you aren't born with strength, you cultivate it

RHYS | I've battled hard with the face in the mirror

Published: 10 SEP 2023

"I've battled hard with the face in the mirrorEvery scar makes me dig down deeperI push it 'til there's nothing more'Cause I'm stronger then I was before""The Fear" | The Score

Finally, I introduce key players. This part took me days to complete. But it was well worth the effort it took to complete it. Including multiple different people, multiple POVs, and enough angst to pacify my hunger (as well as a special someone that I've introduced briefly in the last part). Enjoy the 12k wall of words. 

___

Alan Stockman frankly... couldn't catch a break.

Maybe it was his grand plan of joining both the San Andrea's Fire Department and the Blaine County Police Department. Or he could source his stress stemming from the hurricane of a daughter he decided to adopt. Even the chaos hellscape that is San Andreas could be the root of all his problems and early graying.

Currently, his problem stemmed from an urgent phone call from a Nurse, Dawna Russo, a part-time worker at the Paleto Bay Sheriff's Office. The woman, a kind, mid-thirties Hispanic woman with a knack for knocking sense into stubborn patients, and even more stubborn government workers refusing medical attention, had called him an hour after he returned from a long shift as a Paramedic and passed out on the couch. The piercing noise of her customized ringtone, required when she often called him about Brigette being admitted to the hospital or when she needed his assistance at the SO, cut through his fitful sleep and sent him crashing to the tile floor. Such a painful movement left him tangled in a blanket he didn't remember being there before, and scrambling past the angry pecking of Salamander, one of the many chickens his daughter decided to bring home one day.

Once he declared himself clear from the wrath of Bridgette's eldest chicken, who must be angry at him since he was being used as a roost when he was startled awake, he snags the screaming phone from his pant's pocket. Ignoring the fact that he was still in his uniform, and the unneeded gear scattered about the floor alongside his black boots, he blinks groggily and clears his throat. The line clicks to life as he presses the green phone icon.

"Yes?" He greets dully, trying his best to keep his exhaustion clear from his tone.

" Alan? "

Energy springs to life under his skin, spider webbing through his nervous system as his grip tightens around the phone. An impression pressed into the back of his mind, painfully grasping his brain and holding him hostage under pounds of anxiety and panic. This wasn't Dawna's usual greeting. She would scold him, yell at him for the obvious exhaustion in his voice and force him to fall back asleep despite being the one to wake him up in the first place, she would do anything but this. So tame, so reserved. That wasn't the worst thing. She used his first name. The spitfire of a woman always refused to call him by his name, instead adopting any nicknames his Firefighters spouted around her. Stocky, Silver 2.0, even Stockdaddy no matter how much he hated it. And, of course, her favorite, own crafted name; Papi Stocky. She used his last name more than bothering with his first when in a professional environment and those ridiculous nicknames in passing. The last time she used his first name, used this tone, sounded so serious...

"Dawna..." Alan didn't know what to say, words failing him as he tried to conjure something to get information out of her. He wanted to fall easily into apathy and chill indifference like Jackson and Rhys did when necessary; when emotions needed to be locked away to focus on the task at hand and release them later when in the company of those he trusts. But he couldn't.

The Nurse takes a deep breath, the bustling of the hospital echoing in the background. " Alan, you are requested to come to Great Ocean Medical Center. " She pauses, allowing the information to settle in his brain alongside the sinking, bottomless pit of dread that opens its maw inside his chest at the mention of the famous trauma center. " You're one of the Emergency Contacts for Rhys Valentine ."