#tommy caffee

[meep-meep-richie]

❛ 𝘪 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘦, 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘰𝘬𝘢𝘺. 𝙬𝙚'𝙧𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮 ❜ LOOK AFTER YOU || MICHAEL & TOMMY

[auroracrystal1]

This show is made pretty genius, and the characters writing is so great.

But I'm getting tired of seeing Michael to be everyone's dormat. He is so kind and considerate to his family, he has guts, and brain. It's just so sad.

The guy barely has one friend.

[theartbreak]

Jason Isaacs, Brotherhood (2006)

[auroracrystal1]

Watching an old show from 2006

I'm dying for talking to someone about it.

But well, I guess it's just me and my feeling

[spockat]

Brotherhood: Baby You Can Drive My Car

Around the beginning of Season 2

Kath Parry (kept the name, but not the husband) wakes up next to Michael Caffee. He’s sleeping, more relaxed than he used to be, on his back. Before the beating he mostly slept on his stomach, but maybe all the time in the hospital trained him to lie on his back. Sunlight’s streaming through the curtains and highlighting how pale Michael’s skin is, and the freckles she loves on his arms. She smoothes her blonde hair out of her eyes to get a better look at him.

He has one hand on his stomach; his other arm is by his side, the hand where the port for blood tests was stuck in the vein and taped down. She was hardly able to touch him in the hospital, early on. She settled for putting her hand on his thigh, knee, or shin; for about three weeks, he’d been intubated, hooked up to all kinds of machinery and a drip and a catheter, ugh; and Kath was so glad when he was able to breathe on his own. They put a cannula on his nose to keep his blood oxygen at the right level … and with the tube gone, Michael could speak, a little. He’d had a head bandage for weeks after the emergency and subsequent surgeries, and his beautiful black hair was just stubble for most of the time. Now it‘s grown back, no more surgeries needed, please God.

Kath scoots over to snuggle her head on his stomach and just now notices he has an erection. Ah! “Morning Wood.”

When she was a kid her mother used to listen to the Beatles all the time. Songs of Mom’s pre-teen years, the background music of Kath’s early life. She remembers when she was 16 and “lost it” to Michael, and when she got home, Mom was listening to the Beatles, “Norwegian Wood,” so inwardly snickering, she substituted:

I once had a boy

Or should I say

He once had me

He showed me his room

Isn’t it good

Mike Caffee’s wood

 She almost giggles when she remembers that. Michael’s mother had been at work when he and Kath pelted up the stairs and practically ripped each other’s clothes off, kissing like crazy. Michael was slow and careful after that though, because he knew Kath was a virgin. Yes, she had “saved it” for him. And it hurt, the first time, but he was good to her. He was older than Kath and he’d “been around,” so he knew a lot about sex, enough that he could make it really nice. They rested awhile and did it again, and it was really special because it was her first non-solo orgasm. And just as she’d daydreamed it since junior high, with Michael.

Now, she touches the back of his hand and says, “Michael, is that a present for me?”

He’s bleary when he wakes up these days, but mutters, “What … present?”

She touches him down there. “This, is this a present for me?” Her voice is sultry as only she can make it. He’s called it smoky and sexy.

His eyebrows go up as his eyes open and he gets his crooked smile. “That’s a useful present, isn’t it. Shame to let it go to waste.”

“I’ll say.” She strips off her nightie and mounts up, slowly lowering herself, and he grins, then groans with pleasure.

After some minutes, he says, “Hey, come here,” and opens his arms. She shifts position and his arms slide around her and he feels so good, so solid, so real. They’re kissing as madly as they did Kath’s first time.

She’s holding herself up a little, hands by his arms, but close enough so they can kiss each other’s mouth, and God, she’s so glad that Michael is still a good kisser and a good lover. Energetic, although he gets tired easily these days. He sleeps about two hours longer per night than he used to. The neurologist says this is normal after such a trauma. An insult to the brain, they called it. Boy, was it. Michael’s coordination had been terrible when he started physical therapy, and his speech hadn’t been much better. His spatial perception was not good, as far as fitting things together, ha-ha. Objects, not bodies.

His chin is bristly so Kath isn’t going to ask him to go down on her, but she pulls herself up and turns so she can suck him. He has her flavor on him too, a flavor he has described as delicious. She uses lips and tongue on his dick (the perfect one for her, large enough that going in and out moves her clit slightly to get her more excited); she swirls her tongue around him and sucks gently at the tip, and her hand, lightly massages his balls. He literally has bigger balls than Eddie. She grins and Michael says, “Hey, come back soon before I come in your mouth.” Good idea. She’s never gotten to the point where she could stand to swallow, although Eddie used to beg her to do it. “My mouth is not a goddam sperm bank, Eddie,” she’d said once. Michael’s never asked for that. Probably because he likes to kiss while they do it, and semen definitely does not taste as nice as her “briny nectar,” as he once said with a wink. The pre-come isn’t bad at all though, it’s kind of salty.

She’s back up on him, slowly moving up and down his body and on his cock, and she’s arched up. He sits up partway so he can lick and suck her breasts. She can’t help but groan in pleasure.

When the kids came and she breast fed them, Jesus that hurt, so she was really sensitive for a while, and not in a nice way, but Eddie … ah fuck him anyway. He can shove it somewhere else now.

“Michael you are so good, so … good to me,” she growls, and arches down to nuzzle his nipples and brush her nose in the hair around them.

He’s moving as slowly as he can, but she can feel he wants to speed up, and fulfills his wish, rising back up to ride him hard and fast as he fingers her breasts and reaches one hand down to her folds to finger her. She loves to watch his face when he comes, but right now he’s looking down between their bellies. “What are you doing?”

“I’m watching, Kath. You should watch too. Pretty neat,” he says. So she bends her head, seeing him sliding in and out of her, the gleam of her on his cock, and her dark blonde pubes meeting his black bush. She looks back up as his breath hitches, he frowns and smiles lopsidedly at the same time, and then puts his head back to sigh explosively on each outbreath. And she’s coming too, he knows just what to do for her. Their life together may not be perfect, but the sex – wow.

She snuggles into him, her shoulder in his armpit, head on his shoulder, his arm around her, and their hands, fingers entwined, on his stomach. When he falls asleep she’s going to pet him. He sleeps hard and doesn’t notice, but she loves to smooth the hair on his chest and belly.

He’s asleep already, and she strokes the hair on his torso, and she falls asleep too.

.

She wakes to blessed quiet in the house. The sun is higher and birds are singing outside. Not many have come back north yet, but some are here. The crocuses have faded off from their early March appearance, and forsythia, paperwhites and daffodils are beginning to bud and come up.

The kids are at her mom’s. They always have a good time with Grandma, and Kath’s mom likes Eddie (she brings out his goodness), and has him over for dinner occasionally, usually when the kids are there. Kath doesn’t want the kids to be without their dad, so that’s good.

She and Michael walked to Rose’s yesterday for Sunday dinner. The usual family ordeal, Rose ignoring Kath completely, addressing any remarks to Michael, “tell her to pass the potatoes,” or “she is not invited” or “she may come to…” Eileen, looking down her coked-up nose at Kath, Tommy seeming warm but not really feeling warmly toward her, which is probably a skill he uses a lot in his line of work. And Mary-Kate, Michael and Tommy’s sister, her beautiful blue eyes crinkling with smiles, who, along with her dopey but friendly husband Jimmy, treats Kath with decency.

Eileen and Tommy’s girls seem okay with Kath, she’s good with kids. Noni and Lila like her, and Mary Rose likes Kath and they have fun messing around with makeup when she comes over, sneaks over in the evenings, because she loves her Uncle Michael, but Tommy and Eileen do not want him around their kids.

It’s ridiculous, she’s old enough to make up her own mind about her own relatives and Michael said she was a good worker when she briefly worked the cash register at the liquor store. (That’s over.) She and Kath like to sing together too, when Michael’s out; sometimes they goof and dance around. Mary Rose can be fun or deadly serious, she’s as good a student as Tommy was, as good a student as Michael was (but hid from other kids because being smart was not for “tough guys”).

When Michael comes home they’ll eat dessert. Kath is an average cook but a really good baker. Pie, cookies, cakes, she can do it all.

One evening Mary Rose was about to sneak back home and Tom Petty’s “(You Don’t Have to Live Like a) Refugee” came on the oldies station, and they cracked up and hugged each other. The lyrics actually applied more to Kath than to Mary Rose, but the title!

They both hope Tommy and Eileen won’t find out about her visits. Kath doesn’t wear any perfume when Mary Rose comes over. Eileen smelled it on her once, and Mary Rose lied and said she tried it on at a girlfriend’s. Mary Rose thinks it was funny as hell, because her mother reeks of pot half the time, and her dad still doesn’t seem to notice. Kath likes a little pot herself now and then, but will never tell Mary Rose about that (and won’t discuss it with Michael either). Michael had made very clear to his niece that “Caffees don’t do drugs.”

No Michael, they just sell them, Kath thought. A little scared, and disgusted that Michael makes money doing that, but some things are better left alone.

.

Kath’s kids are at Mom’s, they spend a lot of time there these days because Michael gets terrible headaches from noise. The neurologist thinks those will go away, but the seizures are another story. Noise seems to confuse him too, and he tends to “go blank” as Kath thinks of it, he gets still as a statue and sometimes his eyes roll up in a creepy way. That scares the fuck out of the kids. It scared Kath too, the first time she saw it, but at least she knew why it was happening. The kids … different story, even though Kath tried to explain to them before Michael came home from the hospital. They’re really young to understand illness. They’re slowly getting used to the “new Michael.” He does his “statue imitation” at other times too, sometimes with repetitive motions. At least he hasn’t done it in bed.

As she smoothes Michael’s chest hair, she gets a little teary, wondering when … or if … the seizures will go away, if he’s ever going to fully recover.

.

He wakes up slowly and smiles at her in his sexy way. “Wanna go again?”

I would love to, but don’t want to tire you out, she wants to say, but only kisses him and says, “It was so nice. Let’s wait till later, okay?”

“What were you thinking about? Feels like you were crying.” He touches his chest where some tears overflowed when she was lying with her head there.

“Ah, the first time we did it, remember?” She’d like to say made love, but Michael doesn’t often think like that. He’s more like, bring flowers, write a card, never say “I love you,” just demonstrate it.

“Yeah … it was okay, wasn’t it?” He looks concerned.

“Of course it was! I just think back, sometimes. It seems like a long time ago.”

“It was. Twenty years.” Michael draws her in closer. “I remember.”

“You’d just had a fight with your dad. I remember the bruises on your knuckles.”

“He’s not my dad, that motherfucker.” Kath hides her smile at Michael’s inadvertent humor. “He’s a no-good bastard, and good riddance. He better not ever show his face around Providence again. I didn’t have to beat him up last time I saw him, at least.”

“You’re a lot bigger now.”

“When I was 16, that was when I kicked his ass … I beat him to shit because of what he did to Ma. I hated his guts. I was a skinny mean fucker.”

“You were the cutest boy in school,” Kath coos in the same tone they used to use at recess. “Ooh Michael you were so-o-o cute.”

“I still am, aren’t I? You’re still beautiful as you were then.”

“Your dad thought so.” It just slips out.

“What?”

I never told you this. Oh, fuck.

“I was waiting for you to get home one time, outside in the cold, before we went out for supper. Your mom was at work – not that she would’ve let me in anyway – and you were running late from work.

“So he rolled up in his car and said, ‘Get in,’ and we had this horrible, uncomfortable conversation.”

.

“Hey, beautiful. You waitin’ for my son?”

Kath tries to ignore him. Michael hates his father, and Kath doesn’t like the insinuating tone of voice. “Yeah, I’m waiting for him.” A subtle emphasis on ‘him.’ “Didn’t he kick you out of the house a few years ago?”

“Ha. He can’t kick out his old man. I should kick him out. Little fucker came after me with a broken bottle.”

Obviously whatever Michael did had worked. At least, till now. This is probably the first time the old man has stopped by the Hill in years.

“Weren’t you beating up his mother?”

“She was mouthy. You seem like you could get pretty mouthy too.”

Kath can’t help it, she’s cold and she shivers. She’s worn Michael’s Irish Aran sweater, with the sleeves rolled up below her elbows and a belt, over a dark blue turtleneck (on her small frame Michael’s sweater reaches to the tops of her thighs), a cute wool hat, gloves and dark blue leggings with high-heeled boots, but neither the “pleather” boots nor the leggings are warm enough to counter the chill.

The door of the car opens. Neil Caffee is short, so he’s reaching really far to shove the door wide. “Come on, doll, no need for you to freeze.”

She hesitates. Michael has told her his old man’s a dirty dog. Inside her purse, with her right hand, she grabs the key ring with her house, locker, bike keys, and the key to the clothing store where she works part time. Manipulates them so they’re sticking out between her fingers like her knuckles have claws. Gripping them, inside her purse, she gets in, staying to the far right of the seat.

“Pretty cold out, huh. Be nice to have a little nip … aha, look here!” The old man pulls out a flask from his coat, and extends the bottle to her.

Kath shakes her head. “No thanks.”

“You look all grown up to me, you can’t have a sip?”

In fact Michael would be furious if she did, especially from his father, much as she would like the warmth in her tummy right now. “No. I can’t. Really, no.” Kath looks straight ahead through the windshield and has glanced at … Neil Caffee … exactly once so far.

“So, you and Michael doin’ it yet? I don’t know how he could resist a fine piece of pie like you.”

She shoots him a venomous look. “Michael said you’d be like this.”

Looking petulant, he holds her gaze, so she misses the hand that snakes out for her crotch, just under the sweater.

She smacks his hand (with its invasive fingers) as hard as she can, and lunges with her right hand aimed at his face, scratches him with the keys, and, shaking, exits the car, slamming the door, but the window rolls down.

“You little whore, you want it, you know you do!” His eyebrow and cheek are bleeding. Good.

“Get away from me you dirty old man!” she screams, wishing Michael were near, and glad he isn’t at the same time, because he’d probably kill him.

“Tramp! You’re nothin’ but a cheap piece of tail,” he shouts, and squeals the tires racing his car away.

Ten minutes later, Michael finally gets there, and she holds onto him and cries. She makes up a story to put him off from going to hurt somebody, and he seems to know it must be something other than what she’s telling him, but he can’t get it out of her.

.

“He was disgusting. He tried to cop a feel of me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Was it that time I was late and you were so upset? Fuck! He tried to cop a feel, where?”

“In his car.”

Michael’s frowning. “Ha, ha. Where.”

“Up my leg. It’s not important now.”

“Still. I wish you’d told me. I woulda had more reason to kill him.”

“And that’s why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d fight with him, Michael. You always defended me.” Except to your mother. “Anyway, he never bothered me again.”

“Must have been the same night – I remember you and I were out to dinner, you were wearing my sweater, right? – I got home and he was there. I punched his fuckin’ lights out and dragged him to the gutter where he belonged. At least Ma was gone so she didn’t hear him howling like a banshee, cryin’ and making a fool of himself in the street.”

“When was the bottle thing, again?”

“That was a few years earlier. I’d just turned 13, and he was swinging at Ma. I broke his whisky bottle and held the neck in my hand. Good weapon. He took off after I cut his stupid face with it.” Michael sighs. “And we wanna talk about this shit, why?”

Because I’m checking your long-term memory. “Just … Michael Caffee’s greatest hits.”

He sits up a little bit, and Kath can’t tell if he’s angry or what. Then a slow smile forms at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, like when we went to Jersey last year and I … ran into those Russians. You came drivin’ up like Bonnie to my Clyde. Jesus … that was kind of fun.”

Never mind that my heart was in my throat. “It kinda was,” she says.

He pushes down the bedclothes and pats his hip. “Come on, Bonnie.” he says, his eyes twinkling. “Drive my car.”

.

<3 <3

[spockat]

Brotherhood:  Clocked

Clocked

The Finnerty reception is bustling, people are getting tipsier and some are getting drunk, including Kath’s husband Eddie … who noticed Kath’s and Michael’s not-so-subtle return from their parking lot tryst. Their quickie.

With Michael, Kath can reach a climax so fast. He’s just the right fit for her. She sits back down at the table, nervous about what Eddie might say to her, nervous about him yelling at her in front of everyone. Except when he drinks, Eddie is fairly even-tempered, but since Michael’s been back in Providence, he’s been on edge and easily upset … and drinking more than usual.

Kath, regretting her audaciousness, knows she just rubbed salt in the wound, but Michael … Eddie’s never made her starry-eyed. Eddie’s never left her breathless with desire. Being sexual with him is not easy, like it is with Michael. Eddie works really hard to please her, but she has to ask him for every little thing in bed. Michael just knows. (He should, they were together for years before he disappeared and Kath, wanting kids, settled for the nice, mostly dependable guy with a steady job.)

Oh no.

Unusually bold, Eddie Parry is striding over to the table where Michael and Freddie Cork are talking. He’s yelling, “Hey cocksucker!”  Michael and Freddie lift their heads and Michael turns curiously toward the voice. Michael neatly scotches Eddie’s first clumsy swing. He’s strong enough to grab Eddie by the back of his suit collar and put him down like a dog. He doesn’t even stand up to do it. “What’d I do?” he says to Freddie and the others. Eddie picks himself up from under Michael’s table. “My fuckin’ wife! My fuckin’ wife, Michael!” A few people look around toward the action, but it’s over quickly, and the center is Michael; Kath can see them virtually shrugging.

Kath looks on in embarrassment but can’t add to the too-public scene by trying to calm her husband, who is now dusting himself off, face bright red, and steaming for the bar. She’s schooling her expression to maintain some semblance of “cool,” but she can see judgmental glances coming her way. Not unusual. A lot of people classed her as “trash” when she and Michael were together (without benefit of clergy) before he left. They all knew, with or without proof, that he was worse than just a “bad boy.” Though you’d never know that from Rose Caffee. Her boy can do no wrong. So Rose hates Kath for making Michael look bad. What a laugh.

Michael will wait a few minutes before he looks her way; he won’t want to give Kath away completely and he’s in the middle of “business” discussions with Freddie Cork.

She’s not looking forward to being home with Eddie tonight. Shouting, threatened blows. Maybe actual blows this time, God. I deserve it. Tension so thick it sticks in her craw.

Stupid, stupid, stupid of her to screw Michael in his car, anybody could have seen them kissing in the parking lot and jumping into the car. She can’t resist Michael. He’s more of a man than Eddie any day, and it makes her wet just to think of him and his embrace, the sound of his deep raspy voice, his muscular – no, perfect – body, and … and. She’s helpless in his sharp blue gaze. To her, he’s perfect, and never mind the temper, as long as he doesn’t take it out on her (and he never has in his life, except for yelling and slamming doors, when they were living together). Well, once he put a fist through a wall, but that had nothing to do with Kath. That was “work.”

Hours later, Kath Parry is looking for Michael and Eddie outside in the dark. She’s worried. She’s checked everywhere, climbed the stairs to the loft above the reception hall, and even looked in the big storage shed. He has disappeared from the wedding reception, and Eddie has too. Maybe they went out to the parking lot.

Surely Eddie would not be able to hurt Michael, and surely Michael would not do harm to Eddie (well, maybe a punch in the face). Cuckolded him, yeah, but that’s on Kath.

In the parking lot, she sees a man walking quickly away, and hurries over to where light spills from a doorway. A tall figure is stretched out on the ground … dark liquid pooling around his head … she recognizes Michael and screams. Kneeling beside him she calls to him, “Michael! Can you hear me Michael? Michael!” and mindlessly chants, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” After a few seconds of this she fumble her cell phone out of her evening bag and dials 9-1-1.

“I’m sorry I don’t know the address,” she says, flummoxed by her own panic when the operator asks. “It’s a reception, a banquet hall …”

“ Rhodes,” a tall bystander supplies the name and kneels by Michael as well. He looks pretty steady, a take-charge type. Kath hands him her phone. She realizes it’s Tommy Caffee, who hasn’t looked at her once. He’s addressing the operator. “… No, we can’t turn him over to do CPR, there may be a spinal injury.”

“Oh Michael.” Weeping, Kath whispers to him and touches his head and the side of his face lightly with her hand. “Michael, it’s Kath, I’m here, I’m here by you, please stay, please don’t ….” Sticky, bloody, warm. My fault my fault my fault, Hail Mary Mother of God, the Lord is with thee, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death …

Rose Caffee is coming, oh God, Michael’s mother, she’s gonna have a fuckin’ cow and she looks drunk, oh shit.

Kath stands up, her peachy silk gown stained, dripping, clotting with Michael’s blood. “We called 9-1-1,” she says as Rose stumbles to kneel at Michael’s side. Rose pays her no mind, she’s weeping over her favorite son, Irish accent coming through as she croons, “My Michael, my son, my Michael, may God forgive whatever you’ve done in your life, I love you, it doesn’t matter what sins you’ve done, stay with us, oh please. I forgive you and God forgives you.” She looks up at Tommy, who’s handing the phone back to Kath. “Call a priest, Tommy.”

“As soon as I find out what hospital, Ma.”

Last rites, Kath thinks, going even deeper into panic.

A siren, getting closer, and soon, the sound of doors thrown open and a gurney drawn out and thrown onto its wheels. One EMT runs over, and glancing over Michael, shouts back to the truck, “We need a backboard and a neck brace and headblocks to protect his skull, the left occipital lobe’s bashed in.”

Bashed in, you don’t need a gun to kill somebody, oh Jesus Jesus. Michael has known this a long time, hasn’t he. He’s a bad man, but good to Kath, he loves her, and she loves him, and in spite of being a mother of two, she wants to be with Michael more than anything and now maybe she never will. Tears and snot stream down her face and she doesn’t want to leave, she wants to ride in the ambulance with him but Rose and Tommy Caffee stop her with cold looks.

“If it wasn’t for you, you slut, this wouldn’t have happened,” Rose hisses. “You left your husband no choice but to attack my son.”

Kath shakes her head, crying. “Eddie couldn’t have done this. Almost nobody could creep up on Michael like this.”

“Well we’ll just leave that to the police, won’t we,” Rose says in her superior tone of voice. Tommy glances at Kath with something like sympathy and takes Rose’s elbow as the EMTs work with Michael.

They’re being very careful with him, not rushing anything, a female paramedic holding his head in the proper relative position to his body as they roll him, gently sliding the board under him, aligning everything perfectly, and he’s on his back, the one paramedic still holding his head. They apply a stiff cervical collar to support his upper spine and skull, then position it and protect it with foam blocks, fixing him in position with a strap across his forehead. They strap his body into place on the backboard and the paramedic is flashing a light into his eyes. “One pupil fixed and dilated; the other’s reactive” and a bunch of other medical stuff, BP and so on. Moving swiftly they load Michael onto the gurney, then into the ambulance. Not a sound, not a grunt, not an exhale, not a groan, from Michael. He’s unconscious or worse. Kath’s heart is beating so loud she can hear it inside her head.

Kath is pacing nervously and wringing her hands. She’s always thought that was a stupid expression from old-fashioned novels, but she’s doing it, so it must be real. “What hospital?” she whispers to the nearest  tech, and the muscular EMT says, “Our Lady of Mercy.”

A crowd is starting to gather for the excitement announced by the siren, and some firemen and police from the Hill who were attending the reception are holding them back. Kath looks up and spots Eddie scanning for her. Fortunately she’s surrounded. Right now her blonde hair is like a flag in the darkness.

Tommy Caffee, like his brother, is a sharp observer, and while the EMTs are getting Michael set up in the ambulance, he sidles over to Kath with the long-suffering expression he’s always worn when dealing with Matters Michael. He murmurs, “Come by the hospital. Just sit somewhere away from us during the emergency room exams. I’ll let you know what’s going on with him.”

“Thank you Tommy,” Kath says, looking up, but Tommy has already moved on to take his mother’s arm to help her up into the ambulance.

Kath’s running for the car. She has to get to it before Eddie does, so she can be at the hospital for Michael.

A lapsed Catholic, like many people on the Hill, she prays all the way. She even remembers the Latin from Catholic school, Ave Maria, gratia plena, ora pro nobis ….

It’s hard to drive with tears streaming down her face, but Kath makes it to Guest Parking at the hospital and hurries in. The blood is stiffening the fabric of her dress, and she rushes, as fast as she can, to the waiting room in the ER. Her shoes are too high and she nearly slips on the shiny linoleum floor.

She wishes Rose wasn’t here, but she also knows how much Michael loves his mother. Kath ducks into a separate area as advised and is too nervous to occupy herself with anything but praying. She sees a priest heading for the ER where Michael is being worked on. God forgive me I’m a hypocrite and a sinner but please please please let Michael live, except for my kids (and Eddie) he means more to me than anything in this life, please God please. Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with the Thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus, Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen ….

It’s amazing that in this time of trouble these prayers come back, these prayers she learned in Catholic school, and they’re soothing to Kath, even though she feels so hypocritical. Gentle Jesus, who cured the sick and laid a healing hand upon the lame, the blind and the handicapped, look with compassion upon Michael ... I know there’s more, forgive me, I’m a sinner, the worst of sinners, and Michael is, too ….

She prayed when she was twice in the pain of childbirth, then never went to church except to baptize them. Well I’m a hard case, like most of us on the Hill, but You still love us, right? Oh, God, I just want him to live, even if he never looks at me again. I bet Rose is praying her ass off right now and she never goes to church either.

A prayer to Saint Jude comes to her too, patron of impossible causes:

Oh Saint Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the traitor who delivered thy beloved Master to His enemies, your name … forgotten by many … the patron of hopeless cases. Pray for Michael who’s in such danger; make use … [oh how does it go?!] bring visible and speedy help where help … where help is despaired of. Please help in this great need, that we may receive the consolations of heaven in all these … tribulations? … oh help save Michael, and I will bless God with you and all … throughout eternity. I promise, O St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor, I will never cease to honor you as my special, powerful patron, Amen.

She’s forgotten the exact wording but is sure Saint Jude and God don’t care, as long as she’s sincere. And Kath is probably more sincere right now than she has ever been in her life.

Michael, Michael, I can’t live anymore without you.

[anneelizabethgish]

Brotherhood S01E01

[forensicated]

3 series and 28 episodes of Brotherhood (one left to go) and I still could not give a flying fuck about Tommy or Eileen Caffee. Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Having said that, Eileen has become slightly more likable from the whole thing but still not a fan.

Mmmmmmm Jason.

If only Decco hadn't done what he did... :( (ignoring the whole 'target on Michael's head') I still feel slightly sorry for him and his sad kicked puppy eyes.