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#we left kansas four days ago

all-too-unwell-13 · 3 months

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"not in kansas anymore."

"no, duh, we left kansas four days ago."

like ok percy, take her to the cinema RIGHT NOW. please and thank you x

#idk #i rewatched wizard of oz last summer so #I CANT WAIT TILL SEASON 4 FOR THEIR CINEMA DATE #just had to remind myself it got interrupted #oops spoilers #😭#i need to reread the 4th book #like right now #percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo tv show #percabeth

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fictionalmenaremytype · 3 months

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Percy Jackson episode 7 spoilers!!!

First of all, that cliff hanger is more cruel than the actual cliffhanger...okay maybe not but you get the point.

- WE GOT CRUSTY'S. If I'm honest though I wasn't really disappointed when I thought he wasn't in it.

- I am sad we didn't get DOA records but the fact that they didn't fare with Charon tells me DOA does still exist they just used a different entrance so I'm hoping for it to be used in a different season. Would be funny if Nico used it in the 5th season with Percy.

- Annabeth's "Dude, don't make me come back out there!" Tell him, WiseGirl!

- Oh my god Percy and Sally at his first boarding school is so sad but when I tell you I cheered when he locked that car door! Persassy at his finest.

- "not in Kansas" "Hey focus, we left kansas four days ago." "Yeah, I-" so it's basically Canon they were going to see the Wizard of Oz in BotL then yeah??

- Percy is so polite with all the souls! "We're all dying...to some extent."

- The boys bribing Charon and Annabeth is staring at them like they are about to get them in trouble again.

- "You can buy a new whistle" I cackled

- AWW CERBERUS...I mean Ahhhh Cerberus!

- Annabeth is so smart but Grover getting eaten?? Was scared he wouldn't come back.

- I feel bad for Aryan being covered in that gloopy stuff that looked gross.

- She just chucks Percy the ball to get herself up! INGENIUS!

- Aww Annabeth's little sad backstop moment and Percy wasn't even listening!

- The way Grover lost the pearl is very clever! I wasn't expecting that but it makes more sense than Poseidon forgetting about Sally.

- New Information?!?!? Mate you could have sent an email!!!! I'm sorry but maybe the fact he was on the school gymnasium roof probably suggests that the school wasn't keeping a good enough watch on him!!! Report the school!!!

- HOMESCHOOL??!?!?! Of course Sally can't do that she's barely able to support her, Percy, and Gabe as is! But Percy seeing all of that is so sad.

- That soul is terrifying I never want to watch the fields of Asphodel scene again (I've watched it four times)

- Annabeth getting stuck because of her regret (which I'm assuming is regret leaving home) I was scared for her. Completely forgot about the pearl.

- I really thought the sound were going to do some Weeping Angel level scary stuff.

- She's so smart using the pearl

- I thought the desert was another dream sequence but nope! How did I forget!

- Sad we didn't get the tartar sauce line but I'm also glad we didn't.

- I am convinced they only came off of Grover's hooves because he has hooves and not feet. If his foot filled the shoe properly he would have been dragged to Kronos.

- "is this?" "No!" "Well it looks like-" "it absolutely is not" "Okay, so what is it then?" "Yeah that's the master bolt." "I mean, I think so right??" I love how they show it takes them longer to get to the truth without Annabeth.

- return the bolt ❌️ Take the bolt to the person you think stole it ✅️

- The café scene is so sad what! "I would never do this to you." Has me sobbing. my favourite thing about the show is all the extra scenes we're getting that explains how difficult it was for Sally to raise Percy, it just adds to why there's so many year-round campers.

- that elevator is badass

- I love how Hades tries to connect with Percy with the nautical reference. He's so funny. I want a scene in season 4 or 5 of Nico just ranting in Italian and Hades sat on his thrown like "Yeah yeah I know."

- PERCY DEFINITELY PANICKED SEEING HIS MUM IM GOLD BECAUSE WHEN HE WAS IN GOLD HE ALMOST SUFFOCATED TO DEATH AND SALLY HAS BEEN LIKE THIS FOR FAR LONGER. HE'S PANICING THAT SALLY IS EXPERIENCING WHAT HE DID.

- "huh?"..."the bolt is my brothers drama I don't want anything to do with it." Spoken like a true middle child.

- "my helm!" "Your what?" So funny. Percy knows loads of stuff about Greek mythology but not about the helm.

- Oh my god, the way this is setting Annabeth up to be the traitor??? The helm turns people invisible like her hat. Percy realised he was supposed to be dragged to Tartarus, which would make sense why she saved him from the chair...he knows someone partnered with Ares, and both Annabeth and Ares were upset with Athena when Ares arrived!! Kind of suspicious...

- "Kronos." chills.

- Hades helping them in exchange for the bolt makes sense now because he only wants to defend his land. He's thinking he's the closest to Tartarus, so he will experience his father's wrath first and therefore needs the strongest weapon.

- "Nice pearl?"

- "Hold fast mum."

- Sally burning the milkshake as an offering is so smart but WHAT CAFÉ HAS MATCHED IN THE SUGAR BOWL?!?!?

- The way Poseidon just turned up because Sally needed him <3 (couldn't do that for Percy though could you mate?)

- "it's a him, he saw it." I cackled.

- Poseidon and Sally having that kind of relationship where they put feelings aside to help the other person. It's giving besties with a child.

- "one day...one day when he's ready...when he knows who he is...and where he belongs...and fate has revealed to him his true path...and that day..." And that day is next Wednesday because surprise! Its a cliff hanger! And the end of the episode!

- The way they looked at eachother when they realised what was about to happen though has set them up to be such a perfect trio.

- I will never get over how cool Ares is!

- And riptide/anaklusmos (which for non book readers is the name of Percy's sword) looked so sick.

This episode was so good and I'm so glad it wasn't like a 25 minute episode. Even though the actual content only took 36 minutes, it felt well spaced and gave time to understand what was happening. I am a little teensy bit worried for how the last episode will go as there's quite a lot to cram in. They have to find the Helm and fight Ares and then they have to return to camp so I'm a little bit worried but I have faith that Rick, Aryan, Leah and Walker will pull it off.

#percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #annabeth chase #percabeth #pjo tv show #pjo series #grover underwood #leah sava jeffries #aryan simhadri #walker scobell #percy jackson episode 7

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pjo-obsessed-nerd · 3 months

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OMG JULIAN RICHINGS IS EVERYWHERE I LOVE THIS MAN

He's so creep, but he's so good

HAH ANNABETH COMING IN CLUTCH

Percabeth power couple, yes pls

"It's either the realm of the dead, or someone left a carton of milk in there in to 1990's" nah, but that's the fastest way to make me gag about a smell I can't smell 🤣

THE RED RUBBER BALL

"No one comes baaaaaack" I love this man so much ❤

"I just think it's safer if I'm not the one holding them all." That's fair. ya know, as someone who drops her phone regularly, that's relatable.

Those pearls sound ✨ c r u n c h y ✨

IT'S THE SCENE - BABY PERCY 😭😭😭 aww my baby I just want to hug him. I can see it now, I'm gonna bawl like a baby in a few mins

"Not in Kansas...", "Hey, focus, we left Kansas four days ago." Reminder she hasn't seen a movie, points for continuity ❤

Grover squeezing that ball omg

Poor Grover, it's ok 😭

"Only suckers wait in line" 🤣🤣

"You're not dead.", "I mean, we're all dying... To some extent." He's a comedian 🤣

The silent whistle admittedly gave me chills; I can just see the horror on Annabeth's face. CERBIE!!!!

Run

CERBERUS LOOKS SO BEAUTIFUL OMG HE'S EVEN MORE GORGEOUS THAN I IMAGINED AHHH

GROVER NO

i just screamed a little... Oh, my sister is gonna cry

aww, Cerbies TOO cute, the little whines omg I'm gonna DIE. Annabeth giving him scratchies aww even though she's terrified. Percy is impreased

I am a Rottweiler lover at heart, so I'm just obsessed with Cerberus I'm not sorry

OH GROVER EW; Thank god he's okay

Oh, ik how they get separated I bet 😭 JUMP SCARE OH

Aww Annabeth threw him the ball such a good puppy omg

Is. Is Cerberus wearing a leather jacket? Or is that leather armor? I can't tell 🤣

Annie lore drop 🥲 grovers so impressed tho

IT HAPPENED IT HAPPENED IT HAPPENED AHH

"I think it's... It's in the dog." His name is Cerbie. /jk

Percy, baby, what did you draw that upset someone so much? He's just a BABY. I WILL FIGHT THIS HEADMASTER TOOTH AND NAIL IT'S A PEGASUS SIR.

Grover, stop guilting yourself sir

OH jeez what tf.

Man I guessed Asphodel, and I was fucking right. My Mythology teacher would be so proud. This is such a haunting take on Asphodel omg. That's terrifying.

run

WHERE ANNABETH

NO SHE'S STUCK NO SWORD SWORD CUT IT CUT CUT CUT KNIVES PPL YOU HAVE KNIVES USE THE KNIVES

"I trust your dad." Athena ain't gonna be happy about this one, ladies and gents. 🤣🥲😭

Annie's gone, and i stg if we lose grover I'm done

GROVER

PERCY MOVE IT

Nah, Riptide looks sick tho. Pretty sure that's the first time we've seen it in good lighting

THE BOLT

so r we not gonna see Hades..?

"Is this?", " No.", "I, I mean it looks like-" "it, it absolutely is not.", "Okay. So... what is it then?", "Yeah, that's the master bolt!" This exchange was so funny 🤣

The pieces r fitting together... Hehe

"Zeus is just gonna have to wait." HELL YA, STICK IT TO HIM, GROVER, THAT'S MY BOY!!! Grover reminding Percy exactly why he chose Grover, his best friend, to come on this quest in the first place. ❤

Sad Baby!Percy 😭 that's a lotta ice cream for such a tiny boy

"Why are you trying so hard to get rid of me?" GOD MY ABANDONMENT ISSUES HAVE BEEN TRIGGERED, I NEED TO PROTECT THIS CHILD FROM THE WORLD NOO

"I would never do this to you." THE LINE DELIVERY, GET THIS BOY AN OSCAR... AND A FUCKING HUG

sally avoiding the topic and crying, I wanna hug her too. She's trying so hard.

Hades palace is gorgeous, damn.

Are we gonna get to see the Furies again???

Percy's hands must hurt from how hard and how constantly he clenches them fists damn.

Who tf-

HADES IS SO NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. I was expecting a rocker dude, but I love the "silk robe, manicured hair". Man's got class.

"I admire the cut of your jib." Ok maybe not what WAS that 🤣

He's way less scary than I expected, tbh.

Is he wearing heels? It sounds like he's walking in heels

SALLY'S A GOLD STATUE NOW??? Sally reaching out for him 😭 I'm done. I'm done.

"What did you do to her?" I can sense the rage coming

Percy 😭

babe, Hades was so confused. He just wants to be left alone, such a mood tho. Percy's so confused

PIECES. P I E C E S. IT'S A PUZZLE PPL

"But that voice, it definitely did not sound like you." That an insult or a compliment, I deadass can't tell 🤣

Ok... Hades is being very generous, but what's the catch here? This feels sus. Oh. There. Run. pearls. now.

"Hold fast, mom." HOLD FAST MOM YESSSSSS

Sad Sally 😭 What's happening rn

NO. NO. IS THAT

I'M GONNA SCREAM. WATER DADDY- sorry

"Tell me why", "you don't wanna hear why." Fair, fair 🤣

Nah, Poseidon's actor fits the bill so well in my mind. Like. Mm.

Poseidon rlly does care.

"His mother raised him well." Damn right!

OH THIS FIGHT FINNA BE SO GOOD

Hehehehehehehehehe

IT SO GOOD AHH I'M GONNA SCREAM NEXT EPISODE O. M. G.

#percy jackson #annabeth chase #percy and annabeth #percy jackson show #percabeth #grover underwood #pjo tv show #leah is our annabeth #percy and grover #percy jackson fandom

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xplrvibes · 3 months

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some people on twitter are getting really mad at colby for apparently ‘ditching’ shea for his new girl saying shit like oh he led shea on and now he’s pushed her away lol

they’re fully acting like he’s committed an awful crime like why are they cancelling him 😭

(side note - i’m actually, whole heartedly convinced that half of the fandom genuinely hates colby and everything he does fills them with rage lmfao)

This is going to be a one and done, on this topic. I don't like Shea, don't like what she's doing. Never did like her, as you all know, because she has been an absolutely awful and manipulative bully and generally trash person over the years and I don't want her taking up too much space on my blog because of it.

But I felt the need to just put this out there before I move on, so here we go, behind a cut for anyone who doesn't want to hear it lol.

You know, I find this whole "taking Shea on her word all of a sudden" thing interesting.

According to Shea, they had a 10 year (even though he was still living in Kansas 10 years ago) "on-again, off-again thing" that was "mostly just talking" and was "never official," although it was "almost dating, but not official" for 2 years (even though there hasn't been a 2 year period where Colby hasn't been at least seeing someone, if not hooking up).

She doesn't seem to know any of his friends and not a single one of them follow her on socials - in fact, most of them unfollowed her several years back. Of particular note is the fact that Sam, after all these years of her being Colby's future wife, still hasn't followed her back...but has followed several of the other girls Colby's been linked to over the years, including M.

She never seems to have a clue about what is going on in his life and has been promising (and not delivering) fans content with Colby for years now - including her telling everyone that her and Colby were going somewhere to film a documentary in January of this year when Colby had already told everyone on xplrclub that he and Sam were going to be in Vegas or in Texas filming in all of Jan and then in Australia for most of Feb. She promised to have him on one her streams on a day when he was actually in Hawaii, then another day when he was actually in Kansas visiting family.

She hasn't been invited to a single party or group gathering of theirs since 2019, save for one time when she visited Colby and Sam in Las Vegas - which came across as very awkward, given the above.

She complained about never getting invited to snc's Halloween parties - you know, the ones that have 500-1,000 invitees and snc have claimed include an invite to every single person they know and are friends with? Yet Colby's soul mate gets left on the list somehow, 6 years running?? (One year he had four different past flings there at once. But the future Mrs. Shea Brock just didn't make the cut somehow)

Oh, bonus: she once told a gc full of her fans that Colby asked her out, but she turned him down because she valued the friendship too much. Funny how those turns tabled.

Colby meanwhile, has never hidden that he considers himself single, does not think he's met "the one," uses Raya to find dates, hooks up and has flings....he's not just pretending to be single, he IS single.

So. to recap: They have had a 10 year friendship and emotional bond that Shea deluded herself into thinking was more. Colby comes around her again after having had a cancer that could've easily rendered him unable to have children, and her grand idea is to tell this guy she freely admits she was never even dating that she wants to cash in on some vague promise he may or may not have actually made to her about getting married and having CHILDREN???

I'd have left her ass, too.

But sure. He's the bad guy. By the way, to hear Shea tell it, Colby did the same thing to her that Sam did to Kat. But all the people trashing Colby were the first ones in line to defend Sam from big bad mean Kat and her hurtful words because "he wasn't ready" and wah wah wah. Isn't that funny...and on par.

So yes, lol. Most of the people pissed about this are using any excuse put in front of them to trash Colby cause that is the only enjoyment they get out of life. Trust me when I say they are backing the wrong horse with Shea. She's not the hero victim y/n sainted good girl she pretends to be.

#asks #and now I'm done with her and the trolls of the other corners of the internet thanks!

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rrainydaydreams · 3 months

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Episode 7 thoughts

I saw the beds and knew exactly where Percy was

“Crusty, please.”

Annabeth being badass

“Hey. Focus. We left Kansas four days ago.”

“We’re all dying… to some extent.”

Cerberus just being a big puppy

Back to three pearls… WHY DID THEY GIVE US A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY

Creepy ass forest that just turns out to be sad

Is that the desert from Percy dream?

The master bolt looks pretty cool

“Why are you trying so hard to get rid of me?” 😭😭

Wow I didn’t expect Hades to be that nice and make jokes and… oh. He has Sally Jackson as a statue

Hades saying the same thing to Percy that his mother did

Poseidon??

Sally deserves the world 😭😭😭❤️

now we have to wait one more week for the final episode…

#percy jackson disney plus #percy jackson #percy Jackson and the olympians #rick riordan #episode 7

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odysseussolar · 2 months

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Percy: We’re not in Kansas anymore…

Annabeth: We left Kansas four days ago, keep up.

Percy: *mentally* God, I really gotta take you to a movie theater.

#percy jackson show #disney #percy jackson #pjo #annabeth chase #percy jackson and the lightning thief #percy jackson and the olympians

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dr-lizortecho · 3 months

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Percy: we are not in Kansas

Annabeth: hey, focus, we left Kansas four days ago

#way to show how she’s been deigoding since seven years old

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akkpipitphattana · 3 months

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focus, we left kansas four days ago 🙄

#i love her #liz watches pjotv #liz consumes media

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specford59-blog · 4 months

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Purpose

November 2022

Purpose, commitment, and expectations

The kerosene heater fan was humming along the other night, emitting a sweet odor that took me back to a Christmas break 52 years ago I was 18 working on my dad’s 9-year-old Jaguar sedan. For some reason known only to an 18-year-old me, I wanted to be alone. The cadence of the forced air heater and the tapping of my push broom on the concrete floor as I cleaned up my shop space was time travel but upon arrival to that era, my dad was no longer there, I could no longer invite him out to the garage. Now during my 70th year, I was doing what I did five decades ago, and still I need his advice and guidance even though in between I completed my graduate education, then 40 years of a career was consumed, completed, and now laid to rest. That chapter was closed.

As in many aspects of our lives as we live them for granted, what I would not give to have another night in the shop with my dad leaning over a project and talking about how best to approach it or better yet, the challenges that life present to us.

Over the last 12 months since I left the full-time art and practice of medicine it has become apparent how existentially purposeful it is to care for our fellow human companions on this earth. In the vortex of day-to-day practice, regardless of the initials behind one’s name, there is never a lack of meaning. The smallest intervention, the lightest touch, the kind attentive ear is meaningful for the recipient and that meaning often goes unrecognized by the practitioner. But nonetheless the practitioner’s hours and days are defined by meaningful and purposeful outreach and oftentimes will result in kind notes sent by appreciative patients. Over the four decades of my active practice the importance of that sense of purpose and meaning was in retrospect not internally recognized, or as appreciated and acknowledged and given the gratitude it deserved. But there is more.

Commitment:

None of the emotional well being and positive feedback from purposeful outreach is forth coming with out some sort of commitment on the part of the practitioner. One must commit to a service and see it through with the patient (in the case of clinical medicine). That sacrifice of time is more than rewarded by the sense of satisfaction felt by completing a journey with a patient, regardless of outcome as the commitment to the journey is and can be the reward. In oncology, although the outcomes are remarkably improved over the beginning of my journey in the late 1970’s, still we often accompany our patients to the end of their time on this earth. And, though regrettable the sense of purpose is immense recognizing that expectations as outlined throughout the many interactions over months and sometimes years were often exceeded, and expectations of comfort and commitment and honest dialogue were not abandoned even when those conversations were of necessity about the end of active treatment and the transition to journeys end.

Expectations:

When reflecting on the meaningful and purposeful interactions with patients or even our family and or friends, it is apparent that to lessor or greater degree there is some expectation of competency for meaningful purpose to be achieved. Kind words and directed guidance of the patient’s illness without the requisite background and training will lead to nothing but pathetic sorrow for the both the practitioner and the patient. In the case of the practice of oncology and caring for patients with cancer meaningful purpose can bloom in abundance but then wiped away bare as a Kansas tornado landscape when the practitioner fails the expectation of competence or fails to accompany the patient on the journey up to the bridge crossing over to the next world.

My father

As I swept out my shop and moved things from here to there as I have done so many times from the time, I was a child, I continued to think about my dad and how he found purpose in his life up until and even after his last debilitating stroke that occurred when my dad was exactly the age that I am now.

My father’s first stroke left him with mild transient hemiparesis, it occurred with he was only 66. But despite his limitations he managed to take apart and restore a truck that he had originally sold in 1949, and then found and repurchased later in life. Despite losing his wife, my mother at the age of 60 he developed a purposeful and meaningful relationship in a marriage with Grace that lasted until his death 18 years later. As he had committed to the restoration, together they committed to their relationship and met expectations and thereby found purpose in each day. At age 18, by choice I worked alone that cold December evening and though I cannot change that decision now, I have come to recognize that the regret is a powerful tool from which to learn, it can stimulate a new desire to make commitments and to work hard to meet and exceed expectations. There were over the course of 40 years of practice some powerful lessons, regrettable episodes that once acknowledged helped me be a more complete physician.

Sadly, the second more devastating stroke that left him with severely restricted mobility and lack of speech occurred only a year into my practice and 5 years before the birth of our first child. Despite that his example was to find purpose in hale and hearty relationships with his acquaintances in his living unit, playing cards watching the Atlanta Braves and his relationship with Grace. He had to meet expectations, walking with a four-footed cane, getting to the dining room unassisted and he remained committed to his children, his wife, and his social connections. He found purpose in all these things despite crippling effects of the stroke that struck him 6 months before his 71st birthday.

It was my profound privilege to have experienced such meaningful purpose in the practice of medicine. It is my challenge to find purpose and meaning and to commit to purposeful living for my remaining time. Commitment is needed, regardless of the task, no matter how small, expectations need to be met to achieve competence.

#Retirement #purpose

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bike42 · 2 years

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Day Five (August 25, 2022)

We took a day off hiking yesterday to spend the day in Breckenridge. Jeff and I had booked massages, some of the group went to the Barney Ford Museum, others shopped, and we all met up for lunch. After lunch, we said good-bye to George and Kimberly (headed back to Austin as they’re going to Tanzania for safari next week), and the rest of us headed back to the cabin. Jeff and I stopped at the grocery store and bought salmon and veggies for dinner. Great early evening and early to bed to rest up for today’s epic day!!

Today we planned to hike the “DeCaLiBron” and it encompasses Mts Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross - FOUR 14ers, eight miles and 3700 ft elevation gain.

We were up early, arriving at the Kite Lake trailhead at 6am. It was still dark, and we could see hikers already working their way up the mountain, their headlamps reminding me of our nighttime assent of Mt Kilimanjaro.

There were a lot of people heading up the trail in the early morning hour. The most impressive “hiker” was a little three-legged dog. A dog of that size with ALL FOUR legs would have struggled, but this little lady had some guts and determination! Her owner said she was 4 years old, and was hit by a car 8 months ago and that’s how she lost her leg. When the boulders got really big (tough steps for all of us), he put her in his pack for a bit, but once they got to the top she was running around like 14,000 feet didn’t bother her one bit!

We got to the saddle between Mt Democrat and Mt Cameron, with about 500 ft of gain left to go to the summit of Democrat on an out-and-back trail. Not surprising, there were several young folks that were coming down as we went up – those were the headlamps we’d seen, and they probably summited at daybreak.

It’s always surprising how tough the last 500 ft of gain is when you’re already above 13,000 feet. But “pole pole” got us all there, feeling great! We took photos of the guys (and dog) from Kansas City, and they took photos of us. The view from the top was amazing, but we didn’t linger as we had other peaks to scale!

Down to the saddle, and up about 500 ft of elevation to the summit of Mt Cameron. The top of that was flat and afforded an amazing view. Quick photo, and on our way to Mt Lincoln – not much down, more just across the saddle and up a bit of a rock wall. We’d been above treeline all day, so finding a place to pee was quite a challenge – plus there were more people than we’d seen all week out there. On the way to Mt Lincoln I went down into a mine shaft crater to pee, with Jeff standing guard. Its just nature, and everyone needs to do it, you just hope they abide by the “avert your eyes” hiker code!

A couple at the top of Mt Lincoln had major signs, ticking off their list of the 14er’s they’d scaled, and they took a photo of us with their professional looking Mt. Lincoln sign. The woman had two new hips and wasn’t sure she’d be back on her 14er journey, so she was understandably emotional to have accomplished her climb today!

It seemed that many people were going back the long way, as Mt Bross was technically “closed” at the top. But we’d heard that you can scale the trail along the face of it, and the trail hits a point above 14,000 feet – so that counts as a 14er – that’s the route we opted for.

It had been clouding up, and as we descended down the face to Mt Bross, it started raining, making the rocks a bit slippery and the going down slower (it was a fairly steep descent, so we’d have been slow anyway). Compared to the misery factor I’d felt coming down Kilimanjaro, this descent was NOTHING! I really enjoyed the whole day, and the feeling of accomplishment it brought!!

The rain was heavier the last hour, and it was cool, but not cold (thankful for the Gore-Tex jacket and waterproof gloves) – also that we had no severe weather with lightning! When we got to the parking lot, we were two of just a handful of cars left, the smarter people had already moved off the mountain before the rain.

Back to the cabin for hot tub, cold beer and another fun dinner. JT and I head to Boulder tomorrow for a different adventure, the remaining 5 will do one more hike before departing on Sunday. It’s been an awesome week!

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theliterateape · 2 years

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The Life of a Peripheral Character

by Don Hall

Who is Blake in the David Mamet play and film Glengarry Glen Ross? In the film, the character is played by Alec Baldwin and when you look up clips, his monologue ("Coffee is for closers.") is almost always near the top. He's only in the piece for about ten minutes but it is a pivotal ten minutes.

So who is he? We never know. He has no backstory, no character flaws exposed. He is an engine moving the plot, for inspiring or terrifying the main characters. He is the voice of the cautionary tale and the teller of the future.

Blake is a periphery character. While he isn't strictly necessary to the story, without him and his speech, the film would be lacking a certain spice, a specific flair, a lightning strike in the midst of the main characters that jump starts the story.

If you bother to read anything I've written recently, you are on the down low of my nearly unbelievable divorce and exit from Las Vegas followed by the news that I'm now smack dab in the middle of Kansas, living with my folks to both scar up from the destruction of my life as I knew it and to help with my increasingly ill pops.

Suddenly, I'm part of the family again. Instead of a twice a year visitor (usually with a wife in tow) I'm, at least in the immediate sense, a full-time son/brother/uncle. After a few days of getting me set up, making sure I'm not longing for death, and feeding me, I was struck by something I had never considered. My family loves me unconditionally and would do anything for me but they don't like me very much. Their version of me is more combative than I see myself, more prone to judging them than I do, more unlikeable than I'd like to believe I am.

That sounds worse than it is. I left Kansas in 1989 and have since been the visitor, the guest, for over forty years. My family doesn't actually know me very well but know an avatar of whom they believe they know from both my highly dramatic teenage years and highlights from my life on various Christmases and Independence Days. My presence is a disruption not because they don't want me here but because, for my family, I am a peripheral character.

When my nephew overdosed, I was the brother who flew in from Vegas, helped with the specifics of cremation and the awful logistics of the immediate death, then flew back to leave the family to grieve without him. When my mother had to get a hip replaced, I was the FaceTime calls but not the day-to-day caregiving my dad and sister fulfilled. I am the uncle you visit in the city, the son you call every week, the brother whom you love but mostly from afar.

I am both a part of my family and apart from my family.

When your life burns down like a Northern California mobile home in a wildfire, you start with some confusing soul searching. Looking for your purpose in life because what you thought was your purpose is now erased. Wondering what value you provide to the world in any fashion. The past four months have been rough, gang. I've felt equal parts duped, discarded, and like a hurricane hit my house destroying everything I owned. Given the ex-wife was the Keeper of the Copper Umbrella and refused to part with a dime out of basic fairness, I have no savings. I have no steady job. I have no wife. No kids. My entire existence can fit in a small moving cube and my Prius. I'm now in a city I left forty years ago and have no friends in my vicinity.

The burning question I've been circling around like toilet water swirling around a turd that simply won't flush is what, exactly, is the point of my continued presence on the planet? I'm not one who wants to end it all because that's just some weak ass giving up (and, yes, I judge harshly anyone who goes that route) but I'm not terribly enthused about living, either. Survival for the sake of surviving seems like a truly miserable gig—like working at a call center selling herbal weight loss cures just to pay rent on a studio apartment on the shitty side of town. I'm certain Sartre ruminated on the meaning of life far more eloquently than I am but the desired answer is the same.

Why am I still breathing and consuming pizza rolls while kids are dying in mass shootings, wars all over the world, and my nephew is gone except for the memory and grief my sister holds? What am I here to do?

I'm a peripheral character in the lives of so many other, more important stories.

I'm Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings. I'm Little Bill in Boogie Nights. Walter Sobchak in The Big Lewbowski. Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. Ron Weasley in Harry Potter. Alfred in Batman.

I'm that guy.

I'm that guy who founded the theater company in the 90s that introduced you to your wife. I'm that guy who traveled to the largest metropolis in the Midwest and lived in his truck for four months. I'm that guy who bullied you into going skydiving. I'm that guy who was your first husband. I'm that guy who was your teacher who taught you about the Beatles and also encouraged you to be your whole self which then much later motivated you to switch genders.

I'm also that guy who either did or didn't forge a theater license. I'm that guy who pissed off Ira Glass enough that he tried and failed to get him fired. I'm that guy who had that girlfriend who punched him in the face, accused him of punching her to the police, and then moved in with her. I'm that guy who jumped on your car when you were angrily bashing into his because he illegally parked in front of you. I'm that guy who you got a mob of idiots to cancel because he unfriended you on Facebook. I'm that guy who had a crazy fairy tale marriage that turned out to be a Las Vegas cautionary tale.

Yeah. I'm that guy. Part inspiration, part dissuasion.

***

"Yo. You remember that guy who tricked the New York Times into reviewing the show he brought there?"

"Yeah. Whatever happened to him?"

"I heard he became the House Manager of Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!"

***

"Hey. You remember the dude who was presenting at the NPR conference and compared the public radio funding model to drug dealing?"

"Haha! Yeah. I heard he moved to Vegas and became a casino manager."

***

"Whatever happened to that one cat who lost eighty pounds after realizing he was a giant fatass?"

"I think he ended up having a summer fling with a girl whose father was the same age as he and then he married a porn star."

***

My purpose, my value in the world is to be a peripheral character. I'm not the protagonist of anything. My story is such a mishmash of jobs and marriages, escapades and fuckups, it's hardly a story at all but a series of nutty anecdotes.

Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Maybe Martini. R2D2 in Star Wars. Bucky Barnes in MCU's Captain America saga. Tom Hagen in The Godfather. Jay and Silent Bob in Clerks.

There is a wonderful feeling of freedom when I frame myself this way. It means I'm not the central focus. I don't have to be the hero or the villain. I just have to make colorful choices and keep swinging for the fences in sometimes amazing and sometimes incredibly stupid ways.

It turns out that my rolling stone gathering no moss existence does have a point. It might be a bit solitary but it's never boring. The peripheral character is more fun to be and it's certainly better than being the bland background character who parks your car or delivers your Amazon package. For now, I'm good with this answer to the burning question and I'm pretty sure I'll be happier than Sartre.

#peripheral characters #meaning of life #what is my value

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zmediaoutlet · 3 years

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in support of Texas relief, @padaleckimeon donated $100 and requested Dean Jr. meeting Sam and Dean in heaven. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts)

(read on AO3)

When Dad dies, Dean takes a week off. It wasn’t sudden, or a surprise. Dad had been sick for a while, his body starting to fail him. At first Dean had been scared, and then he’d been angry. He was only twenty-four when Dad got the diagnosis and it wasn’t—fair, in some stupid but essential way. He’d barely graduated from college and, yeah, Dad was kind of old, older than a lot of his friends’ parents, but—he thought, somehow, that him dying just wasn't… applicable. Dad was just—there, always. Solid, supportive, kind of boring maybe but also stronger than anyone Dean had ever known, or would ever know, and it wasn’t right that he could just be sitting in his apartment midway through a novel and get a call and kind of sigh, because he was in a good part in the book, and then to sit up straight with his hair standing on end to hear Dad say, quiet, I'm sorry, buddy. We need to talk about something. That’s what he said, first. That he was sorry.

There were treatments, but not many. Dean had flown out and gone to a few of the appointments with the oncologist and Dad had been quiet, listening to the options. He’d researched a lot of this on his own, because Dean had done the same thing, and they’d both been nodding along during the options. Injections, radiation. Chemo. Dad had asked, polite, what the life expectancy was for each option, and Dean had watched the side of his face and not the doctor, and when the answer was given Dad had closed his eyes briefly, and then looked away from both Dean and the doctor, out the window at the snowy day, and Dean had known, then.

Dad made it past Dean’s twenty-fifth birthday. He had a party with his friends, at his girlfriend’s apartment, and they tried to keep his spirits up but it was a pretty shitty party, all told. The next day, his actual birthday, he flew back out to Dad’s house and he was in good spirits—had a mini-cake, even, with a single candle that he made Dean blow out—but he was thin, and his hair was growing back in snow-white and tender-soft, and when Dad fell asleep in front of the crappy old cowboy movie that Dean had picked just because he knew Dad for some reason liked it, Dean went out onto the porch into the nearly-springtime air and he cried, pissed at himself. Pissed at everything. Then just—unbearably sad, because he liked his current girlfriend but he didn’t think he was going to marry her, and that meant that whatever girl he did marry would be one his dad would never meet—if he had kids, they’d never know how his dad concentrated like a motherfucker on crossword puzzles and obsessed over documentaries and knew every single piece of the inside of that behemoth car in the garage and was just the smartest kindest most stubborn person. Just—the best person. They’d listen to Dean’s stories maybe but they wouldn’t know, because Dad would never meet them, and that was just—unbearable, that night. In the morning, Dad made oatmeal and Dean added a bunch of sugar because Dad’s oatmeal was inedible otherwise, and Dad smiled kind of rueful like he always did when Dean did that, and then Dad said, I’m sorry, again, kind of quiet, and Dean reached out and held his hand—thin, and the bones feeling frail—and he said don’t be sorry, Dad, and four months later, Dad was dead.

Dad was always pretty up-front with him about most everything, especially after he and Mom split up. When he was twelve, Dad explained the supernatural very carefully, telling him that he was safe but that other people might not be, and why. When he was thirteen, Dad told Dean that Hell and Heaven were both real and that there was, definitely, confirmed, a God, and maybe it wasn’t the same God that other people knew but that Dad said he was kind, in his own way. The person in charge of Hell, Dad said, was maybe less so, but she wouldn’t hurt Dean, ever. Dad said he knew that for fact, and he said it so certainly, looking Dean in the eye, that Dean believed him. When Dean turned eighteen, a few months from graduating high school, Dad took him to a tattoo parlor and said for maybe the first time in Dean’s life that something was non-negotiable, and Dean hadn’t cared because what other kid in the senior year was going to walk at graduation with a kickass demonic tattoo?

There were other things, though, that they didn’t talk about. Dad said one day a lot when Dean was little but then, when he was older and it was clear that one day would be never, he just said—I can’t, buddy. I wish I could.

After the week off, rattling around the old house, and the cremation with no service that Dad had insisted on, Dean drives out to the lawyer in Sioux Falls. She’s nice. Respectful but not cloying. The Samuel Winchester Estate that Dean is the sole beneficiary of is—a lot of money. A lot more money than he knew Dad had, or that he could have ever earned. Dad has assigned some of the money to go to charities, and to some people Dean doesn’t know—the lawyer doesn’t say who in the specific, but says they’re kids of some of Dad’s old friends. Dean didn’t know Dad had many friends, much less ones who’d get trust funds in inheritance. Aside from the stock options and the accounts and all the money left over, Dean inherits a list of assets. The house, of course. The Chevy in the garage, with the stipulation that he can never sell it. A safety deposit box, from which the lawyer has already retrieved the contents.

She leaves him alone, to go through the box. Neatly organized, like everything else in Dad’s life. File-folders of pictures, printed out all old-fashioned. Some of Dean when he was a baby. Some of when Dad and Mom were still together, leaning against each other, Dean hugged between them. Some—much older, creased and faded, stored in little plastic sleeves so they can't degrade. He recognizes a few from the framed copies Dad always had in the house. Some he hasn't seen. Most of them—almost all of them—are of his Uncle Dean, who died before he was born, and he looks especially at one that just—hits him in the gut, in this awful way where he has to sit there looking at the soothing taupe paint of the conference room wall before he can look at it again. Uncle Dean's facing the camera, sort of, although he's laughing about something and not really looking into the lens, and there's Dad, laughing too. He looks… young. Younger than Dean is now. He flips the picture over. Dad's handwriting, careful: 2006, Bobby's house. Almost fifty years ago. An entire life he didn't know. He thinks again of his imaginary future kids. These lives they have, grandfather to father to son, that overlap like a venn diagram but—not enough. Not close to enough.

What's a life? How to summarize, from beginning to faded end, in a way that would make sense to anyone but who it happened to?

Dad left letters, explaining, but he's gone and the context is missing. There are so many questions Dean wants to ask but he can't, of course, anymore. The first letter is attached to the key to the bunker, where he would never take Dean when he was alive, and on winter break from med school Dean flies from Boston to Kansas and rents a car and drives alone through the snowfields.

Dark, inside. He throws the big switch and the lights crackle, hum on, almost reluctant. He has no idea how it's getting power. Dust, but not as much as there could be. A library, a kitchen. Archives upon archives. Dad had explained, but what little he'd said both in life and in the letters didn't come close. It was home, he wrote, for over a decade. The only one we had with four walls, for our whole lives, although we didn't think of it that way. I didn't, at least. Dean doesn't know what that means but he looks into the bedrooms and sees… emptiness, plain bunks and old desks and funny lamps. I just picked a random room, Dad said, and as Dean's looking he really can't tell which was Dad's. Figures. Their house when Dean was growing up didn't change a bit, no matter how terrible that wallpaper was. It's only when Dean pushes open the door to room 11 that there's any personality, and he flicks the light and stands there blinking, surprised. Guns and knives on the wall. Books, piled up. Empty beer bottles crowded on the little table. Dust, but—not as much as there could be. He walks in, cautious, this feeling in his gut like he's in someone's home and they've just walked out, and could return any moment. A food bowl on the floor. A shirt flung over the chair. On the desk: more books and magazines and a folded actually-on-paper newspaper from 2024, and a job application, half filled out. Dean Winchester, it says at the top, in mostly-neat capitals, and Dean rests a hand on the back of the chair and feels… strange. He tries to picture it—the man from the pictures, Dad's brother, filling up this space. Drinking beer and reading pulp westerns and checking out—oh, weird, magazine porn. Dean shakes his head. Impossible.

In the letters, Dad said: Hunting was all we knew how to do. With everything we knew, it was our duty to use the knowledge the best way we could. I went back and forth on it. Your uncle never did, even if I know there were times he wished he—that we both—could be something else. I don't want that for you. I want you to live exactly the life you want for yourself. No expectations, okay? Not from me or anyone else.

There are printed files that go back a hundred years. More than. Paper files, but old SSDs too, with connectors Dean has to find adapters for. Dad: If you want to know what we did, it's digitized. I know I always said I'd tell you one day, but I never knew how to say it. I'm sorry for that. I always thought I'd be one hundred percent honest, if I ever got a kid, because of how we were raised. I didn't know how hard that could be. Stuff that you'd want to say, but when it came time to just open your mouth and say it there weren't any words.

Dad wrote up all the old hunts, it turned out. Simple notes about where/when/how, the kind of monster it was, the number of people who died and the people who were saved. The people they had to explain things to, who knew now about the supernatural underbelly to the universe. He noted, too, if there were injuries, and Dean reads with his hand over his mouth a long, long litany of Dean W. shot, right arm; Sam W. broken bone in hand; Dean W. concussion; Sam W. strangled. On and on. No wonder Dad didn't make a big fuss when Dean broke his leg in the fourth grade.

He sleeps in the bunker overnight, in one of the spare bedrooms that's not room 11. There's a fan on the ceiling, dusty office supplies on the desk. By lamplight he reads the letters, on his back on the stiff terrible mattress, his eyes stinging and past-midnight tired. Our lives weren't the kind of thing anyone would want, Dad wrote. I spent so long trying to get away from it because I thought 'it shouldn't be this way' – and I was right, you know? It shouldn't have been how it was. But it was that way, anyway, and in the end that was something I was okay with. We were making what difference we could. We were happy. A lot of people have it worse.

'We'. Dad hardly writes Uncle Dean's name but he's in every letter. We, we, we. Dad told Dean stories, of course, the dumb stuff they got up to when they were teenagers, or the (sanitized, Dean's sure) adventures they had as adults, but despite the pictures on the wall at home and the pictures in the deposit box and the whole life that's here, Dean can't—see it. Beer bottles on the table in the bedroom, one on either side of the tiny table. The shirt slung over the chair. We were happy, he says, but—how? Dean can't imagine it.

In the last letter Dad wrote, I think I'm writing this when I've got a month or two left. Dr. Hendricks isn't sure. I wish I had more time, to explain how it was. Who we were. I never told you the most embarrassing thing in the world, but I'm old and I'm not going to be around and not much will be able to embarrass me anymore, so screw it. (Fifty years ago I would have gotten really mad at myself for that kind of comment; more things age can fix.) There are books about us. There's a hard drive, in the bunker. It's labelled BURN THIS. (That's your uncle's handwriting.) They're true, more or less. Written by a really crappy, amateur writer, but he was a kind of prophet, and he knew everything there was to know about us, and he wrote books for about five years, based on our life and the real things we did. Some of it is exaggerated and melodramatic. A lot of it is just how it happened. You'll have to decide which is which. I don't come off too well in some of them but I hope you'll understand that the world… I don't know how to describe it. Somehow the world felt different, then. It was just us, trying our best. I hope it gives you some idea of the life we had. No matter what happened, I'm glad that life led me to you.

What's a life?

Dean marries. Not the girl from college but a woman, later. Red hair, blue eyes. Absolutely no sense of humor beyond puns. Hates cooking and has strong opinions on movies from the 1980s. They have three kids, a girl and then a boy and then a girl again. All dark-haired, smart. Dean gives the boy the middle name Samuel and his wife holds his hand, says it sounds great.

He's a doctor. He meets hunters. He sets bones for free and prescribes medication when needed and when it will be needed. A woman, last name Novak, calls him and says you know, your dad was one of the greats?, and he meets people—older than him by twenty, thirty years, with scars and dangerous lives and guns hidden in every corner, and he hears stories. Sam Winchester, who saved the world. Dean knows—he's read the books—but there are more years that the books didn't cover, more people who didn't die because of his dad's intervention. "They were the best," one man says, shrugging, and gets no argument, nods and shrugs from every hunter in the room, and Dean goes home that night and kisses his littlest girl where she's already tucked up in bed, and he thinks: what will she know, about who her grandfather was? Who their family is? What could she possibly know?

Dean's wife dies in her eighties. An accident. A broken hip, an infection following. Still happens, even in this new century. The kids are grown, have kids of their own, and the funeral is big, and there are people at his elbow who say to him we're so sorry and who share anecdotes of her life and who support him to his chair, even though at ninety he's perfectly capable of getting to his chair himself. He's a cranky old man, he realizes. She would've laughed at him. He thinks, inevitably, of his own father's death. Silent and unmourned, except by one. What's a life.

He writes letters, for his children. The estate is handled. He calls the oldest girl and explains to her that she's going to be the executor, and that there are things she has to keep. A key. A car. Pictures, so that her boys will know where they came from. "Of course, Dad," she says, placating a little because he's old and clearly starting to lose his grip, but she'll do it. She's a good kid. Dean learned how to raise a kid from the best.

When he dies, he's expecting it. The trip to the hospital. The monitors. He knows the pain meds even if he's retired and his doctor looks like an infant but she gives him the good stuff. It's—easy. A slipping away. He closes his eyes to sleep and there is a moment where he thinks with surprisingly clarity, this is okay, isn't it, and has the feeling of someone's hand laid on his, and then he sleeps, and doesn't wake up again.

He opens his eyes in an armchair, in a house that he doesn't recognize but that feels instantly familiar. Music playing, somewhere, and a gold-tinged afternoon spilling through the window, and tone-deaf singing from the kitchen. His mind feels clearer than it has in… Tears come to his eyes but it doesn't hurt. He puts his fingers to his mouth and smiles, breathing in slow, and thinks—well, this is it. Heaven.

Time is no longer time. Space is—immaterial. There's a house, not their house, but it's roomy and it has what he needs and the bed he crawls into with his wife at the end of a day is comfortable, and that's what matters, as he lays his hand on her hip where he used to lay it always, and she sighs against the pillow and squirms and tucks herself into a fetal pretzel, like she always used to. The spill of her hair red against the pillow. Her warmth, plush against his bones. She smells not of honeysuckle or vanilla but just like warm, human skin, the faint bite of salt-sweat at the nape of her neck, the must in the morning in thin bluish light when she turns over and finds him awake, and smiles. Incredible. The weight of her is real, and the spot between her breasts when he kisses her there is real, and he'd always believed in some distant way that what his dad had told him was true—that there was a heaven, that there would be some kind of justice after death—but it was distant, and academic, because of course there was a life to live and patients to care for and children to raise and a wife to bury and a death to get through. What a thing, to come to. This place, with her hair on the pillow, and her smell. He hadn't forgotten it, in the end, after all.

The house sits in some place that feels like South Dakota. Home, or close to it. A lake among trees. A distance between things. He reads, and plays games he barely remembers from being a kid, and he watches the Ghostbusters movies again because his wife insists and they are, he has to admit, still funny, but he makes fun of the weird museum guy anyway, and she kicks him where her feet are tucked in his lap, and he tickles her in retaliation, and then—well, the movie will be there, later, when they're done.

She rides her bike every day. One day she comes back and says she was just visiting her mother, and Dean sits up and says, "What?" But—of course. What's time? What's a space, between this shared slow heaven and another? She shrugs—his mother-in-law says hi—and he sits there on the couch with his game paused, watching her go into the kitchen and shake her sweaty hair back from her face, redoing it into the practical twist at her neck like she always does, and he thinks—okay. Okay, maybe now.

The bookshelf has every book he could want, and seems to know what he needs to read before he does. Raining outside, spattering gentle on the eaves, and his wife made a huge pot of tea and took it to bed upstairs and left him just a cup, and so he sits at the kitchen table with his cup of tea and opens the book—Home, by Carver Edlund—and reads it, lingering, even if he's read it three times before online, his thumb brushing over the cheap too-thin pages of this physical copy. There's a poltergeist, preposterous. The psychic, odd and familiar. The brothers, united, and he reads the next-to-last chapter very slowly, lingering, as they find the box of pictures, as they get into the car together. Drive off, to meet some new dawning day.

He finishes his cup of tea. Puts on a clean shirt, combs his hair. "I'll be back," he says, to his wife, and she blinks at him from her nest of blankets with her own book and then only nods, and Dean goes downstairs and gets into his car and finds the road, beyond the garden gate, and drives.

He doesn't know where he's going but that doesn't matter. He turns on the car radio and it's playing—oldies, but really oldies, the stuff that was old when he was little. What childhood sounded like. Farms appear, melt away. Trees rising, through hills. He sings along, under his breath, remembering: a roadtrip to his grandma's house, Mom sleeping in the passenger seat and Dad driving through the night, and Dad singing very, very badly, as quiet as he could, and Dean thinking even as a kid that this was some private thing, to see, and he had to be silent and not show that he was awake or it would disappear. That feeling, it crept up on him at the oddest times, when he was an adult, and later. That sensation of the armored tank of the car moving through the dark, and the silence around them, and the quiet music inside, and Dad, in a world of his own, entirely separate from the world he shared with Dean.

Another hill. Climbing a mostly-paved road. Not raining anymore but the sun coming in slanted gold through the trees. Distance, and a curve, and then: a house. Old-looking. Older maybe than the one Dean and his wife share. In front of it, a car. The car.

Dean parks. He gets out, and the air smells washed-fresh, a little fecund. Like summer. He puts his hand on the hood of the Impala and it's sun-warm and he tears up, completely unexpected, and has to sit on the hood and hold his hands over his face, his heart—full, in a way he's felt since dying, but not in this particular way, this way of feeling that he thought had mellowed, a lifetime ago.

So much for putting on a good face. He wipes over his mouth and dashes his eyes clear. A porch, with new-carved railings. A door, painted blue. He knocks, his body feeling empty and clean and young, terribly young, and before he's quite ready the door opens, and it's—his uncle, in a purple plaid shirt and paint-spattered jeans and grey socks, frowning at him, saying, "Uh, hi?"

He looks—almost exactly like he looked in the pictures. Maybe forty, lines beside his eyes and heavy stubble on his jaw. The age he was when he died. Dean opens his mouth, can hardly dredge up what to say, and then he hears a voice say, "Dean?" and Dean and his uncle both turn their heads to see—Dad, young too, completely shocked, standing on the far side of the porch in running gear with sweat slicking his hair back from his head, and Dean drags in air and says, "Dad," and Dad grins at him, that big creased dorky-looking dad-smile that Dean only got once in a blue moon, and he steps forward and they're hugging, then, and it's—heaven. That's all he can think. Heaven, Dad's arms tight around him, his shoulders slotting in under Dad's because—Dad was so tall, and this is where Dean fit and never would fit again once Dad was gone. Here, under Dad's arm. Like being a kid again.

Dad's hand on the back of his head. A startled, shaky, deep breath in, and then hands gripping his shoulders, and being shoved reluctantly back to have Dad look down at his face, serious and worried. "How long has it been?" he says. "Are you—you didn't—?"

"I was ninety-seven," he says, and Dad's eyebrows go high and he smiles, big and glad and real, relieved. He touches Dean's face and Dean smiles back, tears rising again for no reason and for so many reasons. "I look good, don't I?"

Dad huffs a laugh. "You look great," he says, and then his eyes lift over Dean's head, and Dean has to turn around because—

What to call him? Uncle Dean. Standing there with his shoulder against the doorframe, his mouth tucked in on one side. Like from right out of one of the pictures, returning Dad's look. His eyes drop after a second to meet Dean's and Dean feels this odd jolt, in his chest. Bizarre, to see. He's real. All Dad's stories, the wall of memories, the books, and here he is, in grey socks, looking all over Dean's face like he's seeing it for the first time. "Guess you got your looks from your mom's side of the family," Uncle Dean says, finally, and Dad says, behind him, "Nice, dude," and Uncle Dean shrugs, unrepentant, but with an unexpected dimple quirking into his cheek, and holds out his hand to shake, and Dean takes it and has another shock at it, warm, callused, firm, real—while Uncle Dean says, wry, "Well, I guess some introductions are in order, huh?"

Uncle Dean and Dad share the house. It's nice, inside. Old fashioned in a way that feels comfortable, as Dean's come to expect. (He wonders, in a few hundred years—will new arrivals to heaven expect old-fashioned arcologies?) Uncle Dean brings beers from the kitchen and Dad takes his without even looking, drinking in Dean's face when Dean's doing the exact same to him. He looks so young. Younger, maybe, than he was even in the few pictures Dean has of him being a baby, held tiny in the crook of Dad's massive arm—some past time, some time Dean doesn't belong to, but Uncle Dean clearly does. Dad shakes his head after a few seconds, huffs again, rueful. "I don't even know where to start," he says.

Uncle Dean rolls his eyes, behind him, and says, "How about you ask the kid how he's doing, genius." Mean, but he squeezes Dad's shoulder too, and Dad bites his lip, looks at Dean, his head tipping. Asking.

It's awkward, but only in the way Dean would expect. To see his dad after so long—and both of them dead—and to explain… what? A life. Being a doctor, meeting a wife. Children. Grandchildren. "Great-grandpa Sammy," Uncle Dean fake-whispers, "told you you were old." Nudging Dad, half-sitting on the arm of his chair. Looking proud enough he could burst, although Dean doesn't know exactly why.

"Are you going to make dinner or are you just here to heckle?" Dad says, looking up, exasperated, and Uncle Dean raises his hands, says, "Oh, I'm here to heckle," but he gets up, too, says, "You get tired of the inquisition, kid, we've got more drinks in the kitchen," and cuffs Dad around the back of the head before he disappears down the blue-painted hall—and music comes on, after a moment. The kind of music that was on Dean's radio as he drove. Comfort sounds that go deep into some space beyond his bones.

"He's a lot, sorry," Dad says, after a second.

"I know, I read about it," Dean says, and Dad blinks at him, mouth half-open, before he remembers.

They have dinner. Uncle Dean makes burgers, fries, a spinach salad that Dean and Dad both groan at, and he looks at them across the table with his burger in his hands and shakes his head. No salad on his plate, Dean notices. They talk but about—nothing. Uncle Dean asks if the Broncos ever won the Superbowl again and Dean tries to dredge up an answer. Dad asks what his wife did for a living. Dean wants to ask things and doesn't know how. There's time, he knows, but for now all he can do is—watch. Dad leaning back in his chair with a beer, smiling at him while Uncle Dean tells some probably well-worn story about trying to fix the Impala in a rainstorm, and Dad was pissed for some reason and so kept handing him the wrong tools. "It was too dark to actually read the grip numbers," Dad says, patient like it's the hundredth time, and Uncle Dean says back, immediately, "Who needs the numbers? You can feel the weight in your hand!" Old arguments, well-worn, in the well-worn house. The way they move around each other, washing dishes, putting plates away. The way Dad's eyes will jump across the table, half a second before Uncle Dean's even opening his mouth, a smile already waiting to be pushed back down.

When it's night he says he should get back to his wife. "I'd like to meet her," Dad says, "some day."

"Gotta see who's willing to put up with a Winchester," Uncle Dean says, eyebrows waggling.

Dad sighs but nods, too. Dean gets folded into a hug, there under the tuck of his arm, and then he hugs Uncle Dean, too, impulsive and just—wanting to, feeling like a kid. Uncle Dean startles but hugs him back right away. "You're good, kid," he says, quiet against the side of Dean's head, and Dean nods and says, "Thanks," for more than he can say other than that, right then on this particular day, and then he gets into his car and pulls away from the house and looks back to see Uncle Dean gripping Dad's shoulder again while they watch him move away—and when he's home, after a blurring drive that's long enough for him to settle himself, he comes up the stairs to where his wife's warm in bed and slides in beside her and she says, sleepy, "How was it," and he says against her hair, "Perfect," because—it was. It was perfect.

Dean comes alone to their house twice more, on days when he needs it and doesn't see a reason not to. He brings his wife, the third time, and Dad's extremely polite and Uncle Dean asks her about engineering and Dean enjoys it, from the couch, while she gets the same interrogation he did, and they're driving home with her at the wheel, his eyes on the passing trees, before she says, "They're an interesting couple," and it doesn't strike him, for what may be a mile of blurring distance, why that sentence wasn't quite right.

It should be a shock. It isn't. That it isn't should, itself, be a shock, but he sits with it for a few days, the easy rhythm of heaven sliding around them.

He goes to see his mother, finally. She's in a place on a lakeshore. Her first husband, kind but remote, giving them space. She presses his hands between her own and he goes through the list of answers to all her questions, smiling, feeling déjà vu, and then says, cautious, that he's been to see Dad. "Oh!" she says, and doesn't seem upset. "How is he?"

"Good," he says. They never married, his parents—Dad had told him, much later, that it just didn't occur to him to ask—and he knew they didn't resent each other, but there wasn't much closeness there. He didn't realize how little until he was married himself. Still, he's cautious as he says: "He and my uncle have a place. Uncle Dean, you know?"

Mom sits back in her chair. "Well, then," she says, soft. She's youngish, too. Fifty maybe, her hair shot with grey. "That sounds about right."

He doesn't know how to ask but there's no way to do it other than just—to ask. "What do you know about him?"

Mom smiles, slow, and looks out at the lake. "Honey, your dad's a good man, but I think you know as well as I do that he doesn't give a lot away." Dean follows her look. A boat, far out on the water. Not close enough to hail. "He didn't talk about his brother, much. That said more than I think he knew it did. All those pictures. Well, you remember." She shakes her head, looking down at her lap. "I resented him for a while. A dead man. Silly of me. But then I suppose your dad could have resented Luke, if he'd—cared more. Sorry. That sounds like I'm angry, but I'm not. There just wasn't much left in Sam, that's all. He loved you and he loved someone that wasn't here anymore and there just wasn't room for me, or at least not room for what I needed. I wished I could've known him. Dean, I mean. I would've understood your dad a lot more, I think, but then—I don't think I would've ever met him, if Dean were around."

When he gets home he pulls a book off the shelf. Frail, the spine cracked badly. Supernatural, the first book in the whole series. When Dad was at college and the whole thing started. He sits on the floor by the bookshelf and lets the cup of tea his wife brings go cold on the rug, and reads again and again the scene—coming down the stairwell, finding the car in the garage, going through the details of the voice on the tape, on where their dad (Dean's grandfather) could possibly be, and Dad says there's this interview he can't skip. His whole future, on a plate. In the story, it's Dad's point of view, and he looks at Uncle Dean and Uncle Dean smirks, and Dad thinks, This is exactly what I was getting away from. Dean drags his thumb over the page, looks at the shelf. All those books. All the years in them, and the horrors in those. Hell, and apocalypse, and none of it euphemisms or easy metaphor. All the things Dad wanted to get away from—and then all the years, after, where he stayed exactly where he was. And then—a lifetime later—to come back home to a house, with a blue door, and his eyes not bothering to follow his brother as he leaves a room, because he knows without doubt that he'll be back.

In bed, he asks his wife, "When do you think the kids will get here?" and she turns over and stares at him, and says, "Hopefully not for years?"

He shakes his head, folds his arm under his head. "Duh," he says, and gets her to punch his chest lightly. "Ow. I meant… I don't know. What do you think their lives will be? Like… who will they be? I can't even imagine."

She stops trying to lightly beat him and goes thoughtful. Her thumb finds the little scar on her chin and rubs it, as is her habit, and her eyes slip over his shoulder to the distance. "They'll be—them." He raises his eyebrows, and she shrugs, rolling closer. "I mean, what do you want from me? I knew Abbie for fifty-one years and I still think that girl's a mystery. When she's… probably a grandmother herself, now, I guess. Is she still at Notre Dame? Are she and Andre happy? Are the boys healthy and do they like each other, and did she ever get Jacob to stop drawing cartoon dicks on the walls?" Dean laughs—god, he'd forgotten that—and she smiles at him, props her head on one fist. Says, softer, "Did she live the life she wanted to have? I don't know. I guess when she gets here we can ask her, but we'll never…"

No, they'll never. Dean touches the scar on her chin and she focuses on him, instead of some other world they're no longer privy to. "It's a venn diagram," he says, after a moment. "All of us. Abbie, overlapping with you and me, and then us overlapping with our parents, and on and on, all the way back. I guess we don't get to know what's outside the center parts."

"Even if there's a hundred and four crappily-written books about the other parts," she says, raising her eyebrows, and Dean shrugs, caught. She grins, shaking her head at him, and then squirms in close, tucking in under his chin. Kisses his throat, sighs. "Why not stop at a hundred? Seems random."

"I don't know, maybe the publisher wanted him to stretch it out," Dean says, and she hums, and puts her nose on his collarbone to settle in. He smooths her hair back, away from her shoulder. His favorite book is Swan Song, probably. The final one, as far as most people knew. His dad, the hero, saving humanity and the world, but that wasn't the best part. The best part was the army man, stuck in the door. His dad, looking at that, and meeting his brother's eye, and that being—enough. Just that, and all the life it represented. Enough.

"Venn diagrams," he says, aloud, quietly.

"Yes, you're very brilliant, Dr. Winchester," his wife says, mumbling. "Now go to sleep."

He kisses her hair, and does.

#ffcc #wincest #dean jr #my writing #this is again just sort of a collection of paragraphs #and it's--mostly what you asked for i think?#but mainly it's me musing about the unknowability of parents and children #so uh #that's what i was able to manage #hopefully i'll remember how to construct a story soon lol

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