#last time it snowed it took me forever to scrape the ice off my car when i thought it wouldn't take long because it was only snow

[sometimes-men-need-help-too]

[highqueenofelfhame]

no tag list bc im posting this from my phone and am too lazy so pls reblog so this gets traction! thank you for reading and follow @highqueenofelfhamewrites for better and more frequent updates and turn on post notifications! i might do away with tag lists soon idk. the whitethorn kids are headcanons from @musicmaam and i so i hope you love the babies we love them very much and becca is a mastermind

masterlist

Outside, it was a still and quiet morning. Despite the sun having risen hours ago, the sky remained a murky gray. Dew clung to the grass and a light fog remained settled over the landscape. It looked cold and like the kind of day that would usually have Aelin curled up in the study, a roaring fire warming the room while she sat in one of the oversized leather chairs and reread a favorite book. Rowan knew that once outside, the cool air would be a sharp bite at his skin. It’s how Terrasen always was in early November.

Instead of reading, though, Aelin was staring at her side of the closet. Her fingers nervously tapped above her elbow while she surveyed dresses and pantsuits, jackets and turtlenecks. More than once she had murmured that she never knew what to wear, and more than once he had told her that it really didn’t matter and she would look beautiful all the same.

A level below, Rowan heard the front door open and close, followed by their oldest son, Arden shouting up the stairs that they were home. They referred to him and his boyfriend, Jamie, and Aelin and Rowan’s oldest, Evalin. The three had driven from the University of Orynth on the other side of the city to the family’s house on the outskirts of town.

Genevieve, Declan, and Endymion, the younger half of the Whitethorn kids, were all getting ready. Genny had been up with the sun to make breakfast for everyone, her hands sticky with cream cheese frosting and cinnamon by the time she had finished. Declan and Endy were down the hall, fighting for counter space in their shared bathroom while Genevieve finished up at the vanity Rowan had built her last year in her bedroom.

More noise followed the voices downstairs turned to a quiet murmur as Rowan approached his wife and rested his hand on her lower back. Aelin leaned back on her heels and into his touch, turning her head slightly. Rowan pressed a kiss to her temple and she shivered, reaching out for the dress that he knew she’d end up picking. It was his favorite.

“Perfect choice, fireheart,” he murmured, rubbing his hand across her middle back as she sighed and pulled it off the hanger that she dropped to the floor. Rowan chuckled to himself, nudging it toward her pile of shoes as he followed her back out into their bedroom.

Rowan was already showered and dressed. He wore a simple black suit with Aelin’s favorite dark green tie— one that she claimed brought out his eyes, though Rowan hadn’t noticed a single difference as he tied it around his neck.

“You are worrying about nothing,” he murmured into her hair, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. Aelin shuddered a sigh, licking her lips as she turned to look at Rowan over her shoulder. Their eyes met for a single heartbeat before moving to the door.

“I hope Arden and Evie remembered to pick everything up this morning.”

“I’ll go check,” he promised, squeezing her shoulder before walking away. Rowan paused in the doorway, turning to look at his anxious wife. She stood in front of the window, dress draped over one arm while she twisted her wedding band around her finger. It made his heart squeeze in the most painful way, but he left her and jogged down the stairs to where the rest of his family mingled in the kitchen.

Entirely typical of his children, none of them looked up when he entered. Gen was dressed in leggings and an oversized sweater, manning the stove to make everyone else eggs. Endy and Declan were arguing over who got the cinnamon roll in the center of the pan: it was the most gooey and beheld more icing than the others. Declan won out in the end, but only because Genevieve pointed a spatula at Endymion to remind him of a petty crime he’d committed against her the day before.

“You don’t deserve that cinnamon roll. You know what you did.” Endy snorted, but relented, allowing Declan to eagerly swoop in for the golden treat. A large dollop of icing slipped off the side, barely making it onto his plate as he did. Endymion sighed wistfully, likely dreaming of how good that would have been in his stomach instead of his brothers. Rowan laughed to himself, ruffling Endy’s hair as he walked by. His youngest shrugged him off with a shiver, lips pulling down into a frown while he looked over at his father, then to his older sister as she walked into the room.

“Has mom been down yet?”

“She’s still upstairs,” Rowan said, while the other kids mumbled that she’d yet to come down. Arden and Jamie slid into the empty barstools at the counter, accepting plates of bacon and eggs from Genevieve. “Can someone go check on her?”

“I’ll go,” Evie decided, heading up toward Rowan and Aelin’s bedroom, stairs creaking with every step.

Genevieve was watching Evalin up until she disappeared at the top of the landing, her lips twisting to the side as she shifted to turn the stove off. The kitchen settled into a comfortable silence, the scraping of forks the only disruption. Genny poked at the cinnamon roll she’d chosen for herself before pushing it away, toward Endy.

“I can’t eat,” she said quietly, tapping her phone screen, the time blinking up at her before it went dark again. It seemed that Endy could eat, however, because he pulled her plate over and dove into her cinnamon roll immediately after finishing his. It was almost enough to make her smile but she seemed to be fighting it off. Rowan moved to wrap his arm around his daughter, but she shrugged out of his embrace and disappeared up the stairs. If he had to guess, she was joining Aelin and Evalin.

“I’m worried about her,” Rowan and Arden said at the same time, the former cracking a half smile.

“Me too,” Endymion agreed, fingernail tapping against the counter while he looked over his shoulder. Rowan opened his mouth to speak, but the soft closing of a door followed by the squeak of the top stair silenced him. A moment later, his three girls were filing into the kitchen. Aelin hugged each of her babies, pressing kisses to their cheeks that they didn’t shy away from.

“We ready?” Arden asked, picking up the bag he’d brought in with him. Aelin nodded and rubbed her hand over Genny’s upper back.

Genevieve had always been the most anxious of their kids in the worst way. Over the last year, her panic attacks had only gotten worse and nobody really knew how to help her. A few months ago, she had finally caved and agreed to start taking medicine for it when she needed to. Judging by the way she stood, worrying her lip and twining the ends of her silver hair into tiny braids, Rowan wondered if she was already debating taking one of those pills to keep the monsters of the day at bay.

The ride was quiet. The only conversation consisted of Aelin and Rowan asking Evalin, Jamie, and Arden about their college courses. The youngest three Whitethorns stayed quiet and listened while looking out the windows and tapping on their phones. No music filled the empty silences— the last five minutes was nothing but garbled road noise and turn signals, the occasional sniffle of a nose, or a small sigh.

When the car was put in park, nobody moved immediately. Aelin stared through the windshield, fingers drumming on the gear shift. Rowan lay his on top of hers, but she didn’t look over at him. Instead, she tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and, after several heartbeats, nodded. Only then did the kids file out of the back seats, Genevieve going to take her mother’s left hand while Arden took her right. Rowan walked beside Endymion and attempted to steady his son when he stumbled over a rock that was hidden in the grass.

They walked through the cemetery, moving by headstone after headstone. Some of them were large and ornate weeping angels, others were crosses jutting out of the ground. A fair few were simple concrete rectangles in the ground with a vase for flowers. The one they came to stop at was something in between.

It was about two feet high in the middle of the graveyard, simple text embedded into the shiny quartzite stone. A large hawk had been carved into its surface, wings spread wide mid-flight, beak parted as though it were releasing a fierce battle-cry. There was no vase for flowers anywhere near it. Instead, piles of stones were left all around it. They were in all shapes, sizes, and colors. One had a painted hawk on the surface that he knew Genevieve’s boyfriend had left behind at the funeral last year.

Arden placed the bag he carried on the ground and they let Aelin be the first to pick her stone. She picked a large smooth one, a paler gray than the headstone itself that fit perfectly in her palm. She folded her legs beneath her body as she knelt before it, trembling fingers tracing over the name.

ROWAN M. WHITETHORN

JULY 16, 1970 - NOVEMBER 11, 2020

HUSBAND. FATHER. HERO.

TO WHATEVER END.

A breeze shifted through the air, moving Aelin’s hair across her face and she could have sworn it was warm. She could have sworn she smelled the familiar pine and snow scent that she would always and forever associate with her husband. Aelin could have sworn it felt like a lover’s caress, like fingers brushing away the tear that slipped down her cheek.

Aelin wasn’t sure how long she sat there, surrounded by their children. Each of them swapped their favorite stories about their late father, about what they missed most. All of them cried enough tears that Terrasen could hit a rare drought but the patch of grass they held each other in would still be green as ever.

When they finally stood, the air had dropped a few more degrees because the sun had never come out to keep them warm. It made that fleeting warm breeze even more bizarre, the one that smelled like him, considering the one that rustled the leaves on the nearby tree was cold enough to bite.

Out of the corner of her eye, she swore she saw him. She swore she saw a head of silver hair sock his head in her direction, but she blinked and he was gone, her oldest son stepping up in the place she thought she saw him, felt him, smelled him. Silver hair faded into a golden blonde that matched her own, but the eyes that peered down at her were as bright green as his father’s. Aelin felt her face crumple as she leaned into him, resting her temple against his shoulder. She inhaled hard, desperate for that pine scent to feel her lungs, desperate to erase the last year of her life without him. Desperate to pretend that he was still alive and it was his shoulder that she put her weight on.

But it wasn’t. And it wouldn’t be.

Still, as she looped her arm through his and started to walk back toward the car with their kids, she spared a last glance over her shoulder, projecting their vows into the void of the world: to whatever end.

She wasn’t sure what it was, but Aelin was almost positive she heard his voice whisper it back as another strange, warm breeze wrapped around her and left her completely breathless.

[one-more-offbeat-anthem]

snow day

there’s a big ice/snow storm gracing the southeast US right now and we virtually never get snow, so I had a snow day today! it inspired me to write this ficlet <3

************ Cas woke up Monday morning to a freezing--and empty--bed. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and sliding his feet into his slippers next to his bed. He could hear the radio playing from downstairs, overlapped with toddler chatter.

"Reports say that eight to twelve inches of snow are expected, and that several major roads in the county have already closed. Both the city and county school districts have closed for the next three days."

Cas followed the sound of the news down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Dean was at the stove, scrambling eggs and frying bacon. Their son, Jack, was in his high chair at the kitchen table, and when he saw Cas, he waved his arms and pointed at the window.

"Hey, kiddo," Cas said, crossing the room and scooping Jack up. "Excited about the snow?"

"Daddy said we're gonna build a snowman," Jack said. "Can we?"

"After breakfast." With Jack in tow, Cas turned to the stove and pressed a kiss to his husband's cheek. "I take it neither of us don't have work today?"

Dean shook his head, grinning. "Snow day for everyone. Jack's daycare is closed, anyways--his teacher sent an email."

Cas was a librarian at the local elementary school, and Dean worked for his uncle Bobby's auto shop, which meant that they were occasionally strapped for time when Jack's daycare closed but they still had work. Cas breathed a sigh of relief before setting Jack down and turning to the coffee maker. Snow or not, he was not a morning person.

Jack was a little picky, so convincing him to eat all of his breakfast was tricky on a normal day, and the snow provided an extra distraction. Cas gave up trying to get Jack to eat just one forkful of eggs and let Dean trade his apples for Jack's bacon. But Cas couldn't help being just as excited as Jack. While it snowed fairly often where they lived, it was usually just a dusting of snow, not enough for snowball fights or building snowmen or making snow angels.

After spending about ten minutes wrestling a wriggling almost-four-year-old into his coat, hat, and mittens, they were ready to go out.

The front yard of their little house was a veritable winter wonderland, like something out of a movie--icicles hanging from the eaves, a dusting of snow on the shrubbery, the front walk completely obscured by snow. It was beautiful enough that Dean didn't complain about his car, the Impala, being covered in snow (although that may have had something to do with him not having to dig it out and scrape it off to go to work).

The snow was already halfway up to Jack's shins, but Jack didn't seem to mind, throwing himself face-first into the ground and then rolling over, laughing, his cheeks tinged red with cold.

Cas was too focused on watching Jack that he didn't noticed what Dean was up to until a snowball, cold and wet, hit him in the side of the face. "Hey!" he complained, bending down and scooping up some snow and packing into a ball. Dean laughed at him and ducked behind a bush. A few seconds later, another snowball hit Cas square in the chest. Cas turned to Jack. "You want to help me gang up on Daddy?"

"Yes!"

Cas showed Jack how to make a snowball, although the tiny ones Jack could make with his little hands probably wouldn't make that much of a difference. With their snowballs in hand, they crept around the bush Dean had disappeared behind.

Before Cas had chance to lob his snowball, he was being tackled onto the ground, the snow icy on his neck, Dean grinning at him from on top of him. Seconds later, a tiny snowball hit Dean in the forehead and both Dean and Cas craned their heads to see Jack standing next to them and giggling.

"You're making a monster out of our kid," Dean said, rolling off of Cas.

"Mmm-hmm, that's definitely on me and not the person who started the snowball fight." Cas took the opportunity to scoop up some snow and then grab the collar of Dean's coat, shoving the snow down the front of it. "Ack!" Dean shivered. "Rude."

Cas shrugged, trying not to laugh before another tiny Jack-lobbed snowball hit him in the face.

"That's what you get," Dean said to him, before turning to Jack. "You wanna make that snowman now?"

"Yeah!"

They ended up building a snowman nearly as tall as Jack--Dean did the bottom, Cas did the middle, and Jack enthusiastically made the head, which was shaped more like an oval than a circle. The hunt for sticks and rocks for arms, eyes, and buttons took a while, owing to the amount of snow that had fallen, and then Dean disappeared into their garage, coming back with an old stocking cap to put on the snowman's head. The whole scene was so cute that Cas couldn't help but take his phone out and snap a picture of Dean and Jack putting the finishing touches on the snowman, even if it froze his fingers. The snow was starting to fall faster, though, and was now working its way up Jack's shins, so it was eventually time to head inside.

"The snow will be here later," Cas said as he picked Jack up.

"Promise, Papa?"

"Mmm-hmm."

When they got inside and shed their now-damp coats next to the front door (Cas knew he would regret not hanging up the coats immeadiately later, but right now he was cold), Jack begged for hot chocolate and Dean was, as usual when it came to their son, powerless to say no. While Dean started heating up milk on the stove, Cas went into their living room and turned on the fireplace. Their house was getting on in years, and it could be quite drafty and cold in the winter, especially on a snow day.

The three of them curled up on the couch with their hot chocolate (Jack's had a veritable mountain of marshmallows) and watched the snow fall outside the living room windows while the fire crackled.

"Today," Jack declared, "Is the best day ever."

"Ever? That's a pretty big deal," Dean said. "What makes it the best day ever?"

"We got to build a snowman. And Papa put snow in your shirt." Jack giggled and Dean frowned over his head at Cas. "And I have hot chocolate." He pronounced chocolate with about half the letters missing.

Playing in the snow tuckered Jack out, so after lunch he went down for a nap a little earlier than usual. By the time Dean emerged from Jack's room, Cas was about halfway through doing the lunch dishes--they'd had grilled cheese with tomato soup, a snow day favorite for their little family.

"Sorry about shoving snow down your shirt," Cas said as he finished scrubbing the grilled cheese pan.

"You don't have to lie, you're not sorry at all." Dean came up behind Cas, wrapping his arms around him. "You're right, I did start the snowball fight, although it seems like Jack ended it."

"He's gonna want to play in the snow again after his nap," Cas said, moving onto the soup pot. Dean pressed a kiss to the back of Cas' neck and then disentangled himself to help rinse the dishes.

"He's not gonna be this little forever." Dean said.

"Don't remind me. In the fall he'll be one of the pre-kindergarteners coming to my library." Cas sighed.

They finished washing the dishes in comfortable silence. Once the last plate was balanced on the drying rack next to the sink, Dean turned to Cas. "What do you say we get some rest, too?"

It was a pretty good offer, a nap on the couch, curled up in his husband's arms as the fire warmed the living room and the snowdrifts built up outside. The nap would most certainly end with a toddler jumping on them, but even so, Cas had to agree with Jack: today was the best day ever.

[andrewmoocow]

Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 2: Guidance (originally published December 14, 2020)

Author's note: I think I'm gonna try releasing new chapters every Monday, for Part 1 at least. Anyway, here's Guidance.

Synopsis: Steven helps the students of Little Homeschool get jobs, but they're not very good at them.

Cast:

Zach Callison as Steven, Onion

Michaela Dietz as Amethyst, Blue Lace Agate,

Ian Jones-Quartey as Bixbite, Snowflake Obsidian

Michelle Maryk as Larimar

Aparna Nancherla as Nephrite

Charlyne Yi as Doc, Leggy, Army

Amy Sedaris as Teal Zircon

Kimberly Brooks as Zebra Jasper, Cherry Quartz

Natasha Lyonne as Smoky Quartz

Colton Dunn as Mr. Smiley

Dave Willis as Andy

--

On another lovely day in Beach City, Amethyst was walking along the boardwalk with a blindfolded Steven into Fish Stew Pizza. "Okay, two steps to the left." Amethyst instructed him as the two stepped into the pizza shop. "There's a chair right behind you." Steven did as he was told and sat down across from his sister figure. "Sit down aaaaand….okay."

When Steven undid his blindfold, he found himself inside Fish Stew Pizza with Amethyst in front of him and another Gem making pizza for them. "TADA!" Amethyst exclaimed with her arms excitedly spread out.

"Fish Stew Pizza? What a nice surprise." Steven giggled amusedly. "I mean, it has been a while since we last been here."

"No, that's not the surprise." Amethyst corrected him. "Notice anything different?" She gestured over to the Gem working with Kiki Pizza, perfectly slicing the toppings to pieces with utmost grace, laying them atop a crust that was put into the oven by Kiki.

"Oh, hi Steven!" the crab-like Gem greeted Steven.

"Bixbite? Is she working here?" Steven asked Amethyst.

"Yeah dude, and she's crushing it!" Amethyst answered. "Bixbite is an expert on slicing and dicing, and now she can put those skills to good use in a pizza parlor."

Another pizza came in fresh from the oven courtesy of Kofi, and Bixbite obediently brought it over to her friends. "Order up you guys!" she declared while setting the pie down. "So, any thoughts?"

"That's awesome!" Steven gasped at the pizza in awe of how well-made it was.

"Check out that 'za brah." Amethyst agreed, shapeshifting her hand into a ruler and a protractor to measure Bixbite's cuts. "Each slice exactly the same length, 45 degrees." She concluded, and then took a slice to eat. "Wow, pure perfection! I almost feel bad for eating this! You made me proud Bixie."

"Thanks for the compliments you guys." Bixbite thanked the pair. "And I couldn't have gotten here without you Amethyst."

As Bixbite walked away, Steven took a slice of the perfect pizza too. "I didn't even know she wanted a culinary career."

"Yeah, we talked a lot about her interests and experiences the other day." Amethyst revealed. "Then I set her up with Kofi, and here we are. Bixie is just the beginning y'know. I've been wanting to do something big for the school, so I've been helping Gems get human jobs, and everything is going amazing so far! I call it Gem-Human Excellence Mentorship, or G.H.E.M for short."

"I get it, like Gem." Steven came to a realization, much to Amethyst's mild frustration.

"No, I said Gem-Human Excellence Mentorship." Amethyst corrected. "Anote the H."

Suddenly, a Ruby clad in a suit and sunglasses burst through the door and let out a war cry while tearing off her sleeves, revealing the gemstone on her left shoulder before regaining her composure. "All clear my mayor."

Another Ruby dressed in the same clothes entered Fish Stew Pizza, wearing her shades over a yellow visor, by somersaulting into the room and stood alongside her compatriot. "All clear too." She repeated before allowing Mayor Nanafua to enter the pizza joint.

"You got Rubies in your program too?" Steven asked. "And why those Rubies in particular? I mean, they didn't try to kill me like Eyeball and Navy did, but they're still a little intense. Especially Army."

"I just found them to be a little more agreeable compared to those two." Amethyst replied while Doc & Army surveyed the area and Leggy helped the mayor to a chair. "Anyway, I got them working as bodyguards for the mayor."

"How many other Gems have you given jobs?" Steven asked again.

"Glad you asked!" Amethyst replied with a smile, and took Steven outside to show him her progress.

--

Amethyst took Steven from Fish Stew Pizza all the way to Beach City Funland, where she showed him just how many Gems she got to work there.

"Blue Lace Agate?" Steven gasped, seeing Blue Lace working at the ring toss booth and using her horns as targets, before discovering Biggs Jasper operating the Ferris wheel and Crazy Lace Agate handing out balloons. "Biggs? Crazy Lace? Have the Quartzes taken over Funland?"

"Yeah, I've been understaffed for so long so it was about time I had a few extra hands." Mr. Smiley said as he appeared behind the two Crystal Gems. "It could take a whole army to keep this park running!"

"An army?" Steven became worried, but then became distracted by what was going on in the sky.

"Hey check it out, Nephrite's doing some skywriting!" Amethyst cheerfully pointed out Nephrite drawing Steven's face in the sky with the smoke from Steven's cousin Andy's plane. "With all her experience flying dropships, it was only natural she do skywriting. Heck, she might even be better at flying than Andy! Still a bit of a perfectionist though."

As Nephrite crossed out her drawing, Steven began getting a little concerned with Amethyst's idea while they walked through Funland. "Um, Amethyst, isn't this a little on the nose?" he asked.

Amethyst however didn't pay him any mind, and instead pointed towards a pair of Gems giving a snowcone to the mayor. "Oh oh, look! Snowflake and Larimar found an ice-related job on the boardwalk!" she shouted while Snowflake Obsidian summoned a large pillar of ice for Larimar to scrape at, and the shavings formed a snowcone for Nanafua to enjoy.

"I still don't know about this." Steven muttered bemusedly.

"About what?" Amethyst asked him. "Everyone's doing pretty fine here."

"I mean, ice Gems doing ice jobs, pilot Gems piloting and guard Gems still guarding." Steven pointed out. "These are basically the exact same jobs they did on Homeworld."

"I swear Stee, these are totally different!" Amethyst nervously assured Steven, only for Leggy to walk by and prove her wrong.

"Wow, these jobs are exactly like what we once did in the old days." Leggy said before she high-fived Army.

"Thanks for the help Amethyst!" Army yelled to Amethyst.

"These are the jobs they wanted, I swear!" Amethyst continued nervously.

"Well sure, maybe they think they want to do this stuff," Steven explained. "but it's still up to us to get them out of their comfort zones!"

"I dunno man." Amethyst objected. "Comfortable can be good too."

"Bear with me for a bit here." Steven declared, and walked towards Snowflake and Larimar. "Hey you two, I just wanted to know what your duties were back on Homeworld."

"I dug ice trenches for the army!" Snowflake answered.

"And I made ice sculptures for the Diamonds!" Larimar added. "You should've really been there for some of my finest work, it was some of the best I've ever car-"

"So is ice kinda your default mode?" Steven cut Larimar off.

"Uh, yeah." Snowflake stated, sharing a look with the smaller Gem. "I mean, with a name like Snowflake Obsidian, what else do you think I do?"

"That's not the point I'm trying to make." Steven said. "Did you ever try doing something else?"

"Like filling ice trenches?" Snowflake answered, just as Nephrite coincidentally flew overhead on Andy's plane, giving Steven an idea.

"How about flying a plane?" Steven suggested.

--

Steven and Snowflake followed the plane to an open meadow where it landed. When Nephrite noticed Steven waving her down, she jumped out to see what was up.

"Hey Steven, what do you need?" Nephrite asked him.

"I'm gonna need you and Andy to talk with Snowflake here for a bit." Steven said, bringing attention to the Obsidian behind him. "I want to get her out of her comfort zone for a bit, so I think maybe she'd like to fly a plane."

"You sure about this kiddo?" Andy asked his cousin worriedly. "I mean, I already got a fine pilot right here." He patted Nephrite on the back, which gave her a smile. "But then again, I'll try anything once. Come on big guy."

Snowflake sheepishly got on the plane with Andy and began for take-off. "I don't snow about this." She punned while the flying machine quickly flew away.

"What's that, can't hear you!" Steven cried over the sound of the engine turning on and the plane finally leaving for the skies. "Have fun!"

--

Next, Steven took Larimar by the hand to the Appalachian, where Cherry Quartz was currently working. "I have an idea for you Larimar." He said to the little ice-carver. "You could operate the Funland roller-coaster. It's a great job, and you get to help people have fun."

"He's right, though I'd really like to actually ride it myself." Cherry agreed with Steven.

"Oh, what is that wonderful noise?!" Larimar asked excitedly while the coaster riders cheered from the adrenaline.

"That's just the screams of joy from everyone on this old thing." Cherry answered proudly.

"Human screams are my favorite of Earth's delights!" Larimar exclaimed happily. "I'll take his job, so I can hear them screaming forever!"

"Okay, that's a little creepy." Steven beamed nervously at Larimar's off-putting enthusiasm. "But I'm glad your heart's in the right place."

"One day, I shall make you scream Steven." Larimar said, before she was taken to the coaster's control room. "I suppose this must help it function, correct?"

"Yeah, you just pull the lever up and down to either speed it up or stop it." Steven instructed. "Why don't you give it a shot?"

"Give me the screams!" Larimar shrieked eagerly, pulling the lever up and making the riders yell louder, while Steven returned from the control room to see Amethyst waiting for him.

"See Amethyst? With just a few small changes, your plan is working even better than before!" Steven claimed, but the overcooked Quartz wasn't buying it. "Don't look so worried, let's go help more Gems!"

--

Much to Amethyst's dismay, Steven went around the town assigning the Gems new jobs far more different than the ones Amethyst gave them.

Instead of working at Funland, Ocean and Zebra Jasper were taken to work at Fish Stew Pizza. Bixbite, meanwhile, was now selling balloons. Army was now selling flowers, Teal Zircon was dragged out to become a taxi driver, Nephrite now worked selling snow cones, and Amethyst was still powerless to stop Steven.

"Wow, sure feels good to be helpful." Steven congratulated himself as he sat at a table at Fish Stew Pizza. "Hopefully everyone can get more experience outside of their comfort zones, but for now, I think I'm beat."

But just when Steven thought he could relax after a job well done, he instead got a pizza to the face. "Order up!" Zebra Jasper cried while she tossed more pizza at Steven and began messily cutting the pies up.

"Delivery, delivery, delivery!" Ocean Jasper yelled as she delivered pizzas by throwing them at passerby's outside.

"Here you go, and I'll take that." Leggy said to a downed person, handing him some flowers and taking his wallet. "Here you go." She added to a woman covered in pizza before taking her purse, and then triumphantly holding up the valuables while setting them on fire. "Yeah, mission complete!"

While Bixbite was handing out balloons, Ocean Jasper threw some pizza at her head, causing her to pop some of her merchandise and let the rest fly away. "Oh no, not the balloons!"

The balloons floated towards Andy's plane, giving Snowflake a shock and causing her to cover the aircraft in ice, making it lose control while the two screamed in fear.

Back on the ground, a car driven by Teal Zircon beeped loudly while it crashed into a lamppost, to the anger of her passenger. "Apologies sir, I have no idea how cars work." She apologized to her customer, who simply walked away in a huff. "Aw come on, not even a hug to make it up to you?!"

As Steven witnessed all the chaos he had accidentally created, he had only one thing to say. "I've made a huge mistake."

--

"Hit me with another Nephs." Amethyst ordered Nephrite to make her a syrupy snowcone at the arcade, oblivious to the chaos outside, when Steven came running in. "Oh hey Steven, want some?"

"No Amethyst, I need your help!" Steven panted in resignation. "Our brilliant plan is basically kaput. I tried to help all the Gems get out of their comfort zones, and look what happened!"

"See Steven, this is what happens when you don't listen!" Amethyst declared accusingly. "You didn't listen to any of my ideas today!"

"That's not true; the Gem mentorship thing is a great idea!" Steven tried assuring his friend.

"It was a great idea when the Gems were doing what they thought they were best at," Amethyst continued. "but then you came in and told everyone what you think they should do! Even me!"

"I was wrong." Steven admitted. "I should've put more trust in you with the program. I don't know why I thought I could just take it over like that! I'm so sorry for today."

"Well, I'm glad you came around Steven." Amethyst accepted his apology with a hug. "Cause right now, I think we have our work cut out for us."

Outside, Teal Zircon was trying her hardest to fix the car she crashed, but to no avail. When she noticed Steven and Amethyst looking at her, TZ changed her tune immediately. "Hey guys! Don't worry, I have this totally under control!" The car then burst into flames. "I'm being serious. Totally under control."

"Yeah, I can see." Steven replied sarcastically to Teal. "So what do you say Amethyst? Want to help me unhelp everyone I've helped?"

"Yeah, alright." Amethyst replied before noticing that Snowflake and Andy were close to crash-landing. With no time to lose, she dragged Steven by the arm out of the arcade, and they formed the chubby half-human fusion Smoky Quartz. "SMOKY!"

Summoning their yo-yo, Smoky Quartz tossed it at the plane and wrapped the string around its tail, but they accidentally cause the tail to break off and make everything worse. "Uh, oops."

While the plane kept spiraling out of control, Smoky bounded off Teal Zircon's destroyed car and summoned another yo-yo to keep them airborne. A third yo-yo was tossed soon after, forming a net that caught the plane and allowed Smoky to return it to the ground safely. "Hey guys, you cool?" Smoky giggled at their pun. "Get it, because of the ice?" The giggling soon ceased and they started panicking. "Anyways, I'm so sorry! You okay?"

"I'm fine." Snowflake answered while clambering out of the plane. "Except that I now have a fear of flying, so there's that."

"Seriously, my life flashed before my eyes for a bit." Andy added, adjusting his flight cap. "Good thing you came in for the save."

"Phew, thanks Uncle Andy." Smoky let out a sigh of relief before they turned to the havoc at Funland. "Gotta run, roller coaster on the fritz!" With that, Smoky made a run for the amusement park, in the process putting out the flaming car with the wind, where the Appalachian had now spun out of control.

"These are not the screams I was hoping for!" Larimar cried, unable to regain control of the ride.

Smoky Quartz began running faster as the coaster started to fall apart, all while having an inner argument with themselves. "Seriously, we're not gonna make it in time! C'mon, faster!"

"If you can save the universe Steven, then I can sure save a roller coaster!" Amethyst declared through Smoky.

"But saving the universe took time!" Steven replied hastily. "I don't have any time, and I sure won't take thousands of years to save this!"

As more of the coaster began falling apart, Smoky was in full panic mode. "Agh, what do I do?!"

"I don't know, I don't know!" Steven replied through their fusion, just as panicked. "Just give me a second!"

Suddenly, Smoky began turning pink thanks to the parts of them that came from Steven, and they suddenly started going even faster than before. Or rather, everything became slower.

"Whoa, cool!" Smoky gasped in amazement at their new form just as they made it to the Appalachian in time and jumped onto the broken rails. "Gotcha!" they exclaimed, but then they noticed how slow-moving everything and everyone had now become. With this sudden new power of slowing down time, Smoky decided to use it to their advantage.

At the front were Sour Cream and the ex-Mayor Dewey, whose hat was flying off his head from the intense speed. "Whoa okay, that goes there." Smoky muttered, putting the hat back on Mr. Dewey while borrowing Sour Cream's phone to take a picture of the three of them with, before returning the device to its owner. "Okay everyone, last stop!"

Smoky quickly got to work, taking all the humans out of the coaster, and safely returned them to the ground. As they were all tossed out of the ride and back onto the pier, they were dropped incredibly slowly due to the intense slowing of time. When Smoky rescued the last of the riders & safely returned them to the ground, time finally returned to its normal flow and they were no longer pink.

"Everybody's all safe and accounted for!" Smoky stated. "Now onto saving that coast-" They were too late to save the roller coaster as it went off the rails and launched off the broken rails into the ocean. "Ah well." They muttered. "Sometimes you can save the people from the roller coaster, but you can't save the coaster itself."

The coaster then combusted in the water, leaving a massive mushroom cloud in its wake. "And that's okay."

--

Later that day, Steven and Amethyst had successfully returned everything to normal and treated themselves to snow cones as a reward. Steven was mostly silent throughout, but Amethyst was ecstatic at how they had controlled time earlier as Smoky Quartz.

"Dude, that was intense!" Amethyst exclaimed. "We basically slowed time just like in one of those manga Lapis reads, but I'm bummed that it didn't come with the power to summon steamrollers. We were going so fast; everything almost came to a screeching halt!"

"Yeah, that was pretty nuts." Steven giggled anxiously.

"It was awesome!" Amethyst added, still super excited. The two of them looked around to admire what they fixed. Bixbite was back to working at Fish Stew Pizza, Nephrite was flying with Andy again, Teal Zircon swore never to drive a car again and the Rubies had now returned to defending the mayor.

"Now that I look at it, you were pretty spot-on with everyone's jobs." Steven confessed. "It just makes me wonder, you think I'm a bit too controlling?"

"Okay, maybe a teeny bit." Amethyst admitted to Steven. "As for me, I didn't just guess what everyone wanted to do. I actually sat down with all these Gems and asked what they wanted. Everyone has had a crazy history, so I felt they should be able to choose how they feel and what they should do in the future. I feel like I finally know what I needed to do; I just needed to figure it out for myself. But now, I feel like I'm just as good at helping Gems decide that for themselves."

"Yeah, you're right." Steven agreed.

"So, what about you?" Amethyst asked Steven. "Now that things are starting to settle down, what do you want to do? Come on, let's talk about your future! The doc is in, first session is free!"

"Thanks Amethyst." Steven laughed lightly. "But I don't know. I still want to help people, but I think I might be losing my touch."

Just then, Steven felt someone tap his shoulder, and he turned to see Larimar standing before him, with a large stuffed bear poorly hidden behind her. "Hello Steven, it's me, Little Larimar!" Larimar greeted Steven. "I got you a surprise. Can you guess what it is?"

"Uh, no." Steven answered, clearly noticing Larimar's bear, but he decided to play dumb to humor her.

"It's a teddy bear!" Larimar announced as she presented the bear to Steven, who took the toy kindly.

"That's so nice Larimar, thanks." Steven thanked Larimar. "But why did you get me this?"

"I got this for you as a way of saying thank you." Larimar responded. "I know I'm not great at handling the roller coaster, but I find myself excelling at giving things to others, like handing prizes to children! Oh, their joyous laughter warms me so. It sounds kind of like screaming!"

Steven and Amethyst were a little weirded out by Larimar's comparisons, but they were still happy she found something that made her happy.

"I think these Earth children quite like me too." Larimar continued. "I never felt so happy in my life."

Steven and Amethyst's nervous expressions turned into sweet smiles, but as the destroyed roller coaster drifted past them in the ocean, Steven made a shocking realization. "Oh my gosh, we forgot Onion!" he panicked seeing Onion still in the coaster, and Onion gave him a little wave, which eased Steven's nerves. "Eh, I'm sure he'll be fine."

--

Thanks for joining me for another chapter of Alternate Future. Like in Regular Future, Little Homeworld and Guidance were merely appetizers for what's to come, because the next chapter will be where things get really interesting. It will be a fusion of Rose Buds and Volleyball, and we'll even get our first hint of something, or someone, plotting against Steven and Era 3. What am I even talking about? Well, tune in next week to find out!

[pbandjesse]

Jess is here!!! I am so happy she got here safe and sound. And she came so much earlier then usual so we have already had basically an entire day together. Its great. I feel so good about it. 

Today really has been excellent. I slept pretty well last night. It took me forever to actually fall asleep but once I was I slept really good. I woke up around 8 because Jess was texting me she got to the bus station okay. And soon she was on her way here for real. She said it was so empty and only a couple people where even on the bus. Neat. Lots of space to breath. I lounged a bit. But eventually I got up and got myself dressed. I look a bit bundled and silly in my picture but I felt really cute today. Very soft. I didnt love my makeup as much as yesterday but that was okay. 

I had a nice morning. James made scones and they were sightly dry but really delicious. Orange and cranberry. The best. I worked on some of my tarot drawings and it was just really nice. He was anxious about being late to get Jess because we had to make a couple stops before going to the bus station. So he made us leave over an hour early. Such a silly boy. But it was all fine. I wasnt worried. As we left we ran into Mr Will and we gave him a scone and our old vacuum. No more need to take it to goodwill, poor Mr Will has been cleaning the halls with a broom. We hope this makes things easier on him. It was a beautiful day out. 

First stop we made was to go to the post office. Mail a furby and get my passport application. We are going to the passport event next saturday so it will be good to have the form all filled out and ready to go. James wanted me to come in because every time he ships a furby they scold him for the size of the package. It needs to be bigger. But she didnt scold me at all. HAH! I win. I will make an effort to make the paper portion larger so they can fit the labels on like they need to.We took a long drive and stopped for gas. And then we were at the bus station. 

And Jess was soon there too!! I was so happy to see her. And we had such a nice day. First we were all starving so we went to Red Emmas for lunch. For was excellent because its always excellent. Something me and Jess always do is split food. So we got a salad and a burger and cut them both in half and it was great. Its one of my favorite ways to eat and me and her do it very well. 

We all went back to the apartment to make a pit stop and drop off James. And Jess gave me an early birthday present. She got us matching sweatshirts that were going to wear tomorrow and Im so excited because I had shown her these sweatshirts a while ago and made a joke about how we could match but I didnt buy them and then she did!! I am so pleased. What a nice gift. 

Me and her headed out and went to Amazing Glaze to paint pottery. It was so nice. It took a while for Jess to pick what she wanted to paint. But I knew what I was getting right away. My plan was to paint 2 rectangle plates to look like playing cards. I really wanted it to look like blue china and Jess helped me pick the best color to do that. She ended up picking a really pretty tray and doing this beautiful series of moon phases with faces. Its going to look so nice when its fired. We were there for a few hours drawing and painting. This was for sure my most draw heavy one. Not that I havent done a lot of drawing ones but this one took a lot of reference images and was very hard!! But Im really excited to see how they come out. 

We left there and headed back home. I had a lot of trouble parking. But that was fine. Jess helped me. We had nachos as a snack. And watched some dumb videos. And soon it was time to get ready to go to dinner with James family. We got to their house and it was like Christmas part 4 because there were Christmas cookies and gifts and it was nice! I got a glass bottle of coke with my name on it! Spelled right even! And Margot gave me a really neat necklace that has a mini embroidery hoop on it. Its really cute and so thoughtful!

We all headed over the restaurant and it was very busy. The parking lot included. Which is also a really weird shape. And James accidentally scraped a car. And of course the owners saw it and he got all flustered because he couldnt find our insurance card. I had to be very level headed and find it and calm him down. James ended up knowing them and its going to be fine. They gave him hugs even.  

But the food was really good and I had a really fun time talking to Jess and James and a little to his sister. The food was just excellent though and I had such a nice time. We tried so many things and it was all so well made. Expensive and well made. It was a really nice and I had a really goof time. But we were all getting tired. 

So we got home and got changed. And me and Jess stretched and did some yoga and now were playing Animal Crossing together. Its really nice to have someone to play next to. We are figuring out how to share money in the game to try to level her up! Well see how that goes. Its supposed to snow tomorrow. Well see how that goes. We are supposed to have a thrifting day and then go ice skating. So I hope that isnt derailed much. But no matter what Im just going to be happy she is here. I hope you all have a really nice night. Stay warm.

[early-sxnsets]

I Tear Body and Soul Apart

Archive Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15909690/chapters/37420340

Chapter 3 of Love You All, Die For This

Word Count: 2934

Chapter Summary: A phone call is all it takes to change a night.

BAZ

It’s jarring to hear words spoken to you, yet having them pass through you like some fucked up deja-vu of the worst circumstances.

Like when my father said he’d never accept my decisions; accept us. Despite being in front of Snow and I, his voice came through as if it was coming through a phone dropped into the bottom of a lake; distorted, empty, and somehow sounding like I’d heard it a million times. Like the voice in my head that’d been shouting it for years finally broke the surface and bared its snarling teeth and spitting words that hit me more like a dissociation daydream than an actual speech.

This doesn’t exactly feel like that knee-scrapes of a shitty remark. This instead feels like getting stabbed in the fucking spine.

“Incompatible genes,” rings in my ears, the voice calm and incredibly pitiful, “the DNA sample pulled interesting information about your condition that we want your permission to study, but the results are a negative. The egg did not fertilize properly.”

I swallow at the ice-chunk in my throat, refusing to melt away. “What’s the matter with the DNA then?” I force, the hand pressing my mobile to my cheek giving a slight tremble as my bodyweight shifts.

Ears straining to keep focus on the tumbling of words, slowly rocking on the patio seat as my eyes transfix onto a bird pecking at our feeder. A cloud of sentences crowd around my head, closing around my throat and my shoulders. “If you don’t mind us saying, Mr. Pitch, it’s truly fascinating. The cellular reproductive rate in sperm decreased almost to the point of complete standstill. It’s nearly as though their lifespans last forever, but they nearly never split overall. Although your skin and hair sampled yielded typical results, your mouth swab showed a similar decrease in splitting, suggesting you physically appear as aging, but internally your lifespan is undetermined but significantly longer-lasting.” It’s stuffy, like how Snow’s old smoke felt thick in your lungs. I can’t breathe.

I can barely speak, uttering out a confirmation to set up a visit to discuss the next steps and see where it goes from here, and yes, thank you for your time. My fingertips ghost over the end call before the other line goes dead.

The goldfinch across the yard seems to be having a lovely time picking at its lunch.

If I had the energy, I’d shoot across and drain it, but even then I’d feel more disgusted with myself than I am now. I’m the reason we’re in this standstill, after all. My “condition”.

I stand swiftly, going to find the pack of cigarettes hidden in the side table drawer beside the sofa. Standing back outside with shaky hands and fumblings of my wand (I’m too incoherent and untrusted with a lighter, or even matchsticks), it takes me moments to fully light the fag hanging from my lips. I drag it, the thick smoke burning my throat before I bitterly taking the cig and holding it between my fingers, palms pressing deeply into my eye sockets. I rub, trying to shake the words out of my brain.

They keep floating, buzzing around me incoherently in jumbles of phrases. Each word pelts me, like little flies swarming to pick at my corpse.

I would never admit it verbally, but I’m more scared than anything. Scared of Snow’s reaction; scared that he’s still teetering on the edge of lost and mad.

It’d never cross my mind that he’d raise a fist to me, but the thought of Snow hurting himself to some extent keeps probing into my thoughts.

My phone rests beside me, face up on the red-stained deck and sitting without the annoyance of the string of notification buzzes others may have.

I don’t have much out there to care about sharing or contacting, except Snow, Bunce, and Fiona. I don’t have social media; I have four downloaded applications. A tuning app, Spotify, Skype, and a translator app that isn’t even mine, it’s Snow’s.

I only check emails and texts, a large majority of the latter being Snow texting me pictures of things he finds while out.

After unlocking it, I click through it to open the picture he sent me earlier today.

Simon Snow Pitch: bear_in_a_black_trenchcoat_shirt.jpg

Simon Snow Pitch: i think i found the shirt to get for fiona for Christmas

A wet laugh bubbles up through my throat, eyes squeezing shut automatically to stop the tears welling up. Crowley, he’s going to be so upset.

It briefly runs through my mind that I could theoretically spend the evening acting oblivious to the call, but then I remember that Snow’s grown to be sharp as a witches’ wit when it comes to me avoiding anything.

That leaves me with the inevitable conclusion of telling him.

The time tells me that he won’t be home for another hour. My heart tells me that he’ll be home a half an hour late; it’s the first Saturday of the month, so he’ll stop off and pick up some flowers for me as well as some take-out.

It’s the first Saturday of the month. June 4th. His birthday is in a few weeks, and he was going to save up any money he’s sent from various friends he somehow kept to buy a crib.

It’s the first Saturday of the month of his 25th birthday, and I’m going to have to look him in the eyes and tell him we’re not having a baby.

I jam the cigarette back between my lips, taking a forceful drag as I type out a message, hitting send before setting my mobile aside.

Me: If you’re picking up dinner, may I put in my recommendation for butter chicken and garlic naan? x

The bird across the ways rattles at the food before taking flight, going off somewhere safer than being around me. I let the smoke out slowly, eyelids falling heavily as my chest tugs. It feels like I’m lying to him, sending some innocent text about dinner plans that fit so perfectly into our everyday life as if I didn’t just receive dream-crushing news.

Maybe he’ll take it well. Maybe I’m overthinking again.

Or maybe I know my husband well enough to gauge his reaction based on his personality mixed with knowledge of the situation.

Fuck. I want to be wrong.

For once in my life, just once, I want to be wrong. I want Snow to walk through the door, making my knees weak as he says “I got a voicemail from the doctor about the egg and that’s a pity but I love you so it doesn’t matter!” then we’re mildly upset together, eat enough ice cream throughout the next week until we get over it enough to adopt an animal or two for emotional replacement. Then, eventually, we retire further up the countryside.

It could work. We’ll make it work.

I close my eyes, tapping the ash off as I breathe out into the early evening air.

Life’s a bitch.

I crush down the butt, gathering my phone and the cigarette box after making sure I returned my wand to my pocket and heading inside. My eyes drift to the telly to occupy my mind, but the news is depressing and mindlessly watching Normals do whatever it is they do makes me feel ridiculously lonely whenever I’m doing it without Snow.

I could nap, but that’d be pointless. I could read, but nothing good to—

My phone buzzes with an alert.

Simon Snow Pitch: will do my love <3

Well, fuck.

SIMON

I ring for Baz’s favorite Indian shop, stepping into my car as the city noises close off around me. I toss my satchel in the back and set the flowers in the passenger seat, letting my back sink into the car seat as I rub my face. Cheerily, I greet the shop owner’s voice, confirming that yes, I would like the usual, thank you, before ending the call and letting out a long breath.

The car rumbles to life, music flipping back on where it left off in a thump to the beginning of “Golden Trunks” from that Arctic Monkeys album that Baz hates to love (I tell him he likes it because he dressed like the album sounds). A smile manages to turn up the corner of my lips, despite my overall exhaustion.

I know that Baz doesn’t quite understand why I love my work so much if it tires me emotionally and physically, but it’s rewarding at the end.

It took a few years, especially after Watford, for me to fall back on track for something. It wasn’t until my therapist asked what I would have wanted as a child, and it hit me.

I’d want a social worker who’d give a shit about me.

Then it sort of all… clicked into place (Baz calls it my Hero Complex). I went to school for my degrees, got my certification and all, and now I work with kids to get them out of the system as quickly as possible (and to weed out the shit foster houses).

Sure, it hurts like a fucking gut punch to see people suffer, but it feels like I’m on the moon anytime one of my cases smiles at me and gives me a hug. It reminds me that I’m at least doing something for the greater good.

I guess I sort of have a “hero complex”, but it’s not intentional; it’s the only thing that keeps me sane sometimes. Without the thrum of magick, I itch to do something that makes me feel at least somewhat important, and despite Baz’s best efforts to convince me that I’m important already, I still feel like a useless sack of shit too often.

I feel myself exhale as I pull up to the shop, dragging myself in and paying for the food with an automatic kind smile slapped across my face.

I wish I didn’t feel like a useless sack of shit still.

Maybe this baby is the breath of fresh air we both need, that I need.

Fuck, it sounds like I’m saying the relationship is dead, which Merlin and Morgana I swear it isn’t, but after a life of excitement then a plateau, I feel like we won’t survive a plateau. I feel like Baz is going to get bored of me, eventually. It’s just that a change of pace would be good, and nothings more life-changing than another life.

That’s what it is. Changing the pace. Making me more exciting. Making sure that I’m not a sack of shit.

I buckle back into the car, pulling it back and heading home. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.

BAZ

The sun’s just starting to set as Snow’s car pulls up, gravel popping beneath it and quieting before the engine cuts. I listen to the click of the car door, Snow’s soft grunt, the rustling of plastics and the sound of a door slamming. His keys and grind against the lock before the gentle burst of the door opening fills the house, the Snow’s symphony of movements cascading down the halls. I let my book lower, eyes lifting to greet him as I push out a smile. “Hi love,” I say as he flicks on the kitchen light.

Before I even have a chance to fully rise, he’s in front of me, flowers in one hand as he offers the other. I take it, fingers winding around his as our lips meet briefly. “Mm. How was your day?” I query, inhaling the flowers. Pink peonies and gardenias. Interesting.

“Exhausting,” he replies, his voice dropping to a tired murmur that hits me so hard that it makes me swallow. He raises his head, meeting my eyes as he looks at me quizzically. “Are you alright? You went for a smoke today.”

I open my mouth to answer, but snap it shut a moment later. No. Nope. “Let’s eat. The food’s going to get cold.”

He sighs and I feel his hand press to my hip, which just makes my heart race faster. Fuck. “Talk to me.” It’s a command, not a question, and I know it now. I’m fucked.

“I got a call from the doctor.”

His eyes flicker up and around my face, sending my heart to shatter. He fucking knows. He can tell. He’s so��� he’s going to… “It didn’t work,” he mutters. It’s not for me, clearly, but I nod automatically anyway. His head drops, stepping back from me as his hand leaves my side and travels to his hair. He cards through it and grips at it, squeezing, pulling.

His mouth starts rapid firing in short huffs of curses, working himself up and pulling away, pulling back into himself.

I hear his voice crack, I see the tears leaking, but every time I reach an arm out, I open my mouth, he steps further. He gasps louder for air, shaking his head and holds his arms out for distance. I barely hear his quiet “Nonono”s through the building sobs.

I ache. I burn from the inside out. I watch him fucking self-destruct, and he’s begging for me to be further, to be away.

I just want to hold him. I just want it to stop.

But he doesn’t even let me breathe in his direct as he starts huffing, face covered by his hands. My eyes transfix on his ring, shining alone from the kitchen light barely filtering in through the doorframe. It’s getting darker outside, the last of the daylight disappearing into deep purples and blues. He’s like a ghost; shades of cornflower and aegean in the dimming night, and his tears serve only to illuminate him. I grow weak, arms falling to my sides as I back away, his anger building and twisting his sadness.

I flinch at the sight of his reddening face, and fucking pray that he doesn’t see.

His eyes dart, and I see something that I’d convinced myself that only existed in dreams now; the fevered rage that The Mage held, all those years ago. The lasting flicker of the madman seeps into Snow, who’s now backing into the wall, staring at the floor and telling himself this is his fault, and I flinch even harder when I hear it happen. The crash and shatter of a picture frame, somewhere near him, clattering to the ground and bursting into glittering shards. His wings swat the air a bit, knocking another frame from the wall. The hiding spells worn thin, letting the sheer force of Snow's anger pushing the wings through the fabric of his button down.

I just gape, no longer feeling there, no longer believing I’m in the room. I can’t feel my body; I haven’t for ten minutes. My limbs don’t exist, and the tears falling down my cheeks are just of my mind’s tricking, but my autopilot of a brain launches my barely-existing limbs forward, descending down onto the crumpling figure of my husband. He’s curled now, curled into himself with hands yanking at his curls, sobbing even harder.

I expect something to happen when I touch him; for him to send me away and tell me to never come back, but instead he does what we both need and he leans into me. I feel his sputterings now, and my face presses to his, presses everywhere, trying to sop up his sadness and anger by just holding him and reminding him that I’m here, against him, by his side.

We sit here, pressed up to the floor and wall for what feels like hours. It’s wordless after a few minutes, the only sound being his hiccup-y breaths, which I coach him through with each open-palmed rub of his chest. He takes it; he takes it all. He takes my cheek kisses, my hair kisses, my hugs and my comfort. Everything that I hide so much from everyone else; he takes it from me and holds it close, giving me back all I need to keep sane; a look in the eyes and a broken but present smile. It’s like taking a bat to my heart, and I can’t do anything but to kiss his lips, over and over, trying to emit something from them.

It takes time before he lets it out, but then it tumbles in the incoherent-Snow-way that hits me in the chest. He sputters “I’m sorry”s, going in the circles of words, retracing them and begging me to stay with him, begging me to make it last.

I take his face in my hands, maybe a little too jarringly because he cuts his sentence and startles. I loosen, looking in him, through his eyes and his quivering lips to try to get into him.

“Simon,” I breathe, ignoring the choking in my throat. “I’m never leaving you. Never. Please, just… stop that, okay? I’m here; fucking hell, I can’t even fathom walking out that door. Child or no child, Simon, I’m here.”

He swallows, another tear trickling down his cheek as his hand finds mine and wipes away the wetness. I watch his soft inhale, eyes closing as my forehead presses to his. “I’m gonna fix this,” he mumbles, voice barely leaving our bubble. “I’m gonna figure out a way to get it to work.” I want to tell him to stop, and that I don’t need anything from him but him, but it seeps into me as his arms snake around my waist that this clearly isn’t for me anymore; it’s for him.

[danvssomethingorother]

An Afternoon on The Ice

Summary: Fiddleford invites the Stan twins to go ice skating with him 

Pairing: very mild fiddauthor, only a small crush. Also mild implied fiddlestan.

Characters: Fiddleford Mcgucket, The Stan twins, Grauntie Mabel

Warnings: None 

For my dear @memyselfandyoutube , I’m late for your bday and Christmas but I’m always happy to write Relativity Falls fluff.   

The lake had frozen over a few weeks before halting any business Tate Mcgucket would usually get in his little tackle shop. Without the extra income coming in from his shop, things became tighter around the Mcgucket house, the old furnace didn’t warm the house up like it should and there was no money to get anything extra to warm their home up for the winter.

Fiddleford ended up spending a large chunk of his time down at the Mystery Shack with his only friends to escape the cold that had settled around his home.

Madame Mystery or as she constantly reminded Fiddleford to call her, Grauntie Mabel, had taken notice to Fiddleford’s seemingly permeant residency in her establishment. That morning as she was turning over the open sign for the gift shop she found the half frozen little boy waiting patiently outside, just as she was about to ask why he didn’t knock she took notice of her first customer of the morning standing beside her newest grandnephew (as far as she was concerned anyway).  

Tyler Cutebiker was standing next to Fiddleford, talking his ear off. Both bundled up tight in the warm sweaters, mittens, hats and scarves Mabel had knit for them herself making her heart ache.  

She ushered them into the gift shop with a wave of her arm, chastising the boys for not knocking and staying outside in this weather waiting for the shop to open as if they were the normal suckers. She had insisted Dan take the week off so he didn’t end up breaking any of her Christmas ornaments she had the boys painting the last few nights (Fidds being the only one to enjoy the activity while her blood nibblings only groaned in annoyance), so it was quite the shock to see one of his friends here at all but a pleasant one.  

“I thought ya did all yer Christmas shopping during the summer,” Mabel said directed her smug grin at Tyler who was beginning to fidget under her direct gaze,” Did I wait up till midnight for ya to decide on a gift for nothing?”

His face began to full on flush at her playful ribbing as she began setting up the shop for the day, Fidds rushing to her side to assist the woman in her morning routines and flushing a deep crimson as she gently sat him down behind the counter and lovingly took off his snow-covered scarf and hat and wrapped him in a blanket she always kept under the cash register, just in case.

“I was thinkin’ of taking the kids skating down at the lake with Dan today,” Tyler began flushing as Mabel began unwinding his snow-covered scarf and offering him a warm handmade blanket as well, “I ran into Fidds down there this morning and he was quite the skater, but he was dead set on gettin’ the twins this morning before helping me teach Dan how to use his blades…”  

“You boys settle in then and warm up, I’ll get you some hot chocolate while I get the bums I call nephews out of bed already. Can you believe they were watching those phony ghost shows long after you left last night Fidds? I thought I would never get any sleep once they started squabbling about how legit they were and who should have the remote…”

Fidds smiled brightly at her exaggerated tale of the twins fighting as she prepared him and Tyler some warm hot chocolate with a bit too much whip cream and sprinkles on top that Tyler kept trying to deny her offer of, not wanting that much sugar in his system after the last three cavities he got from visiting the woman.  

She spun quite the tall tale as she tucked them both up with blankets in the warmer living room, pushing a protesting Tyler down in the recliner and a very willing Fidds into her comfortable rocking chair.  

It was very easy to capture the twins in his mind even with her off, mocking imitations of them both and over exaggerated details. She fussed with his hair for a minute longer and he sank into her touch, her warm hands gently caressing his cheeks as she gave him a warm kiss on the forehead. Her hand-crafted perfume smelling just like he expected every loving grandmother to smell like, fresh baked cookies and her smile and caring hands helping him create the lie he belonged her with her, in this family. Finally belonged somewhere, love and wanted, and maybe this wouldn’t end when the twins once more departed.  

Once she left the room, he just stared solemnly down at his coco, just letting it warm his fingers and tinkle his nose with its sweet smell.

He was snapped out of his rumination by the loud creek on the floor, he slowly lifted his head up to see Tyler on the other side of the room shooting his head up towards the stairway with a deer in the head lights look but let out a sigh of relief hearing Mabel loudly calling for the twins to get out of bed followed by their echoed grunts.

Tyler looked over at him and smiled, gesturing with his head for him to follow him. He maneuvered himself off the chair, clinging to his hot chocolate and tensing his shoulders up to keep the blanket in place. Keeping a close eye on the yarn basket next to the rocker trying not to accidentally disturb the half finished sweater hanging from the arm. He too glanced nervously up the stairs towards the Pines family cheerful banter as his foot hit the creaking board and almost considered just staying where the kind old woman had left him. His teeth scraped against his lip and his knee began to shiver as he kept his eyes upstairs but Tyler wasn't gonna take no for an answer. If he got caught in his mischief, might as well have someone cute by his side to make the punishment practically non existent. 

They tip toed back into the gift shop, a smug little grin half forming on Tyler's face as he walked past the register he usually perched against distracting an already antsy Dan and he went straight towards a locked cabinet with a large glittery sign reading "Madame Mabel's potions".

Fidds stopped where he was, heart pounding faster as he saw what his friend was doing. 

"Tyler..." he rasped out, once more looking behind him expecting the woman's disappointment in their behavior when she trusted them.  

Tyler paid his worry no mind as he pulled a set of keys from his pocket with the mystery shack’s symbol dangling from the key ring making Fidds eyes bulge a little. He winked at Fidds as he began shifting through the key set trying each of the numerous keys into the lock.

“Dan left them in my car the other night when I gave him a ride home, I don’t intend to steal nothing, I just want a sample of her love perfume.”

“Janice bought a small bottle from Mabel last summer and right before her first date with Greg, she sprayed a little bit on her and you’ve seen them, Fidds, they are the most in love people I have ever seen.”

Some of the anxiety began to melt looking at the starry-eyed gleam shimmering in his eyes cast down at him. His lips curved after a few seconds of silence and he added with a shrug, “Though I think she defiantly added too much. I don’t want Dan to be that clingy towards me…”

Fidds watched him curiously as he dug through the cabinet, taking slow sips of his coco.

Tyler's smug smile returned to his face as he pulled a beautiful heart shaped perfume vial from the cabinet. He pulled back his sleeve and sprayed a tiny amount onto his arm instantly filling the room with a sweet scent.  

"Just one kiss from your true love and you're bound forever but you know the spiel better than anyone right Fidds? I saw you eying her demonstration of the stuff last week as well."  

Fidds face flushed and he averted his eyes away from his friend. His knees began to quake faster feeling that smile boring into him.

“No need to feel shame little buddy, I see the way you look at Ford it don’t take a genius to figure out yer just as in love with him as I am with Dan. We’re both too fools in love.”

Fidds looked away turning redder by the second, fingers tightening around his cup hoping the quakes running course through his system wouldn’t leave a mess on Mabel’s floor.  He had been trying for the last few months the Stan twins had taken up residency with their aunt to hide his crush on his best friend but to his utter dismay his blushing and longing stares had not gone unnoticed by anyone. Still, though, he tried to deny it with a sheepish grin and a shake of his head, his fingers tightening further around the mug making him wince a little as the hot ceramic made his bare fingers tingle under the heat.

The action was in vain though, Tyler playfully snatched Fidd’s hand and the second the concoction was sprayed on his wrist, he ended up dropping his glass.  

This was the suspicious scene Stanly Pines entered this story on.

“What are you knuckleheads doin down here?” he scowled at them shaking his head, “You are in for it big time when Grauntie…”

He paused, a smirk creeping past his scowl looking at the bottle Tyler was now desperately trying to keep out of his line of sight.

“What’s ya got there, pal?” Fidds began squirming as that slimy, unnerving grin went from Tyler before landing on Fidds hand being tucked behind his back and the quivers rolling through his body.  

Stan shot forward before Fidds had time to react grabbing him by his and yanking it forward for him to inspect further. His smile kept growing and a few chuckles slipped out as he took a whiff of the aroma there. He pulled away, a grimace settling over his smile and his fingers pinching his nose.

“EUGH!” he exclaimed swiping at the air, “That’s Mabel’s disgusting love potion made with all her girliest perfumes!”  

“I know that smell anywhere! I can’t believe you willingly put it on yourself!”

Tyler slapped his hand over Stan’s mouth, eyes shooting back and forth looking for signs of Mabel coming down stairs. Upstairs she was having a loud argument with Ford on the benefits of bathing but he was arguing he didn’t need to do that since he bathed a few days ago and wasn’t that dirty.

“Stanly, you can not tell yer aunt we stole some of her potions. I heard rumor the last person she stole from…went missing.”

Fidds became stiff, he may not believe Mabel would harm anyone but he couldn’t bear to live in a world where she never wanted to talk to him again and the Pines weren’t part of his life.

“And what’s ta stop me from telling her?” he said that smug grin coming back as he snatched the bottle from Tyler while he was staring at him in his panic.

“Please Stanly!” Fidds began looking uptowards Mabel and Ford arguing upstairs in his panic, “I’ll do whatever ya want, don’t tell yer aunt we was playing with her merchandise!”

Stan rested his thumb under his chin and made a loud humming noise, “I suppose, I could let this one slide, if I get a favor out of both of ya at any time I need something.”

They both took hard side glances at each other, knowing this wasn’t a good thing but ultimately nodded their heads solemnly. Being indebted to Stan was a million times better then breaking Mabel’s heart.

Stan shut up the perfume and locked it up safe and sound by the time Mabel appeared down stairs, her annoyance turning to concern seeing the broken glass Fidds was trying to clean up himself while Tyler stood nervously fidgeting by him and Stan sat whistling on the register absently smacking a bobble head.

She gently took the glass shards from out of Fidds little hands and smiled at him.

“It’s ok babe, don’t worry about this mess it was an accident.”

A tear slowly slipped out at that point. Mabel was so nice to him and he had just broke her belongings and stolen something that cost quite the pretty penny from her gift shop. She paused in cleaning up the mess he had made and pulled him into a hug kissing his head.

“It’s ok, sugar bean,” she whispered rubbing his back, “I ain’t mad about a little mess like this.”

She placed another kiss on his cheek and whispered, “Go get cleaned up now and we’ll leave when you get back.”

Disappearing down the hall to the Employee wash room he heard her hissing at Stan for upsetting him like that and a small argument ensuing. He felt a thick layer of guilt wash over him at that point shutting the bathroom door shut.

Mabel grabbed his hand as they left the shack and the action grounded Fidds, making a small smile grace his lips as she pushed him in the back seat next to Ford. Ford had been pouting since Mabel had made him bathe but Fidds didn’t mind he leaned closer to his friend as Stan pressed himself in the car. He smelled much better then he usually did.

---

Fiddleford’s waning luck ran out very quickly.

The car ride had gone smoothly but arriving on the lake had not gone as smoothly.  

For one, Ford wanted to go explore around the edges around the lake and wouldn’t listen to their begs for him to hang out with them skating on the ice, his nose stuck in a book as he left them too soon.

Fidds would have gladly gone with him and even began to but Stan grabbed him firmly by the scuff of his jacket making a not so subtle reminder that he knew he had stolen from Mabel. He glanced over towards Mabel talking away to his dad who didn’t seem to be paying her any attention and nodded solemly. He never wanted to lose this family, so being away from Ford for a day shouldn’t be that bad. He wouldn’t be that far from view he reasoned seeing Ford plop down in the snow and begin sketching something in his home-made journal and popping the mysterious author’s journal open next to him.

Fidds had been skating every winter since he had moved out to live with his father when he was six and had it to an art. Stan, however, took to the ice like a babe taking their first steps. Clumsy, no poise or grace and maybe a tab bit violently taking hold of Fidds and having him go down with him each time.

He took him down for the third time this afternoon, making him land on his butt and grunt loudly at the bruises he was sure to have in the morning because of Stan’s rough mannerisms.

Thistle Down, was quite the impressive skater though. Jumping through the air with grace and poise even someone who had been doing it for over five years like Fidds would envy. He did a figure eight around where they sat on the ground. Fidds watching in awe, a flush on his face not caused by the cold and Stan staring with a sneer.

“Come on, Stan my man! It isn’t so hard if ya just try a little!” Thistle said with a smug smile skating back over to a cheering group of girls, Carla among them to Stan’s anger.

Fidds glanced over to meet Carla’s glare of disapproval of her friend showing off like that to set off Stan but Stan didn’t notice it as he grabbed Fidds roughly and pulled him down to his level.

“Come on, yer gonna pay me back for keepin’ yer secret by teaching me how to skate away from these losers.”

Fidds had no real way to object so he let Stan lead him away from their friends, Ford disappearing from his line of sight the farther they went making him sigh sadly.

---

Fidds was nervous as he helped Stan skate to the far side of the lake, far away from their friends cheering on Thistle, far away from Ford doing his own expedition making his debt to Stan moot and more importantly far enough away where his dad wouldn’t hear them yell if they ran into trouble. His knees were shaking so bad Stan had to help keep them both from toppling over putting most of the weight on his wobbly legs.

“This should be far enough,” Stan declared grabbing tightly onto Fidds who nearly fell down once more this afternoon and glared at Stan.

“Why did we have to go out so far? We could have practiced where we were at,” he groused with an eye roll, he was already tired having to drag his much larger friend all the way across the lake as he had done.

“I don’t want Carla seeing me fall on me ass, that’s why,” he spat once more dragging Fidds down with him so they could both sit on the icy surface for rest.

“I think she saw that enough while ya dragged us both out here,” Fidds grumbled ignoring the murderous look in his friend’s eyes to look back from where they came, their friends mere outlines now. Ford was all the way back there too, it felt like it was a waste of time for Tyler to have given him a sample of the love potion now, not like he would get a chance to really use it.

“I want to come back over there more skilled then that jerk and yer gonna help me!”

Fidds shook his head, he couldn’t believe he thought he could learn a skill like this in a single afternoon.

He tried to point this simple fact out but Stan refused to listen, thinking he would learn enough, sweep Carla off her feet with his new moves and leave Thistle crying when he was done with him (his description, not Fiddleford’s).

Fidds shook his head and accepted Stan wasn’t going to listen, the sooner he grew bored, the sooner they could return to the others and maybe enjoy the afternoon.

To Fidds surprise, it actually wasn’t terrible being out alone with Stan like this.  

It was rather, dare he say it, fun. Stan was his rough abrasive self as usual, but Fidds rather liked his determination to see through his ridiculous goal. Under all the snark, he was willing to learn, taking Fidds’s hand and even being gentle with him as he began to calm down.

Fidds was smiling brightly when Stan finally learned to balance on his own (giving his own abused back a break) and it only grew as Stan began to skate around him (albeit on shaky legs but without his assistance none the less).  

“Hey, hey Fidds,” Stan called that bolt of enthusiasm passing right from him and shocking Fidds as well as he shakily balanced on one leg, arms awkwardly spread keeping his balance, “I’m finally gettin’ it!”

Stan, unsurprisingly tripped over his own feet soon after but Fidds very happily went to help him get up.

“Hey, Fidds, what’s that over there?”

Fidds tilted his head to see what Stan was referring to but saw nothing, when he said he didn’t see it, Stan rolled his eyes and grabbed him pulling him down completely beside him. Fidds’s butt smacked hard against the ice yet again making the boy scowl towards his friend but Stan didn’t give him time to say a snide remark as he grabbed his head and turned it roughly, pointing his finger out towards whatever he had seen.

Fidds squinted, near sighted as he was he almost missed it completely but as he slid his glasses up from the bridge of his nose where they had fallen back into place, he let out a gasp. Stan let out loud, gruff laugh at his reaction, slapping him on the back and calling him blind before hauling him up with him ‘to go get a betta look’.

Fidds would have been just fine staying where he was but his arguments were caught in his throat and nothing came out but stuttering half made protests.

So along with Stan he went to brave the unknown, the unknown in this case being what appeared to be a large tooth sunk into the lake. As if some creature lost it when trying to eat its last prey on this very lake…

Fidds for once in this afternoon didn’t mind holding onto to his friend as they made their way closer to the protruding tooth.

Fidds held his ground, skidding to a halt before they could arrive in front of the foreign object causing Stan to trip over himself once more bringing Fidds down with him. Luckily for Fidds (and not so lucky for Stan) the fall down wasn’t bruising this time as he landed on top of soft Stan, who growled loudly in annoyance.

He shoved Fidds off him in a huff as he clamored up on to his feet and yanked Fidds up with him who was scowling and content on staying where he was on the ground then going another step farther towards that thing in the ice.

Stan loosened his hold when they rose and shrugged giving a sympathetic side glance to the panic in Fidds eyes, silently telling him to stay behind if he wanted but he was going to take a closer look.

Fidds watched him slide his way across the ice, catching himself from falling on the protruding tooth before throwing a sly smile behind him towards Fidds and letting loose a loud amused whistle that made Fidds’s knee begin to shake and him to lose his balance a little on the ice.

“Grow a pair, Fidds,” Stan grunted touching the tooth, “It’s a tooth.”

“But where did it come from?” Fidds whispered laying his own shaking palm on the tooth, “I don’t like this Stan, we should go back.”

“A dinosaur,” Stan said with a shrug, Fidds highly doubted that running his fingers across the large bicuspid, it appeared to be human. That thought made a shudder run down his spine, something not only dangerous but smart. They would be doomed it returned for its tooth.  

Before Fidds could remark to that, the tooth shifted making them both fall backwards, Fidds landing hard and with a loud yelp.

Another clash hit the ice sending the two flying in the opposite direction. Stan holding tight onto Fidds. Fidds was in full panic, not quite thinking as he tried to scramble away from Stan’s firm grip on him as the monster hit against the ice again.  

The tooth bobbing down making icy cold water splash hard against the two making them cuddle closer together.

Something happened that Fidds wouldn’t be forgetting soon that would be on his mind for the next couple of nights once his panic over this event eased up.

His lips hit against Stan’s, brushing against them and Stan didn’t pull away. He let them kiss, it was odd and rough and not the kiss Fidds had wanted today so he pulled away the second he could.

He turned his head away from Stan who almost looked disappointed but the moment was gone for now.

Their focus instead was on the tooth that suck under the ice and was pulled away by whatever was under there leaving a large hole where the tooth once was.

Without wasting anymore time, they were both up and hurrying back to where they came from.

If Fidds was less panicked about the monster that had just nearly made them his lunch, maybe Fidds would have been more nervous about how tight Stan clasped his hand.

As of now, it was more comforting and felt like the only thing keeping his mind focused and not a blur of panicked, wild thoughts of what may have happened.

---

Fidds was yelling as he made his way back to the other side of the lake Stan at his heels slipping across the lake since he had tossed his skates somewhere to make it across faster.

His pa was the first to grab him, pulling him off the ice.

“Fiddleford Hadron McGucket,” he said sternly, “What in the world has gotten into you boy? And why are ya soaking wet!”

“There…there…” he gasped out teeth clattering too hard for him to really get the words out right, “Was something under there!”

“Under where?” Tate said setting him down and looking him over sternly.

“The Lake!!” Stan screeched flailing his arms around, “We found its tooth….!!!”

“It’s tooth?!” Ford cried out pushing his way into the front of the crowd forming of their friends.

“It was giant!” Fidds squeaked out making his dad give him a stern glare shutting him up instantly.  

Tate McGucket wasn’t a patient man by any stretch and he certainly wasn’t the type to hear out anything he considered ‘nonsense’ or ‘abnormal’ anything that couldn’t easily be explained.

He had enough the second his son came screaming, both he and his friend soaked to the bone in this weather after getting into something they shouldn’t have been into. He was ready to hand out punishment when his son began spinning wild tales a mile a minute about something that wasn’t real to get out of the wrong doing he and his friend had gotten into.

He took his son firmly by the shoulders and shook him instantly silencing his stammered out, incomprehensible wild story.

His look alone told his son he was in trouble but instead of letting it lie, his son continued to dig his own grave.

“Pa…please…pa…ya gotta believe me! There is somethin’ underneath the lake and it almost got me and Stan! We gotta do somethin’….!”

“We aren’t doin’ anything Fiddleford!” Tate hissed shaking him a little harder, “I don’t know what I have to tell you to get you to see, these things aren’t real. They are in yer head boy. You are doing nothing but making yourself sound like a mad man and I will not hear another word of this. March to the house and get yerself into something dry, we’ll discuss this later.”

“But Pa---“

“MARCH!”

Fidds was running towards the house at that, his friends looking towards him with sympathy but none wanting to cross Tate McGucket in this mood.

None but Mabel Pines who never backed down from a challenge.

She firmly told her boys to go check on Fiddleford and chased the rest of the crowd away with a glare as she lead Tate into his office for a talk.

Stan tried to stay and listen but Mabel wouldn’t let him hear a word shooing him off to check on his friend. The only thing he heard was Mabel firmly telling Tate she was taking his son for the evening.

---

Fidds shut the bathroom door tightly behind him, letting out a shaky sob, his teeth still clattering hard as tears just began to fall ungracefully from his eyes.  

He heard the Stan twins hushed whispers about how to handle this situation outside the door way but didn’t respond to them. He didn’t know what to say, their arguing outside in the hallway was just making him feel worse. He brought this out in them. Everything was going ok but he made this situation the way it was by panicking like he always did. By being a coward. They could have had a fun afternoon together, surrounded by their friends that ended well, if he wasn’t always so scared to speak up.

“Stanly, you are an idiot!” he heard Ford hiss to his brother, “Why did you pick a fight with his dad like that!! You know how he is!!”

“At least I am a good enough friend to say something, at all!”

Fidds sank on the floor, holding his hands tight over his ears, grasping at some of the loose hair around his ears. His breathing began to quicken as he heard Ford throw the first punch at his brother and Stan’s cut off swear word.

He felt lost in his own sea of bad thoughts, each harsher with criticism of him then the last. His dad was right, he was crazy. There was something very wrong with him and he just drug everyone around him down with him. Stan could have died because he didn’t protest. Ford was hurt now because he was too cowardly to open the door and tell them to stop fighting.  

His mind started to slow down as he heard Mabel enter the room and command her great nephews go wait for her in the car which there were no objections to.

She wasted no time in wrapping her arms around the young boy and kissing him on the head, assuring him it was gonna be ok. She was here.

The very idea he wasn’t alone was all the comfort he needed he found melting into her strong arms.

---

That night he went home with the Pines and felt warmer then he had in years. After a large dinner with seconds and a heated game of Don’t Wake Stalin (that Stan kept cheating at),

Mabel tucked another blanket around the sleeping boys and then bent down to give Fidds a gentle kiss, running her fingers through his hair coaxing him to go to sleep.

She then whispered, “And remember, sweat pea, if you want free samples in the future just ask.”

Before kissing his now red ears and pulling another blanket around him as well, giving him another kiss on the forehead that she knew he lacked in his life before rising up and turning up the heater before disappearing from the room.

Fidds clung to the edges of the blanket, a smile growing across his face as he fell fast asleep feeling like he belonged somewhere for the first time in his life.

---

[jenkinshortstories]

Our Home

In Summit, IL, we lived on 74th Ave. in a two story home. At the time, in the 50′s and early 60′s, I was in grade school, attending St. Joseph’s Catholic School. We all walked to school each and every day. It was about a mile from our house. I’m not sure just how big our home was in square footage. On the first floor of our home we had a bedroom, bath, kitchen, living room, dining room, a sun parlor, and a front and back entrance. There was another entrance to the dining room that was never, ever used. I never understood why it was there, or for what use was it ever designed.  We had a coat closet in the center of the first floor with hooks to hang our coats on, and the floor was covered in shoes, boots, and goulashes to keep us dry in the winters. In this coat closet was another door that led down to the basement. I mostly remember this coat closet full of jackets and coats that usually landed on the floor either from too many on one hook or peg, or from us being in too much of a hurry to care, and we just tossed the items into the room and quickly shut the door. Oh, I almost forgot about another room on the first floor called our library with a fireplace that I never remember using, and built in book shelves full of books that I never remember any of us reading. Above the large mantle was a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I never remember a fire being lit. I think the reason was that no one in the family had enough ambition to routinely find wood or any logs to burn in it. This part of the house was later used by my brother, Jim, and his young family of his wife, Shirley, and his first two children, Cheryl, and Jimmy. This bathroom, bedroom, and library was their mini-apartment where they lived while he was still in college and working nights.

Upstairs in the house was a single bathroom, four bedrooms, each with a walk in closet,  and a clothes chute or drop. With this clothes chute, we were able to easily dispense of our dirty clothes into the basement where our clothes would often stay unwashed for various periods of time. In the basement was a lot of space, but cluttered with things like a large wooden table, stored storm windows, and even my brother’s old unused brown bicycle that I tried on multiple times to revitalize. There was a never used shower stall, an abandoned hot water heater, an abandoned furnace, an old gas stove and oven that we used two to four times a year. 

Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and Easter were days my dad would roast a turkey,ham or prime rib in this old time stove-oven. Next to the stove was a heavy duty double sink and a wash machine with an old fashion clothes wringer. There was no spin cycle as we know it today. You hand fed the wet laundry through the wringer, and then the clothes would be hung up to dry. (We had no gas dryer for years, but eventually, a friend, Louie, aka., Mandrake, the magician, gave us his large, commercial dryer from his dad’s chinese laundry that was in Argo, IL).  The clothes got hung outside in the good weather, and hung in the basement in the winters.

 I remember our clothes sometimes took forever to dry and smelled sour when we finally got around to wearing them. Often, my mom would spray water on clothes she intended to immediately iron, and rolled them up to keep them moist. Often she never got around to ironing them. They would later be unrolled to find mold growing on them, and the laundry would have to be re-washed again. 

 On one wall in the basement was a large black board. Most of it was covered with license plates from my dad’s one car. In those days you didn’t get a new registration sticker yearly. They would just send you entirely new plates with your same license number, but plates with a new color. I still remember the Illinois license plate number-42004. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

This was not really a blackboard like we had at school, but just wooden boards painted black. It was very difficult to write with chalk on this board, but it was as good as it got in our household back then. In front of this board we often sat for our “club” meetings. We had various clubs that consisted of my sister Alyce and our friend from the block. Whatever interested us at the time was the current club. No club ever lasted very long. I think we watched too many “Little Rascals” episodes on TV, and tried to do whatever they did. Hey, there wasn’t much else for kids to watch on TV in the 50′s.

 The final thing that I recollect of our basement was the door that emptied to the backyard. From the outside, you had to walk down a half a dozen stairs, turn left and down two more steps into a dark alcove that was full of rakes,and other miscellaneous items that were mostly discarded clutter. Then to the right was the door into the basement. Most of the time this door was left unlocked, and often left wide open. This fact often created creepy episodes after dark that I remember very vividly. On may occasions I  would come home to a silent house empty of people. The front and back doors would be unlocked. There may have been a light left on or even no lights left on in the house.

 I would quickly inspect the entire house and turning on lights as I went from room to room. The purpose was to be sure no one was hiding, and able to pop out and scare me to the core. Lastly, I would open the door to the basement in the coat closet and look down into a darkened staircase. Whenever I felt a draft of air coming up the stairs, I knew that the basement door to the backyard had been left wide open.. In my mind, as a kid, I imagined someone could be hiding in our basement. My routine was to then quickly close this door from the coat closet and lock it with the large, old skeleton key that was always in the key hole, ready to be turned. At least I was always certain that this key would be there. Eventually, someone would return home to give more life to the house.

We had a very large yard. In fact, we, had a total of three lots. Two of the lots held three trees with very sour crab apples, a flag stone grotto with a statue of the Blessed Virgin, and a lot of lawn to cut. For years we only had a push mower that even a fully grown man had difficulty pushing. I guess just being a  frugal Chinese family, we went years before this gut wrenching antique was replaced by a gas powered rotary mower. This turned a process that took days to complete into a one day affair.

There were many chores that I took on as a kid. After Katie gave it up,  I started to cut the grass, raked and burned all the fallen leaves. (one of my favorite chores since since it always reminded me of what camping would be like.) I changed winter storm windows into summer screens , and visa versa.  I took out the trash and garbage most nights, and burned or incinerated it in barrels in the alleyway behind our house.

I would always try to make some spending money along the way by washing my sister Katie’s car, or in the winter, she would reward me for starting her car in the cold, snowy mornings. I would  scrape the ice and snow off her windshield, get the engine going, and shovel out the snow from around her car caused by the snow plow that had cleared the street. Remember, I was only about 12 years old. I could not drive a car yet, but I wanted to drive. Starting her car and warming up the engine was something I looked forward to do.

I really enjoyed our large yard. It was a mini camp ground or wilderness area to me. There were trees to climb, areas of thicket to hide in, roam, and explore. I had a lot of freedom to do what I wanted in the yard. I could climb and sit in a tree, or dig a fox hole and pretend I was a GI in WWII. Sometimes we would did a deep hole, cover it with twigs, branches, and leaves, and make it into a boobie trap for an imaginary enemy to fall into and injure himself. Sometimes this boobie trap would be flooded with water. Often, we would create our own makeshift camp fire, and pretend we were Indians, or campers, or hobos on the run. Our supervision was minimal. We had access to matches and cigarettes. No one ever denied us permission to do any of these activities. 

Our absolute favorite summer yard activity was camping out in the backyard. I don’t remember ever having a tent of my own, but we would always end up with one or two borrowed tents. We would pitch them as far away from the house as possible for more privacy. The evening outing usually started with starting a campfire where we usually dug our fox holes and such. We would roast something like hot dogs and finish with marsh mellows, and end with creating ghost stories to try to freak each other out. 

 After all the lights would go out in the house, we would then come out to roam the dark neighborhood and pull pranks and reek some havoc. Never in all of these nights were police ever called, nor were we ever caught and brought back to our parents for some disciplining. Before most of the night was over, we would eventually retire back to the tent or tents and fall asleep, only to be awakened in the morning by my brother, Jim, who was returning from his night shift at the hospital. He would always pull the tent pegs out of the ground and cause our tents to collapse on us.

I found lots of other places to explore in our house. My parents bedroom had a small closet within their walk in closet. It was for storage, but I think I used it for hiding things more than my parents. In fact, my mom found cigarettes that I hid in there as a kid. I really liked my parents closet. I had some WWII souvenirs. I would play with a steel helmet that actually looked like a WWI helmet. Then, there was the black scabbard long sword that was taken from a Nazi German soldier by my uncle John. I remember several Nazi arm bands that we, also, played with.

In the back of the house under some old boards I happen to find a cistern that was no longer used. I found this interesting since it was large enough to crawl into. I was never sure what function it had originally.

Before I end this story, I have one last memory of the night my brother talked me into helping him clean out the septic tank in the back yard. I’m not sure why we had to do this, and I don’t know if the septic tank was in use at that time. I could not  have been older than 6-8 years old. My brother, Jim, promised me he would buy me a pair of new cowboy boots if I helped him. Not sure how much help he expected from me at that age. I remember dropping a bucket on a string down into the septic tank, hauling it back out and then throwing the contents all over the back yard. i think the logic was that it would soak into the lawn, fertilize the lawn, and every body would be happy. I don’t recall the smell or being too put off by what we were doing. I do remember that the next day, to our surprise, there was white streaks of toilet paper all over the place. BTW, I have never, ever, seen those cowboy boots promised to me by brother, Jim!

[cyclinginaskirt-uk]

Acrophobia; the irrational fear of heights or Basophobia; the fear of falling; both both genuine phobias and both the current personal experience between which I’m shuffling frantically.

It’s a mental shuffle of course as I’m actually frozen to the spot, extreme terror rendering me immobile, plastered against the back of the cable car with my eyes shut, whimpering and clinging on for dear life.

I should probably point out that this is no life-threatening situation, the lift bubble, in fully functioning order, is just swaying languidly up its final ascent of the mountain summit. I on the other hand am a complete wreck and this is only day one. Not liking the idea of extreme heights, or falling from them, I have to fight long and hard with my natural reaction to run screaming from any of the very flimsy looking ski lifts that flow up and down the mountain area of Tignes.

The trade-off however for enduring the humiliation of having to be scraped out of the cable car like a lump of jelly is that my bike and I get a gloriously quick ride to the summit, after which, I can scare myself nearly as much by riding the trails back down the mountain.

Welcome to fear 101 and the joy of mountain biking in the Alps.

Following on from a baptism of fire last year in the bike parks of Les Gets and Morzine, I’ve chosen (yep, it was an actual choice) to return to the Alps this summer, this time to the French resort of Tignes (pronounced ‘Teen‘), a purpose built ski resort/Olympic venue in winter and mountain bike paradise in summer. This year it was also meant to be the finishing point for one of the final Tour De France stages until freak hail storms and mudslides dramatically stopped the race.

Comprising of 5 villages (I know this from the hotel quiz) Tignes sprawls up the mountainside between an elevation of 1,440 and 2100 metres. I’m staying near the upper end in Tignes Le Lac and the day after arriving I’m really feeling the altitude.

As I puff and gasp my way up the road to the bike hire shop I can only hope that this altitude training will have spectacular gains when I return to sea level as right now even carrying a cup of coffee is making me gasp for breath. I’d expected the trails to cause my heart rate rise of course I just hadn’t foreseen it to be quite so elevated before getting on the bike!

Day one and I’ve discovered that in Tignes, bikes and suspension forks are big….and hire prices are even bigger.

As there’s a definite difference in the ratio of male to female riders (a quick straw poll would say 75-80% male), frames are also geared to the larger biker, presumably why the hire shop offer me a child’s bike at first! Having declined my only remaining option is a Kona Stinky which, with 200mm of fork travel both front and back, is ridiculously over-sprung for what I need. Add to this the set of body armour and full face helmet I’ve been strapped in to and I feel I should be taking on Red Bull rampage, not the lowly green trails on which we’re starting.

M, whom I’m with, has of course lucked out and managed to hire a reasonably priced, perfectly sized Kona Process 153 for the week. Grrr.

Decked out like robocop, the first stop is the Palafour lift, dead centre of town. Unlike Les Gets this lift is free and has lovely assistants who lift your bike on and off, so all terrified first timers like me need to concentrate on is getting themselves in situ – easier said than done.

It’s a chilly 10 minute ride up to the frigid heights of the mountain to 2564 metres. The view of snow drifts and gambolling marmots offers some distraction at least from both the altitude and the distance from which one would crash to earth.

As in the UK, French MTB trails are generally graded green (easiest), blue, red and black although as I learned last year, a French green trail and a UK one bear little in common indeed French green is UK green on steroids.

Being early in the season (the lifts only opening the previous week) there’s still snow on some of the trails and as we start off down the green trail we are immediately skidding everywhere on icy drifts, it’s an exhilarating start. The trails are in good condition though, free mostly from the annoying washboard effect of braking bumps and immediately enjoyable!

They’re still surprisingly technical but after our initiation in Morzine last year maybe we’ve revised our expectations, or just got a little better. Whichever, the swoopy descents and hairpins make a technical but satisfying first run.

The runs may be better than expected but the bike certainly isn’t, the big front end making it heavy and hard to steer. The saddle is also set at its lowest point meaning you can’t sit and pedal unless you have your knees up by your elbows like a toddler. This kind of arrangement is fine if you’re shredding down the black runs but exhausting if you have to pedal the flatter sections and my leg muscles are already on fire.

That morning we give the Palafour lift a work out covering all the green and blue runs. The blues, surprisingly, differ little from the greens, a bit steeper, looser, rockier but great to ride albeit with shakier and shakier legs.

A quick coffee stop and we tackle Le Lac’s opposing mountain via the next scary ski lift.

The Toviere bubble (enclosed car) takes you up to 2704 meters to intersect with the chair lift from Val Claret. From here there’s the option of a multitude of green, blue and red runs either back down to Le Lac or to Val D’Isere on the other side of the mountain.

The day’s adrenaline is catching up both from biking and from surviving the lifts but for some reason we opt to return to Le Lac down Gunpowder, 4.5km of fast blue trail and a full on 600 metre rapid descent of steeply sloping berms (banked corners) which just keep on coming. Already fatigued, legs wobbling we hit the downward trail after which there’s little stopping. By the time we reach the bottom my fingers are like claws, frozen to the brakes and my legs are shaking so much I can hardly pedal, but we’re down, in one piece and you might say it was nearly fun. Nearly.

The next day the stinky and I have gone our separate ways and I’ve managed to find a brand new Mondraker Stealth, 170mm of travel both ends and mercifully, a dropper seat post, in Tignes this is classed as an enduro (cross country) bike but it’s more than sufficient for my needs and skills.

Happier already we have a quick warm up via the Palafour trails before heading up Toviere as today we’re intent on exploring the trails down to Val d’Isere.

At around 13km in length from the furthest lifts station these are some of the longest trails in the Alps and oh so worthwhile. The creatively named Borsattack, Val Bleue and Popeye are beautifully built and are a joy to ride. Twisty, flowy tracks that wind sinuously ever downwards they are packed with table top jumps which you can dispatch or avoid as required, rock gardens and boarded bridges as you descend down the stark upper slopes into lush green alpine meadows and pine forests on blue grade (or green if preferred) trail until you’re finally spat out, breathless, exhausted in the pretty (and ruinously expensive) resort of Val D’Isere for a much needed rest and recovery stop.

After lunch we headed back up via the Olympique/Bellevarde bubble lift, a staggeringly steep 1000 metre ascent that seems to go on forever before disgorging into a large, chilly station 2827 metres above sea level.

Again more descending on the fantastic bermy Val Bleue (blue) trail, winding past lakes and snow, through the middle of the mountain before reaching the final Borsat lift. Here there’s the option to return directly to Val d’Isere on the same Val Bleue trail or to ride it from its highest mountain source (Blue Lagoon) via the lift.

It had to be done! The chairlift takes nearly 15 minutes to ponderously dangle you over a range of frightening drops and ice fields before looking like it’s going to smash you directly into the bleak grey mountain, only cresting a ridge at the final moment before impact. When you reach the top station at 2800 metres, unlike the other lifts, this chair doesn’t really lose speed, meaning a hasty leap off at the top and a mad scramble to clear the cornering chair and grab your bike before the lift kneecaps you on the way round.

The top of the Blue Lagoon trail is stark but worth it just for the completeness of going as high as you can. Heading down quickly (as it’s freezing at this height) steep, loose shale tracks descend for a km or two before giving you a final choice, carry on down back to Val D’Isere or return to the Val Claret resort. As it’s begun to rain we opt to head back via Val Claret.

Gone are the pleasant trails which cut across the mountain, you’re now riding down the side again, steep, zig zaggy loose paths with a long, long drop on either side are amazing for focusing the mind.

Trusting the bike probably as much or more than my skills we plummet downwards, the ground getting slippery with the falling rain. After the initial plunge the trail does level out for the next km or so for some smoother, enjoyable cross country riding before finally linking up with the Val Claret descents from yesterday, Gun Powder and Kangooride. We took the latter of these not having experienced it and in the falling drizzle continued the final 3.5km of downhill on a roller-coaster of a trail carved into the steep face of the mountain.

It was certainly a relief to be spat out, intact, shaky, and happy at the foot of the Val Claret lift leaving only the last, calming pedal around the lake to complete the day’s riding before a well-earned cup of tea and cake back at the hotel.

A day off for some road biking and an ascent of the col De L’Iseran before the final day on the bikes. By now I’m adding in some bits of the red trails although I’m cautious. Most of them give a chicken run around larger obstacles and jumps but occasionally no such opt out is offered which leaves an embarrassing and difficult heaving of bikes down the trail to bypass these features.

The last thing that we want to tackle is some of the All-Mountain trails, these having a more cross-country focus i.e. you have to pedal up as well as down, but we’ve been warned, this being Tignes, they tend towards the extreme and the technical. Because of this we’ve chosen WonderBoisses, graded as ‘Improver’, the only other options being advanced and expert!

We should have been forewarned when even the start was gruelling. Heading directly up under the Palafour lift, the innocuous gravel trail doesn’t look much but it’s a lung buster given the altitude and not helped by the fact we’re still wearing all our robo-cop body armour and full face helmets. With sweat dripping copiously the trail veers across a field of disinterested cows, necessitating climbing under various electric fences, before heading up the side of the mountain.

We wind steadily upwards for the next km or so along ledges that are barely wider than the bike, a precipitous drop on or right hand side. In places the trail rounds a bend and seems to disappear in to nowhere. Not nowhere, just plunging downwards, keeping you on your toes. I’m walking bits of it too where landslips have covered the trail leaving you to haul the bike over slippery humps of rubble. It’s actually good to be pedalling again too, even if it is upwards. Eventually the climb tops out and the descent begins, still on the narrow-ledged trails before heading inland fractionally and beginning a highly technical downhill on dusty forest trails covered in boulders and drop offs down which the bike slithers and bounces, throw in the odd hairpin and it’s blood-pumping stuff.

The trail emerges briefly on the grassy roof of one of the road tunnels, carved into the mountain which you pass under on the drive up to Le Lac, before rising and falling in a delightful series of forest trails, not quite so demanding but still requiring focus before disgorging you in the lower village of Tignes Le Boisses. Here a handy and much appreciated free Navette bus service drags you and the bike back up the mountain where, if you like, you can do it all again!

Having learned to quit on a high we do just that and, after saying goodbye to the lovely Mondraker and not so lovely body armour, we head gratefully for the nearest bar and a well-earned beer.

Tignes is certainly a full on experience which I’d heartily recommend to those with a little mountain biking knowledge. I’m no Rachel Atherton but with a few years of riding, quite a few lessons and countless falls under my belt this was technical, demanding riding, for which I had just enough skill/luck to be able to enjoy it.

I chose not to fly my bike out as I was concerned it wouldn’t stand up to the trails and, despite the hire cost – 70-85 euro per day – I think that was a wise decision. In addition all hire bikes tend to come with full face helmets, body armour, pads and optional insurance, with the added benefit of wearing out someone else’s bike parts.

It was without doubt a spectacular place to ride and despite the week of full-on adrenaline I leave with a definite sense of that peace and contentment which comes from spending time in the mountains doing what you love and the happy knowledge that I won’t have to brave another ski lift for at least the foreseeable future.

If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.... Acrophobia; the irrational fear of heights or Basophobia; the fear of falling; both both genuine phobias and both the current personal experience between which I’m shuffling frantically.

[blackpjensen]

Randy Strait: The Equipment King of Chicago

Chicago-area Arctic Snow and Ice Control is one of the largest snow management companies in the country and also a major manufacturer of snow pushers. We caught up with founder Randy Strait for insights on the biggest issues facing snow contractors and the impact changes in Illinois law might have on them.

PLOW: Even though Arctic may be known best for inventing its Sectional Sno-Pusher, would you say your expertise as a major contractor is the true foundation of your business?

STRAIT: I have been plowing snow for 40 years and run one of the largest private snow removal fleets in the country. I own the property of a former local airport and park my 450 pieces of equipment on the runway during off-season. It stretches a full mile, and I am proud of what I have built.

PLOW: What made you want to be in this business?

STRAIT: When I was growing up, I was that kid who shoveled all the driveways. I always loved snow. I always loved making money shoveling snow, and even when I was 12 years old, I was hoping to own a Jeep with a plow someday. I bought my first truck in 1977 at the age of 21, mostly just to get through the bad winters. In 1978, I put a plow on it to make some extra money. The winter of 1978-79 was the worst in Chicago history, with 96 inches of snow, a record that still stands. Experiencing that winter changed me forever in terms of how I wanted to spend my life.

PLOW: When did you realize this would be a profitable business that could grow into a livelihood?

STRAIT: I recognized early on this was a business that rewarded the guy who worked the hardest and went the extra mile. That has always been me, and I saw this as an industry where I could make a difference. Seeing others in the business who did not share my passion and work ethic only made me more optimistic and motivated.

PLOW: You’re probably most recognized for inventing the Arctic Sectional Sno-Pusher; It Allows The utilization of large-scale equipment, reduces salt requirements, and eliminating re-plowing; What inspired it?

STRAIT: I was plowing in front of a shopping center and the store manager would not let me use salt in front of his store even though we couldn’t scrape up all the snow. I first plowed with the 10-foot plow on my dump truck, but the plow teetered on the crown of the parking lot and could not get in the depression next to the curb. I then plowed it with my 8-foot plow and was able to scrape a little more but still not enough. The front of the store dipped and there were sewers in the middle, so I could not get down into those low areas with a standard plow. However, the narrower the plow, the more I could dip into those low areas. The store manager stopped me and went into his store and came out with six employees equipped with 30-inch snow shovels. He blew a whistle and the six guys moved in unison across the front drive of the store. He blew the whistle again and had them move down and repeat the process. After they were done I could salt the lot. They were only scraping a half-inch of snow so it was very simple, but I couldn’t get that snow off the lot with my equipment. Wow, I thought, if I could just put six 30-inch sections on the front of my truck, I could do the same thing he’s doing with six shovels and six guys. Coming up with such a contraption consumed my every thought until, after five prototypes, the Sectional Sno-Pusher was born. This year, 10 years later, I introduced the same technology in a power-angled plow.

PLOW: Is inventing the Sno-Pusher the reason you got into manufacturing?

STRAIT: That certainly affected the timing, but it takes a lot of motivation to go that far from your comfort zone. In reality, I designed the Sectional for my use only. It took a while before I was pushed enough to pursue the manufacturing business.

PLOW: What do you think the future holds for you in manufacturing?

STRAIT: I think what we did this year answers that. We hadn’t introduced a new product in 10 years but this year we rolled out four: Two new pushers, the Raptor and Raptor Plus; the power-angled Sectional Sno-Plow; and the DoubleDown Salt Bucket.

PLOW: Why get into the salt business? The DoubleDown seems like a pretty big departure.

STRAIT: Actually, we had been kicking this idea around for a while, but last year’s winter made it clear we needed this so we moved our timetable up a year. There were two major reasons we built the DoubleDown. For one, salt trucks are designed for open roads, not parking lots; they favor the driver side 70 percent. They cast their salt, rather than aim it, from a height that cannot get under parked cars. As a result, they leave salt stripes on the ground, and are only effective when parking lots are empty. Also, because they are quite expensive, they must be assigned to a full prearranged route, making them unavailable if a store manager requests a repeat salting. The DoubleDown attaches to any manufacturer’s skid steer or wheel loader like my pushers, so it can be switched out easily without leaving the cab. It simply scoops up the salt and spreads it, and it’s designed specifically for crowded parking lots, so daytime salting is easy. It also never leaves the customer’s parking lot, just like my plows and equipment, allowing a store manager to have an additional salting during the day if needed.

The DoubleDown Salt Bucket. Photo: Arctic Snow & Ice Control

PLOW: The DoubleDown Salt Bucket has some operational benefits; are there additional ones?

STRAIT: Yes, retaining our equipment operators in a low-snow winter. Last year, we had three major plowings, with a big gap between December and March. When the March storm hit, a number of our operators had taken other jobs. We also had about 30 salting events, but those are different drivers and easier to replace. If we had been able to keep the equipment operators busy salting with the DoubleDown, we would have expected to retain almost all of them.

PLOW: The industry is changing in regard to liability. Illinois recently passed SB2138, a law limiting the amount of liability that can be placed on snow and ice management companies. What does this mean to snow contractors?

STRAIT: The industry has been in trouble for a while and the liability situation is behind all of its problems. Before the law passed, all of the liability in Illinois fell on contractors for slip-and-falls, whether or not they had any control of the situation. Ice could have formed from a leaking fire hydrant or clogged gutters and they were still responsible. Insurance carriers were getting killed and many were getting out of the business. Had this continued, retail stores would have been forced to self-insure, with the cost of that virtually assuring their demise. They simply couldn’t afford to compete with online marketing, and we would all be out of business.

Photo: Arctic Snow & Ice Products

PLOW: When you look at the top contractors in the country, Arctic might well be No. 1 in that it owns its own equipment and doesn’t use subcontractors. How have national snow management companies affected regional snow contractors like Arctic?

STRAIT: Their rise is a direct result of the whole liability mess. They are now the largest contractors in the business, and they bring in obscene sales revenues. They have little to no equipment, only phones and salespeople who are most likely based out-of-state, and they bid irresponsibly low prices to get as much work as possible. Then they look to hire subcontractors with a truck or maybe a skid steer for pennies on the dollar to plow huge properties they have no business even attempting. No qualified contractor is willing to take their work. Essentially, if you have a shovel, a snow blower, and a bag of salt in your garage at home, you are better equipped than these companies. Slip-and-fall claims have gone through the roof simply because lots are not as safe. Furthermore, the desperate subcontractor is forced to sign a hold- harmless agreement, which puts all the liability on him. I know of individuals who have been ruined and lost their homes due to this. To add insult to injury, these same companies hold back monies from the sub if there are any complaints. They all operate the same way and they are ruining the industry while also making everything less safe, so I won’t be giving any of them a pat on the back anytime soon.

PLOW: How will the new law change things?

STRAIT: Change will not come overnight, but it was important that the liabilities be shared 50-50. The work has to be performed well, or the slip-and-fall claims will stay high and the insurance companies will pull out. This way the contractors have to be properly vetted and store managers have to realize they need to hire qualified operators. Provided other states follow suit, such a law will eliminate the national firms’ ability to pass along all of their liabilities to local subcontractors. Some have noticed that the cost of litigation, not including claims, is much higher than the cost of snow removal. Recently, a national chain acknowledged to me that my higher-priced services were a far better deal for them overall when considering safety records.

PLOW: How does a store or property know which contractor to pick?

STRAIT: For starters, check out the site, not the website. While there are some honest firms, the majority will deceive with their websites and brochures. I had to point out to one customer that a contractor from our area had a brochure showing his equipment with the Rocky Mountains in the background. He checked it out further and found the company had no equipment, just a pickup and a plow. Others list their plows, sidewalk machines, blowers, even shovels, as equipment, whereas I refer only to the number of wheel loaders, skid steers, melters and trucks. The other thing property owners should look for is ISO certification. We went through the ISO 9001 process last year, and it assures every customer that we have auditable processes that guarantee we will do exactly what we say we will.

PLOW: What will happen to the level of service?

STRAIT: I believe it will only improve because property managers will have to take a more serious look at how they hire.

Visit PlowSite.com for more forums on equipment, business management and technical information. Join the conversation in the largest community of snow and ice business professionals.

The post Randy Strait: The Equipment King of Chicago appeared first on Turf.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230377 http://ift.tt/2o8hNXV via IFTTT

[rantsandaves]

Owls & the Mid-West

After departing the Jersey Shore, I traveled north a bit to snag the Barnacle Goose hanging with a bunch of Canada Geese and one Cackling Goose near the Massachusetts-Connecticut border. As I drove, I stopped to admire Connecticut's amazing foliage. It was almost too fall to bear. I spent the first night in my truck in a long time and was rewarded with the familiar aches and pains that come with sleeping in the ranger bed. 

On my way west, I paid a visit to Niagara Falls because, hey why not? I just had to see what the fuss was about America's largest waterfalls. I arrived close to 5pm and it was windy and frigid. I missed the last tour on the Maid of the Mist by five whole minutes. While I was mildly disappointed, the looks on all the faces of the people coming off the last tour was enough to convince me that it was for the best. 

I followed the outline of Lake Erie and was able to meet up with my old roommate Dave. We lived together at the very first house I ever rented on my own in Arcata, California, and we oddly met up in his hometown in Erie, Pennsylvania. His folks warmly welcomed me into their home and we enjoyed a hearty exchange of bird puns. I made Dave go birding with me in the morning. The wind and chill may have been a factor, but we only saw maybe three or four individual birds at Presque Isle. Dave then made me go to Sheetz where I was able to confirm that Sheetz is indeed inferior to Wawa, and this is a statement I will not back down from (fight me.) 

From Erie I found my way to Cuyahoga Valley National Park for no other reason than that I could. There were waterfalls, it was cold, and there were juncos everywhere. I ended up getting bird number 600 unexpectedly, although looking back I probably could've expected it. I enjoyed an American Tree Sparrow for the first time in my life on my way out from viewing Brandywine Falls. The look was fleeting but definite, and I smiled as I drove on the Ohio Turnpike to find a place to rest for the evening. 

To celebrate 600 (finally!) I spent Halloween at a swanky hostel in Chicago. Conveniently, the hostel had a popular bar downstairs. I met some amazing and kind people (thank you, Sarah, John and Judy!) who let me party the night away with them, and I certainly paid for it the next morning. On my hungover walk through Montrose Point on November 1st, I saw the White-winged Dove that had wandered away from its more southerly range. Cold, tired and with my head pounding, I trudged my way to Milwaukee. 

Feeling much better on November 2nd, I read reports of a Snowy Owl hanging out by the Milwaukee Port of Lake Superior. I grabbed my scope and set it up at Cupertino Park. I almost instantly was able to find it. It was far out on the jetty but it was absolutely 100% Snowy Owl. 

I sat and watched it for awhile, admiring this creature that I previously had only ever seen in books and movies. I looked around in hopes that I could share this moment with someone--birder or non-birder-- but there was no one around except for the flitting of Yellow-rumped Warblers in the bare tree next to me. So I shared in the success with the butter-butts and took in the moment. 

 Even though it was only the very earliest days of November, the winter birds that I had yet to put on the list for the year were starting to make their way down to the southern portion of their range in the northern United States. I hopped up to Horicon National Wildlife Refuge for the second time this year to find Snow Buntings, an abundance of Rough-Legged Hawks and finally some Tundra Swans.

For at least a day, I debated going further north to Duluth where I knew I could easily find Common Redpolls and Northern Shrikes at this time in the year, but I kept checking the weather reports which called for a serious snow storm. Having never driven during snowfall, I was absolutely terrified of the thought of driving in the snow and getting stuck, but the one thing that actually got me up to Duluth was the prospect of one very special species of bird: Bohemian Waxwing. I am a huge fan of Waxwings, and the chance to see the only other species of Waxwing that occurs in North America besides the Cedar Waxwing was just too good to pass up. 

I arrived in Duluth on a Friday and checked into an Airbnb on a farm just fifteen minutes away from Downtown Duluth. The very next day my fear came true. I woke up early after a light snow (not the dangerous snow storm that was predicted) and drove to the famous Hawk Ridge. Having no clue what the hell I was doing and with a head full of niave optimism, I drove down the road, past the Hawk Watch platform about half a mile down Skyline Parkway. I had hoped to turn around right before the first bridge and drive back up the hill, but of course the newly fallen snow had other plans. I got stuck. There was no going forward or back. It began to snow. 

I allowed myself to be upset for exactly one second and got to work trying to get myself unstuck. I was not about calling a tow until I had exhausted all my options. I put on my snow gloves (lovingly given to me by Paula) and put on my game face. I took the toilet trowel and used it to scrape away the packed ice so I could roll the car back just enough to get the snow chains on. I laid on the ground and my entire outfit of jeans, a base layer, a hoodie and a puffy coat got soaked in ice water and mud. I couldn't feel my fingers as I tried to hook on the chains, but maybe it was to my advantage since later they felt as though I had bent them in ways I shouldn't have. As I worked on digging and chaining, the noise called a flock of curious Black-capped Chickadees to see what the fuss was about. I felt as though the "dee-dee-dee" calling they did was an equal mixture of cheering me on and heckling. After accidentally flinging the right chain into the woods only one time, I was finally able to work my way out of the mess I had gotten myself into.  As the chains thumped, I drove on out of there feeling the strangest mixture of embarrassed and proud. 

Over the course of four days I was able to get the bulk of my targets: Glaucous Gull, Common Redpoll, Hoary Redpoll, Northern Shrike, Northern Goshawk, and of course Bohemian Waxwing. There were also so many Crossbills and Pine Grosbeaks! I went to Two Harbors twice to try to get photos of a Hoary but on the second day I ended up getting photos of a second Snowy Owl instead.

Three mornings at Sax-Zim Bog were spent looking ever-so-hopefully for more owls: Northern Hawk-Owl and Great Gray Owl, both of which are sensitive species and deserve the utmost respect. On the first day, I saw extremely briefly what I was 95% certain was a Great Gray, but only because there should be nothing else in the area that is quite that big and quite that gray. But weird things have turned up in weird places before, so I wasn't completely happy with the sighting. 

On the third morning, at around 8am, I was almost resigned to giving up. I was driving on Highway 7 when ahead of me on the right-hand side I saw a great gray figure on the top of a conifer. Running parallel and to the right of the highway is a ditch and then railroad tracks. The highway has no real shoulder, so the only place to pull over was a little raised road crossing the ditch to get over the tracks into gated private property, which is exactly where the conifer was located. I pulled over and stopped to the left of the train tracks and in front of the figure. The figure took note. I saw the figure move to the other side of the tree. As it turned I saw it well-- great, gray, and an owl with a face that looked like it had run into a sliding glass door.  

After three days, I thought to myself that I could wait forever to get a picture of this bird if it ever comes out from behind this tree. Just as I finished the thought and pulled out my camera, I heard the horn of a choo-choo chugging my way. The train pulled up much quicker than I thought and passed right in front of me, between myself and the owl obstructing my view of the tree top. The roaring of the train caused the bird to take off, and through the breaks in the train cars I could see the owl flying away, almost in a strobe effect. After that I quickly gave up on the idea of waiting forever. 

Although I had been hopeful for an early sighting of a Northern Hawk-Owl, I felt I had given it my personal best. After spending the day in 10 degree weather at Sax-Zim, I decided it was high time to head south for the winter, the birds definitely have the right idea.