#trucking industry updates

[artisticdivasworld]

Navigating Q4 in Trucking: What to Expect and How to Stay Ahead

As we move into October, there are some key updates in the trucking world that will likely affect your business. Things have been up and down this year, but there are a few silver linings if you stay on top of the trends and plan accordingly. Let’s start with rates. Spot rates have been dropping most of the year, with dry van rates down by about $0.02 to $0.05 per mile compared to earlier…

[gyuswhore]

Cherry Picker [1]

«« "Do me a favour and forget your mouth guard next time. Let the puck punch you in the mouth if I can't." »» 

Choi Seungcheol x reader | part of the winter with you collab hosted by @camandemstudios!

Part 1: 19k | Part 2

warnings: Hockey player! Seungcheol, figure skater! reader, *deep breath* ENEMIES TO LOVERS, angst, fluff, smut [MINORS DNI], toxic friends, cheol has anger issues, kkuma appearance, @miniseokminnies makes also makes a fluffy appearance, injuries, mentions of blood, smut tags in the next part

synopsis: Cherry Picking [ice hockey]: a manoeuver in which a player, the floater, literally loafs (spends time in idleness) or casually skates behind the opposing team's unsuspecting defencemen while they are in their attacking zone. There wasn't much you counted on in life; just your skates, your drive and how it felt to win. And of course, your local ice rink, that is now being colonised by an obnoxious hockey team in all their big, loud, stinking glory. Neither does it help that one particular red donned specimen forgets to leave his cherry picking on the ice.

[a/n] (it's a long one but PLEASE read) : ITS HERE FINALLY this was an extremely bumpy ride and I wouldn't have finished it without all of my friends who quite literally kept me going. I know I made an update saying this was gonna end up being 20k max but it turns out my yap-itis is for life </33

the posting schedule for this fic is going to be a little less predictable, I will try to get part 2 out asap but I do not currently have a date for you.

big thank you to @highvern for betaing and making me feel better about this fic, @amourcheol for talking me out of meltdowns multiple times and for giving me some really good scene pointers, @ugh-yoongi for being so patient w me and explaining how ice hockey works with so much patience. ty to @the-boy-meets-evil @tusswrites @lovetaroandtaemin for also proof reading for me 🥹

HUGE thank you to everyone at @camandemstudios who agreed to be part of this collab and being part of the journey as we grow 🫶 please check out the collab masterlist linked above, there's already so many amazing fics posted ready for you to read <33

that being said, I know more about figure skating than I do about hockey, but even so there are defo some inconsistencies in terms of accuracies in this, please bear with me 🫶 remember to reblog or send me an ask telling me your thoughts, id love to hear what you guys think 🥹 masterlist

“CAN I HELP YOU?”

“I’m sorry,” you gravel out. 

“Sorry isn’t gonna give back my hour and thirteen minutes.” 

The strap of your gym bag cuts into your bare shoulder where the collar had slipped, the tight threading sure to leave a scratch by the time this is bound to be done. You’d managed to avoid coach Carroll’s morning cornering for a couple months, going above and beyond by showing up to the icy rink before she could even pull up in the parking lot in her blaring red Porsche, let alone before her ten minute meditations in her cream coloured seats. 

“There was an accident on the highway. Truck tipped over.”

“It’s eight in the morning,” Carroll points.

“Illegal truck, I guess.” 

Teeth to tongue, you know you’ve done it. 

She’s in her usual tracksuit, green today, that contrasts her bright red hair in its tight curls. Her glasses are her sensible Ralph Laurens, eyes piercing through the tinted lens as she holds her chin in her hands. Silent, calculating. 

“Fine. Change.” 

Your legs want to give out before you can even get your skates on. 

There were many things Isabella Carroll was good at. The industry would have one of them be a good coach; one of the most expensive, the one that squeezed the life out of her students to inject into the golds, silvers and bronzes they would then bring her on an equally diamond encrusted platter. 

She has also mastered the art of impeccable dressing downs. 

The fact she chose to skip out on verbally humiliating you meant you’d managed to strike that cord. She might be leaving in the next 45 minutes, but she has a very particular way of stretching the minutes into years. 

Like a whipped horse, you scurry into the locker rooms, skin crawling. Your gym bag is positively launched into your designated locker, shoes kicked off as you attempt to stick your right foot into your skates, narrowly missing your heel as it grazes right past the toe pick. 

You slow down after that, not needing a scar on your heel to match the large one on the side of your calf. 

By the time you jog back out, unzipping your jacket to throw onto one of the benches, coach is on the ice, following Marina who zips around on the other end of the rink in her step routine. 

It’s difficult to not rush through your warmups when you’re already late, your splits hardly pushed out as you pray all that running around in the desolate locker rooms was enough to stretch everything out. 

There’s a crash on the illuminated ice as you slip off your skate guards, Marina already practising her Salchows. “You’re in the air for enough time, why can’t you rotate?!” 

Right blade first, you step into the cold encircling, gliding into the centre to begin making your usual rounds around the circumference.

There’s a positive screech of your name from across the ice, wind blowing in your hair as you turn to look. “Do I need to hire someone to hold up your free leg? Fix it, girl!”  

Holding your left leg more taut, you attempt to transition into a jump and spin. You fail, landing on both feet. Somehow, falling on your ass felt like a better conclusion to that arc. 

“Wonderfully executed! Let’s try both hands on the ice too next time, really complete the contemporary finish,” coach hollers out to you as she continues to follow Marina at the same time. 

Trying again, you manage to land on your outer left blade. You receive no comment. 

You try the jump again, pushing into a sit spin. 

The momentum is enough to begin the familiar slack in your scalp, your bun loosening its grip on your hair. Biting your tongue would be dangerous right now, but you would if you could, especially considering the ramifications of your hair coming undone in front of her. 

The crouch as you spin burns your thighs like you’re being branded, pulling yourself back up as you finish abruptly. Still no comment, the unintelligible string of nagging coming from the other side of the rink. 

Marina stands hands on her hips, breathing so heavily she’s nearly heaving. Her blonde hair is loosening far worse than yours, strands framing her face. Coach Carroll waves her hands and shakes her head so quickly you wonder how her glasses haven’t flown off. You didn’t get to see what cardinal sin Marina committed to warrant this reaction, but you feel better knowing she’s exhausted enough to let her insults swim past. 

Ten seconds is enough to catch your breath, moving to do something busy enough to avoid another being screamed at across the ice, again. 

By the end of the remaining forty five minutes, you realised your punishment was also punishing Marina. Coach Carroll remained tailing Marina as you attempted to do everything that would please her, far away from her. Not a direction, praise or neutral comment in sight or sound, sealed with her always expected retorts. 

She leaves without a word, leaving you scrambling to the benches for a seat. Putting your skate guards on is torture, your legs refusing to pull up to reach them. You hardly notice Marina slam down into the seat beside you to mimic you slumped down and head lolled back, eyes closed to the bright ceiling. 

“These skates are gonna kill me,” you whine once you’ve caught your breath, unlacing them to inspect the blistering damage. 

“They’re brand new, what did you expect?” she retorts, moving to sit up straighter. Of course, you were grappling at straws expecting anything akin to sympathy from Marina. 

It was your misfortune that the day you had to break in your skates was the day you’d be late, your heavily bandaged foot still aching as you sit idle. 

Your lungs are still burning when you pull yourself back up, knees buckling the absolute slightest bit as you attempt to take the first baby step back onto the ice. 

“We need to get back to it,” Marina says, and you have half a mind to bite that you were up before her. 

She’s faster at slipping off her skate guards though, and you watch her back as she glides back onto the ice. You follow suit, trailing her as you speak. 

“Hey, I’m sorry Carroll was on your ass because of me. My alarm didn’t go off this morning, I overslept.”

She turns to look at you, ghost of a smile on her face. “Time to go old school I guess, I think my brother left behind his old alarm clock from college.”

“I guess—”

“Besides, I needed that. Wouldn’t have known my Salchows were sucky otherwise.”

She doesn’t let you respond and you’re left to watch as she takes off to warm herself back up. 

Strange as it was, you’ve found her behaviour simply doesn’t affect you anymore, choosing to take her as she was. She pushed you to be better, to work harder. Even now, as your ankle burns and your hip screams, you brace yourself into another axel entry, trying your hardest to keep up with Marina. 

It’s another couple hours when Marina leaves for her second appointment with her personal trainer, leaving you alone. 

It’s less crowded now, despite the head count going from two to one, but you appreciate the alleviation as you continue to practise for the rest of the morning. The rink feels more vast and your hip has stopped its incessant aches. 

Having finished a run through of your routine without music, you move towards the sound booth to turn on the tail end of your track, skating back to the echoing rink to brace yourself for the next four agonising minutes. 

You’ve adjusted your starting position about ten times by the time the silence of the song restarting settles. And then it begins, soft piano as you push yourself off into the throngs of this hellsent routine. 

It’s muscle memory by now, but your stomach lurches before you push into a jump anyway. There isn’t much time to ponder when you’re midair, tight yet contorted, trying to land on the right side of the blade. But there’s a phantom pain in your right ankle, right when you’re at the point of your arc, and you feel the all too dreaded panic flood in. 

You land on both feet, less than ideal but with no one to watch the fail, it was better than falling on your ass. There’s been worse outcomes, so there’s little you can do but continue into the step sequence. 

Trying to shake off that bout of panic, you briefly wonder if the music suddenly had more bass than you’d last checked. Perhaps you just hadn’t been practising like you should, but you make a mental note mid-spin to listen to the track again later tonight for any tidbits you’d missed. 

Your heartbeat is trying to accommodate more air than you can let it, especially as you feel the pulse in your ears quicken as you approach your final jump sequence. The music is louder yet muffled all the same, there’s an incessant banging that you can’t figure out is from your head or a corrupted music file. But you find that sweet spot, deciphering through the ruckus in your brain, and you jump. 

It happens again, the strange ache in your ankle that should be long gone, and just like that, all that panic you shook off in the interim comes hurtling back. The world’s gone silent, blaringly so, and for some heaven known reason, you’ve closed your eyes.

You aren’t so lucky this time round, landing directly on your back with a spectacular crash, the ice cutting cold through your thermals as you slide in the direction of your epic fall. Eyelids opening, they’re met with the spotlighted ceiling, head cushioned by the hard plane of ice beneath you. 

The pain in your ankle’s escaped like a fugitive, done it’s damaged and left you crumpled on the floor. The adrenaline is rushing just enough to keep you from identifying any other awakened aches, but you have a sneaking feeling your hip is going to hate you after this. 

You’re still laying flat on the ice when you realise you're laying in mostly silence. Your music is off, and has been since you came to on the floor. The banging, you realise, wasn’t just in your head either. The unmistakable reverberation of the locker rooms is loud and assuming, noises rattling all the way out onto the echoing rink. 

It takes the strength of a village to pull yourself up, but you do it anyhow, ignoring the blatant protests of your mind and soul as you squint across the rink to the sound booth. 

As you skate towards the gate, you assume it’s Hansol trying to get your attention by disrupting you mid session, but the figure shuffling into view is telling you otherwise. 

It isn’t anyone you know, clearer as you grow closer to the gate. It’s obvious he’s the culprit that turned off your music, your laptop shut and the wire to the speakers disconnected from the port. 

You stare at it pointedly as you grapple for your skate guards. 

The man does nothing but remain with his hands in the pockets of his bright red hoodie, hovering over your laptop as he watches you struggle with your skates. SVT stitched onto the back in black. He’s as blank faced as ever, a stark contrast to your heavy breathing as you come round. 

Standing up straight, you dart between your laptop and this person, waiting for an explanation that seems to be lost in the void. You’re still heaving slightly, scowl forming on your face as this strange man offers you nothing.

“Um, did you—”

“Yeah. It’s four,” he responds, like it was supposed to explain enough. 

“And that means…?”

“We have the rink reserved.”

“But it’s Monday,” you respond. It sounds stupid, but it meant something. The rink was reserved on the weekdays for coach Carroll’s mentees, the weekends for the public. 

This man and his big brown eyes gaze directly into your soul as he responds, “And that means…?” 

You’re sweaty and tired, your feet ache with about five new blisters from the last time you checked, and you’re sure you need to get your hip checked out. Perhaps that’s why there’s this unreasonable surge of irritation that rises in the back of your head, irrational and half blinding. 

“That means—”

“Seungcheol! Get your ass in the locker room before I drag you in there myself.” The voice that rings out is heavy and has you flinching, the man’s order echoing from somewhere in the tunnel that leads to the locker rooms. 

The man you assume is named Seungcheol begins to walk away from you without a word or gesture, and you can only blink at his retreating back. 

“Hey! Do you mind not touching my stuff next time round?” you call out as a last ditch attempt to have the last word. He turns his head to you, eyebrows raised and a smirk of mild disbelief growing on his face. Nothing is said as his head turns back to the front, strutting into the tunnel.

He lets you have your last word as he walks away, your gaze the same shade of crimson as his retreating form. 

“AND THEN—THESE—HUGE dudes with fucking botox or fillers in their shoulders storm out—”

Your vent is interrupted by Lorelai who’s burst out laughing mid bite of her sandwich, “What?”

“Botox!” she muffles a shriek through a full mouth.

“They were shoulder pads or something, you get it!” 

The air in the outside seating of this cafe is stellar, the perfect in between you wait for all year. The parasol above you is enough so you don’t have to squint your eyes in the late afternoon sun, the wind perfectly paced in a breeze. Your own sandwich remains untouched, the bread gone stale as you pick at the corner of the crust. 

“Apologies,” she yips. “So you're saying we’re being partially colonised by hockey players?”

“I don’t know! Was it a one time thing, a weekly thing? It can’t be a weekly thing, Monday afternoons are routine practice days.” 

“The routine you’ve been practising for the past year and a half?” 

“I can’t afford getting rusty.” 

Lorelai drops her head like she’s had enough, “Maybe these hockey jocks are a blessing.”

“What?”

“Nothing! Hey, do you want cake, they have cheesecake, I could get some!” 

“Lorry!”

“Okay,” she huffs, dropping back into her seat with blown cheeks. “I’m sorry.” 

Lorelai has a sense of humour that took you more than enough time to decipher, but that wasn’t nearly the first thing you noticed about her. She was beautiful, even more so with the sun gracing her like a loving embrace. The highlights in her otherwise dark hair make the hazel of her eyes pop like two perfectly welcoming cliffs to jump off from. She was the definition of spunk and valour, yet graceful in everything she does. Even now, as she picks up her smoked turkey on honey oat, complete with every fixing and condiment on earth, you question how she can wrench her mouth open to take a reasonable bite; but she does, not a crumb out of place. 

“I have to share a rink with dudes whose hockey sticks are gonna make craters in the ice, why are you not mourning with me?”

“Pretty sure your toe picks do the same thing.”

“Lorelai!” 

“Not the government name!” she wails as though woefully wounded. 

“You’re impossible.”

“Carroll didn’t hate me for no reason.” She smiles in her pride. 

Lorelai’s competitive skating career came to an end sometime last year before the Grand Prix, a decision she announced gracefully with the words BITE ME etched with sharpie on her brand new competition skates. It was difficult to erase the mental image of the scarlet of Carrol’s face when Lorelai marched in with her hair chopped so short it’d be impossible to pull into a bun, marked skates in hand and a mask of determined rebellion on her face. Of course, the whole ordeal could’ve been an email, but it simply wouldn’t have been Lorelai. 

“It’s not like you were trying very hard to please her,” you grumble, nibbling on a fry. 

“Why would I try pleasing that woman?”

“For one thing, your sponsors were paying a bucketload so you could have her.”

“I didn’t want Carroll as a coach. Ever. I wanted Jameson. The only reason they put me with Carroll was because they were putting you and Marina with her.” Her voice is hard, eyebrows raised the slightest bit. 

“What does Jameson offer that Carroll doesn’t?!”

“Oh! I don’t know, let’s see,” she raises her voice as her sarcasm begins to simmer with a lethal edge. “Maybe the fact that an hour training with Jameson doesn’t feel like the subjected wrath of a world war two dictator!”

“Carroll is not that bad!”

“God, you become more like Marina everyday.”

You frown, “What does that mean?”

“It means—!” Lorelai pauses to close her eyes, and you can almost hear her counting in her head. “It means nothing. Eat your sandwich before the bread starts molding.”

“Ew.”

Lorelai smirks. “Bite me.”

You attempt to channel some of that Lorelai energy when you get to the rink past noon on a weekday. You hope you’re reasonable in your hope that Hansol will be in his office as you walk towards the door. 

Three rapt knocks before you hear a muffled voice telling you to come in. The door creaks when you open it. Loudly, might you add. 

“How long is it gonna sing every time I come in here?” you grimace. 

Hansol looks at you from behind his laptop with a tight smile. “For as long as I keep forgetting to oil the hinges.”

Hansol, for as young and qualified as he is, is only the rink manager because his family owns the place. Having graduated the year before with a shiny new law degree, he opted to take a break from moving forward with his career to “slow down” as he put it. The rink was as slow as it could get for him, betting the only important thing on his laptop screen currently was solitaire. 

“Did you also forget that I have the rink during the day on weekdays? 

“Ah. You’ve encountered the hockey team.”

“Yes. They turned off my music mid routine.”

“They're only here till the renovations in their home rink are done, we’re the only other rink in town that’s closed to the public on weekdays.” 

“But they’re cutting into my practice time?” you add, brows furrowed. 

Hansol opens his mouth before closing it again, eyebrows raised. “You clock in here five days a week, ten hours a day.”

“And?”

Hansol huffs out a breath. “Listen, I know you and the other skaters like having the rink to yourselves, and I’d be happy if it was always just you guys. Trust me, these jocks are impossible to clean up after, let alone deal with. Between the launch pad calibre noise and the stupid plastic barriers I have to put up on the railings, I’d love for it to just be you guys. But the only times you officially have the rinks booked is in the mornings when you’re training with coach Carrol, the rest of the week is technically up for grabs.”

“Let me book the rest of the slots then.”

“SVT’s already booked most of the remaining hours.” Hansol’s voice is sympathetic, but his words seemed final. You aren’t sure how bad your face was contorted, because suddenly he’s adding, “But hey, you can look at the leftover hours if they work for you.”

He pulls out the roster on a tablet before handing it to you. It only takes you a minute to scroll before you realise the only viable options were past 10 PM. The rink closed at 11. 

You sigh, shoulders visibly sagging as you let out a bated breath of tension. “It’s fine.” You hand the tablet back to Hansol. “I’ll figure it out.”

Turning on your heel, you make a move to leave the premises. Hansol calls out your name. 

“I’m sorry. Really.” 

You muster a smile, one that you cannot feel the slightest bit. “It’s alright.”

“Only a few months.”

Something in your smile sours, and you nod absentmindedly. “Only a few months.” 

THERE WERE OTHER WAYS the universe could have let it happen, someplace where you might have forgiven yourself. Someplace you had reason to be. 

You were accustomed to physical exertion, how could you not be when you were what you were, but hiking on an incline was never something you fancied yourself with. Gyms and coaches and paved running trails are nothing like rocky terrains and steep mountain paths with no guide but a mobile map. 

The semi finals had passed you by, handing you a gold medal along the way as you thrust yourself into bliss. It was a job well done, so much so that you allowed yourself a weekend of something other than skating rinks and training sessions. So many nights that you can hardly remember, yet flash like lightning under your eyelids. Where you sobbed into your pillow and cursed yourself for ever having the gall to take a step back, to be so arrogant and blustering to announce yourself away from the thing that should’ve mattered the most. 

It only took one tiny crater in the path to twist your ankle so hard you crumple to the ground with a scream you cannot remember. More hands than you have holding on to your searing ankle, like they were holding it together with nothing but their palms and fingers. Lorelai was talking, and talking and talking, but all you could hear was the roaring question in your mind. 

Why did you bring me here? 

Six weeks. 

You watched with your own eyes as the Grand Prix final shuttered away on a reel, like you were watching a movie from an age you could not visit. 

Six weeks. 

Marina sat beside your bed and said words you’d never forget. 

“I’m sorry, but…this is your own fault.”

Six weeks. 

Lorelai wept, and said the same words for an entirely different reason. 

“I’m sorry. This is my fault, it was my idea.” 

Six weeks. 

Carroll kept face, but you could see past the mask. A sigh that said more than any words of reassurance. Disappointed but not surprised. 

Six weeks you were bedridden with an ankle that refused to support your weight on the surface area of your bare foot, let alone on the 3/16th of an inch on a blade. 

Bedrest, meds, physical therapy, and still. The ache in your ankle follows you like a ghost haunting you of your worst mistake. 

It was your fault. You chose to put whimsy above everything you laboured for, for years and years. You chose to look past your shortcomings like they would not become your achilles heel. You chose to get on that trail. You chose to walk out on crutches.

You, who could land a jump on a fraction of an inch of steel, could now barely stand on her own two feet. 

You’d decided on that day, that you were as pathetic as they come.

IT WAS THE MOST natural decision to drag Lorelai out of where she rotted in bed to come with you to the rink. 

“You want me to fight them?” She’s wearing her Winnie the Pooh fuzzy pyjama pants and a university hoodie on top, her short hair concealed in the hood she’s pulled up. “They are hockey players. We are twigs!” 

“Lorry. Have you ever thrown a punch in your life?” you ask her as you pull your hair back into a loose bind. 

“No?” 

“Then why on earth would I ask you to fight goblins triple our size?” 

Her mouth is gaping in disbelief. “Why am I here then?” 

“You,” you start, grabbing your skates and moving out of the locker rooms. “Are gonna sit pretty in that sound booth and make sure nobody touches my laptop.”

“…you realise Hansol has security cameras right?”

“Are you planning on robbing my laptop?”

“No. Although it does have nice specs.” 

You ignore her as you walk towards the benches. “That stupid hockey team needs to know I have reinforcements of my own.”

Lorelai stands there, brows furrowed and in clothes that drown her. She glances down at her outfit and then back up at you. She deadpans, “This is the most unthreatening I have ever looked.”

“Just—” You stand up too quickly and feel yourself wobble. The railing is hardly a foot away, your hand moving over to grab it. Except your palms feel nothing but the flat of something smooth and hard, fingers bumping into the feeling of something unfamiliar. 

You manage to find your balance with a yelp, immediately snapping up to see where you missed the railing. The railing was still there, perfectly within arms reach. There’s a glare in your vision, like looking through a screen. Higher and higher, you realise quickly that you’ve been looking through a clear barrier so high up you can hardly find where it ends in its erect standing. 

Lorelai speaks up first, her voice resonating loudly, “Isn’t that supposed to be on the other side of the railing. Stupid, stupid Hansol.” 

It looks like it stretches throughout the circumference of the rink, wrapping whoever’s inside in a giant plastic fish bowl. 

There’s a clench in your jaw you can’t control, something a little more than annoyance building in your senses. It should be an easy thing to ignore, especially regarding its practically invisible nature, but its presence is all you can think about, even as you step your right blade onto the ice. 

Skating towards the middle of the rink, you feel claustrophobic. 

“Woah! You look like a zoo animal,” Lorealai adds unnecessarily. 

“Just play the track,” you grumble. 

“There should be a don’t tap on the glass sign,” she says, voice muffled as yells from the benches. “You already look like a weasel, can’t have confused people in the stands.” 

“Lorry!” 

“What?” she yells, her voice muffled as she yells from the benches. 

You curse the plastic that cages you as you yell louder, “Play the track!” 

Lorelai nods and makes a noise of understanding, and you watch her as she disappears into the sound booth. 

Taking your starting position, you wait for the quiet lull of the track before the beginning of the unmistakable piano; the low tremor in the beginning existing to prepare you to jump into the routine. You stand there with your arms out like a swan, waiting for your cue that won't seem to arrive. 

You almost yell out at Lorelai again before you suddenly hear the resonating shrill of the piano notes, startling yourself out of your first push. It’s fine, you’ll recover. You’re distracted by your staggered start and it’s enough to have you miss your first jump. It’s fine. You’ll recover. 

By the time the four minutes are up, you’ve missed two of your five jumps, a spin gone wrong, and nearly crashed into the plastic barrier. Not to mention, the aches in your body are enough to seem impossible to geographically pinpoint. 

It’s pointed, the way you make a beeline for the benches, refusing to look at Lorelai. You can almost imagine her expression, the poker face she has when she’s trying to think of ways to structure her next words nicely. 

“What was that?” she deadpans, voice a little far away. Your body hurts enough to take your focus away from her. 

“I don’t know.” 

“I thought your ankle was fine now?” she asks. 

You grit your teeth. “It is.” Lies. The way it was hurting you right now was making sure to remind you of that. 

“You know, you did pick back up a lot earlier than we thought—”

“I said I’m fine, Lorry,” you snap. “Now can you please play the track again.” 

You finally look up, and she looks like she wants to say something. But you’re on the ice before she can. 

You adapt to the excess muffle of the plastic barriers, ears straining to hear the beginning of the piano before you jump into the choreography smoother than last time. This time round, it’s better. The pain in your ankle and the budding one in your hip is apparent, but it’s suddenly easier to drown it out. Focusing on the music, keeping your centre of gravity, pushing into your jumps and spins with enough vigour to hold to what you are. 

Another four minutes pass and it’s over. Immediately, you swing over to the soundbooth to find Lorelai, only to find her joined by an extra set of people.

Impossibly, your blood runs cold. 

There’s a sneaking suspicion you know who it is despite the two men having their backs turned to you, especially judging by the obnoxious red jackets they have on. SVT. You can hear Lorelai speak indecipherably, her voice stern. 

“And you are?” one of them asks. You don’t recognise him, but you do the other one. The one who turned your music off the first day him and his team stepped foot in here. 

“Lorelai!” she yells it for no reason. 

“Gilmore?” The one you recognise snorts. Seungcheol, that’s what they called him the last time you saw him in the sound booth. 

“I’m worse,” she states. 

“Lorry?” you interrupt, arms crossed and gaze directed at her. 

“Lorry?” The one you don’t recognise says. “Like a truck?” 

“You think you’re funny?” Lorelai takes a step towards him, a fair attempt to look threatening if it weren’t for her very unthreatening attire. 

“Oh look at her pyjamas! It’s Pooh bear, Cheol,” he exclaims. That seems to irritate him. 

“Can you replay the track, please, I have to smooth things over,” you intervene. In your mind, ignoring their presence in your space was the best solution, refusing to give them a way to merge into your lane. 

“Woah, we have the rink booked today,” Seungcheol stops you. “4:30.”

Snapping around to find the clock on the adjacent wall, you read the time. “4:17. You can wait.”

He raises his eyebrows. “And thirteen minutes makes what difference?”

“You said 4:30. It is not 4:30 yet.”

The other one thumps him on the back, all smiles. “We can wait, right, Cheol? Besides, we have to put our skates on.” 

His gaze is hard and doesn’t leave yours. “Fine.” 

You break away first to find Lorelai still in the same position, staring at the exchange. You ignore the two men that stand there and address her, “Play the track.”

Before the music begins, you glance back to the benches where the two men have seated themselves, apparently strapping in to watch you. You dig your nails into your palm to reign yourself back in. No point in getting upset. 

The piano begins, and you're determined to not mess up. Especially not right now. 

It goes well for all of 45 seconds, you're hitting the right beats, you feel like water. But then the first jump comes along and you see a flash of red from the stands. An irrational feeling hits you as you push into the first jump, it’s enough to make you stumble when you land. You manage to not fall, but it’s obvious you’ve messed up. 

Somewhere beyond the music you hear a distinct, “Solid 4!”

It distracts you again, and you miss a move. Somehow your second jump ends up worse, and you feel your bottom hit the hard ice. 

“8 point 5! Nice!”

It doesn’t take long for you to realise what they’re doing, anger crashing into you like a flash flood. Scoring your falls? You’re determined to make the next jump combination. You make it fine, but your quad Salchow turns into a triple. The oafs are too shallow to notice, so you hear no jeer. 

But you know that you messed up the only quad in your entire program. 

The last jump goes from a triple axel to a double, and you want to break something. 

The song ends, and you know you have another nine minutes left to yourself, but all you can think about is getting out of the vicinity as soon as possible. Away from all of the eyes that are trained on your hunched form. 

There’s nothing you know about Seungcheol, and yet, the thought of him even looking at you right now is unbearable. Twice you fell, countless times you failed. 

Lorelai says nothing while you pack up, and nothing as you leave the rink. 

“CHOI SEUNGCHEOL, CENTER,” LORELAI reads aloud from your bed with her mouth still full of salt ‘n vinegar chips. 

“Perfect, he already thinks he’s the center of the universe,” you grumble from your position on the floor of the bedroom. Your foam roller feels like heaven under your calves, but the position is beginning to cramp. 

“Surprised you haven’t heard of him, he’s half a celebrity.” 

You turn to her, “I have two gold medals and five podiums for every major skating event.”

“Do I ask for your autograph?”

“He’s not special.”

“Hm. His skill and popularity would beg to differ.”

“Why are you so hellbent on liking him?” 

“Because he’s cute,” she grins wide. “Although the other one was cuter, very angel-like. And he liked my Pooh Bear trousers. Can’t find his name on the team roster though.”

“He was wearing the same stupid jacket—”

You’re cut off by a gasp, a loud one at that. “He coaches the babies!” 

Her face is contorted into something between an “aw” and a sob. 

Lorelai’s phone is dropped dramatically on the bed as she thrashes on your made (now unmade) bed. You swipe the phone and read. His picture is there, the name Yoon Jeonghan, Junior League Coach.

“Good for him.”

“He just got five times hotter,” she states like she’s out of breath. 

“Give it another meeting and he’ll give you five other reasons to hate him.”

“God, you’re so negative,” she huffs. 

“They’re hogging my rink!”

“It is not your rink.”

“It’s as good as!”

“Whatever.” Lorelai rolls her eyes and sets back on the bed, no doubt searching the man up by name. 

“Ow!” you yelp as you stand up from the ground, ankle twisting slightly in the process. 

Lorelai jumps. “What?”

“Nothing,” you mumble quickly, hoping she’d drop it. But she catches your lingering stare on your bad ankle. 

“It’s still hurting, isn’t it?”

“I just twisted it weird,” you defend, walking to pack up your foam rollers. 

You’re met with silence, but you know she’s thinking. Lorelai speaks, “Maybe you should skip out on the shelter today.”

You snort, “Why would I do that?”

Once, sometimes twice a week, you’d volunteer at the local pet shelter. It wasn’t hard work, mostly taking the bigger, more energetic dogs for their runs because it seemed you were the only one who could keep up with their stamina. And now Lorelai is trying to take that away from you. 

“I saw how you struggled at the rink today, there’s not a day you don’t rest. Like, actually rest.”

“That has nothing to do with me struggling!” you retort. 

“What is it then?” she asks, sitting up straighter, defiance in her gaze. “What is it that’s making you skate like you bought your first pair yesterday?”

The irritation is growing into something hotter, her defiance pushing you into a corner. 

“I know what you want to hear from me.” Your voice is shaky. “I’m not going to say it.”

“Because it’s not true? Or because you’ve been convinced it’s not?” 

You know what she’s talking about, and you know you’ve been avoiding the topic like it’s the plague. The ache in your ankle comes alive, and in that moment, you cannot tell if you’re imagining it or not. 

“Convinced by who?” you snap, shoving the box of foam rollers under your desk. 

“Does that have to come from me too?” 

“Lorry, I don’t know what you want from me!” 

“I—”

There’s a knock on your door, loud and demanding. Wrenching it open, you find Marina behind it. 

She has a frown on her face. “You’re still here? I thought you were running with the dogs today?”

“It’s none of your business if she goes or not, Marina.” Lorelai’s tongue drips with venom most commonly reserved for her most hated people. 

Marina, still in her workout clothes and duffel bag, furrows her eyebrows. “Who shoved a pole up your ass?” 

“I’m leaving in five,” you hiss, before making a motion to close the door. 

When you turn around, Lorelai is still on your bed, hands in fists like she’s holding herself back. There’s more behind her eyes than you could even consider unravelling. 

She leaves before you. 

THE ENTIRE WAY TO the rink was just one constant string of prayer. 

All of them go unanswered when you walk in to find the rink full of hockey players in red and black gear. 

The only thing you can do is curse under your breath, only watching frozen in your tracks as a million players skate across the rink passing and yelling at each other. No one you recognise, their helmets and gear eluding any semblance of individuality. 

Where you stand, a little ways away from the plastic screen and the benches, a dark circular puck suddenly slams directly into the boundary at eye level. On instinct, you flinch at the loud bang, half expecting to get hit. 

When you open your eyes, somebody’s skating up to the boundary, and you lock eyes through the cage of his helmet. 

Your blood is suddenly charged with something electric, fingers curling into fists on instinct. 

Suddenly, all that rings in your ears is the distinct jeers of numbers over the muffle of plastic as you continue to fall, and fall, and fall on the cold, unforgiving ice. The amusement in your failure, the joy in your defeat. 

Spinning on your heel, you stalk to Hansol’s office. 

In your blinding anger, you take a wrong turn, looking up to realise you’ve walked into the locker rooms. You’re one step into the men's locker room when you come back to your senses, startling yourself once again as you spin back from where you came, only you’ve been caught. 

For all the luck you’ve received in this life, it seems to opt out at that exact moment as you hear the unmistakable noise of a herd of ogres walking in, the glare of red on the walls surrounding them. Frozen in your spot, you can only grip the straps of your duffel bag harder, tense up like you were preparing for impact. When they turn the corner, the brilliant idea of simply walking towards the women’s locker rooms befalls you. But it’s too late. 

Seungcheol saunters into the hallway, leading the pack. 

His helmet is in his hands instead of on his head, revealing a sopping mop of hair drenched in what you can only imagine is sweat. He’s laughing at his teammate who’s making futile attempts to escape his own helmet, not noticing you in the way. 

Until he does. His smile fades immediately, eyebrows raised as he registers you in the doorway. You feel his gaze on you for a few silent moments, his teammates shushing at the shift in the air. Seungcheol opens his mouth, and you already know all that’s going to leave it is dung. “Didn’t realise the rink had a vacancy. Do I need to show you my ID to take a shower?”

A rustle of chortles and chuckles flitter from the group. “Go ahead. I don’t need an ID to tell you need a shower.”

Somebody ooh’s, despite it not being your best work. You suppose it was your delivery that did it. Deciding to continue riding that high, you simply turn towards the women’s locker rooms, refusing to give Seungcheol the luxury of your eyes on him.

Hurtling into the women’s locker room, you throw your duffel bag somewhere you’ll regret and crumple into one of the seats. You count to ten, attempting to take the image of Seungcheol out of your brain. 

It was difficult to rile you up to this extent, a trait you needed to possess if you were to be coached by Carroll in any capacity. There was so much you heard from her mouth, swallowing it like a prescribed pill and nothing more. Take what you were given, because it was given by the best, bought for you by the best.

Yet for some reason, Seungcheol manages to irk you in ways you previously have never encountered. Irritating people come and go, but you doubt you could place him as something as simple as just irritating. His presence felt like an intrusion, his air was thick like a concentrated gas. Everything he’s said to you so far has come from nothing but disdain and condescension, his haughty personality the only takeaway when he enters a room. 

You’re still in your outdoor shoes and jacket by the time twenty minutes are over, coming to a conclusion as you get up from the empty, soulless locker room. Hansol is in his office when you make the formality knock before barging in. His head is on the desk, like he’s asleep. It takes him a second, by he lifts his forehead from the papers on the tabletop to regard you at the door. You hear him sigh. 

“The hockey team’s done. It’s two.”

“I wanna book a slot.”

“The rink’s empty you don’t—”

“Let me book the slot, Hansol.”

“For fuck’s sake, you’re turning out worse than those baboons,” he curses before setting his forehead back onto the table. “Write it on the sticky note, I’ll put it in the schedule.”

“Now. I wanna book a slot for right now,” you grit. 

Hansol whips his head up again, eyes wide like he’s holding himself back, nodding furiously as he pulls his keyboard towards himself with an unnecessarily aggressive tug. “Fine. 2:16 till closing. Enter. Print. Here.”

He hands you the printed receipt of your slot, ripping it from the printer tray as he does it. You take it from him in the same vigour, hardly a thank you as you spin on your heels and walk out the door. You stop for a minute, turning back around to yell into the office. 

“Go home if you’re just gonna nap on your desk!” 

Not waiting for a response, you stalk towards the locker rooms. Within minutes you’ve tugged on your skates, laptop and shoes in each hand as you emerge out the tunnel to the rink. 

The ice is empty, mostly. Placing your laptop in the sound booth and your shoes under the benches, you step foot on the ice. They’re there, on the other end, sitting on the cold ice with their jerseys still on, eating what looks like cups of dippin dots. 

Seungcheol and Jeonghan, you remember from Lorelai’s squealing, either don’t notice you on the ice, or simply choose not to. Because it’s easy as you skate up to them, gaining speed from across the rink, you slide to a stop, sending a perfect spray of ice from your skates, directly into their ice cream cups. 

Seungcheol’s full spoon hangs mid air, halfway to his mouth, now garnished with ice shavings. 

“Thought you’d have the respect to keep the dippin dots out of this,” Jeonghan comments, disbelief in his eyes as he looks up at you. 

“Ice is booked.” 

“What time?” Seungcheol asks. Your gaze flickers to the left side of his face, a nasty bruise blooming purple and blue that you hadn’t noticed before. 

“2:16. It’s nearly fifteen minutes past.”

“You’re only one person.” He’s significantly more annoyed than when you saw him outside the locker rooms just minutes ago. 

“And?”

“And…you have about 97% of the rink to yourself.”

You raise your brows, hands on your hips. “But I booked 100% of it. So I’m gonna need that plane of ice you’re currently sitting on.” 

“What if I don’t move?” Seungcheol presses. It’s menacing, the way he looks at you, like he’s a lion only waiting to be provoked. Maybe he’s already halfway there, because it sure looks like it. 

“We’ll find out another day,” Jeonghan sings before you can snap back, grabbing onto the collar of Seungcheol’s red and white jersey to yank him up. He continues to glare as he obliges with his friend’s tugs, nearly as angry as you are. “Let’s go, sport.”

You watch as they walk to the exit of the ice, realising they’re wearing their shoes instead of their skates. 

Jeonghan calls from the benches, right before he and Seungcheol move out of view. “Trash those for us, would you?” 

Their half eaten dippin dots cups, with the ice now melting on them remains on the floor of the rink. Once again, the unexplainable urge to kick something befalls you, hearing them laugh and talk from far away as they exit the rink behind their long gone teammates. 

You give in, swinging a leg over to kick the cups and spoons, dippin dots and plastic scattering across the ice. It’s another sprawl of mess you’ll have to clean up, but it feels good to ruin something of his, no matter how inconsequential. The empty rink encourages you, needing to scream so loud the plastic barriers crack and break. You know it’s impossible, but that doesn’t stop the urge. 

You channel it into the most aggressive warmups on ice you’ve ever done. Your spins are faster, your jumps higher. But this also means you crash heavier, fall harder. It’s then, sitting on the bench to take a break, breathing so heavy you can hardly sip your water, you find an unmistakable headline on your browser home page. 

Everything stops. 

!HOT TOPIC! 

SEAT AT RISK FOR SVT HOCKEY TEAM’S SHINING STAR? Read All About It Here! 

!HOT TOPIC! 

SEAT AT RISK FOR SVT HOCKEY TEAM’S SHINING STAR? Read All About It Here! 

Choi Seungcheol’s seat for next season at risk? Insider reports that the hot headed center may be at risk of contract termination due to recent controversy. The hockey player, renowned for his aggressive playing tendencies, seems to be taking his temperament outside of the rink. Multiple games played by SVT have been subject to eventful halves and quarters, the center seen getting violent in the benches with opposing team members, and sometimes even team members of his own! While his short temper has always been a recurring subject in the news, his skills as a player have always remained top notch—we do wonder if he even has to try! The tables seem to turn a little differently this time around, because it looks that SVT higher ups have been fed up with the increasing reports of Choi’s aggressive behaviour. Insider sources report that talks of a contract termination may be coming into order. While he has proven to be an effective player on the ice, it seems as though it won’t be saving him from this particular ramification! 

Stay tuned, hockey fanatics, as we bring you more updates on Choi’s sticky situation! 

BEFORE EVERYTHING, BEFORE YOUR ankle, before it began to feel like your world was crumbling at your feet, came the scar on your leg. 

In hindsight, it feels like it was the very thing that set the ball rolling, the beginning of your demise. 

Coach Carroll was only on her first handful of sessions with you, Lorelai and Marina, all of you still learning her quirks and expectations as a coach. 

It happened when you were on the sidelines, hanging over the boundary as Lorelai handed you a water bottle from the benches. Marina was practicing her routine, taking up most of the ice as Coach followed on the side. It seemed unclear, to this day, whether you’d drifted inwards on the ice as you sipped from the bottle, unaware. But when you felt the hot searing pain in your calf, there were only two people on the scene. 

Marina skated past, her free leg in the air, meeting your calf as she skated past, effectively slicing into your leg in a deep gash. Blood was wiped off the ice, your leg bandaged and wrapped. Not without Coach and her comments, of course. 

You heard her berate Marina from the other room, for moving closer to the boundary than what was required for her routine, heard the way she gave her the blame. And then she round up on you. 

“Idiot! No reason to be on the ice when you aren’t practicing, did you want it to be your ankles too?!” 

It was the first time you realised that Carroll was beyond your perception of the word demanding, her gaze remained in a high place, no regard for what it took to get there. Even if it meant destroying her skaters. 

Marina apologised. “I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t see you there, I would’ve dropped my leg—”

“It’s okay, Marina. Really,” you smiled through the still aching wound. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

She smiled a little too, “Lesson learned, I guess. Don’t loiter on the ice.” 

It was difficult to keep the smile from fading as you heard her say that.

“What shit apology is that?!” Lorelai yelled as soon as you mentioned it to her later. You cringe as you realise what slipped, and to whom it slipped to. 

“It’s the best I’m gonna get from her, Lorry. Honestly, I don’t care.”

“You’re out of service for a week till that slice heals and that’s all she has to give you?” 

Lorelai is breathing heavily, mostly because she’s been practicing her triple axels for her routine, but also because she’s extensively heated for you. You watch her from the benches. 

“Lorry,” you sigh. 

“Listen, I wanna win too but—”

“Are you trying to say she did it on purpose?” you ask. 

“No! Let me finish, woman,” she snaps. “I wanna win, you wanna win. We’re doing everything we can because we want to win—”

“So this was a subconscious attack?” you interject. 

“Fuck this, I’m leaving,” Lorelai begins to skate backwards and away, leaving you on the bench. 

“NO! Wait, okay, I’m sorry I won’t interrupt.”

“Too late.”

“Lorry! Lorelai!”

It wasn’t until you were back in your shared apartment, Marina out doing whatever while Lorelai hijacked your bed that she got to finish her sentence. She was rubbing ointment on a bruise while you changed the  bandage on your calf. 

“Her need to win is ruining her. And it’s like she’s taking us down with her. I know she doesn’t mean it like that, doesn’t want to hurt us. But she thinks this kind of hurt is good, if it’s the kind of hurt that pushes you to win.”

You cringed at the sight of the wound, still red and ugly. 

“She might not have meant to hurt your leg, but—don’t loiter on the ice? Really?”

“She only meant it as a reminder.”

“Exactly! You don’t need that reminder because I think you’ve learned better than anyone else to not stay on the rink when someone is practising. A couple weeks ago she made some stupid comment because I left the gym early. Nothing inherently rude, she’s never actually rude. But it was pointed anyway. I’ve been up since six in the morning I think I deserve slacking off a little, it was nearly midnight for fuck’s sake!” 

Cleaning the wound was taking everything you had, the need to hiss at the contact of the wet cloth was near abominable. 

“Her…her perception’s a little warped. But her heart’s in the right place!”

Lorelai had rolled her eyes, screwing the cap of her ointment tube back on with unnecessary force. “I never said it wasn’t, just—stop defending her! I’m sorry but half the reason she continues to act like this is because you listen to her.”

At that moment, you felt a little offended. Of course, Marina had her moments where she’d say something a little less than healthy, especially coming from a friend. But you’d always thought you handled it better than most. 

You met Marina when you were still only splotchy faced preteens, during a competition where she came second and you came third. She’d been skating for longer, so it was expected, but you also couldn’t conceal your surprise when you’d found the state of her later on. You were ecstatic simply because you managed to make it to the podium, but it seemed Marina’s tears held another thought process for her. 

You found her crying in the locker rooms later on, her coach who looked like she…should’ve been comforting her, but it was more like a stern talking to, to suck it up and work harder next time round. 

When you tried to help her, out came words you felt oh so strange coming from a stranger. “What do you know? You came third!”

It hurt. Possibly the first genuine stab of the feeling you’d ever felt. In the following weeks, when Marina apologised and you’d begun to build a friendship, you felt something peculiar. Practice sessions on the ice became harder, your two hour sessions were suddenly extending to four, sometimes five hours a day. All of it, your own doing. 

It was subconscious when it was happening, the silent tug of You came third! What you first considered an achievement became an intermediate step. 

If there was anywhere that you’d pinpoint the shift, from when figure skating went from fun to a responsibility, you’d pick that exact moment. When someone congratulated you later on, it wasn’t a big smile and a thank you.

“I only came third.”

Your calf healed and all that was left was a scar, but there in the discolouration of your skin, also lay a realisation. 

SEUNGCHEOL HOSTS ABSOLUTELY ZERO thoughts in his mind as he shoves the collar of his hoodie over his head. Slamming the door shut on the rest of his red SVT paraphernalia, he makes quick work of his hair, shoes on and out the door within the minute. Jeonghan is still fast asleep when he leaves, mouth open and drooling onto his pillow when Seungcheol walks into his room to let him know he’s leaving. 

Jeonghan might tag along to practice for the fun of it despite leaving his competitive hockey career behind him, but his distaste for 6 AM practice remains forever unchanged. He’d see him later though, on the rink lingering once the sun is higher in the sky and Jeonghan deems it less of a sin to be awake. 

Seungcheol leaves without a response from his friend. 

By the time he gets to the rink, most of the team has already geared up. The locker room is splotched with red, moving towards the back of the room to get to his own locker. They weren’t assigned, but he liked to have his claim. He had one in the old rink, the one locker everyone knew was his. And now he has one here, despite the temporary nature of the ordeal. The rest of the boys know to steer clear, as does he for the others who have their lucky spots. 

Mingyu bumps into his shoulder when Seungcheol is looking down, immediately whipping around to bow a full ninety degrees. He’s laughing as he apologises, not really sorry, but Seungcheol is too exhausted to humour him too much. 

He’d been up playing games all night, under the covers in the dark, his phone brightness up too high and his eyes too wide open. He could feel the regret when his alarm blared while it was still dark outside, his eyelids stuck together, refusing to open. It cost him fifteen minutes of warming up, but he’d make it somehow. 

Seungcheol can hear coach Mason’s booming voice from outside, moving closer and closer to hustle the rest of the boys out onto the rink. He shoves his foot into his skates, making sure all that’s left is to lace them up. 

“Look alive, boys! I want you on the ice within the minute,” he booms into the locker room. 

Seungcheol doesn’t look up. When he gets up to leave the locker rooms, his hockey stick and helmet in hand, he’s the last straggling few to leave. Chan earns himself a hard thump on the back from Coach as he scurries out. 

There’s a hand on Seungcheol’s chest as he’s about to exit, Coach stopping him from leaving. 

He looks up, expecting a hard look from Mason, ready to hear a mildly violent threat about being late to call time again. Except Seungcheol finds him with his own gaze on the floor. 

“Rink manager said I could use his office. We should talk there.”

Seungcheol could’ve said he knows what this was going to be about. The game last weekend had less than ideal results, not because they didn’t win, but more so because of the WWE level brawl that went down in the benches during one of the intermissions. 

He tenses, but it was more like he was squaring up. His shoulders are hard, his grip on his hockey stick tighter. Of course, he wasn’t about to swing at his coach, but one could say it was simply a subconscious response. 

The entire walk to the office, Seungcheol thinks of new ways Coach could address his issue. But the gist was always simple. 

Choi, stop fucking fighting. 

He’d usually just rip Seungcheol a new one in front of the boys, berate him and verbally throttle him in the hopes that he’d keep his anger under check. But as they turn towards the door to the office, Seungcheol has to remind himself that this was a first. Being led aside, like he was being led into some formal meeting. 

A plea deal, perhaps?

Choi, what is it going to take?

The office is barren, hardly looks like it’s used with how sparse the equipment is. The amount of dark brown gives it enough warmth to not make it look like some sick form of solitary confinement. That doesn't stop Seungcheol from feeling a hint of pity for whoever has to work here. There’s no nameplate. 

Coach doesn’t take a seat, opting to lean against the table in front of him instead. His arms are folded, and he’s not looking him in the eye. A crawl of suspicion creeps up Seungcheol’s neck, as though in an attempt to ambush him. 

It’s silent in the room as he waits for Coach to speak, refusing to be the one to break it. 

When he does speak, it’s not in his usual Coach voice. Without the built in bass and tremors he was born with. 

“There’s no easy way to break this,” he starts, eyes drifting up to somewhere on the barren walls. “But I’m gonna try my darndest.”

Finally, he feels Coach’s gaze lock with Seungcheol’s expecting pair. 

“They wanna drop you.”

“What?”

Coach squeezes his eyes shut, like he’s recalibrating. “Your contract is up by the end of the season. And the tie wearers and the shoe shiners don't wanna re-sign you.”

Seungcheol’s eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean don’t wanna re-sign me, on what grounds?!”

“You’re temperament—”

“I’ve scored at least two goals for every game you’ve put me in, I’m your most consistent player!”

“They have no qualms with you when you’re on the ice.”

Seungcheol knows where this is going. He knows what knocked up alley this is turning to and he hates it. “Which is all that should matter.”

“In most cases.”

“Is this about last weekend? You didn’t hear him, he deserved more than a broken fucking nose—”

“I didn’t need to hear him, because I know. I know he’s a jackass, I know they’re all jackasses! They know that too. You need to learn to let things go, let them chirp—”

“He was coming on to my mother!” Seungcheol bellows, now properly angry. He remembers the guy’s name, Jason or something. 

“His coach came onto my entire bloodline when we were young, this is Kim’s strategy! You’re playing right into their hands like a dog! For fuck’s sake, Choi! Punching someone in the chiclets isn’t always the answer!” Coach Mason is shaking his hands in front of him like some violent prayer. 

Seungcheol drops his hockey stick and helmet, mouth open as he huffs and puffs. He wants to pace, wants to point his fingers at Coach and make a few threats of his own. 

“Just—”

Seungcheol rounds up on him. “Seungkwan punched a guy in the mouth. Wonwoo kicked one in the balls.”

“Seungcheol. This is becoming nearly. Every. Single. Game. Not the occasional tousle we can pull people out of. You can’t keep sending people to the hospital, it’s a wonder nobody's pressed charges yet!”

“So that’s it? I’m being punished because some dick runs his mouth?” 

“This is about you, Seungcheol. You need to get a fucking grip. You’ve started picking at your own teammates, shoving Mingyu around—seriously?”

Seungcheol’s mouth opens but nothing leaves it. He ends up gaping like a fish. 

For all that it was worth, for everything he’d been through, Seungcheol always assumed his seat was safe. Always assumed he’d have the position he does. Because he showed results, won them nearly every game and put up a damn good fight in the ones they didn’t. 

Seungcheol knew he was an asset, but not for one minute, stop to realise that this was all

conditional. 

For everything he did for this team, for every fiber of his being he poured into its chalice, they were spitting it all right back into his face. Chewed and warped and rid of anything worth salvaging. 

The red in his chest, back, stomach, spelling out the unmistakable letters of his team. The red in his helmet that rests beside the red in his hockey stick. 

“Listen, as much of a pain in the ass you are, you’re good fucking player. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s all that matters. But it’s not up to me, so we need to work around that. They’re worried about the repercussions of your behaviour. And you are gonna make sure you keep yourself in check.” 

Coach walks closer, finger digging into Seungcheol’s chest through his jersey. “I want no more fights, no more kicking and punching and swearing no matter how much that motherfucker deserves it, I don’t care. Do whatever it takes. God knows I’ll never forgive you if you make me agree to those prissy hands in suits.”

Coach left Seungcheol in the barren office, stepping over his stick and helmet as he exited the room, leaving him alone. His fingers flex under his gloves, like he’s trying to remind himself to stay in the moment. His exhales are stronger than his inhales, his vision blurring as the desk turns into two, and then disappears for a second. 

He can hear the distinct sound of the puck slamming into hockey sticks. Practice had started. By the time Seungcheol walks out, he’s the last person to go through the mandatory drills. 

The rink is mostly empty as the team gears up for a practice match, leaving Seungcheol enough reign to slam into every puck like he had some personal vendetta against every last one. It’s one after the other, sent directly into the open net, waiting. 

Practice goes fine, as good as it could go with the scrambled eggs that had become of Seungcheol’s mental state. He found himself whipping his head around to Jun when he fumbled an assist, face scrunched under his helmet as he prepared to send him to hell in a handbasket. 

He sees Jun physically tense up in defense, and the insult (for once) dies on Seungcheol’s tongue. 

“Just—keep up, alright,” he says instead. His tone is empty, and on a downward slope. 

If anyone finds it odd, they don’t say. 

It’s a couple more hours of passes, assists and hollers across the ice, regrouping the teams every so often to keep the rotation consistent. 

Over here, everyone is in red, everyone is on his side. The bleachers are empty, devoid of spectators to watch him lose his cool on anything. But he thinks of the way Jun recoiled, like he was preparing for the worst of his teammate’s words. He and Jun are friends. 

Somewhere amidst his thoughts, the puck flies directly into Seungcheol’s face, banging into the cage of his helmet with a noise that resonates across the rink. He’s startled enough to skate back a little, not before hearing another resounding thwack! from next to him. The puck rebounded from his helmet and hit the plastic barrier with a noise that had everyone looking over. 

Skating up to where the puck fell back onto the ice, he looks up to where it hit the barrier. 

Through the plastic he sees…you. You're staring at the same spot he is, where there’s a slight mark from the force of the rubber. 

And then your eyes drift up, locking with his own. 

Like every other person he’s around, he watches you tense up. But it’s laced with something more than just bracing for impact. 

It’s apprehension, your form turbulent and agitated. It’s all he can see when you spin on your heels and walk away in the opposite direction from him. 

The all too familiar irritation sparks in the back of Seungcheol’s mind, as it does when you’re around. All he does is slam his stick into the ice with force, pushing the puck back into the middle of the rink. 

They’re nearly done by that point, and he finds that Jeonghan has graced himself in the benches. He’s wearing his old jersey, likely because he doesn’t want Coach to notice him and accuse him of distracting his players. 

Jeonghan would’ve gotten away with it anyway. 

Seungcheol tells him to wait up, walking towards the locker room with the rest of the rest of the team to wash up. He finds some reprieve in Seungkwan’s attempts at fumbling with his helmet, letting out a laugh as he fights with it. Looking up as they take the turn towards the locker rooms as a group, he somehow finds himself in your presence, again. 

It’s the same thing, like you’ve been connected to a faulty circuit and you’re trying not to show it. You look like you want to say something but all Seungcheol can do is send a snarky remark of his own. 

Even as you walk away after the ordeal, he feels anything but settled. 

It’s like the world has it out for him, because as he opts to stalk back to where Jeonghan was, forgoing a shower, there’s only another calamity waiting for him. 

Jeonghan is in the rink, sitting on the ice with two cups of what looks like dippin dots. He looks up when he hears his treads on the ice, having taken his skates off already. Seungcheol crumples to the ground and on the ice next to his friend. 

The first words he utters are the only ones that’ve been on his mind all day. “They want to drop me.”

Jeonghan only grimaces in response, only running his hands through his hair as he sighs loudly. “I know. I heard.”

Seungcheol perks up, head lifting from the ice. “...How?”

That’s how Seungcheol has Jeonghan’s phone so close to his face he’s hardly an inch away from the screen. He reads and reads and reads. And his blood boils and boils and boils. 

!HOT TOPIC! 

SEAT AT RISK FOR SVT HOCKEY TEAM’S SHINING STAR? Read All About It Here! 

Choi Seungcheol’s seat for next season at risk? Insider reports that the hot headed centre may be at risk of contract termination due to recent controversy. The hockey player, renowned for his aggressive playing tendencies, seems to be taking his temperament outside of the rink. Multiple games played by SVT have been subject to eventful halves and quarters, the center seen getting violent in the benches with opposing team members, and sometimes even team members of his own! While his short temper has always been a recurring subject in the news, his skills as a player have always remained top notch—we do wonder if he even has to try! The tables seem to turn a little differently this time around though, because it looks that SVT higher ups have been fed up with the increasing reports of Choi’s aggressive behaviour. Insider sources report that talks of a contract termination may be coming into order. While he has proven to be an effective player on the ice, it seems as though it won’t be saving him from this particular ramification! 

Stay tuned, hockey fanatics, as we bring you more updates on Choi’s sticky situation! 

Of course, to add to the absolute media pandemonium, you had shown up on the rink itself after Seungcheol had to read through the entirety of that stupid article. Jeonghan was smart to pull him away from the situation before he wrapped both his hands around your neck in an ultimatum. 

The way you stood there, hip popped like you owned the damn place, face haughty and demanding. You stood while they sat, looking down at Seungcheol like he was some pesky ant. There was nothing he would’ve rather done in that moment than swing his leg clean across your ankles, and watch in delight as you crash onto the ice in front of him. 

“What the fuck is her problem?” he grits as soon as he’s in the locker rooms. Collecting his things to leave and take a shower at home. 

Jeonghan walks behind him, hands in his pocket in idleness as he watches his friend pack up. He’s humming a tune that’s possibly too familiar to Seungcheol. “Hm. She does seem a little wound too tight.”

“Wound too tight?! I’ve seen her thrice just today and every single time she looks like she wants to skin my fucking hide!”

Jeonghan only snorts. “Thing two isn’t any better. She’s cute though.”

Seungcheol whips around. “Who gets that territorial over a sound booth?!”

“Down, boy,” Jeonghan soothes, half in jest. “Surprised she isn’t here today either.”

“Yeah, you’d like to see her.”

“I would, actually, yes. What was her name?”

“Something to do with a train or a bus or something—”

“Lorry! Right,” Jeonghan furrows his brows. “I don’t think that’s her real name.”

Seungcheol throws his duffle bag over his shoulder as he motions he’s done. “I don’t think anyone who actually loves their child would name them after a bus.”

Jeonghan halts in his steps. “My dead dog’s name was Lorry.”

Seungcheol is extra nice for the rest of the way home. 

SEUNGCHEOL CAN'T SLEEP.

His dreams are full of voices, of every single teammate he’s ever had. The junior league, his high school team, up to his college team, and finally, his team right now. 

They’re all murmuring like they were paid to do it, uttering the same things, over and over. He doesn’t belong here, they don’t want him here, he doesn’t deserve what he has. 

And with the way his heart is racing when he jolts awake, cold sweat and all, he realises he’s kicked his blanket off of him sometime during the night. He looks over to his alarm clock that glares bright in the dark of his room; 5:08 AM.

He doesn’t need to be up, but it seems his own subconscious has given him a good enough scare to make sure every last essence of sleep escapes him. He lays on his back, catching his breath like he just ran a marathon. 

Seungcheol hasn’t woken up from a nightmare like this since middle school, one that knocks the breath from his lungs and fills his head with all the horrible things in the world. With every moment that passes after that conversation with Coach Mason, his ordeal becomes increasingly real. 

In that moment, laying in his bedroom, staring blankly at the dark ceiling above, he wonders if he’s made the right choice to come this far. 

With all the confidence he’s exuded, the thought is downright terrifying. 

Seungcheol was a difficult child. Too much energy, too much to say, too much to do. His parents didn’t know the first thing about hockey, just that it involved enough hitting and running and practice to let their son let out all that pent up energy, so maybe, just maybe, he’d sit still and do his homework. While they attempted to sign him up at the local rink, he was already zooming out towards the benches to see the fabled giant block of ice his parents told him about. 

And there it was, just like in the movies, a giant expanse of ice that made him shiver even in his thick Winnie The Pooh puffer vest. There’s sounds, loud ones, of deep clacks that echo across the rink. It seems to be coming from the dozens of people skating on the rink, decked out in red gear. 

SVT, he reads on their jerseys. 

His mother chides him for straying when they finally find him near the gate, watching the team practice. The rink manager is there as well, showing his parents around. 

“The SVT’s practice here and have a junior league too, but I’m afraid it’s full. But our coach is great too, I’m sure he’ll do well.”

Seungcheol’s parents didn’t mind, but he wanted those jerseys, wanted his name in red splashed across his back as he glided across the ice. 

It didn’t take long for his coach and his parents to realise that putting him in a helmet was a good idea. He was smoking the rest of the kids from day one, his balance on the ice better than any other his age, his hold on a hockey stick like second nature, his aim as he hit his first puck, dazzling. 

As he got older, entering his preteen and teen years, he had another realisation. That he was as horrible at school as he was good at hockey. 

“Perhaps you should take a break from hockey,” his high school guidance counsellor had said. His grades were displayed in front of her like a case study, the hopeless clear in her intermittent sighs and the occasional purse of her lips. “Utilise that time to fix at least one of your grades. Pour all your eggs in one basket.”

The thought was absurd. No, he would not be dropping hockey when it was the only thing that pushed him to wake up in the morning. 

He’d felt the tremble of irritation rise in himself, sitting there in that office. It angered him, made him feel like his success was measured by a criteria not made for him. He had said nothing as he slipped out of chair and left the room. 

The day before his graduation, sweat dripping onto the ice as he sent free pucks into the net, he was missing more than he was getting in. It was making him more mad than it should, hands shaking with fury as he berated himself for not being able to succeed in something so simple.

His last puck was before him, and he swung his stick harder than ever and watched as it flew directly into the net. The sound is louder than usual, resonating across the rink. Seungcheol looked down at the detached pieces in his hand and quickly realised that he’d effectively broken his hockey stick.

It wasn’t expensive, so the quality wasn’t nearly what it should be, wasn’t nearly as durable. But this was new to him. He’d never broken a stick before. 

Anger. Perhaps that was what he'd forgone, perhaps that was what he needed. To get on his knees from his back, to get on his feet from his knees. 

When he graduated the next day, Seungcheol knew what he was going to do with his life. Finally had an answer for the infinite questions about his future. 

Hockey. Seungcheol was going to play hockey for the rest of his life. He was going to get into SVT, he was going to become the best player they’ve ever had. He was going to make more money than what he would have as a doctor or a lawyer or whatever else the entire world wanted him to do instead. 

Seungcheol was going to be on the ice wearing red if it’s the last thing he does. 

That’s what pushes him out of bed at 8:45 in the morning, his dream that was once in his hands now flitting through the gaps of his fingers. 

The anger that pushed him here, was now pushing him out. 

He packs his things and leaves the house, welcoming the cold of the outdoors. 

There’s the distinct sound of blade cutting through ice when he gets nearer to the rink itself, a shout of a shrill voice he can’t decipher. Official practice doesn’t start for another couple hours, and he doesn’t remember Coach Mason cutting the pitch in his voice for anything ever. There’s only one other person that could possibly be gracing the rink.

Seungcheol finds three people on the rink. The bright red curly mop of hair catches his eye first, her arms folded over her green puffer jacket, apprehension in her entire posture. He assumes this is your coach. 

There’s a blonde one breathing heavily as she straightens out of a spin, listening to the coach as she shakes her head violently as she speaks. 

Seungcheol finds you a little ways away from the pair, practising jumps. 

He doesn’t emerge into the benches, remaining in the shadows where he wouldn’t be so blaringly obvious. There’s no reason for him to hide, but he doesn’t think of this as hiding. 

Seungcheol watches for the next few minutes, watches you make most of your jumps, fall for some. Your coach shouts for particular names for jumps, something about axels and lutz’ that he can’t tell the difference from when put into action. At least he thinks that’s what you’re doing. 

And then he hears it as your coach moves closer to the barriers. “What’s gotten into you? Keep acting this stupid and I’ll excuse myself from the job, I have better people to coach.”

Her tone, her words, the sharp edge of her tongue, it’s all triggering a very specific part of Seunghceol’s brain. 

“Is it your ankle? Because if it is, then I’m here to tell you to get out of your own head. Your ankle is fine, you wouldn’t be able to get on the ice at all if it wasn’t.” 

There it comes. Those words aren’t directed towards Seungcheol, nor could they apply to him in any capacity. But the way this coach is speaking is making him irrationally angry. 

“Are you gonna keep pretending you have a handicap? Because if you are then I have no work here.”

“I’m sorry.” 

For whatever reason, the sound of you apologising makes the fire rage doubly. It’s enough to blur his vision, enough to make him question what on earth this coach could have on you to let her speak to you in that way. 

The choice words are already in his head as he claps back in his own head, like he was the one at the receiving end. 

He doesn’t stay, disappearing even further into the tunnel to where the locker rooms are. He doesn’t understand why he’s huffing and puffing as much as he is. All that occupies him is what possible reasons you could have to just take it lying down. 

Seungcheol’s phone vibrates in his pocket, slipping it out to realise it’s Jeonghan. 

He picks up, and barely has time to say hello before his voice perks up from the other line. “Where are you?” He sounds like he just woke up. 

“I’m at the rink.”

“Why is your angry voice on?”

“My angry voice is not—” he begins to grit, seething, but closes his eyes and takes a moment. “I’m not mad.”

“Do I need to sing?”

“No, you do not have to sing—”

“Everything is honey—”

“Jeonghan, stop!”

“—everywhere I see—”

Seungcheol hangs up before he can go on. To his utmost irritation, he feels significantly calmer. 

The rink is devoid of your red headed coach when Seungcheol makes his way there after a few minutes. The blonde one is nowhere to be seen, leaving you alone in the rink as you skated across the expanse. He only watches as you land the couple attempts at jumps, the ice breaking ground in a spray every time you put pressure on your blades. 

Seungcheol is just standing there, blank faced with an empty head. His mind was quiet for the first time since he’d woken up that morning. 

He doesn’t know what he’s doing there, standing idle as he follows your figure around the rink like a fixation point. 

The sound is more consistent, less of the loud jabs of hockey sticks meeting the ice, more constant lines of scraping as you migrate across the rink. The speakers boom no sound, but the musicality in the noise of the ice is enough to imagine a rhythm. 

No part of him desires getting on the ice to oust you out, no part of him wants to touch his hockey stick that sits in the locker room. He doesn’t need extra practice, not with hockey at least. 

And when you notice him, unmoving in the benches, he watches as something hard overcomes your expression. You skate over, and he keeps his gaze fixated on the ice.

Skating up to the gate, he sees in his peripheral vision as you slip on your skate guards, stepping out into the real world. 

“You don’t have the rink booked, I checked,” you huff, moving to find your things on the other set of benches. 

Seungcheol’s jaw tenses. “I don’t want the rink right now.”

“And yet the ghost loiters.”

“I’m here to tell you to start filling in the stupid craters your skates make in the ice. The guys keep tripping.” 

“You big hockey thugs getting defeated by a toe pick?” 

Seungcheol turns to finally look at you, and you look nothing as graceful as you did on the ice. He wants to scoff. 

You continue, “I have to deal with your stupid barriers fucking up my sound system. I think your guys can deal with a couple digs in the ice.” 

“Great, we’ll just lose a couple teeth, who really gives a fuck.” 

“If this is about giving fucks,” you get up from your water break, leaving the bench. “Do me a favour and forget your mouth guard next time. Let the puck punch you in the mouth if I can't."

Seungcheol’s entire being is ablaze. He reshuffles his footing. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“My problem?” you repeat, voice moving a pitch higher. “My fucking problem is that you and your overgrown posse of baboons drop in here out of the blue and then act like you own the damn place!”

“Right, because it’s your name on the fucking lease. Excuse us for trespassing on public property!”

You’re yelling. Seungcheol is yelling. It’s either that or the hollow of the rink is now carrying your voices farther out. 

“I’ve had enough of you acting like you don’t take up this entire fucking space!” Your arms wave wildly, gesturing to the large area of the rink. “You’re everywhere, all the fucking time, it’s sickening!”

“Everywhere, huh?” He takes a step closer to you. And then another. He revels in the sight of your face turning a splotchy red. “Thought I was only a bother on the ice? Where else have I been plaguing you in mystic hallucinations?”

Seungcheol’s eyes give away nothing but provocation. He knows he didn’t start this, but in the true essence of who he is, he would be the one to end it. 

It’s clear you’re taken aback. At this moment, he’s the closest he’s ever been to you. But it’s for nothing if it isn’t to press on you further, to tower over you and your outburst. 

“Get your head out of the gutter, you brute.”

“Then is it not me taking up all your space?” he asks. “Because there’s three feet of air between us, and yet the least in our very short time together.”

He watches as you take a small step back.

“So where else have I been any closer, so consistently, if it wasn’t part of your imagination?”

There’s a certain kind of venom in your stare, in the sneer that lifts your mouth, enough to ensure that it’d render him six feet deep. But he lives in reality, so he deems it safe to take another step closer. 

“You’re a screw up,” you almost whisper. Appalled and scandalised. 

“So I’ve been told,” Seungcheol breathed. “But something tells me we’re not so different in that department.”

“You don’t know a thing about me.”

“I know that I’m all you can think about,” he says, eyebrows raised. “That feels like a lot. You’d agree, because everywhere, all the fucking time is a lot.” 

Seungcheol has hardly finished his sentence before he feels the light breeze of you gathering your few things, shouldering him hard and walking away from him. Into the tunnel, into the locker rooms, into hell, wherever it was that you ended up by the close of the day. 

He isn’t afraid to admit that he stumbled.

LORELAI HAD MADE IT quite clear that any figure skating talk was off the table, and talk surrounding Marina even more so. You tried not to point out the obvious predicament, but the fact that you lived with Marina did not affect her demand. 

Miraculously, not talking about skating or Marina was the most free you’d felt in ages. It was mildly embarrassing in the beginning, when on a run with Lorealai who was also helping out at the dog shelter, because you realised all you talked about was, maybe not Marina, but definitely a lot of skating. 

You slow down a little to give Kkuma a couple minutes to breathe, but Lorealai is still running at her pace with her significantly more energetic husky, Bennie. 

“Stay there, I’ll catch up!” she yells over her shoulder as she takes the left around the block to circle back. 

You oblige, moving to a walking pace as Lorelai appears from behind you after a couple minutes. She slows to a jog and loiters around you for a minute, you increase your speed to match hers. 

“Jeonghan…” she pauses to take a breath. But your interest is piqued, especially if she was talking about the same Jeonghan you were thinking about. “Jeonghan invited me to the game this weekend.”

Hold. 

“What?” you snap.

“Game. This weekend,” she huffs, still breathing heavily. 

“Like, a hockey game?” you ask, brows furrowed. 

“No, for disney on ice,” she announces. “They’re doing beauty and the beast, Jeonghan’s the beauty, Seungcheol is the beast. It’s a whole production, really. Real good stuff.”

You can only roll your eyes at the elaborate sarcasm. She continues, “Of course, it's a hockey game! What else do they do at that rink all day?”

“Gosh, sorry,” you frown. “Since when do you talk to Jeonghan?”

She looks over, wicked smile on her face. “Since I found him on Instagram.”

“You followed him?”

“No, why would I do that? Bumped into him at the gym a while ago, and we went out for coffee afterwards.”

Nothing of the ordeal is making sense, your brows still knit together and your mouth downturned in confusion. 

“Catch you in a minute!” she yelps as she takes off into a run again, Bennie right next to her as she circles round again. 

The few minutes that it’s just you and tiny Kkuma are flooded with questions. How did she just bump into Jeonghan? Lorelai hardly goes to the gym. Asking her to come to the hockey game? 

And then worst of all. 

Are they dating? 

By the time Lorelai is back, she’s out of breath again, and fully unequipped to answer all of the questions you shoot at her like rapid fire. 

“Why were you at the gym? He’s a junior league coach, he’s not even gonna be playing!”

“God!” she groans, heaving. “Slow…down.”

“Fine!” You stop in your tracks entirely, to which Lorelai is happy to oblige as she crouches with her hand on her knees. Bennie tugs at her leash, the big bounding ball of fluff ready to race the winds again. 

You count to ten, hands on your hips as Kkuma lets out a small, confused yip now that you’re completely idle on the track. 

“Talk.” 

With an all too dramatic flip of her short hair, she pulls herself up and into an explanation. “I couldn’t tell you because we weren’t talking when it all happened.”

It’s true, it did take a while for you to go back to normal after that run in with Marina in your bedroom. You suppose it won’t be happening again with the new no-Marina-talk rule, since she seemed to be quite the common factor in many of your rifts over the years. 

“I went to the gym to blow off some steam—don’t look like that, I’m being serious!” 

You make an attempt at fixing your face as she continues. 

“He saw me first and came up to say hi. Went our separate ways but once we finished up he asked if I wanted to grab a coffee since we were both done working out.” 

“And you said yes?”

“I said yes. Because he is cute, and I had been stalking his very public Instagram and it was just the perfect opportunity!” 

“So you’re dating?” you ask sharply. 

“I don’t know.”

“He asked you to the game?” you point out. 

“Well, yes, but he hasn’t asked me asked me.” Somewhere in her voice there’s the tiniest hint of disappointment. “Besides, he said to bring you as well.”

“Fuck no.”

“Come ooon! Jeonghan’s gonna be in the benches and I don’t know anyone else there!” she whines. 

“Hey, we should switch dogs!” you announce as you yank Bennie’s leash out of Lorelai’s hands, stuffing  Kkuma’s leash into her free hand. 

You take off into a sprint, and Bennie is happy to keep up with you as you quite literally run away from the situation. Lorelai is yelling your name, her annoyance abundant. 

Ignoring her is easy. Just the thought of walking into one of those games is enough to force a scoff, to watch your rink inhabited with like minded buffoonery as they ruin the bleachers and the ice. 

By the time you make it back, the hilarity of the situation hasn’t left you. And it seems neither has Lorelai, who remains standing with Kkuma at her feet, waiting to trap you. 

It’s the easiest thing to do, to turn right back around and circle the other way. 

“You can’t run away from me forever!” she shouts behind you as you disappear again. 

Maybe you couldn’t, but you wouldn’t go down without a fight. 

“You can’t run away from Seungcheol forever! Quit pretending like you aren’t dying to fall into those giant arms!” Lorelai has a very specific talent of injecting all the drama in the world in the tone of her voice. She’s sure to utilize that skill as she hollers after you. 

That seems to do it for you, slowing down, half ready to whip around and holler a profanity or two right back. 

You’re more triggered than usual, but mostly because all the jab does is remind you of the last time you saw him. The arrogance in his demeanor, the way he belittled you with just his eyes, the shadow of his towering frame, caging you like a lost animal. 

You hated it. Despised it. Despised him. His disgusting innuendos, the all so misleading innocence on his face as he cornered you with both his body and his words. 

Lorelai could deal you whatever card there was tied up her sleeve, but getting you anywhere near the rink for the game this weekend was going to require more than just dessert bribes and sweet talking. Dragging you by the ankles could be a possibility, but all for naught when you dig your nails in anyway. 

It was impossible. Not doable. Non-existent in the cards of your destiny. A repelling force. 

So why, would one ask, were you decked out in the most  heinous red scarf with the letters SVT stitched on like a warning, sitting in the bleachers and looking down at the same rink you practice your spins and jumps in everyday? 

Neither you or Lorelai could answer that question, both your stories as blurry as fog as to how either of you managed to get you in that fabled seat. 

You could see the exact place you and Seungcheol had your last showdown, the opposing team in black now occupying that side of the benches. The thought puts you in an impossibly sour mood. It’s not like Lorelai could say anything about it, half because she knows you’re one snide remark away from jumping into the merch table, and half because she was too busy making heart eyes at Jeonghan who’s just spotted her in her seat. 

“I’ll be back,” she informs haphazardly as she positively bounds down the steps to the end of the bleachers, where Jeonghan waits for her. The people in their seats shuffle, annoyed at the overenthusiastic fan who practically slides down in front of their legs towards the railing. But Lorelai couldn’t care less, not with what stood beyond that very railing. 

Tearing your eyes away from the lovebirds, you take in the hustle and bustle of the pregame happenings, most of the bleachers in disarray as they humour the merch stands and the food stalls. The rink smells different because of it, both the added number of food trucks and drink stands, but also with the amount of people that occupy the expanse. 

The only times you see the rink this packed is when you’re too wracked with nerves to notice anything other than your own two feet. Hands wringing and head spinning, the chaos of the world is nothing against the pandemonium in your mind. You’re usually wearing a sparkly dress that glitters even from the very last row of bleachers, hair taut and makeup caked on like a layer of icing. 

Taking your time, you let your eyes flit over all that you forgo the other times. The stands are a mix of red and black, and so are the benches and ice that are occupied by men in full hockey gear. 

You’re too high up to make out the names on the back of all those jerseys, let alone a face underneath the already concealing helmets. The problem is forgotten when you feel the weight of two hands slam against your folded arms, tugging you out of your seat like it was stolen property. 

“Jeonghan said we could sit closer to the benches downstairs!” Lorelai is frantic, like this wasn’t a matter of reserved seats but the last plane to leave hell itself. 

“Lor—” Finishing a sentence when she’s in this state is a luxury you learn quickly to live without, because all that concerns her right now is getting closer to the man that seems to have enraptured her like never before. 

It’s disgusting. But you follow her anyway, down the steps that you nearly eat shit on, gracefully of course, because what figure skater doesn’t fall with an epic crash worthy of an Expendables cameo. You stabilise yourself enough to get to the seats Lorelai is talking about, and sure enough, Jeonghan would barely have to get on his tiptoes to hoist himself into the bleachers altogether. You question the safety of the context but decide that it wasn’t your problem if someone decided to pounce on one of the players. 

Besides, you’d be lying if you said you wouldn’t revel in the absolute scene of Seungcheol getting jumped by an over-passionate fan. You’re suddenly very grateful for the front row seats. 

There’s a bucket of chicken tenders and fries in your lap out of nowhere, matching the one in Lorelai’s hands. “Also Jeonghan?” you hum as you inspect the sauce options. 

“Mhm, he’s friends with the vendor outside,” she grins. 

You narrow your eyes at the revelation, finding it utmost strange how close he seems to be with nearly everyone. “Why is he on the benches, again?” you ask. 

“Because—” she draws before you cut her off. 

“Friends with the coach?”

“How’d you know?!” she exclaims. Her attention is diverted as the speakers suddenly boom with something other than generic pop music. So is yours, when you hear a deep baritone of a commentator’s voice carries throughout the rink. 

The shuffle around you is suddenly doubling in speed, everyone getting into their seats. You look over in front of you, where the benches are in an equally panicked shuffle. You spot Jeonghan easily, mostly because he’s one of the few in the vicinity without a helmet or what looks like a giant space suit. The next thing you note is the person he’s talking to, his back turned to you, but familiar all the same. 

CHOI, 95, reads his jersey. Automatically, your jaw clenches.  “Don’t look over there!” Lorelai chides, grabbing your jaw and moving it to force you to rip your eyes away from him. 

“Lorelai, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but unlike your boy toy, he’s actually gonna be on the ice,” you verbalise through clenched teeth. 

“Don’t look at the ice,” she blurts. 

Rolling your eyes, you only listen as she realises what she’s said. “Okay, um, look at Jeon instead! Or Kim, or Boo, just. For god’s sake, there’s fifty other players on the ice, just don’t let one of them ruin your night!” 

“I’m fine,” you grumble, sinking into your seat. 

It isn’t long before your eyes trail over anyway, and Seungcheol still doesn’t have his helmet on. You can see his face now, and he looks like he’s mad at Jeonghan about something. 

Inevitably, your mind wanders to the fated article that somehow made its way into your recommended, the certainty it put in you that Seungcheol didn’t stand a chance in his team anymore. It seemed true enough, his anger, that he continues to display, seemed to be his default emotional setting. 

Your hockey knowledge was subpar at best, but one thing you did know was the aggression factor of the sport. Of all the things that could cut his career clean down the middle, this was the last of your guesses.  

Even now, as you watch him absentmindedly point and jerk like his supposed friend had managed to bring him something that was personally offensive, it’s all connecting too well. 

But when you snap into reality, you realise very quickly that he was pointing…at you. 

Seungcheol is mad that Jeonghan (effectively) brought you to the match. 

A chortle of disbelief is quick to make itself known, wanting to yell across the throng that you were every bit as upset that he was in your vicinity too. It also brings you satisfaction, a pure grain of hope, that maybe this would be enough for him to completely fuck up on the ice today. 

You say a quick amen before the baritone of the commentator makes itself known again. The echo is too much for you to decipher what’s going on, but you have your answer when you watch the reds and the blacks form what looks like a line across the width of the rink, right in the center. 

You don’t register when the puck landed, or if it was always there, just that the loud clacks and bangs are in tandem with the cheer from the crowds. The puck is an impossible commodity to keep up with, even with just your eyes. It appears for a moment before it’s lost again, shooting around in your peripheral vision like a pesky fly you can never get a hold of. 

“What is happening?” you whisper to yourself. 

Lorelai answers anyway, snorting, “Fuck if I know.”

The numbers on the lit screens are doing nothing to help out your predicament, too much happening for you to even begin to deconstruct. You choose to lay back and enjoy your chicken tenders and fries, complimenting the sauce choices to Lorelai along the way, who continues to calibrate her attention on the man that remains in the benches. Jeonghan looks over periodically to send her a wave and a blinding smile. 

You’ve made a good enough dent in your chicken and fries bucket by the time it’s intermission, about ready for a drink by now. Lorelai makes herself useful and runs down to get you both something, mostly because Jeonghan was now more focused on the team that’s huddled around one another, another man you assume is their coach huddled right with them. 

The scores are 2-2, as provided by the person behind you who was apparently sick of your placid obliviousness. It did feel slightly awkward to be the only person not as excited to be front and center, so you remind yourself to thank him profusely. 

Your attention drifts back to the benches, inevitably as you’ve been so unfortunately placed to be able to breathe down the player’s necks. They’ve dispersed from their huddle, but are not yet on the ice. They’re sitting down, catching their breaths, drinking from water bottles. On the other side, the opposing team, a sea of black and white flooding their own end of the benches. It’s a sinking colour, not an ounce of depth in the shade. It’s taking over the benches. 

Except it’s the players that are moving, like they’re diffusing into the scarlet territory. 

You watch, as one player in black moves his mouth, speaking, upturned and eyebrows cocked. It’s clear he’s gone well past enemy lines, the front lines suddenly at attention. There’s not much you can make out, nothing much besides the very haughty expression on the player’s face. His eyes are covered by the sweaty mop on his head, but you don’t need to see them to find the malice that infiltrates his entire stance.

The scene, where both sides seem to be closing in on each other, has you automatically sitting up straighter. The air is going static, especially as you realise the player's mouth is moving faster as he jabs at — Seungcheol. 

They’re fighting, only verbally for now, but it’s undeniable the way the heat grows by the second. All you can see is the back of Seugncheol’s jersey as he begins to step back from the ordeal, like he was fighting the urge to take a step forward instead. 

Jeonghan’s hand is on Seungcheol’s elbow, and one glance at the rest of the players on this side shows every last one on edge. Their coach is nowhere to be seen. 

But he doesn’t stop talking, still standing in their territory. He yells something loud enough to hear the pitch of his voice, but not nearly enough to understand what he’s saying. 

You could see it on the player’s face. Hook, line and sinker. 

It happens so suddenly. Seungcheol surges forward like a dart, something flies out and hits the player square in the face. 

Seungcheol had spat his mouth guard into his face. 

You gasp out loud as you register what’s happening. The player removes his hand from his face, and for some reason, emerges grinning. 

Seungcheol swings first, his fist rising and coming down on his cheek with a sound you can hear. You feel nauseous. 

It’s pandemonium. You can see Jeonghan practically on top of Seungcheol, a number of other players attempting to get him off the man he continues to grab and shake up like a fugitive. The other player is throwing his own punches.

For one, horrifying moment, the force of the punch pushes Seungcheol’s face towards the stands enough to let you get an eyeful. All you see is red, beyond just his jersey. His mouth is full of blood, the front of his jersey dripped with it, his knuckles clustered with it. 

The hand clasped around your mouth is your own, eyes blown in horror. 

All around you, the world has their phones out like it was some show meant just for them, like this was exactly what they came here for. 

It’s sickening. Sickening. 

You brave another look, and they’ve been yanked off of one another. Seungcheol is being pushed down the tunnel and away from sight. Jeonghan has his hands clutched around Seungcheol like he’s nearly ready for another outbreak, his face grim. 

Your eyes keep away from Seungcheol’s face on purpose.  “Goodness, what is going on, I could barely get through the crowd,” Lorelai’s irritated voice infiltrates your ears, and you’re immediately brought back down to earth. 

Arms full of more snacks and drinks, it only takes her one look at your rattled self to know. 

“What happened?”

“I…they were…fighting. I don’t know, it just—Seungcheol was throwing punches and there was…blood, so much blood.”

She’s gotten a grip on your hand, her fingers warm under your cold, shivering ones. “Do you wanna leave?” she asks slowly. 

One look over her shoulder is enough to tell you it’d be impossible. Everyone was too excited to care to cater to two people going in the opposite direction of the action. So you tell her there was no point, and you attempt to calm your racing heart as she sits next to you. 

Snagging one of the packs from her mountain of snacks, you rip it open and let the sickly sweet smell infiltrate your nostrils. Popping one of the confections in your mouth, it’s hard to not make a face. It’s the sourest thing you could’ve picked, the tartness enough to distract you from the outside world. Eyes scrunched closed, you swallow the rush of saliva to ask Lorelai what the fuck she brought.

You chortle, and it has Lorelai looking over. “Whoops! That one’s mine.”

She snags the bag from your loosened grip, replacing it with a tamer bag of original flavoured potato chips. The chips are trying, but there’s not much you can do besides wait for the residues of the godawful candy to subside. 

The ordeal seems to have calmed you the slightest bit, finally able to turn back to the ice. The rink is back to being occupied, players from both ends pouring onto the ice. You note a minor shoulder shove at the gate, but look away like it’d stop the calamity from intensifying. 

The game ensues as normal, but you note the blatant absence of CHOI in the sea of red and white jerseys. You don’t mention it, and neither does Lorelai. 

You’re about to burst by the time the finals moments are upon the game, the overtime minutes beginning to tick as the crowd grows restless by the second. With the little you’ve managed to grasp, you’re sure that SVT is only one goal away from the overtake. It’s making you nervous, like you’re waiting for your own score to be announced after a free skate. 

The puck is a mere percentage easier to navigate after a couple hours of keeping after it; it skips between players you’re beginning to recognise from the back of their jersey. Kim, Boo, Wen, Kim, Lee. The opposing team intercepts for a moment, and you find yourself letting out an irritated shake of the shoulders. Back to Kim, Lee, Lee, and then, right into the net. 

The jittering crowd suddenly went so silent you could hear a pin drop. 

And then the world around you erupts. It’s impossible to classify the sound as cheers when racketeers off your entire being like an unearthly sound, the stands on their feet hollering and screaming and yelling at their players that are fighting to keep their new overtake in the final seconds before the game officially ends. 

And when it does, you’re sure you need to get your ears checked out. 

Looking over, you catch Lorelai’s eye, and you can’t help but laugh. A delightful laugh that releases itself in the midst of the chaos of red, scarlet and cherry. Somebody’s thrown a red blanket over you, another has begun to hand out congratulatory cherry lollipops (you pass, but Lorealai would be damned if she did), people are hugging each other so tight and you get the inkling they’ve only met each other today. 

The ice is one giant dogpile, red on red as they suffocate one another in celebration. 

Perhaps you didn’t realise how important the game actually was, or maybe every game is like this, loud, proud and exultant. You find yourself imagining how they feel. 

The lost feeling of bouquets and flowers whisked in your direction, stuffed animals and hundreds of other things that scream adoration as your performance comes to a close. It’s a physical manifestation of an adoring crowd, as though making it tangible makes it a little more real. 

The rush, you can feel it resonate off of the scarlet side of the benches, and it’s enough for you to realise that yes, this was an important match. For them anyway. 

The way out of the rink is reasonably packed, but you manage to squeeze through the doors and towards where Lorelai had parked with fewer than expected obstruction. “Thought you might wait to see Jeonghan before we leave,” you hum as you walk to the parking spot. 

“I was going to, but he’s probably dealing with what happened,” she utters slowly. A flash of red at the mention, gone as soon as it came. Lorelai adds with a little extra pep to her voice, “It’s okay! I’ll send him a text, we were planning on dinner tomorrow anyway.”

The side eye you send is met with a light shove. “This one seems serious. Dragging me here for his sake and now dinner with him?”

Lorelai was infamous for taking it excruciatingly slow, the time between the talking stage and the first date stretching for months. She claims it’s to make sure she's not roping herself into something she’d regret, which you’ll admit has seemed to work out in her favour. Her last relationship lasted years before Josh had to move away. 

Jeonghan seems to have her under some warped spell, because Lorelai was hurtling into this relationship like a too compressed cannon ball. There was nothing you knew about Jeonghan other than his friendship with Seungcheol, his position as junior league coach and his habit of loitering on the ice; which means there wasn’t much opinion to be had on the whole conquest. Regardless, you decide to caution her some other day, when she’s not glowing and over the moon like a robust teenager. 

Slipping into the passenger seat, you slump like never before, already dreaming about the bedrotting session you’re about to have; glorious enough for the books. 

“Do you wanna grab food and rot on the couch?” she asks. 

“You’re still hungry after all that?” you huff, your mouth still flavoured with artificial sweetness paired with the savoury of the chicken and fries. You pull out your phone for the first time in nearly three hours, the home screen alarming full of missed notifications. Text messages, mentions and phone calls. For whatever reason, you swipe right past and open your browser. 

“It’ll take about an hour till we’re settled, should be hungry enough by then,” she comments, a gentle growl coming from beneath you as the engine comes to life. 

Somewhere between the lines of the seatbelt sign pinging, and the radio blaring itself into the space, you’ve read a headline that’s enough to halt your world. 

“There’s this new Chinese place that opened nearby here. Or this Persian restaurant but it’s like 20 minutes in the other direction. Or do we just do soup—”

“Lorelai.”

She turns to look at you in the passenger seat, seatbelt alarm still dinging as you remain with your seatbelt off as she pulls out of the parking space, like the official soundtrack to your doom. She brakes, hard. Lorelai is always Lorry with you, her full name only ever when you’re feigning irritation. 

There’s nothing irritating about the situation, but everything is wrong with it. 

It’s like you were in the benches, taking punches while simultaneously throwing a few yourself. You’re out of breath still seated, your skin tingles like a million arachnids crawling under your skin under your layers. You’re in the eddy of a horrifying whirlpool, that’s pulling you down, down, down, down, down, down—

!HOT TOPIC!

FIGURE SKATER OR FIGURINE? NOTHING GRACEFUL ABOUT Y/N L/N’S FALL FROM THE PINNACLE OF THE SKATING WORLD. Read from the Source!

From a pocket princess, to a rising star. From a rising star to the top of the world. From the top of the world to… a bottomless hell? How did Y/N L/N end up here? 

It’s nothing new that L/N’s presence was notable during the flashy ISU Grand Prix held in Beijing last year, the podium notably shuffled as a result. The skater’s ankle injury was never awarded a career ending title, but with the way her comeback remains as foggy as it did since the initial announcement, one must begin to wonder if we’ll ever see L/N on the competitive ice again. 

Or perhaps she’s simply lost her spark? 

Trusted sources report that L/N’s sponsors are growing weary of her extended vacation, and are just about ready to pull the rug! In addition, sources also report her floundering lack of consistency in practice sessions on the ice, her condition beyond someone as onerous as even Isabella Carroll to manoeuvre into success. Talk about futile! 

Now, we’re all hoping that our glittering gold medalist is only a victim of mindless chatter, however, we must concede, neither we nor our sources are holding on to too much hope. 

Keep on the lookout for more updates from us on our fallen (?) star!

[a/n]: hehehehehe remember to reblog and tell me your thoughts

[gootarts]

as of 8/3, the most recently updated version of this post is here (it's a reblog of this exact post with more info added)

as a lot of you know, limbus company recently fired its CG illustrator for being a feminist, at 11 pm, via phone call, after a bunch of misogynists walked into the office earlier that day and demanded she be fired. on top of this, as per korean fans, her firing went against labor laws---in korea, you must have your dismissal in writing.

the korean fandom on twitter is, understandably, going scorched earth on project moon due to this. there's a lot currently going on to protest the decision, so i'm posting a list here of what's going on for those who want to limit their time on elon musk's $44 billion midlife crisis impulse purchase website (if you are on twitter, domuk is a good person to follow, as they translate important updates to english). a lot of the links are in korean, but generally they play nicely with machine translators. this should be current as of 8/2.

Statements condemning the decision have been issued by The Gyeonggi Youth Union and IT Union.

A press conference at the Gyeonggido Assembly will occur on 8/3, with lawmakers of the Gyeonggi province (where Project Moon is based) in attendance. This appears driven by the leader of the Gyeonggi Youth Union.

The vice chairman of the IT union--who has a good amount of experience with labor negotiations like these--has expressed strong support for the artist and is working to get media coverage due to the ongoing feminist witch hunts in the gaming industry. Project Moon isn't union to my knowledge, but he's noted that he's taken on nonunion companies such as Netmarble (largest mobile game dev in South Korea) by getting the issue in front of the National Assembly (Korea's congress).

Articles on the incident published in The Daily Labor News, Korean Daily, multiple articles on Hankyoreh (one of which made it to the print edition), and other news outlets.

Segments about the termination on the MBN 7 o' clock news and MBC's morning news

Comments by Youth Union leaders about looking into a loan made to Project Moon via Devsisters Ventures, a venture capital firm. Tax money from Gyeonggi province was invested in Devsisters in 2017, and in 2021, Devsisters gave money to Project Moon. The Gyeonggi Youth Union is asking why hard-earned tax money was indirectly given to a company who violates ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles.

Almost nonstop signage truck protests outside Project Moon's physical office during business hours until 8/22 or the company makes a statement. This occurs alongside a coordinated hashtag campaign to get the issue trending on Twitter in Korea. The signage campaign was crowd-funded in about 3 hours.

A full boycott of the Limbus Company app, on both mobile and PC (steam) platforms. Overseas fans are highly encouraged to participate, regardless if whether they're F2P or not. Not opening the app at all is arguably the biggest thing any one person can do to protest the decision, as the app logs the number of accounts that log on daily. For a new gacha such as Limbus, a high number of F2P daily active users, but a small number of paying users is often preferable to having a smaller userbase but more paying users. If the company sees the number of daily users remain stable, they will likely decide to wait out any backlash rather than apologize.

Digging up verified reviews from previous employees regarding the company's poor management practices

Due to the firing, the Leviathan artist has posted about poor working conditions when making the story. As per a bilingual speaker, they were working on a storyboard revision, and thought 'if I ran into the street right now and got hit by a car and died, I wouldn't have to keep working.' They contacted Project Moon because they didn't want their work to be like that, and proposed changes to serialization/reduction in amount of work per picture/to build up a buffer of finished images (they did not have any buffer while working on Leviathan to my knowledge). They were shut out, and had to suck it up and accept the situation.

Hamhampangpang has a 'shrine' section of the restaurant for fans to leave fan-created merch and other items. They also allow the fans to take this merch back if they can prove it's theirs. Fans are now doing just that.

To boost all of the above, a large number of Korean fanartists with thousands of followers have deleted their works and/or converted their accounts from fanart accounts to accounts supporting the protests. Many of them are bilingual, and they're where I got the majority of this information.

[note 1: there's a targeted english-language disinformation campaign by the website that started the hate mob. i have read the artist's tweets with machine translation, and they're talked about in the second hankyoreh article linked above: nowhere does she express any transphobic or similarly awful beliefs. likewise, be wary of any claims that she supported anything whose description makes you raise eyebrows--those claims are likely in reference to megalia, a korean feminist movement. for information on that, i'd recommend the NPR/BBC articles below and this google drive link of english-language scholarly papers on them. for the love of god don't get your information about a feminist movement from guys going on witch hunts for feminists.]

[note 2: i've seen a couple people argue that the firing was for the physical safety of the employees, citing the kyoani incident in japan. as per this korean fan, most fans there strongly do not believe this was the case. we have english-translated transcripts of the meeting between the mob and project moon; the threats the mob was making were to......brand project moon as a feminist company online. yes, really. male korean gamers aren't normal about feminism, and there's been an ongoing witch hunt for feminists in the industry since about 2016, something you see noted in both the labor union statements. both NPR and the BBC this phenomenon to gamergate, and i'd say it's a pretty apt comparison.]

let me know if anything needs correction or if anything should be added.

[whosblackcat]

mini thread abt how to help riize & seunghan + info 🩷🫧

note & warning: please don’t engage with ANY content of riize, for example don’t comment in their tiktoks saying “riize is 7” even if your intention is good, it breaks the purpose of the boycott!!

sm will pull fake scandals to distract our attention from the matter, for example as they did with sungchan yesterday! don’t believe anything, exols warned us

tweet the trending tags on twitter!! big official fan accounts always share which ones we have to use

don't buy or watch anything related to riize & sm, we’re boycotting

don’t interact with any post of sm and riize even if it’s to use the tags or supporting the boys, we’re boycotting

all the info of what did one of the persons who sent the death wreaths

ot6 are complaining to the police & government abt the displays and flowers for seunghan in front of the sm building, and according to this person now it's not possible to put them in commercial facilities

sm is buying followers and likes due to the impact of the boycott

ot6 are monitoring every movement and project in every language and reporting them. @/RIIZEUSACENTRE kofi was reported because of them while raising trucks money

seunghan's leaked photo with his girlfriend was leaked by hybe

riize is seven movement schedule. day 1 october 28th

mass review 1 star to all sm facilities on google maps (note: they’re deleting the bad reviews but we have to keep going)

hybes’s ceo lee jae sang issues apology letter for the ‘music industry report’ document (a sorry is not enough after destroying hsh life & career)

seunghan town will be removed due to ot6 reports and company that they reported the project, causing making hard getting the needed permits

pineapple manager passed in front of the protest today, he def saw the protest

manager passed in front of the protest again, they know what’s going on

manager passed in front of the protest for the third time, and tomorrow is the meeting

riize is seven movement schedule november 6th

there’s a very popular lawyer who has won a case against sm before that right now is representing fans

riize doesn't have any schedule, comeback or tour for the first quarter of 2025. the boycott is working, keep going!

riize lost 400k monthly listeners on spotify

clarifications on rumors regarding hsh. the thread linked below explains it really well, so please read carefully and repost it on X!

sm announced that seunghan will debut as a solo artist in the second half of 2025… they even created him a profile on ig. sm is trying to calm us down. is their final act of desperation to tame the situation. this doesn’t protect him from toxic fans, pls keep boycotting, this doesn’t end here (we protested to have him back in riize where he belongs, not to debut as solo artist is this a joke what are they doing💀💀)

Jaehyeon Choe, a TikToker with over 174k followers (@/watchwithsamjaychoe), who has worked with different kpop groups, some of them being SM ones, knows things we don't know and is telling us to DON'T STOP THE BOYCOTT

MAMA's violations against fans, the mistreatment and disrespect experienced by the fans cannot be ignored. some fans were denied entry due to their clothing and some others had their stuff (which they paid for) thrown away even if it wasn’t against the rules they settled. dm @/RIIZEUSACENTRE on X if something like this happened to you

this is all the info i found and i wanted to spread it here too, so thanks and credits to all the ppl on twitter!! if i find more relevant info i’ll keep updating this post. please share it 🫶🏻 (note: english isn't my first language, sorry for any mistakes in my grammar)

little motivation and some twitter accounts that organize projects/give info below the cut! 🩷

— some good info twitter accs:

@/RIIZEUSACENTRE @/SEVENRIIZE @/RIIZE_EUROPE @/PROTECT_RIIZE @/Seunghan_USA

— little motivation:

kbriize are holding face to face protests and fanbases hired an attorney. boycott properly if you don't want all the effort to be wasted! remember, boycotting takes time

"The group nearly disbanded in September of 2001, after Park Joon-hyung was discovered to be in a relationship. Their management announced, without informing him or the members, that he was to leave the group and they'd continue as 4, but it was met with strong objection from fans, who repeatedly signed petitions and threatened to boycott concerts and the company. Danny, Kyesang, Hoyoung and Taewoo held their own press conference, without the knowledge of their management, to show their support for Joon. After two months of disagreements, their company eventually backed down and allowed Joon to be in the group." if joon returned to the group after two months of protests, complains and boycott, we can bring back seunghan!! the key is persistence. please don't give up and keep fighting for his rights and justice!!

[partyanimal167]

First fic of the year! I'm updating my drafts I promise 🙏🏾 I'm starting a move so this month has been different than I expected 😅 But I saw a tiktok with my nice man, Crocodile, and I got inspired~ Should I be going through my things and packing? Yes, but it can wait lol

Inspired by this art here~

Cowboy!Crocodile who owns A LOT of land for his cattle and is an established man in the industry due to his business-savvy and understanding of the actual logistics of everything. He likes to make money, but quality is a crucial factor. Sustainability in the business ensures long-term success.

Cowboy!Crocodile who doesn't go out into the fields as much as when he was younger but doesn't look out of place when he leans against the wood fence in a purple vest over a long-sleeved white dress shirt and quality leather chaps. The cowboy hat protects him from the sun, but his rings glimmer in the light still.

Cowboy!Crocodile who chews on hay when he's outside because he heard that the cows don't like tobacco.

Cowboy!Crocodile who doesn't ride often but does prefer horseback to a truck when appropriate.

Cowboy!Crocodile notices you out of your usual office attire when you were out checking in with ranch managers and collecting data for your department. He stays quiet as he watches the way your eyes linger on the horses and cows.

Cowboy!Crocodile chuckles to himself after he approaches you which you makes you flustered since you normally don't see him much in the city and definitely not out of a suit. You didn't know he'd be here.

Cowboy!Crocodile who stays a little longer on this visit as he watches the way you interact with everyone working. You didn't seem to have much experience on a farm, but the respect seemed to go both ways which was a testament to your character.

Cowboy!Crocodile who offers to show you around the farm even though he's already behind on his schedule and isn't sure if you'd be interested.

Cowboy!Crocodile who is amused when you point out that his schedule is probably packed but doesn't deny your request to meet another time.

Cowboy!Crocodile meets with you soon after and gets used to your silly comments and unique personality.

Cowboy!Crocodile easily offers his hand for dance when a well-known song comes on. He laughs as you down your drink before taking his lead to the floor.

Cowboy!Crocodile who can actually dance well and enjoys seeing you relax more.

Cowboy!Crocodile who casually places his hat on your head when you're both back off the floor and relaxing.

Cowboy!Crocodile likes you wearing his hat...

~~~

Save a horse, ride a WHAT? Exactly lol

Send me strength and good vibes to continue my stories. I'm still interested in them. I just miss the days when I could write for hours and the ideas flowed. Adulting gets in the way now

As always though, thank you for reading and don't be afraid to slid me an idea~

[myung-jaes]

hi! i just wanted to come on here again to encourage everyone to please please participate in the boycott against sm! this doesn’t just help in getting justice for seunghan, but also helps in addressing and advocating the fan parasocial relationships & bullying/mistreatment issues in the industry! please unfollow all official accounts on all platforms and avoid streaming any official content and music— here is a link of someone who made mp3 files of riize music for the boycott & for spotify users, there are podcasts with the boycotted music so that we won’t give any streams to sm! also please sign this petition if you haven’t already, and encourage other people to participate in the boycott as well!

as much as it may seem like sm had no intentions of bringing him back w the szn greetings announcement & removing him from under the riize list on their website, there is so so much progress being made with this boycott!:

- our efforts have reached many kpop stores internationally, all of which have decided to halt restocking riize merch! this also include subk which is huge considering that they have collaborated with sm artists before!

- constant trends between the hashtags on twt

- we’ve gotten the support of plenty of non-briize kpop fandoms & non-kpop fandoms (arianators, harries, swifties, beliebers, etc.)

- plenty of large influencers and creators on youtube and tiktok speaking on the situation! there is also the spread in recognition of the situation overall across social media with many videos (such as evidence of the bullying) going viral!

- we’ve reached the recognition of others in the industry, such as a tweet that was retweeted by leeteuk (an artist under sm) & a tweet by jae (former day6 member) talking about the situation!

- i believe pineapple manager also liked an ot7 post on insta?? but pls correct me if i’m wrong!

- drop of riize twt followers from 809k to 730k & riize insta from 4.2m to 3.9m

- the petition has over 260k signatures

- we’ve gotten many big and well-known news sources writing articles on the boycott and the bullying situation with seunghan as well as regarding sm and their treatment of their artists

- tons of korean news sources have released articles on the situation as well as the boycott and updates on it!

- the naver article that covered seunghan’s departure was taken down!

- recent events of ot7 k-briize joining the effort (lots of have tweeted about the hope they have for this!) and organizing a protest outside of sm on friday, the 18th!

- i believe there have also been accounts of people on twt seeing some knetz/ot6s attempting to delete evidence and/or admitting to what they did which shows that our efforts are reaching them! (PLEASE correct me if this is misinformation bc my sources are a few accts on twt!)

please let me know if i am missing any other points of progress and i will add it!

if you would like to continue to make a change beyond unfollowing official accounts:

- if you have twitter (x), please please continue to share the ongoing hashtags we have for seunghan, it is important that we don’t let them drop!

- ALSO!! do not engage with any official accounts regardless of what they post, it will defeat the purpose of the boycott!

- regarding ot6 comments, especially on wv, do NOT interact with them, ignore them! ignoring will help prevent any traction towards their comments, and help increase our efforts!

- helping with funding for ongoing fan projects! one that i’ve seen recently is the sunflowers for seunghan project! this tweet has all the info on it if you’re interested!

— MAJOR UPDATE on the flower project here pls click the link and help in any way!

- some other projects that i’ve heard of but will update more on are the airships (this link includes funding for day 2 of the flowers as well!) & there are ongoing trucks being sent that you can help support!

- there is also the protest happening on the 18th, so if you are or will be in korea during that time, please participate!

- emailing other big accounts that you may know, news sources, or those who write articles on this, or stores that still supply riize merch! (templates & links below):

— template for emailing stores who supply merch!

— template for emailing news sources!

— template for emailing journalists!

— template for other contacts within the media!

— there is also the kwangya project, here is the template!

— template for emailing sm ent!

- there are also tons of updates on the boycott on this account as well as their linktree which has so much info on what you can do for the boycott, such as plenty of email templates as i mentioned above, which i suggest everyone to look at!

again please let me know if there is anything i’m missing on any ongoing projects or updates!

[keepingitformyself]

we might just get away with it (i)

A/N: hey all!!! this is the first part of my first ever series, i’ve had this one in the drafts for a while and i’ll try my best to update it as much as i can. a-lot of this first part is just setting up readers life until their eventual meet with natasha (who goes by natalie rushman in this) this is an AU. HOPE YOU ENJOY!!!! i had a lot of fun writing this one.

ALSO: in honor of scarlett johansson opening an instagram account.

synopsis: hollywood is a tricky place for someone new like you, a certain elusive redhead is hoping for you to let her in.

pairings: writer!natasha romanoff x youngactress!reader

genre: fluff.

warnings: none.

part two found here. part ii

please do not repost my work anywhere for any reason at all. if you do see this happen to any of my stories, please let me know. thank you x.

—————————

you hadn’t been in the dating scene since you graduated college two years ago. it was a long time to go without going on a proper date with anyone, even your mother had called at one point to voice her concerns on why her only daughter hadn’t brought anyone back home to introduce.

truth be told, the mere idea of a relationship really stressed you out. especially now that you’ve been working tirelessly since the second you left college. the week after graduation your plane had already been booked four months in advance when you found out you landed the role for a lead in a film.

you left your hometown in texas and flew to la for a three month shoot. it was only in post-production for five months before the first teaser dropped and two months later the film finally hit hbo max to stream.

the success of it was enough to earn you an online following. people within the industry had reached out in hopes of getting to know you or even work with you. and now people knew your name enough for you to have been stopped a handful of times during grocery runs.

it was back to work in getting auditions and doing things that kept your artist mind flowing. it wasn’t too long before you landed a role for another lead in a netflix series.

the director of the series was a well known one. greta gerwig, it was her first time directing for tv as opposed to film, she told you she was truly impressed by your delivery in the film you’d been in months prior. you felt incredibly lucky to have even been thought of for her leading girl.

you told her you were a fan of the work she’d done. how you truly cherished her way of encapsulating the female experience through her writing and directing.

she smiled gratefully and said she hoped you’d be willing to accept the role she was practically offering to you, you knew she was just teasing. no one was stupid enough to let an opportunity like this pass. you said yes without hesitance.

it was a lot more intimidating this time around.

you were set to shoot for six months in london. a whole different country thousands of miles away from friends and family. you left home two months later.

greta was amazing, the sets were amazing, the cast was amazing, the crew you were especially grateful for. you made sure they knew that by ordering a free coffee and pastry truck to set every friday.

some of it comes as a blur to you. it’s easy to get lost in the craft when you love it so much, your mother told you once. you worked tirelessly often times worrying the ones around you but you promised you were fine. it was very easy for others to say how lovable and playful you were while still being able to maintain the professionalism that was needed on set.

it’s what they loved most about you. so it was no surprise to anyone when there started to be some conversations involving you, the star, and the series.

there had been mutterings between crew and even your own cast-mates.

you were in the city today, sat outside a corner coffee shop in mayfair. devyn, a cast mate of yours, and self proclaimed local, offered to show you around london.

‘i heard gary, one of our light technicians say that he heard the producers talk about how they’re expecting a huge rollout once they start announcing the series.’ devyn said as he sipped on his latte.

‘what do you mean?’ you took your eyes off the busy street to look at your cast mate.

‘you’re an absolute powerhouse in this series, you know that right?’ he told you seriously. ‘everyone sees it, there’s no doubt this show is gonna get big. they’re already expecting it to be.’

you cringed at his words, you were never good for taking compliments. ‘oh god, please stop.’ he smiled with a shake of his head, a look on his face that screamed, you’ll see.

turns out devyn was definitely not talking out of his ass.

greta had started to pull you out for meetings with the producers. they spoke to you about how netflix was willing to go all in for promoting.

greta told you herself, ‘although netlfix will definitely be a big help, i think just the show on its own is already set for a very promising release.’

they had you sign contracts and explained to you what would happen once filming was over. 1. you’re gonna go home and take a well needed three month break. 2. prepare yourself for what’s to come. 3. then you were to be called back in for promo shoots and teaser reels. 4. get ready for the big premiere.

‘it’s gonna be a lot, there’s no way of knowing the scale of success this will reach except that it will be huge, and a lot of that will be you.’ tony, one of the producers told you. greta along with everyone else in the meeting nodded to his words.

‘yeah, some stills from some of the finished scenes released a few weeks ago. it’s easy to say a lot of people seemed to make noise from that.’ rhys, another producer said.

your blood ran cold. although it was easy to say you were proud of how far you were able to come on such a short notice… it also sort of felt like a lot was being thrown at you all at once.

you maybe had an idea of what your life would be looking like afterwards. you remember seeing all sorts of opinions once it was found out by the world that you’d be the next lead for greta gerwig’s first ever series.

mostly everyone was excited. greta on her own was an insanely talented writer and director, people were happy to hear she’d be turning to tv and seeing what she’d come up with. you remember the week following the announcement feeling a little overwhelmed, all due to the men in cameras who had followed you around for a week.

‘rising actress Y/N Y/L/N seen leaving her west hollywood condo ahead of reports saying that she’s been casted for the lead in greta gerwig’s next directorial project.’

you’re thinking that maybe life will look like that but multiplied by a thousand, but you’re hoping not…? the success part will be great. why wouldn’t it be? it’s all you’ve ever wanted. to be a successful actress. but at the expense of having your life put on a pedestal? it was a very tricky thing to play at.

greta gave you a smile, almost teasing, like she knew the big secret that everyone else didn’t.

she leaned forward with her arms crossed on the table. ‘once this is over, it will never truly be over. are you ready for it?’

nothing could have ever prepared you enough for what would come with the release of the series. if you thought everyone knew your name before, they definitely do now.

the release of the series was just seven months after you finished filming it. it definitely had a huge rollout like everyone else said it would. you don’t remember much of the premier either. it was a bunch of flashes and getting asked questions. as soon as you got home you knocked out cold.

number one in seventy three countries was a lot. you wouldn’t even want to imagine the amount of people it took to watch you for that to happen.

but with the success of the series also came a huge amount of scrutiny on your personal life. within the week of its release you’d had an influx of followers on any social platform they could find you on.

apparently that still wasn’t enough. people were itching to know more about the new girl that had come out of nowhere and stolen their attention in just a week.

it was all very scary. it was all mostly positive, at least the things you’ve seen and been shown. your agent and team did a great job at keeping you away from all the bad. you still knew it was all there though. people loved you but people also really disliked you.

you’ve also come to learn that people chronically online are insane. especially if you give them something to hyper fixate on, you knew of the tweets and posts people had been making of you. it made you absolutely freak out how fast people were to find out every little thing there was to know about you in such a short time.

‘i want you to go home for the week. not home in LA, home as in with your mom.’ samantha, your agent, told you. samantha along with your publicist fred, had seen firsthand what was being said online. she’s been in the industry long enough to know how ugly it can get for the victims, you were young and she wanted to protect you from that as much as possible.

‘i called your mom, she’s already expecting you home by tomorrow morning. your plane leaves at midnight.’ you nodded gratefully. the tension in your shoulders had slouched a little after hearing that. you missed your mom and you were scared as shit right now.

samantha was there in the uber when you were dropped off. she bid you goodbye and told you she’d call you for details on the next flight back to LA. ‘rest as much as you can, the press tour is gonna hit real hard.’

now came the insanely difficult part. the week back home went too fast and now you’re on a plane back to LA where your agent and a stylist were awaiting your arrival.

as soon as you’re off the gate a beefy man in jeans and a polo helps to escort you towards your luggage and eventually the car. ‘ma’am, just a heads up. there’s paps.’ he tells you before quickly ushering you out the glass doors and into the suv.

you don’t remember much after that. just that as soon as you arrived to your condo you were quickly pushed into a room with a stylist and pushed into another car after that.

the week had gone fast for the amount you’ve been doing. you’d met up with your cast-mates for the first time in a while and you were happy for that. most days it was just going to interviews answering questions, promoting, playing question games, more questions, etc…

it was finally friday. but promo was far from over. ‘you’re flying out tomorrow morning to new york and then we’re off to europe for the week.’

tonight was the huge post-premier party for the series. it was expected that there’d be quite a few well known names attending tonight aside from the cast. although a part of you was dreading another night of questions and just overall socializing, you knew it was needed to network.

cameras flashed in your face and people shouted your name upon arrival, but people were quick to let you in. ‘there’s a lot of people who want to speak with you.’ samantha tells you. you nod and put on your best brave face for the night.

samantha lingers around you as you cycle through speaking with all kinds of people. producers, actors, writers and the like. the first two hours fly by and things have reached some sort of stasis by then.

you’re in the middle of a conversation with some cast mates when tony— who you recognize as one of your producers— walks up to you with a redhead in tow.

‘the woman of the hour!’ he raises his arms to hug you.

‘i have to introduce you to natalie! she’s an excellent writer!’ the redhead next to him who you now know as natalie lets out a dry laugh at the man’s words. he was very obviously drunk.

and you see now that she is very obviously attractive.

she takes a few steps towards you and sticks out her hand for you to shake.

‘i hear you’re the talk of the town. have not stopped reading about you online.’ the smirk she wears makes you appreciate her beauty even more.

it was true. you were everywhere— in the tabloids, the headlines…natasha indulged in every single piece of information about you that she came across.

she also might’ve convinced tony to somehow introduce you two when she found out he was working with you.

she was a fan since your last film, and as a working screenwriter for film and television, she caught a bit of inspiration from seeing you on her screen.

‘i’ve gotta say, i was really impressed by your performance in this show. greta is a long time friend, she did good in choosing you.’ natalie compliments.

‘oh, thank you! it was a pleasure to work with her…she’s great.’ you cringe at your words. you still aren’t any better at taking these compliments no matter how many you get.

natalie smiles at you in silent understanding. she’s picked up on the small awkwardness that underlies the conversation.

you let out a low huff and motion towards the bartender to get you a shot of tequila. natalie quirks an eyebrow at your order but doesn’t question it.

‘do you want a drink?’ you turn to natalie with a smile. not only is your social battery slowly starting to diminish but talking to someone like natalie will have you saying nonsense.

you figure you’ll need a drink if you’re gonna continue to speak with her.

‘a diet coke will do me right. i’m driving home tonight.’ she says, the bartender nods and fixes your drinks.

an hour later and the drinks are sure to have calmed you down. in fact they’ve done more than just calm you down.

natalie and you spend a long while talking about anything and everything. you bond over being major nerds when it comes to philosophy. she tells you about how she double majored in philosophy and english at nyu.

‘my love for english had always existed but after taking a philosophy course my freshman year, it’s like i needed to write about these things that were talked about. i needed people to see what i thought about.’ natalie explains to you.

you’ve come to enjoy natalie despite only have met her about an hour and a half ago.

you tell her about how you were a huge thespian in high school and entering college, how philosophy was an added bonus when you figured out they both go very well together.

you’re grasping her arm as you explain it to her.

‘i mean genuinely i would hear so much about aristotle in my ethics class and then he’d somehow be connected to creating the 6 elements of a play! how crazy is that?!’

natalie is trying hard to concentrate on your words. you’d think it’d be a lot easier for her given the fact that she hasn’t had a single drop of alcohol…but all she can pay attention to is your lips. how they’ve now plumped up slightly due to your drinking.

she’s completely smitten with you by now, and she’s just met you. you’re definitely not like what the internet makes you out to be. for the most part, it really is just the alcohol in you.

you continue to ramble on.

‘honestly, i think socrates is good guy— like he has some great ideas but it’s kinda annoying how he thinks his way is the only way and he makes it his entire personality— ugh hold on i need to go piss.’

you’re clearly too drunk to care about what words leave your mouth. natalie doesn’t seem to mind it— and quite frankly neither do you.

‘do you need help getting there?’ natalie is quick to ask. all in good intentions, of course.

‘uhhh, yeah.’ you’re quick to agree. you have a rule, always travel in pairs when alcohol is present.

your arm is hooked to natalie’s as she helps lead you to the restrooms. it’s here when you get a slight whiff of her. you cringe at how weird you think of it in your head.

but she smells awfully appealing. like suede, lemon and a fireplace. all combined.

‘you smell really nice,’ you say, too worried about your bladder to care.

you feel vibrations of a chuckle leave natalie, you smile when you see her smiling too.

you nearly run into a stall as soon as you’re in the seemingly empty bathroom, thank god, you think. pee anxiety is a real thing.

you feel a little more level headed after doing your business. natalie waits by the door staring as you dry your hands.

‘feel better?’ you hear her ask.

‘much,’ you smile, a drunk one, your mind a little hazy.

‘i had a fun time tonight, with you, i mean.’ you find yourself saying.

she quirks an eyebrow. you continue.

‘i’ve had a really stressful past few weeks, it was nice to just…drink and talk knowing my words wouldn’t be plastered on some magazine issue the next day.’ you finish. your body is still buzzing. the alcohol making your body slightly move in place. but nonetheless you feel oddly content.

natalie smiles. a really big one.

‘i’m glad i could help take the edge off,’ she says.

you chuckle, turn to the mirror and make sure your makeup is still in place. a ding from your phone makes itself known, indicating a message. you dig through your clutch bag to get it.

we’re leaving now, you have an early start. plane to nyc leaves at 7:35am.

the text message from samantha reads.

you huff.

‘sorry to cut this short, natalie. my presence is needed near the entrance. i have to be in new york tomorrow before noon.’ you smile apologetically

she smiles. a part of her wasn’t surprised at all. you’re you, and everyone wants to be around you. she was surprised she even had your attention for more than an hour.

she nods. ‘i get it, can i ask why though?’

‘interview with fallon, i think.’ is all you say before you step closer to the redhead and press a kiss to her cheek. you think nothing of it.

‘truly, it was lovely to meet you natalie.’ and she doesn’t have the chance to reply before you’re out the restroom door.

natalie realizes she never got your number.

two days later, she’s made it back to her home in new york. natalie decides to shake off the jet lag with late night televison and a glass of wine in hand.

ironically, jimmy fallon is on.

‘please welcome…!’ and she sees you appear before her.

she is so captivated, she doesn’t realize she’s finished the bottle of pinot grigio next to her.

stupid as it sounds, this is when natalie rushman decided she wanted to be a part of whatever world you were creating for yourself.

[nightlyrequiem]

Be Still My Heart

Chapter 23- Siege

Masterlist AO3 Next Previous

New Chapter Every Saturday

You're the best in the meth industry but a new product suddenly pops up. You and your boss, Valeria, must figure out who is making it so you can take back the market. All the while tension is building between the two of you.

A/N: Ngl, I've been feeling so discouraged as of late. I had to force myself to write this last night because I'll be damned if I miss an update.

Tags/Warnings: Illegal Substances, Boss Employee Relationship, Angst, Some Hurt/Comfort, Violence, Manipulation, Suggestive Themes, Smut (But Only in CH19.), Dual POV

They're here. The house feels even smaller and more crowded with twelve extra people inhabiting it. They smuggled with them firearms and you even glimpsed the small, round, green body of a grenade in one of the duffle bags. How they managed to sneak these cross the border, you're not sure. But you're glad they did. You had felt determined and confident a few days ago but now you're just nervous. The closer Doomsday approaches, the more worried you become. People will die. On both sides, you know. As Valeria discusses the plan again in full detail, you scan the faces in the room. Bright, full of colour, and alive. And you wonder which of them won't be returning home.

You glance at Valeria. Feeling a sharp pang at the very real possibility that it could be her. Your feelings around her as of late have been... complicated, to say the least. Finding out about her lie was crushing and you've been angry with her ever since but those feelings, whatever they are, haven't completely gone away. You've been keeping your distance, comforted by the thought that you can always make up with each other anytime, but what if she dies? You pick at your cuticles.

Valeria had told you that Alain would be teaching you how to use a sniper rifle, but she's inexplicably taken up the task herself. You assumed she'd use it as an opportunity to argue with you about her place in your life. Try to justify her lie to you. But she didn't. She remained professional while teaching you how to set up the stand, feeding the magazine, and how to slow your breathing. You've never felt more distant. Everyone seems to be excited for the fight to come. Laughing loudly around mouthfuls of cheap pizza and beer. You don't understand why they don't seem more frightened. You don't join in on the fun, instead choosing to haunt the upstairs. Confining yourself to your room. You lay down early and try to sleep but end up just lying there for hours. 

The noise downstairs dwindles until finally stopping altogether. You hear the door to the bedroom slowly creak open. Valeria walks in, clothing rustles as she undresses and climbs onto the mattress. You resist the urge to call out to her. Feeling a desire to talk. Wanting reassurance you're not sure she's capable of giving you.

The next night arrives in a flash. You've felt disoriented all day. Like you're a clock behind on daylight savings. You're in a truck with Valeria, Alain, Rick, and a guy you don't recognize. Your heart pounds hard in your chest. You feel like you can't get enough breath into your lungs. This is what you wanted, to be a part of this, but now you want to go back. You're scared. The realization brings you shame. You make the smart decision to keep it to yourself. You glance at Valeria from the corner of your eye. Impressed by her calm, aloof demeanor. You suppose it's not that odd. She was in active service in The Special Forces for ten years, and a part of the cartel for almost just as long. Valeria's been trained to be in dangerous situations. 

The truck and few cars behind it stop a little away from the compound. The groups getting out of the vehicles. A few words are traded for confirmation and reiteration's sake. Valeria divides everyone up into their groups and has everyone grab a walkie-talkie. A pang of discomfort strikes you. Everyone here has had some sort of training before. Experienced in active combat. You shouldn't have come. You fight back panic as you take your own walkie and your gear. Valeria directs you to the peeking hill in the distance. Telling you to find a spot as high up as you can with the clearest view. She tells you that you and Alain will be on channel two, the raid groups on channel six.

After Valeria makes sure the walkies have their reach and with the snipers in place, she sets the ball rolling. She gives Alain the signal. Using shriveling desert shrubs, she waits for the first guard to be put down with a bullet before slipping behind the startled second and slitting his throat. She holds a hand over his mouth to muffle the noise and lets him fall from her grasp. Inside the compound is mostly empty. Just a house and a barn like Rick said. Valeria keeps an eye out for people and dogs. Keeping close to the side and staying hidden behind gutted cars. A trio of men walk out from the bar, chattering to one another loudly. She signals to two of her men to follow her around the hood of the car. Slowly creeping up behind the unsuspecting men.

The moon as her witness, Valeria and her soldiers quickly neutralize the trio. Seething sharp blades into the leathery skins of their jugulars. She calls the North end team to come around and guard the front, to keep anyone from leaving. She orders the South and East teams to cut through the fence and surround the house, blocking the exits. She and her own team enter the dark house. Seeing it mostly empty. The wooden floors are dusty, and the furniture has been draped in white sheets. The pictures on the wall suggest that this was once a nice home. Two men search the main floor, and she takes two men to search the basement with her, Grimacing at how badly the stairs creak under their combined weight.

The basement is partially unfished. With exposed piping from opened up walls and polished hard wood floors. Stuck in a perpetual state of renovation. Right as one of her men rounds the corner a gunshot muffled by a silencer rings out in the silence. At the same moment, her guy downstairs is capped in the skull. Blood spraying from an exit wound as he crumples to the floor like a sock puppet. Shit. So much for getting this done smoothly. Her and Rick both duck down. Watching the corner sharply. After a few minutes of nothing she signals to Rick to throw a flash bomb. It rolls into the room, and she closes her eyes right as it goes off. Just barely catching herself from being momentarily blinded.

Someone grunts and a man comes stumbling out from around the corner. Desperately rubbing his eyes. Valeria jumps him and plunges her knife into his neck. more shots upstairs pierce the silence. Valeria can only hope that her men are taking care of themselves. She continues forward. Coming to a makeshift lab. Not quite still equipped with any of the fancy equipment of her own, but she can still find herself appreciating the setup. On the counter she notices somethings still cooking. Her head swivels around the room, looking for any places a person could be hiding.

The compound remains empty of rival man or dog. Apart from the Cartel Soldiers lined up at the front and surrounding the house, there's nothing. You shift again for the fifth time in a minute. Struggling to get comfortable in the dirt and rocks. You sweep your eyes across the surrounding are and startle at the sight of a truck kicking up dust as it approaches. That doesn't look like friends. You scramble for your radio, hands slickened with sweat.

Beep. "Cliff-Two to South, Cliff-Two to South." You say, feeling harassed for time.

Beep. "South. What it is it?" Someone responds.

Beep. "Hostiles approaching in a truck at entrance."

Beep. "Get rid of them. If there's any stragglers, North should take care of them." He says.

Get rid of them. You've never killed anyone before, despite spending so much time around people who have. You've thought about it before though. Imaging how you would feel if you ever did take a life. Now that you're in that situation... you feel like puking a little bit. You're not sure you can. Regardless, you radio Alain and catch him up on the plan. You angle your sniper and watch through the crosshair as the truck rumbles to a stop. The guards at the front wield their guns and slowly approach it. Three men step out of the truck and your finger hovers over the trigger. Mentally psyching yourself up for this.

[nebraskas]

4/26/24 Nebraska/IA Tornadoes

a continuously updated list of resources

last updated 4/27/24 at 8:13 AM CST; find how to help those affected at the bottom

All

Aid/Assistance/Reunification

If you are disabled and impacted by tornadoes, call Disability & Disaster Hotline 800-626-4959 or email hotline@disasterstrategies.org (per The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies on X)

Nebraska Humane Society can house animals that need emergency shelter. Contact Animal Control at 402-444-7800 ext. 1. (per NE Humane Society on X)

Footage

Images and videos from across the storm's path.

Bennington

Aid/Assistance/Reunification

Three Timbers Church - S 2nd and Warehouse Street, St. John's Lutheran Church - N Molly Street and Howard Lane, and City Hall - 156th Street and Warehouse Street are all locations to find assistance. (per KETV7)

Clean Up

13505 N. 216th St. in Bennington needs to keep several things in mind:

The landfill will be open 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday.

Green debris limbs must be cut into pieces 4 feet or smaller.

Debris can be mixed.

Home appliances and hazardous materials are not accepted.

(per KETV7)

Blair

Aid/Assistance/Reunification

The Red Cross has set up a location at First Lutheran Church at 2146 Wright Street (per KETV7)

Elkhorn

Aid/Assistance/Reunification

A Facebook page where people are offering resources

Common Ground Recreation Center at 1701 Veterans Drive will serve as an overnight shelter for those affected and pets. (per KETV7)

Anyone needing relief or assistance due to the storms, St. Patrick’s at 204th and Maple Street is your go to. Do not go for unrelated reasons. (per Omaha Scanner on X)

Command Post has moved to 204th and West Maple in St Patrick’s Church parking lot. Media staging is now at the Walgreens parking lot at 202 W Maple (per OPD on X)

Currently there is a reunification center being established at Elkhorn Middle School located at 3200 N 207th street for parents. (per Douglas County 911 on X)

PETS: PetSmart Veterinary Services is at the Walgreens at 202nd and Maple in Elkhorn for pet triage and stabilizing services for animals needing care from tornado injuries. (per Brian Beech on X)

Clean Up

Pheasant Point Landfill as a debris drop-off location, closes at 3 PM today (per KETV7)

Damage

Residents who have suffered damage to their homes in today's severe weather event should call 2-1-1 or go online at http://dogis.org/211 to make a report. (per Douglas County on X)

Omaha

Aid/Assistance/Reunification

Heartland Hope Mission has two locations in west and south O that offer help. West - 15555 Industrial Road, South - 2021 U Street (per KETV7)

How to Help

NE Humane Society is taking food and litter donations at 8929 Fort Street; also accepting monetary donations. (per NE Humane Society on X)

On 4/27/24 at 7:30 AM there will be a meeting at Relevant Church 21220 Elkhorn Drive held by Rapid Response America to help with disaster relief. Bring your own PPE (gloves, long sleeved shirts, closed toed shoes) and you will have to sign a waiver. More info here.

A Facebook page where people can offer help

My City Church is partnering with other area churches to offer assistance. It's asking for volunteers to help in a variety of ways:

Meet at the Relevant center at 212th Street and West Maple Road at 7:30 a.m. Saturday. Volunteers are asked to bring chainsaws, trucks, trailers, shovels, rakes, brooms, garbage bags, etc. to help clean up

Meet at Brookside Elkhorn Campus at 9 a.m. Saturday. Volunteers need to bring necessary tools and work gloves.

(per KETV7)

[fullgulosity]

Hey everyone, so here’s an update.

I’ve been trying hard to move on and start over but it’s been rough, both emotionally and physically. Every day is a struggle, and I can’t seem to get what happened to me out of my head.

It’s feels like whole incident is being played in my head on loop 24/7, and it’s gotten so bad it’s affected my job AND my health. I can’t work commercial semi-truck tires in my state, as it wouldn’t be safe for me, the drivers, and others on the side of the road. It’s a pretty specialized set of skillsets not found at many other industries, not even “regular” car tires… so idk what I can even do in the state I’m in.

On the good news side of it all, I’ve gotten my old man to understand just how badly he and my relatives were treating me, and we’re going to make sure they understand just how badly they messed up.

My uncle (one of the people who beat me) lives in MY family home RENT FREE with his whole household, running a business that isn’t even his, not to mention the uncles of mine at the truck center who robbed me of my hours and abused me both on the job and off work- all of it isn’t even theirs and they seem to have forgotten that. They’ll remember soon enough.

Other than that massive rant, I’ve started with a psychiatrist!!! The guy was horrified at what he saw (the video proof!!!), but nonetheless he thinks there’s more than just hope for me. I’m currently overseas again, mostly because psychiatry is extremely expensive in the US, but also because my old man is putting in the work to be a better person and support me during this difficult time.

I had my doubts obviously, but I’ve seen a complete 180 from my old man and those around him, he’s actually putting in the effort to be a better person. He’s genuinely never done this before, and it shows, but he seriously trying and I say that with 100% confidence. Trust me when I say this, cause I’ve known him my whole life and he’s NEVER done this. Tbh It’s kinda refreshing?

It’s going to be a long and difficult process, but I can see the path to happiness. It’s almost in sight, so I just have to keep moving forward, even if it feels like there’s no hope.

I WILL get better, no matter what. ❤️‍🩹

Oh and btw, thank you to everyone who donated to the GoFundMe!! ☺️ with those funds I was able to keep my phone plan and car insurance paid during the worst of it (I lived in/slept in my car for a hot minute), so thank you again from the bottom of my heart!!! ❤️❤️❤️

[artisticdivasworld]

Shifting Gears in the Trucking Industry: The Impact on Owner Operators in 2025

The trucking industry is buzzing with speculation about what the Trump administration might mean for truckers, especially the small owner/operators who form the backbone of the industry. With policies and regulations likely to shift, the big question is: Will these changes make life easier or harder for independent truckers? Let’s look at what might be in store. For starters, there’s talk about…

[rosiesdisneydrama]

Witch Way Next? CH 3: What Bad Luck

Ford and Fiddleford made it to New Mexico in near record time, by Ford’s calculations. To the little town of Chaltuga, where Stanley was laid up in the hospital. The Doctors say it'll be another few days before his twin finally comes around, but it should be safe to take him home when he does. All that's left is to get settled in to wait.

AN: Writing Ford is shockingly hard. I had to maintain the balance of "Possibly Autistic Adult" with "Higher Education Vocabulary" while ALSO putting this man through Unresolved Emotions and still having a story sprinkled with lore at the end.

I hope I did this man justice. And no Bill yet, I needed to tackle one hurdle at a time and he was just a little too much for this.

They made it to New Mexico in near record time, by Ford’s calculations.

Fiddleford had been right, of course, that both of them taking turns driving (and resting) in the truck enabled them to cut a tremendous amount of time out of the drive. They did stay in a motel overnight at least once, despite the worries that were eating at them. Ford even remembered to call the hospital and ask for an update once they were checked in. Which was, thankfully, that Stanley had made it through the surgeries. But they were keeping him asleep medically for just a little longer.

(They were being cautious, was the explanation. But he couldn’t confirm that he was related yet so that was the most they could disclose to him over the phone.)

It had been an emergency when they called, so they’d had to make the trip quickly. (He had to be there for Stanley. He had to.) Even if it resulted in them both being very sore and somewhat irritable by the time they finally arrived in the city that housed St. Bartholomew's.

The city, Chaltuga, was on the smaller side as far as cities went and was surprisingly forested on one side of the city. He hadn’t thought there was much greenery in the southwest, outside of bushes and cacti, let alone enough for a full forest as thick as the one he could see as they drove into town. However, that may have spoken more about Ford’s lack of travels to that particular area of the country than anything else. (He wasn’t much of a traveler, outside of the hiking he did for his research.)

Chaltuga was a way-point city, of sorts. Rather than any one specific pull or industry of its own, it formed from people stopping by and resting for a day or two before moving on to other cities. Then it swelled in size from there, gaining its own market and staying strength from the people who came and never left.

It wasn’t a bad place, from what he could tell. It was a little kitschy if anything. Many of the buildings on the road were very “chic” looking. Everything looked very artsy from what he could see outside the windows of the truck.

He wondered if that kind of casual pull was what had drawn Stanley there. He’d always been good at fast talking and drumming up interest. The idea of him working as a salesman in a shop in a comfortable little town like this was… Actually pretty easy to picture, when he set aside his own feelings.

(He’d always thought Stan would be fine. He didn’t need to worry about his troublemaker brother. Like Pa told him.)

It still… It still didn’t feel real.

The idea that Stanley, of all people, was in the hospital. Part of him was still certain that it was a mistake and Stanley was fine. His brother was fine and off doing… Whatever it was he’d been doing over the past decade that he’s been gone. Traveling and putting all the people skills he learned from their Ma to use. Stanley, like their Ma, had always been good with people.

He’d been better with them than Ford had been growing up. And able to get himself both in and out of trouble by himself easily. He was able to take care of himself just fine. Like Pa had said, he didn’t need to worry about whatever his brother was up to.

After all, it had been ten years and it was only just now that Ford was hearing about him. Even though it was because… Because he was an emergency contact.

(Did he have their parents listed? Or was it just Ford? Was he even listed as family or did the hospital just assume they were based on their names?)

Stanley called Ma on occasion, he knew that much. She’d told him about it the few times that Ford remembered to set his research down and call her. She’d mentioned talking to Stan every once in a while, that he’d been by a particular city at some point, but not much more than that. It was always a passing note, sandwiched between other things that Ma wanted to tell him about before Pa told her to hang up.

(Long-distance calls were expensive, after all. And Pa hated spending money unnecessarily.)

Not that he could remember, anyway. And he’d never really thought to ask about him when she mentioned it. He’d needed to focus on his schooling, getting as many credits as he could to get the highest degrees and diplomas that he could manage.

Those calls were likely how Stan had gotten his contact information. Ma had probably given it to him, hoping Stan would reach out to him or something. Maybe. It was also possible that Stan had just looked him up after Ford had gotten into the papers after graduating.

Perhaps he ought to ask Ma the next time he called her. Just to clarify how his brother had gotten his phone number.

(Sweet Moses, how was he going to tell Ma about this? How would Pa react when he found out? Or even Shermie? Sure, their brother had moved out before they did and probably wouldn’t be home when Ford made the call but… He was still family and deserved to know that something had happened. Ford would have to call him directly to tell him.)

Fiddleford was at the wheel for this final leg of the drive, quickly reading signs and following the directions Ford figured out from the old gazetteer that his friend kept in the truck. It might have been a touch out of date, as he was sure he could see a few roads that weren’t listed on their map as they drove by, but the hospital was on it and that was the most important thing.

His friend was muttering about needing to get a new gazetteer while they were in town, squinting around to read the street signs as he drove. Which was probably a good idea, even if he didn’t travel very much.

“There it is!” Fiddleford said, his relief bleeding through when they finally spotted the building they were looking for.

Ford looked up at the clean, sturdy building that made up the hospital. Solid, red brickwork with lots of duller colors and surfaces. Likely to avoid blinding visitors in the bright sunlight normal for the area and to keep things cool in the prevalent heat.

(Because it was hot out here, good gracious. Wasn’t it supposed to be September? Fiddleford had just laughed at him when he’d commented on it.)

Fiddleford pulled up to the front doors, shifting the car into park but not turning off the engine. He turned in the driver’s seat to look over at Ford.

“Alright, you head in and start sorting through all the papers and such. I’ll find a spot to park and meetcha inside,” Fiddleford said, nodding at the front doors as he did. “Since it’ll probably take a bit to get through it all and there’s no sense in both of us standing around when you’re the only one that needs to fill out the papers.”

“Right, I- I’ll see you in a few minutes then.” Ford climbed out of the car, clutching his bag tightly so he wouldn’t drop it by accident. He took a fortifying breath, listening as Fiddleford left to find a space big enough for his pickup, then turned to the front doors and forced his feet to carry him forward.

The lobby was small, as far as hospital lobbies went, and sparsely decorated. A few low-maintenance plants and a landscape painting or two, some decently comfortably looking seats for people waiting, nothing too over the top for a hospital. The front desk had a single nurse manning it, focused on something on her computer screen.

She looked up at him when he approached the desk and gave a polite smile.

“Oh, good morning sir. What can I do for you today?” Her tone was polite and professional.

“I am Doctor Stanford Pines. I was called about a patient who was brought into your hospital a few days ago. A Mr. Stanley Pines?” He said, trying to keep his voice calm and polite. He habitually folded his hands behind him as he continued, “I believe he’s my brother, but it still needs to be confirmed with the doctors here.”

The nurse straightened up in her seat, immediately typing at her computer.

“Of course, sir. Give me just a moment to check the records.” There was a moment of silence as she worked, then she smiled up at him. “Yes, he’s been cleared from the ICU and is in a patient care room now. I’ll page Dr. Matthews and he can help you get everything squared away.”

(He could see the appeal of personal business computers in this situation. Being able to quickly check if a patient was in and who their attending doctor was without having to dig through a file cabinet would certainly make things like this easier.)

He listened to the page over the hospital speakers then the nurse looked back at him.

“Please have a seat sir, the doctor should be here shortly.” Ford simply nodded, seating himself on one of the couches to the side of the room. It was within sight of both the doors to the parking lot and the ones that led further into the hospital. Making it easy for both Fiddleford and the doctor to find him.

There was a small part of him that still didn’t think it was Stanley.

That there was some mistake and it wasn’t his brother who was staying in one of these rooms. That it was a simple case of mistaken identity. Stanley wasn’t an uncommon name, after all. Nor was the name Pines. So it wasn’t impossible for there to be more than one “Stanley Pines” in the country.

(But, as the more logical part of his brain argued, how many of them would have Ford’s contact information on their person? He didn’t have a way to refute that.)

He took off his glasses and rubbed at his forehead, the wondering and worry were giving him a headache. It didn’t feel real, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t. The irrational desire to deny what was happening was difficult to ignore. He barely noted when Fiddleford arrived beside him, trying to keep himself calm as he waited for the doctor to arrive.

His friend didn’t say anything. Simply sitting beside him and offering his silent support.

“Dr. Pines?” Stanford nearly jumped at the unfamiliar voice. He put his glasses back on and looked up at the man now standing nearby.

“Ah, yes. That would be me.” He stood up, holding out a hand to shake. He saw the man’s eyes flicker down to his hands, widening ever so slightly at the six fingers there. But, to Ford’s immense relief, he didn’t comment on them. “Dr. Matthews, I presume?”

“That’s correct. We still need to confirm some things but I suppose the easiest to start with would be…” He said, flipping through the clipboard in his hands. He carefully pulled something from the board and handed it to Ford. “Can you confirm that this is your brother?”

It was a driver’s license. A driver’s license with his brother’s name on it, and a face identical to his own pictured on its front. It was from a different state (of course, Stanley would have needed to get a new license after he turned twenty-four) but there was no mistaking it.

That was Stanley. That was his twin brother.

He swallowed the lump in his throat.

“Yes- yes, sir. That’s- That’s my brother.” The doctor gave him a sad, sympathetic look. (Why wouldn’t he? Ford had just confirmed that his brother was in their hospital.) He could feel Fiddleford set a hand on his shoulder, a silent show of support.

“I see. This way then, please. He’s no longer at high risk, so I can take you both to his room now. We’d like to keep him here for another day or two longer for monitoring. After that, you can bring him home again.”

He nodded numbly, trailing after the doctor as he led him to Stanley’s room. (Sweet Moses, his brother was in the hospital.) He could hear Fiddleford trotting beside him, though he wasn’t sure his assistant would be allowed in since he wasn’t family.

It didn’t matter to Ford. He would just let Fiddleford in himself if the doctor tried to stop him.

He stopped the moment Dr. Matthews did.

“Here we are,” he said, waving to the door beside them. “Mr. Pines is on very strong painkillers at the moment, so he likely won’t be awake for a while. But you can still see him.”

Ford was only half-listening, opening the door and stepping through.

The room was a relatively standard hospital room. Plain white walls (one of which had a wide window set into it) with an equally plain white ceiling, a plain gray tiled floor, a few stiff chairs for visitors to sit down in, and a rolling table for patient meals to be served on. There was a simple light set into the wall over the bed that could prop the patient to a sitting position, and some monitoring equipment beside it.

(An IV and a heart monitor. There was equipment for putting a patient on oxygen as well, but it wasn’t in use. Thank Moses that it didn’t need to be .)

The most important part, the one thing that Ford couldn’t tear his eyes from, was laid out on the bed. His twin brother, Stanley Pines, whom he hadn’t seen in a decade, was finally in front of him.

Stanley was asleep, just as the doctor said he’d be, and he would have looked peaceful right then if not for the fact that he was obviously in a hospital.

Part of Ford wanted to snatch the clipboard off the end of the bed and start reading the notes on it, find out exactly what kind of injuries had landed Stanley there in the first place. But he wasn’t sure the doctor would be very happy with him if he did that. (After the man left, then. He would save his snooping for then.)

“What- What happened to him?” he asked instead, looking back to the man politely waiting just inside the door.

“We believe your brother was the victim of a serious animal attack. He’s shockingly lucky, as we’ve had a large number of them over the past month but he’s the first to actually survive the encounter. That said, his injuries are still rather severe and need some specific care. It will take several months for him to recover, at the very least.”

Ford felt sick after hearing that. Animal attacks were nothing to joke about. They could do serious, long-term damage if they weren’t tended to quickly and thoroughly. Especially during the recovery process. They were some of the riskiest injuries to deal with simply because of how often people didn’t take them as seriously as they should have. He’d done some research into the kind of things he needed to be careful of while studying in Gravity Falls, to avoid being felled by something he hadn’t thought was dangerous, and… well, some of the risks made him nervous, to say the least.

(Most common were serious, life-threatening infections from bites that weren’t properly cleaned… Animal mouths were riddled with all kinds of bacteria that humans normally never encountered. The wound had to be carefully monitored because of that.)

“We’ve had to stitch them closed, despite the usual procedures for animal wounds, because of how large many of them are. They’ll need to be cleaned regularly, with medicine applied to them each time. We can send along notes to allow your local doctors to inject antibiotics once you get home.” The doctor looked directly at Ford as he continued. “I would advise against leaving him home alone while he’s recovering. He’ll likely need help around the house to avoid the injuries reopening during that time. Mr. Pine’s right arm and left leg had some of the worst damage, so he’ll need some physical therapy after his release.”

“Will we need to look into getting a wheelchair fer him? Or will he just need a crutch?” Fiddleford asked.

Ford was relieved he’d come with him. For some reason, he couldn’t seem to get his voice to work to ask important questions. The things he needed to know to help Stanley recover. But Fiddleford knew the right questions to ask. The things they needed to clarify while they were there. He knew he could leave it to him.

He let the conversation flow around him, not quite tuning them out but not really paying much attention to what was being said. Instead, he let his eyes roam over his brother’s sleeping form.

The covers were pulled up to his chest, and his left arm was laid atop the covers with the IV and heart monitor connected to it. (Likely because of the injuries sustained on his right arm.) Most of his twin was covered by the blankets, but what little Ford could see was covered by bandages. He could see them peeking out from under the hospital gown, wrapping their way around Stanley’s neck and over the left side of his face. They didn’t go over his eyes, thankfully, but it still would be difficult to take care of without help.

(They were still dangerously close to them, nonetheless. It made the skin near Ford’s own eyes prickle in phantom discomfort.)

His hair was longer than Ford could ever remember it being, as well. It was certainly longer than Pa would have let him grow it, he would have never let either of them have hair that long. Although, for some reason, his bangs were very short and messy looking. As if Stanley had decided to cut them himself instead of going to a barber. But he’d cut them with a knife instead of a set of scissors. It wasn’t quite a mullet but it was very close.

Stan was a tad more broad-shouldered than Ford remembered, too. Just enough that he could probably lift Ford without much trouble, even if he was more in shape than he’d been as a teenager. It was the kind of build found in someone who’d done a lot of heavy labor-type work. It could also be gained (and maintained) by regular visits to a gym or some other kind of regular exercise regime. He could only assume that Stan had tried to keep his boxing regime despite not using the gyms at home.

It seemed that he’d gotten a lot tanner than Stanford, on top of the other little differences he could see. It looked like he’d spent a lot of time out under the sun over the past summer. And maybe Stan had done just that. Ford didn’t know what Stanley did for a living, after all. He… He didn’t know what his brother had been doing for the past ten years.

(Where did his brother even live? That train of thought was… Uncomfortable. Because he didn’t know. It’s his brother, shouldn’t he know?)

“Ford?” Fiddleford’s voice cut through the mental haze he’d slid into, making him jump slightly.

“Yes?” He asked, trying to keep his voice even. Looking around he could see that Dr. Matthews was gone, though he had no idea where. “Where’s- ?”

“The doctor left to get some of yer brother’s things,” Fiddleford answered. He gently herded Ford to a chair, which he sank into. “He said one of ‘em is a motel key fer a place nearby, and it’s probably where the rest of yer brother’s stuff is.”

Oh, so then this likely wasn’t the town Stanley lived in. He rather doubted Stanley owned a motel, he never seemed the sort when they were growing up. So it was likely the key to the room he was staying in while in town. He was just passing through the area on his way to somewhere else. (And he was unlucky enough to be attacked…)

“We’ll probably need to talk to the staff there to get Stanley’s things. And find a place fer us to stay ‘till the hospital clears him to leave.” Fiddleford looked at him, gaze concerned as he slowly sat down in the seat next to him. “What’s the plan fer when that happens?”

The… Plan? The thought confused him, for just a moment. Then it clicked into place.

Stanley wasn’t a local, he was staying in a motel in the area. They didn’t know where Stanley lived or how far away it was from there. And Ford didn’t want to just- Dump him at his house (wherever it may be) and then leave. Not when the doctors already said that he would need help during his recovery. The thought of it made his stomach lurch uncomfortably.

No, just walking away when his brother had just been in the hospital was not in his plans. Not this time.

“If Stanley doesn’t live close enough for us to drive to in reasonable time, then we’ll take him back to Gravity Falls and he’ll stay with me. That way there will be at least one person close by to help if he needs it. I’m sure I can shuffle things around to make it more comfortable if need be.” He gave his friend a tight smile. “We may have to slow our progress with- our project for a while. I’d rather not have Stanley running around the house unsupervised while he’s on strong painkillers.”

Fiddleford chuckled slightly, shaking his head. (Likely imagining something very different from what Ford was picturing.) 

“No, I’d imagine not. Wouldn’t want him hurting himself on something we’d forgotten to put away. Or getting an infection from the chemicals you keep around.” Fiddleford hummed, idly rubbing his chin in thought. “I suppose we’ll need to do a bit of spring cleaning when we get back then. Or at least move the more breakable stuff to either the attic or the basement.”

Ford nodded. The less that could be broken the better. It would be far too easy for any of their experiments to be damaged by someone who was on powerful pain medications.

Thankfully, the portal was down in the basement and he could easily tell Stan to not go down there. Especially since one of Stanley’s legs was injured and he would likely need a crutch. He would, hopefully, be un-inclined to try it while injured if Ford told him it wasn’t safe. Actually, now that the idea was in his head, they could probably move a large number of his more fragile projects to the bunker for the time being. It would certainly keep Stanley from damaging them by accident.

“It may be better to convert my ground floor office into a temporary bedroom. If Stanley needs a wheelchair or a crutch, then he would need help every time he went up or down the staircase. Letting him stay on the ground floor would prevent the risk of him falling in the first place.”

A wheelchair was cumbersome for people unused to them and his home wasn't designed to be accessible for someone in one. Cutting down on the difficulties would make the stay more bearable for all of them. If Stanley needed one, that was.

Had the doctor said if he needed one? He'd gotten lost in his own head and hadn’t heard…

“We won’t need to worry about a wheelchair. Seems that Stanley was lucky enough that he’s not gonna need one. But he’ll probably need a crutch for the first couple weeks and a cane later on.” Fiddleford spoke up, gently filling in gaps that Ford had missed when he’d zoned out. “Most of the injuries are bites and lacerations. No broken bones, but at least one sprained ankle. Though that oughta be healed up by the time we leave town.”

Ford felt his shoulders relax. It was still uncomfortable, thinking about his brother being hurt like this, but knowing it wasn’t as bad as he’d first thought was making it easier. They still needed to figure out the arrangements they’d need to set up if Stanley was going to be staying with him until he recovered.

Hashing out living arrangements for him with Fiddleford’s help, hypothetical though they were right then, helped Ford clear his head. Made him feel more in control of the situation.

(It was always easier when he had a task he could put his mind to. It made it easier to deal with a lot of things over the years. Putting his mind to work was easier than letting himself spiral needlessly.)

Fiddleford had plenty of thoughts and ideas for things that Ford hadn’t considered that would make things easier for all of them. Especially to help Stanley to work around the injuries he had to deal with. Things that would be secure but still accessible to someone who was having issues moving. Or for someone who could only use one hand to do things.

He was hesitant to let Fiddleford start modifying his home appliances, but his friend was making some very good arguments about it. Some of them also being useful to Ford later on, if he could make them work the way he suggested he could.

(Some of those could be very good patents for Fiddleford to submit at a later date. “Nest Egg” money, as the mechanic liked to call it.)

Dr. Matthews returned as Fiddleford had started scribbling ideas for altering the shower to be more accessible.

“Ah, I see you’re… discussing preparations then.” The two looked up as the doctor walked over, depositing a box on the table they had dragged over to write on. “These are the belongings your brother had on his person when he came in. Unfortunately, you may need to get him a fresh change of clothes.”

Ford, in the morbid curiosity that sometimes got him into trouble, couldn’t help looking inside the box before the doctor had finished speaking.

On top was a worn little pocket address book, a leather wallet which was likely where they found the driver’s ID (which he still had in hand), some kind of waist bag that felt decently full yet not as heavy as it looked like it should be, a ring of keys with a single car key attached to it and several keys for locks (none of which looked like house keys, interestingly enough), and a large tag with a single key hanging off it. The last item was probably the motel key that the doctor had mentioned to Fiddleford. And underneath those items were… Under those were…

Stanley’s torn-up, bloody clothing.

Part of him wanted to pull them out. Examine the damage and try to puzzle out what animal it was that did it and help the locals identify it so it could be taken care of.

But another part of him was just- Frozen. Frozen as he stared at the blood that he knew came from his brother. They were further proof that Stanley had been hurt so badly that he’d been hospitalized. (Those were the clothes Stanley had been wearing when he was attacked.)

He swallowed and forced himself to look at the motel key, picking it up carefully.

“Do you- Do you know which motel this is for?” He asked, looking up at the doctor. The man smiled.

“Yes, actually. I have a niece who worked at that motel one summer. The Delmar, it’s closer to the edge of town. Not a bad place to stay at, but it’s not one of the fancier places to stay in town.” The Doctor listed off the directions so Ford could write them down. Then he handed a clipboard to him with several papers clipped to it. “These are the papers we need filled out for Mr. Pines, now that we’ve confirmed your relation to him. Your brother probably won’t wake up until tomorrow or the day after, but he’s stable and will be able to recover as long as he takes it slow and steady. Once he’s awake, he should be alright to check out. Please just hand over the papers at the front desk before you leave today.”

“Certainly, I’ll make sure to do that,” Ford said with a nod, shuffling the items around so he could write on the desk itself. Dr. Matthews straightened up and left. He looked up at Fiddleford once the door was closed. “Once I’ve finished filling these out, we’ll take both sets of keys and sort out Stanley’s belongings. Perhaps the motel will let us rent a room while we’re there.”

“That would make things easier,” Fiddleford said, nodding. “Guess you better start filling them out then. I’ll check the address on my maps.”

Ford turned back to the papers and started filling everything out.

(He hoped his muse would forgive the delay. But they were already making very good progress, so it should be fine.)

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

The paperwork didn’t take long, though Stanford really had to scratch through his memory at times to find what he needed to put in. It was a good thing they were twins since it meant a lot of their health issues were shared ones. (Except for the ten years after Stanley was kicked out left home.) The nurse accepted that when he said the two of them had lost contact for a while after moving across the country separately. Which wasn’t a lie, per se.

They had lost contact while traveling. That just… Wasn’t the full story behind it. (And he certainly wasn’t going to explain that to someone he didn’t even know.)

After that, he took the two sets of keys, the two of them climbed back into Fiddleford’s truck, and then they left to find the Delmar Motel.

Just like the doctor had told them, it was on the fringes of town and across the street from a combination gas station and convenience store. (Which was advertising that they sold fried chicken, of all things.)

He looked over the building as Fiddleford pulled in. It was a small place, a single-floored building that was colored in whites and blues. It probably wasn’t used by people staying for more than one or two nights. It didn’t seem like a seedy place at least. It looked cheap, yes, but not seedy.

There was some ocean theming to the motel, for some reason. Like the owner had been on a ship at some point and wanted to show the things they found neat about it. Nothing too over the top, thankfully. There were a few buoys and some oars around the motel’s sign, a lifesaver hung on the check-in door with a welcome sign attached to it, and little sailboat-shaped number plates on the doors to the rooms. There were probably more little decorations like those inside the rooms. Enough stuff to show their theming, but not so much that it looked tacky.

And he had seen tacky before. Backupsmore had a truly awful seafood place just off campus that a number of his fellow students went to… Ugh, just thinking about it made him cringe. He’d only eaten there once and refused to ever return.

The two climbed out of the truck after Fiddleford parked by a red and white car that was uncomfortably familiar to Ford. He was reasonably sure he knew whose car it was. But it was still a good idea to check first. He stepped around the back of the car to check the plate and winced.

Just as he’d thought.

It was the Stanley mobile, the same car that Stanley left home with all those years ago. He knew his brother had been attached to the old car, but he would have thought that Stan would have gotten a new one by now. It seemed that he hadn’t. (Then again, there was nothing wrong with holding onto something reliable.)

He heard Fiddleford let out a delighted noise, the kind he usually made when he saw a machine he liked. Or, in this case, a car he liked.

“Oh, it is what I thought it was! A 1965 El Diablo! Those things are major collectors' cars nowadays. It looks like the guy’s still got most of the original parts on it. He musta worked hard to keep it in good shape like this.” He looked back at Fiddleford, who was suddenly near giddy as he looked over the old car. He felt the edge of a smile starting as he watched. “Maybe the fella who owns it will let me take a look under the hood before we leave…”

“I’m sure Stanley wouldn’t mind. He’s always been proud of his car,” Ford kept his tone casual, a smile tugging at his face. He fought down a laugh as his friend’s head snapped to him.

“This is your brother’s car? How do ya know?” Fiddleford asked. Ford chuckled, pointing at the license plate.

“This is the same plate Stan had on the car when he left home. The same car, too. I’m sure of it. I remember how excited he was when he brought that thing home.” Ford couldn’t help smiling as he spoke. “He bought it for a steal from a neighbor who was retiring and planned to move south but didn’t see the point in driving both their cars down. Especially since they were only one person. He’d already saved up for months to get a car of his own and it was just- Perfect timing for Stan.”

Stanley had been near bouncing when he’d dragged Ford out of the house to show it to him. Saying that they could drive themselves around now and didn't have to walk or talk Pa into taking them places. All Ford had to do was ask and Stan would have been happy to take him anywhere he liked. It had meant a lot to him back then, especially since driving had always made Ford nervous and stressed him out too much…

He’d gotten better about it after leaving for college but he still wasn’t big on driving if he didn’t need to.

(When was the last time he thought about things like that? When was the last time he thought about happier times with his brother? Without the sting of Pa’s yelling and anger cutting in? Too long. It was too long.)

“Well, I’ll have to wait for him to come around before I ask, then.” Fiddleford paused for a moment, then, “I suppose it’s a good thing there’s two of us then. I don’t think Stanley would want to leave it behind. One of us can drive it back up. Unless I find a way to hitch it to the back of the truck. I might have a car hitch in one of my toolboxes, now that I think about it…”

He hummed quietly. A car hitch would make it easier to get the car back.

But cramming all three of them into the cab of Ford’s old pickup would be a bit of a tight fit. It may be easier to do a variant of how they drove down and just switch vehicles every few hours. That would probably be more comfortable for them all. They’d have to talk it over with Stanley since he’d be the permanent passenger no matter which plan they went with.

“We’ll have to work out the logistics later,” Ford said, gesturing to the front office. “First, we need to sort things out here. Then we can figure out how to get everyone back to Gravity Falls.”

“Fair point. We’ll circle back to this later, then,” Fiddleford said. Ford took the lead, stepping into the office. The woman who was likely the one manning the desk was watering the plants and looked up when the bell jingled.

“Oh, Mistah Pines! I was wondering where you were. Haven’t seen you around for breakfast in days. Cryin’ shame, I promised ya some good hotcakes…” She trailed off as she looked him over. And probably realized as she looked that, despite sharing a face, he didn’t look as much like his brother after a second glance. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Hello, ma’am. I’m Stanford Pines, my brother was the one who rented a room here.” The woman straightened up, looking bashful.

“Gracious, I’m terribly sorry dear. What can I do for you two gentlemen then?” She smiled kindly at him, setting the watering can down by the plants. Ford winced, slightly.

“I’m- I’m here because my brother was admitted to the hospital a few days ago,” Ford said, his tone even, despite the small stutter at the start. The woman let out a little gasp, hands fluttering to her mouth. “I need to pick up his belongings if you still have them. And, possibly, rent a room for myself and my assistant, if you have any available.”

The woman was nodding before he’d even finished speaking, hurrying behind the desk and digging through one of the drawers.

“Oh, certainly dear! In fact, the two of you can stay in Mistah Pines's room. Lemme get you the second key.”

“Are you sure?” Fiddleford asked, stepping closer to the desk.

“It’s no trouble, dearies. Mistah Pines’ room was actually a double room, it was meant for two people. It was the only one we had open when it was reserved and paid off before he arrived. Since he’s yer brother, I’m sure he won’t mind letting you stay there.”

Ford held back a twitch at that. Logically, he knew the woman didn’t know about the problems he and his brother had. But he also wasn’t fool enough to ignore when someone was making an assumption that was helpful for him.

Staying in a room that was already paid for would be much more helpful than canceling for the days that Stanley wasn’t going to be using it, and then reserving a new room for himself and Fiddleford on top of that. Especially without Stanley there to help sort out his side of the payments and paperwork.

It was simply less of a hassle to use the room that was already there. Even if it was, technically, not something they should have been doing.

“Thank you, ma’am,” was all he could really say.

“Oh, my name’s Martha, dear. Martha Wilks. My husband is the one who owns this motel and he handles most of the maintenance on the rooms. Here’s the other key!” Mrs. Wilks let out a little cheer, straightening up and presenting them with the second key to the room. “Now, this is for room twelve and it’s got two twin beds in it. Should be perfect for you two gentlemen. It’s got the usual things you find in a room these days; a TV so you can check the news, a phone in case you need to make any calls, and the bathroom even has a standing shower. We’re mighty lucky to have that last one, considering how much the water bills have been going up lately!”

Water bill? Ah right, this was New Mexico. Water was harder to get, considering how much of the state was desert. He was glad he never had to worry about that, since his cabin had a ground well that it got water from.

“What happened to Mistah Pines?” Mrs. Wilks asked hesitantly. Ford looked back at the woman, who was nervously fussing with her hands now. “I mean… He was such a nice fellow when I was talking to him.”

“Well, Stanley was the victim of an animal attack, apparently. According to the doctors we spoke to, he’ll be alright but will need time to recover,” he said. Ford didn’t want to go into too much detail. This woman seemed kind, but this felt… Private.

“Oh my! Did he go up by North Street?” Ford’s brow furrowed at that.

“North Street?”

“Yes, there have been a lot of animal attacks up there over the past month. According to the news, they think some kind of wild animal is the one doing it,” she said, a hand tapping nervously on the counter. “A lot of folks are saying coyotes, but to me, they sound more like mountain lion attacks.”

“Mountain lions?!” Fiddleford squeaked, eyes widening in shock. Ford felt his own breathing hitch at the thought. Sweet Moses…

“Oh yes! It’s the only thing big enough that I can think of that could do the kind of harm I’ve been hearing about. If I had known he was heading up there for work, I would have warned him to wait ‘till the sun was up…” Her voice trailed off. Fiddleford looked at her curiously, turning the key over in his hands.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Most of the animal attacks happened at night. Everyone assumed that you’d be safer doing any kind of work during the day instead.” Mrs. Wilks stated, leaning on the counter with a frown. “At least until animal control can finally get things back to normal over there. He must have stayed out later than he meant to…”

“But why would he even be out at night?” Ford couldn’t help muttering to himself. Poor visibility would make any kind of work very difficult.

“I think he was worried about being in trouble with the fella who hired him. The room was actually reserved by a local, who’d hired him for a job in the area. I knew he was coming, so I stayed late around the day he was supposed to arrive in town,” Mrs. Wilks answered, making Ford look back at her curiously. “He checked in real late at night. So late it was almost morning! I was out like a light after I finally hit the hay.”

Yes, that certainly sounded late. Did Stan have to make a long drive to get here? He must have to’ve arrived at a time like that.

“He slept the whole day away before he finally came in here for a town map and to ask when the nearest place to eat was. Said he was a handyman who was hired to come to town and take a look at something someone was trying to fix up by the north side of town, up by the woods. I can’t quite remember what he’d said he was doing specifically, since it’s been a couple days since then.”

A handyman. Stanley was a handyman now. That was- not something he would have expected from his brother. It sounded so… Mundane.

He remembered Ma talking to him about some of the absurd commercials that his brother had managed to get on to the public broadcast channels. A bunch of scam products that he’d put together that weren’t worth whatever Stanley had paid to get them played on the television networks. It had been obvious (to Ford at least) that his brother had been trying to squeeze every penny possible out of anyone dumb enough to purchase them. But the commercials had all stopped by the time Ford had finished his first year of college.

He’d assumed that his brother had wised up and taken his snake oil elsewhere. The people of New Jersey weren’t geniuses, but they weren’t fools who could be tricked forever. It was only a matter of time until people examined the quality of his products and brought it up to the appropriate authorities. He had assumed Stanley had stopped when that had happened and that was why the commercials had stopped.

Those commercials had always been in the back of his mind on the (very rare) occasions he pondered what his brother was up to. All he could picture was Stanley as some over-the-top, irritatingly chipper salesman selling low-quality products for absurdly high prices.

(And, maybe, getting in over his head. Breaking laws to sell things he shouldn’t to get rich quickly. Or running into a “customer” with a grudge over some subpar product he had sold them. A Liar. Selfish. Greedy. Like Pa always said.)

The idea that Stanley would have decided to change careers at some point had never crossed his mind. Never mind his brother taking on a common, mundane job like being a “handyman.”

Although he supposed, a handyman would find more consistent business in the long term than a self-employed salesman would. While not a job that would get him a large amount of money very quickly, it was certainly a more stable line of work. There was always a need for a handyman, no matter where you went.

Stanley had been trying to get to work after sleeping in and ended up being attacked by a wild animal.

What terrible luck…

“Thank you, Mrs. Wilks.” Ford looked back to Fiddleford, who was smiling politely at the woman. “We’d best start getting settled.”

“Of course, dears. Come by in the morning, alright? I try to make some breakfast fixings for the folks staying here, so if you want something to eat then please stop in.”

“We’ll keep that in mind!” Fiddleford called cheerfully, waving as they left the office. He looked back at Ford as the door closed. “We oughta grab our bags from the truck and bring ‘em to the room.”

Ford nodded.

“Right. No time like the present.”

Both of them went back to the truck and pulled out their respective luggage. It was good luck that they’d ended up parking next to Stanley’s car since it was also next to the room he’d been staying in. Which was now the room they would be staying in.

(Stan must have taken a taxi to get to wherever he was working. Likely because he didn’t know the local streets very well.)

Ford slid the key into the lock of room number twelve, opening the door with a click and stepping through.

His first thoughts were that the room was, in fact, meant for more than one person to stay in. And the second was that the room smelled like lavender.

Which was… Not what he was expecting. Though he hadn’t really expected any kind of smell for a motel room. And yet, the room smelled like lavender and a few other herbs that he couldn’t name off the top of his head. Like someone had burned incense or some scented candles or something in the room. It wasn’t overwhelming, but it was enough for him to notice.

“Huh… Smells kinda floral in here,” he heard his friend mumble. “Better than most motel smells, at least.”

He hummed in agreement. He walked further in, looking around as he did with Fiddleford at his heels.

The room was small with two twin-size beds pressed against a side wall, just like Mrs. Wilks said they would find. There was a desk against the wall opposite the beds and an old tv propped up on top of the dresser. Heavy curtains hung over the window, blocking the light from outside and making the room fairly dark.

Fiddleford was quick to wander further in, opening the curtains so they could both have a better look around the room.

The room was decorated in cool colors, lots of blues and whites with some black trim on various parts of the room. The pillows on the beds were white, the comforters were dark blue, and the headboards were wood and painted in black. The desk, chairs, and dresser all had the same black painted wood. Though the chairs had blue patterned cloth cushions on them.

Just as he’d theorized in the parking lot, there were more nautical-themed items in the room.

A painting on one wall with a large ship depicted in it, a lampshade with ocean waves printed on it, a coat hook designed to look like an anchor hung up by the door, and a few other simple things like that.

Only one of the beds looked like it had been slept in, the one furthest from the window. The one that Stanley had slept through his first day in town in, most likely. It was partially made, and obviously not by the employees, with the large blue comforter pushed down onto the floor. One of the extra pillows was set on top of it.

Stan seemed to be using the other bed to lay out a dull orange and dark green duffel bag and an old-fashioned suitcase instead of putting his belongings away in the dresser.

Which would make sense, since Stanley probably wasn’t planning on staying for very long. Why unpack everything when you would only need a few things for one or two nights? He’d obviously just thought it was easier to keep it all in the bags until it was time to leave again.

(And Ford wasn’t inclined to disagree with that logic. It was something he would have done as well.)

There were some books sitting on the desk, next to the motel’s telephone. One was left open with a pen laying on top of it and another, a larger book set in the middle of the desk. There was also a dark brown, rattan picnic basket on the desk, opposite from the side that the phone was sitting on, with a few green dishes and silverware laid out beside it. A small cooler sat on the floor near the desk chair.

Since Stanley had arrived at the motel late in the night, he must have had some food of his own that he’d eaten before going to bed. Carrying a picnic basket for dishes was actually rather clever since those were usually made to carry dishes safely while traveling. His brother must have picked it up while on the road since he was certain Stanley hadn’t owned one before he’d left.

(Their father would have never kept something like that around, let alone allowed Stanley to have it. He would have been far more likely to sell it than keep it.)

As for the food in the cooler, it had probably gone bad by this point. Unless they were some kind of dry stock that Stanley just kept in a cooler for convenience. He would probably have to check it later, there was no reason to let something rot inside. Mold was a pain to clean out, too. So the sooner they took care of that the better.

There was an ashtray sitting on the bedside table between the two beds under the lamp, designed like a lighthouse with a large lampshade over it, with what looked like a half-burned cigarette sitting in it. But it didn’t look like the kind one would normally buy from a store.

Coming closer, the herby-floral smell grew stronger. Was it some kind of herbal cigarette, then? He supposed that would explain why it looked so unusual. He almost wanted to say it looked homemade, as well.

(And it didn’t look like weed. He’d never partaken in the substance himself, though he remembered people from college who’d used it. Fiddleford had tried it once, purely out of curiosity.)

There was a framed photo sitting beside the ashtray, pointed toward the bed that Stanley had likely been sleeping in. The frame was interesting since it looked like someone had made it from branches and was well lacquered to keep it in good condition. There was a small stick that was carefully attached to the back to help it stand up.

It was something he’d never expected his brother to have, yet there it was on the bedside table.

His curiosity peaked, he walked over picked up the picture, and looked it over. And saw a much younger version of his brother looking back out at him.

His hair was much shorter than it was now, though still longer than when he’d first left home, and he was dressed in a t-shirt and baggy overalls, with a large basket of apples in his arms. An old straw hat partially shaded his face from the sunlight. He looked nineteen, maybe twenty years old, if Ford had to guess. Especially since the Stanley in the picture still had the acne that Ford remembered from their teenage years.

Standing beside his brother was an old man that Ford didn’t know.

The man had a square, wrinkled, weather-beaten face with bright eyes and a full head of long, silver hair that was tied back at the base of his neck. A tattered, wide-brimmed hat was pushed back on his head, with some kind of bird feather stuck into the headband. He had a flannel shirt on with the sleeves rolled up underneath a set of overalls of his own. The old man was also carrying a basket, though smaller than the one Stan had. Behind them was an orchard and a small wagon with more baskets of apples already loaded in.

Both of them had smudges of dirt on their clothes and faces from working, standing under the bright sunshine the photo was taken in. But they both seemed happy as they grinned widely at whoever was taking the picture.

(It had been years since he’d seen his brother smile like that.)

Ford’s eyes roved over the two, taking in all the little details in the snapshot of what his brother had done after he left Jersey.

Was this a job his brother had held for a while? Was the old man his boss? Being a farmhand wasn’t something Ford would have expected from his brother. But, considering how old the man looked, maybe Stanley had decided he really needed the help.

It must have been a good job, or he at least had a good relationship with the man, if Stanley kept a photo from it near his bed…

(Had Pa put any pictures in the duffle he threw at Stanley when he was kicked out? Or had he only put his brother’s clothing in the bag? Did Ma manage to sneak any in before Pa had thrown the bag? Had his brother been able to keep anything from home?)

He gently set the photo down again, trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.

At least his brother’s life on the road hadn’t been entirely terrible, even if it had taken a path that Ford would never have expected from him. He’d had some good things happen to him while he’d been living on his own. At least one good boss who’d made a very strong (positive) impact on him.

Small mercies, he supposed.

There were worse things that could have happened to Stanley than switching his profession or working with a kind old man. There were many, many dangerous people and dangerous jobs that he could have ended up with instead.

Especially without his highschool diploma to prove his education level.

(Unless Stan had gone back to the school at some point to get it on his own? Would the school have even let him take one without their parents there? Ford was pretty sure you could do that, now that he was thinking of it.)

It would have been far too easy to fall in with the wrong crowds while on the streets. Start taking jobs from the wrong people. To fall for people promising things they would never deliver, with prices far higher than he could hope to pay. To be lead to believe that he was doing good only to take a fall that he would never be prepared for.

To be taken in by the worst sort and so thoroughly tangled in it that he would never be able to escape.

(Why was he only thinking of those things now? Why did it take seeing his brother in the hospital for him to consider the danger Stanley would have been living with while on the road?)

Thankfully, it seemed Stan had managed to avoid that happening. He’d avoided being in too deep. He’d avoided the worst cases. Yes, he was in the hospital, but not for the worst possible reasons. For mistakes he’d made without the rest of their family’s help finally catching up to him. He would be okay.

(Ford had been angry with his brother, but that didn’t mean he wanted the worst for him. He didn’t want bad things to happen to him.)

It was good that, at the very least, Stanley hadn’t been too far from Ford for him to help. He was close enough that Ford could come and help Stan get back on his feet again after all of this. It would cut into his work for a small time, but he wasn’t inclined to feel too bad about it.

Because Stan needed his help. Stan needed his help and he missed his brother he could handle taking care of his brother for a little while.

Besides, Stan could be helpful for a while. He’d had a few moments where he was too caught up in his notes to figure things out. He could admit that he missed the obvious on occasion. Things that, when they were children, his brother had easily been able to pick up on. Maybe he could even ask for help with a few other things if Stan felt up to it. Some of his piping had been asking odd noises and a second pair of eyes would help Ford figure out what was going on with them.

And maybe some company when Fiddleford left for the night would be nice… He wasn’t lonely. Certainly not.

“Which bed do you want to take?” He felt himself asking, pushing those feelings and thoughts away to unpack later. They were unimportant for now.

“Makes no difference to me. Unless you have a preference?” Fiddleford was neatly packing up the books on the desk, setting them aside to be put in either the truck or his brother’s car later. Ford hummed in thought, looking back at the two beds.

“You can take the one closer to the window. That way you’re not trying to sleep in the same bed Stanley had been using.” The idea of making his friend use the same bed his brother had been using felt weird. Something about it made him feel like he shouldn’t let that happen. Besides, he’d grown up with Stanley and they’d shared beds plenty of times. So that would be fine.

“Makes sense to me,” Fiddleford said, nodding. He hadn’t really expected his friend to disagree, but it did make him feel just a little bit better.

The two set to carefully packing up Stanley’s belongings before finally unpacking their own things for spending the night. Fiddleford even took a moment to wash Stan’s dishes in the bathroom sink before packing them away. They didn’t stow everything in Stan’s car, both agreeing that it would be better to ask Stan where he wanted them put rather than just randomly putting them in.

It was while Fiddleford went off to get some dinner from a nearby take-out restaurant for the two of them that something unexpected happened. Ford had opted to stay in the room, turning on the local news to see if there was more information about the animal attacks.

He… Wasn’t sure why he kept fixating on that. Something about the descriptions had felt off to him, but he still had no idea what or why. (Maybe it was the need for some kind of closure? Assurance that whatever had harmed his brother was being handled.) 

But his moment of calm was shattered when the motel phone rang.

Ford’s head snapped to the phone, staring at it in confusion.

Who was calling? Who knew that there was anyone to call in the room? Not anyone who knew Fiddleford or himself. Were they looking for Stanley? Had Stanley told anyone he was staying at this motel?

It was possible that he had and Ford simply hadn’t known. It wasn’t as though Stan could have warned him before he came to the motel. But his brother was still out cold in the hospital. So he certainly couldn’t tell him now, or answer the phone himself.

He hesitantly picked the receiver up.

(He hoped he wouldn’t be getting his brother in trouble by answering.)

“Hello?” He asked. A very frustrated voice on the other end answered him

“Oh so there IS someone here. Why the hell haven’t you called me yet Pines? Don’t tell me you haven’t found something by now. It’s been days since you called for directions! And you’ve been giving me nothing but radio silence!”

“What do you mean? Who is this?” Ford scowled at the strangers’ tone. Then the rest of what he’d said sank in. He was looking for Stan, and had mentioned being called for directions. Was this Stan’s client?

“Wait- Ah, shit, did I dial the wrong number? I coulda sworn this was the number for Delmar…”

Well, that actually helped, ever so slightly.

“You have the correct motel and room, sir. Stanley Pines, the person I assume you’re trying to contact, is currently in the hospital. I’m his brother and was asked to come by the doctor. I’m at the motel to gather his belongings.” He kept the irritation from his voice as he spoke.

The man on the phone was rude but, if he was his brother’s client, then he was probably irritated from not hearing anything for the past few days. Silence from a paid contractor was a mildly reasonable cause for frustration. (Even if that contractor was Ford’s brother.)

“Oh… Oh shit… I’m, uh, I’m the guy who hired him to come to town, name’s Winston. Charlie Winston. I, ah, own a plot of land I was planning to rent out some space on and needed a second opinion on them for what I needed to get fixed up. So I hired a handyman to give it a once over.”

“And that handyman was my brother,” Ford said, nodding slowly.

The stranger was being… oddly vague about what he’d hired his brother for. He could have just been very private, or not wanting to share details about his business with a stranger. But there was definitely a nervous hint to his words that had Ford’s attention.

“That’s right. What happened to him? Is he alright? Did the doctors have any idea what attacked him?”

“He will be. The doctors say it was an animal attack, but they’re not sure what animal it might have been.” Ford had checked before they left. The nurse he’d spoken to had said they couldn’t quite figure out what had hurt him, but it was something with very large claws. “He hasn’t come around to tell them specifically what kind, however.”

“I see… When he comes around, please tell him to call me. I- I had no idea that this would happen. I want to make sure I get the chance to pay him before you both leave town. Your brother should already have my number somewhere, so he just needs to make the call and I can drop off the payment at the motel. I'll even throw in extra since he’s probably going to be out of work for a while.”

That was… Surprisingly amiable. That Stanley’s client was willing to raise the agreed payment after he’d been hurt on the job.

“Certainly. I’ll be sure to tell him once he comes around. Though it may be easier to just come to the hospital to ask him what he’d found. I’m sure the hospital staff would allow it.”

“I-I can’t. I have a very busy schedule so I wouldn’t have time to stop in just to ask. Especially since I don’t know when he’ll wake up. It would be better if he called me first.”

“Well, if you insist,” Ford said with a frown.

“Please do, I really do want to hear from him.” He listened as the stranger gave a few more pleasantries before they finally hung up the phone. He set the phone back down on the hook, his thoughts buzzing.

Something about that exchange felt… Strange. Oddly nervous and stilted.

The client was planning to pay for Stanley’s services, which was good, but something rang as strange in Ford’s mind.

Maybe it was the way the guy had asked about what had hurt Stanley? Their insistence that Stan needed to call them once he woke up? Had Stan really been sent to investigate a plot of land? Or had he been looking into something else?

And how had they known that Stan had been attacked by something? He said he had no idea that there was anything dangerous in the area but… Hadn’t the animal attacks been happening for weeks now? Wouldn’t Stan’s client have known about them? And shouldn’t he have thought to warn him about them?

It seemed that his brother would be answering some questions once he finally came around.

And there was a very real possibility that Ford was going to be having words with Mr. Winston.

AN: And done! I feel like the ending was a little rushed, but at least I got it down.

Also, I am not a doctor nor do I ever plan on becoming one, so if you see any medical errors, that's probably why they're there.

Comments and questions are always welcome!

[sweaterkittensahoy]

I'm here to talk about this educational short but as it's a dry one, and there's an MTS3K of it, I'm giving you that one.

Anyway, I find this short fascinating. It's all about how being able to eat food from far away is neat and you should be excited to do it, basically.

A few notes of particular interest:

The first version of this short (which I've never seen) was from 1939; this one is from 1954. While I don't have the full history of WHY this short was made, both of those timestamps are interesting. In 1939, as the US was coming out of the Depression, it's likely a lot of people were getting food sourced from unknown places for the first time in their lives, and an educational short like this (that likely played at the movies before the main feature) would have explained to them what was up. The fact it was updated in 1954 is also interesting. We were well out of rationing by that point, but I think maybe it was updated because a lot of people were moving from rural areas to industrial areas for work opportunities, and a lot of farm people who'd always known where their food came from suddenly didn't know.

While I can't say what was or wasn't updated between the two editions, the riff of "Did people really need to be convinced about cars at this point?" does a great job finding a spot where an update SHOULD have happened. Not just because my 1954 the US was well into car culture but also because the truck that drives by is clearly pre-war (split windshield is usually a good indicator).

I also think the update was done to focus on how the food stayed fresh during travel because the refrigerated truck only came into being after WW2, so likely this was a push to assure people the food was safe in them.

The implicit acceptance of using migrant workers for harvest is fascinating as someone who has basically always lived in a "they took the jobs!" era of how some people look at migrant labor. Here, it's just stated as what you do to get your crops picked.

The opening narration that just full-out wiped out the fact that pioneer families spent all spring and summer canning so they could have veggies in the winter is just an amazing thing to try and re-write history on. A shit ton of people were still home-canning every season in 1954. To have been in the theater to see first reactions from farm kids hearing that pioneers didn't have winter veggies would have probably been funny.

Anyway, I just find this video interesting, and the MST3K gang do their usual good work, so I hope you had fun with my ramblings.

[pandorasword]

Chaeri as the 8th and youngest member of BTS.

Chaeri's Masterlist

[10052023] Chaeri's Instagram update

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[11052023] Calvin Klein's Instagram update

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Jungkook and Chaeri from BTS Reconciled? A Reunion at Calvin Klein Event

Celebrities reveal the reason behind their past argument, but doubts persist

The entertainment industry was shaken when members of the worldwide famous Kpop group BTS, Jungkook and Chaeri, were seen together for the first time since they were photographed having a heated argument at an autogrill. Fans' eyes were on them as they attended the recent exclusive Calvin Klein event, but the explanations regarding that past altercation have left journalists uncertain about what to believe.

According to witnesses at the event, Jungkook and Chaeri seemed to have put their differences behind them and were seen socializing amicably throughout the evening. However, the question lingering in the air is: what exactly happened between them at that famous autogrill?

When questioned about the reason for their dispute, Chaeri admitted that the couple had a heated argument due to a decision she stubbornly made. It appears that the young artist insisted on get out of the car and go alone to the truck stop at night despite Jungkook's concerns for her safety. Given their celebrity status, the constant presence of approaching people poses a potential threat to their privacy and security.

"I think Jungkook was overly worried about me, knowing that people constantly approach us. But I said 'I know how to handle myself'. I was stubborn, and that caused an argument," Chaeri stated. However, many rumors still circulate about whether her words may conceal additional details or if it's simply a move to quell speculation.

Fan reaction

Twitter: Search results on #ChaekookAtCalvinKlein

💭 purplekookie: Kookie and Chaeri's reunion has made my day! It's a reminder that misunderstandings can be resolved, and friendships can grow stronger. Sending all my love and support to these amazing artists. You got this! 💖

💭 roricha: Chaeri claims it was just about going to an autogrill, but paparazzi don't usually capture such intense arguments for no reason. I can't help but think there's something deeper they're not telling us.

💭 dailyblinks: Is it just me, or does Chaeri's explanation sound rehearsed? I need receipts and a more honest conversation before I can fully support their reconciliation. Actions speak louder than words

💭 gothejeon: Jungkook and Chaeri finally back together, and I couldn't be happier! Their bond is unbreakable 🤧

💭 uchaerimyeuphoria: This is the news I've been waiting for! Jk and Chaeri back together

💭 kookiechaeshipper: I refuse to believe that Guk and Chaeri fought over a trivial autogrill visit. It's obvious they're in love and their emotions got the best of them. Love can be complicated, but I hope they work things out! ❤️

💬 hongjoongbias: Hold on a minute! Let's not forget that Chaeri is happily in a relationship with Hongjoong. Their argument might have been unrelated to romantic feelings. Let's respect him as her boyfriend!

💭 kookiechaeshipper: I understand that Chaeri is in a relationship, but I can't ignore the chemistry between her and Jungkook.

💬 hongjoongbias: you're f*cking delusional

💭 kookiechaeshipper: you're f*cking blind

💭 minchae: The autogrill incident might have been blown out of proportion. It's refreshing to see Chaeri and Jungkook together again

💭 kkjk: Journalists might doubt Chaeri's explanation, but as fans, it's important to respect their privacy. Let's focus on the positive aspects of their reunion and continue to support their careers. We're here for the music, not the gossip!

💭 yoonminchae: The media loves to speculate, but let's not forget that Guk and Chaeri are humans too. They've resolved their differences and appeared together at the Calvin Klein event. As fans, let's trust their words and give them the support they deserve.

[11052023] Namjoon's Instagram update

Fan reaction

Twitter: Search results on #CalvinKleinAfterParty

💭 jooniesmile: So the Jungkook & Namjoon pics + Chaeri & Namjoon ones were from the Calvin Klein after party? oh!! Oh!! OH!!

💭 armyfestival: NAMJOON, CHAERI AND JUNGKOOK AT JENNIE’S CK AFTER PARTY armyblinks we win once again 🫢🫶🏼

💭 lalisaqueen: Why is it so hard for army to accept the fact that Chaeri, Namjoon and Jungkook were on Jennie's after-party?? Guys, take it easy

💭 ririmylove: why didn't all three of them take a picture together! so upset 🙁

taglist: @alixnsuperstxr | @bts-dream | @ycuvi

[tomtenadia]

Detours to you - 21

Good day!

Posting a bit earlier than usual; because my hockey team is playing at what is ^:30 here and once I am in hockey mode I will forget to do it.

Soo... here we are after Rowan's accident. This will at least reassure you that he is fine.

Hope you will enjoy it.

MASTERLIST

“Aelin,” he paused “I need you to come to the hospital with me.”

Her world stopped. She had a bad feeling all day but now that her worst fear had come through she was frozen in place. Aedion, and Lysandra were at her side but Aelin felt numb.

Elide went to talk to Lorcan for details and he explained all he knew.

In the distance Aelin heard Maya asking for her dad and crying.

Aelin just stood, numb.

“I can take you to the hospital.”

She nodded slowly then turned to her daughter and asked her to go her grandparents.

“No. I want dad!” She screamed loudly while crying in her grandfather’s arms “I want dad!”

Aelin’s heart broke piece by piece.

Rhoe kissed his granddaughter “Your mum is going to the hospital to see how he is.” He tried to explain to an heartbroken toddler “we will take you there as soon as your dad is fine.”

“No.” She screamed once more and Aelin hugged her daughter “Baby, your dad is fine.”

Maya cried but Aelin had to give herself the courage to stand up “Dad, take her with you and mum. I will call you with updates.”

She walked to Lorcan “Take me to the hospital.”

With her heart breaking she followed the fire captain to the truck outside pushing aside the noise of her daughter crying. She had to be strong. She had to put barriers up and push the pain aside because if she didn’t she would risk falling apart completely.

The ride to the hospital felt like forever. The firefighters at her side offered comfort but all Aelin could think was Rowan. She was terrified. She had just found him again after five years. They were finally building that family they had talked about a long time ago. She could not lose him now. She did not want to tell her daughter that the horrible lie she had ready for her had become real.

A sob broke her lips and Ansel must have heard her because the woman pulled her closer “Aelin when we found him he was breathing, injured but breathing. That is a good sign.”

And then anger surged in her “He is the chief,” she shouted “why the fuck was the chief inside?”

Lorcan turned “I tried to stop him, but Rowan was the only one to know the layout of the industrial site like the back of his hand. He had been trying for months to fix the problems.”

“You are his best friend and you let him go in alone!” She shouted, her hands shaking. The truck fell silent and Aelin leaned her head against the window. The coolness of the glass offering a sort of temporary respite.

They arrived at the hospital ten minutes later and Ansel helped her get off the truck and Brullo flanker her too. Fenrys followed behind and Lorcan gave them a bit of space before went too.

Fenrys went to talk with the charge nurse with the familiarity of someone who spent a lot of time in hospitals. 

“Hi Sorscha, Asterin and James brought our chief in, any updates?”

Aelin stood beside the blonde man while her heart raced with anxiety.

“All I know for now is that he is in surgery.”

A sob escaped from her lips and Fenrys walked her to a chair. She sat in silence and time passed slowly. Aelin could hear people talking around her but she felt disconnected from her body. She was numb. The idea of losing Rowan had the power of crushing her.

Eventually Aelin called her parents and they had told her that they finally managed to get Maya to eat something and go to bed. It had been hard and she kept asking for her dad but they had managed to calm her down.

After almost two hours Aelin started to lose her patience, so she stood and pacing became a way not to freak out. She marched up to the nurses station asking for an update. She was about to scream in frustration when a doctor walked to her “Mrs Whitethorn?”

Aelin did not have the strength to correct the doctor. It was not a priority. She needed news. 

“I have an update on the Chief.”

Aelin braced for the worst.

“He suffered internal injuries and we had to perform a splenectomy.” She started explaining “he was bleeding internally when he arrived in. His lower body suffered fractures, the worst one to his  left femur and his legs. He will need surgery and then physio but he will be able to move again.” The doctor paused “He is intubated for now, we are keeping him like that to help with his oxygen levels and prevent ARDS and allow his lung to heal. His mask was cracked which means he might have inhaled toxic fumes and the next few hours are the most critical.”

Aelin wanted to try and relax but she feared there was more “But he is alive.”

“Yes, the Chief is alive and in the ICU for now.”

“Can… can I see him?” She asked with fear.

“Yes, I can take you up to the ward.”

Aelin turned to Fenrys and the man nodded “We will have to go back to quarters soon but we are visiting as soon as we are off shift.”

She ran to him and hugged him hard “Thank you.”

Fenrys’ arms wound around her squeezing back in support. She then pulled back and followed the doctor to the lift and to the ICU ward.

The doctor walked her to the door “He is in here.”

Aelin stared at the blue door and hesitated. She was afraid of what she would find behind. 

Her hand hovered on the handle and eventually pushed the door open. The lights were suffused, the room silent apart from the rhythmic sound of the machines that were crowding his bed. She had the strength to look up and Aelin saw Rowan in his bed. He looked so small in that bed. A sob rippled through her and then moved closer to the bed. She stared at his chest raising and falling steadily with the help of the respirator and a sense of calm descended on her. That was a good sign. He had multiples IVs one of which with blood. The right side of his body was heavily padded on his chest and along his arm. She sat gently at Rowan’s left side and gently brushed his head pushing back his hair “I was so scared,” she whispered, amidst sobs “when Lorcan showed up I…” a ragged breath left her “I thought I had lost you, Rowan. I was terrified.”

Aelin caressed his face, gently brushing the small cuts on his cheeks “You will be fine. You are coming back to Maya and me and we are going to be a family, Rowan.” Another kiss to his cheek “I love you. I love you so much, Rowan and I don’t want to be away from you ever again.” Tears were now falling freely “I love you. I love you, please wake up so I can finally shout it at you.”  She sat at his side, his uninjured hand flush to her chest so that he could feel her heartbeat.

The door behind her opened and the doctor from before came in.

“I just came for some checks.”

Aelin followed the doctor move around Rowan checking his monitors and his fluid bags.

“Do you have any questions?”

She nodded frantically but her voice failed her.

“The spleen…”

The doctor nodded knowing exactly what she was asking “He can live without it. For the first two years after a splenectomy he might have to take antibiotics daily to combat bacterial infections. Some people have to take them all of their lives but the chief is a healthy man and we are hoping is just going to be the first option.”

“Can he…. Can he work again?”

“Yes, he will need physio after this. But we are expecting a full recovery.”

“Okay,” was all she could say. Her emotions still too raw.

“We will be keeping him in the ICU for a couple of days until we remove his tube. His oxygen levels are improving quickly which is a good sign.”

The doctor finished the checks and left her alone. Aelin kissed Rowan and then walked out of the room.

She climbed all the way down to the lobby where his old team was still there waiting for news. Lorcan stepped up and she ran to hug the man “I am sorry for what I said,” she cried in the man’s arms “I was scared…”

“I tried, Aelin.”

“I know.”

“Do you have news?” Asked Brullo.

Aelin nodded eagerly pulling away from the captain “he had a splenectomy. He suffered some other internal injuries but the doctor fixed him.” She explained “His left femur and his legs are fractured and has second degree burns on his right side.” Fen took her hand “But he will be fine. Doc says they will move him out of the ICU in two days then you will be able to visit and he should wake up after that.”

Relief spread through the team.

“How are the people he saved?”

“Alive because of him,” added Lorcan “A bit of hospital time too but alive.”

Aelin burst into tears. It had been too much for a day and now the adrenaline 

was wearing off and her body was shutting down.

“Do you need us to call anyone?”

“No,” she dismissed Lorcan “Go back to base, I will be fine. Thank you for staying behind.”

The team hugged her tightly and then left the lobby. Aelin breathed in deeply and climbed back up in the ICU ward.

Outside of his room she called her parents with a new update and cried over the phone, letting her anguish finally free.

Once she felt finally liberated she walked back inside his room. Outside was snowing and Aelin reached the window looking outside “We never got our date, you owe me one, Chief.”

She stared at the Orynth skyline and spotted the Orynth tower shooting up in the night sky alight with reds and blues and oranges “Do you remember our first date? I convinced you to go to Orynth tower and you started telling me of all the rescues you had performed.” She started telling him “But it was after a shitty day at my job you had taken me to a bookstore and told to buy all the books I wanted that I think I fell in love with you,” she chuckled “It was probably one of the most dangerous thing you ever did, considering my book obsession, but it was also the most loving act anyone ever did for me.” She turned to him “You were caring, you are still the most caring man I know. When your mum fell ill after your dad died I knew letting you go was the right thing to do.” She paused and walked to the end of the bed “It broke me, Rowan. Pushing you away the way I did broke me, but you were hurting too much.”

She reached the side of his bed again and very gently she sat on it, then removed her shoes and climbed on the side that was the less injured. Aelin tucked herself against him and kissed his jaw “Will you ever fully forgive me?” Then all of a sudden she had an idea. Aelin jumped up and went to grab her bag with her phone. Frantically she scrolled through her contacts and hoped she was glad she never cleaned up her list because there towards the end there was still the number of Rowan’s parents house in Wendlyn. 

Excited she dialled it and when a voice she hadn’t heard in five years answered, her heart raced “Eiddwen Whitethorn?”

“Speaking.”

“Hi, I am Aelin…” she let the information sink in and then continued “I am calling because Rowan has been in an accident at work. He is at the hospital. He had surgery but the prognosis is good.”

His mother was silent and Aelin continued “He saved a few people in the meantime too. He will be fine, will just need some rehab.”

She heard sobs “I would like to ask you if you’d like to come here. Doctors are planning on waking him up in two days. I am sure he will love having you here and…” a pause “and I am sure our daughter would be delighted to finally meet her other grandma.”

Eiddwen still did not speak and Aelin worried “I would love to, Aelin. “ a pause “Is my son really going to be okay?”

Aelin finally found the strength to let out a small chuckle “he might have to give up hiking for a while, but he will be fine just a bit in less than minted condition.”

“Good.” She could hear a smile “Does this meant that you two are back together?”

“We are getting there, Eiddwen.”

“I will ask Sellene to book me a ticket. She is the one good with technology.”

Aelin smiled “Let me know when you arrive and I will come and get you at the airport.”

“I have a mobile number, you can call me on that.”

Eiddwen told her the number and the woman promised to call back with a flight plan. 

She walked back to Rowan “Your mum is coming too. I am sure she will love to fuss and Maya really wants to meet her grandma.”

Aelin kissed his cheek and went back at his side.

taglist

@rowaelinismyotp @swankii-art-teacher @whimsicallyreading @elentiyawhitethorn @aelin-bitch-queen @bruiseonthefaceofhumanity  @mis-lil-red @thegreyj @sailorsassley @leiawritesstories @clairec79 @morganofthewildfire @sv0430 @heartless--aromantic @autumnbabylon @rowanaelinn @backtobl4ck @susumaus98  @gracie-rosee @mybloodrunsblue @tanvee1231 @avenrebekah @whoever-you-choose-to-love  @theywillnotsingforme @universallytreepost @black-daisy-water @goddess-aelin @whispers-in-the-darkest-heart @lovely-dove-zee @athena127

[etraytin]

Important Tree Update

The tree has gotten even prettier.

Autumn continues busting out all over here in Western North Carolina, which I feel is important to remember and document given how many of the pictures I see and take are of particularly memorable bits of destruction lately.

While I was out delivering food and supplies today I drove through the River Arts District for the first time since the storm. I've seen the pictures, but it's different in person. With a photograph, the photographer has analyzed the scene and framed the shot, given you a context that lets you understand what you are looking at. Here is a ruined building, here is a pile of debris that was a bridge. When you see it in person, your eyes don't make sense of most of it, especially when you're driving by. Sometimes you'll see a whole collapsed building and understand that, but I drove right past where the Salvage Station used to be and almost didn't notice at all because it just wasn't there in the way I would've expected. The one thing that nearly brought me to tears was a little red Cuban food truck, clearly ruined and derelict, sitting in a washed-out parking lot. I didn't know anything about it except that it was somebody's business and it was gone now and it was small enough for my brain to take in in one big gulp and be really sad about.

In happier news, we got up to see the relatives in Yancey County for the first time since the storm. They have gotten their power back and their well always worked for them, so they are doing all right except it's hard to get in and out of their neighborhood. They live on a road past a bridge over a creek that used to have houses all up and down it and does not anymore. Three weeks out from the storm a lot of the debris has been cleared away and the bridge is safer than it was, but they couldn't even get out for almost a week. We got to catch up with them for awhile and share storm stories and pictures, which was nice. Everybody has a storm story, and pretty much every social interaction longer than five minutes these days will involve sharing some part of it.

While we were up there, they also insisted on taking us up to their church, which like pretty much every church and civic building in the county has become a storage and distribution center for donations. I literally lost count of the signs for supplies and distribution centers on the road towards Spruce Pine. Indeed, their fellowship hall was absolutely packed to the gills with clothes and food and supplies. I dropped off three 3-gallon water jugs in case anybody needs them (I know the schools in the county still don't have water, so probably some of the people don't either), and we did pick up some supplies. Some I will probably pass along to others in the community, some will probably end up in our emergency stash. There was just so much that the pastor is worried about what they are going to do with all of it, especially since more continues coming in.

I do feel a little weird about taking relief supplies, even from a place that is drowning in them, considering we are in a very lucky spot compared to others who endured the storm. So when we got home, I made a decent-sized money donation to one of the relief agencies in the area that is pooling funds to buy things like heaters and industrial dehumidifiers for people trying to get their houses livable again. I figure that is a good tradeoff, if i take what nobody is using and give back what they really need. And hey, now I have enough macaroni and cheese to fill the little food pantry with for weeks!