it will be a bit awkward when we first meet and maybe for a few meetings but there’s hope for us yet. I’m glad you didn’t land yourself with a bloody big family – its put me off seeing you a little more – I’ve enough family to last me a few lifetimes – write if you feel like.

Love

John

PS Don’t spread it, I don’t want Mimi cracking up! (press I mean)

— John Lennon, letter to Alfred Lennon. (September 1st, 1967)

Where Paul is concerned, one can imagine John accompanying Paul to any number of Paul’s crowded and happy extended family gatherings and wishing, guilelessly, after that happiness and security for himself—

JOHN: I’m just turning out like all other parents, you see.

MATTHEW: [laughs] Obviously.

JOHN: But I must – I try and think about it, when [Julian]’s not there, I try to be rational. I’m trying to do it all right, but I’m sure it’ll all just turn out the same. And – I’m gonna try not to – you know. At least I’m thinking about it, now.

MATTHEW: But with that much experience behind you, now, would you like to have more children?

JOHN: Yeah, I – as many as come, you know. If Lennon roll out, as they. I like large families. The idea of it. 

— John Lennon, interview w/ Brian Matthew for Pop Profile. (November 13th, 1965)

—while also feeling resentful of and threatened by the importance of family and their emotional attachment to Paul. Consider the unpublished Record Mirror questionnaires everyone but John filled out circa early summer 1963, where John asserts himself in Paul’s answers (and past, and future):

McCartney’s response to the question regarding the biggest musical influence on his own career is initially completed in Lennon's hand in blue ink: John and why?: He's Great; McCartney scored out Lennon's confident answers replacing John's name with: Dad, adding: (he [Lennon] put that himself); as to a question about his future career if music was out, again McCartney crosses out Lennon's hand-written response: John and replaces it with: Tramp...

— Christie’s: Pop Memorabilia including the Collection of Alexis Mardas. (May 5th, 2004)

Not to mention John outright framing himself in competition with Paul’s father (and family) for Paul’s time, affection, and loyalty (the mitigating circumstances of which I’ve unpacked in the past):

[Paul] liked it with daddy and the brother… and obviously missed his mother. And his dad was the whole thing. Just simple things: he wouldn’t go against his dad and wear drainpipe trousers. And his dad was always trying to get me out of the group behind me back, I found out later. He’d say to George: “Why don’t you get rid of John, he’s just a lot of trouble. Cut your hair nice and wear baggy trousers,” like I was the bad influence because I was the eldest, so I had all the gear first usually.

So Paul was always like that. And I was always saying, “Face up to your dad, tell him to fuck off. He can’t hit you. You can kill him [laughs], he’s an old man.” I used to say, “Don’t take that shit off him.” Because I was always brought up by a woman, so maybe it was different. But I wouldn’t let the old man treat me like that. He treated Paul like a child all the time, cut his hair and telling him what to wear, at seventeen, eighteen.

But Paul would always give in to his dad. His dad told him to get a job, he fucking dropped the group and started working on the fucking lorries, saying, “I need a steady career.” We couldn’t believe it. So I said to him—my Aunt Mimi reminded me of this the other night—he rang up and said he’d got this job and couldn’t come to the group. So I told him on the phone, “Either come or you’re out.” So he had to make a decision between me and his dad then, and in the end he chose me. But it was a long trip.

— John Lennon, interview w/ Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld. (September, 1971)

John, in the same interview, immediately follows with a contemplation of the importance of family for Paul, and Linda with her “ready-made family” giving him what Jane Asher (or for that matter, John himself) couldn’t:

JOHN: So it was always the family thing, you see. If Jane [Asher] was to have a career, then that’s not going to be a cozy family, is it? All the other girls were just groupies mainly. And with Linda not only did he have a ready-made family, but she knows what he wants, obviously, and has given it to him. The complete family life. He’s in Scotland. He told me he doesn’t like English cities anymore. So that’s how it is.

MCCABE: So you think with Linda he’s found what he wanted?

JOHN: I guess so. I guess so. I just don’t understand... I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted something intelligent or something arty, whatever it was. But you don’t really know what you want until you find it. So anyway, I was very surprised with Linda. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d married Jane Asher, because it had been going on for a long time and they went through a whole ordinary love scene. But with Linda it was just like, boom! She was in and that was the end of it.

— John Lennon, interview w/ Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld. (September, 1971)

And because I can’t stress enough that the possessiveness and jealousy and resentment and longing flows both ways, here’s John bitterly lamenting both Julian’s attachment to Paul and Paul’s natural affinity with Julian/children in general (in stark contrast to his own perception of his faculty as a father):

SCHOENBERGER: How is it for an 11-year-old boy to have John Lennon as a father?

JOHN: It must be hell.

SCHOENBERGER: Does he talk about that to you?

JOHN: No, because he is a Beatle fan. I mean, what do you expect? I think he likes Paul better than me… I have the funny feeling he wishes Paul was his Dad. But unfortunately he got me…

— John Lennon, interview w/ Francis Schoenberger. (Spring, 1975)

Julian himself would lend a measure of credence to John’s paranoia:

JULIAN: [Paul] used to be a lot of fun, I remember. I mean… well, he was good with kids. [laughs] I’m not saying that Dad wasn’t, or is, or whatever. But uh, as far as I can recall, whenever Paul came round, we used to wrestle and fight and run around. Which was not something we did every day with Dad. We used to go for long walks in fields, and stuff like that. He’d tell me things, or point at things and say, “Look at that,” and “Look at this.” So in a strange way, Paul… almost, in some ways and sense, took over the role of Dad. Which is strange to say. But I do recall a lot of that going on, you know. Whenever he was there, it was always fun.

— Julian Lennon, interview w/ Elliot Mintz. (1988)

Which must have struck an especially discordant chord with John, as he seemed determined with Sean’s birth to keep Paul from taking any more of what wasn’t his to claim:  

He became so jealous in the end. You know he wouldn’t let me even touch his baby. He got really crazy with jealousy at times.

— Paul McCartney, “off the record” conversation with Hunter Davies. (May 3rd, 1981)

Having Sean and having a new go at being a good father didn’t exactly stop John from being niggled by Paul’s family (not to mention Paul’s continuing industriousness and creative productivity, recording music and going on tour all while taking good care of his family, and all else), however:

SHEFF: You say you haven’t really listened to Paul’s work and haven’t really talked to him since that night in your apartment—

JOHN: Really talked to him, no, that’s the operative word. I haven’t really talked to him in ten years. Because I haven’t spent time with him. I’ve been doing other things and so has he. You know, he’s got twenty-five kids and about twenty million records out—how can he spend time talking? He’s always working.

— John Lennon, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

To round up, a non-family-specific but nonetheless pertinent discussion with John and Yoko about love, jealousy, possessiveness, allowance, and self-fulfilling prophecy:

INTERVIEWER: Do you think people’s idea of love has changed, or young people’s idea of love has changed?

JOHN: I don’t. I think whatever love is – and it’s many many things – is constant. It’s been the same forever. I don’t think it will ever change.

INTERVIEWER: But do you think – I’ll say it this way. Do you think young people are now ignoring love, disregarding love, saying it doesn’t exist?

JOHN: How can you? It’s – it’s a sort of abstract concept that comes and goes whether you like it or not. Whatever legislation or whatever philosophies people have put out about it, it exists – without words, without philosophy, and without discussion.

YOKO: Yes, but I know why children, the young kids, are trying to ignore love. That’s very natural. Because they don’t get it and they’re bitter about it, so they’d rather not want it. You know that feeling about – well, you know that you’re not going to get it, and if you try to get it it’s so much pain, so you’d rather sort of pretend like you don’t want it. And you start to believe in that, like oh, “I’m glad that I’m not the type who falls in love, and I’m so glad about it because that way I don’t have to get hurt.” That’s sort of unreal.

JOHN: And they’re probably reacting against – they’d be reacting against the conception of “righteous” love that’s handed down from above over the centuries.

YOKO: Yeah.

JOHN: That’s what they don’t want. But real love they’ll get… whether they want it or not. It’ll happen.

...

INTERVIEWER: Do you think that a new attitude towards love and relationships – would it be fair to say we’re getting away from the property concept of relationships?

JOHN: Of owning the other person? I think – yeah, we could be. But uh… That’s all very well intellectually, but when you actually are in love with somebody, you tend to be jealous and want to own them, possess them a hundred per cent. Which I do.

YOKO: Yes, it’s real life, all that. And I do it too.

JOHN: But intellectually, before that, I thought – right. I mean, owning a person is rubbish, but. I love Yoko, I want to possess her completely; I don’t want to stifle her, you know? [Yoko laughs] And that’s the danger, it’s that you want to possess them to death. But… that’s a personal problem of mine.

YOKO: But we’re doing alright now – just very nice, you know. In other words, I think—

JOHN: It’s after the beginning, when it cools down a bit – not cools down, whatever, it st– uh, whatever the word is, you know – that you can allow each other to breathe.

YOKO: Yes. When you relax a bit, you know.

JOHN: But at first you tend to strangle each other, I think.

YOKO: And [inaudible] we’re starting to relax—

JOHN: And because you have so little as a child, I think it is, you – when once you find it, you want to hang onto it, you grab it so much you tend to kill it.

— John Lennon and Yoko Ono, interview for Women’s Hour. (May 28th, 1971)

Cue You made me love you / I didn’t want to do it... (Insert footage from Magical Mystery Tour of the Beatles singing the song here.)

And - it’s a bit of a self-serving interpretation of the case referenced, admittedly, but it is bizarrely appropriate, and the sentiment of each man killing the thing he loves stands:

Well, there was this Japanese monk, and it happened in the last 20 years. He was in love with this big golden temple, y’know, he really dug it, like—and you know he was so in love with it, he burnt it down so that it would never deteriorate.

That’s what I did with the Beatles.

— John Lennon, interview w/ Alan Smith for NME: At home with the Lennons. (August 7th, 1971)

(Insert John’s dramatically ironic and appropriate love for Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca during the househusband years, chewy parallels between Manderlay and the Kinkakuji and Paul/the Beatles, deranged and convoluted essay comparing John and Paul/the Beatles with Mizoguchi and the Kinkakuji as depicted in Mishima Yukio’s The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, something something Rinzai something something El Topo here.)

[tpanan]

My Sunday Daily Blessings

December 27, 2020

Be still quiet your heart and mind, the  LORD is here, loving you talking to you...........                                                                                                                                                              

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph - Catholic Observance Lectionary: 17, Cycle B

First Reading: Sirach 3: 2-6, 12-14

God sets a father in honor over his children; a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons. Whoever honors his father atones for sins, and preserves himself from them. When he prays, he is heard; he stores up riches who reveres his mother. Whoever honors his father is gladdened by children, and, when he prays, is heard. Whoever reveres his father will live a long life; he who obeys his father brings comfort to his mother. My son, take care of your father when he is old; grieve him not as long as he lives.

Even if his mind fail, be considerate of him; revile him not all the days of his life; kindness to a father will not be forgotten, firmly planted against the debt of your sins—a house raised in justice to you.

OR

Genesis 15: 1-6; 21: 1-3

The word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying: “Fear not, Abram! I am your shield; I will make your reward very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what good will your gifts be, if I keep on being childless and have as my heir the steward of my house, Eliezer?” Abram continued, “See, you have given me no offspring, and so one of my servants will be my heir.” Then the word of the LORD came to him: “No, that one shall not be your heir; your own issue shall be your heir.” The Lord took Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.” Abram put his faith in the LORD, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.

The LORD took note of Sarah as he had said he would; he did for her as he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time that God had stated. Abraham gave the name Isaac to this son of his whom Sarah bore him.

Responsorial Psalm:  Psalm 128: 1-2, 3, 4-5

"Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in His ways."

OR

Psalm 105: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9

"The Lord remember His covenant forever."

Second Reading: Colossians 3: 12-21

Brothers and sisters: Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.

And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged.

OR

Colossians 3: 12-17

Brothers and sisters: Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another,  if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Verse before the Gospel: Colossians 3: 15a, 16a

R. Alleluia, Alleluia.

"Let the peace of Christ control your hearts; let the word of Christ dwell in you richly."

R. Alleluia, Alleluia.

**Gospel: Luke 2: 22-40

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, They took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord, and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, He took him into his arms and blessed God, saying: “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”

The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted—and you yourself a sword will pierce— so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years,  having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer. And coming forward at that very time, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem. When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

OR

Luke 2: 22, 39-40

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

*Meditation:  

Do you know the favor of the Lord? After Jesus' birth, Mary fulfills the Jewish right of purification after childbirth. Since she could not afford the customary offering of a lamb, she gives instead two pigeons as an offering of the poor. This rite, along with circumcision and the redemption of the first-born point to the fact that children are gifts from God. Jesus was born in an ordinary home where there were no luxuries. Like all godly parents, Mary and Joseph raised their son in the fear and wisdom of God. He, in turn, was obedient to them and grew in wisdom and grace. The Lord's favor is with those who listen to his word with trust and obedience. Do you know the joy of submission to God? And do you seek to pass on the faith and to help the young grow in wisdom and maturity?

The Holy Spirit reveals the presence of the Savior of the world What is the significance of Simeon's encounter with the baby Jesus and his mother in the temple? Simeon was a just and devout man who was very much in tune with the Holy Spirit. He believed that the Lord would return to his temple and renew his chosen people. The Holy Spirit also revealed to him that the Messiah and King of Israel would also bring salvation to the Gentile nations. When Joseph and Mary presented the baby Jesus in the temple, Simeon immediately recognized this humble child of Bethlehem as the fulfillment of all the messianic prophecies, hopes, and prayers. Inspired by the Holy Spirit he prophesied that Jesus was to be "a revealing light to the Gentiles". The Holy Spirit reveals the presence of the Lord to those who are receptive and eager to receive him. Do you recognize the indwelling presence of the Lord with you?

The 'new temple' of God's presence in the world Jesus is the new temple (John 1:14; 2:19-22). In the Old Testament God manifested his presence in the "pillar of cloud" by day and the "pillar of fire" by night as he led them through the wilderness. God's glory visibly came to dwell over the ark and the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34-38). When the first temple was built in Jerusalem God's glory came to rest there (1 Kings 8). After the first temple was destroyed, Ezekiel saw God's glory leave it (Ezekiel 10). But God promised one day to fill it with even greater glory (Haggai 2:1-9; Zechariah 8-9). That promise is fulfilled when the "King of Glory" himself comes to his temple (Psalm 24:7-10; Malachi 3:1). Through Jesus' coming in the flesh and through his saving death, resurrection, and ascension we are made living temples of his Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). Ask the Lord to renew your faith in the indwelling presence of his Spirit within you. And give him thanks and praise for coming to make his home with you.

Mary receives both a crown of joy and a cross of sorrow Simeon blessed Mary and Joseph and he prophesied to Mary about the destiny of this child and the suffering she would undergo for his sake. There is a certain paradox for those blessed by the Lord. Mary was given the blessedness of being the mother of the Son of God. That blessedness also would become a sword which pierced her heart as her Son died upon the cross. She received both a crown of joy and a cross of sorrow. But her joy was not diminished by her sorrow because it was fueled by her faith, hope, and trust in God and his promises. Jesus promised his disciples that "no one will take your joy from you" (John 16:22). The Lord gives us a supernatural joy which enables us to bear any sorrow or pain and which neither life nor death can take way. Do you know the peace and joy of a life surrendered to God with faith and trust?

The Holy Spirit renews our hope in the promise of God Simeon was not alone in recognizing the Lord's presence in the temple. Anna, too, was filled with the Holy Spirit. She was found daily in the temple, attending to the Lord in prayer and speaking prophetically to others about God's promise to send a redeemer. Supernatural hope grows with prayer and age! Anna was pre-eminently a woman of great hope and expectation that God would fulfill all his promises. She is a model of godliness to all believers as we advance in age.

Advancing age and the disappointments of life can easily make us cynical and hopeless if we do not have our hope rightly placed. Anna's hope in God and his promises grew with age. She never ceased to worship God in faith and to pray with hope. Her hope and faith in God's promises fueled her indomitable zeal and fervor in prayer and service of God's people.

Our hope is anchored in God's everlasting kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy What do you hope for? The hope which God places in our heart is the desire for the kingdom of heaven and everlasting life and happiness with our heavenly Father. The Lord Jesus has won for us a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). The Holy Spirit gives hope to all who place their trust in the promises of God. God never fails because his promises are true and he is faithful. The hope which God places within us through the gift of the Spirit enables us to persevere with confident trust in God even in the face of trails, setbacks, and challenges that may come our way.

Is there anything holding you back from giving God your unqualified trust and submission to his will for your life? Allow the Lord Jesus to flood your heart with his peace, joy, and love. And offer to God everything you have and desire - your life, family, friends, health, honor, wealth, and future. If you seek his kingdom first he will give you everything you need to know, love, and serve him now and enjoy him forever.

Lord Jesus, you are my hope and my life. May I never cease to place all my trust in you. Fill me with the joy and strength of the Holy Spirit that I may boldly point others to your saving presence and words of eternal life.

Sources:

Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

**Meditations may be freely reprinted and translated into other languages for non-profit use only. Please cite copyright and original source at dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org

[dfroza]

Hey, Jude!

A tiny book, a short Letter.

An encouragement to keep the faith and a warning to those who work through deceit and who rebel against the truth of Love. because Love is God our Creator.

The Letter of Jude:

Jude, a slave of Jesus the Anointed and a brother of James, to you, the ones whom God our Father loves and has called and whom Jesus, the Anointed One, has kept. Kindness, peace, love—may they never stop blooming in you and from you.

Friends, I have been trying to write you about our common salvation. But these days my heart is troubled, and I am compelled to write to you and encourage you to continue struggling for the faith that was entrusted to the saints once and for all. Vile men have slithered in among us. Depraved souls who stand condemned have made a mockery of the grace given to us, using it as a pretext for a life of excess, lived without any thought of God. These poor fools have denied Jesus the Anointed, our one Lord and Master.

You have heard the stories many times, and the Spirit has enlightened you about their meaning, but you still need to be reminded. Remember when the Lord saved our ancestors from the land in Egypt? He breathed life into their earthen lungs and took back the life from those who did not believe. And God has kept the rebellious heavenly messengers bound and chained in utter darkness—shadowy gloom—until the time when His judgment arrives, because they failed to keep their rightful positions and abandoned their appointed realms. Sodom and Gomorrah and all their neighbors were defeated by their own sexual perversions as they pursued the strange and unnatural impulses of the flesh. Let these who went their own way and are experiencing the eternal heat of God’s vengeance—a punishment by fire—be a warning to you.

These stories are examples to help you understand the fate of those dreamers who have slipped in and defiled your community, rejected those in charge, and insulted the glorious majesty of the heavenly messengers. Even their chief, Michael, when disputing with the devil over Moses’ body, did not offer his own taunting judgment against him. Michael simply said, “May the Lord’s rebuke fall on you.”

The deceivers among you despise what they do not understand; they live without reason like animals, reacting only with primal instincts; and their ways are corrupting them. Woe to these deceivers! They are doomed! They have followed in the footsteps of their father Cain, sold their souls for profit into Balaam’s deceit, and suffered the devastation of Korah’s rebellion.

These men are cold stones on the warm hearth of your love feasts as they glut themselves without fear, thinking only of their own benefit. They are waterless clouds, carried away by the wind; autumn’s lonely and barren trees, twice dead, uprooted; violent waves of the sea breaking over the bow, foaming with shame; lost and wandering stars destined to live forever in gloomy darkness.

During the seventh generation after Adam, the prophet Enoch said, “Look! The Lord came, and with Him tens of thousands of His holy messengers to judge wicked men and convict the impious and ungodly for all they have said and all the hard things they have done against the Holy One.” These men are complainers who look long and hard to find the faults of other men. They are led by their own lustful desires like fools down the path of destruction. They are arrogant liars who want only to get ahead of others.

But you, friends, remember the words of the emissaries of our Lord Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King: “At the end of time, some will ridicule the faithful and follow their lusts to the grave.” These are the men among you—those who divide friends, those concerned ultimately with this world, those without the Spirit. You, however, should stand firm in the love of God, constructing a life within the holy faith, praying the Spirit’s prayer, as you wait eagerly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus the Anointed, which leads to eternal life.

Keep being kind to those who waver in this faith. Pursue those who are singed by the flames of God’s wrath, and bring them safely to Him. Show mercy to others with fear, despising every garment soiled by the weakness of human flesh.

Now to the One who can keep you upright and plant you firmly in His presence—clean, unmarked, and joyful in the light of His glory—to the one and only God, our Savior, through Jesus the Anointed our Lord, be glory and greatness and might and authority; just as it has been since before He created time, may it continue now and into eternity. Amen.

The Letter of Jude (The Voice)

thousands of years ago God spoke directly to Moses here on earth, just as He speaks in Heaven. and the Lord was here on earth speaking as a man 2,000 years ago, and then went back to Heaven and sent His Spirit (His Heart and thought-life, His silence) to us, to inspire our hearts and lives to be in line with Love and its truth. but we have to choose. we have a will that is free to do so, or to reject it.

and we do hear His voice in the Scriptures that reveal a new covenant of grace which is an act of rebirth through the True illumination of the Son. we have this written down to both conserve it, to share it, and to show what is to come, that will be...

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the first chapter from the book of Numbers where Moses was instructed to take a census of the tribes of Israel:

[Census in the Wilderness of Sinai]

God spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai at the Tent of Meeting on the first day of the second month in the second year after they had left Egypt. He said, “Number the congregation of the People of Israel by clans and families, writing down the names of every male. You and Aaron are to register, company by company, every man who is twenty years and older who is able to fight in the army. Pick one man from each tribe who is head of his family to help you. These are the names of the men who will help you:

from Reuben: Elizur son of Shedeur

from Simeon: Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai

from Judah: Nahshon son of Amminadab

from Issachar: Nethanel son of Zuar

from Zebulun: Eliab son of Helon

from the sons of Joseph,

from Ephraim: Elishama son of Ammihud

from Manasseh: Gamaliel son of Pedahzur

from Benjamin: Abidan son of Gideoni

from Dan: Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai

from Asher: Pagiel son of Ocran

from Gad: Eliasaph son of Deuel

from Naphtali: Ahira son of Enan.”

These were the men chosen from the congregation, leaders of their ancestral tribes, heads of Israel’s military divisions.

Moses and Aaron took these men who had been named to help and gathered the whole congregation together on the first day of the second month. The people registered themselves in their tribes according to their ancestral families, putting down the names of those who were twenty years old and older, just as God commanded Moses. He numbered them in the Wilderness of Sinai.

The line of Reuben, Israel’s firstborn: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by tribes according to their ancestral families. The tribe of Reuben numbered 46,500.

The line of Simeon: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Simeon numbered 59,300.

The line of Gad: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Gad numbered 45,650.

The line of Judah: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Judah numbered 74,600.

The line of Issachar: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Issachar numbered 54,400.

The line of Zebulun: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Zebulun numbered 57,400.

The line of Joseph: From son Ephraim the men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Ephraim numbered 40,500.

And from son Manasseh the men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Manasseh numbered 32,200.

The line of Benjamin: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Benjamin numbered 35,400.

The line of Dan: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Dan numbered 62,700.

The line of Asher: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Asher numbered 41,500.

The line of Naphtali: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Naphtali numbered 53,400.

These are the numbers of those registered by Moses and Aaron, registered with the help of the leaders of Israel, twelve men, each representing his ancestral family. The sum total of the People of Israel twenty years old and over who were able to fight in the army, counted by ancestral family, was 603,550.

The Levites, however, were not counted by their ancestral family along with the others. God had told Moses, “The tribe of Levi is an exception: Don’t register them. Don’t count the tribe of Levi; don’t include them in the general census of the People of Israel. Instead, appoint the Levites to be in charge of The Dwelling of The Testimony—over all its furnishings and everything connected with it. Their job is to carry The Dwelling and all its furnishings, maintain it, and camp around it. When it’s time to move The Dwelling, the Levites will take it down, and when it’s time to set it up, the Levites will do it. Anyone else who even goes near it will be put to death.

“The rest of the People of Israel will set up their tents in companies, every man in his own camp under its own flag. But the Levites will set up camp around The Dwelling of The Testimony so that wrath will not fall on the community of Israel. The Levites are responsible for the security of The Dwelling of The Testimony.”

The People of Israel did everything that God commanded Moses. They did it all.

The Book of Numbers, Chapter 1 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Sunday, may 24 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

[misguidedasher]

an encounter, witnessed from the outside

Her starts the evening sitting alone, at first.

Though, the term alone would give the wrong impression. He may sit in solitude, but it’s worlds away from that of others who come to a place like this. Those people come to sit and drink and stew their solitude away, their singleness a beacon that broadcasts to the whole room. But when he sits alone, glass cradled delicately in his palm, he makes it look almost regal. He’s more of a lounging tiger than anything, happy to wait and watch the world go by, idly sharpening his claws but never putting them to use. There are other things he could be doing with his precious time, sure, but for now he’s content to be here.

And eventually, taking her sweet time, the reason for his waiting makes herself known.

The change in the room isn’t apparent when she first shows up. It never is, really.  But it occurs in stages, bodies slowly orienting themselves towards her, the air itself warming to her presence, until one can’t even remember a time before she was here. She’d make to be unaware of this so-called magic of hers, but it’d be a lie. The way she subtly assesses the room when she first enters is too calculating, too aware. It’s a habit of hers. It’s been ingrained into her for years.

As she makes her way through the space she takes note of those who notice her. A smile here, a knowing expression there. A hand nimbly unwinds the scarf around her neck in a practiced motion, as if she knows they’re all watching. And yet, she seems to have eyes for only one person. The crowd parts for her like water, only to find that she’s ignored them all for him.

He startles just a bit when she claps a hand to his shoulder in greeting, turning to face this strange new being that’s dared touch him. But when he recognizes her, everything melts. He grins, lazy predator to endeared puppy just like that, and – yes, really – moves to buss a kiss on the apple of her cheek. She accepts the gesture with the grace and patience of one reuniting with a particularly doting aunt. But it’s hard to miss the slight smile softening her features.

It’s all too easy to assume that the two are a couple, coming together at last after long day apart. But, no. Something about their energy doesn’t quite fit it, though it’s hard to place why. Perhaps it’s how they’ve oriented around each other: comfortable, but only in a way that’s been earned over the years.

Their reputations precede them both, yet no one in this dingy little pub will ever really know them as they’ve come to know each other. No one will see past the fronts they present to the world, to the soft messy ugly they’ve seen in each other. She’s aloof to the point of near emotionlessness. He takes his protective ways too far sometimes. They’ve seen a fair share of clashes. For every happy remark or good-natured eye roll, there’s been a scathing fight and a set of fresh tears.

And yet they’ve built their friendship from the ground up, knocked it down only to start building again. Their well-hidden bruises match too closely to turn away now, like two halves to a battered whole. They’ve found that they like life much better with each other in it, despite what they’d say if asked upfront. Some things are worth fighting for when you know you’ve a good fit.

They have, in one case literally, all but shed blood for each other. But one wouldn’t see that in the way he imparts some secret to her, head inclined towards hers as if they’re conniving spies on their own mission, and the way she laughs bright and clear in response.

And they vastly prefer it that way, thank you. Keeping what they have private makes them stronger together in a sense, quietly assures them that they can take whatever the grey world outside throws at them.

All at once she’s hopping up from her stool, declaring, “C’mon, I’m starving,” as if she wasn’t the one keeping him waiting. He makes no note of this, either out of knowing a useless argument when he sees one or simply not minding.

They gather their bearings and make to leave, sparking the attention of others once more. Even now it’s the little things that would snag in one’s brain, cause them to suddenly think back on them later on. Like the way she continues to glance over at him even as they walk, or the way he unconsciously veers her away from a rowdy gesticulating stranger with a hand at the small of her back. Turton and his girl, Asher and her gentle giant, off to wreak havoc elsewhere. The wonder that baffles them all.

The world steadily dims back to normal after they’ve departed. Conversations pick back up, while the air abruptly loses its breath of mystery. Like an unspoken spell has finally broken. But there’s no doubting the two have left their imprint on the night, even if in the most minute ways. They’ll do it once again when they return, here or anywhere else they choose to haunt in this city. Regardless of where they go, people will always be sure to find intrigue in the stoic hard-faced man and the dainty foul-mouthed woman, seemingly joined at the hip.

Though, they won’t find it in themselves to care. They’ll have each other instead, as always.

[qqueenofhades]

the trash saga of flynn and lucy: xv

there will be more once upon a dream soon, i have about half that chapter done. in the meantime, have more of the trash saga of flynn and lucy, for reasons.

ao3.

Lucy and Flynn hold hands on the walk back to the cabin. They don’t even exactly mean to, after they scramble out of the hot springs and shiver and shake themselves dry enough to get dressed again, teeth chattering in the chilly air. Lucy can feel the color in her cheeks, the sting of exertion, and something else, deeper and richer, moving in her like a vein of molten ore, some part of the trouble and danger and terror of Salem finally exorcised and with this allowed to take its place. Flynn’s hand almost engulfs hers, his thumb running absently over her knuckles, and once he reaches over to slick a damp tendril of hair out of her eyes, a small, tender gesture that catches her by surprise. Neither of them are quite sure how, but something has definitely changed back there. They have been at odds in some way, whether large or small, since – well, forever, but they’re not any more. Their stars are in the same orbit now. Both of them can feel it.

They make it back through the woods without incident, as most of the fog has burned off, and Flynn is practically whistling as they descend through the larches. That, however, vanishes in the next instant, as they catch sight of the cabin. The door is open, it definitely looks to have been violently forced, and there is shouting from inside. One of the voices is definitely Iris’s. The other sounds like a man, speaking Russian. Oh Jesus. If one of Nikolai’s friends arrived, found his comrade dead, and Iris here by herself –

Flynn panics, rips the hunting rifle off his shoulder, and sprints down the hill toward the cabin, leaving Lucy just as terrified but unsure if she should run, completely unarmed, into the middle of this and give Flynn another headache about protecting her. Still, though, she can’t stop. She pounds up the creaking clapboard steps after him, ducks into the dim interior, and finds three people all pointing high-velocity automatic weapons at each other. Flynn, scope trained dead on the presumable KGB agent pointing a heavy sidearm at Iris, who in turn has her finger on the trigger of her pistol, daring him to take another step, another inch, in her direction. Lucy skids to a halt, before her presence can set off a round-robin of shots and drop them all on the spot. The KGB agent looks to be in the worst position, what with two angry Flynns teamed up against him, but that sidearm is no joke. One shot can seriously wound Iris, if not kill her, and Lucy is quite sure that there is no way Flynn himself can survive that again.

The silence is absolutely hideous. Nobody stirs, even as the KGB agent’s eyes dart to Lucy, clearly sizing up whether she’s a threat or whether she would make a better target than Iris. He appears briefly stumped when she appears to be exactly what she is, i.e. an unarmed civilian somehow strolling into the middle of a hotspot spy nest in the Kamchatka wilderness, and makes a move as if to swing around on her. Flynn’s free arm flashes out, shielding Lucy, and inviting the KGB agent to do something very, very stupid that will give him full license to shoot. Not that Flynn is ever terribly restrained in this regard, but something is holding him back.

At last, very slowly, the KGB agent lowers his gun. “Easy,” he says, in accented English. It’s hard to place – Slavic, but a Slavic that has been almost, but not quite, polished away with Received Pronunciation. He doesn’t sound Russian, that’s for sure. “Why don’t we talk?”

Flynn freezes.

Both Lucy and Iris stare at him in utter bafflement, but all he does is lower the hunting rifle in turn, which Iris (thankfully) takes as a sign that it’s safe to put away her gun as well. While the likelihood of violent death is thus correspondingly reduced, the atmosphere remains very tense. Flynn is trying to get Lucy and Iris behind him, and something different has crossed his face. It’s not just his usual alertness and wariness around an enemy, but something raw, vulnerable, almost – if such a word can be used about Flynn – frightened. Lucy stares at him, trying to piece together what on earth could have sparked such a reaction, just as a bolt of realization flashes across Iris’s face as well. She whirls toward her father with a shocked expression, and he nods half an inch, terse and stunned.

Whatever this was, Lucy completely missed it. She tries her best to think. She asked Flynn on the way out if there was a possible reason they ended up here – 1965 Russia, middle of nowhere, but still critically important in the Cold War – and he gave that sort of answer that made her think he knew damn well why, but didn’t feel like sharing. She stares hard at their uninvited guest instead. He’s tall, almost as tall as Flynn, early-to-mid-twenties. Dark hair, parted on the side. Sharp nose, the same kind of statuesquely carved facial features, a hint of unshaven scruff. Lucy has never seen him before, but he’s incredibly familiar. Like a poor man’s copy of a two-decade-younger Flynn, like –

Wait. Wait. They’ve encountered his mother, Maria Thompkins, the brilliant young American rocket scientist, fleeing the country after the tragedy of losing her first husband and son. They checked the files after the moon landing mission, when they discovered that Flynn had saved his half-brother Gabriel to make her happy again, that he only remembered her being sad. Lucy can hear Agent Christopher in her head. Married Asher Flynn, they had a bouncing baby boy. She doesn’t know anything about Flynn’s father, but from both Garcia and Iris’ stunned reactions, not to mention the resemblance, she is ninety-nine percent sure they have just met him. What a fittingly-Flynn-family reunion, good lord. Thank heavens nobody actually opened fire. Could have wiped them all out of existence on the spot.

“Better,” Asher Flynn – as it clearly is – goes on, when nobody else makes a move to speak. “Now. I am looking for Nikolai Vasilyevich. Do you have any idea where I might find him?”

Something else flashes across Garcia Flynn’s face, too fast for Lucy to follow it, or what he might have decided on. Then he grins. “He’s dead. I killed him last night.”

Lucy thinks this is a horrible strategy even by Flynn’s standards, but it catches Asher by surprise. He opens and shuts his mouth, then scowls at the older man. “And why exactly would you tell me that?”

Flynn shrugs. “You were going to kill him yourself, weren’t you?”

Asher’s hand goes back to his gun, clearly thinking that he might have made a mistake in dropping it so quickly. “What makes you say that?”

“Isn’t it clear? We are on the same side. Both part of the – ” Flynn says something in Russian that neither Lucy nor Iris can understand, some sort of code word, name of an organization, something. “I just got to him before you did.”

Asher stares at him, eyes cold and narrow with suspicion. “I’ve never heard of you.”

“Would you have?”

There is something to be said for that, apparently, but Asher remains on guard. “Nikolai Vasilyevich was my assignment.”

“You should have done your job better. Then they wouldn’t have needed to send me.” Hunting rifle still held casually in his hands, Flynn leans back against the kitchen counter. The air remains taut between them, as Asher frowns. It’s clear that even if he can’t put his finger on it, he knows there’s something uncanny about the other man. “Don’t worry. You can take the credit. Go back and put it on your report, just as you want.”

“And why would you let me do that?” Asher is unconvinced. “You always bring your secretaries with you on a field mission? Though that one – ” he glances at Iris – “is definitely no secretary, and that one – ” he raises an eyebrow at Lucy – “I’d hope was. Be a long and cold train ride back to Moscow otherwise.”

Flynn jerks forward. “Watch your mouth.”

Iris and Lucy glance at each other, edging closer together and preparing to run intervention if this turns any worse – Flynn can’t actually shoot his own father, especially nine years before he himself is born, but he might forget. Likewise, Asher has no idea what is really going on here (for the best). After a moment, however, he masters himself and offers that exact sort of sleek, debonair, dangerous smile that his son does so well, giving Lucy brief vertigo. “My apologies, of course. But you have to understand – especially with the strange machine I found in the woods while I was tracking Vasilyevich – that this is suspicious.”

“What machine?” Flynn snaps.

“Some sort of. . .” Asher catches himself. “I don’t need to tell you.”

“Looked a bit like the flying saucers the Americans claimed crashed at Roswell, 1947? White, blue lights?”

“Yes.”

“That was our machine, you bastard.”

“It was your machine?” Asher Flynn’s tone drips incredulity. “So you leave this in the middle of the woods, then come to kill the dangerous KGB agent I have been tracking for six months, then leave this girl to guard his cabin, then return and tell me you have done it, and are a fellow member, while I have never heard of you? Who are you? Really?”

“I promise,” Flynn says. “You would not believe me if I told you.”

“So you are hiding something.”

“All good spies are, aren’t they?”

There is another tense interval as the Flynn men stare bloody murder at each other. Then Asher says, “I don’t care if Vasilyevich is dead, his network still remains, and I’m not going to trust that you somehow got it to vanish overnight. I have to go to Alaska and make sure none of them got away. If you let me do that without intervention, the machine is yours again. But try to stop me, or tell anyone where I am and what I’m doing, and I will detonate it and expose you.”

“Wait – what?” For the first time, that catches Garcia off guard. “You don’t go to Alaska.”

Asher narrows his eyes again. “What do you mean, I don’t go to Alaska?”

Garcia hesitates. He doesn’t answer immediately, but Lucy thinks she can see the problem. By killing the man that his father was supposed to kill, Flynn has indirectly but significantly altered the trajectory of his father’s life. If Asher Flynn takes on a mission to Alaska that he wasn’t supposed to, he runs the risk of being killed, meeting someone else, or otherwise embarking on an unplanned chain of events that leads him farther and farther away from Maria Thompkins, their meeting and marriage (however unhappy Lucy gets the sense that it was) and their production of Garcia a few years later. If Asher goes now, Flynn doesn’t exist. Lucy is already unsure if she’s back in the present, or not. And if Asher blows up the Mothership in retaliation if they try to stop him, and then tips the entire Soviet Union off about the presence of traitors in their midst and pins the murder of a valuable KGB agent on them –

Yeah. This is bad.

Still, though. Lucy has not endured all the shit she has, just to throw up her hands and quit over the latest stupid situation the man she unfortunately seems to love has now gotten them into. She moves forward. “Excuse me,” she says, with a sweet smile that warns Asher that he calls her a nice companion for a cold train ride again at his peril. “Is there some confusion here?”

“None that I see is your business. Sweetheart.”

Lucy stops short, tilting her head back to gaze into his face (very much like his son’s, but even now, rougher and colder) and baring her teeth in a warning that she might bite his balls off, and not in a way he would enjoy. “I’m American intelligence,” she says. “My partner and I – ” she nods at Iris – “had our own directives on Vasilyevich and his network. They’ll be handled, trust me. I don’t know that we’re going to allow you to just stroll into Alaska after them.”

“What?” Asher scoffs. “They send a couple of American girls out here alone?”

“They’re part of my system,” Flynn says, low and dangerous. “Coincidentally, they can also both kill you.”

Asher raises an eyebrow, but looks back down at Lucy. “CIA? I can’t see it.”

Lucy shrugs. “You think what you want. And if you can’t see me as a spy, because you think I’m just a secretary, my friend here could have put a bullet in your head while you still had your hand down your trousers. Huh?”

Asher opens and shuts his mouth. Flynn coughs. Lucy catches sight out of him, and it’s clear that this is probably the best thing he has ever seen in his life. He’s trying furiously to keep his expression impassive, but not entirely succeeding, and the result is one she feels to the back of her spine. God, the things this man does to her. She’ll get used to it, someday. Maybe.

In any case, however, this is not the time for distraction, as she still has a task at hand. She turns back to Asher. “Right. Here’s what we’re going to do. You are going to go back and report to your superiors that you killed Nikolai Vasilyevich, just as you planned. No need to raise suspicion or make the Politburo – the Presidium,” she corrects herself, remembering that that’s what it is called from 1952-1966 – “wonder exactly who you are or what you’re doing in the country. We’ll handle Vasilyevich’s associates in Alaska. Do you understand me?”

“I don’t understand that I have to take orders from an American bitch who thinks she can –”

Quick as a blink, Flynn moves. He flashes off the counter, grabs Asher’s arm, and twists it into a brutal judo hold behind his back, forcing him to his knees, and kicks the gun away as his father drops it. He snarls something in Russian – no, Lucy thinks it’s Croatian – that doesn’t need a terrible amount of translation.

Asher looks briefly stunned, as obviously he was not expecting to hear any language apart from Russian or English, and certainly not what must be his own native tongue. He starts to sputter what sounds like an indignant question, then stops as Flynn jerks him again, and finally says in English, “Sorry. I am sorry. Please make him let go of me.”

Lucy gives Flynn a look, and he releases Asher, not without a final baleful stare at him. Asher gets up slowly, rubbing his shoulder, and turns back to Lucy. “Can I ask, miss,” he says, with rather pointed courtesy, “why you think this would work, exactly?”

“You can ask.” Lucy’s tone leaves it clear that it isn’t going to get him very far, but hey, gold star for effort. “You don’t want to go to America, though. There’s no guarantee you’d ever get back, and besides. We know who you are. We can make it very difficult for you if you disobey.”

Asher regards her with an expression that reminds her very much of his son. “Do you?”

“Yes.” Lucy smiles demurely. “Asher Flynn.”

That puts an enjoyably shocked expression on his face – as well as a similar one from Garcia, who has evidently not realized that she put the pieces together as to who this is. He also did not know that she knew his father’s name, but they will have to have that conversation later. In the meantime, she has Asher himself on his heels, and she moves to press her advantage. “As I said, this doesn’t have to be difficult. Just do exactly what you were going to do. Vasilyevich is dead, isn’t he? It doesn’t matter how he got this way.”

Asher is clearly still not buying this, but he is also painfully aware that he can’t push too hard. Actually killing KGB agents on Russian territory, while pretending to be Russian himself, puts him in line for about the most unpleasant fate one can imagine – if nothing else, you have to admire his moxie. Must also run in the family. He can’t be sure if they’re double or even triple-crossing him, who they’re reporting to or how they know his true identity (since “estranged son from the future, his somehow-resurrected daughter, and the woman he’s sort-of-maybe-with  after they crashed through time together” doesn’t exactly occur to most people as an explanation). After a final moment, he blows out an angry breath. “Fine.”

“Good.” Lucy smiles. “See?”

He eyes them bitterly, not bothering to ask if he can trust them. Then he says to Flynn, “The girl drives a hard bargain.”

“The woman, you miserable fuck,” Flynn says, not turning a hair. “And yes, she does.”

Asher snorts. “Still, though,” he remarks. “You will want me to undo my explosives, yes?”

“What?” Sensing trouble, Flynn tenses. “What explosives?”

“The ones I left on your device. You don’t think I was just going to leave an unknown entity sitting by itself in the woods, to do whatever it wanted? I rigged up an explosive and I still have the trigger. It’s a ways from here, yes, but it could go off. We could try it.”

“Don’t – ” Flynn looks thoroughly exasperated, but despite the obvious calamity that it would be if Asher destroyed the Mothership, Lucy has to bite her lip hard. Flynn is finally learning exactly what it is like to deal with himself. “Don’t blow it up, you idiot!”

“Why not? What’s in it for me?”

“That was covered under the part of you going back and telling your superiors that you completed the hit on Vasilyevich successfully. We’ll take the machine and never be seen anywhere near here again, I promise. Never complicate your life again. Yet.” He snorts.

“Yet?” Asher demands.

“Never mind. Inside joke. Very well, then. You can go outside, I’ll show you where I buried Vasilyevich, you can confirm for yourself that it is the man and take anything you need as proof of his demise. Then we return to our machine, you take the explosives off, and we leave. So simple, even you can understand it. Yes?”

Asher folds his arms. Finally, he nods once.

“Good.” Flynn takes the hunting rifle and gestures with a curt nod at his father, as Iris immediately moves forward – she is clearly not letting them go alone, in case Asher tries to overpower Garcia and run. Lucy doesn’t really want to be left behind in the cabin, and figures the Flynns could use some adult supervision, so she follows them out through the grove and to the place where Flynn buried Nikolai earlier. The men brusquely disinter the corpse, which is not the most pleasant of sights by now, and Lucy swallows hard, looking away. Asher takes some black-and-white photographs out of his pocket, checks them against the mottled face, and examines the ID card Flynn hands him, as well as a few folded carbon-paper documents in Russian. Then he nods again. “Fine. It’s him.”

They rebury Nikolai (if there are such thing as ghosts, this place will have the shit haunted out of it, making Lucy wonder if it will feature in another spooky story about the Russian backwoods, maybe the unexplained disappearance of some hikers in a few years). She would rather not think about that, though, and follows the three Flynns back to the path. A quick stop at the cabin to make sure they have everything, and they start the tramp back toward the Mothership. Garcia and Iris are keeping a very close eye on Asher. A man backed into a corner, especially a Flynn, is going to have some dangerous stunt up his sleeve to get out of it.

Conversation is minimal while they trek through the trees. Then Asher, curiosity having evidently finally gotten the better of him,  says, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Flynn grunts. “Not really.”

“Are you. . .” Asher considers him for a long moment, gaze flicking between the older man’s face and his own, noting the striking similarity. “Did you ever know a Katja? Katja Elena Kovačić? It would have been early in 1941. Near Jasenovac, in Slavonia.”

Something passes over Flynn’s face at that, which Lucy and Asher both notice. The latter stops. “Well?” he demands, voice rough. “Do you?”

“You think I’m your father.” Flynn turns toward him. “Katja Kovačić is your mother, isn’t she?”

Asher doesn’t bother to ask how he worked that out. “Yes. All she ever said about my father was that he was a Red Army man. She thought he died in Stalingrad. But if you – ”

“I’m not your father,” Flynn interrupts. “I’ve never met Katja Kovačić.”

Asher eyes him mulishly. He said his parents met in 1941 – as it’s 1965 now, he can’t be older than twenty-four, an angry young man working in a terribly dangerous occupation, deep behind enemy lines, exacting revenge one by one on all the Russians who could have been his father, and could have been the one to leave him behind, to never even bother to know that he existed. It would have certainly been easier, in such a case, to believe that the man died heroically in battle, rather than that he simply didn���t give a shit. Lucy’s heart goes out to him, even as she begins to grasp just how deep the legacy of damage and abandonment in this family actually runs. No wonder this man couldn’t be a good father to Garcia. No wonder Garcia himself has tried so hard, and so terribly, not to fail Iris the same way.

“I think  you’re a liar,” Asher says at last, turning as if about to square up for a fistfight. “I think you do know her. I saw you recognized the name.”

“There are a lot of Katjas in Slavonia. I doubt it was your mother.”

“LIAR!” It rings through the trees, Asher’s face turning red, his eyes burning black. It is truly terrifying, and Lucy stops abruptly, reaching for Iris, still having that old impulse to shield the child from this. She can also imagine young Garcia watching this rage turned against his mother, trying to protect her, even as a small boy. “YOU KNOW HER!”

Flynn stares at him, white to the lips. Even though he’s two decades older than his father, even though he’s the grownup here, it’s clear that he’s terrified. That he’s still the little boy who wanted to be Asher, wanted his power, and feared him more than anything. He tries to answer, and can’t.

“Did you?” Asher demands, when the silence hangs like a shroud. “Just tell me! Did you even know she had a son? Did you know she never even wanted me? Just another useless piece of garbage the Russians left behind? Did you ever think about her? Ever again? Us?”

Flynn remains rooted to the spot. His mouth opens and shuts, and he raises a hand as if to run it through his hair, then drops it. Lucy doesn’t know what on earth he can do – he can’t shoot his father, which is his usual method of fixing things, and he is stunned at the force of this rage and grief. Of knowing that his father was failed before he ever got around to failing him, that it’s gone on, over and over. As Lucy and Iris watch in tense silence, they can see the knowledge, the tragedy, the weight of it settle on him. And they see him make a decision.

“You’re right,” Flynn says. “I knew your mother. Katja Kovačić, 1941, Jasenovac. She tried to break the Jews and Serbs out of the camp, get them away from the Nazis. We were together for a night, that is all. My name is Andrei Ivanovich Sokolov. I was a soldier in the Red Army. And I suppose that. . . that makes me your father.”

Asher opens and shuts his mouth. He seems to both feel vindicated and more stunned than ever. Finally, he manages a curt nod. “She – named me Aleksandr.”

“I had a brother named that,” Flynn says. “He died soon before I met your mother. I – I talked about him to her. It was what drew us together.”

“Did you?” Asher asks. Not wanting to hear the answer, but hungry for it. “Know about me?”

“No,” Flynn says. “She never wrote to me, I never heard anything, I never saw her again. It was war, people had to cling to each other while they could and then expect to lose them. I am sorry, Aleksandr. I am so sorry. I would have come back, I would have found you, if I’d known.”

Asher’s chin wobbles, despite his clear desperation to keep his composure. Somewhat less vehemently, he says, “You left me.”

“I’m sorry,” Flynn says again. He clearly doesn’t need to fake the brightness in his eyes, the unsteadiness of his own voice. “I know you cannot forgive me. I could never forgive my own father. He – he was there, but he wasn’t there. He was not a. . .” He hesitates. “Not a good man.”

Asher absorbs this, clenching his fists. He takes half a step, then stops, head down, shoulders crunched. Flynn takes a step as well, meeting him halfway. Quietly, he holds out his arms.

Asher hesitates for a moment more, determined not to break, not to let it go, to keep the fire burning, to take comfort from his rage. But he can’t. He takes an unsteady step, then another. Then practically runs the last few steps to Flynn, clutches him, and silently breaks down.

Flynn doesn’t say a word, eyes closed, holding Asher tightly as he weeps without a sound. Lucy and Iris don’t say a word either, Lucy swallowing back her own tears, unable to believe what she has just seen take place with her own two eyes. She has never been so desperately, painfully, blazingly proud of Garcia Flynn in her entire life, and she reaches out for Iris’ hand, not quite looking, hoping that perhaps there is some forgiveness for her as well. She thinks of coming out to find father and daughter asleep on the couch as she looks at Garcia and Asher, as they sway on the spot and Garcia continues to mutter the same small nothings. Taking on the guilt for his grandfather, banishing their sin, as best he can despite all his own damage. Lucy almost can’t breathe. She can’t turn away. All she can think is that yes, this is it, this is him. This, despite his cracks and catastrophes and countless misadventures along the way, is the man she loves.

At last, belatedly, Asher gets hold of himself, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He gives Flynn’s arm a rough pat, as if ashamed for breaking down on him, and sucks a breath. “We should,” he says. “We should keep going.”

“Yes, we should.” Flynn glances at him. “You know I have to go again, don’t you? I can’t stay.”

Asher glances between him and Iris. “Is this. . .” He pauses. “Is this my sister? My half-sister?”

“Yes. My daughter Irina.” Flynn makes a small gesture, and Iris steps forward. “This is. . . well, this is your half-brother, Aleksandr.”

Iris and Asher look each other up and down, as Asher seems vaguely embarrassed. “I am sorry. For what I said about you earlier. It was not gentlemanly.”

“You have time. You can change.” Iris smiles wryly. She is twenty-three, and her grandfather is barely a year older. They do indeed look like siblings, as they shake hands, then hug quickly, exchanging the customary air kisses on each cheek. “This is my father’s wife, Lucy.”

Both Flynn and Lucy are quite stunned by this introduction – even though Lucy of course has been pretending to be Mrs. Flynn ever since the days of Fort McHenry in 1814, which Iris was the one to challenge her about. She manages to look as if yes, this is true, and steps forward. “I, ah, I suppose that makes me your stepmother?”

Asher shakes her hand as well. “I’m sorry for calling you an American bitch.”

“It’s all right.” Lucy laughs dryly. “I’ve heard worse.”

They continue to walk, though not in silence this time. Flynn tells Asher everything he knows (or rather, has invented) about Andrei Ivanovich Sokolov’s life: his parents, where he is from in Russia, what he likes, who he is. By the time they reach the Mothership, as dusk is starting to fall through the trees, Asher is clearly dragging his feet so they will have more time together. “Do you have to go?” he says again. “You could come with me. You could.”

“I can’t.” Flynn turns to him. “Not now. But we will see each other again some day, I promise. In the meantime, I think you’ll probably get married. Have a son too. Just do better by him than I did by you.”

Asher nods tremulously. They look at each other for a long moment, and then Flynn releases him. “Go undo the explosives, you asshole.”

Asher swallows, then turns and scuttles off to the dynamite he has indeed rigged quite thoroughly to the Mothership – trust a Flynn to not half-ass the task of blowing shit up. Flynn himself lets out a gasp, and Lucy reaches for his hand, as he squeezes hard enough to grind her bones together. Asher works carefully as Lucy holds her breath – an inadvertent explosion to wipe Flynn’s father out of existence would be literally murderously ironic, if not at all helpful. But he gets them off, moves them to whatever hidden cache he took them from, and returns to survey the Mothership curiously. “What on earth is this thing? It is completely bizarre.”

“It’s a. . . weather balloon.” Flynn manages a grin. “As I said, we have to get back and report, and we have other postings. But I’d stay if I could. Believe me on that. Okay?”

“Okay.” Asher pauses, then nods. “It’s funny, isn’t it? That we could somehow both end up here? Chasing after the same man?”

“You have no idea.” Flynn nods to Iris, who heads inside the Mothership, and turns back to Asher. It’s clear that if he’s going to, this is his last chance to punch him, to shout at him, to accuse him of all the things he didn’t do for him, all the scars he left in him. But he doesn’t. Instead he steps forward, takes his young father’s face in his hands, and kisses him on the forehead. “Volim te, Aleksandr.”

Asher Flynn looks at him with all the hunger and grief and love in the world. “I ja tebe volim, Tata.”

They remain there for another moment, and then Flynn lets him go with a gentle push, turns him around. “It’s classified,” he says. “You can’t see how this thing works. Go, keep going. Go back and live your life. I hope you’re not as angry. Remember this. Remember me.”

“I will.” Asher gulps and nods. He looks agonizingly young. “I will, Tata.”

With that, finally, he steps back, turns, and starts to walk. Flynn, Lucy, and Iris watch him disappear among the twilight trees without a word, until his shadow has become indistinguishable from them, until he is out of sight. Then Flynn’s legs give out, and he has to sit down on the top step, rubbing his hands over his face, shaking without a sound. Lucy and Iris crouch next to him on either side, putting their arms over his shoulders. Then Lucy says quietly, “Is there any chance he’ll ever find out it’s not true?”

“I don’t think so.” Flynn’s voice is rusty. “Katja Kovačić – my grandmother – died in 1962. He doesn’t speak to George Flynn – his stepfather – and I doubt Katja ever told him the name of the man who fathered her illegitimate child from a one-night stand during the war. She’s the only person who would know otherwise, and as I said, she’s dead. So no. He will live believing that his father’s name was Andrei Ivanovich Sokolov, and that he met him in Russia in 1965, and that his father wanted him and would have come back for him if he could. I hope that gives him some peace, some ease. I hope he’s kinder, when he marries my mother. When he raises me.”

Lucy is taken aback. “You just made all of that up? About your grandfather? Even his name?”

“Yes,” Flynn says. “The man probably did die in Stalingrad. Never knew he had a son, probably never cared. But that doesn’t matter. Asher will never know otherwise.”

Lucy heaves out a slow sigh. Finally, she leans over and quietly, simply kisses his cheek, once and then again. She wants to tell him how proud of him she is, how very, very, unbearably proud. Finally, she says only, “See. There are other ways to fix things than burning them down.”

Flynn blows out a breath. Then he pulls himself together and rises crisply to his feet, knuckling his hand over his eyes. “Okay. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They head to the console, as Iris powers it on and runs diagnostics and reboot protocols. They are still surprised, however, when something pings. She bends over it, and frowns. “There is a cached message. From someone named Carlin.”

“Open it.” Lucy’s stomach swoops. “That’s Rufus. Remember him?”

Iris looks at her warily – she was only a child with the time team, so long ago – but nods. “Yes. He says he has gotten the Lifeboat online, and retrieved Wyatt. They’re together. They have sent a notice for us to meet them in Gibraltar, December 17, 1872. What’s that?”

“That. . .” Lucy has to think a moment. “Those are the start of the salvage hearings for the Mary Celeste, the most famous abandoned ship in history. She was found adrift off the Azores Islands by the Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia, perfectly seaworthy with all her supplies still aboard, but her lifeboat and her crew missing. Nobody ever figured out what happened to them. There have been all kinds of theories down the centuries, but – ”

“Rittenhouse,” Flynn says immediately. “Rittenhouse has something to do with it. Smuggling something, or worse. So either John survived when – when he was shot in Salem, or they got even stronger as a result. They had the Mothership for a while. They could have taken the prototype for their own working time machine.”

Lucy nods grimly, desperately relieved to hear that Wyatt made it out of 1829 and that he and Rufus are waiting for them, but afraid of what must await in 1872. “Iris, can you get us there?”

“I think so.” Iris draws a quick, bracing breath. “Strap in.”

They do so, Lucy devoutly hoping that Asher remembered all the dynamite he stuck in various bits – they likewise do not need to suddenly turn into a fireball when they try to launch. Lucy swallows her stomach out of her mouth, as it likewise remembers what happened the last time they were in this damn thing, and hopes that their trip backward is at least somewhat smoother than their trip forward. She pushes away the pang she feels at once more leaving the twentieth century, getting further away from home. At this rate, it seems as if she’s never getting back.

One thing they do have this time is, well, time, which they did not have when busting ass out of Salem at high speed, and Iris makes sure to check everything thoroughly. She appears to decide that everything is in order, and nods. “All right. Hang on.”

One innards-rattling go-round later, which isn’t quite as bad as the first one but still leaves Lucy (and even Flynn himself) rather green, they whirl back into existence and skid hard, tumbling and clanking to a halt before they check the specs. Iris has managed to get them in the vicinity, but she still can’t jump as precisely as Rufus, and according to the computer, it is December 13, 1872. (At least they are, however, in Gibraltar.) That means they have four days before Wyatt and Rufus arrive here, and once they have concealed the Mothership, not wanting to take a chance with any more dynamite anywhere near it, they make their way cautiously down. Gibraltar in this era is a bustling international port and British Royal Navy base, the massive Rock rising out of the winter mist and the masts of ships anchored at the quays piercing it like skeletal fingers. If Lucy is right, the Mary Celeste herself just arrived this morning, sailed by the shorthanded crew of the Dei Gratia, and she briefly wonders if they can make it down to the docks and sneak aboard for a look. That, however, would probably be a bad idea. No, it definitely would, and they need to work out what the hell is going on with Rittenhouse first.

For that matter, they also need to blend in, as none of them have changed their clothes since Salem and after two expeditions through the Siberian wilderness to boot, they are already getting funny looks from Gibraltar’s well-dressed patricians strolling the palm-treed promenades. They also don’t have money, especially not of the local variety, which is a further complication. Flynn insists that they just let him mug someone, which Lucy flatly shoots down, but she has to sigh and pretend to look the other way when he swipes an unguarded purse from the docklands. It’s not enough to buy them all new clothes, and ready-to-wear stuff from, say, Target or Primark does not really exist here anyway. In the meantime, they buy a room in a more or less reputable boarding house. Lucy has spent a lot of time in nineteenth-century boarding houses recently. She can safely say that she has seen enough of them for a lifetime.

Iris heads out by herself, despite their protests, to start prospecting for information. After the door shuts behind her, neither Lucy nor Flynn speak for a long moment. Then at last Lucy says quietly, “What you did for your father, back there. . . I think that was the most admirable thing you’ve ever done.”

“Not many other candidates for the title?” Flynn grins, without particular merriment. He sits on the bed, as she pauses, then comes over to perch next to him. “I. . . I don’t know why. I wanted to shout at the bastard, about everything he did to me. I wanted to tell him who I really was, everything he did to me and my mother. How angry I was. I. . .” He trails off. “I could have.”

“Yes, you could have,” Lucy says, still quietly. Her hand finds his again, their cold fingers interlocking on the worn quilt. “But you didn’t.”

“It was different,” Flynn says, eyes fixed on the far wall. “Seeing him like that, a boy who was angry at his own father for failing him. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“You tried to stop the cycle, though.” Lucy brushes a strand of dark hair behind his ear. He could use a trim; he’s getting a bit shaggy. “With Iris, and then with him. You only ever knew your father as a man, a flawed one. Of course you weren’t ready to see him like this. To see yourself.”

Flynn shudders, but doesn’t answer. Lucy lets her hand slide to the back of his neck, turning him toward her, letting their foreheads rest against each other. His own hand comes up her arm, his thumb touching her chin, as their mouths open. He whispers, “Lucy – ”

“Shh.” She brushes the backs of her fingers over his unshaven jaw, and kisses him.

For a long moment, there’s nothing but that, but them, hands cradling each other’s heads, pulling each other closer, hungry and tender and devouring, something familiar now, comforting. But when Flynn tries to break the kiss, to explore down her neck and lower, Lucy won’t let him. Holds him off, the way he tends to do with her, and whispers again, “Shh.”

She can feel the tension in his entire body as she starts to unbutton his shirt, taking her time about it, nipping at the pulse point in the hollow of his throat, brushing her lips over the broad plane of his shoulder and the sharp cut of his collarbone, the muscle of his chest and the rough peak of his nipple. Kisses, licks, bites just hard enough to make him draw in his breath with a hiss, and pushes him onto his back, hiking up her skirts and climbing atop him. He reaches for her again, but she catches his wrists in her hands, stopping him from touching her. “Trust me.” She catches his earlobe between her teeth. “Trust me, Garcia.”

He swears under his breath, practically vibrating with the struggle not to pull loose and assert control again, to touch her, to not let his own guard down. His pulse is visibly hammering, the cords on his neck standing out. It must have been since Lorena, since he allowed someone to hold him in their hands like this and give them the power, the possibility, of crushing him to dust. He hasn’t been with anyone else in the meantime. Only his wife, and now Lucy. This is like it was earlier, when the change was felt, experienced, sealed. This, word unspoken, is a vow.

Lucy makes her way slowly down his chest, to the trim, dark line of hair that climbs his stomach. Reaches for his belt and undoes it, sliding his trousers down over his hips. Draws him out, already half-hard in her hand, and gets him the rest of the way with a few quick strokes of her thumb. Kisses him lightly in the cut of thigh and groin, then muses her way across, moving her way down the shaft, and takes the tip lightly, wetly into her mouth.

Flynn hisses again, making a grab for her, as Lucy once more knocks his hand away. She licks a slow, deliberate circle, tasting him salty on her tongue, and sets to her work. This isn’t the first time she’s done this for him, as she did it back in 1829 after she’d patched him up from his wounds, but it’s still different, daring, a challenge and a question. He is clearly losing his mind with the effort not to grab at her, roll her over and take her hard, to knock all the dominoes over and burn the two of them down. Yet still,  almost desperately, he holds himself in check.

Lucy sucks him hilt-deep, drags her lips back down, lets him have a brief respite, and then returns to her work with renewed purpose. Until he’s trembling like a blown horse beneath her, jerking against the bed with the effort not to thrust into her mouth, and she finally lets him have what he needs, what she needs. Slides up on him as his hands claw loose, grip her thighs, spread them almost roughly, and he enters her with a single swift, hard shove, practically to the back of her throat. She gasps, settles him more squarely between her thighs, and gives herself to him in turn. He has done it, he has trusted her. Now, therefore, she does it for him.

Flynn fills her with intent, insistent thrusts, slick and sweet, as she claws at his shoulder for purchase and rubs against him still harder, urging him to take what he needs. Their mouths stay open, rasping and musing in short, hitching gasps, as his hands move to her hips and almost crush her into him, over and over, nearly hard enough to bruise. Her head tilts back, baring her throat and chest to his mouth, as he presses kisses into her like burning stars. You have married an Icarus, Lucy thinks, writhing, riding, rising. He has flown too close to the sun.

It doesn’t take much longer after that for them to spin and jerk and spill into release, gasping and clutching, entangled and unmade. It’s funny, how this has now happened enough for Lucy to not be quite sure what time this is, and yet she still feels as starving and insatiable as if they’ve barely begun. She needs him, she needs him, it seems stranger when he’s outside her than when he’s in. They have become twisted and woven and bound together beyond all ordinary sense or description, even for two people sleeping with each other on a fairly (rather, very) consistent basis. She’s no longer quite whole when they’re not.

At last, Flynn grunts and shifts, sliding out of her, as their breathing remains harsh and heavy. Then he turns his head and kisses her, somewhat more gently, carding his fingers through the tangled knot of her hair. It is some time after that until either of them quite want to let go, and they move apart reluctantly, reconstituting their clothing. Iris will be back soon, anyway. Much as she might have come around to tacitly approving their relationship, she doubtless is not interested in having the proof flaunted in her face.

Sure enough, in another fifteen minutes or so, there’s a knock on the door, and Lucy goes to open it. “Iris? Come in, we – ”

And at that, she stops.

“Good to see you again, Lucy.” Emma Whitmore smiles. “Finally. It’s only been a hundred and eighty years.”

[hineini]

Aruchah Cherut

Acknowledgements

 Creating this haggadah would have been impossible if it hadn’t been for many fantastic resources. They include the following:

 http://colours.mahost.org/events/haggadah.pdf

 http://www.chatrh.org/haggadah/index2.htm

 http://www.davka.org/what/haggadah/haggadah&liberation.html

 http://www.gatherthepeople.org/Downloads/HAGGADAH_5767.pdf

 http://www.hobokensynagogue.org/docs/haggadah.pdf

 http://www.hrc.org/documents/Stonewall_Seder_Hagaddah.pdf

 http://www.huc.edu/ijso/special/08/JQ-Haggadah.pdf

 http://www.miriamscup.com/

 http://wwww.ritualwell.org

 http://scheinerman.net/judaism/pesach/haggadah.pdf

 http://www.vbs.org/religious/haggadah/VBS-haggadah.pdf

 http://velveteenrabbi.com/VRHaggadah.pdf

 http://velveteenrabbi.com/2006-Haggadah.pdf

 https://velveteenrabbi.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/vrhaggadah6.pdf

 A Night of Questions: A Pesach Haggadah

 Barbara Holender’s poem (Miriam’s Well)

 Hannah Sennesh’s poem (blessed be the match)

 The Open Door: A Pesach Haggadah

 The Torah: A Women’s Commentary

 http://www.haggadot.com

KABBALAT PANIM

 Leader: Long ago at this season, our people set out on a journey. On an evening such as this, Israel went from degradation to joy. We give thanks for the liberation of days gone by and we pray for all who remain bound. Eternal God, may all who hunger come to rejoice in a new Pesach. Let all the human family sit at Your table, drink the juice of deliverance and eat the bread of freedom:

 All: Freedom from bondage and freedom from oppression

Freedom from hunger and freedom from want

Freedom from hatred and freedom from fear

Freedom to think and freedom to speak

Freedom to teach and freedom to learn

Freedom to love and freedom to share

Freedom to hope and freedom to rejoice

Soon, in our lifetime. Amen.

 Reader: We welcome the festival of Pesach as darkness descends. As we kindle these lights, we remember that our ancestors discovered freedom in the midst of that dark, final evening in Egypt. Let the candles we now light be a reflection of the light that shines within each one of us and let that light radiate throughout our home. We praise the Source of Light that keeps the hope of freedom alive amidst the darkness of oppression.

 ♫ Oh hear my prayer I sing to You.   Be gracious to the ones I love,   And bless them with goodness, and mercy and peace.   Oh hear my prayer to You.

   Let us light these lights  And see a path to You,  And let us say: Amen. ♫

 Light the candles and read poem:

 Reader: Blessed is the match, consumed in kindling flame.

Blessed is the flame that burns in the heart’s secret places.

Blessed is the heart that knows, for honour’s sake, to stop its beating.

Blessed is the match, consumed in kindling flame.

(Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel {Shabbat v’shel} Yom Tov.)

 Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, shehecheyanu, v’kiyamanu, v’higianu, laz’manhazeh.)

 Leader: May the light of the candles we kindle together tonight bring radiance to all who still live in darkness. May this season, marking the deliverance of our people from Pharaoh, rouse us against anyone who keeps others in servitude. In gratitude for the freedom we enjoy, may we strive to bring about our own liberation and the liberation of all people everywhere. Lighting these candles, we create the sacred space of the Festival of Freedom; we sanctify the coming-together of our community.

                           ♫ (Hinei mah tov ooma nayeem Shevet acheem gam yachad.) ♫

 KOS MIRYAM

 Leader: According to the Midrash, a well of water accompanied the Israelites during their journey through the desert. It followed them in honour of Miriam, Moses’ sister, who watched over her brother as he floated down the Nile. She later joined with him to lead the people across the sea. We recall that sacred water as we place Miriam’s cup on our Seder table.

 Fill Miriam’s Cup with water. 

 Reader: In every generation we experience both oppression and liberation. In our wanderings, both as a religious people and as individuals, Miriam’s well is with us as a sustaining presence, enabling us to thrive. Her well reminds us that our journey has direction and destination-to a place where freedom is proclaimed for all of humankind.

 Leader: Due to the merits of Miriam, a mysterious well, created on the eve of the first Sabbath, accompanied the children of Israel in the desert.

It followed her everywhere like a lover, easing us to rest, springing from hidden places in our wanderings. Always, we were thirsty. Angered by our wailing, she'd stamp her feet. Even from the pools of her heel-prints we drank.

 Once in anguish she beat the rocks with her bare hands again and again, weeping.

 Water gushed, cleansing her blood, soaking her hair, her robe.

She cupped her hands, rinsed her mouth, spat; she splashed, she played. Laughing, we filled our bellies. She was the one we followed, who knew each of us by name. Healing rose from her touch as drink from the deep, as song from her throat. She was the well. In our hearts we called her not Miriam, bitter sea, but Mayim, water.

   KADEISH

 Pour the first cup.

 Leader: Our people suffered under slavery and God promised to deliver us. We raise the first cup and repeat God’s promise to our ancestors and to us:

 I will bring you out from the burdens of the Egyptians.

 All: This is the promise of awareness. When we are numb to the pain of bondage we do not know that we are enslaved. When we acknowledge and address that pain we become God’s partners in liberation.

 (Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, boray p’ri hagafen.)

 All drink.

 URCHATZ

 Leader: We begin our story with the first stirrings of freedom. How was the desire for freedom initially aroused? Shifra and Puah resisted Pharaoh’s decree to drown every Israelite boy in the Nile and Miriam watched over her brother Moses to ensure his safety. In the face of death they advocated life.

 In the birth waters and the Nile, these extraordinary women saw life and freedom. Like the coming of spring, they believed in the inevitability of freedom and began awakening their people. The waters of freedom open and close our story, taking us from the Nile to Sea of Reeds.

 Reader: From grape juice we return to water. However, it is the water of the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter immerses herself. Deep below the gentle current she hears faint, persistent crying. She emerges from the water and wipes away the droplets. It is then that she spots a basket. She is not alone seeking renewal from the water. Fear and context fade away. She reaches out to Moses and cradles him in her arms. If she had not reached out, the story we’re sharing would not have started. May the water we offer each other bring us closer to their embrace.  

 Leader: In Hebrew, urchatz means “washing” or “cleansing.” In Aramaic, sister language to Hebrew, urchatz means “trusting.” As we wash each others’ hands, let us rejoice in this act of trust and reflect on the sources of hope and trust we want to bring into the world for ourselves and each other.

 Look to your right and wash that person’s hands as the water circulates around the table.

 KARPAS

 Reader: Long before the struggle upward begins, there is tremor in the seed. Self-protection cracks. Roots reach down and grab hold. The seed swells and tender shoots push up toward light. This is karpas: spring awakening growth. A force so tough it can break stone.

 Leader: Karpas represents spring, new growth, rebirth and the beginning of new life. We taste all the potential in nature and humankind as we eat it. Tonight we celebrate our growth, the flowering of our spirits and voices.

 Reader: We do not taste the vegetable alone. We dip it in salt water, recalling the tears our ancestors shed during their long years in slavery. We mix bitterness with sweetness, slavery with freedom, past with future. We live with the contrasts because we realize that no moment exists without a multitude of combinations-sorrow and joy, pain and comfort, despair and hope.

 (Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, boray p’ri haadamah.)

 Take the parsley, dip it into the salt water and eat it.

 YACHATZ

 Leader: We break the matzah as we broke the chains of slavery and as we break chains which bind us today. We will no more be fooled by movements which free only some of us, in which our so-called “freedom” rests on the enslavement or embitterment of others.

Break middle matzah and hide half; put the remaining section between the two whole pieces.

 Reader: Some do not get the chance to rise like golden loaves of challah, filled with sweet raisins and crowned with shiny braids. Rushed, neglected, not kneaded by caring hands, we grow up fearing that any touch might cause a break. There are some ingredients we never receive. Let us bless our cracked surfaces and sharp edges this evening, unafraid to see our brittleness and brave enough to see our beauty. Striving toward wholeness, let us piece together the parts of ourselves we have found and all that remains hidden.

 MAGGID

 HALACHMA ANYA

 Lift matzah and recite:

 Leader: This is matzah, the bread of affliction and oppression. Let all people who hunger to express their nature and strength, all people who seek meaning and a place in tradition, come and join our celebration. Let all who are hungry come and share our meal this evening. Today we are here seeking a path toward freedom and dignity. May we live in a world of wholeness and freedom in a year, part of a larger community which strengthens and sustains everyone.

 Replace matzah.

 MAH NISHTANAH

 Pour the second cup.

 Leader: Each Pesach, the traditional four questions remain exactly the same. Why do we always ask them? As we grow and change, our questions take on new meanings and the answers to them differ. As we grow and change, we understand that there is not a single right response. As we grow and change, other people will start to ask them.

 Reader: To ask questions is to acknowledge that we do not live in isolation, that we need each other. To ask questions is to signal our desire to grow. We take the first steps toward greater knowledge and learning through admitting we do not know. To ask questions signifies our freedom.

Reader: How is this evening different from all others?

 On all other evenings we eat chameitz and matzah. Why only matzah on this evening?

 On all other evenings we eat all vegetables. Why maror on this evening?

 On all other evenings we don’t dip even once. Why do we dip twice on this evening?

 On all other evenings we eat either sitting upright or reclining. Why do we all recline on this evening?

(Mah nishtanah halailah hazeh mikol halaylot?

 Shebachol halaylot anu ochleen chamaytz u’matzah, halailah hazeh kulo matzah.

 Shebachol halaylot anu ochleen sh’ahr y’rakot, halailah hazeh maror.

 Shebachol halaylot ayn anu matbeeleen afeelu pa’am achat, halailah hazeh sh’tay f’ameem.

 Shebachol halaylot anu och’leen beyn yoshveen u’vayn m’subeen, halailah hazeh kulanu m’subeen.)

 Leader: In addition to the Four Questions, tonight we ask ourselves a fifth. We are commanded to celebrate as if each one of us had been personally liberated from Egypt. How have you been liberated from bondage in the last twelve months?

Anyone who wants to may share a story as we circulate through the table.

 AVADIM HAYINU

 Reader: Approximately 4000 years ago, our people were slaves in Egypt. If God had not brought us out of Egypt, we would remain enslaved there to this day. We retell this story to remind ourselves of the importance of human freedom. The story of the Exodus from Egypt reassures us that freedom is possible, deliverance can come, salvation is within our reach and the dream of redemption can become a reality.

 Leader: Mitzrayim is not just a place on an ancient map, where a narrow strait blocks the route between two seas. Mitzrayim is a place in us where a narrow strait blocks the sea which is our soul from reaching the Sea which is its source.

 Reader: Though we no longer labour under Pharaoh’s overseers, we may remain enslaved, though in subtler ways which are harder to eradicate. Do we enslave ourselves to our jobs? To our expectations? To the expectations of others? To our fears? Tonight we celebrate our liberation from Egypt-in Hebrew, Mitzrayim, literally “the narrow place”-, but narrow places exist in multiple ways. Let this holiday make us mindful of internal bondage, which keeps us enslaved despite our outward freedom.

 ARBAAH  VANIN

 Reader: Torah speaks four times about children in connection with the Exodus story. According to rabbinic Midrash this is not simple repetition, but rather a depiction of four kinds of children: one who is wise, one who is rebellious, one who is simple and one who does not know how to ask.

 Leader: However, we realize that no child is all wise, all rebellious, all simple or incapable of asking anything. At different times in our lives, we have been all of these children: one who is eager, one who is hostile, one who is passive and one who is bewildered.

 Reader: We have asked the most intelligent of questions, we have challenged provocatively, we have simply wanted an answer and we have been so confused that we were unable to speak. We have been all these children: one who is aware, one who is alienated, one who is direct and one who is silent.

 Leader: We also include a fifth child during our discussion this evening: a child of the Holocaust who did not survive to ask.

 Reader: What does it mean to be a wise child? It means to be engaged in your community, to recognize the limit of your understanding, to be able to look for answers to that which you don’t know. At different times in our lives, we have been this child, like Miriam was-inquisitive, caring, eager to learn and understand, willing to ask for information we do not have, hopeful that an answer can be given.

 Reader: What does it mean to be a rebellious child? It means to stand apart from the community, to feel alienated and alone, depending only on yourself, to have little trust in the people around you to help you or answer your questions. At different times in our lives, we have been this child, like Tamar was-detached, suspicious and challenging.

 Reader: What does it mean to be a simple child? It means to see only a single layer of meaning, to ask the most basic of questions, to be too innocent or impatient to grasp complicated questions. At different times in our lives, we have been this child, like Ruth was-simply curious and innocently unaware of the complexities around us.

 Reader: What does it mean to be a silent child? It can be the child of the wicked child, two generations removed from the Jewish community and no longer even able to criticize, only standing mute. It might be a passive child who simply shows up or it may be a child whose spiritual life is based on faith rather than rational argument, the child who hears something deeper than words and can be silent to listen to the surrounding silence.  

 Leader: What does it mean to be unable to ask? It means to have seen the horror of the Shoah and be unable to communicate directly to other people about it. We ask, “Why did the Shoah happen?” on behalf of this child.

We can only follow the footsteps of Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, who could not bring himself to mention the Exodus during the evening until Ben Zoma explained it to him through the verse: “In order that you REMEMBER the day of your going out from Egypt, all the days of your life.” “The days of your life” indicates the daylight and the goodness of life. “All the days of your life” means even during the darkest evening, when we have lost our first-born child, we must remember the Exodus.

Reader: We answer that child’s question with silence. In silence we remember six million Jews and five million others, including Poles, Romas, Soviets, gay, gender-queer and differently-abled people, who were killed under the Nazi regime. Many of them were not buried and their graves were not marked. They were consumed in flame and their ashes were scattered but their spirits endure and we remember them.

 Observe a minute of silence (including the Kaddish if you feel comfortable).

  (Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’may raba b’alma di v’ra chirutay, v’yamlich malchutay b’chayaychon uv’yomaychon uv’chay d’chol beyt Yisrael, Ba’agala u’vizman kariv, v’imru, Amein. Y’hay sh’may raba m’varech l’olam ul’almay almaya.

Yitbarach v’yishtabach v’yitpa’ar v’yitromam v’yitnasay v’yit-hadar v’yitaleh

v’yit-halal, sh’may d’kudsha, b’rich Hu. L’ayla min kol birchata v’shirata, tush b’chata v’nechemata, da’amiran b’alma, vimru, Amein. Y’hay sh’lama raba min sh’maya, v’chayim aleinu v’al kol Yisrael, v’imru, Amein.)

 V’HI SHEAMDAH

 Leader: Sacred is the One keeping this accord: Although some stand against us, others stand with us in difficult times. In every generation, when some are blinded by hate, others build bridges of understanding. No matter the circumstances we are in, no matter how hard things seem, God will always be there to help us through.

 NEITZI V’NILMAD

 Reader: At the conclusion of Genesis, Joseph brings his family to Egypt. Over the following centuries, the descendants of Joseph's family become so numerous that when a new pharaoh comes to rule Egypt he fears what might happen if the Hebrews decide to rise against the Egyptians. He decides that the best way to avoid this situation is to enslave them.

 Leader: Despite Pharaoh's attempt to subdue the Hebrews they continue to have many children. As their numbers grow, Pharaoh comes up with an additional plan: he will send soldiers to kill all newborn male babies who were born to Hebrew mothers. However, the Israelite midwives – Shifra and Puah – do not adhere to Pharaoh’s request since they revere God. When asked why the boys are surviving, they explain that “the Hebrew women are so hardy, they give birth before we arrive!” Pharaoh then orders his people to throw every male child born to an Israelite into the Nile River.

 Reader: After giving birth to a son, his mother Yocheved, accompanied by his sister Miriam, puts him in a basket and set it afloat on the river. Their hope is that the basket will float to safety and whoever finds the baby will adopt him as their own. Miriam follows the basket as it floats down the river. Eventually it is discovered by none other than Pharaoh's daughter. She saves Moses and raises him as her own, so he is raised as a prince of Egypt.

 Leader: When Moses grows up he kills an Egyptian guard when he sees him beating a Hebrew slave. Then Moses flees for his life, heading into the desert. In the desert he joins the family of Jethro, a Midian priest, by marrying Jethro's daughter, Zipporah and having children with her. He becomes a shepherd for Jethro's flock and one afternoon, while out tending the sheep, Moses meets God in the wilderness. The voice of God calls out to him from a burning bush and Moses answers: “Hineini!!”

 Reader: God tells Moses that he has been chosen to liberate the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. Moses is so humble, let alone intimidated to even contemplate such a radical notion due to his speaking difference, that he attempts to refuse God’s request, but God reassures Moses that he will have God’s help and that Aaron, his brother, will come with him, helping Moses relay his message despite his speaking difference. It is with this assurance that Moses goes to Pharaoh and demands, “Let my people go!”

 Leader: Pharaoh refuses to give Moses’ people their freedom and as a result God sends ten plagues to Egypt. Each one frightens Pharaoh, prompting him to promise to give the slaves their freedom, but Pharaoh does not keep his word after each plague stops, despite warnings by Moses, prior to each plague, about the devastating effect it will exert on the Egyptian people. It is only after the last plague, the death of the firstborn of the Egyptians, including Pharaoh’s own son, that Pharaoh finally lets the Israelites go.

 Reader: Fearful that Pharaoh will change his mind once more, our ancestors leave Egypt without waiting for their dough to rise into bread. They don’t leave alone; a mixed multitude goes with them, including Moses’ adopted mother, who becomes known as Batya, daughter of God, after the exodus to freedom occurs.

 Leader: Pharaoh’s army follows us to the Sea of Reeds, where we witness Nachshon’s great act of faith. It is only after he goes as far as he can that God commands Moses to raise his rod, enabling the sea to split and let us through. We mourn, to this day, that Pharaoh’s army drowned. Our liberation is bittersweet because people died in our pursuit.

 All: And so it is written that God brought us forth out of Egypt, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with great terror and with signs and with wonders.

 OTOT UMOFTIN

 Leader: We are about to recite the Ten Plagues. As we call out the words, we remove ten drops from our overflowing cups with our fingers. This dipping is not food into food. It is tactile and intimate, a momentary submersion into a Nile suddenly flowing red with blood.

We will not partake of our Seder feast until we have completed this ritual because our freedom was purchased with the suffering of others. Midrash tells us that while watching the Egyptians succumb to the ten plagues, the angels broke into songs of jubilation. God rebuked them, saying, “My creatures are dying and you sing praises?” Our joy in our liberation will always be tarnished by the torture Egyptian people endured.

 Reader: God, who is like you? We understand fear, doubt, resentment and guilt. We believed we were leaving such emotions. How heavy a load can be carried out of Egypt? How many in that army were blameless? How many innocents will die for this freedom?

 We attempt to drown out these questions with music and dancing. We think of the abuse, the children who were killed, all the times we hoped something like this might happen. We tell ourselves we have a right to rejoice. It would be easier to believe if the horses hadn’t had time to scream.

 Remove a drop of juice for each plague.

  (Dam. Tz’fardaya. Kinim. Arov. Dever. Sh’chin. Barad. Arbeh. Choshech. Makat B’chorot.)

 Leader: Today, there are ten more plagues that affect all of humankind and prevent people from having total freedom. We remove juice from our glasses to acknowledge them and pray for their ending:

 Stigma toward mental illness(es) and anyone who lives with their effect(s)

 Consumerism

 Animal abuse and exploitation

 War

 Abuse of the earth

 Abusive working conditions

 Oppression of women

 Oppression of visible minorities

 Stereotypes linked to religious difference

 Difficulty accessing housing

 Reader: May these modern issues disappear as people start living according to the Golden, if not Platinum, Rule.

 ♫ Mi shebayrach avotaynu M'kor habracha l'imotaynu. May the source of strength Who blessed the ones before us, Help us find the courage To make our lives a blessing

And let us say Amen. ♫

 Reader: May all people seeking healing from the effect of any of these modern plagues have their prayers answered during the days to come.

 ♫ Mi shebayrach imoteinu

M’kor habrachah l’avotaynu.

Bless those in need of healing

with refuah shlaymah

The renewal of body,

The renewal of spirit,

And let us say Amen. ♫

 DAYEINU

 Leader: Dayeinu is the song of our gratitude. Once, a Jewish philosopher was asked about the opposite of hopelessness. He responded: Dayeinu; the ability to be grateful for everything we have received.

 Reader: We now rejoice in the many blessings God gave us during this journey, ending each stanza with “Dayeinu” to acknowledge that even a single blessing would have been sufficient.

                  ♫ (Ilu hotzi, hotzianu,hotzianu mimitzrayim, hotzianu mimitzrayim dayeinu.

Day, Dayeinu {3X} dayeinu dayeinu

 Ilu natan, natan lanu, natan lanu et hashabbat, natan lanu et hashabbat dayeinu.

Day, Dayeinu {3X} dayeinu dayeinu

 Ilu natan, natan lanu, natan lanu et hatorah, natan lanu et hatorah dayeinu.

Day, Dayeinu {3X} dayeinu dayeinu.) ♫

 LO DAYEINU

 Leader: From singing Dayeinu we learn to celebrate each landmark on our people's journey but we must never confuse these way-stations with the redemptive destination because there is so much more to accomplish if we are to completely repair the world.

 Reader: Though we sing “it would have been enough”, we recognize that life goes on. New, often unanticipated, situations challenge us. Our way narrows frequently and we have to immerse ourselves in the struggle to reach the clear shore.

 PESACH, MATHZAH, MAROR

 Leader: Tradition directs us to have a shank bone on our Seder plates to remember the lamb’s blood our ancestors smeared on their doorposts to protect their children from the Angel of Death. Today is a bit different, as we follow an alternative tradition suggested by the Talmud. Our Seder plate has beets on it. They remind us of the blood when we cut them but they do not involve any life being sacrificed, serving as a reminder that all life is holy and all creatures deserve freedom to live.

 Reader: God was revealed to our ancestors and they tasted redemption even before their dough had risen. Matzah is the bread of wandering, the bridge between our sojourn in the land of slavery and the land of freedom.

 Leader: The Egyptians embittered our ancestors’ lives. Cruelty, violence and oppression plague every human society, darken our world, embitter our lives and challenge us to raise our voices for justice.

 KOS SHEINI

 Lift the cup and recite:

 Leader: I will deliver you from servitude.

 All: This is the promise of deliverance from servitude. Created in God’s image we need never to be subject to another’s cruel will. As God promises us deliverance, so must we ensure the freedom of every human being.

 (Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, boray p’ri hagafen.)

 All drink.

 RACHTZAH

 Leader: We wash our hands once more, though much has changed since the Seder started. We have passed through the long evening of Egypt and we stand on the far side of the Sea of Reeds. Like our ancestors all those years ago, we sing MiChamocha to express our gratitude.

 ♫ (Michamocha, baelim Adonai, mikamocha nedar bakodesh. Norah tehilot, ohsayfeleh, norah tehilot, osayfeleh.

 Malechutecha, rau venecha, bokay hayam leefnay MosheuMiriam. Zayli, anu veamru. Adonai yimloch, l’olam vaed.) ♫

 Reader: We now wash our hands to celebrate our crossing the sea, our rebirth as a free people. We now recite a blessing, for our hands have the freedom to perform acts of holiness, including eating matzah, the symbol of liberation.

 Leader: In this moment of celebration, may this water, symbolically drawn from Miriam’s well, cleanse us of all the wounds and pain of Egypt. As we remember the past, we are called to strive toward a healing future, helping others who remain enslaved navigate the path to freedom.

 (Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu al n’tilat yadayim.)

 Wash hands.

 MOTZI/MATZAH

 Reader: Why do we eat matzah? In order to remind ourselves that even before the dough of our ancestors could rise and become bread God was revealed to our people and freed them as it is written: “And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough they had taken out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, since they had been driven out of Egypt and they could not delay”.

 Leader: Matzah reminds us that when the chance for liberation comes, we must seize it even if we do not feel ready-indeed, if we wait until we feel fully ready, we may never act at all.

 (Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, hamotzi lechem min haaretz.

 Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu al achlit matzah.)

 All present take a piece of Matzah, salt it and eat it.

 MAROR/CHAROSET

 Reader: Why do we eat maror? To remind ourselves that the Egyptians embittered the lives of our ancestors as it is written: ruthlessly they embittered their lives with harsh labour at mortar, brick and field jobs.

 Leader: Why do we eat charoset? Rabbi Jochannan said “To recall the clay”. Seasonings mixed with apples recall straw mixed with clay; so were we forced to make bricks for Pharaoh. Why from apples? Rabbi Levi said, “To recall the apple trees.” For just as apple trees bloom while it is winter, before any leaves have grown to protect the fruit, so our mothers in Egypt were willing to bear their children unprotected, hiding in the orchards and fields. When Pharaoh decreed the drowning of Hebrew boys, Jewish men thought to cease having children altogether, but their wives and daughters said, “Pharaoh wants to kill only the male children, but your actions will eliminate them all!” Their courage kept our nation alive.

 (Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu al achlit maror.)

 All present take romaine lettuce, dip it into the Charoset and eat it.

 Reader: We have come from darkness to light, slavery to freedom, winter to spring and now bitterness to sweetness. Despite that journey, some darkness remains with the light. With our freedom, there are some who are enslaved. It remains winter for some and life remains bitter for many throughout our world.

 Leader: Even in our own lives, we live within the tapestry of those contradictions. It is dark and it is light; we are trapped and we are liberated; we are cold and we are warm; we feel pain and joy, as we just experienced through combining maror and charoset, taking the bitter with the sweet and acknowledging the fullness of life, shaded by gradations of experience and a reflection of all possibilities rather than simply black or white.

 KOREICH

 Reader: We remember the days when the Temple stood and Hillel the sage combined the pesach, matzah and maror, eating them together to fulfill the biblical teaching “with matzah and bitter herbs they shall eat it”.

 Leader: To the Sage Hillel, eating Matzah and Maror together was not a trivial matter. To him, slavery and freedom were merged in one historical event. The bread of poverty became bread of freedom and was tasted together with Maror, so that one should experience both the bitterness of slavery and the joy of freedom. In times of freedom, we remember the bitterness of slavery; in times of oppression, we keep alive the hope of freedom. It is due to this symbolism that Hillel’s practice of eating Matzah and Maror together has such an important message for us today.

 All present eat sandwich of Matzah, Charoset and Maror.

    BEITZAH

 Reader: Why do we put a symbolic egg on the Seder plate? The egg is a symbol of springtime, fertility and the giving of life. It also tells us that the longer things are in hot water, the tougher they become. Such is the case in the “oppression cooker” of life.

 TAPUZ

 Reader: Why do we have an orange on the Seder plate? Dr. Susannah Heschel offered the orange as a symbol of all Jews’ fruitfulness, representing the contributions gay Jews make as active members in Jewish life, and to ‘spit out’ traditional Judaism’s homophobia and heterosexism after attending a Seder where a crust of bread was added to the Seder plate in response to a rebbetzin’s assertion that gay women had no place in Judaism.

 Leader: Oranges also have many segments to represent that all people, no matter any difference they have, contribute toward creating the greater whole. They are thick-skinned, symbolizing the scars many people have, whether emotional, physical, or both of the above, because they are GLBT. Their thick skin makes them hard to peel, reminding us that freedom is gained in many small steps rather than coming all at once. However, once we have freedom it is, like the juice of the orange, sweet and gratifying.

ברוכה אתה יי אלוהינו רוח העולם, בורא פרי העץ.

(Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach Haolam, boray p’ri haeitz)

 Eat orange segment.

 ZAIEET

 Reader: Why is there an olive on the Seder plate? After the flood, Noach’s dove returned with an olive branch as a sign that the earth was habitable once more. Today ancient olive groves are destroyed by violence, making a powerful symbol of peace into a casualty of war.

 Leader: We keep an olive on our Seder plate as an embodied prayer for peace in the Middle East and every place where war destroys lives and prevents others from enjoying the hopes and freedoms we celebrate this evening.

                                      ♫ (Oseh shalom bimromav, hu yaaseh shalom aleinu, v’al kol Israel, ve’imru amein) ♫

 KARPAS SHENI

 Leader: Some Seder feats start with a hard-boiled egg to represent the new life of springtime. As a vegan alternative, we are starting our feast with a second sprig of parsley according to the following anecdote:

 Once, we dipped the parsley in salt water and it tasted unusual. My cousin Rachael and her sister Robin had traded the salt water for sugar water, believing that freedom should taste sweet. (recalled by Abby Cantor)

 To remember this simple truth and honour the innocence of childhood, we start our meal with a second sprig of parsley, though now dipped in sugar water, to savour the sweetness of freedom.

 (Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, boray p’ri haadamah.)

 Take the parsley, dip it into the sugar water and eat it.

 SHULCHAN OREICH

 Enjoy the meal!!

 TZUFAN

 Reader: Our meal is not complete until we distribute the dry crumbs of wandering and share the afikoman. With the taste of promise in our mouths we continue our journey.

 All eat some matzah.

 BAREICH

 Pour the third cup.

 Leader: Saying grace is an act of great importance. To be able to eat and drink is a possibility as extraordinary as crossing the Red Sea. We don’t recognize the miracle this represents because we have short memories and we-for now-live in a world that has plenty of everything. Those living in less fortunate nations recognize that satisfying one’s hunger is a marvel…the route which bread travels from the earth it grows in to the mouth that eats it is a perilous journey, hardly different than crossing the Red Sea.

 Reader: Even if our were filled with song as the sea

Our tongues with rejoicing as the waves

Our lips with praise like the breadth of the horizon

Our eyes brilliant like the sun and the moon

Our arms outspread as eagles' wings

Our feet as swift as fawns’

It would not be enough to thank You, our God of eternity and eternities.

 Leader: From Your abundance comes our food,

From Your delight our wine.

We’ve satisfied our hungers God,

As in Your great design.

 With love and thanks we bless Your name

And praise You with our song.

May all on earth bless You, the One

To whom we all belong.

   KOS SH’LISHI

 Lift cup and recite:

 Leader: I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgement.

 All: This is the promise of redemption. God’s arm extends to everyone; none is beyond God’s grasp. When we reach out to others redemption starts.

 (Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, boray p’ri hagafen.)

 All drink.

 SERIFAT HA’OMER (*if Seder occurs during second evening of holiday)

 Reader: On this evening, we celebrate our freedom from slavery; in fifty days we will celebrate our acceptance of the Torah’s teachings. Counting the Omer reminds us that we are freed not only from, but also toward. Pesach and Shavuot are linked stages on our collective journey to mature, thinking, engaged Jewishness: we must have freedom in order to accept the joyful responsibility of connecting with God and healing the world.

 (Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu al serifat ha’omer.

 Hayom yom echad la’omer.)

 KOS MIRYAM, KOS ELIYAHU

 Lift Miriam’s cup and recite:

Leader: Miriam is always present. She is here to provide healing, inspiration and wisdom. Her waters sustain us as we look toward the Messianic Age, flowing into wells around the world as Shabbat ends each Saturday evening.

Reader: A long journey awaits us if we want to have total freedom. Miriam calls us to work for-rather than wait for-that day. She sustains us with the most basic substance on earth-water that cleanses and heals. She lifts our hearts as she leads us once again in music.

 ♫And the women dancing with their timbrels, Followed Miriam as she sang her song, Sing a song to the One whom we've exalted, Miriam and the women danced and danced the whole evening.

 And Miriam was a weaver of unique variety The tapestry she wove was one which sang our history. With every strand and every thread she crafted her delight! A woman touched with spirit, she dances toward the light.

 (Chorus)

 When Miriam stood on the shores and gazed across the sea The wonder of this miracle she soon came to believe. Whoever thought the sea might split with an outstretched hand And we would pass to freedom and march to the promised land?

 (Chorus)

 And Miriam the prophet took her timbrel in her hand, And all the women followed her just as she had planned, And Miriam raised her voice in song- She sang with praise and might- We've just lived through a miracle, we’re going to dance tonight!!

 (Chorus) ♫

 Leader: We now drink from Miriam’s cup, the nurturing waters of her well.

 ברוכה אתה יי אלוהינו רוח העולם, שהכול נהיה בדברו.

(Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam shehachol nihyeh bidvaro.)

 All sip water of Miriam’s cup as it circulates around the table.

 Leader: We traditionally call on Elijah because our texts tell us that he will herald the messianic age. Since redemption will only come when we all work together, we each contribute to Elijah's cup.

 Pour a bit of your juice into Elijah’s cup as it circulates around the table.

 Reader: Finally, we open the door to welcome Elijah and Miriam, cultivating that capacity in ourselves which allows us to welcome and befriend-within and without. As we recognize and remember our suffering, when we were strangers in the land of Egypt, our capacity for compassion and community building deepens and we symbolically welcome any stranger who might arrive.

 We open our doors and our hearts to welcome visionaries and prophets, Elijah and Miriam, to our homes.

 Open the door and rise as you can to welcome Elijah and Miriam.

 ♫ Eiliyahu hanavi, Eiliyahu hatishbi; Eiliyahu, (3X) hagiladi♫

♫ Miryam han’viah oz v’zimrah b’yadah. Miryam tirkod itanu l’hagdil zimrat olam♫

 Reader: We remember and welcome Idit too. She cried out after witnessing the destruction of her enemies, turning into salt for shedding so many tears. She was once known simply as Lot’s wife and remembered for her act of disobedience, having turned out of compassion for life destroyed. Come, Idit, to our Seder and teach us deeds of loving-kindness.

 Close the door.

 HALLEL

 Pour the fourth cup.

 Leader: We have opened the door to the future. With words of praise set to music we celebrate the presence of the Holy One among us today and in the days to come.

 כל הנשמה תהלל יה הללויה

 ♫ (Kol haneshema Tehallel Yah Halleluyah {3X}) ♫

 הללויה שיר נשרה הבה

 ♫ (Havah nashirah, shir Halleluyah {3X})♫

 הוֹדוּ לַיהוָה כִּי-טוֹב: כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ.

יֹאמַר-נָא יִשְׂרָאֵל: כִּי-טוֹב: כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ.

  יֹאמְרוּ-נָא בֵית-אַהֲרֹן: כִּי-טוֹב:  כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ.

 ♫ (Hodu l’Adonai, ki tov. Ki l’olam chasdo, ki l’olam chasdo

Yomarna Israel ki tov. Ki l’olam chasdo, ki l’olam chasdo

Yomruna veit Aaron ki tov, Ki l’olam chasdo, ki l’olam chasdo) ♫

    כמלכנו אין כמושיענו אין כאדונינו אין כאלהינו אין

♫ (Ein kelohenu, ein kadonenu, ein kemalkenu, ein kemoshi’enu

Non komo muestro Dio, Non komo muestro Senyor,

Non komo muestro Rey, Non komo muestro Salvador.) ♫

כמושיענו מי כמלכנו מי כאדונינו מי כאלהינו מי

♫ (Mi cheloheinu, Mi chadoneinu, Mi chemalkeinu, Mi chemoshi’einu,

Kein komo muestro Dio, Kein komo muestro Senyor,

Kein komo muestro Rey,Kein komo muestro Salvador.) ♫

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

למושיענו נודה למלכנו נודה לאדונינו נודה לאלהינו נודה

♫ (Nodeh leloheinu, Nodeh ladoneinu, Nodeh lemalkeinu, Nodeh lemoshi’einu,

Loaremos a muestro Dio, Loaremos a muestro Senyor,

Loaremos a muestro Rey, Loaremos a muestro Salvador.) ♫

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

מושיענו ברוך מלכנו ברוך אדונינו ברוך אלהינו ברוך

♫ (Baruch Elohenu, Baruch Adonenu, Baruch Malkenu, Baruch  Moshi’einu Bendicho muestro Dio, Bendicho muestro Senyor,

Bendicho muestro Rey, Bendicho muestro Salvador. )♫

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

מושיענו הוא אתה מלכנו הוא אתה אדונינו הוא אתה אלהינו הוא אתה

♫ (Atah hu Elohenu, Atah hu Adonenu, Atah hu Malkenu, Atah hu Moshi’einu.

Tu sos muestro Dio, Tu sos muestro Senyor.

Tu sos muestro Rey, Tu sos muestro Salvador.)♫

 KOS RIVI

 Lift cup and recite:

 Leader: I will take you to be my people and I will be your God.

 All: This is the promise of covenant. God has kept this promise for five thousand years, so may we keep our commitments to others, building connections of justice and integrity.

 (Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Ruach haolam, boray p’ri hagafen.)

 All drink.

  NIRTZAH

 Reader: It is traditional to conclude a Seder with L’shanah habaah b’Yerushalayim. It speaks to a feeling of exile which characterized the Jewish Diaspora for centuries, but now that the State of Israel exists, the call is different. What are the chances that we will all be in Jerusalem in a year? Wouldn’t we rather be together?

 However, the meaning of the word Yerushalayim shows its name has a double meaning. Its root can be read as Ir Shalem (“City of Wholeness”) or Ir Shalom (“City of Peace”).

 No matter where we are, or our political leanings, we can all slip into exile from the state of wholeness and unity which only connection with our Source can provide. No matter where we are in a year, may we be whole and at peace.

 Leader: Our Seder is now complete, the ritual fulfilled. Tonight we passed through ancient doors and made our way toward freedom. Nourished by story and song we joined our ancestors in praise. Memory opened our hearts; hope was sweet on our tongues. May we enter these doors again in years to come.

 All: May slavery give way to freedom.

May hate give way to love.

May ignorance give way to wisdom.

May despair give way to hope.

May everyone, everywhere, live in total freedom in a year!