#Brake Light failure

[recallsdirect]

Vehicle Recall: Daimler Trucks Freightliner & Western Star Commercial Trucks:

[mylordshesacactus]

on endlings, and despair

Hey, y'all. It's...been a rough couple of weeks. So, I thought--better to light a single candle, right?

If you're familiar with wildlife conservation success stories, then you're likely also familiar with their exact polar opposite. The Northern White Rhino. Conservation's poster child for despair. Our greatest and most high-profile utter failure. We slaughtered them for wealth and status, and applied the brakes too slow. Changed course too late.

We poured everything we had into trying to save them, and we failed.

We lost them. They died. The last surviving male was named Sudan. He died in 2018, elderly and sick. His genetic material is preserved, along with frozen semen from other long-dead males, but only as an exercise in futility. Only two females survive--a mother and daughter, Najin and Fatu.

Both of them are infertile. They still live; but the Northern White Rhinoceros is extinct. Gone forever.

In 2023, an experimental procedure was attempted, a hail-mary desperation play to extract healthy eggs from the surviving females.

It worked.

The extracted eggs were flown to a genetics lab, and artificially fertilized using the sperm of lost Northern males. The frozen semen that we kept, all this time, even after we knew that the only living females were incapable of becoming pregnant.

It worked.

Thirty northern white rhino embryos were created and cryogenically preserved, but with no ability to do anything with them, it was a thin hope at best. In 2024, for the first time, an extremely experimental IVF treatment was attempted on a SOUTHERN white rhino--a related subspecies.

It worked.

The embryo transplanted as part of the experiment had no northern blood--but the pregnancy took. The surgery was safe for the mother. The fetus was healthy. The procedure is viable. Surrogate Southern candidates have already been identified to carry the Northern embryos. Rhinoceros pregnancies are sixteen months long, and the implantation hasn't happened yet. It will take time, before we know. Despair is fast and loud. Hope is slower, softer. Stronger, in the end.

The first round may not take. We'll learn from it. It's what we do. We'll try again. Do better, the next time. Fail again, maybe. Learn more. Try harder.

This will not save the species. Not overnight. The numbers will be very low, with no genetic diversity to speak of. It's a holding action, nothing more.

Nothing less.

One generation won't save a species. But even a single calf will buy us time. Not quite gone, not yet. One more generation. One more endling. One more chance. And if we seize it, we might just get another after that. We're getting damn good at gene editing. At stem-cell research. In the length of a single rhino lifetime, we'll get even better.

For decades, we have been in a holding action with no hope in sight. Researchers, geneticists, environmentalists, wildlife rehabbers. Dedicated and heroic Kenyan rangers have kept the last surviving NWRs under 24/7 armed guard, line-of-sight, eyes-on, never resting, never relaxing their guard. Knowing, all the while, that their vigilance was for nothing. Would save nothing. This is a dead species--an elderly male, two females so closely related that their offspring couldn't interbreed even if they could produce any--and they can't.

Northern white rhino conservation was the most devastatingly hopeless cause in the world.

Two years from now, that dead species may welcome a whole new generation.

It's a holding action, just a holding action, but not "just". There is a monument, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where the last white rhinos have lived and will die. It was created at the point where we knew--not believed, knew--that the species was past all hope. It memorializes, by name there were so few, the last of the northern white rhinos. Most of the markers have brief descriptions--where the endling rhino lived, how it was rescued, how it died.

One marker bears only these words: SUDAN | Last male Northern White Rhino.

If even a single surrogate someday bears a son, we have erased the writing on that plaque forever.

All we can manage is a holding action? Then we hold. We hold hard and fast and long, use our fingernails if we have to. But hold. Even and perhaps especially when we are past all hope.

We never know what miracle we might be buying time for.

[diagnozabam]

Cei mai importanți martori de bord și ce trebuie să faci când se aprind

Martorii de bord ai unei mașini sunt esențiali pentru siguranța șoferului și buna funcționare a vehiculului. Aceștia semnalează probleme care, dacă sunt ignorate, pot duce la defecte grave sau chiar la accidente. În timp ce unele pictograme din bord au rol pur informativ, cum ar fi cele pentru lumini sau proiectoarele de ceață, altele avertizează asupra unor defecțiuni serioase. În acest articol,…

[pucksandpower]

Let the World Burn

Charles Leclerc x Ferrari driver!Reader

Summary: a brake failure sends Charles’ world spinning out of control

Warnings: crash, partial paralysis, brain injury, and plenty of angst (with a happy ending because I’m still me)

Based on this request

The paddock thrums with energy as you make your way to your car, adrenaline already coursing through your veins. Charles falls into step beside you, his presence as familiar and comforting as the roar of engines.

“Ready to show them how it’s done, mon amour?” His voice is a low rumble, eyes alight with competitive fire.

You grin, leaning in to press a swift kiss to his lips. “Always. You’ll be the one watching my rear wing this time.”

Charles laughs, the sound rich and warm. “We’ll see about that.” He squeezes your hand, calloused fingers intertwining with yours. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” The words carry the weight of a thousand unspoken promises, a vow as binding as the wedding bands you can’t yet wear.

All too soon, you’re parting ways, disappearing into the organized chaos of the garage. You slide into the snug confines of the cockpit, the car’s familiar lines an extension of your own body. A flurry of final checks, the high-pitched whine of the engine firing up, and then you’re rolling onto the grid, the tension crackling like static electricity.

The lights go out, and the world narrows to the scream of tires on tarmac, the high-pitched howl of the engine, and the razor-sharp focus that has carried you this far. You and Charles trade positions with every corner, locked in an exhilarating duel that has the crowd on its feet.

And then, without warning, your world fractures.

The pedal goes soft underfoot, your instincts screaming even before the telltale high-pitched whine cuts through the roar of the engine. You slam on the brakes, but the response is sickening— a bare fraction of the deceleration you need.

“Ricky?” Your voice is tight, the adrenaline surging as the implications crash over you in waves. “I’ve got a brake issue here. A big one.”

“Copy that.” Ricky’s tone is clipped, professional, even as your heart rabbits in your chest. “Okay, let’s try cycling the systems-”

You follow his instructions with mechanical precision, but the results are the same: negligible braking force, the car still hurtling forward at murderous speeds. A hairpin looms ahead, the barriers terrifyingly close, and you fight the wheel with everything you have, desperate to keep the bucking machine on track.

“Ricky, is this being broadcast?” The words tumble out in a breathless rush as the Turn looms closer, closer.

“Affirmative.” There’s a pause, the faintest tremor in Ricky’s voice. “It’s going out live.”

You exhale, a shuddering breath that shakes your entire frame. There’s only one person you need to reach now.

“Charles.” His name catches in your throat, thick with emotion. “If you’re listening to this-”

The tears come then, hot and blinding as you wrestle with the uncontrollable car. This can’t be how it ends, not like this, not when you’d imagined decades more by his side.

“In some other life, maybe we would have grown old together.” The words are torn from the depths of your soul, raw and wrenched free by the stark reality bearing down on you. “I wish I could have given you babies and watched our children grow up and lived a long life by your side like we always dreamed.”

Your vision blurs, the turn now a void of unforgiving concrete rushing up to meet you. You fight the wheel with everything you have, but there’s no stopping the inevitable now.

“You deserve every happiness, my love. If … if I don’t make it, please … please find someone else to love and cherish. Don't grieve forever. Be happy.” The brake pedal is useless under your foot, the barriers skimming past in a blur of terror. “Because you deserve all the love in this world and so much more.”

“I hope you’ll hear this,” you force out in a cracked whisper. "And I need you to know, my heart, that even if things end here … even if I don’t get to grow old with you … you have been the brightest light in my life these past five years. You made me happier than I ever dreamed. And I will never, ever stop loving you, Charles. Not in this life or the next. You are everything-”

The impact is a cosmic force, obliterating breath and thought and everything else in a blinding flare of darkness. But still, you cling to awareness, to the phantom thread of love that binds you to the one person who matters most.

“I’ll always-” The anguished vow catches, cut brutally short as oblivion rises to claim you. In those final heartbeats, a fleeting kaleidoscope of memories sparks behind your eyes: unmistakable laughter, stolen kisses, quiet moments wrapped in each other’s arms.

Five years of loving Charles, of being loved by him in a way you’d never dared dream possible.

It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough.

But it was everything.

“I love-”

Then, nothing.

***

The world fragments around Charles as his gaze locks onto the shattered remains of the familiar red car. One heartbeat — an endless, merciless instant suspended in time — and then his instincts take over with the force of a tidal wave.

“No … no, no, no!” The anguished words rip from his throat as he wrenches the steering wheel, the shriek of tires on tarmac drowned out by the roar of his own pulse thundering in his ears.

The race, the championship, every ambition and dream that has driven him to this point — it all fades into insignificance as he tears down the pitlane, desperation clawing at his throat. “Y/N! Hold on!”

Flames lick hungrily at the twisted wreckage as he sprints towards the mangled chassis, heedless of the searing heat or the choking smoke that burns his lungs. There’s only one thought, one driving need that propels him forward: reach you, get you out, pull you back from the precipice that has opened up beneath his feet.

“Y/N!”

Your name rips from his lips, a hoarse plea swallowed up by the crackle of fire. He skids to a halt beside the wreckage, fingers scrabbling uselessly at the warped metal that has become your cage, your tomb. “Talk to me, mon cœur! I’m here!”

Coherent thought fractures, replaced by blind panic and the soul-deep terror of losing the one light that guides him through this life.

Your eyes are closed, features lax and far too still against the vivid crimson that stains your skin. Charles’ breath catches in his throat, a raw, animal sound clawing its way free as his trembling hands reach for you, desperate to find a flutter of life, a spark of the brilliant fire he knows blazes within you.

“No, no, no … please, stay with me!” He cups your cheek, fingers smearing crimson as they search in vain for a pulse. “I can’t … I can’t lose you!”

Hands grasp at him then, voices raised in shouts he can’t comprehend. He wrestles against the restraints, a feral need to reach you overriding all reason. “Get off me! She needs help!”

But the marshals are insistent, pushing him back with grim determination until he can only watch, helpless, as they douse the ravenous flames.

It feels like an eternity, each gasping breath torn from a soul being flayed apart piece by torturous piece. And then, finally, they move in, the screech of metal and the hiss of hydraulics barely registering over the roar in Charles’ ears.

You’re so still as they work, pale and frighteningly fragile amidst the tangle of debris. A thin rivulet of red trails from the corner of your lips, each sluggish drip a struck match against the powder keg of Charles’ sanity. He takes a shuddering step forward, then another, his world narrowing to the trembling rise and fall of your chest.

“Please … please, stay with me,” he rasps, fingers closing around the rigid lines of the barrier as if it’s the only tether holding him to reality.

A marshal’s hand on his chest, forceful but lacking the strength to halt the unstoppable forward momentum of a man staring into the abyss. “Back off! Let them work!”

But how can he stand back? How can he simply watch as your life’s flame gutters and fades before his eyes? The words climb his throat, tangling into desperate pleas and vows that he’ll burn the world to keep you here, to keep you safe.

Except, no words come. There’s only the taste of ashes on his tongue and the sight of you, broken and bloodied on the unforgiving grass.

The medics arrive in a whirlwind of crisp efficiency, barking terse orders and assessments that slice into Charles with each clipped syllable. He’s dimly aware of the confirmation that you still live, that there’s a chance — but it’s a flicker, fleeting in the face of the reality unfolding before him.

“What are her chances?” The question rasps out, little more than a graveled whisper as he strains against the restraining hands.

You need an airlift, treatment beyond what can be rendered here on this blood-stained stage. Charles knows it, can see the franticness in the medics’ eyes as they work, but the knowledge brings no comfort.

Only an agonizing cycle of seconds hand-cranked like a Medieval torture device, each one stripping another layer of sanity as he watches you slip away.

“Just hang on, mon amour. I’m here … I’m right here.” His voice cracks, breaking on a devastated keen as they load you onto the backboard.

The whine of rotor blades cuts through the static in his head, a cold metallic slice that raises the hairs on the back of his neck. He sucks in a breath, lungs burning with the effort as the helicopter circles in a raucous descent.

“Please, let me go with her!” He wrenches against the hands with renewed desperation.

They’re taking you away.

He tries to follow, legs turned to lead weights, only to be held back once more by the wall of marshals. There’s shouting, words and pleas and anguished vows all tangled into an incomprehensible madness. “No! Y/N!”

And then, you’re gone.

Lifted skyward in a cloud of downdraft, growing smaller and more indistinct until the sleek lines of the helicopter grow razor-thin before disappearing completely.

“No … no, no, no!” Charles’ legs buckle, sending him crashing to his knees in the scorched swath of earth where you were just lying. His hands fist in the grass, heedless of the crimson that stains his fingers, his palms, every inch of shredded skin and broken soul.

The world has ended. His universe has imploded.

And all he can do is kneel in the ashes and scream your name into the uncaring void.

***

The deafening roar of engines fades to a dull thrum as Charles staggers away from the wreckage, his world reduced to a kaleidoscope of fractured images and white noise. He doesn’t register the shouts, the hands grasping at his shoulders as he stumbles blindly towards the track’s perimeter.

Racing. Championships. It all feels like a cruel cosmic joke in the face of what he’s just witnessed.

A chain-link fence looms ahead, the flimsy barrier doing nothing to impede his forward momentum. Figures materialize on the other side — fans, their faces twisted in shock and concern—and then hands are reaching through, steadying him as he clambers over the top with a desperation bordering on madness.

He has to get to you. Nothing else matters.

The parking lot stretches out before him, a maze of gleaming supercars and sleek team transporters. His feet move without conscious thought, propelled by a single-minded determination to reach his haven, his sole remaining tether in this swiftly unraveling realm.

Except, when he arrives at his Ferrari, chest heaving with exertion and the first tendrils of panic starting to set in, the awful truth crashes over him like a tsunami.

No keys.

A choking sound tears from his throat, part sob and part anguished growl of frustration. He can’t break down here, not now, not when every fiber of his being screams at him to keep moving, to fight, to-

“Charles!”

The familiar voice cuts through the din, offering a lifeline just as the darkness threatens to swell and consume him utterly. Andrea skids to a halt beside him, chest heaving and face flushed from his own desperate sprint across the paddock.

In his outstretched hand, the keys dangle and glint in the harsh sunlight.

“I had a feeling,” the trainer pants, thrusting the keys towards Charles with a knowing look.

No other words are needed. Charles snatches them with a terse nod, every agonizing second weighing like an eternity as the engine roars to life beneath his expert touch.

His knuckles whiten on the steering wheel as he wrenches the car into gear, jaw clenched to keep the scream of agony caged behind his teeth. Andrea hardly has time to slam the door before they’re peeling out of the lot in a spray of gravel and burnt rubber.

Except, the awful truth rears its head once more as the speedometer climbs past ludicrous speeds, the blur of the Italian countryside offering no reprieve from the maelstrom tearing him apart from the inside.

“Shit!” Charles’ palm cracks against the steering wheel, knuckles screaming in protest. “Where did they take her?”

Of course Andrea knows what he’s asking. The performance coach doesn’t even hesitate, already dialing his phone with the same razor-sharp focus that has guided Charles through so many battles over the years. “Fred? It’s Andrea. Where did they take Y/N?”

The next few seconds stretch into an eternity, each rattling breath searing Charles’ lungs. The line must still be ringing because Charles can’t make out any other voice, just the muffled hum of the connection and Andrea’s terse breathing. He casts a sidelong glance, jaw clenched so tightly he can feel the tendons straining beneath his skin.

Then, a response — clipped and authoritative even through the tinny speakerphone crackle. “They’ve airlifted her to the trauma center in Milan. She’s still en route.”

No other words are needed. The Ferrari leaps forward with a howl, devouring the asphalt as Charles whites out every other thought, every scrap of sense and reason. All that exists is the burning need to reach you before the unthinkable becomes reality.

Highway signs whip by in a blur, red taillights and shrill horns little more than background noise as he tears down the roads, uncaring of speed limits or lane markers or any of the trifling rules governing the everyday world he’s left behind. Just an animalistic need propelling him forward, the destination the only thing that matters.

Get to her. Don’t be too late. Please, god, don’t let me be too late ...

And then, finally, the looming skyline of Milan rears into view.

Tires squeal in protest as Charles wrenches the steering wheel, the Ferrari fishtailing wildly before rocketing down the street towards the distinctive profile of the hospital. He doesn’t even bother looking for a proper spot, swinging the car up over the curb and leaving it stranded halfway on the sidewalk in a blatant obstruction.

But he doesn’t care. Can’t care about anything beyond reaching you.

The chaos of the emergency room hits them in a crashing wave of noise and activity, but Charles forges ahead undeterred. Shouts and rebuffs part around him like a river around a boulder, falling away as staff recognize the wild-eyed visage barreling towards them.

It’s Italy. It’s the Grand Prix. Of course they know his face, the name that every tifoso here would sell their soul to claim as a native son. A path opens before them, whispers and pointing fingers trailing in their wake.

“Leclerc!”

“Did you hear what happened?”

“Code Red from the Autodromo ..”

The words slice at Charles, both too loud and too indistinct to comprehend beyond the implication that you’re here, somewhere through these endless, claustrophobic hallways. A nurse in seafoam scrubs appears at his side, ushering them with brisk efficiency. He follows without a word, legs fueled by pure desperation as they weave deeper into the sprawling facility.

At last, they’re led into a waiting room, the nurse pivoting to face them with a carefully composed expression. “The patient was brought in approximately thirty minutes ago with severe trauma from the crash. She’s currently in surgery, but there are no further updates I can provide right now.”

Surgery.

The weight of that single word hits like a sledgehammer, sending Charles reeling until his back slams against the nearest wall. He sucks in a ragged gasp, fingers tangling in his sweat-damp curls as the magnitude of what’s unfolding threatens to drag him under completely.

There are voices, murmurs of concern as figures materialize from the edges of his frayed vision. Hands grasp at him, trying in vain to offer comfort or reassurance or something, anything to tether him to this reality that has become his waking nightmare.

But there is no solace to be found.

With a shudder that wracks his entire frame, Charles slides down the wall, knees tucking up in a pitiful facsimile of the bright-eyed young man who had stood on that sunbaked grid only hours ago. His head drops into his upraised palms, fingers tightening in his hair until the pain is the only thing anchoring him against the relentless maelstrom of grief and terror threatening to sweep him away.

The rest of the world falls away until all that remains is the hollow ache in his chest and the silent pleas to someone — anyone — tumbling through his mind on an endless refrain.

A hand rests on his shoulder, grounding him, and he registers Andrea’s presence beside him, the other man’s face drawn in anguish. Tears track down the trainer’s cheeks, glittering in the harsh fluorescent light.

For a long moment, there is only the sound of their mingled breaths, of a silent understanding too profound for words.

Neither speaks. There are no more words to be said, no prayers to voice beyond the torrent of desperate pleas echoing through their fractured psyches.

All that remains is to wait, and steel themselves against the soul-shattering eventuality awaiting them no matter which way the scales of existence tip.

So they wait. And Charles breaks.

***

The fluorescent lights hum a discordant drone, casting stark shadows that seem to leach the warmth from every surface. Charles stares unseeing at the scuffed linoleum tiles inches from his boots, the clinical smell of disinfectant burning his nostrils with each shallow breath.

Beside him, Andrea’s presence is a fixed point amidst the whirling currents of nurses, orderlies, and grim-faced family members that swirl through the waiting room. A bottle of water is pressed into Charles’ hand at some point, the plastic slick with condensation against his palm.

He doesn’t drink. Doesn’t move or speak or show any reaction to the flickering passage of time.

The flow of bodies ebbs and swells like the tide, more familiar faces appearing in scuttling clusters. First the Ferrari personnel, then other teams’ crew, and finally the drivers themselves, one by one. Gasps and muffled curses drift past as the scope of the situation sinks in. Whispers, a bitten-off sob from somewhere across the room.

Charles hears none of it.

He’s adrift in a sea of his own spiraling thoughts, each cresting wave dragging him deeper into the all-consuming torment. Memories mingle with fragments of overheard updates, snippets of frantic phone conversations from those trying to unravel the events of the race.

Blood, so much blood staining the grass, her lips, matting her hair in crimson streaks as she lay unmoving, unbreathing.

Internal bleeding, fractures, neural trauma.

Laughter muffled by the sheets, lazy mornings spent tangled in each other as the world continued its inexorable spin beyond their bedroom walls.

Code Red from the Autodromo ...

The last words she’d tried to force out, little more than a whispered breath over the roar of the racetrack: “I love-”

The purgatory crawls on, each sluggish second carved raw against his tattered nerves. Charles is vaguely aware of the others filtering in and out in shifts, some speaking to him in murmurs too soft to understand, others simply sitting in silence as the minutes bled together into hours.

Some indeterminable span of time later, a ripple works its way through the room, crystallizing into a gathered hush as figures in pale green scrubs appear. One steps forward — a man with graying hair and a craggy face lined by decades of triaging human lives.

The hush deepens to an utter stillness as every eye turns towards him, a held breath drawn taut to the breaking point. Charles lifts his head, forces his gaze to focus on the man’s lips as they part, the moment elongating like a length of rubber pulled to the edge of its tensile strength.

“The patient-” A pause as the surgeon’s eyes flick across the sea of apprehension before settling on Charles with deliberate weight. “-has been stabilized after undergoing extensive surgery to address the trauma sustained in the crash.”

A soft exhalation moves through the room, instinctive reactions barely bridled by the undercurrent of anxiety that keeps them taut, waiting.

“She suffered a severe brain bleed which resulted in significant swelling. In order to alleviate the pressure on her brain, we were forced to put her into a medically-induced coma.”

The words lance through Charles like jagged shards of ice, locking the breath in his lungs. Unconscious, unresponsive. Alive, but without any way of reaching out to reassure himself that the spark still flickers in those endlessly warm eyes. He swallows hard, the room swimming in and out of focus as the surgeon continues in a measured cadence.

“We’ve also had to repair multiple internal injuries and fractures, including her spine. The next forty-eight hours will be critical for monitoring her condition and responses.”

And there it is, the crux they’ve all been tensed in agonizing anticipation to receive. In two days, they’ll know if the fight — your fight — is over before it’s truly begun. The flip of a cosmic coin will determine whether Charles’ entire universe continues to spin … or falls into the black void opening up beneath his feet.

Peripherally, he’s aware of the questions starting, the anguished pleas for more details and reassurances as the others process the impassive surgeon’s words through their own lenses of experience. But Charles hears none of it, only the deafening rush of his own pulse echoing in his ears as the grains of sand in fate’s diabolical hourglass begin their insidious trek.

A blink, and the surgeon is gone, the rest of the somber scrub-clad figures dispersing back towards the swinging doors of the surgical ward. Just like that, they’re alone again, adrift in the limbo of both desperation and dread.

Charles sags, his tenuous grip on composure fracturing like a dam rupturing beneath the crushing weight of reality. A broken whimper rasps from deep within his chest, guttural and visceral and utterly devoid of anything resembling hope.

A hand finds his shoulder, grounding him enough to keep him tethered to the earth as the universe he knows compresses into the torturous rhythm of a mechanized ventilator breathing life into your battered form.

He can see you so clearly, even with his eyes screwed shut against the harsh fluorescents bleaching every surface to the same antiseptic pallor. Fragile, fighting, hooked up to the cold indifference of technology while it works to preserve what he knows to be the brightest, most brilliant soul ever breathed into existence.

The thought of those sparkling eyes, your eyes clouded with unresponsive stillness … it rips the last tattered shred of restraint from his unraveling core. A desolate wail tears free, strangled and raw and utterly devoid of resignation or peace.

He’s loved you for years, months, days, lifetimes — and still it will never be enough to prepare him for a world in which you don’t exist. A breath where he is forced to simply survive without the steady radiance of your presence illuminating every step along his path. Without living.

Andrea’s arms encircle him, a brotherly embrace that does little to quell the flood of anguish now pouring from him in heaving torrents. The others retreat with quiet steps, allowing themselves to fade into the shadows, mere ghosts slipping from the devastation of a man confronting the whispered dread that inhabits every driver’s subconscious.

A love and a life, both hanging suspended by whatever cosmic forces govern their fleeting existences.

You are his gravity, his sun, his guiding starlight.

If you burn out, his universe will go forever dark.

***

The antiseptic haze of the ICU feels like a vice around Charles’ chest as he follows the nurse down the sterile hallway. Each shuffling step is leaden, tinged with an unreality that weighs heavier with every closed door they pass.

Part of him doesn’t want to go through with this. Doesn’t want to face the reality that awaits on the other side of that threshold and shatter the tenuous equilibrium he’s managed to cling to since the moment everything disintegrated on the racetrack.

“She’s just through here.”

The nurse’s words are a wrench, jerking Charles from his reverie with a sobering lurch. Ahead, a nondescript door with a window barely cracked — the entrance to a realm he’s not sure his soul can withstand traversing.

“I’ll give you a few minutes.” Her voice has taken on that too-gentle lilt, the one that says she’s borne witness to too many lives fractured.

Charles nods automatically, not meeting her gaze as she retreats on soft-soled steps. Then it’s just him, alone in the dimly lit hallway with only the muffled noise of machines and murmured voices beyond the door to keep him tethered.

With a fortifying breath that does little to settle the jackhammer pounding in his chest, he grasps the handle and pushes through into your room.

And then … there you are.

Pale and hauntingly still against the sterile sheets, a sickly garden of tubes and wires cocooning your form. There’s barely a rise and fall of your chest, just the robotic ebb and flow of life being pumped through the mask clamped across your face. Dark crescents of bruising mar the fragile skin beneath your eyes, blossoming in vivid shades of yellow and violet across your cheekbones.

You’re so devastatingly still. As if all your vibrant essence has retreated inward, abandoning your corporeal shell in favor of waging an unseen war to simply continue existing.

Charles sucks in a shuddering breath, fingers spasming against his thigh as the first hairline fractures split through the dam he’s erected around his emotions. Part of him wants to flee, to escape back into the blissful naivete of the world before this became his reality. Another part is rooted to the spot with magnetic inevitability, drawn in helpless orbit around your pale, unmoving form.

Slowly, one foot drags in front of the other, carrying him across the room to hover beside your bedside. The blanket of tubes and wires prevents him from seeing much beyond your face and the barest suggestion of a shoulder through the loose neckline of the hospital gown. He reaches out, fingertips trembling as he ghosts them over the exposed skin just above the jutting notch of your collarbone.

You’re so still. And so, so cold.

That’s what breaks him.

His knees hit the tile with a dull thud, unheeded tears already streaking down his cheeks by the time he presses his forehead to the mattress edge. One hand finds yours, enveloping it in a desperate grasp as his entire being crumbles inward like a spent force of nature.

“No, no, no ...” The words are a mantra intermingled with broken gasps as the dam ruptures completely and the anguish pours free in ragged waves. “This can’t … you can’t ...”

Coherent thought deserts him, spiraling into the endless dark of a life without you at his side. These last few days have been a mere fleeting taste of that desolate actuality, uncomprehending glimpses into a reality too obliterating to fully process.

A universe without your light? Your radiance and warmth suffusing his world with color and texture and meaning? It feels like a black hole has opened its maw inside of his chest, hungry to devour everything until nothing remains.

“Please ...”

The plea rasps out in a guttural whisper, little more than carbon scoring the back of his throat. Head bowed, he crushes his brow to your knuckles, each etchings of bone an anchor weight lashing him to this merciless reality.

“Come back to me ...”

The words splinter apart, shredded into woeful gasps as the dam of his fragile composure ruptures. Great, racking sobs claw their way free, tearing through him from the center of his hollow core.

“Take everything else.” The words fracture anew, dissolving into heaving sobs as another piece of his soul splinters away. “Take every trophy, every podium, every championship I will ever win ...”

His voice cracks, seizing in his throat as he drags in a ragged breath, leaning his brow harder against the bedside to ground himself in some last anchor of solidity. Anything to keep from shattering into a million irretrievable pieces as he pours out the final offering, the ultimate sacrifice any driver or athlete can make against the cruel cosmic joke of mortality.

“Take my career, my records ... everything racing has ever meant to me ...” His fingers spasm around yours, clinging on with everything he has left as the darkness closes in. “Just ... please, let her wake up. Let me have more than just these memories of her smile and her laugh and the way she makes everything brighter just by existing.”

The sobs come harder now, racking his frame with deep shudders as his voice dissolves into jagged keening. Tears scald rivulets down his cheeks and drip from his chin to patter against the utilitarian sheets in glimmering droplets. He cries for the unfairness of it all, for the loss that is so brutally imminent it’s already written into his very bones, for the gaping hole that is soon to hollow out his very existence.

Eventually, the racking sobs subside into muted whimpers, the storm ebbing into a quieter desolation as he clings to the thin lifeline of your hand still cradled in his own. A bitter laugh claws its way up his throat, raw and devoid of any trace of humor.

“You’d probably kick my ass if you could see me making deals with the devil like this.”

The silence is deafening, broken only by the measured hiss-pause-exhale of the machines mercilessly keeping that precious flicker of life from extinguishing completely. Another laugh escapes, rough and graveled with the weight of a million shattered pieces of himself littering the floor around him.

“You’ve always been the stronger one between us, haven’t you?”

He angles his head, pressing his lips to your knuckles in a lingering kiss as a fresh deluge of tears gather in his eyes. “So wake up, mon cœur. Wake up and show me how to keep going ...”

The whisper hangs in the air, suspended in the limbo of waiting and dread as the machines continue their indifferent monotony. Charles lingers there, forehead pressed to your palm as the minutes drag onward and the final flickers of day fade from the window.

He’s here. He’ll always be right here.

No matter how many nights and days and eternities that ceaseless tide must crash over him until your eyes open once more.

The quiet is shattered by a stifled gasp at the threshold, a swell of fresh emotion that causes Charles to lift his head, scrubbing futilely at his eyes with the back of his free hand. Two figures have appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the dimmer light of the hallway beyond.

Footsteps, two sets. Familiar yet not, like ghosts drifting through the periphery of a dream. He knows instinctively who has stepped into the claustrophobic bubble of vigil, but cannot summon the energy to turn, to confront them.

There’s only you. Only you, and this carcass of shattered promises and devastation that he’s been reduced to by the simple fact of your absence.

Until …

Motions in the corner of his vision, the slide of fabric and muted footfalls amidst the monotonous cadence of technology. Then, a pair of weathered hands — hands he recognizes like the veins pulsing with life beneath his own skin — come into view, cupping his bowed head in a cradle of reassurance and shared infinitudes of anguish.

Your parents’ voices carry in the wake of their touch, whispers ragged with the same bone-deep desolation bleeding from Charles’ shattered core. Indistinct murmurs of comfort, of empathy, of that level of understanding that only those poised on the precipice can ever understand.

He doesn’t resist as they draw him into the circle of their arms, enveloping him until their shared warmth banishes some of the chill snaking through his soul. Hot tears streak down his cheeks again, but these aren’t solitary, bitter shed of a man abandoned in the void of loss.

Their mingled anguish binds them together on this fevered plane of suffering, a communion of the damned begging with whatever beneficent forces might hear their pleas.

Please.

Please give them back the spark of light they all crave with every fiber of their beings.

Please, because this ...

This is no life. Not without you.

***

The fluorescent lights seem to dim with every passing hour, the edges of reality blurring together into an indistinct smear. Time has lost all meaning amidst the monotonous cycle of machines and muffled hospital ambiance swirling through your room.

Charles is adrift in a wakeful dream state, his world compressed into the miniscule shifts across your features. The steady beep of the heart monitor, the almost imperceptible rise and fall of your chest, the flutter of your eyelids as your mind navigates whatever ethereal paths separate you from him.

He hasn’t left your bedside. Not for food or rest or even the most basic of human needs. It’s all he can do to simply exist in this liminal space with you, unwilling to surrender a single breath or blink to the cruelty of a reality in which your presence doesn’t illuminate every crevice.

His thumb traces idle circles over your knuckles, the motion as robotic as the whoosh of the ventilator forcing air in and out of your lungs. Voices drift through from the hallway, clinical and detached. More tests and updates being murmured without context or depth of feeling.

None of it matters. The only metric capable of penetrating the fog enshrouding Charles is the ghost of sensation where his calloused fingers brush your skin.

He’s acutely attuned to the details of your condition at any given moment, no matter how inconsequential it may seem to the professionals at their stations monitoring labs and scans. A slight spike in temperature or blood pressure, the faintest twitching muscle or brow-furrow. All of it feels magnified a thousandfold as he clings to every indication, every little shift that might signal a turn for the better.

Or … for the worse

The thought skitters away the instant it surfaces, instinctively repressed by the force of Charles’ sheer desperation. He’s been here, motionless and steadfast, as the forty-eight hour milestone stretched into seventy-two, ninety-six, a hundred and twenty. With each passing day, the doctors grew more optimistic, more positive in their assessments as the swelling in your brain gradually abated.

Until this morning. The preliminary preparations to rouse you from the protective shroud of the medically induced coma began. Rounds of testing, consults from specialists, hushed asides between the scrub-clad personnel that Charles couldn’t parse beyond the undercurrent of anticipation that rippled through the ward.

Now they wait. He and the contingent of nurses and doctors hovering at stations like sentries guarding the gateway to the only world that matters. Watching, observing, as your eyelids begin to stir and the heart monitor’s pattern shifts just slightly from its metronomic rhythm.

Charles holds his breath, fingers tightening around yours as his gaze fixes on your face, the first pinpricks of awareness flickering there. Your eyelids flutter, brow furrowing as if straining against unseen barriers holding you back. Flashes of animation, of unvoiced struggle, play out in rapid succession and his world constricts into that singular point of reality unwinding.

Your fingers twitch, a spasmodic shudder, before settling into a steady movement in his grasp. The change in pressure is minute, featherweight, but it’s enough to electrify every nerve in Charles’ body. His head whips toward the observation window, breath sawing from his lungs.

“She’s waking up!”

It’s little more than a raw exhalation, the spark that ignites the room into urgent, yet controlled, flurries of activity. A nurse slips inside, tapping briskly at monitors and checking lines with an instinctive flow of motion. Charles barely registers her presence, his world distilled down to that singular point of lifeline linking him to you as the fog of unconsciousness finally begins to lift.

Your first inhale tugs at something primal within him, hauls the breath from his lungs even as unfettered joy spills through his chest. There’s movement beneath the fluttering of your eyelids, the rustle of lashes and tiny furrows creasing the delicate skin around your eyes. The seconds stretch out like an eternity until finally ...

They open.

Slitted and hazy, but undeniably open and aware. For an endless heartbeat, Charles is frozen, hands still wrapped around your fingers as afraid to move as a cave explorer plunged into impermeable black.

Then the world rushes in with all the chaos and color he’s been robbed of for far too long. A desperate sound tears itself free of his throat, as his body releases the suspended tension flooding from every pore. He sways forward, bracing his other hand on the mattress edge to keep from utterly crumpling at your very first flutter of life.

“Oh god ...” The fractured keen catches with a gasping sob. “Dieu merci, I thought I-”

But the words fracture, tumble away into lost coherence as you shift, throat bobbing with visible effort before the slurred shape of words escapes past chapped lips.

“C-can’t … f-feel ...”

Charles freezes, the world contracting back into stark lines and hyper-focused clarity. You’re struggling, the effort of speech clear across features still slack with the vestiges of your ordeal.

Panic claws its way up his throat, instinct sounding the call to seek help, to rally every force of medicine at their disposal toward solving this new, horrifying complication. He turns, mouth already open in a shout toward the observation window-

Only to find the room already flooding with personnel, summoned by some unseen alert the moment you stirred. Voices begin filtering through the dissonance clogging his senses — clipped, professional directives lancing through the feedback loop skipping inside his skull.

“Keep her calm-”

“... signs of paralysis ...”

“... damage to the motor cortex ...”

The final phrase lands like a weighted punch, sending Charles reeling back a half-step as the implications unspool into his consciousness. Your face twists in distress, breath sawing as the tube mask fogs with each panicked exhalation.

“I … n-no ...” You try to move, to shift position, but whatever spinal injury incurred in the wreck limits you to feeble twitches and whimpers.

Charles is at your side in an instant, features etched in silent agony as he brushes back the hair feathering across your forehead. His other hand finds yours, solid and grounding as he wills every iota of strength into the contact.

“Shhh, it’s alright. It’ll be alright, just stay calm.”

A cursory glance over his shoulder confirms a flurry of activity unfolding behind the glass as neurologists and specialists filter in. Tests will be run, evaluations and diagnostics to chart out whatever neural trauma has wrought such devastating effects upon your mobility.

In this moment, none of it matters beyond the trembling whimpers parting your lips and the glimmer of tears streaking your cheeks to dampen the pillow beneath your head. Charles wants nothing more than to gather you into his arms, to shield you from this fresh cruelty that has robbed you of yet another piece of your spirit.

Instead, he leans in close, cradling your face in his palm as you struggle to latch onto his presence amidst the waves of fear and distress no doubt crashing through your psyche.

“F-feel my … can’t ....” The disjointed words catch in racking sobs, your eyes squeezing shut against a torrent of emotion he recognizes all too well.

“I know, I know ...” The platitudes feel hollow, meaningless verbal gestures against the enormity of the situation closing its grip around them. But Charles speaks them regardless, murmuring soft reassurances against your anguish.

“Just focus on me, mon cœur. Only me.” His thumb swipes the moisture from your cheekbones, smearing tear tracks through the pallor there as his voice drops to a soft rasp. “You’re still here, still fighting ...”

Your eyes open at that, lashes spiked and heavy with more saline that slips free to streak down your temples. Those depths are oceans of heartache, roiling with a tempest of emotion that momentarily banishes every scrap of reason or logic from Charles’ mind.

All that matters is easing your suffering. Doing anything to lift the veil of anguish smothering the radiant light that marked your essence, that wondrous spark responsible for thawing every one of his defenses and opening a pathway to the heart he’d resigned himself to never sharing.

“I’m here and I’m not leaving. Not ever.” The words scorch themselves into his very soul as he presses his brow to yours. The antiseptic smells of your surroundings fade, the two of you cocooned in the intimate embrace of making your entire world his, if only for these fleeting seconds.

“We’ll get through this together,” he murmurs against your hairline, drinking in the simple euphoria of your closeness, of being able to impart even an inkling of comfort through his presence alone. “I promise.”

The words hang there for a suspended eternity, no response beyond the quiet hiccup of your breathing evening out the tiniest bit. A sliver of solace in the storm to cling to, no matter how tenuous.

Then the retinue of doctors and nurses sweeps in, their voices raised in directives and instructions. It shatters the moment, the outside world crashing back into their reality with all its cold indifference and clinical calculation.

Charles is ushered back, stumbling on legs turned to rubber as he watches you drag your reddened gaze from his, focusing inward as the onslaught of testing begins. He wants to refuse, to dig in his heels and remain steadfastly at your side through whatever fresh torments this throws your way.

But that defiance dies before it can form, snuffed out by the fragility written in the slump of your shoulders and the dull, haunted glaze muting your formerly vibrant spirit. All of his instincts scream at him to protect you, to rally against any external forces bent on inflicting more cruelty upon your already overburdened existence.

Instead, with a leaden heart and bile burning the back of his throat, Charles can only slip from the room and let the white coats encircle you with their machines and sterile indifference.

It’s a wait that lasts an eternity condensed into seconds, the rubber soles of his sneakers tracing grooves into the linoleum as he paces the hallway with increasing franticness. Snatches of conversation drift out from behind the closed door — clinical assessments devoid of context or feeling.

Then, as abruptly as it began, the door sweeps open and a group of personnel file out, scribbling notations and conversing in terse murmurs. One of them, a woman with cropped silver hair and piercing eyes, breaks off to approach Charles. Her expression is carefully neutral, devoid of any emotional tells.

“Mr. Leclerc.” It’s not a question, but an acknowledgment of who he is … and what is owed to him. “Your … partner has suffered extensive trauma to her spinal cord and central nervous system in the crash. The amount of nerve damage we’re detecting suggests paralysis of both lower extremities.”

The words shatter into coherent syllables and empty static all at once. Charles nods numbly, awaiting the verdict he can feel looming above them all.

“We can’t say with any certainty whether this condition is temporary or … permanent.” There’s a pause, the ghost of empathy flickering across her hawkish features before the professional mask reasserts itself. “Only time will tell if there’s any chance of full recovery once the other injuries have mended and treatment can begin in earnest.”

The finality hangs in the air for a stretched tautness of heartbeats, crystalline and utterly devoid of warmth. Charles forces himself to meet her gaze, to hold her clinical detachment within his own eyes as the world drifts further and further away.

“Okay.” It’s little more than a whisper, but it feels like tearing out his own throat to give voice to the thing that shatters his heart for you. “Can I … see her?”

A dip of the woman’s chin, a wordless assent as she steps aside to allow Charles to pass. He manages only a few weighted strides before halting, hand braced against the doorframe as he ghosts his gaze over your prostrate form.

You’re crying, quiet and bereft as the blankets rise and fall in time with your shuddering breaths. Something animal and feral keens low in Charles’ chest at the sight, every scrap of resolve threatening to unravel in the wake of your desolation.

Before he can think of second-guess the impulse, he crosses the space in two strides and drops to his knees beside the mattress. You startle at the sudden motion, eyelids fluttering in shock before recognition blazes through the emptiness shrouding your features. It’s Charles’ undoing.

“No, no … no tears.” His voice cracks like splintered glass, adrift on waves of his own withheld emotion. “You’re still here. You’re still with me, mon amour.”

He finds your hand with his own, fingers dwarfed in his calloused grip as he brings them to his brow. Outside, the doctors and specialists confer in low murmurs, their indifference too jagged to apply to the wounds here in this sanctuary where only you exist.

“You’ll be okay.” The promise burns itself into the verse he’s scribed on his heart, a vow etched in trails of moisture searing his cheeks. “No matter what it takes.”

His lips find your forehead, brushing against the clammy skin there as you sag towards him, drawn together by the gravity of an understanding too profound for the empty hallways and clinical trappings circling them. For this stolen breath, it’s simply you and him in all your wounded radiance.

“I almost lost you.” The confession rattles free, sent skyward on exhaled plumes that stir the fine baby hairs framing your brow. “And I’ll fight like hell to keep you beside me for as long as this life will allow.”

Your eyes find his, fractured mirrors reflecting all the heartache and dashed hopes ricocheting between you. But there’s something else there too.

Hope. Defiance. That unquenchable spark that first lured Charles toward you like a moth begging for the flame’s obliterating caress.

He’ll cling to that inner fire. Pour every ounce of his being into nurturing the smoldering coals until they flare again, banishing the darkness fate has chosen to drape them in at every turn. They’ll get through this, finding whatever reserves the cruelest pockets of despair have yet to strip away to sustain them.

Paralysis, brain damage, unthinkable trauma ...

None of it matters.

Not as long as you’re still drawing those precious, rasping breaths beside him.

Not as long as that beautifully battered heart beats on, refusing to surrender to the abyss.

“Je t’aime.” The oath clings to his lips, pressed against your temple as he holds you close. “Always and forever. No matter what.”

***

The sleek, modern lines of the therapy center bisect the Monegasque sky, all glass and steel rising toward the blue expanse. Charles pauses a moment as he strides across the courtyard, drawing in a steadying breath of the crisp early-winter air before continuing on toward the entrance.

The motion-triggered doors sweep open with a whisper, ushering him into the pristine lobby adorned with the fixtures of understated elegance. Sunlight streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting everything in muted ambers and golds that warm the precision-engineered decor.

Charles crosses the space with economical purpose, gaze sweeping the sitting areas arranged with studied nonchalance until he pinpoints the familiar silhouette awaiting him. You’re positioned with your back angled toward him, the faint shudder of your shoulders visible as you shift position in the high-backed wheelchair.

For a heartbeat, the sight freezes him in place, the old swell of emotions threatening to spiral into rampant chaos until he can taste the acrid tang of panic curdling on his tongue.

Then the moment passes, brought up short by the instinctive reflex to compartmentalize that’s carried him through so many darknesses since the day his entire universe fragmented beyond repair. He shakes it off, squaring his shoulders as he resumes his trajectory, clearing the distance between you in a handful of strides.

You must sense his presence behind you because a tremor shivers across your frame a half-second before you begin to crane your neck towards the source of the approaching footfalls. Charles times his approach to intercept the motion, stepping neatly into your peripheral line of sight with a warm smile ghosting across his features.

“Mon amour.”

The endearment falls from his lips like silk across skin, the richly-textured syllables suffusing the air between you until it feels thick with emotion and the grounding sense of home. Of course, you react to the sound, lips already parting in anticipation of reply that has yet to fully manifest.

The struggle is still so pronounced, hewn into the furrows creasing your brow and the deliberate concentration sharpening the elegant lines of your profile as you wrestle with the disconnect between neural synapses and musculature. Each time Charles bears witness to these trials, it rekindles the enduring fury and heartache enough to steal the air from his lungs.

How cruel could fate be to hurt the brightest soul he’s ever known?

The questions circle endlessly, gnawing their way across his subconscious in a constant cycle of what-ifs and unvoiced anguish. So he clings to patience as your sole solace, willing every ounce of unspoken encouragement into the sliver of contact where his calloused fingers sit atop your knuckles.

“It’s-” The fragmented sound tugs his focus back to your profile in time to catch the flickering hint of frustration tightening the muscles along your jaw as the words elude their trajectory once more. He watches your chest rise and fall with the effort of measured breathing, sees the war being waged behind blown pupils as your nerves strive to reestablish an equilibrium so brutally ruptured by trauma.

And then … a breakthrough.

“I ...” Barely more than an exhale, shaped on the barest puff of air passing your lips. But the simple vowel ignites something beneath Charles’ breastbone, a frisson of hope and pride and a thousand other tangled emotions combining into unadulterated exhilaration.

“L-love ...” Another pause, infinitesimal in the grand cosmic span yet stretched endless as the consonants parse themselves into recognizable sounds. Your eyes find his, glimmering pinpricks of desperate adoration blazing through the sullen cloud of anguish that’s settled in their depths.

The final whisper crystallizes into the air with the reverent weight of an answered prayer, “... you.”

Charles is across the space in an instant, crashing to his knees before you with a breathless sound that parts his lips on a broken rasp. Trembling hands map along the delicate slopes of your cheeks, cradling your face as a single tear spills free to chart a glistening trail down his cheek.

“Oh god ...” The prayer shivers past his lips, half sob and half keening breath as he presses his brow to yours, drowning in your presence and surrounding himself with the singularity of your existence. “You did it. You said it ...”

He trails off, lost to the beautifully battered rhythm of your exhales gusting across his features. This close, you’re all he sees, all he needs to survive this moment of solace among the anguished trials you’ve endured to forge this path back toward him. With painstaking care, he leans in to dust trembling kisses across your brow, your temples, the feathered crescents of your eyelashes as they flutter shut beneath the reverent onslaught.

Until finally, his lips find yours in a searing confession of worship — no urgency or fire, just two souls colliding into the singularity that first kindled their union. Charles slants his mouth across your own, breathing you in deeply until his senses are awash in the familiar scent of your skin and the dizzying tranquility of becoming something so much more than the sum of fragmented parts.

It both is and isn’t a kiss, just the barest brush of sensitive flesh and shared breath. Yet all of Charles’ fortitude strains against the tidal surge of emotion crashing through his bones … devotion and heartache, fervent pride and the nauseating chaser of reality.

Because even as you persevere, rising like a phoenix from each trial along this endless road toward recovery, he knows the path ahead remains strewn with obstacles and shadowed pockets into which the darkness always lurks.

When he finally tears himself away, it’s with another shuddering breath and two crystalline trails of moisture etched into the hollows beneath his eyes. He drinks in your features with the starving desperation of one lost to the merciless desert of life, maps every nuanced shift of line and breath and expression to catalog the miracles unfolding before him.

“You incredible, impossible thing ...” The endearment slips free on a choked laugh, more for his sake than any lack of comprehension on your part. Even after everything, Charles knows you understand the timbre and shape of his words as deeply as if they were your own thoughts.

But before he can bask in the fleeting warmth of this tiny victory, you’re drawing him back in. Delicate fingertips brushing the moisture from his cheekbones as you struggle to translate thought into sound once more.

“This … isn’t ...” A pregnant pause, brow furrowing with the strain before the rest comes in a tumbling rush. “What you wanted. For us.”

The words land like craters against Charles’ ribs, disjointed bombs stripping away the last threads of cheerfulness with each syllable. He stills, mouth parting on a protest that never materializes as you forge onward in the wake of his stunned silence.

“Y-you gave up ...” Another tiny hesitation, your chest rising and falling as you suck in a fortifying breath, “... everything.”

A fresh sheen of moisture wells in your eyes, slick with too many fractured hopes and dreams to ever assemble into coherent utterances. Still, Charles recognizes each shred of meaning, every whispered subtext behind the fragments you offer up as if stilling him for the inevitable strike to come.

Except this time, the blow he expects never arrives. Instead, you lean in, fingertips trailing lightly across the sharp angles of his jaw as the rest of the thought emerges with painstaking care.

“It’s … okay. To find someone ...” Your voice cracks, throat bobbing against the torrent of naked vulnerability suffusing each word. “... new.”

For an endless instant, the world spins on its axis, that single, shattered confession shearing through all of Charles’ deeply-ingrained instincts and defenses. This is the thing he’s dreaded since the first moment fate’s vicious hand tore the very fabric of your radiance into parts — the inevitability of you shouldering the blame for what has unfolded.

Unacceptable.

Unthinkable.

His hands are on you again before he consciously wills them to move, palms cradling your face like he’s the one in constant danger of crumbling into a billion undone pieces. It’s both anchor and lifeline as he pulls you flush against him, mouth trembling for purchase against the rush of sentiment crashing through his veins.

“Never.” The oath has never felt so feather-light yet absolute all at once. He rasps it out like a scrap of prayer, the shape of the sound rippling through the air between them.

“This life? You are everything I want.” The words feel torn from some primal place he had thought cauterized in the aftermath of all that has transpired between them. But still, Charles lays himself bare in their wake, baring every shred of anguish and love and reverence bleeding from his heart.

“Not the career or the glory or any other pursuit I might have thrown myself toward ...” He drags in a ragged inhale, feeling your quivering breaths ghosting across his lips like a light breeze stoked from embers. “Just you, mon cœur. All of you — from your brilliant mind to your determined spirit.”

His thumb traces the supple curve of your cheekbone, rough calluses snagging lightly against satin-smooth skin as his voice skips toward a halting rasp.

“I don’t know what the future holds.” This final mortal truth lingers in the thrall of hushed vulnerability shrouding them. “But I’m not leaving this existence without you by my side through every second of it. Not willingly.”

In the suspended heartbeats that follow, Charles watches the onslaught of emotion crest through the otherworldly depths of your eyes. He swallows hard, aching to fend off whatever final resistance lingers behind those storm-tossed features. Except his throat has grown too thick, too clogged with unshed tears to give voice to the hundreds upon thousands of fractured promises unspooling toward each other.

So he kisses you instead — harder this time, with the desperate exhilaration of a drowning man breaking surface to taste the first gasps of oxygen-rich air. He pours himself into the connection, igniting the spark that first smoldered between you years and lifetimes ago until his entire being resonates with the radiant warmth.

When at last he drags himself back, it’s with a swipe of his thumb to brush away the shimmering track of tears he’s unwittingly drawn to your cheek. “I love you,” he rumbles, the sound resonating from the depths of his core to embed in the very foundations of his soul. “Nothing else matters.”

And as if summoned by nothing more than the simmering weight of his epiphanies, you offer up one final exhalation shimmering with promise and budding hope.

“Race.” A broken sound, little more than a whispered caress against the tide of all that has gone unsaid. “Win for … f-for us.”

Charles’ lips part, trembling with too many half-born replies in that stretched moment of realization.

You’re right. Of course you’re right, focused as always upon rekindling the vibrant sparks threatening to gutter beneath his gaze. It’s yet more proof of why he resolved to kneel before you and bind his existence to your own — from now until the last glimmers of twilight.

He curls a hand behind your neck, prizing this beautiful connection above all the momentary triumphs and thrills his boyhood dreams ever convinced him to pursue. Red-painted carbon and shrieking downshifts, roars of acclaim and champagne spilled as if raining down from the heavens … none of it could ever hope to fill the sacred spaces you’ve already occupied with your quiet strength and luminous resilience.

“For you,” he murmurs against the shell of your ear, leaving goosebumps in its wake along the exposed column of your throat. “And only for you, mon ange. I’ll make the world itself hold its breath if that’s what you need.”

He seals the promise with a final brush of his mouth, lingering until every ounce of the sacred vow sears itself into your skin and memory alike.

By the time he draws back to drink in your features one more time, there’s a spark flickering through the storm clouds rimming your gaze. A dazzling flicker in the instant before it flares into something inextinguishable, something potent enough to blind out every shadow threatening to swallow him whole.

It sears through him like a lightning strike, melting every ounce of resolve into something more precious than any trophy or accolade his profession could ever bestow.

A vow you return with a simple promise. “I’ll be your ...” Your voice falters. But your eyes blaze with the words, with that same inevitable fire that forged those first fateful sparks between your souls, “... biggest fan.”

***

The grand hall seems to hum with the collective intake of a thousand bated breaths as Charles turns to face the gathering. Sunlight streams through towering windows in cascading sheets of amber warmth, gilding everything in honeyed refractions that lend an ethereal glow to the floral arrangements and pristine altar dominating the space.

He sucks in a steadying breath of his own, rolling his shoulders beneath the crisp lines of his tailored tuxedo. Anticipation thrums through every fiber of his being, vibrating in synchrony with the symphony of tremulous breaths rippling through their assembled friends and loved ones.

This moment has been too long in manifesting, too brutally tested by the cruelties of fate to be anything but utterly perfect in execution.

Behind him, the faint rustle of his groomsmen shifting into place provides the barest murmur of ambient sound. Joris, Andrea, Pierre, Arthur, and Lorenzo — all united by the gravity of this singular instance reshaping the trajectory of Charles’ existence. He chances the briefest glance over his shoulder, meeting their steadying nods of encouragement with a fleeting ghost of a smile.

It anchors him, draws together those final errant threads of composure in time for the first swell of the processional to filter through the sprawling chamber. The gentle symphony of strings and woven harmonies crashes over Charles in a physical caress, setting his nerves alight with anticipation as every eye tracks toward the grand archway dominating the far end of the hall.

He doesn’t immediately register the diminutive figure emerging in a sweep of ivory chiffon and pale lace. Only after the sharp inhalation of breath fluttering through the assembled does his gaze lock onto your silhouette, resplendent even through the sheer flutter of the veil haloing your shoulders.

He expects the wheelchair, the familiar sleek metallic lines and measured rolls ushering you towards him. Expects the sight that’s become so achingly you, even as it never fails to tighten every muscle in his body with the urge to shelter you in his arms from every cruelty the merciless universe has seen fit to inflict.

Except … there is no chair.

The shuddering breath that leaves his lips might as well have been torn from the depths of his very essence in that suspended heartbeat of dawning realization.

You’re walking.

With slow, tiny strides, flanked on either side by bridesmaids in burnished golds — but not supported or aided in any functional sense of the movements.

No, these halting footfalls are all your own. A monumental effort of sheer force of will and gritty determination honed across months of exhaustive perseverance through some of the darkest shadows ever spanning your shared existences.

Each trembling step, every inch traveled across that endless-seeming expanse of polished marble floor, is both defiant proof of your resilience and a blazing triumph over pain and hardship and loss echoed ten thousandfold.

Charles cannot breathe. Can barely remain upright as his entire world both manifests and dissolves around this singular progression unfolding before him in strangled increments. Others have begun to weep in earnest, muffled sobs billowing through the gathered assembly like ripples across a pond’s placid surface.

He’s vaguely aware of his groomsmen shifting behind him, of shocked gasps ghosting across their stunned features as they grasp the significance of what’s unfolding before their eyes. Andrea’s palm finds the small of Charles’ back, steadying his frame against the sudden influx of vertigo and exhilaration threatening to collapse his consciousness.

Because all that exists in this shuddering span of fractured instants is you. Nothing more, nothing less than the endless radiance of your soul as you stride toward him.

Toward your destiny.

Toward the culmination of all the strength and beauty and determination he’s revered with every ounce of his being since the first time he met you.

He’s crying in earnest now, can feel the streaking trails of moisture searing molten paths down his cheeks to dampen the crisp cotton stretched across his chest. Yet the tears hardly register as anything more than a bodily necessity to expel the rising tsunami of l elation cresting inside his core.

You’re within arm’s reach now, only a handful of quavering paces separating your joined paths. Charles’ hands tremble where they hang at his sides, fingers spasming around the desperation to move, to reach, to hold you against him and pour every ounce of adoration into you.

Willpower alone is what roots him in place, keeps him tethered until every shift and flex of muscle is committed to memory. Until your forward momentum carries you into his gravitational embrace in a sweeping collision of souls reunited.

He feels your hands first, slightly clammy where they land against his shoulders and chest in search of purchase. Then the subtlest hint of perfume, that floral-tinged elixir unique only to the slope of your neck and the crown of your hair when he dips to brush his lips across your brow in reverence.

The dam breaks and Charles crumples inward, folding himself around your form with only the vaguest cognition of the groomsmen forming a sheltering web around you both as he sinks to his knees in a thunderous impact of boneless limbs.

Words either fail him or escape articulation as the only sounds to pass his lips become a stream of fevered, jumbled endearments and throaty praises poured directly against the fevered warmth of your skin. His hands map every trembling plane in frantic sweeps, nails skirting intricate embroidery and dewy satin as each heated exhale shudders harsh against your neck, your cheeks, your brow ...

“Mon cœur ...” The title is prayer and confession, ground out from the friction of his entire belief system being forged anew around you. “You incredible thing ... dieu, look at you ...”

He silences the reflexive protests before they can rise by slanting his mouth across yours. There’s nothing carnal or profane in the gesture, simply the coming together of two souls.

You taste of elation and salt, of budding promise and fond tenacity. Of incandescent joy and the shredded velvet of nights spent paralleling the loneliest infinities as your fingers clutched each other like dual magnets anchored across the universe’s expanse.

“So strong … my warrior … perfect ...” The muted words ghost over your trembling form. Somewhere distant, a chorus of cheers and applause has erupted beyond the bubble forming around you.

But none of it truly registers, not when compared to this shattering merging of everything either of you has struggled and strained and wept to reach.

Nothing else matters in the sweeping catharsis cascading around you both. Not the hoarse prayers still shuddering past his lips, or the moisture from your own lashes streaking down his cheeks in silence.

It’s only when the dizzying euphoria begins to ebb that Charles slowly drags his gaze upwards to find yours — those beautiful depths drowning in reverence and bliss mirroring his own. The spark flickering there banishes all shadows in an instant, forging incandescence enough for a lifetime no matter what fresh trials fate might see fit to test your devotion.

He drinks you in, committing the flawless canvas of your features to permanence before reaching up to brush trembling fingertips across the sheer lace obscuring your radiance. The sweep of fabric pools around your shoulders and Charles finds himself very nearly undone again by the sight of your unveiled beauty.

“So ...” He swallows hard, fingers tracing the delicate curve of your jaw as words fail him for a what feels like an eternity. “... beautiful. Like the first dawn cutting through the blackest oblivion.”

A tremulous smile sweeps across your lips, the ghost of a promise he absorbs with every pore as you lean into the reverent sweep of his touch. He could stay like this forever, knees grinding against the ornate tile. Anything to capture how eternal he feels right here with you.

Charles drags in a rallying breath, forcing his widened gaze from yours just long enough to call his groomsmen to attention with a look. They rally behind him, steadying him as he rises on legs turned bowstring-taut with adrenaline.

And then, with every eye once more centered upon you two, Charles bends at the waist and sweeps you into his embrace, cradling your trembling frame against his chest with the paradoxical delicacy and unyielding reverence that lives so unbridled within his very bones. Your breath catches audibly, a soft hitch of sound that adorns the sacred silence as he turns away from the guests.

The officiant’s features are flushed and lined, rimed with moisture that glistens unabashedly as he gathers himself to proceed.

“Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc and Y/N Y/M/N Y/L/N,” he begins. “You have been called here as an acknowledgment of the next chapter in your lives together ...”

The ceremony begins, the words spilling forth as you tuck your cheek against Charles’ thundering pulse, fingers curling into the lapel of his tuxedo in a white-knuckled embrace. He lives in the rise and fall of your mingling breaths, in the warmth of your form pressed seamlessly against the shelter of his body as you bear witness to the eternal scripture neither of you could have fathomed even existing upon first crossing paths.

Then, the officiant turns his attention towards Charles, chin dipped in grave deference. “You may recite your vows.”

The command punches through him, sawing the breath from his lungs in a ragged exhalation that shivers across your crown. He swallows hard, blinks back the fresh deluge of tears that threatens to escape his faltering restraint. But when he opens his mouth, the words spill out like they were always meant to.

“I have dreamed of you since before the first moments of my existence.” The syllables echo across the hall, spiraling forth to caress every rapt attendee in their wake. “Of a love conceived in the heart of a collapsing star and given breath in our adjoined forms to shine forth into the darkness.”

His lips brush your hairline, absorbing the scent of your fragrance and feeling the thrumming rhythm of life radiating from your temples. Here, cocooned in the intimate heart of their unity, the world holds its breath along with the gathered witnesses.

“Nothing could have prepared my soul to be scoured by your brilliance, your resilience … let alone knitted together from the fraying remnants when our path shattered across the cruel stones of fate.” A tremulous inhale, steadying as his gaze flicks across the faces assembled before you — a sweep encompassing every expression of empathy and shared joy piercing back at him.

“Yet here we stand, mon amour ...” The endearment spills forth like rich velvet, textured and avowed as his mouth finds the top of your head once more, the taste of reverence sweet on his tongue. “United into something sacred, something woven from those endless nights clinging to each other across the desolate chasm that could so easily have swallowed us whole.”

He savors the simple elation of your response, of knowing his words resonate through every quivering fiber with the promise of finally reaching what you’ve been steadily ascending to all along.

So he breathes you in once more, chasing the familiar scent of your skin until his very lungs burn with the delight of your proximity. The depths of his gaze find yours again, irises rimmed in the faintest remnants dampness as one final promise takes shape.

“I will love you to the final molecule ...” Quieter now, a molten rasp uttered into the hollow between your brows as fingertips sift through the intricate sweeps of your tresses. “I will walk beside you through each breath and season, every triumph and shadow that marks this existence as uniquely ours. With all that I am, all that lingers when the inconsequential has stripped from my shell — I am yours. Until the last spark is extinguished from this universe and beyond.”

The promise hangs in the reverent stillness as he takes his first full breath after, filling his lungs with the ozone and wildflowers commingling from your respective scents until his senses reel. Only then does he draw back enough to drink in the sight before him — the ethereal swaths of your veil now skirting the contours of your features, the downy lashes beaded with moisture, the trembling swell of your lips as the first stuttered shapes of sound begin forming upon them.

Your reciprocation is a hushed, halting stream of sounds that carry all the solemn gravity of prayers finally granted voice. Each syllable pitches forward, low and overflowing with the fevered weight of their reverence until they resonate through Charles’ bei by like physical sensations trailing electricity along his nerves.

“In the beginning, there was nothing,” you breathe, fingers flexing restlessly against the solid plate of his chest as you struggle to channel the turbulent swell of emotion cascading through every aspect of your existence. “An endless and lightless oblivion that should have terrified me ...”

A faint smile blooms across Charles’ features as he watches the story of a lifetime together play out in miniature across your expression.

“Yet it didn’t.” The syllables part on a whisper of revelation, a new wave of tears flickering in the gleam of your eyes as you find his gaze. “Because I knew you even then.”

[sevsevteen]

hi i’m a big fan of your svt 14th member works and was wondering if i could request one (totally if not!)

i had my driving test today and had really psyched myself up about it and felt really good about how i’d done, but ended up failing and feeling really upset because i thought i’d done well. i was wonding whether you could write something where reader (as the 14th member and maknae) has a similar experience and how the boys comfort her afterwards.

feel free to take your time with this. love all your works and can’t wait to see what you come up with next x. hope you have a good day/night!

hii ! i'm so sorry this came so late, i hope you're feeling better now, and i wish you best of luck for your re-test~

-- જ⁀➴°⋆

The morning sun beamed through the dorm windows, painting golden lines across the floor as you closed your room’s door, jacket half-zipped and her phone gripped tightly in hand.

“I’m heading out!” You called toward the living room, where Jun, Mingyu, and Hoshi were lounging.

“Your test today?” Mingyu grinned.

You nodded confidently, “I’ve got this. Seungcheol let me borrow his car to practice last night - parallel parking? Easy.”

“Manifesting for you,” Hoshi sang, holding up his phone like a banner. “Our future driver, let’s go!”

Even Jun gave you a thumbs up. “If you pass, you're driving us to dinner.”

You rolled your eyes but smiled, heart full and light as you slipped on your shoes.

.

You sat in the driver’s seat, hands trembling just slightly as you gripped the steering wheel. The invigilator, a stern middle-aged man with a clipboard and stern voice, clipped his seatbelt on beside you.

“Whenever you’re ready, begin,” he said coolly, pen already poised.

You nodded. You inhaled deeply, adjusted your mirrors, checked good seat, and started the engine. The car pulled off smoothly. The first part - the regular driving - went okay. A little fast on one turn, but nothing you couldn’t recover from.

But then came the uphill.

You were instructed to pause on a slope and perform a hill start.

You exhaled and followed the steps you had rehearsed so many times with Seungcheol guiding you, Jeonghan reading the manual beside you, Dino cheering from the backseat during practice.

But at that moment - your mind blanked.

Gas, brake - no, handbrake - wait, clutch?

Your foot slipped as she panicked between the pedals. The car stalled once.

You looked over nervously. The invigilator clicked his pen silently.

You tried again.

Stalled again.

You bit her lip, breathing picking up. Your heart pounded louder than the engine. She could feel your failure in real-time.

A quiet sigh came from the passenger seat. “That’s your second stall on the slope,” the instructor said flatly. “Let’s move on.”

The words sounded like a coffin slamming shut.

.

When you returned to the dorms hours later, the door creaked open slowly. Your footsteps were soft, as if you were trying not to exist at all. Your usual post-outing routine - tossing your bag on the couch, asking what was for dinner, flopping dramatically onto someone’s lap - was absent.

You trudged straight into your room without a word.

Jeonghan peered from the kitchen into the hallway. “Did she come in?”

Joshua, who’d been watching a show on the TV, blinked in confusion. “I think so. Didn’t even say hi.”

Seungkwan frowned, “Wait…did she fail?”

They all exchanged a look.

Later, it was Seungcheol who knocked first.

He found you sitting on your bed, still in your jacket, eyes slightly red from tears you didn’t want to let anyone see. You hadn’t even changed out of your shoes.

“They failed me,” you said flatly before he could ask. “I stalled at the uphill and...I blanked.”

He said nothing for a second. Then sighed and stepped inside. “Move over.”

“Huh?”

“I’m sitting.”

You blinked but scooted anyway, and Cheol settled beside you, pulling out his phone. “You know what they say - every genius fails once.”

You scoffed. “Did you just call me a genius?”

“I said what I said.”

The door burst open right then. Jeonghan and Dino holding a huge bag of snacks, followed by Minghao with bubble tea, and Dokyeom who was already singing a song about your “comeback as a licensed driver.”

Soon, the room was full - members flopped on your bed, sat on the floor, crammed in with zero care for personal space.

“Do we need to make a new practice schedule for you?” Hoshi asked, already opening a notebook.

“You’re not taking your next test in silence. I’m going to be in the back seat with pom-poms,” Vernon said seriously.

You, overwhelmed but touched, blinked back the burn in your eyes again.

It still stung to fail.

But with every dumb joke, every shared snack, and every little distraction the members threw your way, the weight began to lift just a little.

Because even when you couldn’t drive them anywhere yet—

They’d always show up for you.

--

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cars bricked by bankrupt EV company will stay bricked

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

There are few phrases in the modern lexicon more accursed than "software-based car," and yet, this is how the failed EV maker Fisker billed its products, which retailed for $40-70k in the few short years before the company collapsed, shut down its servers, and degraded all those "software-based cars":

https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chapter-11-official/

Fisker billed itself as a "capital light" manufacturer, meaning that it didn't particularly make anything – rather, it "designed" cars that other companies built, allowing Fisker to focus on "experience," which is where the "software-based car" comes in. Virtually every subsystem in a Fisker car needs (or rather, needed) to periodically connect with its servers, either for regular operations or diagnostics and repair, creating frequent problems with brakes, airbags, shifting, battery management, locking and unlocking the doors:

https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-worry-about-vehicles-working-bankruptcy-2024-4

Since Fisker's bankruptcy, people with even minor problems with their Fisker EVs have found themselves owning expensive, inert lumps of conflict minerals and auto-loan debt; as one Fisker owner described it, "It's literally a lawn ornament right now":

https://www.businessinsider.com/fisker-owners-describe-chaos-to-keep-cars-running-after-bankruptcy-2024-7

This is, in many ways, typical Internet-of-Shit nonsense, but it's compounded by Fisker's capital light, all-outsource model, which led to extremely unreliable vehicles that have been plagued by recalls. The bankrupt company has proposed that vehicle owners should have to pay cash for these recalls, in order to reserve the company's capital for its creditors – a plan that is clearly illegal:

https://www.veritaglobal.net/fisker/document/2411390241007000000000005

This isn't even the first time Fisker has done this! Ten years ago, founder Henrik Fisker started another EV company called Fisker Automotive, which went bankrupt in 2014, leaving the company's "Karma" (no, really) long-range EVs (which were unreliable and prone to bursting into flames) in limbo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisker_Karma

Which raises the question: why did investors reward Fisker's initial incompetence by piling in for a second attempt? I think the answer lies in the very factor that has made Fisker's failure so hard on its customers: the "software-based car." Investors love the sound of a "software-based car" because they understand that a gadget that is connected to the cloud is ripe for rent-extraction, because with software comes a bundle of "IP rights" that let the company control its customers, critics and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

A "software-based car" gets to mobilize the state to enforce its "IP," which allows it to force its customers to use authorized mechanics (who can, in turn, be price-gouged for licensing and diagnostic tools). "IP" can be used to shut down manufacturers of third party parts. "IP" allows manufacturers to revoke features that came with your car and charge you a monthly subscription fee for them. All sorts of features can be sold as downloadable content, and clawed back when title to the car changes hands, so that the new owners have to buy them again. "Software based cars" are easier to repo, making them perfect for the subprime auto-lending industry. And of course, "software-based cars" can gather much more surveillance data on drivers, which can be sold to sleazy, unregulated data-brokers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

Unsurprisingly, there's a large number of Fisker cars that never sold, which the bankruptcy estate is seeking a buyer for. For a minute there, it looked like they'd found one: American Lease, which was looking to acquire the deadstock Fiskers for use as leased fleet cars. But now that deal seems dead, because no one can figure out how to restart Fisker's servers, and these vehicles are bricks without server access:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/08/fisker-bankruptcy-hits-major-speed-bump-as-fleet-sale-is-now-in-question/

It's hard to say why the company's servers are so intransigent, but there's a clue in the chaotic way that the company wound down its affairs. The company's final days sound like a scene from the last days of the German Democratic Republic, with apparats from the failing state charging about in chaos, without any plans for keeping things running:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/07/east-germany-stasi-surveillance-documents/

As it imploded, Fisker cycled through a string of Chief Financial officers, losing track of millions of dollars at a time:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/31/fisker-collapse-investigation-ev-ocean-suv-henrik-geeta/

When Fisker's landlord regained possession of its HQ, they found "complete disarray," including improperly stored drums of toxic waste:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/05/fiskers-hq-abandoned-in-complete-disarray-with-apparent-hazardous-waste-clay-models-left-behind/

And while Fisker's implosion is particularly messy, the fact that it landed in bankruptcy is entirely unexceptional. Most businesses fail (eventually) and most startups fail (quickly). Despite this, businesses – even those in heavily regulated sectors like automotive regulation – are allowed to design products and undertake operations that are not designed to outlast the (likely short-lived) company.

After the 2008 crisis and the collapse of financial institutions like Lehman Brothers, finance regulators acquired a renewed interest in succession planning. Lehman consisted of over 6,000 separate corporate entities, each one representing a bid to evade regulation and/or taxation. Unwinding that complex hairball took years, during which the entities that entrusted Lehman with their funds – pensions, charitable institutions, etc – were unable to access their money.

To avoid repeats of this catastrophe, regulators began to insist that banks produce "living wills" – plans for unwinding their affairs in the event of catastrophe. They had to undertake "stress tests" that simulated a wind-down as planned, both to make sure the plan worked and to estimate how long it would take to execute. Then banks were required to set aside sufficient capital to keep the lights on while the plan ran on.

This regulation has been indifferently enforced. Banks spent the intervening years insisting that they are capable of prudently self-regulating without all this interference, something they continue to insist upon even after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

The fact that the rules haven't been enforced tells us nothing about whether the rules would work if they were enforced. A string of high-profile bankruptcies of companies who had no succession plans and whose collapse stands to materially harm large numbers of people tells us that something has to be done about this.

Take 23andme, the creepy genomics company that enticed millions of people into sending them their genetic material (even if you aren't a 23andme customer, they probably have most of your genome, thanks to relatives who sent in cheek-swabs). 23andme is now bankrupt, and its bankruptcy estate is shopping for a buyer who'd like to commercially exploit all that juicy genetic data, even if that is to the detriment of the people it came from. What's more, the bankruptcy estate is refusing to destroy samples from people who want to opt out of this future sale:

https://bourniquelaw.com/2024/10/09/data-23-and-me/

On a smaller scale, there's Juicebox, a company that makes EV chargers, who are exiting the North American market and shutting down their servers, killing the advanced functionality that customers paid extra for when they chose a Juicebox product:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/2/24260316/juicebox-ev-chargers-enel-x-way-closing-discontinued-app

I actually owned a Juicebox, which ultimately caught fire and melted down, either due to a manufacturing defect or to the criminal ineptitude of Treeium, the worst solar installers in Southern California (or both):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/27/here-comes-the-sun-king/#sign-here

Projects like Juice Rescue are trying to reverse-engineer the Juicebox server infrastructure and build an alternative:

https://juice-rescue.org/

This would be much simpler if Juicebox's manufacturer, Enel X Way, had been required to file a living will that explained how its customers would go on enjoying their property when and if the company discontinued support, exited the market, or went bankrupt.

That might be a big lift for every little tech startup (though it would be superior than trying to get justice after the company fails). But in regulated sectors like automotive manufacture or genomic analysis, a regulation that says, "Either design your products and services to fail safely, or escrow enough cash to keep the lights on for the duration of an orderly wind-down in the event that you shut down" would be perfectly reasonable. Companies could make "software based cars" but the more "software based" the car was, the more funds they'd have to escrow to transition their servers when they shut down (and the lest capital they'd have to build the car).

Such a rule should be in addition to more muscular rules simply banning the most abusive practices, like the Oregon state Right to Repair bill, which bans the "parts pairing" that makes repairing a Fisker car so onerous:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/27/24097042/right-to-repair-law-oregon-sb1596-parts-pairing-tina-kotek-signed

Or the Illinois state biometric privacy law, which strictly limits the use of the kind of genomic data that 23andme collected:

https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=3004

Failing to take action on these abusive practices is dangerous – and not just to the people who get burned by them. Every time a genomics research project turns into a privacy nightmare, that salts the earth for future medical research, making it much harder to conduct population-scale research, which can be carried out in privacy-preserving ways, and which pays huge scientific dividends that we all benefit from:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/01/the-palantir-will-see-you-now/#public-private-partnership

Just as Fisker's outrageous ripoff will make life harder for good cleantech companies:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

If people are convinced that new, climate-friendly tech is a cesspool of grift and extraction, it will punish those firms that are making routine, breathtaking, exciting (and extremely vital) breakthroughs:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/10/08/norways-national-football-stadium-has-the-worlds-largest-vertical-solar-roof-how-does-it-w

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/10/software-based-car/#based

[sylusonychinus]

Coming in for a Landing

Summary: Caleb and plane you get it

Pairings: Caleb x Reader

a/n: came up with this headcannon while talking to @jinwoosbabyboo <3 this is specially for you sweetie

Chibi Caleb who treats the house like his personal airspace. He has designated "no-fly zones" (like the bathroom when someone’s using it) and "high turbulence areas" (any room with a ceiling fan on).

Chibi Caleb who gets stuck in the ceiling fan at least once a week. He flies too high, miscalculates, and—bonk—his tiny plane spins out of control, leaving him dangling by his seatbelt, yelling, “Ground crew, I need an emergency rescue!”

Chibi Caleb who kamikazes into cups of water. He’ll zoom across the kitchen, lose control, and—splash! His tiny plane nose-dives into my drink. He then climbs out, shaking off water, muttering, “Hydraulic system failure… need repairs.”

Chibi Caleb who steals snacks mid-flight. He flies low over the counter, reaches out of his cockpit, and yoinks a cookie before speeding away. If I try to stop him, he yells, “Aerial refueling complete! Returning to cruising altitude!”

Chibi Caleb who parks his plane on your keyboard while I’m working. He’ll roll up, set the parking brake, and say, “This is my new gate. Please do not disturb the aircraft while passengers deplane.” Then he just sits there, eating a tiny bag of peanuts.

Chibi Caleb who plays air traffic controller when his plane is under maintenance. If his plane is "broken" (aka he’s just resting), he’ll make me do hand signals before he lets me touch anything. If I don’t do it right, he refuses to let me "fix" his aircraft.

Chibi Caleb who does dramatic crash landings on pillows. If I’m sitting peacefully, he’ll suddenly scream, “ENGINE FAILURE! BRACE FOR IMPACT!” before nose-diving into my lap. Then he’ll just lay there like a ragdoll until I "tow" his plane back to the hangar.

Chibi Caleb who uses your backpack as a makeshift hangar. If I leave it open, he’ll taxi inside, shut the flap, and call it his maintenance bay. If I try to take my stuff out, he’ll yell, “Unauthorized personnel! Security breach at Hangar 5!”

Chibi Caleb who treats my cat like an air marshal. He’ll land his plane next to the cat, salute, and say, “Welcome aboard, Officer Whiskers. You’re in charge of security.” The cat just blinks and walks away while Caleb takes off again.

Chibi Caleb who insists on having a control tower. If I stack some books into a tower shape, he’ll fly past and ask for landing clearance. If I don’t respond immediately, he yells, “Tower, do you copy?! I’m running low on fuel here!”

Scene 1: The Coffee Spill Disaster

I’m sitting peacefully, sipping my morning coffee, when I hear the faint sound of tiny propellers whirring. Before I can react—

Chibi Caleb: "Diving in for an emergency water landing!"

His miniature plane zooms straight toward my mug, and before I can move it, he skims the surface, sending coffee sloshing over the rim. He pulls up just in time, avoiding a full crash, but the damage is done.

Me: "Caleb! You just splashed coffee all over my desk!" Chibi Caleb: "The rescue mission was a success! The crew survived! Minor turbulence, but we’ll recover!"

He shakes off a few coffee droplets and taxis away like nothing happened.

Scene 2: The Ceiling Light Incident

Chibi Caleb is on a high-altitude mission, circling the living room at full speed. He climbs higher and higher—until suddenly—

Bonk.

His tiny plane smacks into the hanging ceiling light, sending him spiraling into an uncontrolled descent.

Chibi Caleb: "MAYDAY! MAYDAY! CONTROL SYSTEM FAILURE!"

I rush forward just in time to catch him mid-air. He blinks up at me, a little dizzy.

Chibi Caleb: "Phew… good thing I had a parachute."

Me: "You did not have a parachute. I caught you."

Chibi Caleb: "Same thing."

He gives me a thumbs up before wriggling out of my hands to take off again.

Scene 3: The Unscheduled Cat Landing

Chibi Caleb is doing low-altitude maneuvers over the couch when suddenly, my cat leaps onto the armrest—directly in his flight path.

Chibi Caleb: "Oh no! Uncharted terrain ahead!"

He tries to pull up, but it’s too late. He belly-flops onto the cat’s back, clinging to his tiny plane as the cat freezes in place. For a moment, there is only silence.

Then—

The cat rockets across the room, shaking wildly, trying to dislodge the surprise "passenger." Caleb yells in delight.

Chibi Caleb: "Unexpected turbulence! Hold on to your seatbelts, folks!"

After a few wild spins, the cat finally manages to fling him off onto a pillow. He lands with a soft thud and sits up, grinning.

Chibi Caleb: "That was the best ride EVER!"

The cat glares at him and storms away. Caleb simply dusts himself off and gets right back into his plane.

Scene 4: The Sneaky Midnight Flight

I’m lying in bed, about to drift off, when I hear the faintest little whirrrrrr from above. I crack one eye open to see a tiny silhouette zipping across the room.

Me: "Caleb… what are you doing?"

Chibi Caleb: "Shhh… this is a top-secret night mission. Just routine patrols."

He swoops under my blanket, loops around my pillow, then lands gently on my nightstand.

Chibi Caleb: "Refueling break."

He climbs out of his cockpit, grabs a stray cracker from my snack stash, and munches quietly. Then, as if nothing happened, he hops back into his plane and takes off again, flying low to avoid my swatting hands.

Me: "Go. To. Sleep."

Chibi Caleb: "Sorry, Captain, I have a strict flight schedule."

I sigh, roll over, and accept the fact that tiny planes will be buzzing through my room for the rest of the night.

[pearblossomrain]

returning from the dead for a new point form race recap:

(what the fuck is happening at red bull??)

• actual generational fumble from red bull like a slow pitstop AND your exit lights aren't working? did the ex redbull second seat drivers actually curse the garage? also the hards. why were we on hards PLEASE. (though verstappen did at one point get a fastest lap on them which. what the fuck?)

• so. many. technical failures. brakes not working, dashes potentially coming off, drs button broken, THE ENTIRE BOARD JUST BREAKING??? at this point call a power outage like in testing....

• speaking of the colossal timings fuckup, i checked my app instead and russell's name kept getting restored to p2 and then inexplicably dropping to dead last then this repeated like 10 times 😭😭

• okay onto the actual Racing, INSANE weekend for haas? starting dead last and p14 but finishing p10 and p8 is actually mental. they have a really solid lineup this year tbh and their strategy team is apparently more competent than any top team (cough ferrari cough) 💀

• what the hell was sainz doing holy shit he was going to run everybody off the track? before any fans cry foul, sorry but if multiple drivers are saying you aren't giving them room then you might be the issue. that 3 place grid penalty was stupid though and he's already dnf-ed like. why is the fia kicking a dead horse???

• red bull what the fck 😭 this is some ferrari type of bad luck i'm not gonna lie like the exit lights breaking has probably occurred to the red garage during some tests. verstappen was hopping MAD with the already bad strategy holy shit. if i was christian horny i'd be scared ngl. but also YUKI TSUNODA POINTS!!! cook that second seat curse omg

• alpine points! gasly had an amazing weekend from qualis to checkered flag so now every single team has scored points this season which is nice. seeing ocon and gasly together at some point made me mildly terrified for a french civil war crash which. admittedly would have spiced up the race (which i love) but everyone was really close due to safety car so it would've been Total carnage.

• i only realized after the race that lawson collided into hulkenberg and stroll?? doesn't matter as much with hulk though because he was disqualified due to. skid block issues? geez that sounds familiar (what is up with the skid blocks?)

• confusing weekend for mercedes like on one hand russell finished where he started, getting a podium but his car sounded like it was falling apart. then antonelli got run off track though i don't think it affected him a lot because the strategy was already kind of fcked by the safety car. pity that his points finish streak is ended though 😭

• piastri was horrifically ahead of the entire pack like great for him but that fcking rocketship oh my god this is like the rb20 again. great drive though i can imagine it's really fun to be that far ahead of everyone 💀 honestly thought mclaren would fck up the strat but i remembered they only fumble when the drivers are next to each other. oops? also norris going over the grid box was hilarious when you see the way verstappen clocked it and then IMMEDIATELY tattled on the radio 😭😭 sometimes f1 feels like a bunch of kids trying to get first in a school festival contest.

• ferrari, oh, ferrari. i actually cannot tell if the new floor worked or not? yes they are faster than before (at least with similar pace to merc according to pundits) but car parts are apparently still flying off 😭 great job for hamilton getting up to p5 from p9 though and thank god the strategy wasn't completely fucked due to the well timed safety car. (which benefited nearly everyone, really) also great defending from leclerc to norris but the car is really no match for that rocketship. (which, they should really just admit is a good car. no shame in acknowledging that your car is good and props to the garage as well.)

new meme section for every race recap. this is the entire race for red bull.

there's definitely things i'm missing but tldr; great day for the midfield (just alpine and haas), horrific day for williams, soo close for ferrari, red bull and merc are a mixed bag.

[greatkittencloud]

TW : Medical inaccuracies, trauma , fear of failure , abandonment issues etc.

Black Nova

Chapter 22

Location Medbay

Time 1600 Hours 3 weeks after

The rehab wing wasn’t far from the main base, but it felt like another world entirely.

The air smelled like vinyl mats and antiseptic. Bright lights buzzed overhead merciless and clinical. Equipment was neatly arranged along the walls parallel bars, weighted balls, foam rollers, resistance bands. A wall-length mirror stood on one end, reflecting the sharp angles of the room, and the single figure seated in a wheelchair near the center of it.

Nova sat still, braced leg extended in front of her, jaw tight under the surgical wire. Her fingers curled in her lap, covered in half-peeled medical tape. Her knuckles trembled with effort and pain, even when they weren’t moving.

The physical therapist a woman named Sia with kind eyes and calloused hands crouched beside her.

“We’ll start slow, alright?” Siia said softly. “All I want is for you to stand up using the parallel bars. You don’t need to walk yet. Just plant both feet. Even weight. No rush.”

Nova gave a shallow nod.

Her eyes were hollow, shadowed by exhaustion, but she gripped the armrests of the chair anyway.

Survived the institute. Survived the torture. Survived learning her jaw was wired shut, that her leg wouldn’t bend, that her hands wouldn’t obey her anymore.

She had survived.

But standing?

That felt impossible.

Sia wheeled her up to the parallel bars, then gently locked the brakes. “You’ve got this,” she said, voice calm, like nothing about this was as monumental as it felt.

Nova took a deep breath.

Then she pushed.

Her arms shook immediately. Her left leg, locked in a hinged brace, felt like deadweight. Her right leg tensed to compensate, and pain flared through her lower back. Her hands slipped on the bars. Her heart thundered, breath coming in tight flares through her nose.

She didn’t make it halfway up before she collapsed back down with a hiss of frustration.

“Alright,” Sia said, quickly supporting her back. “That’s fine. That’s okay. Breathe.”

Nova clenched her fists. Her fingers refused to stop shaking.

“Alright. We’ll go again. Use your core. Shift with your shoulders. Don’t rush it.”

Second attempt.

This time, Nova got three inches off the chair before her leg buckled beneath her. Her breath caught in her throat, and she sat back down hard, nearly biting her tongue.

Frustration bloomed across her face.

The kind that comes when you’ve trained your whole life to be strong, and now your own body fights you for the right to stand.

She looked at the mirror. Her reflection stared back—pale, tired, legs trembling, hands curled tight as claws.

Pathetic.

Weak.

Her heart pounded with rage and helplessness.

“I know it feels like failure,” Sia said quietly. “But this is still progress.”

Nova typed

<It’s not. I was running missions two months ago. Now I can’t even stand.>

Aria crouched down again, placing a hand gently on Nova’s wrist.

“You were also unconscious with a fever of 104,” she said. “And your leg was torn open like paper. And your hands were nearly shut down from nerve damage. But you’re here. You’re breathing. You’re trying. That counts.”

Nova didn’t answer.

Not for a long moment.

Then she typed:

<How long until I walk?>

Aria exhaled, honest and steady. “Could be months. Could be less. Depends on how you work. But it’ll happen.”

Nova’s fingers hovered over the screen.

She didn’t ask when she could fight again.

Didn’t ask when she could hold a gun. Or throw a knife. Or sprint across rooftops like she used to.

Nova stared at the screen, at her own reflection.

Then she tried again.

She rose, slower this time. Arms trembling. Core tight. She grunted through her nose, pain burning behind her eyes. She straightened her back. The left leg screamed in protest.

But she stood.

Just for few seconds.

But she stood.

And when she finally sat back down, tears prickled at the corner of her eyes.

She didn’t wipe them away.

She earned those.

Thank you for reading!

Taglist: @hyperfixiation-station , @massivescissorsthingperson , @kaoyamamegami , @sweetybuzz25 , @adalia-lovelace , @sheepispink , @n-ae-vis , @warrior-xe , @shinebright2000 , @enfppuff

[recallsdirect]

Vehicle Recall: PACCAR Kenworth & Peterbilt Commercial Trucks:

[ef-1]

Talking Bull podcast with Daniel and Simon but only the bits that gave me heart palpitations

Daniel says he was apprehensive at first but the Red Bull car was everything he remembered it to be 👀

Simon sitting a metre away from Daniel and telling him "the first day you came back you were subdued... hollow"

Simon turns to Daniel and tells him during daniel's first day at the factory "You were not as confident as I know you are" not as confident as you "were." Not "as confident as you used to be" But as confident as I KNOW you ARE

The interviewer mentions Christians comments about Daniel's weightloss and Daniel tries to make light of it but Simon looks like the reaper.

Simon cutting Daniel off to make it known that Daniel was fast from lap 1 of the test he said he couldn't believe Daniel hadn't driven in 8 months and was "quietly impressed about that"

Simon says Monaco 2018 was very important to him. When Daniel reported loss of power on lap 28 he was expecting a dnf every lap after that because Daniel lost 160 horsepower that very moment. Simon explains that a MGUK issue is classed as a major failure and that they made many internal adjustments while Daniel was driving to mitigate that power loss which in turn drastically changed the characteristics of the brakes but Daniel adapted immediately

Interval for the interviewer to MARVEL at how different Daniel and Simon are

Daniel says he'd never met someone like Simon and was "fascinated by him", drawn to Simon's dryness and his ability to be so consistently unamused which makes his reactions hard earned

Daniel says that throughout his career he'd been so used to being fast and "getting pats on the back" that he let his time at McLaren take him to a point that is "too low"

Simon compares keeping Daniel calm to his marriage and says his wife told him not to tell an angry person to calm down LMAO

Simon refused to compromise Daniel's trust in him, so he never talked Daniel down by telling everything would be alright if he couldn't be sure, he says that's not his engineering style and that he needs Daniel to trust him so maintaining credibility was paramount always

[strangerchurby]

Last two days were sorta crazy. But hey, I'm back and let's get our golden werewolf boy on the move.

Original Idea/Steve Post by @shieldofiron

[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ Here ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ]

Or Read on Ao3

The most logical way to stay safe and avoid getting captured again is, of course, to avoid the roads. So obviously Billy is doing his best to find one. Way he figures it, maybe he isn't as familiar with the greater Indiana area (and fuck does he hope he's still in Indiana), but he's got a plan. See roads, even through random areas, will eventually have signs. Signs that eventually lead to freeways. And once you hit the US highway system things are laid out in a slightly logical way.

All he needs to know is what major road he's on and from there he'll find his way to Max.

Of course finding any road is the first step.

At least he isn't alone in the quest. Even now, hours after his meal, he trots along what looks like beaten paths in the forest and doesn't have to worry about being alone. He twists his head just enough to catch sight of his passenger. The crow, apparently intrigued by him, had eventually given up on trying to fly after him or along beside him through the trees and had chosen to land on his back. The weight of the bird was negligible and it didn't seem to have any problem with keeping its balance on his broad back.

If he wasn't a wolf he might worry he looks ridiculous like this, like those stupid pictures of hippos in textbooks with birds hanging out on their backs and heads. But hippos look pretty dumb and Billy, he best he looks cool. Black looks good against the almost golden fur of his coat. It even looks good with the silvery-white parts that he'd found under the blood once he'd cleaned it off.

For a wolf he supposes he's a fine specimen. Not that Billy thinks it matters.

Caw, the bird laments from his back. Maybe laments? Billy doesn't speak crow after all.

He does pause and that seems to be all that the crow needs. It immediately throws itself into the air, the wind from its wings ruffling Billy's fur. It makes another few angry noises at Billy before flying deliberately away from him. There goes having company. And so suddenly too.

Then it hits Billy. The faint scent in the air. Billy tilts his head up more, eyes closing, and sniffs. And oh does that scent ever make his heart leap. His tongue flashes out over his chops.

Car exhaust.

Billy throws himself into a run without hesitation, and he hears the bird caw angrily after him. Well fuck it too. He doesn't care. He runs and runs and oh fuck.

The trees thin and end before he's expecting it, and he's heading right for a spread of asphalt in front of him. Which, of course, not good. Could be cars on the road. Cars could appear any second, and he knows pretty well that people hit animals all the time.

Instinct says stop before his brain does apparently, because his front feet try to put on the brakes. Which they're not good at. The rest of his body hasn't gotten the memo and there's Billy, flipping ass over head and rolling a bit further until he came to a stop. Came to a stop with his muzzle on the edge of the road.

Well, at least no one saw that failure, he reminds himself as he starts to push back to his feet.

Which of course leads immediately to more cawing behind him. Cawing in a pattern that almost sounds like laughter. Billy twists toward it, catches sight of his bird associate, and snarls at it. What a jerk.

Probably the sort of individual he'd be friends with if they were both people right now. But that's not happening. So Billy huffs and backs up from the road to start to try and figure out just where he is. With a sigh he starts down the road. Well, beside it actually. To keep safe from cars.

Actually, the safest he could be would be to stay in the trees and not actually by the road, but he needs to see signs. So yeah, trotting out in broad daylight (okay, lower early evening light) along the road.

It's nearly an hour by his best reckoning when he sees it. Large. Metal. Ahead of him. Billy runs forward, hope beating in his heart. Be somewhere sensible. Be a road he's familiar with. Be-

Hawkins, 12 miles.

The words blaze white against the green of the sign, and they leave true hope in his heart. Home, only twelve miles away.

Wait. Home?

When had he started to think of Hawkins that way?

Well, at least he's got something to think about as he walks.

[ To Part Six ]

[boxeom]

• When Judgement Day Comes •

🌻[The Failure of Truth and the Success of Lies]🌻

Synopsis: Hiromi gets yet another guilty verdict, but luckily, you are there to pick up his stray pieces.

Contains: Higuruma Hiromi/gn!reader, heavy angst, hurt comfort, a lil spooky (:3), (cw.) heavy intrusive thoughts, (cw.) suicidal ideation, (cw.) heavy dissociation, non-sexual intimacy, acts of service, bird facts (it's symbolism, I promise/I also just know way too much about birds and must share my knowledge), disgusting amounts of soft and emotional fluff.

Wc. 5k+

[Message from the Box]: Uhhhh…first time actually posting my writing. A bit nervous. I have literally been writing so much stuff in my personal life and have literally finished stories I've just been a wee scared to post so they've just been sitting in my drive for like…three years??? Maybe there will be more to come if I actually hype myself up enough- I'm proud of my writings, I think I'm an okay writer (I think), but posting them always makes me feel urrg. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it! (IF YOU SAW THE UNCOMPLETED VERSION OF THIS, NO YOU DIDN'T. 🫵🏽)

-Boxe in the Box

Hiromi's eyes peel open slowly to meet the dark roof of his car. He blinks a few times, head lifting from his headrest to stare ahead at the dark and practically empty parking lot just outside the courthouse. The sun was up when he had gotten into his car- how long was he sitting here? A nearby lamppost flickers. Harsh pale yellow light flashes in rapid patterns- straining Hiromi's eyes and painting his skin ghostly white for only mere seconds before plunging him back into shadow. Hiromi chuckles without a hint of amusement. Those really were the only two sides of the coin, weren't they? The head is too bright- too harsh, it leaves you squinting in wait to adjust- to have to eventually hope that you can one day comfortably live in the exposure the light paints you in. Meanwhile, the tail is too dark to even tell whether or not you are conscious as everything passes by right in front of you- leaving you to blindly stumble your way through uncertainty. You can flip that coin as much as you want. But was the hope for heads every time really worth it? Was this worth it?

Was life worth it?

The intrusively dark thought comes creeping its way out unexpectedly- forcing Hiromi to look it right in the face and come to terms with his subconscious questioning the idea of living. It isn't new, not at all. Hiromi has always had thoughts like that, but he's never given them his attention in favor of pursuing his passion to redeem the world of justice and honor. Right now, though? Hiromi finds himself not countering this consideration of life with his usual optimism. He's too tired. He's so tired. Hiromi takes a deep breath and slightly shakes his head, starting his car, flicking on his lights, and leaving that damned parking lot he's had too many moments of defeat in. He doesn't see the dark figure flickering in and out of existence just beneath the light of that lamppost in his rearview mirror watching his retreat- nor does he see the bulb begin to surge with power, shining too brightly until it shatters with an unheard pop! and litters glass onto the asphalt below. He doesn't see that whatever had been watching him was now gone.

•••

Driving has always been something that Hiromi has come to appreciate. Despite the unfortunate impact careening around in a highly flammable steel box at speeds humans were not meant to move at pouring gray smog into the air from every hole had on the environment, Hiromi finds himself comfortable in the mindless routine of turning the steering wheel, pressing or easing off the acceleration or brake, using the appropriate signals when it was time to use them, and everything else that came with such a common act. His windows are down- wind whipping in his ears and face as he naturally drives the speed limit right at its number, blank eyes staring ahead and occasionally glancing to the left or right. Today, though, something is...different.

He finds himself disassociating from the world around him- from the other cars sharing the road and forgetting that living, breathing people reside inside them. He wonders what would happen if he just pivoted into the black Mercedes Benz he saw littering a styrofoam cup full of cigarette butts a couple miles back. He wonders what would happen if he got on the ass of the rundown truck blaring bass and shit with its driver who blatantly has his eyes glued to his phone. Hiromi can feel the upper half of his dress shoe continue to press down on the acceleration, his vehicle revving along with the action as if to egg him on to go faster. He finds himself not caring when he cuts someone off or doesn't use his turning signal. His chest feels positively hollow. Just like before, he doesn't see the dark figure lounging in his backseat just behind him.

It's like he snaps awake when he finds himself in the elevator of his penthouse, the default cheery tune of elevator music making his clear exhaustion look almost comical in the mirrors paneled to the walls surrounding him. His heavy eyes blink. Hiromi's head swivels to the wall to his right suddenly- eyebrows drawn together in puzzlement. He could have sworn, in the corner of his eye, someone was just with him in the elevator. There had been a flash of long black hair and uncomfortably pale skin, donned in a dark robe of some kind. Before he can give what he just saw much thought, the elevator dings and the steel doors slide open. Hiromi blinks a few times and lightly shakes his head. He lifts his free hand, pinching the bridge of his nose before his palm drags down the rest of his face and he sighs deeply while leaving the elevator. Hiromi's shoulders slouch and his feet are heavy against the floor below him. He slips off his shoes, toeing them in the corner before stepping further into his home.

"Hiromi?"

And just like that, the lead in his muscles and fatigue weighing him down just melts away as you peek around the corner to meet his eyes. You meet him halfway. It doesn't go unnoticed by Hiromi how your eyes look him up and down in clear concern and what he really thinks is pity. "...Guilty again, huh?" He doesn't even need to explain it to you anymore. Hiromi feels every single ounce of negativity cursing his mind, body, and soul simply disappear as he steps into your open and warm embrace. Your arms wrap around his neck, pulling him flush against your body as a hand cradles the back of his head and welcomes his heaviness. Hiromi's forehead drops to your shoulder and his eyes slide close in relief to be with you. "I made dinner. Hungry?" He shakes his head to decline your offer. There's a moment of guilt in the pit of his stomach that he selfishly turns down your effort in caring for him, but that feeling is soon washed away as you nod instantly. You understood. You always understood. "C'mon," you give a soft kiss to his temple, "let's get this suit off."

With your hand in his, you lead Hiromi into your shared bedroom and take his suitcase to put aside on his desk. You sit Hiromi down on the edge of your bed gently and go about grabbing some more comfortable clothes for him to wear. Hiromi watches you with the softest gaze as you return to him, setting a fresh pair of boxers and one of his old college shirts beside him. You start loosening his tie, “Wanna get washed off? We can lay down afterwards.”

“Yes, please."

“Want me to join?”

Hiromi's heart swells to a point where his chest aches. He leans forward into you, head resting on your chest to listen to your steady heartbeat as he hugs your waist and draws you close between his legs. He just needs a moment to take you in- to feel you in his arms. You let him, return his embrace without question. His heavy eyes close slowly.

He's home.

•••

Hiromi lets out a long sigh as he sinks into the hot embrace of the lavender scented water filling the master bathroom’s spacious tub, resting his arms along the porcelain edges. His eyes peel open when you pass by- pulling your shirt up over your head and tossing it into the wicker laundry bin against the wall. He tilts his head, taking you in from head to toe as you slip your shorts down your legs. Hiromi’s eyebrows knit slightly.

“Where'd you get that bruise from?” He asks in concern, sitting up and reaching out for you- palm smoothing along the back of your bare thigh where a large, dark bruise welts against your skin. “Hm?” You peer over your shoulder at Hiromi with a frown of surprise, “I have a bruise?” “Yeah- it looks horrible. Did this happen recently?” “Oh, right,” Hiromi’s thumb gently rubs small circles against your flesh as you chuckle sheepishly, “I slipped and fell while running late to a meeting the other day, but it didn't hurt or anything.” Hiromi lets out an exasperated sigh, “How do you always manage to hurt yourself? Please be more careful, you have enough scars and bruises as it is.”

You raise your hands in playful surrender as you step into the bath, “I know, I know, I'm sorry.” Hiromi just shakes his head with a smile and welcomes your body against his when you join him within the water. You hum out in satisfaction, your back pressed to Hiromi's chest- your skin warm and pleasant flushed to his. Hiromi noses at the crook of your neck before leaving a fond trail of kisses down the gentle slope. Your hand reaches back as you tilt your head to give him more room, fingers threading through Hiromi's dark hair and scratching his scalp just the way he likes as his lips linger on the scar that curls at your left shoulder. Hiromi closes his eyes and wraps his arms around your waist to pull you closer still. “How was your day?” He asks against your skin. “You don't want to talk about yours?” You shift slightly in his arms to peer at him where his chin is tucked into your shoulder. “No,” Hiromi tilts his head to gently bump yours, your temples resting against each other's, “I just want to hear about you.”

You don't respond, but Hiromi can feel the way your cheek rises just a bit with your smile.

The next thirty minutes or so are filled with you telling Hiromi how you've spent your uneventful but peaceful day off (“boring is best”, you always say) as the two of you bathe together. It's a routine that you're both familiar with- one that Hiromi holds very dear (and he knows you do as well). You always insist on washing him first, working soap against his skin with a delicate touch and melting away the stress and tension of his day. When it's your turn, Hiromi is never not thorough. He finds it oddly relaxing- cleaning another person's body for them (though, he'd never done such intimate acts with anyone before meeting you so maybe he finds it so comforting because it's you).

His favorite part, though, is when you coax him to rest back into your chest and wash his hair. Tonight is no different.

Your hands do wonders. How you aren't the most famous massage therapist in the world, Hiromi has no idea (but he's more than happy to keep your talents for himself, anyways). Your fingers work through his hair with a touch that could rival that of an angel's. The clean and woodsy smell of Hiromi's shampoo fills the air as you knead his sensitive scalp, the heavenly combination nearly causing him to doze off in the water the two of you sit in. Hiromi's head lulls whichever direction your hands work in and his eyes have long since fluttered shut at the sound of your voice very seriously recounting a nature documentary you'd been absolutely appalled by earlier this evening.

"-and the mother bird won't realize that she's been taking care of a baby that isn't hers! The cuckoo hatches along with her babies and she'll feed them all, but the thing is that the cuckoo is much larger than the others so the mother will focus on feeding them more than her own." You tell him, disturbed by the information you've learned, "The other babies will either starve to death because they aren't getting enough food or be pushed out of the nest by the cuckoo because it needs more room. It's called...oh, what was it?"

"Parasitic brooding..." Hiromi finishes for you, having remembered seeing the term in a book he'd read once.

"Parasitic brooding! That's it!" You frown deeply, "It was really...sad. I know it's just nature, the cuckoo is just doing what its instinct is, but still...I can't help but feel bad for all the birds involved. The baby cuckoo especially."

"The baby cuckoo? How come?"

"...I'm not sure. It's just...the idea of a baby that's planted into a family it's meant to destroy without even knowing..." You trail off long enough for Hiromi's eyes to open and tilt his head back against your chest to see your face. "...It's a scary thought." He correctly words your feelings aloud. "Very." You agree solemnly, absentmindedly shaping Hiromi's hair into spikes. It's a bit surprising to him- how affected you seem by this concept. He's sure there's something there, something complex within you he's yet to uncover. Your relationship was founded and built on patience and trust- both of your backgrounds are complicated enough to have shaped who you are today significantly. And you've both mutually confided in one another about your pasts with time.

Hiromi knows there is still more about your life before him that you haven't told him about. However, he would never dream of trying to push that information out of you. Whatever it is, whenever you are ready to tell him about it, he'll be there for you the whole way. It's a silent promise he'd made to you early on into your friendship that he has no intention of breaking now after three years of being together.

He slowly sits up, turning in the water to face you and cup your face in his wet hand. You lean into his touch with an apologetic and sheepish smile. "Sorry...I was getting too into my head."

"You have nothing to apologize for."

"But I'm supposed to be taking care of you today, not the other way around."

"We can take care of each other at the same time, you know." Hiromi reasons, his response being a trill of your lips and a playfully dismissive wave. "Impossible."

With a shake of his head, he kisses your forehead and chuckles against your skin as you snicker along with him. When he leans back, you're beaming up at Hiromi with a smile that will never fail to make the rest of the world just disappear. He breathes your name. "I love you." "I love you, too."

"Keep telling me about the documentary. What else did it talk about?"

"Oh! Did you know that there are families of lesbian lizards?"

•••

Hiromi climbs into bed beside you, letting out the hundredth sigh of the day when he flops face first into the sanctuary of his fluffy pillow. He hears you snicker and coo with sympathy to the side and he can't help but smile. You pull the cool duvet over him before settling in, your hand resting on the nape of his neck and absentmindedly playing with the short dark tufts of hair there. Hiromi turns his head to meet your eyes. The two of you simply stare at each other for a moment. His mind wanders back to the failure of his day- to the look of pure contempt on his client's face when the verdict was given. Will the next time be the same? And the time after that? What about the inevitable case he'd take a year from now? Will he ever make a difference? Is he the kind of person that can even make a difference...?

"What're you thinking about, Hiro?"

“...Do you think I'll ever change anything?”

Your expression is hard for Hiromi to read, even after these years of being with you, but he can see the sympathy in your eyes. There's something else he catches just in the subtle downturn of your thoughtful frown. It's complicated and deep and almost devastating. It's like you've heard these words or asked yourself the same question before, but in a way Hiromi can't seem to grasp. Your palm glides to cup his cheek, thumb stroking the corner of his eye rhythmically. Before he can think any further on it though, the brief glaze to your stare disappears to something he can actually recognize. Love.

“I do.”

There isn't a hint of doubt in your whisper. You continue;

“You are…a righteous, beautiful, and passionate soul with the mind to accomplish anything and everything you want. You're always learning, always watching, always adapting. And I wish- every single day- I wish I could be even half as strong as you are. You're unshakeable, Hiromi.”

Hiromi has never been a very outwardly emotional man. It takes a lot for his heart to bare itself so clearly. Even so, you are easily able to sway him as if it was as simple as breathing- like he is a book with its pages ready and waiting to be read and analyzed by your eyes and your eyes alone. It's a terrifying and exhilarating experience. To be seen, known, and cherished.

“You won't just change anything, Hiromi.” You smile so softly, finger brushing away the tear Hiromi hadn't noticed was falling until your touch. He lifts his hand to cover your own and weaves your fingers together. “You'll change everything. I know it.”

“...How?” His voice is so quiet, he almost doesn't hear it himself…but you hear him.

“Because you're Higuruma Hiromi. And I love you.”

There's such a serene silence that falls between the two of you, Hiromi almost feels like he's caught in a dream. Your skin is painted by the loving strokes of the rising moon’s brush- your eyes sparkle brighter than any mere shooting star that's ever streaked across the night sky. You're ethereal. Hiromi has to question- has to wonder what it is he did in his past lives to have earned the grace that is you. What he does know, though, is that you're here. With him.

And that is more than enough.

The shadows of your and Hiromi's bedroom shift, something darker than the black blanket of night slinking silently across the ceiling. It moves slowly and deliberately- spindly and twisted limbs like the branches of a dying tree moving the bulbous, swollen trunk they are attached to. The damnable thing crawls down the wall the headboard of the bed presses against, making its way closest to Hiromi's side. Its pencil thin neck stretches and cranes with the accompanied sound of crackles and pops (as if stretching bones it does not possess), two wide bloodshot eyes that are much too human yet far too large leer unblinkingly down at the soundly sleeping man just within its reach. Its face holds no features- just a silhouette of a head that is too small compared to its sac-like body. It's like a child's rendition of a giant spider they saw in their nightmares has peeled off paper and grew the size of a car. It stares, drinking in the face of the human who's woe it bore from. His desperation, his sorrow, his guilt, his regrets- all a delectable ambrosia that fills its fat gut. But it is not enough.

There's a soft, almost undetectable sound from it. Like the slow inhale of a dying man that draws on and on and on and on and on, hollow and wheezing and infinite. The space where its mouth should be begins to fall cartoonishly from the upper half of its face, a cacophony of ripping tendons and snapping cartilage growing more and more frequent the more its gaping maw yawns open. It draws closer to Hiromi, jaw unhinging and stretching to the size of Hiromi's upper torso.

Closer. Closer. Closer. Closer.

Creak.

The creature's mouth snaps closed, head shooting up to the sudden sound of something just barely moving to the right. Its wide eyes widen further when it meets the subtly glowing gaze of you. You stare into its very core- shaking the foundation of its being. Your expression is void, yet the unbridled wrath storming in your eyes and lashing through your energy strikes something into the newborn curse. Something so horrible, it cannot truly comprehend how or why you make it feel.

It feels fear.

The curse is fleeing before it realizes, scattering with uncanny speed across the floor and heading straight towards the glass doors leading to the connecting balcony. It crashes through the glass, pieces digging into its fleshy body but it is undeterred. Gnarly fingers wrap around the railing as it heaves its body up, ready to jump over the edge and escape into the night. It watches as its own body suddenly hurdles over the edge of the railing unceremoniously- plunging silently over the edge and disappearing. Its eyes shake as it slowly peers to the side.

"The next time you are born," your voice is soft and even as your fist tightens around its severed neck with a strength that has the curse's eyes about to pop out of its head, your free hand resting over its face, "make sure it isn't by him."

There's a sick, wet, tearing sound- purple residue spraying across the floor of the balcony as you reduce the curse’s head into a ball of meat, raw cursed energy rushing through both parts of its body before exploding in a display of churning blue flame. Any evidence of its existence is instantly eradicated. You look back just as Hiromi is startled awake from the shattering glass, snapping your fingers as the ruined glass door flashes and is fixed in the blink of an eye. Hiromi bolts upright and his head snaps to where you're re-entering the bedroom. "Sorry," you whisper, "did I wake you?"

"Wh-What the hell was that?!" Hiromi asks in panic, eyes flickering around your bedroom to find whatever it was that had awoken him. Guilt picks at your bones as you tilt your head and furrow your brow in feigned confusion. "What was what?" Your boyfriend stares at you like he's trying to decide if he's gone crazy or if you've gone crazy. "Th-That...that sound! It sounded like glass was breaking!" "...Glass? I didn't hear anything, Hiro."

Hiromi blinks a few times, processing your words- his mind running. You can see him thinking. You know that he definitely knows he didn't dream that up, but your reaction clearly makes him question himself. “You're stressed, baby. It was probably just a nightmare.” To ease (and distract) him, you move back into bed, your hand gently cupping his face to turn Hiromi towards you and meet him in a soft kiss. He relaxes with a slow exhale through his nose- you can feel his rapid heart beat calming where you rest your hand over his chest. “C’mere, let's go back to sleep, hm?” You murmur when you pull away, your answer a quiet nod. Hiromi moves with you- your hands gently holding his shoulders to guide him to rest on top of you.

Hiromi sighs as he lays his head on your chest, your fingers threading through his hair and running through his hair to tempt his eyes to fall closed. It's not long until you feel Hiromi's breathing slowly even out like it always does when he sleeps. You glance to the balcony door, releasing your hold on the illusion to assess the damage. There's a giant hole punched right through the now ruined glass door, pieces scattered across the ground (but luckily it's far enough that Hiromi won't accidentally step on the pieces when he wakes up tomorrow). You inwardly groan before setting the false image back into place and shut your eyes.

You'll need to get that fixed tomorrow.

[we-love-lando-norris-over-here]

Do you have any reasons/theories that lando had realized McLaren are fucking him over? Sometimes I think he has realized but sometimes I’m not so sure? I am not very good at reading situations tho (asd) so I would greatly appreciate it! Also your blog is so so good and thank you for your service

First off, thank you 🫶 always happy to be of service.

And yes, I 100% think Lando knows. He’s not stupid. Like, we’re out here piecing things together with scraps from press conferences and radio messages and we see the pattern. You really think he doesn’t? He sees everything: the data, the strategy calls, the politics. If something smells off to us, he’s been sitting in the kitchen.

Now, I don’t know if he’s actively trying to get out of his contract. I don’t know what’s in it, and I’m not about to pretend I do. But I do know something’s happening behind closed doors. His dad wiped the McLaren content off his socials. Lando doesn’t wear that fuck-ass McLaren necklace unless he’s officially “on the clock.” He’s been more assertive on the radio over the last few races. The McLaren Head of Comms is glued to him and his family every race weekend. That’s not nothing.

I don’t know what it is (contract break, internal negotiation, or just “you’re gonna start treating me right or else”) but something’s moving. And if he can’t get out and we’re stuck watching him ride out this orange circus era then I really hope whatever’s happening behind the scenes is for one thing: to protect Lando.

Honourable mention: fuck zak brown for joking about Lando’s brake failure and making light of his crash in Jeddah. I hope he gets a paper cut between his toes.

[sngl-led-auto-lights]

Is it illegal to drive with red headlights in the USA?

Yes, driving with red headlights is illegal in the USA under federal and most state laws. Here’s a detailed explanation of the regulations and reasons behind this prohibition:

​​1. Federal Regulations​​ • FMVSS 108 Standards:

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 108 mandates that front-facing headlights must emit white or amber light . Red lights are strictly prohibited on the front of vehicles to avoid confusion with emergency vehicles (e.g., police cars, ambulances) .

​​2. State-Specific Laws​​ • Uniform Restrictions:

All states align with federal guidelines, explicitly banning red headlights. For example: • Arizona: Front headlights must emit white light only .

• Washington: Aftermarket red lights are prohibited on moving vehicles .

• California: Red or blue headlights are illegal, and violators face fines .

• Emergency Vehicle Exceptions:

Red lights are reserved for law enforcement, fire trucks, and ambulances .

​​3. Safety and Visibility Concerns​​ • Driver Confusion:

Red lights mimic brake lights or emergency signals, increasing the risk of misinterpretation and collisions . • Reduced Road Safety:

Non-standard colors disrupt the uniformity of traffic signals, reducing predictability for other drivers .

​​4. Penalties for Violations​​ • Fines and Citations:

Driving with red headlights can result in tickets, fines (typically 500), and even vehicle impoundment in some states . • Inspection Failures:

Vehicles with illegal modifications may fail state safety inspections .

​​5. Legal Alternatives​​ • White or Amber LEDs:

Aftermarket LED or HID bulbs are legal if they emit white/amber light and comply with brightness standards . • Factory-Installed Lights:

OEM headlights (e.g., adaptive LED systems) are always compliant if unmodified .

​​Key Takeaway​​ Red headlights are universally illegal in the U.S. to maintain road safety and prevent confusion with emergency services. Always ensure your vehicle’s lighting complies with FMVSS 108 and state-specific laws to avoid penalties . If you seek customization, opt for DOT-approved white or amber options.

[dreamingofmarauders]

They're Wrong

Sirius Black x Reader

Summary: In which you are told things that make you believe those hurtful words but Sirius proves you wrong

Warnings: Hurtful/demeaning words/sentences, crying, insecurities, self-doubt, sort of fluff?

A/N: I had been meaning to write this idea for a while so here's this little piece. I hope you all like it. <3

Masterlist

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You’re useless.

You have always been a failure and will remain a failure.

Why can’t you do anything right? You’re so stupid!

HONK!

You slammed the brakes, realizing you had still kept going when the traffic lights were signalling red. The driver of the car that you had almost crashed into, rolled his window down, his expression furious.

“Are you blind?! You were about to cause an accident! Can’t you see that the lights signal stop for you?!” The man with a burly mustache practically screeched at you, his face all red from the yelling.

You swallowed, feeling your body tremble from shock at what could have happened, before you opened your mouth. Tears pricked your eyes. “I’m so sorry.” You answered, voice shaking, “It’s my fault, I should have been paying attention.”

The man merely snorted and waved a hand, telling you to scramble, which you did. The rest of the drive home, you let your eyes stay transfixed on the road, afraid of repeating the same mistake again. When you pulled up to your house, you numbly made your way in. You dropped your purse on the dining table, heading to the sitting room to turn on the television as a distraction before you headed to the kitchen to prepare some food.

You should have seen this coming. You had always been doubted, and now you regretted having headed out there in the first place today.

You had eggs placed on a pan, sizzling and crackling over the heat. Your boyfriend would be home soon and you knew he would be hungry. However, your mind drifted from the task at hand to what had transpired an hour ago. You stared off into the distance, the demons in your head wreaking havoc.

You didn’t realize when the front door opened, or when footsteps became louder and louder. Hell, you didn’t even realize when your boyfriend was standing right in front of you, his eyes glancing down at the pan and widening. You only came shooting back to reality, when he gently nudged you out of the way.

You blinked a few times, settling back to the present, as you took in the fact that Sirius was back home and by your side. You sniffed the air, feeling an odd odour fill your senses and your eyes widened as you realized what the source of it was. Your eyes darted to the pan on the stove, beginning to reach out for it but Sirius was already on it, taking the pan over to the trash bin, throwing out the now burnt eggs. He tossed the pan in the sink before turning to look at you, taking in your appearance.

If Sirius felt something was off with you before he was certain now. Your face was looking rather pale, your eyes red and puffy, and there was a slight tremble in your whole body. Sirius’ heart clenched at the sight.

He moved towards you, gently placing his hands on your shoulders as he guided you to the couch. He made you sit down before kneeling before you, his hand gently holding yours. Sirius reached out and placed a comforting hand on your face, reassuringly stroking your cheek.

“What’s wrong, love?” He asked softly, his grey orbs peering at you with such genuine love and concern, that before you knew it, the dam broke and your eyes welled up, a sob leaving your lips. You fell onto your knees as you threw yourself at him, burying your face in Sirius’ neck as he placed you on his lap and rubbed your back whilst one hand rested at the back of your head.

You cried and cried and cried. You cried, letting all the pent up emotions out. You cried until there were no more tears left, only an exhaustive and numb feeling in your entire body remained. Throughout it all, Sirius had murmured words of comfort and love, hiding how his heart had shattered from the first second of your breakdown.

You slowly pulled back, rubbing at your face while you stared down at your lap. Sirius placed a finger under your chin, tipping your head slowly up so he could gaze into your y/e/c eyes.

“Love?”

Your lip wobbled as you drew in a breath, “I thought since it’s my day off that I should go to my parents’ house. I know there is a place in their heart that cares but sometimes they can say such things that hurt so bad, and it happened today and I spoke back which resulted in a huge argument.” You told Sirius, who rubbed comforting circles into your back.

Since you were a child there was a lot of pressure on you, however once you found out you were a witch, perhaps then your muggle parents began to distance themselves from you. You wanted their love, their attention, to make them proud, which you were able to from time to time, but most of the time, you were always criticized.

“They told me things like that I am a failure and that I’m stupid and-“ You hiccuped, “They’re right. I’m dumb. I couldn’t even keep an eye on those eggs for two minutes!” You exclaimed. “What do you even see in me, Sirius? I'm not worthy to be with you-“

Sirius placed a finger on your lips as he said, “Don’t you dare say another word.” He sternly directed at you before softening, caressing your cheek. “Love, you’re so amazing, beautiful, smart, talented, and just out of this world. I can’t imagine my life without you. How can you even think so lowly of yourself, my darling?” Sirius said, the pain he felt upon hearing how you thought of yourself reflected at the end.

You shook your head in denial, “But, they’re right-“

“No.” He cut you off, “My love, they are so wrong for saying all those hurtful words to you. You’re an angel, darling. You’re amazing. Your parents are wrong. They’re wrong.” Sirius told you with such genuine love and determination that you let out a watery chuckle, running a hand through your hair.

“I love you, Sirius. Thank you.”

At that, a smile appeared on his lips and he replied, “I love you too, Y/n.”

And you wrapped your arms around him, pulling Sirius in for a short and sweet kiss, pouring all your love and gratitude for him into the small act, making Sirius' heart melt.

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A/N: By the way, that driver the reader encountered was Vernon Dursley (I don't know why but the mustache part just reminded me of him so yeah, lol)